Triennial Convention

Triennial Convention
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	Baptist
Polity	Congregational
Region	United States
Origin	1814
Separations	Southern Baptist Convention (1845)
Defunct	1907 (restructured itself into American Baptist Churches USA)

The Triennial Convention (so-called because it met every three years) was the first national Baptist denomination in the United States. Officially named the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions, it was formed in 1814 to advance missionary work and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In a dispute over slavery and missions policy, Baptist churches in the South separated from the Triennial Convention and established the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. This split left the Triennial Convention largely Northern in membership. In 1907, the Triennial Convention was reorganized into the Northern Baptist Convention, which was renamed American Baptist Churches USA in 1972.

Distinguished from other churches by their commitment to believer's baptism, congregational autonomy and the separation of church and state, Baptists have been present in the United States since Roger Williams founded the First Baptist Church in America at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1638. Baptist churches were soon found elsewhere in colonial America. The First Baptist Church of Boston was founded in 1665, and Pennepack Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was organized in 1688. The founding of First Baptist Church of Charleston, South Carolina in the late 1690s marked the spread of Baptists to the South.

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