By Robert Dilday
Virginia Baptists' newest affiliation maybe the one with which they are least familiar.
At its meeting in Orlando, Fla., Jan. 9-11, the North American Baptist Fellowship elected the Baptist General Assocation of Virginia as its newest member. Also made a member was the Baptist General Covention of Texas.
The two organizations were the first state Baptist conventions to join the NABF, which previously included only national Baptist conventions.
The NABF is one of six regional fellowships affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance. Other fellowships include conventions in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and Latin America. Conventions which are pursuing membership in the BWA typically become members of their regional fellowship first.
“The NABF was founded in 1964 as a result of the joint meeting of the American Baptist Convention [now American Baptist Churches, USA] and the Southern Baptist Convention in Atlantic City, N.J., to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Triennial Convention,” said Alan Stanford, executive director of the NABF. “At that meeting it was decided that Baptists of North America should have a loose structure-a fellowship-that facilitated working together to be more effective in ministry on this continent.
“During the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the Baptist World Alliance moved to a regionalized structure, the NABF became the BWA's regional organization for North America,” said Stanford, who also is pastor of First Baptist Church of Clarendon in Arlington.
With the admission of Virginia and Texas Baptists, the NABF now includes 18 Baptist bodies in the United States and Canada. (Conventions in Mexico choose to relate to the Union of Baptists of Latin America-the BWA's regional fellowship for that region-because of common language and heritage.)
NABF members are:
• American Baptist Churches, USA
• Baptist General Association of Virginia
• Baptist General Conference
• Baptist General Convention of Texas
• Canadian Baptist Ministries
• Canadian Convention of Southern Baptist Churches
• Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
• Czechoslovak Baptist Convention of the USA and Canada
• General Association of General Baptists
• Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Missionary Convention, USA
• National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.
• National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, Inc.
• North American Baptist Conference
• Progressive National Baptist Convention Inc.
• Russian-Ukraine Evangelical Baptist Union, USA, Inc.
• Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, USA and Canada
• Union of Latvian Baptists in America
Other Baptists groups in North America participate occasionally in NABF ministries, but do not hold official membership, said Stanford.
According to the BWA's 2004 Year Book, the NABF's affiliated conventions (not including the BGAV and the BGCT) represent 61,817 congregations with 17,901,569 members.
At the NABF's January meeting, 30 top executives from 22 different Baptist groups agreed for the first time to work more actively together, identifying 14 areas of mutual interests.
They also agreed to work for the establishment of a division of freedom and justice for the BWA and to develop a web site for the NABF.
Staff report
Robert Dilday is interim editor of the Herald.