Last fall, the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) reaffirmed its complementarian policy on women in ministry and its board of trustees agreed to refer inquiries on the issue to the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
Last fall, the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) reaffirmed its complementarian policy on women in ministry and its board of trustees agreed to refer inquiries on the issue to the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
Richard Underwood, general secretary of the FIEC, said the denomination’s stance on gender roles is consistent with the Danvers Statement, composed by The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW).
“In October last year, the council of the FIEC–our trustees–reaffirmed our policy in this area which was expressed in a booklet entitled ‘Women in Ministry’ which had been approved at the Assembly in 1995,” Underwood said.
“However, it also agreed that inquirers could be informed of the existence of the Danvers Statement, published by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which expressed a similar viewpoint on the subject.”
The FIEC is a group of independent, evangelical churches based in England with affiliated churches existing in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. The denomination’s total membership is nearly 22,000 with more than 30,000 attending the main services of the churches.
The denomination is committed to the historic evangelical view of gender roles in the home and church and also articulates a robust vision for the service of women in the church.
“We uphold the Biblical perspective that God calls men to the primary leadership role in family and church,” reads part of the FIEC website’s statement on women in the ministry.
“Within that framework, we believe that women have been gifted with all sorts of complementary gifts, and that our churches are poorer if these gifts are not developed and used. We wish to encourage women in the very many ministries to which they are called, and share examples of how these ministries are working out in practice.”
To learn more about the FIEC or to locate its affiliate churches, please see http://www.fiec.org.uk.
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