NAB Heritage Commission
North American Baptist Conference
June 4, 2015
Dr. Jackie Howell, Director
Our mission is to collect, preserve, organize, display and make available the historical records and artifacts of persons, churches, and other ministries related to the North American Baptist Conference. We depend on you telling us about the events that demonstrate God’s working in your midst in order to make this story our collective story.
The volunteers who spend time in the Heritage Center each week have a long history of participation in local NAB churches and history of interest in broader NAB publications and mission work. We were designated as conference archives in 1967 (seminary library), approved to form a separate entity at the Triennial in 1982 in Niagara Falls and recognized in 1991. We received materials from the International Office regularly in the 1990’s with a major collection of materials in 2008 in preparation for the move of the International Office. We have the most comprehensive collection of NAB historical documents available. The most reliable records are those that are recorded as close to the event as possible. We are open to receiving and preserving print and electronic materials from NAB organizations. Our facilities include 2000 contiguous square feet of space with movable shelving and space for 720 archival boxes of materials. We are located in the lower level of Sioux Falls Seminary.
. It was a joy to be able to provide original source materials for Baptist history scholars in other seminaries who were able to view resources when we hosted the Baptist History and Heritage Society in June 2014. We have been able to serve the Cameroonian students from US graduate programs who are interested in their own history. This allows them to write the story of NAB work in educational and medical areas from origin to Cameroonian leadership.
We are increasing the accessibility of information for church history and genealogy by selection of materials to be digitized. We are exploring the newly available Fraktur fonts for a possible aid in translation of key early documents.
Visit our web site to see the stories of our earliest churches. The stories include brief histories with church buildings and early pastors. Many of the churches that started before 1890 are there.
Dr. Jackie Howell,
June 4, 2015
Help preserve the story of God at work in the NAB Conference
Church stories
Help preserve the story of God at work in the NAB Conference. The local congregation is an important part of this story. The best way to preserve history is the recording of events as they happen. We do have the story as reflected in church anniversary books for about half of the churches which are more than 100 years old. We have some recent stories, but fewer numbers. We would like this collection to be more complete and include all of our churches starting when the church is recognized as a church plant. .
Programs with stories of major milestones. Examples of major milestones include:
Church beginnings
- Did a group of NAB persons settle in area and begin a church?
- Were you a church plant from another NAB church?
- Did you celebrate the first 10 years with a program and historical sketch?
Building dedications
- First church structure
- Additions to structure
- Other building projects
Pastoral transitions
- Welcoming a new pastor
- Farewell to a pastor at end of ministry
Relocations
- Factors which led to relocation
- New ministry opportunities as a result of relocation
Name changes
- Old and new name and reason for change (often to enhance ministry, sometimes because name was location specific)
Church endings
- The story of church closing – what happened to members?
Records that tell the church story and need a home
Men’s and Women’s ministries
Kinds of documents that are helpful:
Printed anniversary books
Newspaper clippings
Pictures (with persons and date identified)
Unsure what we have? Send an email and we will list them for you. Send to
NAB Heritage Commission Report Great Plains Association – June 2015 1