The Conservative Baptist movement was born out of a deep burden for the pure preaching of the gospel by Baptist missionaries. This impulse led to the creation of the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society in 1943. Conservative Baptists realized that missionaries sent to the foreign field needed support, and they knew that this backing must come from local churches. They also recognized that pastors and congregations needed fellowship and that churches needed to help each other in many practical ways. Conservative Baptist distinctives needed to be maintained by constant teaching. Without this some might be prone to forsake their missionary obligations.

For all of these reasons an association of churches was required. Therefore, in 1947 a national fellowship was established under the name of the Conservative Baptist Association of America. The association operated with a General Director and three Regional Directors, one each for the East, Central and West regions. Rev Albert S. Taylor established an Eastern regional office in Williamsport, PA. This office fostered the development of our separate state associations, which have now been brought together as one region - Mission Mid-Atlantic.

History of CBAmerica

Founded in 1947 as the Conservative Baptist Association of America, CBAmerica has historically been know as a movement of evangelical Baptists with a zealous commitment for evangelism, the word of God, and missionary expansion through church planting both at home and abroad. CBA came into being just four years after the founding of CBInternational (the mission sending agency of CB churches) and three years prior to Mission To The America's (the urban, ethnic, and campus ministry founded in 1950).

Rather than become "another denomination" CBA chose to equip churches and facilitate missions through the above cooperating organizations and regional networks of churches. We have partnered with other evangelical ministries such as Youth for Christ, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and others with a commitment to fulfilling the Great Commission at home and around the world.

In the 1950's and through the early 70's CBA was a church-planting dynamo with hundreds of new churches planted across America. The focus of CBAmerica in the 80's continued church planting and added a significant emphasis on training congregations in evangelism, discipleship and member care. We have impacted the military, hospitals, and other social agencies with a significant chaplaincy program that continues to grow while changing the lives of those who find Christ through a bold proclamation of God's word.

CBAmerica exists today as a network of churches and ministries, vitally connected to national and regional leadership, committed to fulfilling the Great Commandment and the Great Commission by living Christ Before America. With Brian McClaren of Reinventing Your Church, we realize that the post-modern culture we live in needs a new church-and we believe this "NextChurch" must be one with Great Commandment passion and a Great Commission focus. While each individual CBAmerica church is autonomous we choose to function interdependently because we believe we can do more together than we can alone in building Christ's kingdom here on earth.

We are a network of 1200 plus unique churches in cities, rural settings,"burbs", and small towns all across America. But we are all committed to knowing God and winning his lost ones in every way we can. Through our national and regional offices we offer assistance in church planting, revitalization, leadership multiplication, a focus on next generation ministries, and a strategy to assist churches in building stronger spiritual foundations.

From 2002 - 2004 there were a number of decisions made resulting in a new national structure of a Fellowship of Regions bound together by mutual accountable privileges and responsibilities. They each share core values, mission and vision. This new relationship is covenantal with signed agreements among the Regional Executive Directors and Regions. The Regional Directors are now the national coordinators of service to and among the local churches. This is called the IMPACT model.

These recent developments can be observed in our CBAmerica publication Vital Signs: August 2004 Vol. 1 No. 1 (See our national web site at http://www.cbamerica.org)

Mission Mid-Atlantic
P.O. Box 345
Clayton, NJ  08312