As the Mission enters its next phase Southern Cross asks Phillip Jensen for his assessment of its progress.

SC: What expectations do you think people have of the Mission?

Phillip Jensen: Some people have false expectations about the mission. For example, some people expect that we will instantaneously reap as soon as we sow. People thought that in the
first two years you would see massive growth. Under God it is possible, but under normal expectations it is not the way the world God has created operates. In the first few years
of the mission period we needed to look at four policies:

Policy 1. Prayerfulness, specifically for mission and the lost. Have we done this? I do not know. Should we? Absolutely, yes. Bishop Piper organised an ambitious program earlier this year,  which many churches participated in. Fundamentally we need to be committed to policy one. We need to pray that God's spirit will change us and our hearts.

Policy 2. Make our churches the mother churches that plant new congregations. Nothing
wrong with growing larger congregations, but we will reach a greater percentage with more churches meeting. I think we have 60 [new] congregations since the mission began. This is
exciting because so little happened in the previous decade. Some will fail, many will still be small. It might take ten years before they are full parishes. The failure has been that though we started 60, we haven't stared 200…

SC:...was that a realistic expectation?

PDJ: No. But should we expect it? Yes.

SC: So, are we meeting the mission goals?

PDJ: If you ask, "Is 60 enough?' the answer is that it is nowhere near enough. But 60 is more than the previous decade. How do you judge if it's good or bad? Mission has never been a program with monthly achievements to meet. Within human strategic thinking, the changes you make in the early years don't have a great immediate impact in numbers. But it's these changes, that 5 or 10 years down the track cause exponential growth.

Policy 3. Growth in full time Christian ministry. Rather than just replacing their staff, we want parishes to expand their staff. Increasing the number of people in ministry will increase the amount of Bible teaching which should lead to increases in evangelism and church going, all under the spirit of God. So far, this has been terrific. The number of Sydney candidates has increased from 99 to 146. This is a 46 per cent increase in the fi rst 2 years of mission. Next February looks like having the largest ordination ever in the history of the diocese. That is incredible growth and expansion. But it takes some years for these new positions to result in more people in church.

SC: So you shouldn't be concerned if you're wondering where all the new people are?

PDJ: Under God they are going to come in the form of exponential growth down the track, if we do the right things early.

SC: What's next?

PDJ: Now we turn our attention to training lay people in ministry. We're not going to convert the world through full-time ministers. People will be converted through God's spirit working in the hearts of all Christians. Lay training and deployment is as important, if not more
important.

SC: Mark Charleston says the Preliminary Theological Certificate [PTC] is crucial to lay training…

PDJ: It certainly is, but we have to look at what we are training lay people for. Certain lay people are "contactors', some are "evangelists', some are "pastors'. Training for each is different. "Pastors' need lots of PTC work because they need to lead home groups. "Contactors' don't need the same thing, they're the extroverts who meet and invite people. We keep making "pastors' feel guilty because they don't have any friends to invite to meetings. Likewise, we keep on asking people who are social to keep doing courses that they are never going to use. The Diocese needs learn from lay people and rectors engaged in lay training in order to produce the courses that will assist other parishes in lay training.

SC : Are you encouraging people to think beyond church planting?

PDJ: We have to add on lay training. Some churches have been doing it already. People aren't waiting for the green flag from the Diocese. The Mission Taskforce needs to set in motion a new day of every-member ministry. CAMP " Contacts, Attendees, Members and Partners. A "partner' is an active person who does things. Four concentric circles. The aim is to move people in one circle at a time. We as a church have had a long tradition of strong
partnerships. Thousands of people in ministries such as Scripture teaching in schools. But we have become more a membership and less a partnership church, particularly as we have professionalised Christian ministry. More people are putting money in the plate, rather than
spending time doing work. Each church has a different CAMP profi le. Some have almost no attendees, some have huge attendees. In every church the answer is expand the partnership.
Do that by training people in ministry, so they take on those ministries.

SC: Are we good at accepting failure?

PDJ: No. The worst at accepting failure are those who have never failed. Some won't try so they can never fail. One of the greatest plants I experienced was Greek Bible Fellowship. We had two failures, and then this one worked.

SC: What about the need to report failure appropriately?

PDJ: Appropriately is the key word in that question. We need never hide or deny or criticise failure. But it is ridiculous to major on publishing it. Talking about failures, or our struggle to deal with failure, isn't going to get anyone planting a church. It will just stop people doing it. Risk takers and optimists need the encouragement of hearing about possibilities " and they are ones who are going to make things happen.

SC: What's going to help?

PDJ: A realistic understanding of what must happen to succeed. If growth happens, it will be exponential growth. The quality of exponential growth, humanly speaking, will refl ect the quality of our work in these early years.

SC: Has our attitude to property hampered growth?

PDJ: Yes. One of our church planters in the north-west looked for a nearby hall. All the public halls were already taken by non Bible-based churches. They were too late.

SC: What advice would you give to churches where every hall is full.

PDJ: We have been too slow. We need to be more creative " hire a shop front, or be more creative in doubling up usage in our buildings, or create house churches. Working on a mindset to grow our churches permanently. Our ultimate goal is to reach 100 per cent.