Baptist College of Florida

The Baptist College of Florida, founded in 1943, is located in Graceville, Florida. It is a Christian college and is sponsored by the Florida Baptist Convention. Originally a college primarily focused on training Baptist ministers, it has begun to expand into more curricular areas. BCF offers degrees in theology, music, counseling, education and business. It is nationally accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.[1]

The Baptist College of Florida (BCF) is a private, Level III institution (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools), located in Graceville, Florida, 90 miles northwest of Tallahassee, 60 miles north of Panama City, and 25 miles south of Dothan, Alabama. BCF is owned and operated by the Florida Baptist Convention. It is the only institution of higher learning supported by the Florida Baptist Convention.

BCF, founded by a group of pastors on September 7, 1943, held its first classes in a Sunday school room in the First Baptist Church of Lakeland, Florida. The educational institution, then named Florida Baptist Institute (FBI), was purposed to provide training for “God-called” men and women who needed seminary-type training, but lacked college degrees. At that time in Baptist life, seminary training was available primarily to students who had earned four-year college degrees. While “special classes” for “the non-college graduate” were offered at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, then known as Baptist Bible Institute, (Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1946, p. 98), Florida ministers would have to relocate to take advantage of the course offerings. Therefore, individuals who felt “called” to the ministry and needed seminary training, particularly those of nontraditional college age who lacked a four-year college degree, had limited opportunities, particularly in Florida, to receive ministerial training of substantial scope and value resembling seminary education.

Some of the first students to enroll in FBI were WWII veterans and six Seminole Indians (Minutes of Board of Trustees, 1945, October 24). One of the Seminole Indians was Billie Osceola, a “great-grandson of Chief Osceola of Seminole War fame” (Richards,1993, p. 30).

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