ABOUT US

WHAT WE BELIEVE...

Our Vision...

Our San Leandro Community Church community envisions itself growing both internally and in our outreach to the neighborhood and the larger community:

We see ourselves growing in numbers and in diversity.

We envision our church being used more fully for outreach to children and youth, the elderly singles, and gays and lesbians, through-Social and fellowship events
    -Educational programs for all ages
    -Innovative worship
    -Expanded music experiences

We are committed to growing in our denominational identity.

We are committed to growing in our identity as a welcoming and affirming church.

We are committed to a continuing willingness to be creative and to try new things.

Our Mission...

San Leandro Community Church is a community of people united by a common bond of love for God and each other who worship God in our daily lives as we are being informed and transformed by the life and teachings of Christ. We seek to be a caring, welcoming, affirming, and friendly people. We believe that God's love embraces all. We hold as our strengths openness, faithfulness, spirituality, loyalty, diversity, perseverance, energy, and inclusiveness. We are committed to reaching out and taking a stand on behalf of the oppressed and those in need in our community and the larger world.

Our Social Commitment...

San Leandro Community Church affirms that providing strength for the oppressed and encouragement for the disenfranchised are fundamental to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Through corporate and individual efforts, SLCC actively supports projects for the hungry and the homeless.  We support the liberation of all the oppressed.  We affirm women in professional ministry.  We welcome people from a wide variety of lifestyles.  As a member of both the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists and the United Church of Christ's Open and Affirming congregations, we celebrate the gifts of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons and welcome them as full participants in our fellowship.  Believing that God's grace and redemptive love embraces all, we endeavor to be reconcilers in the world.  SLCC emphasizes the role of education in the church, integrating both educational and spiritual growth with the Christian experience.  We are committed to being a "teaching church" by cooperating with local seminaries to provide an arena of learning for future pastors.

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OUR HISTORY...

San Leandro Community Church (SLCC) is the successor of the Bancroft Avenue Baptist Church (BABC).  BABC was founded in 1945 in San Leandro , and moved to the present site and built the building that SLCC now occupies.  The Church had rapid growth during the 1950’s and 1960’s as most Protestant churches did.  The following years brought low membership and declining growth reflecting what most church were experiencing.

There were a number of pastoral changes during the 1980’s, until Rev. S. Kay Wellington was called to the Church in 1989. 

The membership had been fairly static.  During the Lenten season of 1991 and with meetings and study, a new Vision was developed, and the decision was made to close the old Church, and start a new Church.  The new Church would have a vision for this church to be an inclusive Church, where all could worship and feel welcomed.  Our focus was to capture the attention of un-churched folk.  This includes people of all colors and ethnic backgrounds as well as folk from the gay community and people in general who want a safe place to worship.

We closed the old church in 1992, and after 6 months reopened the new San Leandro Community Church .  We have become an integrated church, with many races in our membership, including White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and others.  We are multigenerational, with programs for all.

San Leandro Community Church began a new phase and direction is its life when, after 14 years of faithful service, our fearless leader, Kay, began to feel God calling her to a new challenge, interim ministry.

So in 2003 we began a search for our own interim to help prepare us for the leader that God would be calling for us.  After much searching and prayer and discernment, our interim search committee presented Yolanda Moreno as their chosen candidate. 

Their choice was reaffirmed repeatedly as Yolanda blessed us with her warmth, her ability to cut to the heart of matters, her musical skills, her sermons, and her creativity in worship. 

Our members have worked hard, reexamined our purpose and vision, and with the help of lots of time, and interviews created a profile of who we are as a congregation.  In early 2005, we finally felt we were ready to begin the important process of finding our new pastor.  We organized a search committee, put the word out, and in no time the candidates came pouring in.

After lots of reading, lots of interviews, lots of prayer, and LOTS of meetings, our search committee presented their final candidate, LeAnn Blackert, to the church  and held a get to know you BBQ on Saturday, September 24, 2005.  After delivering her sermon on Sunday, September 25, she and her partner, Ivy were led outside the sanctuary while the congregation got down to the business of voting.  After a moment of counting, it quickly became apparent that the vote was unanimous and LeAnn and Ivy were led back into the sanctuary to the sound of cheers and much clapping.

After almost two years of preparing us for a new pastor,  Yolanda ended her interim with us on October 31, 2005.  We held a celebration with lots of laughter, stories, presents, and quite a few tears.  It's hard to let friends go, (especially when they do a liturgical dance to the song "Friends") but we each had new adventures to undertake.

Our new adventure began on November 15, 2005 as LeAnn officially started her pastorate at SLCC.  Stepping right up to the challenge, she began preparing for the Advent season.  Planning, prepping, and diving right into the community, LeAnn quickly became part of our family and continued to guide us until she decided to move to Canada to be with her partner in 2009.

On October 1st, 2009 Rev. Valerie Duecker joined us as Interim Pastor. She brings many gifts and skills which will help us on our journey. For more about Pastor Valerie click here.

We are dreaming of our future, praying for God's guidance, and finding continued joy in our journey.  We don't know yet where we are being led, but God has given us a leader in whom we can trust-we have a feeling that ours will be quite the adventure.  Stay tuned or better yet, come join us as we grow, mature, and BE all that God has created us to be.