Former Sydneysider the Rev Atsushi Shibaoka recently returned to the city he left 30 years ago to take up a new post as Senior Associate Minister at St James' Church, King Street.

Had I been born into a comparable socio-economic class in almost any other time in human civilisation, I would have kept slaves. I was repeatedly struck by such realisations as I read Christianity on Trial. It is an excellent reminder that those of whom we read in church history were real people, working hard to live out the gospel in their own culture.

Sitting on the best seller lists for the past six months, Holy Cow is undoubtedly Australia's best read ‘spiritual' book at present. This real life story is a thought-provoking and entertaining roller-coaster ride into the spiritual mindset of a growing section of Sydney's population.

This year more Sydney parishes took groups to Men's Convention, and many first-timers were among them

The Rev Bruce Dingwall, rector of Hoxton Park Anglican Church, says his church is a small one that in many ways can't afford to be planting new churches. Despite this, the church has taken a risk and launched a new service, aimed at the many young families within its parish.

The positive Christian witness provided by the Mardi Gras outreach at St Michael's, Surry Hills, took another step forward this year. St Michael's is the only church located along the Mardi Gras parade route, which takes place annually each March.

Tim was too scared to talk about the gospel until he saw its impact on Sydney’s homeless.

A S Byatt's passion for language and literature is borne out in all of her novels. Her best-known work, the Booker prize winner Possession, is a sort of literary detective story in which modern scholars delve into the love lives of two Victorian poets. The poets were Byatt's invention as were the reams of 19th Century style poetry layered throughout the novel. The technique of creating new worlds of literature within a novel has become something of a trademark for Antonia Byatt. But in A Whistling Woman she eschews the practice proffering instead only a slice of her fiction within fiction. A teaser.