Baptist General Conference of Canada (BGCC) is a national body of evangelical Baptist churches introduced to Canada by Swedish Baptists late in the 19th century.
The BGCC was formed in 1981, but has roots in Swedish Baptist missionary work in Winnipeg and Quebec. A church was formed in Quebec in 1892 and another in Winnipeg in 1894. The Quebec church no longer exists. The Grant Memorial Baptist Church in Winnipeg is the oldest surviving Canadian BGC church. Though organized into regional conferences, these churches were also affiliated with the Baptist Union of Western Canada (BUWC) for the first half of the 20th century. The Central Canada Baptist Conference and the Baptist General Conference in Alberta withdrew from the BUWC in 1948 and 1949, respectively. The BGCC churches were affiliated with the Baptist General Conference in the United States until 1981. Beginning in 1977, the three districts then in existence - Baptist General Conference in Alberta, British Columbia Baptist Conference and Central Canada Baptist Conference - started exploring the possibilities of working together to evangelize Canada and the world. At the second meeting of the representatives, a recommendation came to organize a General Conference.
The BGC churches in Canada are organized into 5 district conferences (BGC Alberta, BGC Central Canada, BGC Quebec, BGC Saskatchewan, and British Columbia Baptist Conference) and cooperate through the General Conference. Headquarters are located in Edmonton, Alberta. The BGCC operates a number of ministries, including the Canadian Baptist Seminary, Global Missions and Stewardship Foundation, and is affiliated with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. In 2006, there were 8116 members in 104 churches.
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“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“I have never looked at foreign countries or gone there but with the purpose of getting to know the general human qualities that are spread all over the earth in very different forms, and then to find these qualities again in my own country and to recognize and to further them.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)