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The International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies is a Pentecostal denomination that has gone through several names since its beginnings as the Italian Christian Church.

The body began as an association of Italian Pentecostal ministers who met in Niagara Falls, New York. Its founder was the Rev. Luigi Francescon, who had left the Roman Catholic Church to join the First Italian Presbyterian Church of Chicago in 1892. In 1903, he became persuaded in believer's baptism and established the Italian-American Pentecostal congregation in 1907. In 1927, after other congregations had joined, the church became the Italian Pentecostal Movement, which was followed by the Unorganized Italian Christian Churches of the United States and the Italian Christian Churches of North America.

The church was incorporated as the Missionary Society of the Christian Church of North America in 1948, which was shortened to the Christian Church of North America in 1963, before taking its current name in 2008.

The denomination is organized into districts, made up of sections or zones. The New England District includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The Great Lakes District is made up of Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The Mid-Atlantic/Eastern District includes member churches in New Jersey, New York City, eastern Pennsylvania, and Washington DC, while the remainder of New York makes up the Niagara-Mohawk District. The Northwest District covers Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and the Southern District include Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia. Lastly, the Western-West Coast District is comprised of member churches in Arizona, California, and the other Western states. As the IFCA grows into new states, these will be assigned.

On the national, district and local levels, the congregational form of government is used by the International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies.

The executive board is the highest office in the denomination. It is made up of thirteen elective offices, although some of the office holders may occupy more than one portfolio. A general overseer serves as chairman of the executive board and presides over the general convention. An assistant general overseer acts as vice president of the corporation.

The IFCA also operates foreign and home missions programs, lay ministries, public relations, and an education department.

Districts are directed by a district presbytery, made up of one or two elected overseers.

The property of local congregations are managed by elected trustees or deacons, whose authority is dictated by local church constitutions and bylaws, which also define the relationships of trustees to pastors.

Although the IFCA is Pentecostal, the church is concerned about the excesses practiced among many other Pentecostal churches, voiced a preference for orderliness among IFCA congregations.

The IFCA is also referred to as a Full Gospel Church, which suggests that the denomination embraces every doctrine of the New Testament.

While the IFCA is Pentecostal, evangelical, and Protestant, the majority of its member churches are made up of people of Roman Catholic backgrounds.

The IFCA holds that the original autographs of the Bible were inspired of God, inerrant, infallible, and complete and that the sixty-two books of the Bible represent the complete revelation of God to man, serving as the ultimate authority for faith and Christian living.

IFCA members believe in one God, who is co-equal in three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, although He existed prior to the incarnation when He came to earth fully human and fully God. He lived a sinless life, and died on the cross for the sins of mankind, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven.

Members of the church also believe in the reality of the Devil and demonic spirits.

Man was created in the image and likeness of God. When Adam sinned, the human race fell, inheriting a sinful nature. Forgiveness of sin is possible only through repentance, and by the grace of God.

The International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies recognizes two ordinances: water baptism and communion. Baptism is performed by single immersion, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The IFCA believes in the baptism with the Holy Spirit, an experience that is received subsequent to salvation. Initial evidence of the baptism of the Spirit includes speaking in tongues. Other gifts of the Holy Spirit include revelation, discernment, the power of faith, healing, and miracles, as well as the gifts of prophecy and interpretation of tongues. These gifts are given for the purpose of exhortation, edification, and comfort of the church.

 

 

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