A Brief Guide to Non-Denominational Churches
In this series of articles, I am sharing parts of an article written by Trevin Wax on the Gospel Coalition website. In that article, he gives a brief introduction to the various branches of the Christian Church. The original article can be accessed here.
Non-Denominational Churches
Name: The name identifies that the church has no affiliation with any specific Christian denomination.
History: In the 20th century, more and more churches began to identify as “independent” or “non-denominational,” with no historic ties to other denominations.
What Church Is Like: Non-denominational churches tend to be more low church in their worship like Baptist and Evangelical Free churches, though a non-denominational church can have as much or as little liturgy as the individual church decides. Most non-denominational churches are more like Baptists than other denominations.
Polity: Non-denominational churches will be congregational since they have no commitment to any specific denomination.
Distinctives:
- Non-denominational churches have no connection to any denomination, although they may partner with like-minded churches on various mission projects.
- Based on the first distinctive, non-denominational churches will be congregational in their form of government.
- Since they are truly independent, non-denominational churches can freely write their doctrinal statements and church practices, though they tend to be broadly evangelical and Baptistic in their main beliefs.
Famous Figures: Gene Getz, Tony Evans, Francis Chan.
Related Groups:
- Fellowship Bible Churches (founded by Gene Getz) started as a movement of churches that emphasized Bible teaching, fellowship, and outreach as key components of the church. Not all churches with this name are associated with the movement.
This concludes this series of articles looking at various branches of Jesus’ Church. I hope it has been helpful. I am grateful to Trevin Wax who wrote the original article.
In Christ,
Bret