Rector of St Luke's, Miranda, the Rev Stephen Gibson says a new outreach strategy adopted at the parish's recent vestry meeting seeks to use members' interests - such as taekwondo - to "warm up' their neighbourhood for next year's Connect09 Scripture distribution.
The taekwondo club run by church member Matt Vale is one way the church is building friendships between Christians and non-Christians that can bear fruit for the gospel.
"Our plan is to offer Matt more intentional support so ultimately the martial arts students will hear the gospel and be integrated into church life," Mr Gibson said.
Thirty of Mr Vale's students, along with their families, attended St Luke's on June 14 for a taekwondo tournament.
Mr Vale said he created the club as a non-threatening place where Christians could make non-Christian friends. At present about two-thirds of the club are not churchgoers.
Eating in or home delivered?
It's a running joke in Miranda that the local Anglican church, St Luke's, looks like a Pizza Hut restaurant.
Squat and square with the iconic cone roof, the church looks like a 1970s refugee from the wrecking ball that has demolished most of the original restaurants.
Rector of St Luke's, the Rev Stephen Gibson, admits the likeness to the increasingly rare Pizza Hut restaurants is more than skin deep.
"Eating-in was big in the 70s. I remember that Mum and Dad would take me to Pizza Hut as a special treat. But the world has changed. And Pizza Hut has had to change the nature of their business to takeaway and home delivery. I think there is a real analogy there for our church.
"We have always focused on our "eat-in' church service. That's very important and I'm not saying that we need to stop doing that well. But we also have to be doing "home delivery' " taking the gospel to where the people are."
Like many parishes, St Luke's has long nurtured community connections through a host of ministries such as ESL classes, craft groups, court support, a playgroup and sport groups, as well as wedding and baptism contacts.
But back when Matt Vale was at youth group, he says his friends were mostly Christians, so he designed his martial arts club to welcome non-Christians.
"A lot of church ministries are more down the line of getting people to hear a talk. I was just thinking " how can I create an environment where Christian people are friends with non-Christians so they can invite them to stuff."
One of the Christian students, David Glendinning, 26, says the club breaks down people's stereotypes of Christians.
He echoes Mr Vale's claim that the club is a good connecting ground between churchgoers and non-believers. He says two-thirds of the students are non-Christians, and four have responded to invitations to church outreach events.
Recently Mr Vale also took two non-Christian students to run a demonstration at a local Baptist youth group. He says they sat through the Bible talk for the Chuck Norris-themed night.
Warming up the oven
So how does the parish see these pre-existing ministries as part of their new strategy?
Mr Gibson says "home delivery' means being more intentional about seeking connections with outsiders by building on the interests and professional contacts of church members such as Matt and his martial arts club.
He believes that underpinning these "outreach' activities with a comprehensive Scripture distribution will lead to more gospel opportunities than doing either option by themselves.
To extend the pizza metaphor, pre-evangelistic activities "warm up the oven' so people get to know Christians and then are ready to consume the gospel message.
"I believe churches usually have a spectrum of contacts from stone-cold to warm. Our aim is to make contacts warmer. Doorknocking is usually a cold contact. However I have found that by doing doorknocking in my own neighbourhood some people have already been warmed up to us through our activities " perhaps a nephew attends our youth group," he says.
"Actually in one street where I thought I knew no one, it turned out that I knew one father through soccer and I had conducted a funeral for another family" In a stable suburban area like this you have time, God willing, to move people along the spectrum."
Developing a coherent plan
Mr Gibson admits that they "got a head start' on other parishes after Archbishop Jensen ran a retreat for the men of the parish in May last year.
"He raised a lot of the issues that have now been formalised in Connect09," he said. "He told us the church was failing to connect with almost half of people who have no meaningful contact with Christians. That really fired the men up."
Amongst them was David Parkes, a business solutions consultant for a large bank who offered his planning skills to Mr Gibson.
His wife, Louise, an organisational psychologist who specialises in designing surveys, also applied her skills to obtain feedback from the congregation.
"What surprised you most about the feedback from the congregation," said Louise, "[was] the consistency of responses " most people agreed on what we were already doing well, and what were the most important things for us to be focusing on as a church."
After analysing the census data and the feedback, the parish leadership drew up an eight-point plan for the ministry. Top of the list was connecting with community.
"[Louise's] experience in knowing how to interpret the data was invaluable," said Mr Gibson.
A ginger group was formed to look at ways the church community could better support its members in outreach.
"It was obvious that we should be doing more to connect with outsiders " we knew that from the NCLS," says Mr Gibson.
"The great thing was that this was also what the congregation was telling us. It was worth doing the congregational survey for that result alone. There is now a great sense of ownership of the vision."
In the past month the ginger group has helped trial a number of initiatives to connect especially with groups that are under-represented in the church community.
One of the first was a workshop aimed especially at new mums who may feel isolated due to family circumstances (see test case story on previous page).
Will struggling mums connect to our church playgroup?
Over 30 mothers " nervous as they had "never stepped foot on church grounds before" " attended an event run by St Luke's, Miranda in May aimed at helping them cope with their newborns.
"Everyone we spoke to was like "This is great' and "Can we do it again?'," said event organiser Cathie Smithers, reflecting on overwhelmingly positive response.
The event was also a test case for the parish's new strategic plan which aims to create "warmer' community contacts in the lead-up to more intensive mission and Scripture distribution as part of Connect09.
Rector of St Luke's, Stephen Gibson, said the new mums' event proved the wisdom of the strategy. Three of the mums went on to join the playgroup as a result, and another has visited their church service.
On the day, the church provided child care while the women heard a talk on baby sign language.
"The objective of the morning was not specifically to "educate' the mothers, it was intended to be a relaxing morning where they could meet other mums and get a break from their kids."
Ms Smithers connected with the women through a non-church organisation called Sutherland Early Support Service (SESS) that aims to help stressed mums with young children.
SESS assists mothers referred to them by Sutherland Hospital, either because they have twins, are single parents, suffer from post-natal depression or are simply overwhelmed with the responsibilities of being a parent.
Initially Ms Smithers mailed out invitations to 30 women, but eventually she phoned each of the women personally.
She says the personal contact proved very beneficial as over half of the women invited came to the event.
The event was part of the church's effort to build up as many "ongoing and permanent relationships' as they can, in the lead-up to Connect09.
