Bethlehem Baptist Church (Minneapolis) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Bethlehem Baptist Church |
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Worship service in 2013
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| 44°58′9″N 93°15′18″W / 44.96917°N 93.25500°W | |
| Location | Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Country | United States |
| Denomination | Baptist |
| Weekly attendance | 4,600 |
| History | |
| Former name(s) | First Swedish Baptist Church of Minneapolis |
| Founded | 1871 |
| Founder(s) | J. L. Johnson |
Bethlehem Baptist Church is a large Christian church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It belongs to the Baptist faith and is connected with a group of churches called Converge. It is known as a "megachurch" because it has a very large number of members.
Contents
Church History: How Bethlehem Baptist Began
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The church started in the early 1870s. A man named J. L. Johnson was the first Swede to be baptized in Minneapolis. He and other Swedish people joined another church, First Baptist Church. Soon, they formed their own Swedish Bible class.
On June 22, 1871, this group decided to start their own church. They called it the First Swedish Baptist Church of Minneapolis. This happened seven years after the American Civil War ended. The church began in a hall in Minneapolis with 23 people. Pastor John Ring helped set up the church. It was the first Swedish Baptist church in the Twin Cities area.
In March 1872, the church bought land for $1,000. They started building a new wooden church in March 1873. This new building cost $4,000.
Early Pastors and Growth
The church had four pastors in its first ten years. The fifth pastor, Dr. Frank Peterson, arrived in June 1881. At that time, the church had 127 members.
On March 16, 1885, the church building burned down and could not be fixed. The church bought a new building nearby for $13,500 in May 1885. Pastor Peterson believed that people from Scandinavian countries made good Baptists. He thought they were religious and hard-working. By January 1, 1891, when Peterson left, the church had grown to 445 members.
Missionaries from Bethlehem Baptist
During Pastor Peterson's time, 12 young people from the church became missionaries. A missionary is someone who travels to another place to share their faith and help people.
One of these missionaries was Ola Hanson. He worked for 40 years with the Kachin people in Burma. Hanson helped create a written language for the Kachin people. He also wrote an 11,000-word Kachin-English dictionary. He trained 40 local pastors and translated the Bible into the Kachin language. The British government gave him a special award called the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal for his work. His life story is told in a book called Light in the Jungle.
Changes in Language and Name
The church started holding some services in English in 1893. The sixth pastor, Olof Bodien, led the church from 1893 to 1912. During this time, the church faced a fire in 1893 and a tornado in 1904.
The church had two more pastors before Eric Carlson became the eighth pastor in 1918. The number of members grew to 834. There was some tension between older members who preferred Swedish and younger members who wanted English services.
Anton Sjolund became the ninth pastor in 1928. Membership reached 1,204 people. Services in Swedish continued until the mid-1930s. On January 1, 1936, the church voted to have all services in English. Only one Sunday School class stayed in Swedish.
Nine years later, on April 13, 1945, the church voted to change its name. It became Bethlehem Baptist Church. This was the same year that the larger Swedish Baptist group in America also dropped "Swedish" from its name.
New Buildings and New Leadership
Eric Lindholm became the tenth pastor in 1949. He helped build a new Sunday School building, which cost $500,000. It was finished in 1957 and is still used today.
John Wilcox became the eleventh pastor in 1959. He was the first pastor who was not Swedish. He led the church for seven years. After him, Robert Featherstone was the twelfth pastor, and Bruce Fleming was the thirteenth, leading the church through the 1970s.
By 1980, Bethlehem was a typical church in downtown Minneapolis. Most people who attended lived in the suburbs and drove to church. The average age of the 300 members was 75 years old.
A New Vision and Growth
In 1980, John Piper became the new senior pastor. He had been teaching the Bible at Bethel College. In 1983, Pastor Piper had an important realization about how the church's beliefs connected to helping people around the world. This led to a new focus on missions. Soon, the average age of the church members dropped from the 70s and 60s to the 20s.
In 1991, the church made its space larger. The building bought in 1885 was taken down to create more space for education. One of the beautiful stained glass windows from the old building is now on display in the church's entrance area. Another building addition was completed in 2003.
Expanding to Multiple Campuses
In 2002, the church started to expand its ministry to northern Minneapolis. Instead of building a bigger worship center downtown, almost half of the church members began going to services at a different location in Roseville.
In June 2005, the church moved into its current North Campus building in Mounds View. In September 2006, Bethlehem started its third campus at Burnsville High School.
In 2012, Jason Meyer became the senior pastor. In September 2018, the church moved into its current South Campus building in Lakeville. On July 26, 2020, the church members voted to have three pastors for preaching and vision, one for each campus. In 2020, the church had 4,600 people attending.
In 2021, Kenny Stokes became the Pastor for Preaching and Vision. In 2022, the church decided to change its structure. Its North and South campuses became independent churches, meaning they now operate on their own.
What Bethlehem Baptist Church Believes
The church follows a Baptist confession of faith. This means they have a set of beliefs that guide their church and its members. They are also a member of Converge, which is a group of churches that share similar beliefs and work together.
See also
In Spanish: Iglesia Bautista de Belén para niños
