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John Smyth and Thomas Helwys organize first English-speaking Baptist Church
John Smyth organized the first English-speaking Baptist Church in Holland. He baptized himself and then all of the new members of this new credobaptist congregation. -
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William Screven
William Screven was born in England but emigrated to the British Colony of Massachusetts in the 1640s. He was baptized in the First Baptist Church of Boston and eventually became an ordained baptist pastor in Maine starting in 1682. After years of difficulties and persecution in Maine, his church moved to Charleston, South Carolina, becoming the “mother church of southern baptists” in the south. -
London Baptists organize first Particular Baptist Church
The first Particular Baptist Church was formed in London under the leadership of John Spilsbury in 1638. -
Providence Baptist Church organizes first Baptist Church in North America
The Baptists in the colony of Massachusetts form the first Baptist Church in the break away colony of the Providence Plantations and Rhode Island. -
Charleston FBC – First Baptist church in the South
The first Baptist church in the south was established by William Screven in Charleston South Carolina. -
Philadelphia Baptist Association – First Baptist association
The Philadelphia Baptist Association was a group of five churches in Pennsylvania that joined together to further the work of their churches. -
George Whitefield preaches in Baptist church in Charleston at start of First Great Awakening
George Whitefield was an instrumental preacher in the First Great Awakening in the English Colonies in North America. One of the places he preached was in Charleston, South Carolina. Although many looked with suspicion on George Whitefield and his practices he was warmly received by many Baptist churches where he would preach the gospel to all those willing to listen. -
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David George
David George was an African American who was born into slavery on a plantation in Virginia. Eventually, George was sent by the British to establish the former slave colony of Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he served as a missionary, pastor, and even civic leader. -
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George Liele
George Liele was an African American who was born into slavery on a plantation in Georgia. He was converted to Christianity and baptized by the local white pastor. After showing excellent ministry promise and skill, he was freed by his master, a deacon in the local church, so he could dedicate his life and time to the ministry. Liele was given passage to Jamaica after the revolutionary war, where he lived out his life as a pastor and missionary, leading over five hundred people to Christ. -
Charleston Baptist Association – First Baptist association in the South
Charleston Baptist Association became the first association within the Southern Baptist Convention. They were a type of template of all the associations that would follow. Oliver Hart was the pastor at Charleston First Baptist Church when this association was founded. -
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John Leland
John Leland was a native of New England, with his birthplace being Massachusetts. He spread the beliefs and practices of Baptist Churches to Virginia on the eve of the Revolutionary War. During this time, Baptists were persecuted because they did not agree with or support the official Anglican Church. -
Sandy Creek Baptist Association – Center of Separate Baptist movement
Candy Creek Baptist Association was founded in 1758 by three original churches. It is the third oldest association of Baptist Churches in North America. Shubal Stearns was instrumental in the founding of this association. -
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Ann Judson
Ann Judson was born in Massachusetts in 1789, the youngest of five children. In 1810 she married Adoniram Judson, famously known as the first American Baptist foreign missionary, and they set off for India. They moved to Burma to continue their ministry, where Ann was a faithful wife and missionary of the gospel message until her untimely death at the age of 37. -
John Taylor’s preaching begins Second Great Awakening
John Taylor was a baptist preacher and church planter that worked mostly in the current state of Kentucky. -
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Sarah Judson
Sarah Judson was an American and a widow who was the second wife of Adoniram Judson. Her first husband, George Boardman, was convinced they needed to go to Burma to do foreign mission work because the need was so great in that land. They settled down among a poor and wild mountain tribe called the Karens, many of whom were converted. After tiring work over three years, they saw about 10,000 of these tribal people saved. -
Triennial Convention formed
The Triennial Convention was a meeting of all Baptist Churches in the United States from the year 1814 until the split between north and south in 1845. The mostly northern Baptist Churches kept meeting until 1907 when they formed the Northern Baptist Convention. -
Baptists appoint Lott Cary as first African-American missionary
Lott Cary was an enslaved person born in Virginia in 1780. He was saved in his mid-twenties and became a Baptist preacher. Cary’s biggest concern was the need for the gospel to go to Africa. He was instrumental in setting up the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society. He left for Africa in 1821, where he worked in Serra Leon and Liberia until he died in 1826. -
Baptists Disfellowship Cambellites
The "Campbellite" movement was part of the Restoration Movement. It was named for Alexander Campbell. The goal of this movement was to "restore" the church to its earliest practices. -
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Lottie Moon
Lottie Moon was a native of Virginia. Her upbringing was one of privilege and even allowed her to attain the educational level of a Masters's Degree. Moved by her sister, already living in China as a missionary and given the opportunity to reach the vast population of Chinese people, Lottie served for 39 years as a missionary in China, working selflessly, so that Chinese people would know Jesus. -
Southern Baptist Convention (including Foreign and Home Mission Boards)
The Southern Baptist Convention was formed in 1845 as churches in the south disagreed with many of the northern baptist churches over the issue of slavery. -
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Annie Armstrong
Annie Armstrong was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She committed her life to helping poor urban children. This started in Baltimore and expanded across the country through the National Baptist Missionary Union, which organized women in churches to help the poor and support missionaries' work at home and abroad. -
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Alberto Diaz
Alberto Diaz was born in Cuba but became a refugee in the United States during a rebellion against the Spanish. He was saved through the influence and testimony of many Christians and was eventually baptized and grew in his faith. He was appointed as a Southern Baptist Missionary sent from the Flordia Baptist Convention in 1879 to be a missionary to his homeland. He became one of the first foreign missionaries to preach a non-catholic gospel in Havana, Cuba. -
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary founded
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was founded on the eve of the American Civil War in Greenville, South Carolina. It was forced to cease classes during the war years and reopened for classes after it was over. In the year 1877 it was relocated to Louisville, Kentucky. -
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Civil War
The Civil War was a major event in the life of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The Baptists in the North and South had already separated over the issue of slavery. Now the nation was divided. Southern Baptists believed slavery was a God-ordained institution and that supporting it and the Confederate States of America was a matter of obedience to God. The loss of the Civil War led to the disillusionment of the SBC during reconstruction. -
Toy’s dismissal from SBTS
Crawford Howell Toy was a professor at the Southern Baptist Seminary from 1869-1879. He resigned from his position after embracing "higher criticism" of the Bible and no longer aligning with the beliefs of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As he was departing his friend and colleague James Boyce declared that he would give his right arm for Toy to return to orthodoxy. -
First Lottie Moon Christmas Offering
The first Lottie Moon Christmas offering was collected by the Women’s Missionary Union in 1888, although it was not known by that name until 1918. The first offering was $3,315. This was enough money to support the sending of three missionaries to China. Out of this small beginning, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering has secured more than five billion dollars for foreign missionary work since that time. -
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Bertha Smith
Birtha Smith was a Southern Baptist Missionary in China for 41 years. When she arrived in China in 1917, a revival broke out in the area she was serving. She was reaping the rewards of the hard work of many missionaries who had been there before. However, life was not always easy, and she persevered through multiple conflicts, a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and even being forced to move from mainland China to Taiwan. She desired to see lives changed by the power of the gospel of Christ. -
Alberto Diaz to Cuba as SBC Missionary
Alberto Diaz was a native Cuban that lived in exile in the United States during Cuba’s insurrection against Spain. He was saved in New York City and eventually returned to Cuba to start an eye care clinic and share the gospel with his fellow Cubans. Eventually, the missionary-minded leadership of the Flordia Baptist Convention decided to support his effort in Havana, which became a thriving ministry seeing thousands come to Christ. -
Baptists adopt Cooperative Program and Baptist Faith and Message
In 1925 the Southern Baptist Convention made some major changes in how it approached the work of the organization. The churches determined that it would be in the best interest of the convention to have organizational bodies that represented the will of the churches operating year round in between the convention meetings. In addition the first doctrinal statement of the convention was approved to show the beliefs and direction of the member churches. -
Billy Graham Crusade in Los Angeles
The Los Angeles Crusade in 1949 was the first big evangelistic campaign of Billy Graham. It is notable that William Randolph Hearst supported Graham through widely publicizing the work that he was doing. It is believed that as many as 350,000 people attended the first Crusade over the two months that it was held. -
Martyrdom of Bill Wallace in China
Bill Wallace was a medical doctor and a surgeon at the Stout Memorial Hospital in Southern China. He served the Chinese people with his love and kindness through action. He was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party, accused of being a spy, and tortured to death. In his life and death he glorified Christ. -
Ralph Elliot’s Message of Genesis
Ralph Elliot a professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and previously a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote a book that challenged the orthodox historical understanding of Genesis. He went as far as to claim that Genesis was full of "symbolic stories" that were not "literally true." This caused an uproar within the SBC. -
Baptist Faith and Message Revised
Under the leadership of Hershel Hobbs the Southern Baptist Convention updated the Baptist Faith and Message to clarify the historical orthodox beliefs of Baptists and to pacify those in churches who were angered by liberalism in the organizational institutions. -
Adrian Rogers elected SBC president to start conservative revolution
Adrian Rogers was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979. This marked the beginning of the conservative revolution and a marked return of the convention to historical orthodoxy. -
Dallas Largest SBC in History (45,561)
The largest convention in Southern Baptist Convention was held in Dallas Texas in the in Summer of 1985. Charles Stanley was elected to a second term as the president of the convention. This marked the visible end of liberal and moderate control of the convention. -
First meeting of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is a group of churches that broke away from the Southern Baptist Convention. This group of churches were unhappy about the direction that the SBC was going under the conservative leadership at the time. -
R. Albert Mohler Appointed president at SBTS
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. was appointed the ninth president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1993. He was committed to the authority of the Bible and was part of the conservative resurgence of the SBC. -
Racial reconciliation statement in SBC
At the annual convention of the Southern Baptist Churches in June of 1995, the messengers passed a Resolution On Racial Reconciliation. This resolution recognized the historical problem that the SBC had with racism against African-Americans and slavery. It was a step in the right direction toward righting historical wrongs, and as significant as it was, it was still only a tiny part of a much larger process of dealing with racism that still goes on today among some SBC churches. -
Baptist Faith and Message revised to reassert inerrancy
The Baptist Faith and Message had its third update and fourth edition approved by the convention in 2000. This update clarified the positions of the SBC on the authority of the Bible and the nature of God as well as restricting the office of pastor to men.