Our Staff
Jonathan Fodge
Craig Heath
Stan Osterbauer
Who Are We?
What Is An Evangelical Friend?
Our Purpose
We Believe
Some Links of Interest
What Is An Evangelical Friend?
The Friends Church began with the conversion of one man, George Fox, in the year 1647. His personal experience of salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ alone sparked a great revival in England. Those early Friends made great contributions int he areas of social reform, spiritual renewal, religious liberty, prison reform, education, care for the suffering and integrity of life and word.
Before long, many Friends (also called Quakers) came to the new world. The state of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, a Friend, with the determination to allow freedom to practice Christianity according to the dictates of your beliefs and conscience. Pennsylvania was the only colony which had no need of a standing militia, since they treated the Indians as equals, honoring their verbal agreements.
As Americans moved west, so did the Friends; establishing Yearly Meetings (or what some denominations call “districts”) all the way to the Northwest. Oregon Yearly Meeting was established in 1893 and in 1971 the name was changed to Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM), to reflect the inclusionof Meetings (churches) in Washington and Idaho. NWYM is headquartered in Newberg, Oregon, and participates in a larger group of Friends worldwide, Evangelical Friends International–North America (EFI-NA).
As Evangelical Friends We Believe in the authority of the Bible and in the historical aspects of the doctrine of salvation. Our beliefs stand in opposition to those who wish to emphasize the individual conscience and the inward practices of a mystical christianity.
Peninsula Evangelical Friends Church began as a ministry of the American Sunday School Union in 1935, meeting in the Agnew Community Hall until 1947. At that time, property was purchased which had buildings on it, and ont March 15, 1947, Agnew Friends Church was born with the goal of telling people of the Gospel of Christ. The name was later changed to Peninsula Evangelical Friends Church at Agnew, or PEFC.
As a member of NWYM, we are Quaker in our association, while serving as a community church in the Agnew area. Many of us come from a background other than “Friends.”
Our Purpose
As the part of the Body of Christ which gathers at 1291 N. Barr Rd. to worship, our purpose can be summarized as follows:
To worship God in all His fullness, mercy and grace;
To proclaim to others the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, and to train and equip the believer in the Word of God;
Being equipped, to carry out the individual and corporate ministries God has given to this church body.
We Believe
We believe the Bible to be inspired by God, without error (in its original manuscripts) and our standard and final authority for truth.
We believe in one God, eternally existing in three persons: the Father, the Son (or Word of God), and the Holy Spirit.
We believe God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died for our sins, was buried, was physically raised to life on the third day, appeared to many, and visibly ascended to God the Father in heaven.
We believe that God created man in His own image, to glorify and enjoy God forever; that the first man(Adam) sinned, passing on a sinful nature and death to all men.
We believe that God the Father placed upon Jesus Christ all of man’s sin and its punishment, thereby offering forgiveness of sin and eternal life as a free gift to everyone who believes and receives it.
We believe that the Holy Spirit indwells every such believer and baptizes (joins) them into one body, the universal church.
We believe that Jesus Christ will visibly return to earth to judge every man, alive or dead, and to be united with the universal church.
We believe that God has appointed each man to die once, then to be physically resurrected to face God’s judgement; that the righteous will receive eternal life, and the unrighteous will receive eternal conscious punishment.