On Wednesday evening Synod made an historic decision when we decided together to support the development of ministry infrastructure on the rapidly growing fringes of our city.  By committing an initial $2 million to purchasing land in areas to soon be developed, the Synod has taken the initiative and acted on a matter we have talked about for quite some time, the need to be establishing churches in communities that are only just coming into existence.

According to the NSW Government’s discussion paper, Sydney over the next 20 years ,

In the last five years, land for more than 62,000 dwellings has been rezoned in greenfield areas, providing record levels of land supply for housing (p13)

The paper further indicates that it is expected that our city’s population will grow by more than 1.3 million people by 2031, growth that will require something like 570,000 more homes.

If just 1% of this population were to attend an Anglican church, we would need to be able to accommodate an additional 5,700 in our churches every Sunday.  However the need for ministry infrastructure is not so simply defined as more seats in our churches.

And while it is clear that the report anticipates that the majority of new homes will be provided in established areas, it is also clear from projections that an increased number of homes will be provided in greenfields locations, places where today there are only paddocks and open space.

That is to say, we ought to expect that many thousands of new homes will be built to create communities that presently don’t exist, and where we have no existing churches, or churches that will be totally inadequate to service the anticipated growth.

We therefore have an immediate and urgent need to identify and purchase land for churches and ministry housing.  The need is particularly urgent since, as those in Synod heard, land prices in developing areas can escalate by an order of magnitude in very short order.

Synod has taken the initial step of agreeing to collect $2 million from our parish income in 2013 (2.24% of Net Operating Receipts of parishes in 2011) to allow serious work to be done on land purchases.

There are clearly many details to be worked out in what will need to be a holistic strategy to establish churches where and when they are needed.  However it is very encouraging that in seeing the immediate need to act Synod has done so.

Open issues include the need for much more extensive work on establishing churches in partnership with the organisations such as the Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation and Anglican Retirement Villages.  While some excellent co-operative ventures do exist with parishes and schools much work remains to be done, and significant opportunities exist.

The question of ongoing finance remains an open question.  I think that the present co-operative giving across all of our parishes will evolve, particularly in the light of a resolution to have Standing Committee look at the possibility of redirecting much if not all of the net proceeds of the income of the Diocesan Endowment to ministry infrastructure development.

Fund raising is another opportunity that remains relatively unexplored.  Vision for Growth provides a good historic model.

However we come to raise capital, it is clear that $2 million per year is only the beginning of what we will need if we are to go anywhere near setting up one new regional centre per year.  A target that looks likely to be about what we will need to achieve to keep up with ministry in rapidly growing new areas on the fringes of our city.

And, of course, the matter of how a new parish might begin to contribute to the ongoing raising of funds and to pay for their own property and buildings, without crippling ministry at a critical time, is also an open question.

Last of all, since the majority of new homes are anticipated to be established in existing areas, while not quite as urgent because we already have an existing parish base, a brownfields strategy is needed too.

Won’t you join me in praying for our Mission Property Committee and our Mission Board as we wrestle with all of these things?

Ted Brush is the Rector of the Lower Mountains Parish.  He and his wife Michelle joined their first Anglican Church, a Vision for Growth New Housing District in 1986.  Ted is a member of the Mission Board.