President Bill Hamel began this historic discussion by asking two questions: would the Conference affirm a new Statement of Faith strengthening our commitment to evangelical, historic faith? And would we debate and vote with godly character? The answer to both questions was "yes."

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!

Yesterday (June 4, 2008) a broadcast email was sent to the EFCA contituency informing us of the six amendments that are to be brought before the Conference the end of this month. Today there is an update that has been sent informing the EFCA that there are now four amendments before the Conference as original amendments 5 and 6 have been withdrawn. Here is the email from Ron Aucutt, the Moderator. Please make sure you check the links to read the pertinent material referenced in Ron's update.

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Statement of Faith referred to in our last Update Special Broadcast (Proposed Amendments No. 5 and No. 6) have been withdrawn.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

At last summer's National Leadership Conference, the Proposed Revision of the EFCA Statement of Faith was presented as a motion to the Conference. This means that at this summer's 2008 NLC, we will be discussing and possibly voting on the Proposed Revision. This is a reminder and an invitation to post your comments or questions on the blog. We are hoping to address many of your questions prior to the Conference, and this is one of the ways we can do that.

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.