Bethlehem Baptist Church is a

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...

multi-site

megachurch A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...

based in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. It is affiliated with Converge North Central and

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History

In the early 1870s, J. L. Johnson became the first Swede

baptize Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation and Adoption ...

d by immersion in Minneapolis—in 30-below weather. He and a growing number of Swedes joined

First Baptist Church (Minneapolis) River City Church is a Baptist church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, member of the Venture Church Network. History It was founded in 1853 at Saint Anthony Falls by E.W. Cressey, a missionary with the American Baptist Home Mission Society, together ...

, and eventually formed a Swedish Bible class. On June 22, 1871, they branched off, with First Baptist's blessing, and founded Bethlehem—originally as the ''First Swedish Baptist Church of Minneapolis''. This was seven years after the

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ended, and 13 years after Minnesota became a State, in a hall at 2nd Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, with 23

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s. Pastor John Ring laid the foundation for the church, which was the first Swedish Baptist church in the

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area. In March 1872, the church bought a lot at 6th Street and 12th Avenue for $1,000 ($ today); they broke ground in March of the following year on a new $4,000 wood-frame church building. The church had four pastors in its first ten years. The fifth pastor, Dr. Frank Peterson, arrived in June 1881 to a church of 127 members. On March 16, 1885, during Peterson's

pastorate A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

, the church burned and was irreparable. The congregation learned that the Second Congregational Church at 8th Street and 13th Avenue South—only three blocks from the burned site—was available for $13,500 ($ today). The church bought the building and property in May 1885. Peterson was of the view that Scandinavian immigrants made the best Baptists, because, as he put it in 1886, they were Protestants, religious, were not communists or socialists, and very few of them were "peddlars, organ grinders, or beggars." There were 445 members by January 1, 1891, when Peterson departed. Under Peterson's ministry, 12 young people became missionaries. One was

Ola Hanson Ola Hanson (June 25, 1864 in Åhus, Sweden – October 17, 1929 in St. Paul, Minnesota) was a Swedish-American missionary who worked with the Kachin people in Burma. Hanson came to the United States in 1881, settling in Oakland, Nebraska. He ...

who became a missionary to the Kachin people of

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

for 40 years. Hanson put the Kachin language into writing, produced an 11,000-word Kachin-English dictionary, trained 40 local pastors, and translated the Bible into Kachin. The

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awarded him the

Kaisar-i-Hind Medal The Kaisar-i-Hind Medal for Public Service in India was a medal awarded by the Emperor/Empress of India between 1900 and 1947, to "any person without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex ... who shall have distinguished himself (o ...

. His story is told in a biography titled ''Light in the Jungle'', by Gustaf Sword. The church's first services in English started in 1893, on a bi-weekly basis. The 6th pastor, Olof Bodien, came in 1893 and pastored until 1912. During that time the church suffered a fire (December 3, 1893) and a tornado (August 1904). By this time a number of notable Swedish Baptists were members of the church. The church had two pastors from 1912 to 1918, when the eighth pastor, Eric Carlson, arrived. Membership rose to 834, and language tension grew during that time between old (Swedish) and young (English). The ninth pastor, Anton Sjolund, came in 1928, and membership reached 1,204. Services in Swedish continued until the mid-1930, but on January 1, 1936, the church voted to move all services to English, except for one Swedish

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class. Nine years later, on April 13, 1945, First Swedish Baptist voted to change its name to Bethlehem Baptist Church (the same year that the Swedish Baptist General Conference in America dropped ''Swedish'' from its name). The tenth pastor, Eric Lindholm, came in 1949. He oversaw the building of the $500,000 ($ today) Sunday School Building, dedicated at year's end 1957 and still in use. The eleventh pastor, John Wilcox, came in 1959 as the church's first non-Swedish pastor (he was originally a

Southern Baptist The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States. The word ...

), and pastored Bethlehem for seven years. The twelfth pastor was Robert Featherstone, and the thirteenth, Bruce Fleming, pastored through the 1970s. By 1980, Bethlehem was a somewhat typical downtown Minneapolis church. Most congregants lived in suburbs and commuted, including the pastor. The average age of the now 300-person congregation was 75 years old when the pulpit became open. John Piper became the new senior pastor. He had been teaching Bible at the denominational college, Bethel College. In 1983, Pastor Steller had a missionary

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, recognizing how the church's theology connected to world missions reaching unreached people, and a missions movement was born. The average age soon dropped from the 70s and 60s to the 20s. In 1991, the church enlarged its space. Bethlehem enlarged her worship space; the building purchased in 1885 was demolished to increase educational space. One of the

stained glass window Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

s from the original building is on display in the foyer. Another building addition came in 2003. In 2002, the church expanded its downtown ministry into the northern Minneapolis by creating a second campus. Instead of building a larger worship center downtown, nearly half the congregation began worshiping in Maranatha Hall at Northwestern College in Roseville. In June 2005, the church moved into its current North Campus facility in Mounds View. In September 2006, Bethlehem launched its third

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

Burnsville High School Burnsville High School (BHS) is a four-year public high school in Burnsville, Minnesota, United States. Burnsville is a southern suburb about 15 miles south of Minneapolis. The school is part of Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191, which ...

. In 2012, Jason Meyer became the senior pastor. In September 2018, the church moved into its current South Campus facility in Lakeville. On July 26, 2020, the congregation voted to approve three pastors for preaching and vision, one for each campus. In 2020, the church would have 4,600 people.Hartford Institute
Database of megachurches in the US
hartfordinstitute.org, USA, retrieved January 16, 2021 Jason Meyer resigned as Pastor for Preaching and Vision, Downtown Campus, effective August 1, 2021.Bethlehem Blogs

, Bethlehem.church, retrieved July 17. 2021 He cited the "fracturing of evangelicalism" and suggested a "neo-conservative" preacher would be a better fit. The church had three pastors resign during the summer of 2021, citing issues including

bullying Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imba ...

, a toxic culture, and conflicts over how to handle abuse. Much of the abuse these pastors faced had to do with their support for the

critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...

. In 2021, Kenny Stokes became Pastor for Preaching and Vision.

Beliefs

The church has a

confession of faith A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets. The ea ...

and is a member of

.Converge
Members
, converge.org, USA, retrieved January 16, 2021

References

External links