Following the success of a road test in Bathurst last week, one of Sydney’s top evangelists says he wants to mobilise Sydney churches to run an "ultimate relationship' mission week in April 2008.
Director of evangelistic course Introducing God, Christian in the Media’s Dominic Steele, says the "ultimate relationship' strategy aims to start evangelistic conversations that move non-believers from thinking about their own relationships to the need to fix their relationship with their Creator.
"We wanted to stress the need to fix relationships," Dominic says.
"The statistics bear out that although we crave relationship more than anything else, 47 per cent of Australian men say they have no close friends. That's a frightening statistic."
The mission team door-knocked 1500 houses across Bathurst's white collar and blue collar areas talking about the need for relationship with God, a strategy that Dominic says resulted in the most significant evangelism of the week.
"Although Bathurst is more Anglo-Saxon than Sydney there are wealthy pockets and poor pockets, he says. "Ministry worked even better in the housing commission areas - a chord was struck.”
Dominic is now planning for a large scale mission across Sydney in 2008.
"We want every Bible church in Sydney to do mission in their own backyard to get serious about evangelism. We're calling for a coordinated effort."
Bush needs greater than Sydney
The Rev Phil Howes from All Saints Anglican Cathedral in Bathurst has done time in the tough suburbs of South West Sydney but the newly ordained youth pastor says the needs in the bush are even tougher.
Phil worked with the 36-member mission team from Christians in the Media who were in Bathurst with Bathurst Evangelical Church (BEC) and Bathurst Community Church (BCC) to run a week titled "The Ultimate Relationship'.
He says resources are stretched and many parishes don't have any form of children's or youth ministry.
"We have to go back to the drawing board and start with kids ministry," he says. "It's a matter of building sustained growth rather than a "flash in the pan'."
Phil, a graduate of Sydney Missionary and Bible College (SMBC) and former Sydney Anglican youth minister became a presbyter at All Saints Cathedral, Bathurst last Saturday, formalising a ministry that has seen a revitalisation of youth outreach to the Central West.
Phil is chair of a newly formed bishop's working group on children's and youth ministry and chair of Western Anglican youth board. The aim is to identify opportunities for starting kids clubs and youth groups started in churches where there are none.
A contemporary church plant at All Saints on Sunday evenings has grown from eight young people to 35, training and discipling high school aged youth and university students. A youth group is run before the service and members eat dinner together.
"There was a real lack of a contemporary service and there was nothing so we started from scratch with a blank piece of paper," Phil explains.
"The potential is astronomical and the opportunity is staggering."
"The aim is not to build little moral sweeties or Anglican cherubs but rather long-lasting disciples of Christ."
Born and bred in Bathurst, Phil says his awareness of the Anglo-Catholic nature of the diocese has allowed him to work well with fellow pastors while maintaining the ministry's evangelical basis.
A cricket bat sits next to the lectern to remind the pastor and his congregation that if he strays from teaching God's word, the young people are allowed to "hit' him with it.
"The most dangerous thing I'm doing in my life is preaching," Phil says. "It's a reminder to both of us."
