The Evangelical Covenant Church has launched Eleven Conferences, a monthly series exploring how each of its regional conferences began and what their ministry looks like today. The opening instalment profiles the Northwest Conference, a body whose origins predate the denomination itself.
The Covenant's regional conferences form the middle layer of the church's “3StrandStrong” structure, linking local congregations to the national church. The first instalment recounts how delegates from eight churches gathered in Dassel, Minnesota, in late November 1884 to pool resources and coordinate mission, three months before the Covenant itself organised in Chicago and held its first Annual Meeting in 1885.
Covenant historian Philip J. Anderson called the Dassel gathering “a modest beginning” and noted that the Northwest association “not only predated the Covenant, but it was also the first regional conference.” Ten sister conferences followed within twenty years. Kara Stromberg, who has served as superintendent of the Northwest Conference since 2022, described a conference as “a scaffold of support for local churches,” whose aim is not to make the conference stronger but to make the local congregation stronger.
Source: Evangelical Covenant Church / Covenant Companion — covchurch.org
