When the American Baptist Home Mission Society (ABHMS) was established in New York City in 1832, members set out to preach the gospel, establish churches and support ministry among the unchurched and destitute.

That same year the Society sent 50 missionaries across the eastern and central United States to spread God's Good News, and American Baptists have been planting churches—as well as schools, children's homes, hospitals and nursing homes — winning souls for Christ, and speaking out for social and economic justice ever since.

By 1836, 150 home missionaries were at work in 14 states, two territories and two provinces. Women wanted to help with the work of answering God's call, but ABHMS refused to appoint single women as missionaries. In response, the Woman's Baptist Home Mission Society (WBHMS) was founded in 1877, and Joanna P. Moore became its first fully commissioned missionary.

Over the next century, missionaries expanded American Baptist ministry by:

• Founding 27 institutions of higher education for Freed People after the Civil War;
• Sending an envoy to Washington to work for treaties favorable to Native Americans;
• Opening a Baptist Missionary Training School in Chicago;
• Appointing missionaries to serve in Michigan, New York, Puerto Rico, Alaska and Arizona;
• Ministering among Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World War II; and
• Leading the way in work with Church World Service to offer new homes to more than 90,000 refugees since World War II.

The American Baptist Home Mission Society and the Woman’s Baptist Home Mission Society merged their work in 1955; then, in 1972, the Societies began doing ministry as National Ministries. In 2003, National Ministries added to its work responsibility for the denomination's ministries of discipleship, education and publishing.