New Conference - OGBBC

 

2009 Re-Organization

At the 2009 Annual Conference (a national meeting held each year on Pentecost for four days of worship and a business session), the conservative majority of the Old German Baptist Brethren Church voted to pass a Report which required all members to submit to conservative interpretation of doctrine/practice as being Spirit-led, rather than allowing for the diversity which had been present for the last several decades. Roughly 2500 members who could not accept the Report were subsequently removed from membership (disfellowshipped) and participated that same summer in the re-organization of a new church fellowship (currently referred to as the "Old German Baptist Brethren, New Conference").

 

Several fundamental practices which separate the New Conference from the Old Conference are the allowance of regular group Bible studies outside of the Sunday worship setting, permitting open outreach and mission efforts, allowing the use of technology such as email and the Internet, a greater allowance for diversity in practice, and a stronger emphasis on applying church discipline through the Biblical pattern taught in Matthew 18.  The New Conference Polity Statement was a temporary statement of practice published at the re-organization in 2009, and it states that "the church must never be elevated to a place of equality with Jesus Christ," which reflects the New Conference's somewhat more individualistic approach to faith (in opposition to the stronger emphasis in the Old Conference on unity through mutual practice and theology). 

 

For a general stament on our doctrine and practice as Brethren, please see the page titled What We Believe.  If you wish to find contact information for a congregation near you, please see the map and contact tabs on the District page of OGBBC.ORG.