1. 
   1
   Izaac
   

   wrote on 27 May 2009 at 9:55

   “To me, this pretty much sums up the prob­lems with the Syd­ney Angli­cans — so many churches in such a small geo­graph­i­cal space.”

   Nathan, I must dis­agree with your assess­ment of this “prob­lem”. (Remem­ber­ing I’m speak­ing from the per­spec­tive of some­one plan­ning to leave Syd­ney to serve the wider church)

   It’s a good prob­lem to have, isn’t it? As a mem­ber of one of these churches in the north­ern area of Syd­ney, we for­tu­nately con­tinue to have new peo­ple become Chris­t­ian and join our con­gre­ga­tions. We need to keep plant­ing new con­gre­ga­tions to deal with the growth and to reach new peo­ple. 12 of 13 of my church’s con­gre­ga­tions have either main­tained size or grown, with a num­ber now plan­ning to plant again. God will­ing there will soon be even more churches in the area. This is not a problem.

   Our church is cur­rently train­ing 10 min­istry appren­tices (and near­ing 70 trainees over the last 20 years). Most of these are or will be serv­ing out­side the north­ern area of Syd­ney. Most of our over­seas min­istry part­ners are home grown. Many peo­ple are serv­ing in coun­try churches as well-trained and the­o­log­i­cally sound ser­vants. Trained peo­ple are being sent out from this peo­ple rich area.

   My thoughts are that the answer is bal­ance. It would be bad strat­egy (humanly speak­ing) to encour­age the larger per­cent­age of Christian’s in these area’s to move into the rest of the coun­try for the sake of the gospel. We would poten­tially lose the abil­ity to send out as many as we cur­rently do. There is strength in hav­ing strong areas. Yet the bal­ance is we must ensure that there are still peo­ple going, enough being sent out. If not, we are being self­ish and not think­ing of the wider body.

   All those in peo­ple weak areas will always feel enough are not being sent, how­ever the answer isn’t to spread our­selves thin every­where. Rather to keep our strengths strong and use them to serve the wider world.

   Agree? Dis­agree? Have I read too much into your brief comments?

   
   
2. 
   2
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 27 May 2009 at 10:19

   I’m speak­ing from the per­spec­tive of some­one who has spent the last 20 years out­side of Sydney.

   Townsville has a pop­u­la­tion of 170,000 and arguably two churches teach­ing the bible from an evan­gel­i­cal per­spec­tive.
   Bris­bane has an approx­i­mate pop­u­la­tion of 3 mil­lion — and arguably 10 churches teach­ing the bible from an evan­gel­i­cal per­spec­tive.
   Queens­land has a pop­u­la­tion of 4.8 mil­lion (or there­abouts) and arguably 20 churches teach­ing the bible from an evan­gel­i­cal perspective.

   Is there no rea­son that half of these parishes could not be merged and the work­ers sent to areas with no cur­rent min­istry? Hav­ing a church with 10 min­istry appren­tices is fan­tas­tic — and 70 over the last 20 years also great — how many have gone from “out­side the north­ern area of Syd­ney” to out­side of Syd­ney? How many have gone cross cul­tural rather than else­where in Aus­tralia — it’s like the SydAng posi­tion is to send peo­ple to the extreme dis­com­fort of cross cul­tural min­istry or the rel­a­tive com­fort of Syd­ney min­istry but nowhere in between.

   Spread­ing thin is one thing — over con­cen­tra­tion is the other extreme — I don’t think halv­ing the num­ber of parishes in Syd­ney would dilute the pres­ence too much.

   
   
3. 
   3
   Izaac Cowling
   

   wrote on 27 May 2009 at 13:18

   The dif­fi­culty is of course, that we are talk­ing about peo­ple, rather than just num­bers. It’s easy to say, send half to Queens­land, how­ever it’s the relo­ca­tion of peo­ple, the split­ting of fam­i­lies, los­ing employ­ment and is great in the­ory, dif­fi­cult in prac­tice. Do we just need min­is­ters or tent­mak­ers? Per­haps some kind of major per­se­cu­tion a la Acts 8:4(ish) would get things moving?

   A quick glance down the St Pauls MTS where are they now shows about the same num­ber of ex MTSers are min­is­ters in Syd­ney as serv­ing else­where in Aus­tralia, with a hand­ful over­seas. So the mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of min­istry through MTS strength­ens not just Syd­ney but many parts of Aus­tralia. I would put it to you we actu­ally need more full­time gospel work­ers in Syd­ney, rather than less. That said, we prob­a­bly still need more that in Bris­bane but again the answer does not lie in relo­ca­tion but long term increases in gospel work­ers. Mind you, 10 good churches in Bris­bane is a good start. If they are each able to train 1 appren­tice a year, in 6 years time (2 appren­tice­ship + 4 yrs col­lege) they could have 20 min­is­ters teach­ing the Bible and train­ing 1 appren­tice a year, then six years after that they could have 80 min­is­ters (if my maths works out that’s another 50 out of the orig­i­nal 10, plus the orig­i­nal 10 train­ing another 10, plus the first lot out of col­lege train­ing 10). The idea of MTS is that under God it should increase expo­nen­tially as peo­ple catch the vision of training.

   Another prob­lem comes out of the terms you are using. As soon as you start say­ing “Syd­ney Angli­cans” rather than “evan­gel­i­cals in Syd­ney” you hit a bar­rier, which is that they can’t offi­cially plant in other parishes. And with the Angli­can sys­tem there are dif­fi­cul­ties in gain­ing employ­ment within Angli­can churches. How­ever, like-minded peo­ple have been (in some cases renounc­ing their Angli­can­ism) start­ing up inde­pen­dent evan­gel­i­cal churches e.g. Orange, Bathurst, Mait­land, Cen­tral Coast, and more.

   All churches need to be repli­cat­ing them­selves so that the gospel will be handed down through­out gen­er­a­tions should Jesus tarry longer. How many home grown gospel work­ers are being raised in strug­gling areas?

   
   
4. 
   4
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 27 May 2009 at 13:40

   Cor­rect me if I’m wrong — but the arti­cle in ques­tion is only mark­ing SydAng churches on the map… isn’t it?

   “How many home grown gospel work­ers are being raised in strug­gling areas?”

   That’s kind of my point — gospel work­ers are in my mind — the prod­uct of a focused effort on train­ing and rais­ing them, if nobody is sent out to strug­gling areas there’ll never be any train­ing and raising.

   I’d be inter­ested in a stat look­ing at the per­cent­age of Moore grad­u­ates who end up out­side of Syd­ney, out­side of NSW and out­side of Australia…

   The fact that Maclean is still vacant is a prime exam­ple of the prob­lem — how many of those 70 Car­ling­ford trainees from the past 20 years would be suit­able for Maclean, and how many would con­sider it?

   
   
5. 
   5
   Izaac Cowling
   

   wrote on 27 May 2009 at 16:39

   Okay, so I’m stray­ing slightly from the orig­i­nal post. How­ever, our con­ver­sa­tion has firmly revealed your intent in dis­play­ing the post in the first place.

   I’m all for strength­en­ing the coun­try church. I really dis­like stay­ing in Syd­ney. How­ever, I have become con­vinced that part of the solu­tion of car­ing for the coun­try cousins is main­tain­ing the strength of Sydney.

   The empti­ness of the post in Maclean is highly prob­lem­atic. But part of the prob­lem with Maclean is that it’s Pres­by­ter­ian. And while there are a num­ber of Pressie churches in Syd­ney that are firmly Bible based, they don’t have the num­bers of trainees com­ing out like the Angli­cans. So as well as mov­ing to the coun­try the major­ity of min­istry trainees need to change denom­i­na­tion. Another hur­dle! Inter­est­ingly, last years MTS grads from my church (1 (prob­a­bly) to coun­try NSW Pres­by­ter­ian, 1 Armi­dale Angli­can, 1 to Spain, 3 Syd­ney candidates).

   But in one sense Maclean is a great exam­ple of train­ing up the locals. A great group of elders who are steer­ing the ship in the interim. Not to men­tion those of our gen­er­a­tion now going into min­istry in part due to the great teach­ing we received (and those who in turn taught us being well taught.) Maclean does need some­one with some drive to come in, preach the gospel and knock down a wall or two so more peo­ple can fit in. I pray this will hap­pen soon.

   But it’s hardly sur­pris­ing that the train­ing col­lege for the Angli­can dio­cese in Syd­ney pro­duces pre­dom­i­nantly Syd­ney Angli­can min­is­ters. That said, there is not a com­plete lack of indi­vid­u­als mov­ing to serve out­side of Sydney.

   Again my point is that long term, the solu­tion to a short­age of Pres­by­ter­ian min­is­ters is the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion need to look first to their own back­yard. Which thank­fully, is hap­pen­ing! Would a boost of Angli­cans help? Def­i­nitely. But is also unsus­tain­able in the long term.

   Final thoughts: I hope to leave Syd­ney to serve in a church (pos­si­bly Pres­by­ter­ian). How­ever, should an oppor­tu­nity like uni­ver­sity min­istry in Syd­ney arise where I have the poten­tial to raise up many young men to take the gospel out, I would not con­sider that a fail­ure to serve the coun­try church. Instead of sell­ing out I think it’s a strate­gic way of cap­tur­ing those young men keen to serve Jesus and enable more of them to ‘go’.

   The bal­ance is that some­one needs to go. My inter­pre­ta­tion: It’s hap­pen­ing. Your inter­pre­ta­tion: It’s not hap­pen­ing enough.

   Dare I sug­gest we’re both right?

   
   
6. 
   6
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 27 May 2009 at 16:52

   If Moore is only mar­ket­ing itself as “the train­ing col­lege for the Angli­can Dio­cese in Syd­ney” then it should stop accept­ing stu­dents from out­side that demo­graphic, it doesn’t and it won’t. So I sug­gest the prob­lem is that the lead­ing evan­gel­i­cal train­ing facil­ity in Aus­tralia should look fur­ther afield than Syd­ney, in an inten­tional way.

   I don’t think Syd­ney is in any dan­ger. Half the churches could close and it would still be an evan­gel­i­cal pow­er­house. I think “main­tain­ing the strength of Syd­ney” is what peo­ple (not you) say when they don’t want to move away from friends and fam­ily for the sake of the gospel.

   While we will never really have enough har­vesters — in that the har­vest will always out­num­ber har­vesters — the idea that we need one more bible guy in Syd­ney where there are lit­er­ally hun­dreds more than we need them in say Bris­bane where there are lit­er­ally tens just doesn’t com­pute for me.

   
   
7. 
   7
   Izaac
   

   wrote on 28 May 2009 at 22:34

   A mutual friend has put it to me that you need not look any fur­ther than your own father to dis­cover your posi­tion is untenable.

   
   
8. 
   8
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 28 May 2009 at 22:38

   How so? He’s from Inverell, did not stay in Syd­ney, and until recently was involved as chair­man of a col­lege in Brisbane.

   I won’t sug­gest he didn’t ben­e­fit from the strength of Sydney’s evan­gel­i­cal cul­ture — but his leav­ing did not cause a cul­tural col­lapse — there should be more like him pre­pared to leave the com­fort of Syd­ney for places where evan­gel­i­cal the­ol­ogy is a scarce com­mod­ity — it’s basic eco­nom­ics. There’s an over­sup­ply in Syd­ney and it’s hurt­ing every other market.

   
   
9. 
   9
   Izaac Cowling
   

   wrote on 29 May 2009 at 9:31

   Per­haps the eco­nomic model isn’t the best anal­ogy for the spread of Chris­tian­ity. Surely the wise eco­nomic deci­sion on under­per­form­ing branches is clo­sure. There seems to be a strong incli­na­tion towards cen­tral­is­ing busi­nesses. For­tu­nately God cares for peo­ple, so wher­ever there are peo­ple we need Christian’s there telling them about Jesus. I main­tain we are both see­ing the same prob­lem with dif­fer­ent solu­tions. I see with exam­ples such as with your dad (so I’m told), that he and other like-minded peo­ple ben­e­fit­ted greatly from Syd­ney evan­gel­i­cals and went into the rest of the coun­try. He was in God’s pro­vi­sion a prod­uct of Sydney’s strength — it’s basic gen­eros­ity. St Matthias is con­stantly crit­i­cised for being so big. Nev­er­mind the 500‑1000 (I’m informed) trained gospel work­ers who have gone out from there all over Aus­tralia and the world, not to men­tion the thou­sands of unpaid ones. Would it really have been best for the coun­try if we’d halved their min­istry team 30 years ago?

   Your state­ment “There’s an over­sup­ply in Syd­ney and it’s hurt­ing every other mar­ket.” is ill-informed and does not accu­rately reflect reality.

   The other thing is, our dis­cus­sion is pri­mar­ily of periph­eral issues. Human strat­egy is impor­tant and effec­tive, but is sec­ondary to God doing a great work in his peo­ple. P.S. I’ll be lob­by­ing at Moore (read: if accepted) for many peo­ple to join me in leav­ing Sydney.

   
   
10. 
    10
    Nathan
    

    wrote on 29 May 2009 at 9:52

    “Your state­ment “There’s an over­sup­ply in Syd­ney and it’s hurt­ing every other mar­ket.” is ill-informed and does not accu­rately reflect real­ity.“
    Rub­bish — I gave my exam­ples of under­sup­ply in places I have lived — not to men­tion the thou­sands of places around Aus­tralia that I haven’t.

    While I hate to ref­er­ence Mars Hill in this debate — it seems to be doing ok cater­ing to a city of 3.8 mil­lion by itself (and I hate to men­tion it because I am ill informed about other evan­gel­i­cal churches in the city)…

    I’ve got to ques­tion who’s giv­ing you insight on my dad’s sit­u­a­tion? I would not call him a prod­uct of Syd­ney but a prod­uct of a faith­ful fam­ily who hap­pened to ben­e­fit from the strength of Sydney’s Chris­t­ian scene by nature of being located there for uni­ver­sity and for his early career, and for bible col­lege. But I may be wrong.

    How many full time Chris­t­ian work­ers are employed by the Angli­can church in Syd­ney? Assum­ing that the major­ity of those work­ers are evan­gel­i­cally minded and the­o­log­i­cally ortho­dox? I would sug­gest that there are more peo­ple in those cat­e­gories in Syd­ney than in the rest of Aus­tralia — dis­pro­por­tion­ately so. The Syd­ney dio­cese mis­sion has always been Sydney-centric.

    What’s wrong with merg­ing “under­per­form­ing branches” and send­ing the human sur­plus to areas of need? I would sug­gest that at that point the business/economic model is exactly the anal­ogy we should be using in terms of the spread of Chris­tian­ity. It’s exactly the lan­guage Jesus uses (though he dis­guises it as agribusi­ness). I would sug­gest a har­vest cov­er­ing as much geo­graph­i­cal space as pos­si­ble is likely to bear more fruit than a har­vest in a con­cen­trated area — but that may be extend­ing the anal­ogy too far.

    I agree that Syd­ney has sent many peo­ple out — I just don’t think they’ve sent enough. I guess that’s what “the work­ers are few” means. But I would think hav­ing a 7–11 approach to church plant­ing — with church on every cor­ner (or in every sub­urb) — is ridicu­lous. It doesn’t make sense on a church per capita or church per kilo­me­tre squared basis. I don’t think it makes sense on a cul­tural basis either in many cases — unless the cul­ture of all of these indi­vid­ual sub­urbs are vastly dif­fer­ent to their neigh­bours (which is possible).

    Again, I under­stand that you — and oth­ers — are com­mit­ted to the idea of going out­side of Syd­ney, but I’m not sure that you can attribute that inten­tion to the min­istry you received in Syd­ney. I would sug­gest — based on your ear­lier com­ment — that your upbring­ing in a strong regional church, and your coun­try back­ground (and that of your wife) would play sig­nif­i­cant roles. Do you beg to differ?

    “Human strat­egy is impor­tant and effec­tive, but is sec­ondary to God doing a great work in his people. ”

    Agreed — but again I come back to the har­vest metaphor — God’s inten­tion is that the great work hap­pens through the work of his peo­ple, and I argue that it’s strate­gi­cally wrong for the work to be con­cen­trated, in such a way, in one city. You’ve got a 5th of the nation’s pop­u­la­tion and more than half (at a rough gues­ti­mate) of the nation’s evan­gel­i­cal ministries/ministers.

    
    

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