B e n n ä s – Finland’s 2.000 Baptists celebrated their 150th birthday at a recent four-day anniversary conference in Bennäs under the motto of “Future and Hope”. Observers note that these joint festivities point to a historic development: For the first time the two Baptist unions, which have been separated for more than a century, have held a common gathering. Finnish Baptists form a 1.300-member Swedish-speaking union and a 700-member Finnish-speaking one. According to European Baptist Federation (EBF) President Helari Puu (Tallinn), who participated in the event, the atmosphere was “warm and hearty”. Despite language barriers, most of the 600 in attendance were glad to celebrate the anniversary jointly. Numerous speakers decried the fact that the two unions had been without an “active fellowship” for such a long period.

Puu appealed to the participants to play a stronger role in international Baptist mission work. He invited them to financially support the EBF’s “Indigenous Missionary Project” (IMP). Under the auspices of this project launched in 2003, 40 missionaries involved in church-planting between Russia’s Arctic Circle and the Black Sea are receiving support. Its long-term goal is to support 200 such missionaries.

In a sermon Denton Lotz (Falls Church near Washington), General-Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, called on his listeners to become more active in the struggle for „peace, freedom and justice“. Ninety-two percent of Finland’s 5,2 million inhabitants speak Finnish, six percent speak Swedish. Eighty-five percent of Finns are Lutherans.