Overview

The United Brethren church consists of about 515 churches in 14 countries, with a total membership of around 47,000.

About two-thirds of the churches are in the United States, where it all started. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana account for most of the American churches, though we have churches scattered all around the country--Florida, Texas, California, Washington, Idaho, New York, and elsewhere.

There are  six other national conferences in other countries--Sierra Leone, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Canada, and Hong Kong. All of those national conferences, like the United States, are self-governing. We also have churches in other countries, where we haven't yet organized an official conference--India, Macau, Thailand, Myanmar, El Salvador, Haiti, and Costa Rica.

All national conferences are entitled to representation at General Conference, our highest governing body. General Conference meets every four years (most recently in June 2005). It consists of about 35 delegates chosen by those national conferences. The highest officials from each national conference comprise an International Executive Committee, which meets annually during the period between General Conferences.

Official Name:

Church of the United Brethren in Christ, International (for the worldwide fellowship, which includes churches in 14 countries).

Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Jamaica (for the Jamaican conference)

Church of the United Brethren in Christ, USA (for the United States churches and their mission districts--Mexico, Haiti, and India).

Founded: 1767, in Lancaster, Pa.

Total Churches: 500

• Jamaica : 27
• Elsewhere: 473

Higher Education: The United Brethren church, USA, owns Huntington University, a Christian liberal arts school with about 1000 students, located in Huntington, Ind.

Basic Documents

• Our Confession of Faith, which was adopted in 1815 and has never been changed, spells out the fundamental doctrines we cling to.
• We also have a brief Constitution, which was adopted in 1841 and has been amended only a few times. Then there’s the Discipline, which goes into a lot of detail about membership standards, church organization, and other things.
• At the international level, there is a set of four documents which bind the various national conferences together: the Confession of Faith of 1815, the Core Values, the International Constitution, and the International By-laws.