Mountains church planter, the Rev Craig Schafer will face a new challenge in the coming week as he makes the Hills his home.
Mr Schafer’s destination is St Mark’s, Pennant Hills specifically, where he will take up his new position as rector on Thursday next week.
Having served at Springwood Winmalee Anglican Church (SWAC) for the past three years as an assistant minister " and leader of the Valley Heights church plant " Mr Schafer says now is a good time to make the change to a smaller church without the same kind of infrastructure or resources as SWAC.
"We were quite excited at some of the things God might have in store [at Pennant Hills], and so we prayed about it, and when they made their offer we accepted it," he says.
While Mr Schafer is not yet familiar with the Pennant Hills area, he is looking forward to moving in and beginning ministry at St Mark’s, along with his wife Julie and daughters Emma and Zoe.
Church has grown into a "toddler'
As the former Accenture businessman and his family ready themselves for the move, Mr Schafer told Sydneyanglicans.net about his time at SWAC.
He says a major highlight has been watching the church plant in Valley Heights grow from being a "baby" to a "toddler"; something he says had a lot to do with the people involved.
"The key thing was getting the right people on board with the right expectations" people who were happy to go and knock on doors, try new roles, and do upfront stuff when they hadn't done upfront stuff before," he said.
The Valley Heights Community Church had already been applying some of the Connect09 strategies before Connect09 was floated, the most notable being that members doorknocked every home in Valley Heights on three separate occasions.
And the results have been noticeable each Sunday morning according to Mr Schafer.
"At church on Sunday there were 53 adults " a number of whom hadn't darkened the doorstep of a church [prior to doorknocking], or hadn't for a long time," he said.
Mr Schafer has also been pastoring ‘arvo church’ - a 4.45pm Sunday service - at Springwood, which he says has grown considerably over the past three years.
