by Joseph Smith

Going to school on a Sunday might seem like the furthest thing from a student’s mind, but ‘Christ Church @ the College’, the new church plant at Penrith Anglican College, is changing the way students and their parents view the school community.

It was over a year ago that the school’s energetic Headmaster, Barry Roots, and the two chaplains, the Rev Greg Lees and George Statheos began discussing the notion of starting a church at the college to target the parents who were not attending church anywhere else.

“We wanted to attract the unchurched families of the school, of whom there are many,” Mr Roots says. “We met, talked and prayed for months and developed a service that was Anglican, evangelistic, biblically based and which all three of us could feel comfortable with.”

After receiving the permission and blessing of Bishop of Western Sydney, Ivan Lee, the three men and their wives approached staff at the college who were already members of churches and asked them to pray about the idea of forming a core group for the new plant.

“We had three other families from the staff joining us and by God’s grace they came from three different churches, so we weren’t impacting any other church in the area in a large way,” Mr Lees says.

The new service went public on August 8, and has successfully welcomed non-Christian families into church life.

“We don’t assume people will know the Creed or the Lord’s Prayer or where books of the Bible are located,” Mr Roots said. “We don’t want people to feel uncomfortable.

“We are all not that old in the faith that we don’t remember the beginning of our Christian walks and the discomfort of being unfamiliar with the whole tradition. We are starting the tradition and they are part of the tradition. Families who said they have never been to church before are actually coming back,” he says.

Hazel Salmon had been out of church life for six months before attending Christ Church. “I was looking for a new church that would be encouraging, exciting and would teach the Bible clearly,” she says. “Knowing the two chaplains who’d be leading the church, I knew they were good at teaching the Bible. That’s why I went there. I know I’ll be asking friends of mine that aren’t already members of a church to come along.”

Penrith Anglican College teacher and church member, Jenny Stubbs, who formed part of the original core group, believes Christ Church has formed a good church community based around the school.

“We have a few mums and families come along who haven’t been to church in a while, or at all,” she says. “Because they’ve been to our chapel services and are used to coming here, they feel more comfortable in church here. It’s pretty laid back and there’s no great formality.”