Our History
The Black Christian Singles ministry was founded in 1983 after the Missouri Baptist Convention realized its existing singles ministry, which held an annual retreat at Windermere Conference Center, was not attracting African-American participants. Therefore, the convention created the Black Christian Single Adult Task Force, where the idea of the Black Christian Singles Adult retreat spawned from the very first meeting. Don Anders, a former Convention employee who is now retired, played a key role in the start up of the Black Christian Singles. Don Anders and other convention officials then recruited Robert Crouch who still today, over 20 years later, is the backbone of BCS ministries. After a year-long planning phase by the task force, the first Black Christian Singles retreat was held at the Windermere Conference Center in the Lake of the Ozarks in 1984.
Although the ministry was founded by the Jefferson City-based Missouri Baptist Convention, it has long been ecumenical in focus and has provided fellowship across denominational lines.
The inaugural retreat in 1984 was attended by 43 singles, the majority of which were from Missouri. Within the first four years, attendance quadrupled to nearly 175 participants. By the 10th Anniversary in 1994 – which was appropriately themed “Soaring on Eagles Wings” – the attendance was up to 600 people from as many as 17 states including California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. By 2002, Windermere registration reserved over 800 beds for 23 states, by 2005 went international, with the inclusion participants from Africa, Bahamas, and the West Indies. The most astonishing note about the growth explosion is that word-of-mouth is the only advertising tool.
As part of a downsizing effort, the Missouri Baptist Convention decided to release several of its ministries. So Robert Crouch called a meeting of singles leaders from surrounding churches in Jefferson City, St. Louis, Kansans City, and Springfield to talk about a means to continue the ministry. From this meeting it was decided to incorporate the ministry as a Missouri nonprofit corporation, thereby making it independent and separate from the Missouri Baptist Convention. On November 21, 2001, the ministry was incorporated under the name: Black Christian Singles of Missouri. The incorporation meant that the ministry no longer has the paid staff and financial backing of the Convention, but would rely on volunteers and program fees to carry out its mission of Christian growth and fellowship.
Over the years, the Windermere experience has touched the lives of many. In the 1980s, there were few or no singles groups in churches, so the initial Black Christian Singles task force was called on by many local pastors to ask for guidance/assistance in creating singles groups in their local congregations. The Windermere experience has motivated some past participants in neighboring stats (including Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas) to launch similar retreats in their home states.
BCS has also launched several other events including Bible Study Ski Trips, even-year cruises and will soon sponsor odd-year missions trips to Africa.
Today, Windermere remains the most popular of the BCS-sponsored events. With an average attendance of 400+ people, Windermere remains well-known as the spiritual experience not to be missed. The most memorable/life-changing Windermere experience for most are the 6:30am prayer and testimony service and the ‘Deliverance service’. In a few past retreats the Deliverance service was held on opening night where a life-size wooden cross is used as a symbol for participants to write down their strongholds, past hurts, or prayer requests and physically nail them (with a real hammer and real nails) to the cross.
We pray that you will join us as we continue on our spiritual journey while continuing to make history.