A series of new conferences under the banner of Evangelism & New Churches (ENC) are set to kick off over the next few months, with a particular focus on evangelism and cross-cultural ministry.
One of these, the June Exchange conference, will attempt to create an environment where delegates can exchange ideas, and workshop ways of running evangelistic ministries.
The Dean of St Andrew’s Cathedral, the Very Rev Phillip Jensen, will give a keynote address, but much of the session time will be given to hearing from a range of two minute presentations exploring specific kinds of evangelistic ministries, such as film nights or English as a Second Language classes, and then giving delegates a chance to interact more deeply with ideas that appeal to them in their contexts.
Exchange co-ordinator and lead pastor of Soma Church Marsfield, the Rev Peter Hughes, says he wants the conference to be a forum for the exchange of different and new ideas, and also to be a conference that both clergy and lay people can be involved in.
“There are a lot of good church planting conferences that I’ve been to that professionals go to, and that I personally really enjoy,” he says. “The problem is when you you go back to your church and go ‘This was really great!’ and everyone else goes ‘Great. I wasn’t there. I’m not that excited.’ So we wanted to make sure people could bring their key teams along as well.”
Another ENC-run meeting, ‘The Other 90%’ conference held in July, will look at how our current methods of doing church can be changed to connect with the large number of people in Sydney who are not reached by Anglican churches.
The theme of the conference will be “What will our theology allow that our current practice inhibits?”
“The idea is to explore practices within our theological framework that aren’t quite what we’ve been doing,” says the director of ENC, the Rev Bruce Hall.
“You often wouldn’t invite Muslims or Hindus, or perhaps people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, to our churches in many cases. These are people that we don’t often reach with our current practices, so we’re exploring that. The [Common Ground] seminar in the following week looks at that in more detail, looking particularly at engaging with Islam, but much of it is applicable to other minority groups.”
Mr Hall says these conferences are opportunities for people to think about and try out new and different approaches to outreach, and says, “What are the out of the box things that we might try?"
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Exchange Conference
Satuday, 1 June
St Anne's Anglican Church, Ryde
$35pp
The Other 90% Conference
Saturday, July 13, 9am-5pm
St Anne's Anglican Church Ryde
$40pp including lunch
Common Ground Seminar
Monday, 15 July - Thursday, 18 July
St Phillips Anglican Church Auburn
$90pp (4 days) or $25pp per day including lunch
