ABC-USA Yearbooks

[Big Daddy Weaver]

A couple of questions that maybe someone here can answer.

The Southern Baptist Convention puts out an annual each year which includes various committee reports and minutes from the SBC's proceedings, financial info, etc.

American Baptists had their own annual titled Yearbook of the American Baptist Churches. It appears that ABC-USA stopped putting out a yearbook sometime between 1998-2000 (I'd have to check my records for the last date). I realized this during my visit to ABHS. Does the Yearbook now go under a different name or how have American Baptists gained access to the reports of the various boards and ministries in recent years?

I've been slowly acquiring the old Yearbooks via Interlibrary Loan and scanning the reports of the General Board and National Ministries for my dissertation research. Now, I need to track down the most recent reports of the past decade. I asked a staff person while at ABHS and did not really get an answer - this person thought that ABC-USA stopped putting out the Yearbook due to financial considerations.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Aaron, Friday and Saturday I attended a ABCNYS pastors and Mission advocates meeting where a couple folk from Vally Forge where participating and I asked about the "Yearbooks". I was told that Indeed the publication of such was halted around the turn of the century. And that to obtain the type of information that had been available in that single source one must now request it from each reporting entity, and that with restructuring. One can not always make a direct correlation between specific periods of time. I am sure that is not what you wanted to hear, but it is as close as I can come to a definitive answer to your question.