A Hyphenated Church Of Christ
I have recently preached in a meeting at Morton, Texas. That is out in the Lubbock diocese. A few months ago it became necessary for the brethren at Morton to withdraw fellowship from some men — two, I believe. These two were able to persuade a few members to go with them and start another congregation. They have built a nice looking little stucco house and have a sign out in front of it like this:
"Church of Christ"
"Fellowshipping and Good Works".
That is a pretty long name for the church and I doubt that it is going to catch on very fast. But you see this "Fellowshipping And Good Works Church of Christ" in Morton was on the spot, so to speak. In most of the cases here lately when churches have divided, the brethren who are still holding to the New Testament pattern of doing church work have moved out and turned the building over to the promotional and institutional crowd. They have thereupon immediately been branded a "faction." In this case at Morton, however, the shoe is on the other horse. It is the real faction that had to get out this time. And they, lacking the respectability that attaches to staying with the building, want to be sure that people passing through town know that the "Fellowshipping and Good Works Church of Christ" is the real true-blue Church of Christ — and are not to be confused with that awful crowd on the other side of town, meeting in the original building, who would let poor little orphans roam the streets piteously begging for a crumb of bread, and would let lost sinners plead for the gospel to be preached to them and turn a deaf ear to their cries.
Well, we didn't have much of either "cooperation" or "fellowship" from the cooperating and fellowshipping churches in that area, but we had a good meeting. Two baptized and two restored. Denton Thompson is the preacher in Morton, and he is attending to his own business there with quite some success.