The churches of Christ are not a denomination.  There is no home office, no headquarters, and no written creed.  The churches of Christ are a fellowship of congregations where each congregation is autonomous.    There is no official "list" of congregations in the fellowship.  Neither is there a governing board or "membership requirements" for a congregation to be in fellowship other than what is in the Bible.  In other words, if a church is practicing and teaching the Bible in all its purity, and not a creed or any such thing, then the Bible demands fellowship, which we extend.  The "Church of Christ", then, is not a denominational designation, but a description and identifier of who we are.  Not all the churches in the fellowship wear the name "churches of Christ".  We know of some who are called "Christ's church", and others that are called "Assembly of Christ".  (For more on the name, churches of Christ, continue on to the next pages)

Many do not understand that the Lord's church can, should, and must be a church without being a denomination.  A denomination is a division or divided part.  One example is the division of money.  There are different denominations of bills:  5's, 10's 20's and 100's.  If you have a pocket full of 5-dollar-bills, you would not have different denominations of bills, because they are all of the same identity.  this is the way it must be in the church.

The only divisions spoken of in scripture are geographical ones.  The churches in Galatia, the churches in Macedonia, the church in Rome, the church in Antioch, etc.  Open fellowship existed among these congregations.  Preachers such as Apollos, Aquilla and Pricilla traveled among these churches and worked with them.  Hospitality was openly extended to members of all these churches when they traveled.  The worked together to preach the Gospel and give financial aid to poor Christians.  As a matter in fact, there were no denominations.  There was simply, "the church-of-Christ".

It is necessary to note that this open fellowship was based on doctrinal purity, or pure teaching and practice of the truth.  (Galatians 1:6-9;  I John 4:1)

Jesus prayed that his followers would be one just as he and the Father were one  (John 17:11)  Being divided up into denominations with the earthly headquarters, written creeds and earthly founders goes against what Jesus said.  Ephesians 4:4ff says there is one body, the church, and one faith.  There are not many but one.  I Corinthians 1:11-13 speaks directly to the problem of denominationalism.  There were those who were following after men.  Some were saying they followed Paul, others said they followed Apollos, and others said they followed Cephas.  They were rebuked for these divisions among them.  The problem has returned to the church today with different names.  Instead of someone saying they followed Apollos, now they might say they follow Martin Luther, and even will call themselves "Lutheran" (which was against Luther's own wishes).

Our goal is not restoration of the first century church.  A quick reading of scripture will reveal that even the church in the first century had its problems, which prompted the writing of part of the New Testament.  Our goal is restoration of the "ideal" church.  We see this as an ongoing process - never ending.  We are not content to codify the results of our studies into a creed or formula, but are forever students of the word.  Being simply "the church", we have no founder but Jesus, and no headquarters but Heaven.  The "church of Christ" was founded 2000 years ago, that's what we want to be and no more.  We step out of denominationalism, and into simple New Testament Christianity as is prescribed in the Bible.