Key features of the church's worship are the weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper presided over by a lay person and believer's baptism.
[4] In the beginning Churches of Christ in Australia (known as 'Disciples' until the 1860s) relied heavily on lay ministers who tended to preach in a dry and reasoning manner, maintained congregational autonomy under the governance of elders, strictly observed what they believed were New Testament patterns (especially weekly Lord's Supper and baptism by immersion), and took a 'common sense' approach to reading the Bible.
[5] However, practices of ministry, structures of governance, worship and theology have all changed over time and this has raised issues of identity for the Churches of Christ in Australia.
Churches of Christ in Victoria began with the arrival of the Ingram and Picton families from England who established regular meetings in Prahran and officially constituted a congregation in 1855.
Seeking to increase the membership, the congregations combined to support their first full-time evangelist, Isaac Mermelstein, a converted Jew from Kiev.
Milner, visiting from Scotland in 1862, and then significant growth with the preaching of Henry S. Earl who arrived from the US in 1864 as the first of a number of American preachers who influenced Churches of Christ in Victoria.
was Violet Callanan in 1931 who had recently completed a certificate in mission studies at the College of the Bible in Glen Iris, Melbourne.
[14] The Ann Street Church of Christ was established in 1883 [15] and moved into its present building in Brisbane's central business district in 1898.
[16] In March 1839, Robert Lawrie and his fiancée Margaret Mailey; Archibald Greenshields and Marion Greenshields (née Lawrie) and their daughter Jane aged 2; Thomas Neill and family; all of Kilmarnock and nearby Newmilns,[17] applied on the same day with the same agent for free passage to South Australia, departing London 21 May 1839 on the ship Recovery and arriving in September 1839.
Property was purchased for his son John Warnock, but as he knew nothing about farming, James Lawrie and William Wilson were employed to establish it.
It was intended that he should work on the Warnock property but on arrival it was discovered that the dry climate required many more acres to support a family than it did in Scotland.
The Neills attended the Scotch Baptist church, built in Hindley Street by the Methodists then abandoned for their new building in Gawler Place.
[20] McLaren was the unofficial pastor, and later, Thomas, his wife Jean, and Agnes their daughter were listed as members in 1844 when the Scotch Baptists were meeting in Morphett Street.
[18] Upon arrival, James Lawrie went immediately south to Mertin Farm at Noarlunga; land that adjoins the Onkaparinga River.
This group could very well have been the source of some of Campbell's writings referred to as being in the Adelaide Scotch Baptist congregation and perhaps originally coming from John Lawrie.
James Craig and Alexander Murray, Scotch Baptists from Glasgow, arrived with their families in the ship India, in February 1840.
[18] Although the financial crisis of the colony had changed the fortunes of this little group, they managed, for a time, to remain in close proximity with each other.
It is likely that the little southern congregation existed up until 1845 when Murray left for England and the Lawries shifted to Lonyunga in the Myponga Hills.
He worked in the local flour mill at the Horseshoe and for the 18 months to two years they were at Noarlunga, worshipped with the little group of disciples led by John Aird.
[21] As a number of families lived in the Myponga Hills John Lawrie decided mid 1856 they should meet locally as the Willunga congregation.
Late in 1857, John, Robert, Alexander Lawrie and families, sold their properties and moved north to farm the land at Alma Plains.
Key features are the weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper presided over by a lay person and a commitment to believer's baptism.