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.

It is not right to set the New Testament against archaeology; or vice versa. The New Testament itself is archaeology.

Last month, ABC TV's Compass screened a controversial new documentary questioning the history of the Old Testament. But PAUL WILLIAMSON says It Ain't Necessarily So was a case of more style than substance.

Ministry plans are paralysed when church leaders ignore the mindset of their congregation