Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches 2010 - Cokesbury

National Director is the CEO of the National
Office and works with the National Board to see
that Vineyard USA achieves its purpose.
Headquarters
5115 Grove West Blvd., Stafford, TX 77477, Tel.
(281)313-8463 Fax (281)313-8464
Email: info@vineyardusa.org
Website: vineyardusa.org
Officers
National Dir., Berten A. Waggoner, Email:
lucierosser@vineyardusa.org
Secretary, Doug Anderson, Email: doug@vineyardusa.org
Treasurer, Brian Anderson
Vineyard Music USA, Vineyard Resources USA,
Mercy Response
Periodicals
Cutting Edge
Baptist Bible Fellowship
International
Organized on May 24, 1950 in Fort Worth, Tx.,
the Baptist Bible Fellowship was founded by about
100 pastors and lay people who had grown disenchanted
with the policies and leadership of the
World Fundamental Baptist Missionary Fellowship,
an outgrowth of the Baptist Bible Union
formed in Kansas City in 1923 by fundamentalist
leaders from the Southern Baptist, Northern
Baptist and Canadian Baptist Conventions. The
BBF elected W. E. Dowell as its first president and
established offices and a three-year (now four-year
with a graduate school) Baptist Bible College.
The BBF statement of faith was essentially that
of the Baptist Bible Union, adopted in 1923, a variation
of the New Hampshire Confession of Faith.
It presents an infallible Bible, belief in the substitutionary
death of Christ, his physical resurrection
and his premillennial return to earth. It advocates
local church autonomy and strong pastoral leadership
and maintains that the fundamental basis of
fellowship is a missionary outreach. The BBF vigorously
stresses evangelism and the international
missions office reports 901 adult missionaries
working on 110 fields throughout the world.
There are BBF-related churches in every state of
the United States, with special strength in the upper
South, the Great Lakes region, southern states west
of the Mississippi, Kansas and California. There
are seven related colleges and one graduate school
or seminary.
A Committee of Forty-Five, elected by pastors
and churches within the states, sits as a representative
body, meeting in three subcommittees, each
chaired by one of the principal officers-an administration
committee chaired by the president, a missions
committee chaired by a vice-president and an
education committee chaired by a vice-president.
World Mission Service Center
Baptist Bible Fellowship Missions Bldg., 720 E.
Kearney St., Springfield, MO 65803, Tel.
(417)862-5001 Fax (417)865-0794
Mailing Address, P.O. Box 191, Springfield, MO
65801
Media Contact, Mission Dir., Dr. Bob Baird, P.O.
Box 191, Springfield, MO 65801
Email: csbc@cherrystreet.org
Website: www.bbfi.org
Officers
Pres., Rev. Bill Monroe, P.O. Box 12809,
Florence, SC 29504, Tel. (843)662-0453, WK
(417)-862-5001
First Vice Pres., Rev. Mike Peper, 4150 Market
St., Aston, PA 19014, Tel. (610)497-0700, WK
(417)862-5001
Second Vice Pres., Keith Gillming, 3025 N
Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63074, Tel.
(314)291-6919
Sec., Rev. Don Elmore, P.O. Box 7150,
Springdale, AR 72766, Tel. (479)751-4255
Treas., Rev. Ken Armstrong, 2200 Prairin St.,
Emporia, KS, Tel. (316)342-4142
Periodicals
The Baptist Bible Tribune, The Preacher
Baptist General Conference
The Baptist General Conference, rooted in the
pietistic movement of Sweden during the 19th
century, traces its history to Aug. 13, 1852. On that
day a small group of believers at Rock Island,
Illinois, under the leadership of Gustaf Palmquist,
organized the first Swedish Baptist Church in
America. Swedish Baptist churches flourished in
the upper Midwest and Northeast, and by 1879,
when the first annual meeting was held in Village
Creek, Iowa, 65 churches had been organized,
stretching from Maine to the Dakotas and south to
Kansas and Missouri.
By 1871, John Alexis Edgren, an immigrant sea
captain and pastor in Chicago, had begun the first
publication and a theological seminary. The
Conference grew to 324 churches and nearly
26,000 members by 1902. There were 40,000
members in 1945 and 135,000 in 1993.
Many churches began as Sunday schools. The
seminary evolved into Bethel, a four-year liberal
arts college with 1,800 students, and theological
seminaries in Arden Hills, Minnesota. and San
Diego, California. Missions and the planting of
churches have been main objectives both in
America and overseas. Today churches have been
established in the United States, Canada and
Mexico, as well as twenty countries overseas. In
1985 the churches of Canada founded an
autonomous denomination, The Baptist General
Conference of Canada.
The Baptist General Conference is a member of
the Baptist World Alliance, the Baptist Joint
Committee on Public Affairs and the National
Association of Evangelicals. It is characterized by
the balancing of a conservative doctrine with an
irenic and cooperative spirit. Its basic objective is
to seek the fulfillment of the Great Commission
and the Great Commandment.
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US RELIGIOUS BODIES