Published by Vince Baker Ministries
A ministry becomes a town
The University of Illinois Newspaper Project traces Dowie from Australia to the United States and describes his 1893 ministry near the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. By the later 1890s he was planning a community intended to address some of the problems he saw in city life. Zion City, founded in July 1901, gave the movement a physical center.
What a newspaper can tell us
The Newberry Library holds material on Zion’s church, businesses, and institutions, alongside issues of Leaves of Healing. These records make it possible to read the movement as a civic and economic project as well as a religious one. Plans, letters, and pamphlets tell different parts of that story. Compare the intended design of the town with the administrative records of how institutions actually worked.
Gifts and responsibility
First Peter 4 connects gifts with stewardship and service. That lens is helpful when thinking about what a religious leader owes a community formed around a ministry. Vince Baker Ministries’ Divine Healing Manual offers a separate, Scripture-focused exploration of healing.
Scripture to read alongside the history
- 1 Peter 4:10-11 · KJV
