This week in Christian history: Good News Club wins at Supreme Court, SBC revises Baptist Faith and Message
Evangelical Free Church of America merger occurs – June 15, 1950
This week marks the anniversary of when the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Free Church Association and the Swedish Evangelical Free Church Association ratified a merger, becoming the Evangelical Free Church of America.
The two church bodies had both been founded in the 1880s by immigrants from Scandinavia, having first openly considered uniting into one denomination back in the 1930s.
In 1949, both churches passed resolutions approving of the proposed merger, and then met for a joint multiday conference at the Medicine Lake Conference Grounds near Minneapolis, Minnesota, that began on June 13, with key business held on June 14.
“Then on the 15th in the afternoon joint business session, the merger was formally ratified in a ceremony of great praise to God. Soon after, everyone assembled outside for the first joint photo — a scene of exuberant joy matched by the heat outdoors,” wrote Tom Cairns, archivist for the EFCA, in 2020.
“A few hours later, as over 2,000 EFCA family members packed the huge wooden tabernacle on the Conference grounds at Medicine Lake, the culmination of the merger was celebrated.”
