Subsequently, England and Wales were completely covered with a network of local councils, each of which elected its due proportion of representatives to the national gathering.
Although the objects of the Free Church councils were thus in their nature and spirit religious rather than political, there were occasions on which action was taken on national affairs of significant import.
Thus, opposition was offered to the Education Act of 1902, and support accorded during the general election of 1906 to those candidates who pledged themselves to altering that measure.
[1] Early in the twentieth century it was recognised that a further mechanism was needed to handle Free Church issues at a denominational level.
Having seen the process hindered by World War I, the first meeting of the Federal Council of the Evangelical Free Churches took place in October 1919.
[3] The Free Church Federal Council trod a careful path when the ecumenical process Not Strangers but Pilgrims began in 1986, leaving with its member denominations the choice of participating.
They also combined the forces of the local churches for evangelistic and general devotional work, open-air services, efforts on behalf of Sunday observance, and the prevention of gambling.
It was widely circulated throughout Great Britain, the Commonwealth and the United States of America, and was also translated into Welsh, French, and Italian.
For this reason those denominations that do not accept the deity of Christ within a Trinitarian theology are necessarily excluded from membership of the Free Churches Group.