Disciples had experienced their most rapid growth in rural America. Their leaders responded to the passing of the frontier, the growth of cities, and the emergence of urban expectations. Whereas the Churches of Christ had opted for the practices established in the rural past, regarding them as biblical, the Disciples of Christ (progressives) were able to find some flexibility in the biblical rule. Nevertheless, rural and small-town Christian Churches predominated in numbers and membership even past mid-century, and the newer social and cultural influences did not affect all of them simultaneously.

Urban churches demanded full-time leadership, and Disciples gradually developed a professional ministry. In the first half of the century they worked hard to establish collegiate education as standard for ministers. As late as 1930 only 11 percent had graduate education, and the rapid growth of theological seminaries did not come until after World War II. The expanding corps of educated leadership reworked the inherited formulas, introducing both ideas and practices that troubled the more traditional.

The cooperative organizations underwent notable changes. In 1917 the old general convention, a week-long series of annual meetings of the various societies, gave way to the International Convention (U.S. and Canada), to which all cooperative agencies were expected to submit reports for review and advice.

Meanwhile, a number of the agencies had combined in 1920 to form the United Christian Missionary Society. Ten years later most state and national agencies entered Unified Promotion, a cooperative program of fund raising, with voluntarily accepted restraints on independent campaigns, and with distribution on the basis of agreed allocations. Thus they gradually evolved, in effect, one general budget. From the start the United Society drew intense criticism for ecclesiasticism and theological liberalism. Opposition centred on reports of “Open Membership” in the China mission. (Open membership, increasingly practiced in the United States, meant reception of unimmersed Christians from other denominations.)

In 1927 traditional forces established the North American Christian Convention. Many churches gave their support to “independent” missionaries in large numbers, as well as to “independent” Bible colleges, youth camps, district meetings, Bible school curricula, various publications, and a directory of ministers—all of them explicitly denying official status—more or less parallel to the “cooperative” agencies. The power struggle focused on the placement of ministers and resulted, on the cooperative side, in enhancing the leadership of the state secretaries and creating the pressure for delegate conventions in the states.

The cooperative conventions (state and international) also became instruments of ecumenical participation, electing representatives to the old Federal Council of Churches (and to the succeeding National Council and the World Council of Churches) as well as to the state councils. Thus, for the sake of their original catholic commitment, the “cooperatives” accepted status as a denomination, a compromise that the independents rejected.

A growing sense of moral obligation toward the common cause led in 1950 to the formation of the Council of Agencies, which included all organizations reporting to the International Convention. Legally independent, they sought by consultation to avoid overlapping and to develop a common mind. From the council came a proposal for a Commission on Restructure, appointed by the convention in 1960. In 1967 the convention approved the commission’s Provisional Design for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), ratified in the ensuing year by all 40 area conventions and 15 national agencies.

Beginning in 1968 the International Convention was replaced by the General Assembly, the state conventions by regional assemblies, and the old cooperative agencies by “general units” of the church. State secretaries became regional ministers, and the chief executive officer was named general minister and president. In 1977 the General Assembly removed the word Provisional from the title of the Design. Congregations retained full legal independence, but the system provided for corporate unity through decisions by representatives from congregations and regions.

Fear of infringement on congregational freedom and theological opposition to the doctrine of the church underlying restructure led to active opposition. Many independent congregations formally requested withdrawal of their names from the Yearbook of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), and a campaign led some cooperative churches to follow suit. From 1967 to 1969 the number of congregations listed dropped from 8,046 to 5,278.

Meanwhile, a self-appointed Chaplaincy Endorsement Commission for the Undenominational Fellowship of Christian Churches and Churches of Christ asked recognition by the U.S. government to represent those congregations that had elected “to continue as free, independent, and completely autonomous local churches” apart from the restructured Christian Church.

The World Convention of Churches of Christ since 1930 has sponsored mass meetings for fellowship and inspiration at five-year intervals. It attracts both cooperative and independent Disciples from America and from many nations but few from American Churches of Christ.