The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, and the second-largest Christian denomination in the United States, smaller only than the Roman Catholic Church according to self-reported membership statistics.
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a mainline Baptist Christian denomination within the United States. The denomination maintains headquarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The organization is usually considered mainline, although varying theological and mission emphases may be found among its congregations, including modernist, charismatic and evangelical orientations. It traces its history to the First Baptist Church in America (1638) and the Baptist congregational associations which organized the Triennial Convention in 1814. From 1907 to 1950, it was known as the Northern Baptist Convention, and from 1950 to 1972 as the American Baptist Convention.
Independent Baptist churches are Christian congregations, generally holding to conservative Baptist beliefs. The term independent refers to the doctrinal position of church autonomy and a refusal to join any affiliated Baptist denomination, convention or hierarchical structure.
The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) is a convention of conservative Southern Baptist churches in Texas. It is supportive of the national Southern Baptist Convention. It was formed by churches within the Baptist General Convention of Texas so that they might partner more closely with the SBC in a fellowship based on a common commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture.
The Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) is the oldest surviving Baptist convention in the state of Texas. The churches cooperating with the BGCT partner nationally and internationally with the Southern Baptist Convention and others, for missions. In 2009, the BGCT began to also go by the name Texas Baptists to better communicate who they are.
Charlotte Digges "Lottie" Moon was a 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.
Patrick Hues Mell was born in Walthourville, Georgia, served as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention in two terms from 1863–1871 and 1880–1887, as well as served as chancellor of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens from 1878 until his resignation in 1888..
First African Baptist Church, located in Savannah, Georgia, claims to be derived from the first black Baptist congregation in North America. While it was not officially organized until 1788, it grew from members who founded a congregation in 1773. Its claim of "first" is contested by the Silver Bluff Baptist Church, Aiken County, South Carolina (1773), and the First Baptist Church of Petersburg, Virginia, whose congregation officially organized in 1774.
The Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV), founded in 1823, is an umbrella organization of Baptist churches. The BGAV has been characterized as a moderate association. More than 1,400 Baptist churches affiliate with the BGAV.
First Baptist Church (Atlanta), is a megachurch located at 4400 North Peachtree Road at Interstate 285 in Dunwoody, Georgia. It is commonly known as First Baptist Atlanta. It is an evangelical, Christian church, and is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. Charles Stanley is the senior pastor, and Anthony George is the associate senior pastor.
The Triennial Convention was the first national Baptist denomination in the United States. Officially named the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions, it was formed in 1814 to advance missionary work and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In a dispute over slavery and missions policy, Baptist churches in the South separated from the Triennial Convention and established the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. This split left the Triennial Convention largely Northern in membership. In 1907, the Triennial Convention was reorganized into the Northern Baptist Convention, which was renamed American Baptist Churches USA in 1972.
Otis Moss III is the pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. He espouses black theology and speaks about reaching inner-city black youth.
Religion in Atlanta, while historically centered on Protestant Christianity, now involves many faiths as a result of the city and metro area's increasingly international population. While Protestant Christianity still maintains a strong presence in the city, in recent decades Catholic Christians have gained a strong foothold due to migration patterns. Atlanta also has a considerable number of ethnic Christian congregations, such as Korean Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches, the Tamil Church Atlanta, Telugu Church, Hindi Church, Malayalam Church, Ethiopian, Chinese, and many more traditional ethnic religious groups. Large non-Christian faiths are present in the form of Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism. Overall, there are over 1,000 places of worship within Atlanta.
The first Tamil worship service in Atlanta was organized in one of the Baptist Churches in the city in the year 1994 under the guidance of the Language Missions Board of the Georgia Baptist Convention sponsored by the North American Mission Board. Daniel Thayakaran served as the pastor during this time. Since then, the group met as a fellowship of Indian Christians with Tamil as their main language and was the first Tamil congregation in Atlanta. The order of worship was in Tamil and was widely appreciated for the mission.
C. Barry McCarty is an American preacher and educator who has been associated with the Southern Baptist Convention and the Christian churches and churches of Christ. McCarty is a former president of Cincinnati Christian University and the current chief parliamentarian for the Southern Baptist Convention. From January 2010 to June 2015 he was the senior pastor of Peachtree Christian Church, a Disciples of Christ congregation, in Atlanta, Georgia. In August 2015, his 30-year relationship with the SBC culminated in changing his church affiliation to Southern Baptist and accepting a call to the faculty of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth as professor of preaching and rhetoric.
Louis De Votie Newton was President of the Southern Baptist Convention (1947–1948) in the United States, Baptist preacher, and author, as well as vice president of the Baptist World Alliance.
William Bullein Johnson was one of the founders of the South Carolina State Baptist Convention in 1821, and later was the first president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1845 to 1851. Johnson is also the founder of Johnson Female Seminary, later renamed Johnson University, in 1848 the predecessor to Anderson University.
The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., more commonly known as the National Baptist Convention, is a primarily African American Baptist Christian denomination in the United States. It is headquartered at the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee and affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance. The denomination claims approximately 31,000 congregations and has 5.0 million members according to the World Council of Churches.
The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer is a Lutheran church in midtown Atlanta, Georgia. The congregation was founded in the city in 1903, with the current building constructed in 1952.
St. Luke's Episcopal Church is an Episcopal church in Atlanta, Georgia. The parish was founded in 1864, with the current building on Peachtree Street constructed in 1906.
