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More than a century of growth
Canadian Baptist Ministries didn’t just spring up overnight. We’ve been evolving for well over a century. Here are just a few of the highlights. Moments to celebrate. Times to reflect upon, as we now branch out to be the people God is calling us to be in our time. In whatever place or situation He sets us in.
The Merger
January 1, 1995 marked a pivotal moment in Canadian Baptist history. On that day, Canadian Baptist Ministries officially came into being. Now, all the mission efforts Canadian Baptists support as a nation-wide community – within our borders and around the world – are carried out under the single banner of CBM.
January 1, 1995 marked a pivotal moment in Canadian Baptist history. On that day, Canadian Baptist Ministries officially came into being. Now, all the mission efforts Canadian Baptists support as a nation-wide community – within our borders and around the world – are carried out under the single banner of CBM.
The new organization was born of a realization that distinctions between “Canadian mission” and “overseas mission” have become decreasingly useful and increasingly fuzzy. More and more, mission in Canada involves the same issues as mission on the other side of the globe; the same questions, and sometimes even the same kinds of people.
With this realization came the conviction that, by bringing all our ministries under one umbrella – and therefore sharing personnel, experience and insights more closely – we could do ministry more effectively and use our resources more efficiently. The result is Canadian Baptist Ministries.
The Roots of Our Organization – From 1845 to 1995
If an organization is like a tree, Canadian Baptist Ministries has two strong roots. Those roots are the long and illustrious histories of the two bodies that merged to form CBM: Canadian Baptist International Ministries (CBIM), and the Canadian Baptist Federation (CBF). The CBIM root reaches back to 1845, the year Maritime Baptists sent their first missionaries overseas to work with American missionaries in Burma. By 1874, Ontario Baptists had followed suit, and were reaching out to India.
If an organization is like a tree, Canadian Baptist Ministries has two strong roots. Those roots are the long and illustrious histories of the two bodies that merged to form CBM: Canadian Baptist International Ministries (CBIM), and the Canadian Baptist Federation (CBF). The CBIM root reaches back to 1845, the year Maritime Baptists sent their first missionaries overseas to work with American missionaries in Burma. By 1874, Ontario Baptists had followed suit, and were reaching out to India.
The creation of the Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission Board in 1912 unified our international efforts. And in the 83 years that followed, the CBFMB – later Canadian Baptist Overseas Mission Board, and most recently, Canadian Baptist International Ministries – grew to encompass over 100 missionaries working in more than a dozen countries.
The other root is represented by the Canadian Baptist Federation, founded in 1944. It was originally created to co-ordinate relief to war-torn Europe – a ministry that grew into an international relief and development ministry known as The Sharing Way. The Federation also provided a national forum for co-operation in ministries like chaplaincy and Christian education, as well as voicing Canadian Baptist concerns on social issues.
The merger of the two organizations was proposed several times. But only in 1992 did CBIM and the CBF agree to enter into a serious dialogue about the possibility. It was a dialogue driven by a commitment on the part of both to be more effective in ministry in a changing world.
Through consultation with the regional bodies that support both organizations, the process gathered momentum throughout 1993, and in 1994, all the regional bodies voted unanimously to create a single new entity: Canadian Baptist Ministries. From the strength of two roots sprang one strong organization.
Download “More than a Century of Growth”, a colourful poster for highlights of our more than 125 years of service.