We are more than two years into the Diocesan Mission and it is ‘so far so good’.
As I visit other churches, or hear what many parishes are doing around the Diocese, I am encouraged to see new congregations are regularly being planted, leadership groups are developing their strategic plans, there are more paid ministry positions available than trained people to fill them, Introducing God and similar courses are mushrooming, and Moore College is larger than ever.
We are well on track to seeing 10 per cent of the population in the region of the Diocese in Bible believing churches. Right? Well, actually … no! We are really only scratching the surface.
We must not let the encouraging ‘good news stories’ from around our Diocese fool us into believing that simply more of the same will see our dream become a reality in eight years time.
We only need to consider our recent history to see that. Despite our best efforts in the 1980s and 1990s, the cause of Christ continued to lose ground.
In the period 1991 to 2002 the number of people attending an Anglican church in Australia dropped by a staggering seven per cent. There are no more than 178,000 adults and children in all Anglican churches in Australia. 178,000 out of a population of about 20million – 0.89 per cent of the population – we are almost an irrelevancy!
In Sydney, it is a much better picture. About one third of Anglicans in Australia attend church in Sydney. In the same period, Sydney Anglican churches have increased by 11 per cent.
So, around Australia we have gone backwards by seven per cent, but in Sydney, we have gone forward 11 per cent. Imagine how bad the national figures would be if the Sydney figures were not included!
Looks good for Sydney. Right? Wrong!
We may have grown by 11 per cent between 1991-2002 but the population of Sydney has increased at about the same rate in those same years. In other words, even though we grew in that decade, we did not really make up any ground.
So is the Diocesan Mission all for nothing? Are we really only dreaming? No we are not, but major developments need to occur, and soon.
Bishop Paul Barnett suggested a way forward in a lecture he delivered in 2003, ‘Religious Freedom in Our Brave New World’: “the winning of Australian hearts and minds to Christian belief and commitment must be the challenge of the hour.
“Yet it is precisely here that we face major difficulty – inertia within the ranks of church members. We are content to continue in recurring ‘in house’ activities that have little external impact and which tend to exhaust the energy of the existing and frequently ageing members.
“Along with that, in common with our fellow Australians, we are pretty committed to the ‘good life’. In the past half-century in Australia and the western world more people have participated in more affluence than all the annals of world history. We never had it so good; but discipleship has not been our priority.”
Sobering words from Dr Barnett!

Our churches need to have a good look at themselves. It seems that we suffer from endemic internal problems. In addition to the ones Paul Barnett highlighted, I believe our other endemic problems or barriers to growth include: a fear that growth in numbers at church will ruin fellowship, materialism, a drought of entrepreneurial leaders, and an inability or unwillingness to address our limited socio-economic and ethno-specific image.
Do I think God can use us to see 10 per cent of the population saved? Yes. Can we reach 10 per cent of the population while carrying our endemic problems? I think not.
If you believe that even the new churches that we are planting carry the DNA of the mother churches then you will agree that the road through our endemic problem is not an easy one.
As we quite rightly focus outwards towards growth, may all our churches seek to change internally, especially where our ‘genetic make-up’ works against us in seeking the growth we desire for God’s glory.

The Rev Zac Veron is Senior Minister at the parish of St George North.