Denominational Profile

History

Swedish Evangelical Free Church
Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Free Church Association

merged intoEvangelical Free Church of America (1950)

The Evangelical Free Church of America was founded in 1950 by the merger of two Scandinavian independent Pietistic associations of churches which had grown out of nineteenth-century revivals: the Swedish Evangelical Free Church and the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Free Church Association.

Membership Data

Year	Clergy	Churches	Members
1950	350	289	20,000
1952	464	273	21,500
1953	468	342	28,000
1954	485	351	27,000
1955	298	312	24,353
1956	614	412	28,052
1957	531	362	28,052
1958	618	368	31,192
1960	579	468	31,543
1962	581	483	36,705
1965	680	438	43,851
1966	746	517	50,312
1969	762	539	59,041
1970	807	552	63,735
1971	-	562	70,490
1977	960	621	100,000
1979	1,218	732	77,592
1982	1,042	805	103,900
1983	1,180	853	110,555
1984	1,401	900	146,000
1985	-	838	90,000
1986	1,484	880	95,722
1990	1,795	1,040	165,000
1991	1,863	1,087	192,352
1992	1,817	1,173	214,186
1993	2,233	1,202	226,391
1995	2,436	1,224	242,619
2003	2,733	1,420	350,000
2008	2,201	1,475	356,000

Data were taken from the National Council of Churches' Historic Archive CD and recent editions of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. Denomination descriptions provided by Dr. J. Gordon Melton, Director, Institute for the Study of American Religion (ISAR). [More information on data sources]