Eden Baptist Church was incorporated in 1985 as Burnsville Baptist Church. The church was started by Dr. Wendell Mullen, a professor at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, MN. Pastor Mullen gathered a few students from the Bible college and eventually invited his son, Paul, and his young family to join the church-planting work in Burnsville. The Mullens nurtured the small flock in those early days and established a solid base on which to build.
After the Mullens returned to the East Coast to continue pastoral ministry there, the assembly of 20 members extended a call to Dan Miller to pastor the flock. Pastor Miller, with his wife Beth, accepted that call in September 1989.
Renting several facilities over the next few years, the fledgling church continued to grow numerically and spiritually under Pastor Miller’s leadership. In 1996, the assembly was privileged to purchase its first building in northeast Savage (hence the change of name from “Burnsville” to “Eden” Baptist), and the church continued to grow and its ministry expanded. In 2002, God graciously provided four acres of prime real estate right on Highway 13 in Burnsville. In 2009, the Lord enabled us to purchase the adjacent Humane Society building and two acre site. Through God’s generous provision and much sacrifice and labor from our church family, construction was completed and we met together for the first time in our current and final home on Resurrection Sunday 2012.
Over the years, Eden Baptist has grown as a Bible-hungry, praying, giving, missions-minded church. Diligently prepared expository sermons, doctrinally rich biblical teaching, and purposeful, reverently joyful worship distinguish her gatherings.
A shepherding philosophy (rather than marketing motivations) drives the pastoral ministry. A discipleship orientation (rather than entertainment-evangelism strategies) has been used of God to generate new converts to Christ who are now actively serving the Lord among us and infusing our assembly with fresh vigor.
Eden Baptist was started with no outside financial assistance and has continued to prosper in dependence upon God’s blessing alone. Strengthened by its struggle to survive as an infant church, EBC has been granted a hard-won sense of stability and appreciation for God’s grace. Witnessing the intervening hand of God upon her at crucial points in the past, EBC continues to look to the future with confident hope.