Do We Need More Parishes?

In the May edition of the Southern Cross (published by Sydney Anglican Media) there was an article by Paul Davey arguing the need to plant more parishes to reach our rapidly growing city. I thought there was a flaw in the argument, so I sent the following response to the editors:

I agree with Paul Davey's analysis of the need for church planting but disagree with his solution ('Church Planting or Bust', Southern Cross, May). The need for new churches is clear, but I thought we had moved past the idea of equating church planting with creating new parishes. In our Anglican system the overheads of being a parish (administrative, financial and ministry) are too high to expect a parish in every suburb. While a congregation may only need a single pastor, parishes should ideally have team ministries with a number of specialists (such as children's ministers) as well as 'generalists' and trainees. Our 'parishes' should be the administrative hub of a number of congregations and other specialised ministries. Parishes will need to be bigger - as we can clearly see when we look at the more successful parishes in our diocese. The most effective size for parishes will be such that they can effectively reach out to their community and plant new congregations as needed with minimal outside assistance.

In reality we probably have 40 parishes that, in the next two decades, will need to amalgamate with others to allow revitalisation and to effectively minister to their local areas. Perhaps we should aim to replace these with new parishes in growth areas - and possibly add another 40 - but I believe our goal for new parishes should be more modest. Surely most of our church plants should exist under the umbrella of a supportive parish rather than expecting them to be independent from the start? Let's aim to re-develop our parishes into effective ministry units and allow new parishes to develop organically so that they start strong - rather than drawing lines on maps and expecting a healthy parish to appear from thin air.

Richard Blight
Padstow

Revitalising Struggling Churches

Michael Kellahan recently posted an article on the Sydney Anglicans website about the value and necessity of revitalising churches. He called it "Fixing our Broken Bikes".

I have done some reflecting on the issue myself, and after posting a comment in response to Michael's article, I thought I would put the reflections on here too. Here is what I said:

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Hi Michael, lots of good ideas here! In particular I concur with your point that in many churches that need revitalisation there are “people of good-will” who would be happy for change if it will mean growth.

I have been reflecting on this issue and, in trying to detect patterns, I have noticed that some of the stronger churches in the St George area have been 'revitalisations' - I think particularly of Beverly Hills (now with Kingsgrove) and St George North (formerly Carlton + Bexley + Bexley North).

In both cases the transformation included dynamic new leadership (Tony Galea and Zac Veron respectively), significant diocesan support (including probably hundreds of thousands of dollars of grants for assistant ministers at each place), mergers with neighbouring parishes and (at least initially), some transfer growth of key people. No doubt there were other things needed for growing churches (check Zac's book: "Leadership on the Front Foot" for details), but I believe these things were key.

I'm not suggesting these are the only 'revitalised' churches in the area - but others have generally involved new Asian (Chinese) ministries. Perhaps others have more stories? I know some revitalisations are also happening in the Inner West.

It is interesting to note that a reasonably successful church plant in the same area (Christ Church, St George) is likely to join with St George North this year after about 10 years holding meetings in a local High School.

Some implications of my previous post:
(1) Leadership and faithfulness are important and necessary.

(2) Transfers of key lay people may be vital in the early years.

(3) Money for additional ministry can make a huge difference. (But we are talking about significant amounts of money over perhaps a 10 year period. Given our financial crisis we could give up - or we could look for new ways to find the money.)

(4) Mergers can provide additional resources.

(5) We have people who are experienced in doing this (but are our diocesan leaders listening to them?).

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