Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches

Welcome to Independence, the FIEC podcast.

My name's Phil Topham, executive director of the FIEC, and this is the show that was devastated not to win anything at last night's British Podcast Awards.

How many categories did we enter, Adrian?

I didn't even know there was-

Orlando Sayers, one of our pastors, has been significantly involved, um, in shaping that.

The donors have committed to give 2 million a year that will be distributed to help support training in churches, and they want to foster a training culture.

Actually, their first round of grants has already happened, and quite a number of FIEC churches-

Mm

Sounds an awful lot like this program, does it not? And think through the big ethical issues being debated in our public square with clarity and compassion, always speaking truth, always through a grace narrative.

He has previously worked in criminal law and was an FIEC church pastor for eight years, and again, he joins us from the other side of the sea.

Pete, the warmest of welcomes.

First and foremost, so many thank yous.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but the book is good.

I also wanna start by breaking down a couple of initials.

Tell me what CARE is, and then for our friends here who live this side of the pond, tell me what an FIEC church is.

Oh, good evening.

And I just used the phrase, have you ever had a religious experience? And of course, religious experience is not the sort of phrase I generally use among church people.

And here we are, FIEC, okay? You guys are independent.

You don't do religion.

I know you don't.

We need to constantly take this to heart because we never, ever want to become the inward-looking, closed-off group of well-intentioned believers who inadvertently elevate our own preferences or our own customs or our own traditions above the boundaries of belonging set by Christ himself.

No church, no denomination, not FIEC, not WECC, No family, no individual leader, no tradition, no fellowship group, however big or small, has authority to add conditions of belonging that Jesus himself has not established.

Do you realize this? Are you, are we committed to this? I was looking for an amen there.

I mean, what's going on? Yeah, thank you, thank you.

really exciting.

I mean, churches are joining FIEC.

We had, I think, four churches that were considered for affiliation this week.

There are at least six already in process for December.

We're seeing about 25 churches join us a year, some of which are long-established independent churches that see the value of being part of our vision.

We want the help and support that FIEC is able to give.

We want to stand together with like-minded evangelical Christians.

Over the past 15 years or so, we've seen more than 300 churches join us over that time.

Now, eventually, it became bad enough that the WHO declared the public health emergency of international concern, and that wasn't a straightforward process, as the independent panel's report did the chronologue for.

But I think what was worse than that not being a straightforward process and taking a whole month in January to get to that point and not acting in a precautionary fashion, what was worse was the month of February when in 2020 you had – The Public Health Emergency of International Concern, ghastly phrase, FIEC, declared, and nobody did anything.

Nobody did anything.

You know, the European Public Health Authority, I think, sent it in Stockholm, which had an unusual response, shall we say, to COVID, declared it not to be a threat to the European Union.

They would see it as caring for the flock, and I think this is an important way that that can be done.

Hello and welcome to Independence, the FIEC podcast for church leaders, and indeed church leaders from any other churches, you're very welcome.

It's great to have you with us.

I'm here today with Becky Thomas, who's our Director for Church Governance.

Excellent.

And if you're watching, you'll both notice we've both got black shorts, stroked trousers, burgundy top.

It's like the FIEC uniform today.

It

Yeah.

Yeah, they actually have something in the UK called the FIEC, which is the Federation of Independent Evangelical Churches.

So they've just been honest and they said, well, we've got to federate to at least some point.

There was a little bit of a strange analogy.

Welcome to Independence, the FIEC podcast.

My name's Phil Topham, Executive Director of the FIEC, and we are back for our regular dive into the news after the summer break.

And joining me is a man who has spent all his money in Switzerland on his holiday, National Director John Stevens.

Hello, John.

Or Blackpool.

Yeah, yeah.

The first of September is the beginning of our FIEC year.

So we look back at last year and all the way that God's faithful to us.