Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen is implementing an ambitious plan to rebuild St Andrew's Cathedral one spiritual brick at a time, beginning with a business bible study starting next Tuesday.
The Cathedral Bible Study will cater to the thousands of city workers who stream past St Andrews every day.
Dean Jensen says many non-Christians see St Andrews as simply a tourist attraction; Christians, as an appropriate place to hold ordinations.
"I want to reposition the cathedral so people think of it as a place where the Bible is taught," he says.
The plan to rebuild the church's teaching reputation will also include steadily expanding the recent Cathedral Easter Convention, and eventually exporting the model to regional centres.
"An important part of re-invention is growing in the right direction," Dean Jensen says.
"So creating new Biblical ministries is critical to making the cathedral the place in the city where people turn to have the Bible taught."
Ministry worker Andrew Lim is responsible for launching the new Tuesday lunch-time studies.
He says the cathedral has become home to a number of great musical items that draw people in, but Bible teaching is sadly lacking.
"The aim would be to feed people twice during a lunch-time," Mr Lim says, describing the program as a serve of deeper thoughts pitched at the university graduate.
The Bible studies form part of the cathedral's tactics for tackling the vast vertical mission field surrounding the sandstone structure.
"It's about encouraging people to commit to church," says Mr Lim.
Staff believe the new ministry will augment ECOM (Evangelising Commerce) Thursday lunchtime talks in the chapter house.
"People come to Christian ministries through networks of friends and this will establish a new network," says Dean Jensen.
The Cathedral Bible Study will run from 1.15 PM to 1.45 PM, with CD recordings available immediately after the talk.
Read more in April’s Southern Cross
