More than 35 members of the Australian contingent to GAFCON gathered in Sydney to hear Archbishop Peter Jensen declare that the conference is about “facing new realities in the (Anglican) communion and turning them into gospel opportunities”.

The Sydney contingent met at St Andrew’s House to pray and prepare for the one-week gathering, which starts in Jerusalem on June 22.

The conference will be preceded by a meeting of the leadership team and bishops from majority-Muslim countries in Jordan.

Archbishop Jensen, the Bishop of North Sydney Glenn Davies and the Academic Dean of Moore College, Dr Mark Thompson will attend both meetings.

Dr Jensen has told the gathering of bishops, clergy and lay leaders that the conference would not spend much time on the issue of homosexuality.

He says that is not the point of GAFCON.

The Archbishop says that during the planning, the organisers stressed that the conference should concentrate on “the transformational nature of the gospel” and should “tell us that the gospel is at work in people’s lives”.

Members of the Sydney contingent told Sydneyanglicans.net that they were looking forward to fellowship with those who had made a stand under difficult circumstances.

For Karin Sowada, a Sydney Standing Committee member and by profession an archaeologist, it is not her first visit to the Middle East. But this time it will not be history, but contemporary testimonies she will be seeking.

“I’m sure there’ll be many stories of struggles, of martyrdom, of great perseverance under great trial. So for us, I think we’ll be greatly, in some ways chastised by those examples, chastised that we are not bold enough in our witness for Christ, that we don’t push the envelope hard enough and greatly encouraged by the struggles of all of our brothers and sisters in countries where gospel preaching is very difficult.”

One of the clergy contingent, the Rev Craig Roberts, Senior Minister at St Augustine’s, Neutral Bay says “the symbolism of meeting in Jerusalem is quite clear. We want to go back to where eternity intersected with time, where Jesus began his church on the cross and through the empty tomb - and what a great place to be reminded of what it is we stand for as Christians.”