LifeWay Christian Resources
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LifeWay Christian Resources is one of the largest religious publishing houses in the United States. Lifeway is based in Nashville, Tennessee owned and operated by the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
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[edit] Origins
LifeWay was founded as the Baptist Sunday School Board in 1891 to assist local Southern Baptist churches in developing their ministries by providing Sunday School literature and other resources. The original organization is roughly equivalent to the Church Resources Division of today's company. In 1920, the Sunday School Board opened its first Baptist Book Store, which developed into a chain of Christian stores selling to the general public, though most of the items were devoted to Southern Baptist church needs.
[edit] Name change
The Sunday School Board changed its name to LifeWay Christian Resources in 1998; at that time, all Baptist Book Stores became LifeWay Christian Stores to reflect a more inclusive name (as opposed to appearing to be solely devoted to Baptists). The company now operates 132 stores throughout the USA, and is the country's second-largest chain of Christian stores, after Family Christian Stores. In recent years, the stores (while still selling items unique to Southern Baptist church needs) sell items from non-Southern Baptist sources as well.
[edit] Summer camps & retreats
LifeWay operates the Centrifuge family of Christian summer camps as the official summer camp of the Southern Baptist Convention and the largest summer camps organization in the world. LifeWay operates two conference centers -- Ridgecrest in North Carolina and Glorieta in New Mexico.
Lifeway also owns an operates two historical camps: a boys camp founded in 1929 Camp Ridgecrest for Boys and a girls camp founded in 1955 Camp Crestridge for Girls both are near the Ridgecrest Conference Center in the Black Mountains of North Carolina near Asheville. Plans to open two more single gender camps at the Glorieta Conference center are currently underway, with the start up of a hiking expedition camp in the Glorieta Mountains for teenage campers starting in the Summer of 2007.
[edit] Technology services
In 2002, LifeWay established a Technology Division, divided into an internal information technology department and an external electronic business department that provides services such as Web hosting, Bible software, Internet protection services, and streaming audio/video.
[edit] Leadership
In February 2006, Dr. Thom Rainer became the president and CEO of LifeWay. Rainer left his post as Dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to assume the presidency of LifeWay. He succeeded James T. Draper, Jr., of the Fort Worth metro area, who had headed LifeWay from 1991 to 2006.
Rainer is considered an expert in church ministry, and has published many books on the subject. His most recent book -- Simple Church, coauthored with Eric Geiger -- gives pastors instructions on designing a simple process for spiritual transformation.
