Crossway Baptist Church

Crossway Baptist Church (previously Blackburn Baptist Church) is one of Australia’s largest Baptist churches[1] and is located in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Overall attendance for 2016 was 6,675 (measured by average weekly physical and online attendance of all events including year-on-year inclusion of Easter and Christmas period attendances).[2] Crossway provides a wide range of religious activities and community support services throughout the week.

Crossway Baptist Church
Location2 Vision Drive, Burwood East, Victoria, Australia
CountryAustralia
DenominationBaptist
Websitewww.crossway.org.au
History
Former name(s)Blackburn Baptist Church
Associated peopleRowland Croucher (former pastor)

History

The church was founded by the Reverend J.H Newnham in 1954 as Blackburn Baptist Church.[3]

It originally met in a small hall as a Sunday school class on the corner of Holland and Canterbury Roads in Blackburn South.[3] The church then relocated to 19 Holland Road, Blackburn South (now the headquarters of the Evangelical Chinese Church Melbourne), and later moved in September 1995 to the current location, 2 Vision Drive, Burwood East after which it changed its name to Crossway Baptist Church. The church current Burwood East site is 15 acres (61,000 m2).

Crossway has planted daughter churches in Craigieburn, Cranbourne, Moreland and Stonnington as well as a number of other smaller experimental church plants. Crossway also has language-based congregations with Mandarin, Cantonese, Indonesian and Korean services.

Since 2006, Crossway has also co-organised "Unite" - a creative arts conference featuring Australian musicians such as Roma Waterman and Michael Paynter. The conference is organised together with Gateway Church, Careforce Church and Christian City Church Whitehorse.[4]

Services

Crossway has nine congregations that hold services in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Indonesian languages. It also holds an online campus that holds multiple services each week.[5]

People

Senior Pastors:

  • George Ashworth
  • David Griffiths
  • Rowland Croucher
  • Stuart Robinson
  • Dale Stephenson[6][7] (current from February 2008)

References
  1. Barney Zwartz, (17 July 2004), Counting our blessings: faith’s demographics. The Age
  2. "Crossway Baptist Church 2016 Annual Report" (PDF). Crossway Baptist Church. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  3. "New Church at Blackburn". The Age (30876). Victoria, Australia. 17 April 1954. p. 8. Retrieved 8 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. http://www.acctv.com.au/articledetail.asp?id=5839%5B%5D
  5. "Locations And Service Times - Crossway: Loving God, Loving People, Disciples That Multiply". www.crossway.org.au. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  6. Gary Tippet, (4 April 2010), Peace be with you, from the lion and the lamb, The Age
  7. Barney Zwartz, (4 February 2008), Message comes full circle for atheist turned pastor, The Age
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