Australian Baptist Ministries

The Baptist Union of Australia was inaugurated on 24 August 1926 at the Burton Street Church in Sydney.

Baptist work in Australia began in Sydney in 1831, forty-three years after the British penal colony was established.

[1] The first preacher was John McKaeg, who conducted the first Baptist service on Sunday 24 April in The Rose and Crown Inn on the corner of Castlereagh and King Streets.

John Saunders, who had been sent by the Baptist Missionary Society of England to Sydney in 1834, raised the funding to erect a second church which was opened on 23 September 1836.

The national work is divided among one territory and six state unions, which operate independently, with the national body functioning as a governance council to facilitate collaborative ministries and mission initiatives across the Baptist movement in Australia.