Strategic grants will help Christians expand ministry to a growing area of Sydney where there are no other church buildings.
Rouse Hill's two congregations have been meeting in an auditorium in Rouse Hill Anglican College for almost three years, but will return to the original Rouse Hill Anglican Church site on Windsor Road when a new ministry centre is completed in late 2007.
The Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation which gives grants for the progression of Christianity in the community committed $1million to the new building.
A Vision for Growth grant contributed $400,000, a Diocesan loan contributed $500,000 and church members will help raise the $200,000 shortfall.
Rouse Hill is in a developing growth area, North-West Sydney. The suburb has no other church buildings.
Redevelopment of the site has for a long time been at the top of the list of priorities established by the Mission Property Committee.
Acting minister of Rouse Hill and Bishop of Western Sydney Ivan Lee says returning to a new building on the old site will allow the church to engage in more ministries.
"This church plant has outgrown the facilities at Rouse Hill College and returning to the old site puts us more in the community geographically," he says.
Rouse Hill Anglican College still has no assembly hall or gymnasium and the largest room in the school can barely contain the 60-plus adults and 50 children, many of whom are new converts, who regularly attend the morning service.
"While a church is not the building, good facilities do help, which means we can then run ministries during the week," Bishop Lee says.
Diocesan Property Manager and Secretary of the Mission Property Committee Hovel Hovhanesian says he hopes to sign a contract with builders by Christmas and for building to commence by January 2007.
"The new ministry centre will be four storeys and include a car park, meeting rooms, a 250-seat auditorium and a semi-commercial café," he says.
The construction will incorporate the old church building and hall which are heritage-listed.
With $2.1million required for the new ministry centre, current church planter Martin Morgan knew the parish would have to look outside its own networks to obtain the funds.
"I made an application, and wrote about our strategy for impacting the local community," he says.
Martin Morgan will be ordained as an Anglican presbyter on November 18 and will be commissioned as the minister of Rouse Hill on the same day. Bishop Lee will cease his role as acting minister.
Martin Morgan and the Rev Steve Covetz planted the church at Rouse Hill Anglican College in February 2004 under the guidance of Bishop Lee.
A "nodal centre' for church planting
The new minister of Rouse Hill, the Rev Martin Morgan, wants the new Rouse Hill centre to be a strategic location for initiating church planting in the north-west sector.
"We want to establish plants wherever we can and form a network of churches. We want Rouse Hill Anglican Church to be a nodal centre for training those who want to be involved in new church plants," he says.
Rouse Hill is putting this into practice, having recently planted a Sunday morning service at the Blacktown Leisure Centre in Stanhope Gardens under the leadership of assistant minister, the Rev Steve Reimer.
"Steve grabbed seven or eight from our morning congregation at Rouse Hill " over 10 per cent of our people " and they joined him, along with people from other churches in the area," Mr Morgan says.
"The best way to start a church plant is with a core group of committed people."
After meeting as a core group on Sundays in September the first public meeting in October saw five new families join the church.
