A Bilingual Home in Chinatown

First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco sits at 15 Waverly Place, just off Sacramento Street in the heart of Chinatown. For more than 145 years this corner of the city has been a gathering place for generations of Chinese-American Christians and the wider neighborhood. The congregation describes itself as multigenerational, bilingual and bicultural, called "to be a people so transformed by God's gracious love in Jesus Christ that we joyfully commit ourselves in worship, witness, discipleship, and ministry." In Chinese, the same mission reads, "三藩市第一華人浸信會是一所雙語、雙文化和由不同年紀的人所組成的教會."

Worship, classes and fellowship all run through both English and Cantonese, with Mandarin used in printed and online materials. Members, newcomers and visitors move between the two languages week by week, and the church's current theme, "Gathering at God's Table" (共聚主桌前), captures the shared meal at the center of its life.

145 Years on Waverly Place

The church has marked 145 years of continuous ministry, a history preserved in a building that was rebuilt, retrofitted for earthquakes and is now in the middle of a major window replacement project. Most of the church's exterior windows are the originals installed after the 1906 earthquake destroyed much of Chinatown. They are still single pane, non-insulating and non-safety glass, and the frames have rotted beyond repair.

The Board of Trustees developed a proposal to replace all exterior windows to meet city codes, and a contract was signed with Buhler Construction to begin work. The full project cost is $685,000, with $235,000 already designated from endowment funds and $450,000 still to be raised. The church frames the project as the next chapter in a long story of caring for a building that, in their words, "serves as a witness of God's everlasting love, providing safety, shelter, and warmth to all who enter." The work is offered as the same kind of stewardship as earlier earthquake retrofits, a way of safeguarding the building for the next generation while the congregation looks out into a neighborhood that still needs the light of Jesus.

Two Sunday Services, Two Languages

Sunday at FCBC runs from morning into early afternoon with two distinct worship services.

Cantonese Worship (粵語崇拜) meets at 10:00 AM in the sanctuary. It is the historical heart of the congregation and is led primarily by Pastor Sam Leung with a rotation of Cantonese-speaking preachers. The service is held in person and is also livestreamed on YouTube, with weekly bulletins (週刊) posted online.

English Worship meets at 11:30 AM in person and is simultaneously broadcast on Zoom and YouTube. The preaching team includes Senior Pastor Sebastian Ong, Associate Pastor Chris Otani, Next Gen Pastor Nate Lee and guests from across the wider American Baptist family. From time to time the English service joins the Cantonese congregation on Pledge Sundays and other bilingual celebrations, and joint services are held on special Sundays.

Both services include preaching, congregational singing, prayer and a children's moment. Online worship via Zoom and livestream continues alongside in-person attendance. Links to Zoom and YouTube services are distributed by emailing office@fcbc-sf.org.

Sunday School at Every Age

Christian education runs in parallel with the worship services, and three Sunday School tracks meet on Sunday morning.

The Gathering (主日共聚) is the English-speaking adult Sunday School, meeting at 10:00 AM on the fourth floor. Adults explore topics that are often challenging and controversial, working through Bible study and shared discussion. Archives of recent series are kept online.

Cantonese Adult Sunday School runs from 11:30 AM to 12:20 PM. Classes rotate through books of the Bible, with the fall term featuring Sarah teaching Matthew and Joseph teaching Proverbs at the Chinatown YMCA, alongside a Foundations class led by Deacon Yu in Room 403. Online participants join via Zoom after worship.

Nursery through 12th-grade Sunday School runs from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM, synchronized with the worship hour so that children and youth attend classes while parents are in the pews. A parent-completed Emergency Contact form is required for new families.

Camps, Retreats, and the Family Table

Camps and retreats are part of the church's rhythm across the year.

Day Camp is a summer program for children, directed by Madison Chou and Benji Jang, with adult coordinators Nathalie Yan and Ben Chau. Campers build friendships and grow in faith through games, crafts and Bible stories.

Youth Camp serves incoming seventh graders through high school graduates and is led by directors Terrence and Nathalie. The camp theme centers on what it means that Jesus has set people free.

Women's Retreat (姊妹退修會) gathers women eighteen and over for fellowship, recreation, Bible study and worship. Past themes have explored God's calling across a lifetime, with the retreat held at Vallombrosa Center in Menlo Park and led primarily in English.

Camp Ohana is the end-of-summer family retreat, held over Labor Day Weekend at Happy Valley Conference Center, with speaker Jason Kuo and the theme "Faith, Family and Technology." Registration opens in spring.

Cantonese Speaking Retreat is held each spring at Redwood Glen in Loma Mar, with Pastor Sam Leung and guest speakers teaching in Cantonese.

Senior Picnic is an outdoor gathering at Burlingame Parks & Recreation in early October, with good food and warm fellowship for older adults.

Men's Fellowship Retreat focuses on service projects, hikes, and repair and cleanup work.

Harvest Festival brings the church out onto Waverly Place between Sacramento and Clay Streets for an afternoon of free carnival games, activities, face painting and prizes for the surrounding Chinatown neighborhood.

Friday Night School and Outreach Beyond Chinatown

The Friday Night School (禮拜五英文夜校) is one of FCBC's longest-running outreach ministries. The school teaches English to adults from the surrounding community and, in the church's words, "demonstrates God's love" through patient cross-cultural teaching. Many students have come to faith through the program, including church administrator Wendi Lin, who arrived in the United States not speaking English and credits Friday Night School with opening the door to her own baptism.

Beyond Friday Night School, the church engages the wider city and world through several partnerships. The Lanna Coffee Project has run for twenty years, selling coffee to support the House of Love and the New Life Center, and is being celebrated in a special luncheon as it concludes.

Each fall the church sends a short-term mission team to Rainbow Acres Ranch in Camp Verde, Arizona, a Christian community that enables adults aged 18 to 84 with developmental disabilities to live in supportive relationships. Volunteers help with maintenance projects, eat meals with residents, and join them for prayer circles.

The El Salvador Medical Mission Trip is coordinated with Global Health Outreach, the short-term missions ministry of the Christian Medical and Dental Association. About forty volunteers, including members from FCBC and Community Baptist Church of San Mateo, take part in medical mission work in Santa Ana.

The Harvest Festival turns Waverly Place into an open-air block party each fall, with free food, games and prizes for the surrounding Chinatown community.

Beliefs of an American Baptist Congregation

FCBC is part of the American Baptist Churches USA, and the church's statement of faith is built around the ten defining characteristics of American Baptists.

The church confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and treats the Bible as the divinely inspired word of God and the final written authority for the Christian life. The local church is the fundamental unit of mission in denominational life. Two ordinances are observed: believer's Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

American Baptists believe that the committed individual Christian can and should approach God directly, and that individual gifts of ministry should be shared. They take seriously the call to evangelism and missionary work, support religious freedom and respect the expressions of faith of others, and acknowledge that God's family extends beyond any one local church.

The denomination has been called to be Christ's witnesses for justice and wholeness within a broken society, celebrates the racial, cultural and theological diversity of its members, and heeds the biblical call to renewal for a new millennium.

The Pastoral Team

Senior Pastor Rev. Sebastian Ong (翁之堯) has led the church since March 2018. An architect by training who worked in Hong Kong and Singapore, he entered ministry after earning his Master of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he received the Mary Long Greir-Hugh Davies Prize in Preaching. He previously served at Bowne Street Community Church in New York City and as Senior Pastor of a historic Chinatown congregation.

Pastor Sam Leung (梁澤銘博士) oversees Cantonese-speaking ministry. He spent twenty-five years in IT management consulting before completing studies at Logos Evangelical Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry in Strategic Leadership at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys badminton, biking, walking, science articles and mystery films.

Associate Pastor Rev. Chris Otani (大谷明美牧師) has served FCBC since 2019 in her current role. She first came to the church in 2000 as Minister of Christian Education and was ordained through American Baptist Churches USA during ten and a half years of service. Her interests include reading and games, and her dog Kairi is her constant companion.

Next Gen Pastor Nate Lee (李偉俊傳道) is a third-generation Chinese American who grew up in Daly City and attended FCBC's summer Day Camp before attending Yale Divinity School. He previously worked as a social worker in San Francisco and studied at Chung Chi College in Hong Kong, where he met his wife.

Community Outreach Coordinator Derek Chan (陳武麟傳道) oversees the church's community engagement and English-language outreach. A native of a small island in Hong Kong who came to faith at a youth day camp, he has been married to Olivia for more than thirty years and enjoys running, reading and Bay Area sports.

Joining the Table

Visitors who arrive for the first time can choose between the Cantonese worship at 10:00 AM and the English worship at 11:30 AM. Both services are held in person at 15 Waverly Place and broadcast live on Zoom and YouTube. Sunday School runs for every age at the same time.

The church also gathers weekly in more than a dozen small fellowships (團契). English-speaking fellowships include CAYAC for college and young adults on Thursday evenings, the bilingual Emmanuel Family Group for adults in their seventies, the Men's Fellowship, OYYA for adults in their seventies and beyond, Semanon for adults in their sixties and their families, the Senior Adult/Young Folks fellowship for adults in their eighties, Sojourners for adults in their sixties and their families, the Women's Fellowship, XO Fellowship for young adults, Xplorers for career adults and families in their forties, and Youth Talks for high schoolers on Friday evenings. Cantonese-speaking fellowships include the Agape Fellowship for families, the Christian Circle for adults, and the Joshua Fellowship for new immigrants, which gathers around the Friday and Sunday English classes.

Anyone wishing to be added to the directory, subscribe to the bimonthly newsletter, ask about giving or learn more can write to info@fcbc-sf.org or call the church office at (415) 857-3226. The office also handles requests for Zoom links, sanctuary reservations, and the weekly bulletin.