The Free Reformed Churches of North America is made up of nineteen congregations, with most of them located in Canada in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. Two congregations are in the United States, one in New Jersey and one in Michigan, with a mission in Guatemala. They have two church plants, which they call preaching stations.
Many of the Dutch Reformed immigrants who came to Canada in the late 1940s and early 1950s shared similar theological convictions and secession identities. Some of them had been associated with the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken, the Christian Reformed Churches of the Netherlands (GKN), which had come out of the secession of 1834. Coming to North America, they did not believe they were like-minded with either one of the established denominations, the Christian Reformed Church in North America or the Reformed Church of America. Instead, immigrants from the secession churches of the Netherlands formed separate congregations and united with a Reformed congregation in Grand Rapids known as the Old Christian Reformed Church. An independent Reformed New Jersey congregation joined this group in 1965. Eventually, these churches became the Free Reformed Churches of North America. In 1974, they officially adopted their current name.
The URCNA continues in phase 1 of ecumenical relations with the FRC. The FRC’s Puritan leanings has brought them into close fraternal relations with the Netherlands Reformed Congregations. FRC ministers receive their training at the Puritan Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
A comprehensive history of the FRC by William VanDoodewaard, associate professor of church history at Puritan Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, can be found at
http://freereformednotesbycvd.blogspot.com/2007/06/history-of-free-reformed-churches.html
Further information can be found on the FRCNA website at www.frcna.org
Mr. Myron Rau is the chairman of the board of Reformed Fellowship. He is a member of the Covenant United Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan.