The South West Evangelism and Training Conference, known as SWEATCon, wraps up its four day program today.

The interdenominational conference, that has now run for four years and is hosted by Hoxton Park Anglican Church, has been designed to provide training to lay leaders and clergy that is aware of the diversity in Sydney’s South West, and is accessible to all the different kinds of Christians that live in the area.

”Our tagline is a conference for the South West by the South West,” says SweatCon co-organiser and rector of St Barnabas’ Fairfield, the Rev Peter Lin. “We started this conference because there are people here who aren’t university educated, not everyone has finished school. We wanted to to do a similar thing to the National Training Event, and Next Gen, in terms of training people in biblical theology and evangelism through various strands, but we also realised we needed to do so in a different way. We try to use a lot of non-bookish techniques, kinaesthetic techniques, in order to appeal to different learning styles, and encourage people in our churches who learn in those kinds of ways.”

In addition to the core strand training material, the theme of the conference this year was Passion for Christ, with talks by Ross Ciano and Mike Raiter, and a series of workshops on cultural issues led by the likes of sexologist Dr Patricia Weerakoon and Hayden Sennitt, formerly of Liberty Christian Ministries.

“This year we’ve also run a pastor’s workshop in the afternoon with Mike Raiter,” says Mr Lin, “who’s taken people through preaching workshops, because we’re now trying to encourage pastors as well… and with the workshops, our aim is to equip people regards to issues of today. Sex, science and faith, multicultural ministry, and same sex relationship are all things we’ve been covering.”

The biggest benefit of the conference, says Mr Lin, is still probably the fact that it allows the churches in the area to meet together and encourage and equip each other, and they negotiate the particular needs, issues, and obstacles to faith in their parishes.

“We’re really just putting this on to help people serve in their churches,” he says. “There are people who struggle, particularly if you’re in a small church, you can think you’re the only one struggling. Sometimes the most encouraging thing is to meet with people from other churches also struggling - not all churches are struggling in the same way, of course, some are doing pretty well, but even for people like youth pastors who are starting out with tiny youth groups, it can be good to get together, and encourage each other, and train each other in how to keep reaching the south west. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

The conference ends today.

Lead image: Mike Raiter speaking at a SWEATCon evening session.