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Congregational Polity
Congregational polity, or congregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of ecclesiastical polity in which every local church (congregation) is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or " autonomous". Its first articulation in writing is the Cambridge Platform of 1648 in New England. Major Protestant Christian traditions that employ congregationalism include Baptist churches, the Congregational Methodist Church, and Congregational churches known by the ''Congregationalist'' name and having descended from the Independent Reformed wing of the Anglo-American Puritan movement of the 17th century. More recent generations have witnessed a growing number of nondenominational churches, which are often congregationalist in their governance. Although autonomous, like minded congregations may enter into voluntary associations with other congregations, sometimes called conventions, denominations, or associations. Congregationalism is distinguished from episc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecclesiastical Polity
Ecclesiastical polity is the government of a church. There are local (Church (congregation), congregational) forms of organization as well as Christian denomination, denominational. A church's polity may describe its Minister (Christianity), ministerial offices or an authority structure between churches. Polity relates closely to ecclesiology, the Christian theology, theological study of the church. History Questions of church government were documented early on in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles and "theological debate about the nature, location, and exercise of authority, in the church" has been ongoing ever since. The first act recorded after the Ascension of Jesus Christ was the election of Saint Matthias as one of the Twelve Apostles, to replace Judas Iscariot. During the Protestant Reformation, reformers asserted that the New Testament prescribed an ecclesiastical government different from the episcopal polity maintained by the Catholic Church, and cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willow Creek Community Church
Willow Creek Community Church is an Evangelical nondenominational multisite megachurch based in the northwestern Chicago suburb of South Barrington, Illinois. It was founded on October 12, 1975 by Dave Holmbo and Bill Hybels, who was its longtime senior pastor. Willow Creek has seven locations in the Chicago area; their Spanish-speaking congregations, Willow Español, meet at South Barrington and South Lake in Lincolnshire campuses. In 2018, the church's entire senior leadership and elder board resigned, admitting to having mishandled abuse allegations against Hybels. Steve Gillen, the longtime pastor of the church's North Shore campus, was named interim senior pastor in August 2018. In January 2020, it was announced that Gillen would step down in March and that the two candidates who were being considered for the role of senior pastor had been "released" from the search process. Dave Dummitt became senior pastor in June 2020. History Willow Creek Community Church started when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Episcopal Baptist
Although most Baptist groups are congregationalist in polity, some have different ecclesiastical organization and adopt an episcopal polity governance. In those churches the local congregation has less autonomy and the bishop oversees them, assigning pastors and distributing funds. Evangelical Baptist Union of Georgia The Evangelical Baptist Union of Georgia have an episcopal polity, with an archbishop as the primate. Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, minister of Peace Cathedral in Tbilisi is a charismatic figure and social activist. Union of Baptist Churches in Latvia The Baptists of Latvia are result from a revival among German and Latvian Lutherans and organized their first church in 1861. The union is headed by a bishop. Episcopal Baptist Church in Congo The Église Épiscopale Baptiste is a Baptist denomination in Democratic Republic of the Congo. It began with evangelical missionaries who accepted the Baptist doctrines and organized this denomination retaining the episco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evangelical Fellowship Of Congregational Churches
The Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches (EFCC) is an association of around 100 independent local churches in the United Kingdom, each practising congregationalist church governance. The EFCC was founded in 1967 by those evangelical Congregationalists who did not want to lose their independence with the formation of the Congregational Church of England and Wales and the subsequent formation of the United Reformed Church in 1972. The EFCC is an Affinity partner. The EFCC churches share a common doctrinal statement, called the Basis of Faith, which is Reformed and Evangelical. As the EFCC churches are congregational, the EFCC does not have any denominational hierarchy. However, the Fellowship does have officers, including a ministry director. Currently, none of their congregations are in Scotland, although there are congregations in each of the other three nations within the United Kingdom. Some of their churches are also in membership of the Congregational Fed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference
The Conservative Congregational Christian Conference is a Congregationalist denomination in the United States. It is the most conservative and oldest Congregationalist denomination in America following the dissolution of the Congregational Christian Churches. It is a member of the World Evangelical Congregational Fellowship and the National Association of Evangelicals. History Background The congregationalist tradition traces itself to Puritans, English and History of the Puritans in North America, American Puritanism. Presbyterianism, Presbyterians and Congregationalists both opposed certain practices and liturgical requirements of the Church of England, including its episcopal polity. Presbyterians desired a system in which bodies of elders (Presbyterian polity#Presbytery, presbyteries) would govern the churches, while congregationalists believed that local churches (Local Church, congregations), each with its own elders, were to govern themselves individually (though, ideal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Association Of Congregational Christian Churches
The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC) is an association of 304 churches providing fellowship for and services to churches from the Congregational tradition. The Association maintains its national office in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. The body was founded in 1955 by former clergy and laypeople of the Congregational Christian Churches in response to that denomination's pending merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ in 1957. The NACCC has congregations in 36 states, with concentrations in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Wisconsin. History The NACCC belongs to the American Congregationalist tradition, which originated as part of the English Puritan movement, which was strongly influenced by Calvinism. By the early 20th century, Congregational churches affiliated with the National Council of Congregational Churches and participated in that body's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Church Of Christ
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a socially liberal mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Restorationist, Continental Reformed, and Lutheran traditions, and with approximately 4,600 churches and 712,000 members. The UCC is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Puritanism. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Calvinist group in the country, the German Reformed. Notably, its modern members have theological and socioeconomic stances which are often very different from those of its predecessors. The Evangelical and Reformed Church, General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches, and the Afro-Christian Convention, united on June 25, 1957, to form the UCC. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches were themselves the res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saybrook Platform
The Saybrook Platform was a constitution for the Congregational church in Connecticut in the 18th century. Historical context Religious and civic leaders in Connecticut around 1700 were distressed by the colony-wide decline in personal religious piety and in church discipline. The colonial legislature took action by calling 12 ministers and four laymen to meet in Saybrook, Connecticut; eight were Yale trustees. Delegates were involved in the polity debates between Presbyterianism on the one hand, Congregationalism on the other, and the mediating position of Consociationalism. Content The Platform consists of three parts: a confession, the Heads of Agreement, and the Fifteen Articles. Confession In reference to doctrine, the assembly adopted the Savoy Declaration as amended by the Boston Synod of 1680. This put the Connecticut church in line with the Westminster tradition and the Massachusetts church. The Savoy originally appended its own platform on polity to the confessi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Savoy Declaration
The Savoy Declaration is a Congregationalist confession of faith. Its full title is ''A Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practised in the Congregational Churches in England.'' It was drawn up in October 1658 by English Independents and Congregationalists meeting at the Savoy Hospital, London. It consists of a preface, a confession, and a platform of discipline. The Savoy Assembly The Savoy Assembly met at the Savoy for eleven or twelve days from 12 October 1658. Representatives, mostly laymen, were present from more than one hundred independent churches. Thomas Goodwin, who was a Westminster divine and author of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and John Owen were the leaders in a committee of six divines appointed to draw up a confession. :s:Goodwin, Thomas (DNB00) The writers were influenced by the Cambridge Platform, which was the statement of church government produced by the Congregational churches in New England. The 1647 Westminster Confession of Fai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puritans
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English and early American history, especially in the Protectorate in Great Britain, and the earlier settlement of New England. Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's religious toleration of certain practices associated with the Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a covenant theology, and in that sense they were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents). In church polity, Puritans were divided between supporters of episcopal, presbyterian, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Denomination
A Christian denomination is a distinct Religion, religious body within Christianity that comprises all Church (congregation), church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theology, theological doctrine, worship style and, sometimes, a founder. It is a secular and neutral term, generally used to denote any established Christian church. Unlike a cult or sect, a denomination is usually seen as part of the Christian religious mainstream. Most Christian denominations refer to themselves as ''churches'', whereas some newer ones tend to interchangeably use the terms ''churches'', ''assemblies'', Koinonia, ''fellowships'', etc. Divisions between one group and another are defined by authority and doctrine; issues such as the Christology, nature of Jesus, the authority of apostolic succession, biblical hermeneutics, Christian theology, theology, ecclesiology, Christian eschatology, eschatology, and papal primacy m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-denominational Christianity
Non-denominational Christianity (or nondenominational Christianity) consists of churches, and individual Christians, which typically distance themselves from the confessionalism or creedalism of other Christian communities by not formally aligning with a specific Christian denomination. In North America, nondenominational Christianity arose in the 18th century through the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, with followers organizing themselves simply as "Christians" and "Disciples of Christ". The nondenominational movement saw expansion during the 20th century Jesus movement era, which popularized contemporary Christian music and Christian media within global pop culture. Many nondenominational churches adhere to congregationalist polity, while others are governed by elders. Some nondenominational churches are independent, while others cooperate in loose associations such as the Churches of Christ; in other cases, nondenominational churches are founded by individual pastor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
