Present Assemblies in Singapore

Bethesda (Katong) is known as an Open (Independent) Brethren Assembly, along with Bras Basah Bethesda gospel hall (the mother assembly), New Bridge Road Gospel Hall, Yio Chu Kang Assembly, Geylang Gospel hall, Bethesda (Frankel Estate) Church, Bukit Panjang Gospel hall, Toa Payoh Assembly, Bukit Arang Assembly, Jalan Rama Rama Gospel Hall, Bethesda Bedok Mission Home, and meeting places in Holland Road, Dover Road, Angora Close and Jalan Marsiling, and a Sunday School in Tampines. Brethren assemblies are found the world over.

Policy

All our assemblies function independently of one another, believing that the Headship of each assembly is vested only in the Lord Jesus Christ; under His Headship are the elders (forming the oversight) and the deacons (diaconate) managing the spiritual, physical, financial and social affairs of each assembly. Because there is no central headquarters directing the policies of the assemblies, the Brethren assemblies constitute a movement rather than a denomination.

Parentage

The Brethren movement is shown by E.H. Broadbent in his 'Pilgrim Church' to have a kinship with other movements dating from apostolic times, our spiritual heritage extending right back to New Testament days. The difference is that these assemblies of believers throughout the centuries were persecuted brutally by the governments and the ruling professing church of their day, whereas, freed from persecution in our time, the movement has spread throughout the whole world and has become a potent spiritual force in the Church of God today.

Pangs of Birth

In the 1820's the professing churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant, had reached a very low spiritual level. The fires of the Reformation had died down; the Age of Reason had set in. The churches, content with maintenance of form and ceremony in church services, were not able to fulfil the spiritual needs of the people of those days, and groups of believers, saddened by the spiritual decay, and moved by the Holy Spirit, began to study the Bible more deeply, particularly those aspects relating to personal salvation, church order and especially eschatology.

Convinced that the churches then existing were not living according to the pattern set in the New Testament, many "clergymen" and "laymen", among whom were Anthony Norris Groves, George Muller, Henry Craik, Robert Chapman, John Nelson Darby, (all from the British Isles) and Leonard Strong (West Indies), and others in the European Continent, left the churches in large numbers.

Principles and Practice

Believing in the priesthood of all believers, and setting aside the practice of discriminating between "clergy" and "laity", and dependence on the State, they established simple meeting places, where they met in simplicity for worship and for Breaking of Bread once a week, with no humanly ordianed "priest" or "clergyman" to officiate in the Lord's Supper. They recognised elders who looked after their spiritual needs (Acts 20: 28, IPeter 5: 2, 3), and elected deacons to look after the physical and social needs of their assemblies (Acts 6: 3), and practised the baptism of believers by immersion as opposed to infant baptism and baptism for the dead.

Primeval Name

These people were comprised of those who left the established churches, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, in large numbers, and of those who had never been associated with any of these churches. They did not attach any name to themselves, but simply called one another brethren (brothers) or sisters in the Lord, as was the custom of the early church. They met together in the Lord's Name as assemblies of believers. Because of this practice of addressing one another they were at first derisively called "the Brethren". The name has adhered to them since then. Although many do not apply this name to themselves because of its implication of sectarianism, others acknowledge the name as one of the means of identifying them as churches attempting to follow the New Testament pattern.

Parting

The movement split into two in 1848 over the question of church discipline, one group (Exclusive or Closed Brethren) excluding others from their fellowship unless they belonged to their own assemblies, the other, the larger group (Independent or Open Brethren) welcoming into their fellowship fellow believers from denominational churches, maintaining that all believers, whichever denomination they belong to, are all one in the Lord.

Progress

The Independent Brethren movement spread rapidly, especially after the revival of 1859 which gave the movement fresh impetus, from the British isles, the West Indies, and the European Continent, where the movement began independently and almost simultaneously, to all parts of the world, until now Open Brethren assemblies are found in practically every corner of the globe, developing into the powerful spiritual force that the movement has become today, by the grace of God.