Editing Open Brethren (section)

=== India ===
{{main|Indian Brethren|Assemblies Jehovah Shammah}}
The expansion of the Plymouth Brethren outside of the British Isles started early, when Anthony Norris Groves left to become a missionary in 1829, first in [[Baghdad]] and then in India. Although his work as a dentist in the [[Godavari]] delta area of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu progressed slowly, it produced in time a flourishing movement of [[Indian Brethren]] with a particular emphasis in [[Kerala Brethren|Kerala]]. According to [[Operation World]], there are 135,000 adult believers in 1929 assemblies throughout India (449,550 if children are included).<ref name="Mandryk 2010 408">{{citation|first=Jason |last=Mandryk|title= Operation World |publisher=Biblica Publishing|year=2010|page = 408}}</ref> Internal Brethren sources say that the number of assemblies has increased to 2200 and the number of adult believers in fellowship to 200,000, since Operation World was published in 2010.

The [[Assemblies Jehovah Shammah]] movement, founded by the evangelist [[Bakht Singh]], are organized largely on Brethren principles with adaptations to Indian culture. Despite some differences from the older Brethren movement that was the fruit of British missionary efforts (such as his encouragement for women to take part audibly in worship), many Indian and foreign Brethren "recognize" the Assemblies Jehovah Shammah as a subset of the Open Brethren movement, albeit one that developed independently. Operation World claims 910 Assemblies Jehovah Shammah with 310,000 affiliates, 95,000 of them adults.<ref name="Mandryk 2010 408"/>

==== Kerala Brethren ====

{{main|Kerala Brethren}}

An important stream of the Open Brethren is the [[Kerala Brethren]]. Kerala is a small state in India, but has more than 600 Open or Plymouth Brethren Assemblies. Brethren members believe that these assemblies are the result of an independent movement of the [[Holy Spirit]] in India. Eventually the Plymouth Brethren and the Kerala Brethren recognized the similarities in both the movements and thus the Kerala Brethren came to be identified as a sub-set of the Open Brethren.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.keralabrethren.net/ |title=The Kerala Brethren website |access-date=2015-08-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150801161825/http://www.keralabrethren.net/ |archive-date=2015-08-01 |url-status=dead }}</ref>