Pastor Gideon Lee 李業基牧師 2/22/2026
(中文版跟隨英文)
For this issue of toolkit, we would like to highlight some of the resources available to us as a Southern Baptist church.
When we think about the pressing need confronted by Crosspoint and other churches in California, one word that may come to mind is renewal. Both the Tracy and Peninsula missions certainly need retooling. But the Pleasanton campus and the Milpitas campus need renewal, too. How should that renewal happen and what role could the newest campus San Leandro play in this effort?
Led by Dr. Jason Robertson, the Church Matters Team at California Southern Baptist Convention CSBC has been consorting for more than a year with Baptist pastors and associational leaders to develop a comprehensive church renewal framework. I have been part of this collaborative. The fruit of our labor is beginning to see the light. Read this article, part 1 of 4, “Renewal begins with God’s design, not our creativity” from Robertson to see an overview. And learn about the concept of church fostering introduced here by Robertson and discussed here by Dr. Scott Hill.
While Baptist prefer local churches to be autonomous, we recognize the advantage of working together. It is important for us to work together not only among our Chinese Baptist brothers and sisters through bodies such as the Northern California Chinese Baptist Association (https://baptist.cc) and the Chinese Baptist Fellowship US and Canada (https://chinesebaptists.org), but also closely with fellow churches in the state convention CSBC, especially as San Leandro prepares to launch our English ministry and worship service. Part of the first step in working together is to get to know one another. Both the current CSBC president, Port Wilburn, and the vice president, Grant Bennett, are good friends. Watch the interviews with them here. Bookmark the CSBC website (https://csbc.com) to follow CSBC news.
CSBC is part of the bigger Southern Baptist Convention (https://www.sbc.net/) family, the largest Protestant denomination in the USA. Because of the size of its mission boards and the seminaries, SBC has an outsized influence on evangelical Christianity beyond its member churches. Follow the news from various SBC ministries on Baptist Press (https://www.baptistpress.com/).
Crosspoint San Leandro has the distinct advantage of locating very near the new Gateway Seminary Bay Area Campus at 1221 Pacific Ave, San Leandro. We expect many cooperative opportunities in the years to come.
We should also mention that the Gateway BAC campus is hosted in a building owned by the Bridges Bay Area association (https://bridgesbayarea.com/), where Port Wilburn serves the Director of Mission. On the other hand, CBSC is in the process of moving its office into the Gateway Seminary main campus building in Ontario, CA. Sharing facilities are good examples of how as Baptists we can closely work together. We are better together!
SBC is a big family. It takes some time to understand. A good introduction, Navigating the SBC, can be found here. The Chinese translation of that article can be read here as a PDF.
在本期的工具箱中想介紹一些作為美南浸信會教會所能獲得的資源。
當我們想到匯點和加州其他教會所面對的迫切需求時，一個可能會想到的概念是「更新」 (renewal)。Tracy和半島基址當然需要重新裝備。但 Pleasanton 和 Milpitas堂也需要更新。但是應該如何發生更新？最新的 San Leandro 堂在這更新的努力中可以扮演什麼角色？
在 Dr. Jason Robertson的帶領下，加州美南浸信會 CSBC 的「教會事工團隊」(Church Matters Team) 一年多來一直與成員教會的教牧和聯會領袖磋商，以制定一個全面的教會更新策略。我也是這個團隊的一份子。耕耘的成果已經開始面世。請閱讀 Robertson 的這篇文章，第四部分的第一部分，「更新始於神的設計，而非我們的創造」，以瞭解其概況。並了解由 Robertson在此提出、並由 Dr. Scott Hill在此討論的「教會培育」(Church fostering) 概念。
雖然浸信會傾向於讓地方教會高度自治，但我們也意識到一起工作的好處。所以我們不但透過北加州華人浸信會區聯會(https://baptist.cc)和美加華人浸信會聯會(https://chinesebaptists.org)等機構與華人浸信會的弟兄姊妹合作，也與非華人浸信會的同工緊密合作。尤其是San Leandro準備推出我們的英文事工和崇拜，這是很重要的。合作的第一步是彼此認識。現任 CSBC 主席 Port Wilburn 和副主席 Grant Bennett 都是我們的好朋友。在此看看他們的訪談。也鼓勵將 CSBC 網站(https://csbc.com) 加入書籤，以跟進 CSBC 的新聞。
CSBC 隸屬於更大的美南浸信會(https://www.sbc.net/)，是美國最大的基督教宗派。由於其宣教部和神學院的規模，SBC 對其會員浸信會以外的福音派基督教也有很大的影響力。也請上 Baptist Press(https://www.baptistpress.com/) 跟進來自 SBC 各事工的新聞。
匯點 San Leandro 堂有一個優勢，是非常靠近位於 1221 Pacific Ave, San Leandro 的Gateway Seminary 灣區校園。我們預期未來幾年會有許多合作機會。
也應該提一提，Gateway灣區校園是設在 Bridges Bay Area Association(https://bridgesbayarea.com/) 所擁有的一棟大樓裡，Port Wilburn 在那裡擔任宣教主任。另一方面，CBSC 正在將辦公室遷入加州Ontario的 Gateway Seminary 主校大樓。共用設施是浸信會緊密合作的好例子。We are better together！
SBC 是一個需要一些時間來了解的大家庭。在這裡可以找到一篇很好的介紹文章：Navigating the SBC。這篇文章的中文譯本可以在這裡以PDF格式閱讀。
