Postcard of the Foreign Mission Board building in Richmond, Virginia. Photo courtesy of the Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries
Thousands of small Southern Baptist churches dotted the landscape throughout the United States in the mid-19th century. Recognizing that many churches working together in missions could accomplish more than any one, the Board of Foreign Missions was established on May 10, 1845 (the same date the Southern Baptist Convention was formed) and headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.[1] Created as a missionary sending organization funded through the cooperative efforts of SBC churches, they chose China as their first mission field, and on September 1, 1845, the board appointed their first missionaries, Samuel C. Clopton and George Pearcy.[2]
In January 1849 the board began The Commission magazine to keep constituents informed of the mission work being carried out. Monthly circulation of the periodical reached 7,000 by April 1850. It eventually became an online magazine with an occasional print issue. Their first publication, Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, is defunct.
Lottie Moon
On July 7, 1873, the board appointed its most famous missionary, Charlotte D. "Lottie" Moon, to China. Moon served many years among the Chinese and after giving her life to foreign missions. In 1888 an annual fund-raising effort, The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, was sponsored by the Woman's Missionary Union.[3] By December 1950 the Board had appointed a record-breaking 111 missionaries in that year alone.
In July 1964 the Board began an effort to send single missionaries called the Journeyman Program. Today the Journeyman Program sends out hundreds of singles and married couples under 30 years of age each year for a two-year term throughout the world. In February 1989 the International Service Corps program was introduced to facilitate short-term missions for projects lasting from 4 to 24 months with a possible 12-month extension.
In 1997 the Foreign Mission Board voted to change its name to the International Mission Board.[4] The International Mission Board celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2020, and in 2022 it had 3,552 missionaries.[5]
Controversies
In 2005, the International Mission Board won a judgement against Benton Gray Harvey for $359,499.62 for embezzlement while he was an accountant for the IMB in Istanbul, Turkey. The incident was investigated by a trustee after a whistleblower on the "Turkey Team" notified staff at a SBC seminary about the situation.[6] In 2005 Tony Cupit of the Baptist World Alliance accused IMB of conveying “a very false picture” by manipulating baptism statistics, such as by claiming all as the work of their missionaries without acknowledging local preachers and non-visited churches as adding to the total number.[7]
In June 2006 Enid, Oklahoma, pastor and IMB trustee Wade Burleson voiced concerns about IMB, including: "The suppression of dissent by trustees in the minority through various means by those in the majority.” He voiced his concerns after the board recommended he be removed after posting criticism on his blog about the board's new policies on baptism and speaking in tongues. The decision was later rescinded internally after Burleson agreed to a new set of guidelines stating trustees may only speak in "positive and supportive terms."[8][9]
In 2018, author Anne Marie Miller publicly disclosed in a report by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram how the IMB covered up abuse by one of their missionaries, Mark Edwin Aderholt.[10] Miller disclosed the abuse to the IMB in 2007 and they determined it was "more likely than not" that Aderholt sexually abused Miller when she was a minor. They allowed Aderholt to resign and did not inform future employers of this accusation. Miller reported the abuse to authorities in early 2018 and Aderholt was arrested in July 2018 and indicted on four felony sex crimes in December 2018.[11] Shortly after his arrest, the IMB apologized and initiated an external examination of Miller's case and all other sexual abuse cases.[12] On June 2, 2019, the Houston Chronicle uncovered a pattern of abuse covered up by the IMB.[13] The third party examination by Minnesota firm Gray Plant Mooty revealed serious faults with IMB's "zero tolerance" sexual abuse policy. Gray Plant Mooty "identified a number of significant concerns with IMB’s handling of past cases" and that the "IMB’s current policies and procedures fall short of contemporary best practice standards."[14] The IMB issued a statement saying they are implementing the recommendations of Gray Plant Mooty, though at the 2019 Southern Baptist Church Annual Convention, new president Paul Chitwood did not mention the report or findings, and a motion made by former IMB trustee Wade Burleson to make the report public was denied by legal counsel saying it was "out of order."[15]
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization, the largest Protestant, and the second-largest Christian body in the United States. The SBC is a cooperation of fully autonomous, independent churches with commonly held essential beliefs that pool some resources for missions.
The Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), more commonly known as the Texas Baptists, is a Baptist Christian denomination in the U.S. state of Texas. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and the Baptist World Alliance. Texas Baptist offices are located in the city of Dallas, though convention staff are located across the state. According to a denomination census released in 2023, it claimed 2,038,537 members and 5,375 churches
Charlotte Digges "Lottie" Moon was an American Southern Baptist missionary to China with the Foreign Mission Board who spent nearly 40 years (1873–1912) living and working in China. As a teacher and evangelist she laid a foundation for traditionally solid support for missions among Southern Baptists, especially through its Woman's Missionary Union.
Crawford Howell Toy, American Hebrew scholar, was born in Norfolk, Virginia. He graduated at the University of Virginia in 1856, and studied at the University of Berlin from 1866 to 1868. From 1869 to 1879 he was professor of Hebrew in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and in 1880 he became professor of Hebrew and Oriental languages at Harvard University, where until 1903 he was also Dexter lecturer on biblical literature.
L. Paige Patterson is a Baptist former administrator from the United States. He served as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, from 1992 to 2003, as president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from 1998 to 2000, and as the eighth president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, from 2003 until his firing in 2018 over mishandling of a rape allegation.
The North American Mission Board (NAMB) is the domestic missions agency of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). It is involved in Southern Baptist church planting and revitalization, coordinating one of the United States's largest disaster relief agencies through the cooperation of state Baptist relief agencies, creating evangelism resources and other programs such as chaplaincy support and pastoral training. NAMB is currently headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.
Woman's Missionary Union (WMU) is an auxiliary of the Southern Baptist Convention that was founded in 1888. It is the largest Protestant missions organization for women in the world.
Beginning in 1979, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) experienced an intense struggle for control of the organization. Its initiators called it the conservative resurgence while its detractors labeled it the fundamentalist takeover. It was launched with the charge that the seminaries and denominational agencies were dominated by liberals. The movement was primarily aimed at reorienting the denomination away from a liberal trajectory.
Anne Marie Miller is an American nurse, public speaker and author who writes on topics such as faith, sexuality, and psychology. Miller works as a hospice nurse and case manager. Miller and her daughter live in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention (HPBC) is a group of churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention located in the U.S. state of Hawaii and other pacific regions. Headquartered in Honolulu, it is made up of 138 churches on 11 islands in 6 Baptist associations.
Wade Burleson is an American politician, author, and retired pastor for Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Oklahoma, United States. Burleson was twice elected President of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, serving between 2002 and 2004. He later served as a trustee for the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board from 2005 to 2008. Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating appointed Burleson to the northwest Oklahoma Higher Education Program Board in 1996.
Ronald Wayne Floyd is an American Baptist pastor, and a former Southern Baptist executive. Ronnie was the Senior Pastor of Cross Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch located in Northwest Arkansas, and served as the 61st president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2014-2016. He resigned his post as Senior Pastor in 2019 to become the full-time CEO of the Southern Baptist Executive Committee and run the day-to-day operations of the denomination. His resignation on October 14, 2021 coincided with mounting pressure in the wake of the SBC sexual abuse scandal.
Bryant Wright is a Baptist pastor and author. He served as senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia from its founding in 1981 until 2019. He also served as elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from June 2010 to June 2012. He succeeded Johnny Hunt, who had served two one-year terms. Wright was succeeded as SBC president by Fred Luter. After having retired as Senior Pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in 2019, Wright continues to work with Right From The Heart Ministries, and in 2020 was named President of Send Relief, a Christian humanitarian and charitable organization, by the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board.
Frank S. Page was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from 2006 to 2008, and the president of the denomination's Executive Committee from 2010 to 2018. Page announced his resignation on March 27, 2018, admitting to "a personal failing" that involved a "morally inappropriate relationship." Frank Page pastored Pebble Creek Baptist Church in South Carolina from June 2019 to February 2024.
David Joseph Platt is an American evangelical Baptist pastor. He was senior pastor at the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, from 2006 to 2014. At the time he was the youngest megachurch pastor in the United States. From 2014 to 2017, Platt was president of the International Mission Board. He became pastor-teacher at McLean Bible Church in 2017. He is the author of the 2010 New York Times Best Seller Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.
Widespread sexual abuse cases in Southern Baptist churches were reported by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News on February 10, 2019. The report found roughly 380 clergy, lay leaders and volunteers had faced allegations of sexual misconduct, leaving behind over 700 victims since 1998. The extent of misconduct is further complicated by work within the Southern Baptist Convention to move sex offenders to other communities and resist attempts to address the culture of abuse.
The Baptist Convention of Zimbabwe is a Baptist Christian denomination in Zimbabwe. It is affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance and the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe. The headquarters is in Gweru.
Clyde J. Dotson was a Zimbabwean Baptist missionary led the formation of the Rhodesian Mission Board and the Baptist Convention of Zimbabwe. Dotson died in 1982 and was buried in Alabama.
Paul Chitwood is an American Baptist minister who is the 13th and current president of the International Mission Board, serving since 2018. He was previously executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention (2011–2018) and president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention (2005–2006).
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