By Joseph Smith

Craig Blacket says he has encountered many difficulties in making his vision for TAFE ministry a reality.  “Our Anglican middle class culture likes things neat and balanced, but God’s not like that. God loves to lead the charge from the front.”
Mr Blacket is the chaplain of Campus and Community church, which has met at Nirimba TAFE campus on Sunday mornings for almost 12 months, and has grown from a group of six to around 20. With only six TAFEs currently serviced by ‘The Bible Workshop @ TAFE’, Craig says there is a great need for ministry assistance.
After growing up in Mittagong, Mr Blacket studied at the University of NSW. “My friends were all tradesmen and miners – real working class stock. Having experienced the university ministry model that helped me through my conversion, I knew TAFE was the place to reach these people. That’s where all my mates went,” he says.
While completing his Town Planning thesis in 1988, Mr Blacket began considering what would later become ‘The Bible Workshop @ TAFE’. “I thought ‘crikey, someone must have done this already because it’s so obvious’. I called out to my wife Robyn, who I had been married to for eight months and said ‘Guess what we’re doing for the rest of our lives? TAFE!’”
Although Sydney Diocese has always done well with its University ministry, Mr Blacket believes it has struggled to reach the people who traditionally attend TAFE. “Uni students are the future gatekeepers of society. Well, TAFE students are the arms and legs of society.”
“We need [someone like] Craig who can get in there and understand the system to work out how to create ministry patterns that will work within that structure,” says the Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen.
“Charles Simeon did that for us in the universities in the 18th century. Craig is doing it now in the TAFEs. If he can show us the way forward, we’ll have a terrific win,” he says.
The strategies needed to reach TAFE students are different to university ministry, according to Mr Blacket. “The existing model we have is based on the Cambridge Residential model, which works at Sydney and UNSW where there’s a high residential population on site. But for TAFE, we have small residential components on campus,” he says.
“TAFE campuses collect the demographic we can’t otherwise reach. We have to connect the people I collect at TAFE to local churches. That’s what the diocesan mission is all about,” he says.
“We have 40 TAFE campuses spread throughout the diocese over 30 deaneries. The way to reach them is with inter-church partnership. TAFE is a commuter based campus culture, so you can’t have a daytime-confined campus ministry. It won’t work. Your off-campus ministry has to be as important as your on-campus contact ministry. That’s why the local inter-church partnership is indispensable,” he says. “Churches can support the ministry in three ways – personally by sending an MTS worker, financially, according to their resources, or prayerfully.”
Rector of St Alban’s, Rooty Hill, Ray Galea, meets with Mr Blacket weekly to discuss and support the ministry. “Our MTS worker, Jim Mobbs, and congregation member Bruce McKay spend several days a week assisting at Nirimba Campus.”
Woodville Road Assistant Minister, Jim Crosweller, is encouraged by the initiative. “They generate the contacts which we can follow up.”

In Craig Blacket’s vision for The Bible Workshop other organisations are also in his sights. “I’d like to bring this under the Youthworks banner. We need to resource a diocesan director for TAFE ministry who can set up the thirty TAFE deanery workers, and their inter-church campus teams. I’d like to see Youthworks TAFE advisors and I’d like to put our training ministry under the Youthworks College banner.”
“I’ve also spoken to John Menear about what I call CMS MTS. I say ‘don’t get on the plane ‘til you get on the train’.”
“When people ask how to prepare to be a missionary I tell them they need to develop their ministry gifts with a solid cross-cultural dimension,” says General Secretary of CMS NSW, John Menear. “For that reason, CMS highly values the experience that people gain from campus ministries at universities and TAFE colleges where such diversity is fundamental.”
Mr Blacket is committed to seeing TAFE ministry carried on throughout his lifetime and growing in the years beyond. “My vision is that my pall bearers will be the people who see the fruits of the ministry in a large way.”
Craig needs three staff workers: a women’s worker, a children’s worker and an SRE teacher. Contact 0409 607 088 or c.blacket@uws.edu.au” />