On June 26, 2008, delegates of the 124th EFCA National Leadership Conference approved the Proposed Revision of the Statement of Faith - 86% of delegates voted for the Proposed Revision. None of the four amendments passed, so the delegates adopted the Proposed Revsion as it was presented to the Conference in 2007.

Throughout the debate and decision, God's presence was evident as delegates kept in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25), manifested the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), and left an aroma of Christ (2 Cor. 2:14-16).

The conference concluded with President Hamel leading the attendees in a strong and passionate confession of the new EFCA Statement of Faith. Here is a link to the Statement of Faith:

http://www.efca.org/about/doctrine/

To God be the glory, great things He has done . . . and continues to do in the EFCA!

EFCA UPDATE SPECIAL BROADCAST
Consideration of the Revised Statement of Faith
June 5, 2008


UPDATED INFORMATION FROM THE MODERATOR REGARDING THE CONSIDERATION OF THE REVISED STATEMENT OF FAITH AT THE 2008 NATIONAL LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

Two of the proposed amendments to the Revised Statement of Faith referred to in our last Update Special Broadcast (Proposed Amendments No. 5 and No. 6) have been withdrawn.

The current EFCA Statement of Faith may be viewed at -
www.efca.org/about/doctrine,

the proposed Revised Statement of Faith may be viewed at -
www.efca.org/about/media/sof_proposed_revision.pdf,

the Transitional Rules for Implementation may be viewed at -
www.efca.org/about/media/sof_transitional_rules_adopted.pdf,

the proposed Special Rules for considering the Revised Statement of Faith may be viewed in the Board of Directors' letter of March 11, 2008, at -
www.efca.org/about/media/sof-letter-with-rules.pdf,

and the four proposed amendments may be viewed at -
http://www.efca.org/about/media/proposed-amendment-information-jun-2008-update.pdf.

Ronald D. Aucutt, EFCA Moderator

Then the specifics of the Conference are delineated. One of the more important items in the letter is the section, "Special Rules Relating to Revision of the Statement of Faith." During the Business Sessions we will follow the fromat outlined in our bylaws, but due to the nature of this importnat discussion, the Board of Directors have outlined a few more "Special Rules" for this important and historic Conference.

You can and should read the whole letter, which can be linked here:
http://www.efca.org/about/media/sof-letter-with-rules.pdf

This is intended to be another resource for you as you prepare to teach through or to ponder the changes being proposed in this Revision. This is certainly not a "finished product" but it should prove to be another helpful resource for you and others as you prepare to discuss and possibly vote on this Revision this summer at the National Leadership Conference.

To acclimate you to the notes, here is an overview of the key components of what the notes contain:

*List the Proposed Revision article and the parallel SOF article
*Address the differences between the two articles
*Teach what the Proposed Revision article means
*Speak to the ways in which the article has been strengthened
*Respond to reasons why it is important today to emphasis this truth
*Additional resources are included, e.g. questions for further study, longer Scripture texts to preach, memory verses, hymns and choruses
*Appendix 1 includes the commentary on the particular article
*Appendix 2 includes FAQs for each article, which are actual email questions and answers

These notes are now posted. You can get to them directly at

http://www.efca.org/about/doctrine/sof-documents.html

or by going to www.efca.org/about/doctrine (the SOF page) and clicking on "Teaching series and notes on the proposed revision to the Statement of Faith (by Greg Strand)"

We are excited, and have been since we began this process in 2003, when the task of looking at our SOF was initially given to the Spiritual Heritage Committee. As you may recall, it became a denominational-wide discussion in 2005. We remain excited to see what the Lord will do, and because the Lord is leading, we are hopeful!

We will also be teaching through the Revision this fall quarter (12 weeks - introduction, 10 articles and conclusion) in an adult class in one of our local EFCA churches. Those sessions will be taped, and both the lecture and the notes will be made available through the EFCA website in January 2008.

What additional resources would you find helpful? Please let the Spiritual Heritage Committee know in the comments section, or send an email message to: president@efca.org

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 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.