Eventually Iris Suhl moved from Marin County to El Cerrito to be near our meeting place, which was in El Cerrito at that time. She was helped by Glasco Ewing to start Love Is the Answer (LITA of Contra Costa), a continuing ministry of volunteers to visit people in nursing homes in Contra Costa County. Her burden for the poor also led her to start the Souper Center in Richmond that still provides lunch each day to needy people.
Over the years, the Bay Area has been served by mostly bi-vocational pastors, supported by many willing and capable lay leaders.
About Our Church
For more than 50 years the Bay Area Seventh Day Baptist Church has been a gathering for Sabbath-keeping Christians to worship, fellowship, and serve God. Though we are a Baptist church, believers of many denominations – or no denomination – have worshipped with us. Our members come from all over the San Francisco area to our current meeting place in Pinole.
Our Church through the Years
Meetings of Seventh Day Baptist were begun in the Bay Area around 1954-56 by the late Stanley Rasmussen, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and his wife Toni. Early attendees included Earl & Helen Johnson of San Francisco and the Ted Hibbard family. The church was formally organized in 1962.