Background
Swedish Lutheran immigrants founded a Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant of America (at present ECC) in February 20, 1885 in Chicago, Illinois.

The pietistic religious awakening swept across Sweden as much as a middle of the 19th century. Away from this waking up & reformation come a Swedish Mission Covenant Church inside 1878. A state church discouraged & typically persecuted a gathering one believers. It was humans from either this movement that emigrated to United states & formed a Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant of United states. Early leaders (Frans-Gustav Petersson-Haggquist, 1843-1936; Axel E. Karlson, 1858-1910; David Nyvall, 1863-1946; P.P. Waldenström 1838-1917, et al.) desired to produce a voluntary covenant of churches that were committed to sharing the Gospel of Jesus, when well as provide means for ministerial educational videos. A title was changed to the Evangelical Covenant Church of Us within 1954 and the "of America" was one of these days abandoned because the denomination includes a American conference.

Faith and Practice
A ECC believes that a Bible is a divine word of God & "the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct." It likewise affirm a historic creeds of a church, especially the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed, while maintaining that a Bible is sovereign entirely over all credal interpretations. Possibly though a church is non-confessional it typically information sextuplet independent affirmations: the centrality of a word of God, a necessity of the freshly birth, the church as a fellowship of believers, a conscious dependence on the Paraclete, a commitment to the entirely mission of the church, & the reality of freedom within Christ. A church practices each infant baptism and believers baptism (by any method) and observes Holy Communion (monthly inside virtually all congregations). Two men & women may be ordained into a church's ordered ministry.

Recent annual meeting results develop demonstrated that the ECC opposes abortion (sustaining the life of the mother exception), affirms marriage when between the human & a woman, & opposes aided suicide. A ECC hwhen been described as "non-dogmatic - open to differences of opinion while remaining orthodox."

Status
A Denomination's headquarters come located in Chicago, Illinois, in which it besides work North Park University and North Park Theological Seminary. There are related Bible colleges inside Alberta, Colorado, Ecuador, Alaska, & California. (Look at [http://www.covenantbiblecollege.com/ Covenant Bible College], [http://www.alaskachristiancollege.org/ Alaska Christian College], & [http://chet.org Centro Hispano de Estudios Teológicos]).

A church is divided into [http://www.covchurch.org/cov/home/conferences.html ten regional conferences] - Canada Conference, Central Conference, East Coast Conference (org. 1890), Smashing Streams, lakes, & wells throughout Conference, Midsouth Conference, Midwest Conference, Northward Pacific Conference, Northwest Conference, Pacific Southwest Conference, & South-east Conference - and of these administrative area - Alaska. A greatest authority is an annual meeting of delegates sent per local congregations. Covenant Publications is the publication arm of the denomination. A partisan hymnbook is The Covenant Hymnal: The Worship Book. a major church ministry is does'nt-for-benefit senior housing, a ECC existence one of the top tenner provider of such housing in the United States.

As of 2004, membership was 114,51Within 685 congregations in the United States (42 states) and an judged 1500 members witharound Twenty-three congregations in Canada (5 provinces). Typical attendance inside 2004 was 156,824. A denomination besides has on-going missions operate within Xvi countries worldwide, using 91 career, Nina from carolina plan & Thirty short-short-run missionaries. the ECC has a worldwide membership of nearly 325,000.

Other
Historically Swedish & Lutheran inside background, a Evangelical Covenant Church is nowadays the apace growing multi-ethnic broadly-evangelical denomination.

Forerunners of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant were a Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Ansgar Synod & a Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Mission Synod. Whilst members of a 2 synods dissolved & the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant was formed, a few of people world health organization did non enter a Mission Covenant formed a Swedish Evangelical Free Mission (okay, a Evangelical Free Church of America). A Evangelical Covenant Church maintains ties using a Swedish Mission Church (once called a Svenska Missions-forbündet; view [http://www.missionskyrkan.se/ Svenska Missionskyrkan] & [http://www.pacto.org/cipe/index.htm CIPE]), & a more churches in the [http://iffec.org/ International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches].

Numerous numbers in the Jesus Movement and the Emerging Church have formally linked themselves to the ECC.