“Out here, there's a massive and growing need,” said Bishop Gary Koo with a backdrop of Olympic Park near the geographic heart of Sydney. “We've got places crying out for gospel ministry. And as a Diocese, we have the assets we need to reach them. But not all of those assets are where we need them.”
With those comments via video at Synod, Bishop Koo – who leads the Western Region of the Diocese – aimed to “start the conversation about how to turn our assets into impact”.
Sydney Anglican Property's video presentation highlighted Jervis Bay Anglican, where a new ministry centre is under construction.
“We just would not be where we are without the help of SAP,” said Jervis Bay’s senior minister, the Rev Campbell Mackay.
“I'm so impressed at the way that Sydney Anglican Property has revolutionised the way that our church looks at its assets.”
Also on the South Coast, the video provided a tour of the new home for the Shoalhaven Aboriginal Community Church, a former preschool in Bomaderry, purchased with the help of Church Hill parish.
“We're blessed to have our prayers answered for this building,” said Brendon Garlett, the church's pastor. “There's been prayer about an Aboriginal established church for decades. A lot of our elders who've passed, they've prayed for a specific Aboriginal church in Shoalhaven. So we're very grateful for those who partner with us. We'll be more effective in our goal to share the good news of the Lord Jesus and grow the church and win souls for Christ.”
Still to come, though, is land for outreach to Olympic Park, Wentworth Point and its surrounds. The Rev Tim Cocks at Auburn has been leading ministry there for 12 years.
“About eight years ago we planted Newington Anglican Church,” he said. "We're thankful to God to be able to hire the new high school hall shortly. That's a gift from God. But any sort of hire like that is vulnerable, dependent on lots of things, and it can end at any point.
"It would be an amazing thing to have a property from which we could do ministry in a suburb like Wentworth Point."
Mr Cocks spoke of people in the parish who had come to Christ and then shared the gospel with family members on the other side of the world; siblings have become Christians in countries that would otherwise be hard to reach for mission.
“It's a wonderful place from which to reach the nations of the world, and a resource of property from which to do ministry here would be an extraordinary blessing,” he said.
Bishop Koo agreed, saying that by 2056 “there’s going to be over 60,000 people living right here [in Newington and Wentworth Point]. We don't have a single property in the area for them to gather and to reach them from.
“If you take a short ferry ride down the Parramatta River, you're going to find similar-sized areas with similar-sized populations being serviced by as many as nine Anglican churches, not to mention dozens of other properties, some of which aren't even being used for gospel ministry. "
Which brings us to the Diocese-wide conversation that SAP is encouraging. As Bishop Koo said, “The question is, how many more people could we reach if we stepped out in faith and generosity to use all of our resources to reach all of our city for the Lord Jesus Christ?
