Crossway Baptist Church is one of Australia’s largest Baptist churches and is located in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Regular attendance at Sunday services is over 3,900 people.
Contents
History
Crossway is regarded as a contemporary baptist church, with Bible-based preaching.
The church was founded by the Reverend J.H Newnham in 1954. Subsequent senior pastors were the Reverend George Ashworth, the Reverend David Griffiths, the Reverend Rowland Croucher and the Reverend Stuart Robinson.
Previously known as Blackburn Baptist, the church is now on its third site. It originally met in a small hall as a Sunday school class on the corner of Holland and Canterbury Roads in Blackburn South. The church then relocated to 19 Holland Road, Blackburn South (now the headquarters of the Evangelical Chinese Church Melbourne), following large-scale growth.
The church then relocated to its current position at 2 Vision Drive, Burwood East, in September 1995. Shortly after this relocation, the church changed its name to Crossway Baptist Church in order to reflect the congregation's regional nature. The church now enjoys a site of 15 acres (61,000 m2) in the centre of Melbourne's expansive eastern suburbs.
Robinson, a former missionary, founded the church at its current location and is now regarded as the founding pastor of Crossway. He has written three books including Mosques and Miracles, a book about Islam written from a Christian perspective and two books on prayer. Pastor Dale Stephenson, formerly from New Peninsula Baptist Church, replaced Stuart Robinson as senior pastor in February 2008. Stephenson leads a large team of approximately 65 staff and many hundreds of volunteers.
Present
Crossway has a large number of ministries for all ages, including a children's ministry called "Kidspace", a youth ministry called "Crossway Youth", a young adults ministry called "Vive" and ministries for the elderly with a "50+" service. It also has a wide range of community services, with a significant "Care" network and a large community care ministry (called "LifeCare") offering professional counselling services, financial education and a supported mentoring program. Crossway also runs several midweek programs, including the Mothers of Preschoolers Program through MOPS International.
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.