Current
The Baptist General Conference operates the Bethel Theological Seminary and Bethel University in Arden Hills, Minnesota near St. Paul, and maintains business offices in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The primary headquarters are now in Orlando, Florida. The official periodical is Converge Point, and Harvest Publications offers a wide range of Christian education material. The Conference labors in national and world missions, with missionaries in Central America, South America, southern Europe, former Eastern Bloc nations, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Asian Pacific rim. Greg Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church, and John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church and leader of Desiring God Ministries, are perhaps two of the most well known BGC ministers in the 21st century. Bethlehem Baptist Church was organized as the First Swedish Baptist Church of Minneapolis in 1871.
In 2006, the BGC had 194,000 members in 950 churches in the United States. These churches are also organized into 11 regional bodies: Northwest, Southeast, Great Lakes, Heartland, Minnesota-Iowa, MidAtlantic, Converge MidAmerica, PacWest, Northeast, Rocky Mountain, and Southwest. There are a further 105 churches in Canada organized into 5 district bodies. These congregations cooperate nationally through the Baptist General Conference of Canada.
The BGC cooperates with the National Association of Evangelicals led by President Leith Anderson (who also pastors the BGC Wooddale Church), the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and the Baptist World Alliance, and was a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
Read more about this topic: Baptist General Conference
Famous quotes containing the word current:
“Natural Man, in our current version, is a disgruntled adolescent.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“This is no argument against teaching manners to the young. On the contrary, it is a fine old tradition that ought to be resurrected from its current mothballs and put to work...In fact, children are much more comfortable when they know the guide rules for handling the social amenities. It’s no more fun for a child to be introduced to a strange adult and have no idea what to say or do than it is for a grownup to go to a formal dinner and have no idea what fork to use.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)
“Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)