Latin America is often thought of as Catholic and charismatic evangelical territory. But across the continent, a quieter stream of free evangelical witness has been growing for more than a century — the covenant churches of the CIPE network.
CIPE — Confraternidad de Iglesias del Pacto Evangélico de Iberoamérica — is the regional fellowship that links free evangelical covenant churches across Latin America and Iberia. Its member bodies are national free evangelical or covenant fellowships operating in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, and beyond. Together they represent the southernmost expression of the free evangelical tradition and a growing witness in a region where free-church ecclesiology is gaining ground.
Roots in mission
Most of the Latin American covenant churches trace their roots to North American mission: the Evangelical Covenant Church of America and the Evangelical Free Church of America both sent missionaries to Latin America in the early twentieth century, planting churches that eventually became independent national fellowships. The CIPE structure emerged to give these now-indigenous movements a regional framework — light on governance, strong on fellowship and cooperation.
The Colombian story
Among the CIPE members, the Iglesias del Pacto Evangélico de Colombia (El Pacto) is one of the most visible, with a national presence, theological training, and active mission engagement across a country that has experienced both extraordinary church growth and extraordinary suffering. El Pacto's website (elpacto.co) offers a window into how the free evangelical tradition is lived in a Latin American context: evangelical, believers'-church, missionally oriented, and deeply shaped by the social realities of its country.
Mexico and regional growth
In Mexico, the Iglesias del Pacto Evangélico maintain connections with the Evangelical Free Church of America through its ReachGlobal Latin American work. The EFCA's mission arm, Fil Nesta — recently named the ECC's Director of Bilingual Churches — serves communities that bridge North American and Latin American free evangelical cultures, pointing toward a growing bicultural free evangelical presence across the US-Mexico border.
CIPE as a structure models something the wider IFFEC family values: the minimal, voluntary, fraternal association that gives independent national movements a common voice and mutual support without creating a bureaucratic superstructure over them.
More: El Pacto Colombia | IFFEC
