Research shows hospital chaplains boost patients’ health. But without government funding this ministry may end.

The widespread excitement for the newly approved Mission was palpable in the sample of parish representatives Southern Cross approached. The focal point of Synod 2002 was the detailed plans flowing out of the Diocesan Mission Strategy.

For some people, ‘church planting' means travelling long distances and perhaps breaking brand new ground in a previously untouched community. But St Thomas', North Sydney demonstrates a different model.

Michelle Thomas has a theory about those fly-on-the-wall home invasion documentary-type shows. They make us feel good about ourselves.

Radical restructuring of Sydney Diocese will see resources utilised to back Mission Strategy.

Dean-elect Phillip Jensen has also been appointed Director of Training Ministry and Development - to recruit and train 11,000 new pastors. Full details are still being finalised but you can read the story so far here, and read the media release about his appointment as Dean here.

One of the six novels to be shortlisted for the 2002 Booker prize is Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters. The Indian-born author lives in Canada, but his writing is of his birthplace.

One of the growth markets in non-fiction has been the new genre of macro history. Histories of salt, the colour mauve and the Oxford English Dictionary have become bestsellers. Now Fermat's theorem, modern geology and the history of the calendar (my favourite, by David Ewing Duncan) are accessible to ordinary people.