Southern Baptist Convention. Home Mission Board

The Home Mission Board began work in Cuba in 1886. Work in the country expanded for about a decade, but by the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, nearly all mission activity had been demoralized. At the close of the war, the Board entered an agreement with the American Baptist Home Mission Society under which the eastern half of Cuba was transferred to the Society and the SBC's Home Mission Board retained the western half. Southern Baptist work in Western Cuba flourished through the 1950s. In 1955, the Home Mission Board's property value exceeded $1.5 million and the Convention reported 508 baptisms in the four provinces of Western Cuba. Initially Fidel Castro was greeted as a liberator and freedom was enjoyed for a time. Religious activities were not abruptly terminated but decrees progressively closed freedom's doors. In April 1965, HMB personnel Herbert Caudill and David Fite, along with fifty-three other leaders, were imprisoned. In February 1969, the Caudill and Fite families returned to the United States. In 1968, the Convention reported ninety churches, 6,667 members, and 161 baptisms.

The Department of Missionary Education of the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) promoted schools of missions, later called world missions conferences. Schools of missions were a missionary education program in which an entire church participated in graded missions classes for a week. Also part of the program were talks given by current missionaries in the field whether in the United States or abroad. The Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) and state conventions helped produce the schools of missions, and the Womans Missionary Union and the Brotherhood Commission supported the programs. Objectives for the program included inspiring new missions, commitments to new service, and increased financial and spiritual support for current missions. Lewis W. Martin led the department from 1943-1965, and Kenneth Day directed operations from 1965-1975 when he became director of the Communication Division.

The Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) is one of the oldest organizations of the Southern Baptist Convention. Since the Southern Baptist Convention's founding in 1845, the Home Mission Board (HMB) has trained and employed missionaries for various areas of service across North America. First located in Marion, Alabama, the HMB relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1882. In 1995, HMB staff moved to a five-story office complex twenty-two miles north of Atlanta. In 1997, the Home Mission Board merged with the Brotherhood Commission and Radio and Television Commission to form the North American Mission Board. Beginning in 1970, the Home Mission Board conducted oral history interviews with retiring HMB personnel and missionaries. Most of the interviews were conducted by Mary D. Cannon and HMB librarian Julie Belfield. In producing the oral history interviews, staff collected biographical information, interview consent forms, and research notes on interviewees.

Denominational leader and pastor Solomon Franklin Dowis served as the first director of the Department of Cooperative Missions at the Home Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention, from 1946 to 1958.

The Evangelism Department of the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) was created in 1906 for the purpose of helping evangelize America. During the first half of the twentieth century, the department worked closely with evangelists in coordinating and promoting revivals and city-wide evangelistic campaigns. Following World War II, personal evangelism was stressed as an effective soul-winning strategy in addition to the mass evangelism approach of crusades and revivals. By 1970, the department focused almost entirely on personal evangelism and instituted lay evangelism conferences to train church members how to witness to the non-Christian.

Ethnic ministries of the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) were part of the work of the Language Missions Division. The Language Missions Division of the Home Mission Board was created in the 1950s to further language mission efforts in the United States. Another objective of the Division was to encourage Southern Baptist leaders and members to think about ethnic groups as part of their growth plan and leadership responsibilities. Joshua Grijalva was a missionary in the Language Missions Division of the Home Mission Board, and active in ethnic ministries throughout his career. He worked with Spanish-speaking congregations in Texas and Colorado. In 1981, Dr. Grijalva became a national consultant for the Ethnic Leadership Development emphasis of the Home Mission Board.

The Language Missions Division of the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) worked to further language mission efforts in the United States by providing materials and programs that would incorporate a wide variety of ethnicities into the Southern Baptist Convention. Another objective of the Division was to encourage Baptist leaders and members to think about ethnic groups as part of their planning process. Ethnic groups served by the Division were: Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hispanic, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Native American, and Vietnamese. Some programs undertaken by the Division included: deaf missions, ethnic leadership development, immigration ministries, and refugee and settlement ministries. Loyd Corder served as the first Secretary of Language Missions from 1950-1965, and was succeeded by Gerald B. Palmer (1966-1970). In 1971, Oscar I. Romo became director of the Language Missions Division until 1990, when the division changed names to the Language Church Extension Division and Russell Begaye became the new director.

The Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) is one of the oldest organizations of the Southern Baptist Convention. Since the Southern Baptist Convention's founding in 1845, the Home Mission Board (HMB) has trained and employed missionaries for various areas of service across North America. First located in Marion, Alabama, the Board relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1882. In 1995, the Home Mission Board staff moved to a new five-story office complex twenty-two miles north of Atlanta. In 1997, the Home Mission Board merged with the Brotherhood Commission and Radio and Television Commission to form the North American Mission Board

The Audiovisuals Department of the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) was responsible for producing and distributing audiovisual materials such as filmstrips, motion pictures, recordings, and special programs. These materials helped the department contribute to the objective of the Communication Division to promote mission efforts of the Board to churches, associations, and other Southern Baptist Convention agencies. Renamed the Media Department in 1982, these materials were distributed through the bookstores of the Baptist Sunday School Board, now LifeWay. J. C. (Jesse Clifford) Durham served as director from 1959 until his retirement in 1990.

The Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board), established as the Domestic Mission Board in 1845, used publications and promotion material to inform Southern Baptists of its activities and to raise funds for operations. Thematic publications explained seasonal or annual thrusts like the materials produced to coincide with the Bicentennial celebrations of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Other publications focused on general information about either a specific department or mission emphasis such as the Special Missions Ministries Department or mountain mission schools. The Home Mission Board Publications/Promotion material is a series within the records of the Home Mission Board/North American Mission Board records.

Southern Baptist missionary to China, Chile, and Brazil. He served as Director of Missions at the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1965 to 1970.

The Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) is one of the oldest organizations of the Southern Baptist Convention. Since the Southern Baptist Convention's founding in 1845, the Home Mission Board (HMB) has trained and employed missionaries for various areas of service across North America. First located in Marion, Alabama, the Board relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1882. In 1995, HMB moved to a new five-story office complex twenty-two miles north of Atlanta. In 1997, the Home Mission Board merged with the Brotherhood Commission and Radio and Television Commission to form the North American Mission Board. The NAMB has issued training manuals over the years for many reasons -- for conferences, associations, or staff use. These manuals propose various strategies for spreading the gospel throughout the nation.

The Home Mission Board is an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Board of Domestic Missions, as it was first named, was created by the newly organized Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. The Board's mission was to send preachers into frontier settlements, to nurse feeble churches in the southern and southwestern states, with special attention to New Orleans and to take the gospel to Blacks in the South.

The Home Mission Board, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, consists of more than a dozen programs and ministries serving throughout the United States in evangelistic work. Some of the ministries include: language missions, social ministries, Black church relations, rural/urban missions, chaplaincy ministries, evangelism, church loans, and interfaith witness.