largest Chinese churches in North America
March 31, 2007
Let’s see what we can learn from compiling this list of very large Chinese churches in the United States and Canada. To compare apples to apples, one way to measure church size is average weekend worship attendance including children, as leading megachurch researchers use this as a base line. And, what is called “megachurch” today is a church with over 2,000 in attendance on an average weekend.
List of very large Chinese churches in the USA and Canada:
- First Chinese Baptist Church of Los Angeles [~ 2000]
- Mandarin Baptist Church of Los Angeles [~ 1400?]
- First Chinese Baptist Church of Walnut (CA) [~ 1000?]
- Bread of Life Church (Torrance, CA) [~ 800?]
- San Jose Christian Alliance Church [~ 1000+]
- Chinese Bible Church of San Diego [~ 1600]
- Sunset Chinese Baptist Church (San Francisco, CA) [~ 1000]
- San Francisco Chinese Alliance Church (~700)
- Bay Area Chinese Bible Church (San Leandro and Alameda, CA) [~ 1,000]
- River of Life Christian Church (Santa Clara, CA) [???]
- Houston Chinese Church [~ 700]
- West Houston Chinese Church [~ 700]
- Fort Bend Community Church (Houston area) [~ 1200-1300]
- Dallas Chinese Bible Church (Richardson, TX) [~ 600?]
- Chinese Christian Union Church (Chicago, IL) [???]
- Boston Chinese Evangelical Church [~ 1350]
- Greater Boston Chinese Bible Church [???]
- Oversea Chinese Mission (New York City) [~ 2000?]
- Faith Bible Church (Flushing, NY) [~700; was described as “the ‘largest’ Chinese NYC church“]
- Rutgers Community Christian Church (Somerset, NJ) [~ 2200?]
- Vancouver Chinese Alliance Church (Canada) [~ 1700]
- Evangelical Chinese Bible Church (Vancouver area) [~ 1200]
- Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church [~ 1000]
- Richmond Hill Chinese Community Church (Toronto area) [~ 3300]
- Scarborough Chinese Baptist Church (Toronto area) [~ 1375]
Note that church size is not an indicator of anything other than size. This is not a competition. God uses churches of all sizes and styles to reach all kinds of people. By maintaining such a listing here is only a point of reference (and of research interest to some), because there are some things that are unique to running a megachurch, and there are some things that can be learned from churches like these.
I’ll do my best to keep this list updated. Please add a comment with new info, or email me at djchuang[at]L2foundation.org [Hat tip: this list was initially compiled with help from John Ng over at FCBC LA.]
[cf. also see the list of largest Korean churches in North America]
Find more like this: Chinese, L2 Blog, church, megachurch.
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April 1st, 2007
DJ, I’m not sure how accurate this is, but these are my guesses for the Houston chinese churches:
Fort Bend Community Church: ~1000
Houston Chinese Church: ~700
West Houston Chinese Church: ~700 (but now split into two campuses)
If someone wants to correct me, that’s fine!
Ben Pun, Youth Director at Chinese Baptist Church in Houston
April 6th, 2007
The three largest Chinese churches in Vancouver are:
Vancouver Chinese Alliance Church: ~1400, two campuses, according to a friend who is serving there
Evangelical Chinese Bible Church: ~1200, sanctuary holds 1200 and they have several services
Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church: 800-1000,
the church I attend
P.S. I listened to your interview with Pastor Jeff Wong regarding the OneLife rally; I’m a friend of his and I was also involved with it. If you want to hear more about it feel free to contact me.
April 28th, 2007
The largest Chinese church in San Diego is Chinese Bible Church of San Diego with ~1000 at its main campus. They also have 2 satellite campuses of ~400 and ~200.