BGC question

All I know is that they keep sending advertisements to our church, trying to gain our support.

 

I'm very familiar with them- in Minnesota, they are the largest, most influential group of Baptists. Here's their website:

http://www.bgcworld.org/

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Locally (Twin Cities area), they have many larger churches, some with well known pastors. Here are some of them, with their average attendance figure given in parentheses:

1. WOODDALE (5,000): Leith Anderson, pastor. He's well known as an author (Dying for Change, Leadership that Works, A Church for the 21st Century, etc.).

http://www.wooddale.org

2. WOODLAND HILLS (4,500-5,000): Greg Boyd, pastor. He's also a well-known writer (Letter's from a Skeptic, etc.). He's (unfortunately) also one of the best-known proponants of Open-
Theism.

http://www.whchurch.org/

3. EAGLE BROOK (4,000-5,000): Bob Merritt, pastor.

http://www.eaglebrookchurch.com/

4. BETHLEHEM (3,000-3,500): John Piper, pastor. Probably no need to introduce him- he's the very widely known author & speaker.

http://www.bbcmpls.org/

5. BEREAN (2,200-2,500): Roger Thompson, pastor. He's a frequent speaker at many of the national "Family Life" (marriage & family) conferences.

http://www.bereanbaptist.com/

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These would be some of the larger local BGC churches. They are generally quite strong on the fundamentals (Greg Boyd's open-theism notwithstanding), but are somewhat shunned by the more extreme IFB crowd for their use of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), the fact that they don't preach against women wearing pants, etc.

In an article a few months ago, the Minneapolis Star/Tribune newspaper stated that they are the fastest growing denomination/religious group in Minnesota.

The main College/Seminary associated with the BGC is Bethel (St. Paul, MN):

http://www.bethel.edu/

 

From their website, here is their Statement of Faith:

http://www.bgcworld.org/intro/affirm.htm

 

What kinds of things do you want to know about them?

 

There is no single, set version in use in the Conference- each church is free to decide what their "standard" version will be. By "standard", I mean their pew Bible; or the one most usually/often preached from. In many instances this is the NIV. I don't know of any "Onlies" in the BGC though; so you'll find the people oftentimes carrying different versions (i.e. their preferred version) of God's Word with them to church. Depending on the person, this may be the NIV, the KJV, the NASB, etc.

Although different versions are used & accepted, this practice doesn't lead to the internal division or strife in churches that certain "Onlyists" frequently insist will inevitably happen under such circumstances.

 

Each church directly supports missionaries & mission organizations of their choosing. I'm not aware of any central Mission Board of any type that funds are channeled through.

Missions are a very big priority in the BGC- the churches I'm familiar with have annual missions conferences; many provide housing for missionaries on furlough (for example, Berean Baptist that I mention in one of my posts above has 2 "Mission's Houses" for use by missionary families during furloughs, home visits, etc. I've heard these are booked-up for the next couple of years); and large missions support budgets are the norm.

I saw the missions budget for Wooddale (also mentioned in my earlier post) a couple of years ago: at that time this church's budget solely for missions support was $1.7 million for that year.

From what I know, the BGC takes their role in fulfilling the Great Commission (both at home & abroad) very seriously.