The 2007 Midwinter Ministerial addressed this important topic. Though the Ministerial is past, and premillennialism is reinserted, this is an invaluable tool/resource to help one to understand these important issues.

Speakers from outside the Free Church provided instruction in the various eschatological positions - Dispensationalism, Progressive Dispensationalism, Historic Premillennialism and Amillennialism. The first three are the various positions within Premillennialism. The final one is considered outside our Statement of Faith, both the 1950 Statement and the Proposed Revision. It was, however, one of the positions being considered with the broadened statement on eschatology. Even though the position is not being considered, the messages and exchanges between speakers will be very instructive, even to aid in one's understanding of the Free Church breadth with the Premillennial position.

These messages were followed by a presentation outlining how to distinguish between doctrinal essentials and non-essentials.

Here is how you can download the messages:
1. Go to: http://equip.efca.org
2. Read the instructions for "Is this your first time here?"
3. Locate and click on the "Create New Account" button.
4. Create a user name and password and give the requested basic information about yourself. When you are finished, click the "Create my new account" button.

Note: If your e-mail provider has spam blocking, be sure to allow the EQUIP site administrator, Ken Warwick [kwarwick@efca.org], to be accepted in your inbox.

5. You will immediately receive an e-mail from Ken Warwick with a web link to confirm your account. Clicking on the link will take you to the EQUIP site.
6. Find the all course listings, scroll down to EFCA events and Click on the Midwinter Ministerial.
7. You will be prompted to enter a one-time enrollment key which is: MTD07 (an abbreviation of Midwinter Theological Discussion 2007)
8. The Midwinter Ministerial will be listed as a link for you on your EQUIP home page whenever you log in to EQUIP.

The Commentary on the Proposed Revision is now available here. Remember, this Commentary only contains major differences between our present Statement of Faith (1950) and the Proposed Revision. In the future, probably after (and if) this Proposed Revision is approved by the Conference, would a full Commentary be provided for the whole Statement of Faith, something similar to what Arnold Olson did in This We Believe.

The Proposed Revision was unanimously approved by the Board of Directors at their April 2007 meeting. The letter from the BOD can be read here.

The Proposed Revision can be downloaded here.

There were three key changes from the Third Draft Revision. The first was the reinsertion of premillennialism in article #9. This, second, meant that the preamble, which focused on the emphasis in the SOF on gospel essentials, needed to be changed. And this led to the third change, the removal of the gospel as a structuring framework which entailed shortening the headings of each article. You can read of these changes in the BOD letter, mentioned above. You can also follow the details of the changes in the footnotes in the Proposed Revision found on pages 3-7, also mentioned above.

The Proposed Revision was formally presented as a motion at the 2007 Conference, which means it will be discussed and voted upon at the 2008 Conference.