Holidays

EFCA churches observe Christmas and Easter as the central Christian holidays, with special services celebrating Christ's birth and resurrection. These are understood as foundational gospel events and as evangelistic opportunities. The EFCA's church planting culture gives significant emphasis to high-attendance holiday services as contexts for reaching the unchurched.

The EFCA does not impose a formal liturgical calendar on local churches. Advent, Lent, and other seasons of the church year may be observed by individual EFCA congregations that find them valuable for spiritual formation, but they are not required. Local church autonomy and the EFCA's philosophy of practical flexibility mean that worship calendars vary significantly across the denomination.

The EFCA does not formally address other cultural holidays in its confessional documents. Individual EFCA churches and members exercise personal judgment and pastoral wisdom on questions like Halloween, following the broader evangelical principle of Romans 14 — that Christians may hold different views on disputable matters of days and celebrations, and should act out of conviction rather than mere convention.