Waco, Texas · Since 1993
Chinese students, families, working people and neighbors. We worship in Mandarin, and if you don’t understand it, someone will bring you headphones and interpret into English. If you’re far from home, you’re the reason this church exists.
Old friends and new, together at church for the Mid-Autumn Festival, 2023.
Who is welcome
We are a church before we are anything else. What holds us together is not where we are from but Jesus Christ.
We worship in Mandarin because that’s the language most of us think and pray in. Some of us came from China, some grew up here, and some are American families who call this church home. There are Baylor students, working people, families with small children, and neighbors from around Waco.
Some of us grew up in church. Some of us had never been inside one until a friend brought us to a Friday dinner. Both are completely ordinary here.
Maybe you’ve just landed in Texas and everything is unfamiliar: the roads, the accents, the food, the silence of a new apartment. If so, you’re the kind of person this church was started for. In December 1993 it was a handful of Chinese students at Baylor a long way from home, and that hasn’t really changed.
Before you come
So that nothing on your first morning is a surprise.
Sunday
The Sanctuary
The whole church worships together, with a message from Scripture and time to talk afterwards. During the message, younger children are welcome to go to their own group, and just as welcome to stay with you.
Worship is in Mandarin. If you don’t understand it, someone will bring you headphones and interpret into English. You won’t have to ask.
Friday
The Fellowship Hall
Dinner first, then worship in song, then Bible study in three groups: students, working adults, and English speakers. Come for any part of it.
The three study groups
Mandarin, with a group that studies in English.
Community
Sunday is the whole church together. Fellowships are where you’re actually known.
Known as BBB, the group is mostly Baylor undergraduates and graduate students, many of them a long way from home for the first time.
Working people from every kind of job, at the stage of life where the calendar fills up and friendship takes effort.
Made up of American friends and Chinese American young people, with its own Bible study group on Friday evenings. If English is the language you think in, this is where you’ll feel most at home.
Younger children have their own group during the Sunday message, so parents can listen while the children have something of their own.
The elders of our church. They make the mooncakes, they practice taiji together, and they have prayed this congregation through a lot of years.
Church Life
A church is mostly its ordinary weeks. These are ours.
Diary
Nothing on the calendar right now. Sunday worship and Friday Bible study continue as usual.
Plan your visit1993
In December 1993 an evangelist brought a few students to Baylor and began a monthly gathering. By 1995 they had a room in a Baptist church on Gurley Avenue. They’re still in it.
How we got hereCome and sit at the back
You don’t need to believe anything in particular, know anyone, or bring anything. Turn up on a Sunday, or write first and we’ll arrange for someone to meet you at the door.
We’re non-denominational, and share this building with Emmanuel Baptist Church, our partner congregation.
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