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Biblical Mennonite Alliance (BMA) is an organization of
Conservative Mennonite Anabaptist congregations located primarily in the eastern two thirds of the US and Canada, with some international affiliates. The BMA congregations are organized into groups called Regionals that are under the oversight of ordained ministers called Overseers.
The group resulted from a split with the
Conservative Mennonite Conference
The Conservative Mennonite Conference (CMC) is a Christian body of Mennonite churches in the Anabaptist tradition. Its members are mostly of Amish descent.
Despite its name, the Conservative Mennonite Conference is not generally considered to ali ...
. In a 1998 meeting, CMC took a vote that failed to uphold the required practice of the
woman's veiling. This was the final straw in a series of issues that increasingly alienated several conservative congregations within the conference. These churches broke from CMC and, along with a few other non-CMC churches, formed BMA.
In the 2005 BMA Directory, the membership was calculated to be at 1,669. Several congregations have joined since then. In the 2010 BMA Directory there were 47 BMA congregations in the US as well as two in Canada and one in Jamaica. The membership was calculated at 2,718. BMA operates its own missions board and has missionaries in several countries.
As of December, 2019, there are 72 BMA churches that are currently holding services, and there are 10 church plants in various locations.
BMA also owns and oversees Elnora Bible Institute (EBI) in Elnora, Indiana. EBI currently offers four terms, one fifteen-week, one three-week, and two six-week terms every school year. EBI offers courses meant to stimulate spiritual growth as well as practical expressions of faith in students' lives.
See also
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Amish Mennonite
Amish Mennonites came into existence through reform movements among North American Amish mainly between 1862 and 1878. These Amish moved away from the old Amish traditions and drew near to the Mennonites, becoming Mennonites of Amish origin. Over ...
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Anabaptism
Anabaptism (from Neo-Latin , from the Greek : 're-' and 'baptism', german: Täufer, earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re-baptizers"), considering it biased. ...
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Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
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Conservative Mennonites
Conservative Mennonites include numerous Conservative Anabaptist groups that identify with the theologically conservative element among Mennonite Anabaptist Christian fellowships, but who are not Old Order groups or mainline denominations.
Con ...
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Mennonites
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radic ...
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Ministry of Jesus
The ministry of Jesus, in the canonical gospels, begins with his baptism in the countryside of Roman Judea and Transjordan, near the River Jordan by John the Baptist, and ends in Jerusalem, following the Last Supper with his disciples.''Chri ...
References
*''Biblical Mennonite Alliance: Annual Directory 2005''. Biblical Mennonite Alliance.
*Miller, D. L. 1999. "Observations." ''Calvary Messenger, Vol. 30, No. 10'', 23.
External links
Biblical Mennonite Alliance Official SiteBiblical Mennonite Allianceat
Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online
The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO) is an online encyclopedia of topics relating to Mennonites and Anabaptism. The mission of the project is to provide free, reliable, English-language information on Anabaptist-related top ...
Mennonitism in Canada
Mennonitism in the United States
Conservative Mennonites
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