History of KIBC

In 1953, English work was started in Kowloon City Baptist Church on Stirling Road. This was primarily a Cantonese-speaking church whereby the congregation was made up of a few English-speaking members of the Stirling Road Baptist Church, missionaries' children and others. There were about 30-40 people in attendance every Sunday. Although several of the Chinese churches had English language ministries, it was felt that there was a need for a church that would focus on the English speakers of Hong Kong. Initially there was an effort to establish only one church for this special ministry. During this time English language work was divided into work on Hong Kong island and in Kowloon. In late 1957 a group of missionaries and others began thinking seriously about the establishment of an English language chapel in Kowloon.

In October 1957 an English language ministry was started in Kowloon by the Hong Kong Baptist Mission, and Kowloon Baptist Chapel was set up. The first meeting was held at Pui Ching School and J. Russell Killman was the preacher at this inaugural meeting. Killman served as the first pastor until March 1958. During this time several missionaries also shared the preaching responsibilities. The primary outreach at this initial stage was to missionaries and their children. In March 1958 R.W.Fuller became pastor of the chapel, and he served in this capacity until May 1959. In late 1958 Kowloon Baptist Chapel passed the motion that Hong Kong Baptist Church "become their sponsor in accepting membership of those who may present themselves in whatever way that the church accepts members" (motion by KBC). Hong Kong Baptist Church (now known as Hong Kong International Baptist Church) agreed to become the sponsor of KBC, and this was done to give the chapel legitimacy. Early on in the church's history, there were quite a number of joint endeavors with Hong Kong Baptist Church. Upon Pastor Fuller's resignation in 1959, KBC was without a pastor until August 1960, and during this interim period several missionaries preached and provided some leadership for the Chapel.

In September 1960 E.J.Tharpe arrived from Hawaii to become the new pastor of the Chapel. He and his wife Gertrude gave themselves unselfishly to the ministry of the Chapel and held a good number of activities in their home. This was a very productive time in the life of the Chapel, and there were many major accomplishments. In 1960, the Sunday School classes averaged 114 in weekly attendance and by September of the same year, the Chapel had 44 members. Towards the end of 1960, the Chapel voted to constitute as a church the following year.

Kowloon Baptist Chapel officially became Kowloon Baptist Church on January 8, 1961, with 39 charter members. The Church was not organized to duplicate English language services that were already being held in Hong Kong. It had a very distinctive purpose based on language. It was meant to serve the entire international, English-speaking community of any racial and ethnic background. It was also part of the then worldwide emphasis of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States, to begin English language churches in major cities around the world.

The Church, in the early years, served many British and Australian families who were in Hong Kong on business, in the military, or doing medical and government work. There were people from a wide variety of other nationalities who attended the Church, including a group of Burmese Karens, Americans, Nepalese and Russians. The approach to ministering and reaching out to this scattered multi-national population had, of necessity, to be multi-faceted. In October 1972 the first Filipino joined the Church. Since then Filipinos have played a very important part in the life of the Church and we have sought to reach out to the Filipino community through many different ministries and chapels.

In June 1994 the Church voted to incorporate and change the name to Kowloon International Baptist Church. It was felt that the change would be better for the Church since Hong Kong was to reunified with China in 1997. The long and tedious process was finally concluded on July 18, 1996 and KBC became KIBC.