Elim Fellowship
Elim Fellowship belongs to the Pentecostal (Trinitarian) family of churches.
Governance: network.
A Pentecostal ministerial fellowship rooted in the Elim Bible Institute (1924, New York), credentialing ministers and relating congregations without governing them.
Congregation count not yet source-verified against RCMS 2020; NULL rather than estimated.
A credentialing fellowship rather than a denomination — ministers and congregations relating around the Elim Bible Institute, founded in upstate New York in 1924.
Heritage
Ivan and Minnie Spencer founded the Elim Bible Institute in 1924, eventually settled at Lima, New York, to train Spirit-filled workers for revival ministry; a ministerial fellowship grew up around the school in the following decade. Shaped by the currents of mid-century renewal — including the 1948 Latter Rain revival, which Elim received warmly when many bodies did not — it has remained what it set out to be: a fellowship that credentials ministers and relates congregations without governing them.
Theological family
Trinitarian Pentecostal-charismatic: Spirit baptism, the gifts of the Spirit active in the church, world evangelization, and a renewal instinct that has kept it open to successive moves of revival.
Who decides what
A network by conviction: an elected leadership serves the fellowship, ministers hold credentials through it, and congregations remain self-governing — related, not ruled.
What a first-time visitor would find
Worship in the free Pentecostal-charismatic style: extended contemporary worship, prophetic and other gifts welcomed in order, prayer ministry, and preaching aimed at renewal.
What it has always cared about
Training workers — the institute is the hearth the fellowship gathered around; missionary sending; renewal hospitality across denominational lines; and upstate New York, historic burned-over country, as home ground.
Its gift to the wider church
A working model of Pentecostal association without control — schools and relationships doing the work other movements assign to headquarters.
Commonly confused with
With the Assemblies of God and other organized Pentecostal denominations — Elim is a fellowship, not a denomination; and with the various British and international "Elim" Pentecostal bodies, which are separate organizations sharing a biblical place-name.
Range of views inside it
Considerable congregational variety in style and emphasis, as its polity intends; the shared center is relational and renewal-minded rather than regulatory.
A note from the mapmakers: We have not verified a congregation count for this network against RCMS 2020, so we publish none — and a credentialing fellowship's edges are genuinely blurry, which any count would misstate. Nothing here may be asserted of an individual congregation. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "Elim-related congregations typically…" and yield to the congregation's own materials.
Sources: Elim Fellowship — about (Elim Fellowship) · Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press)
Where Elim Fellowship churches are on the map
7 Elim Fellowship congregations appear on The Church Map, across 2 states.
- New York — 6
- Pennsylvania — 1
More of the Pentecostal (Trinitarian) story · Find these churches on the map