International Ministries (organization)
international Baptist Christian missionary society
International Ministries is an international Baptist Christian missionary society. It is a constituent board affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. The headquarters is in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, United States.
History
The society was founded in 1814 as the Baptist Board for Foreign Missions by the Triennial Convention (now American Baptist Churches USA). The first mission of the organization took place in Burma with the missionaries Adoniram Judson and Ann Hasseltine Judson in 1814. Other missions that followed took place in Siam in 1833, India in 1840, China in 1842, Japan in 1872 and Philippines in 1900. In the late 1800s, the society helped fund the Swedish Baptist conference's new seminary, Bethel Seminary, in Stockholm.
It was renamed American Baptist Missionary Union in 1845, American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in 1910, and American Board of International Ministries in 1973. In 2018, it had 1,800 volunteers in 70 countries.
Controversies
In 1843, abolitionist Baptist pastors of Massachusetts met at Boston Tremont Temple and founded the American and Foreign Mission Society in opposition to slavery in the South. In 1844, the Baptist Board for Foreign Missions refused to approve a slaveowner proposed by the Georgia State Convention, Elder James E. Reeve as a missionary, recognizing the case as a challenge and not wanting to overturn their policy of neutrality in the slavery issue.
The public source identifies “International Ministries (organization)” as international Baptist Christian missionary society. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around International, Ministries and organization.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15932096. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1814, 1833, 1840 and 1842.
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This entry incorporates text from “International Ministries (organization)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.