I’ll be updating this until the website for Boniface is up.
What is Boniface Fellowship?
At the moment, the Boniface Fellowship only exists as an initiative spearheaded by the leadership of East River Church. Therefore, there aren’t any member churches or lists of potential member churches. Many aspects of Boniface haven’t been ironed out, mostly by design.
We hope that this initiative will lead to the establishment of a regional fellowship of reformed churches. The purpose of this fellowship would be to offer mutual encouragement, develop leadership, and provide supplementary accountability.
As we draft a basic blueprint for achieving this, our aim is to bring on at least 5 well-established member churches to assist us in fleshing out the details.
What is a well-established church? For our purposes, we define it as a financially stable church with three elders or pastors, and a constitution and bylaws. The fellowship is not limited to churches that meet this criteria. However, we will not establish the fellowship until we have at least five churches that meet these criteria.
What is the launch date for Boniface Fellowship?
There is no hard launch date. It all hinges on finding well-established churches to join the fellowship. We will be doing Zoom calls with interested churches throughout the summer. There will be a detailed presentation given at the pastors’ luncheon at our fall conference. We are working hard on finishing a draft of the constitution and bylaws. We hope to do a “first reading” of those documents at the luncheon. We will then follow up with interested churches. Once we have five churches on board, we will schedule something like a “constitutional convention” to officially constitute the fellowship and appoint leaders. If everything were to fall perfectly, we could see the meeting happening in the first half of 2025.
How does Boniface Fellowship define “reformed?”
We aren’t using “reformed” in an all-encompassing way. For example, we aren’t allowing the Three Forms of Unity as a confessional standard but they are most definitely reformed documents. It’s always difficult to determine how broad or how narrow to go with something like Boniface. We’ve settled on requiring a good-faith subscription to either the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (LBC) or the Westminster Standards. The LBC was a revision of the Savoy Declaration which itself was a revision of the Westminister Confession of Faith. Consequently, they share much of the same wording, terminology, and core theology. Also, they are the two most common reformed confessions used in American churches.
How does Boniface Fellowship define “regional?”
We define 'regional' by 'drive time.' If you are within half of a workday’s drive to Cincinnati, you are within our bounds. It’s very difficult to provide practical help like pulpit supply when it requires more than half a day’s drive. Boniface isn’t about possessing a label but being close enough that we can support each other in person. As John says, 'Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, so that your joy may be made full.'
How will Boniface Fellowship deal with differences in sacramental positions?
We won’t require sacramental reciprocity between member churches. Therefore, if congregants want to transfer from one fellowship to another, they will be expected to submit to the position of the receiving church. If they can’t do that in good conscience, they should choose a church where they can submit to the confessional standards.
We will require that member churches adhere to the communion standards laid out in their confession without exception. Credocommunion is a position with which both the LBC and WCF agree. We want to emphasize our common ground.
We will also be drafting a list of 'Doctrinal Clarifications.' These statements will be concise affirmations of doctrines already articulated in the confessions but which may have been obscured by the efforts of theological liberals. For instance, both confessions affirm that the universe was created in six literal days. While the WCF states that God made everything 'in the space of six days,' we might clarify by specifying that God made everything in the space of six ordinary days."
Who is Boniface Fellowship for?
It’s for churches who want to have the freedom to follow their confession but also desire mutual encouragement, help with leadership training, and supplementary accountability. If you already have that, then Boniface Fellowship is redundant.
When is the first Zoom meeting?
It will likely be on the second or third Monday evening in May. More information to follow. If you want to be included in one of those meetings or have more questions, please email me at michaelsfoster@protonmail.com.
Last year I searched to death 1689 churches across the USA, and like, 9 out of 10 of them only subscribe to it, but do not understand what it says, especially when it comes to the State. It was beyond frustrating, and I found myself more comfortable looking for a CREC church, which holds closer to the 1689 than many of these churches. It just feels like, within Baptist churches, it’s trendy to claim the 1689. And I imagine the same is true for Presbyterians who claim the WCF. Will the bylaws help clarify positions so that people can’t just claim titles, or what’s your thought on that?
Is the fellowship really not open to any other CREC church?