Mission Strategy for South West Sydney
“The noble man makes noble plans and by noble deeds he stands” (Isaiah 32:8)
“You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8)
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
Preamble
This is our strategy for reaching the south west area of Sydney [SWS] with the gospel, as Jesus promises in Acts 1:8.
The seven steps of the Mission Strategy are presented in the chronological order that they need to be implemented.
We have a goal to plant six churches as our first priority.
SWS is a unique opportunity for mission, a means of reaching to the ends of the earth with the gospel. We hope that additional resources will be available to the region as required to support the growth of new churches.
The Seven Steps of Mission
- Create a church growth mentality
- Develop a sending mentality
- Establish the size of the task
- Recruit labourers with a "small is beautiful" strategy
- Establish a church in every suburb
- Build a community-based church membership
- Ensure support and accountability from and to the wider church and community
A growth mentality is a prerequisite for mission. The current mentality of a church depends on where it is in its life cycle.
The life cycle
The life cycle of any people movement has periods of growth, stability, and then decline. Decline will end either with the termination of the movement or when the movement is revitalized.
Our churches have been in a period of decline. For example, church attendance in Australia has fallen from 9.9% in 1996 to 8.8% in 2001. Demographic trends from globalization and the affects of secularization have reduced our community support base and demoralised Christians.
The founding churches of the network (Granville, Merrylands, and Canley Heights Presbyterian churches [GMC]) have been churches generally in decline since the mid 1970s. An attitude of denial blinded leadership to the root causes and the longer the decline continued the greater the cost of reversal became. Their response was to close non-viable congregations, such as South Wentworthville, Guildford, and Trongate to try and achieve viability in the remaining centres. These acts of denial only served to hasten the decline.
We have learnt a number of lessons in the past five years at GMC that by God’s grace have enabled us to start to develop a growth mentality. One of the lessons was that we have to stop closing churches and learn how to revitalize the churches we have.
Decline: symptoms and effects
“The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire. When I heard these things, I sat down and I wept” (Nehemiah 1:3-4)
In the decline phase, thinking becomes increasingly inward and defensive. More effort is placed on internal affairs and mission is depleted. The need for control is exaggerated, and appearance overrides the reality of faith and fellowship.
The disconnection between the church and its community increases, and church members decline in number and in vitality. The community is viewed as hostile to the church. (The National Church Life Survey says that 60% of Australians do not know anyone who goes to church).
As members age without youth joining the church a generational gap is added to increase the disconnection of the church with the community.
When thinking is fully defensive change is very difficult; the time, energy and money spent on internal affairs is so high there is no space for any outward venture, or giving to the community. It is like the situation of a life-saving club that becomes a social club for members. It has all sorts of activities for its own social membership, but is not involved in life-saving!.
Reversal: how to change to a growth mentality
The first and foremost issue to address is faith in Jesus and the knowledge of God. This hopefully leads to salvation for any members who are not Christians, but also begins a process of outward thinking that is essential for any reversal to occur.
Recognize that the primary cause and responsibility for decline is the leadership of the church, and probably leadership that left the scene years ago. It is neither helpful nor probably correct to blame the current membership or leadership for the current state of decline.
The administrative burdens of decline must be lifted so that there is time, energy, and money available for growth. The distraction that internal affairs present must be exposed, or at least starved of attention, so that members are no longer rewarded for their involvement in them. Committees of management keep all the key people busy on administration; preachers spend up to three days a week preparing sermons primarily for in-house consumption at the expense of mission; pastoral care dominates at the expense of mission. Disputes on disputable matters must also be avoided.
As the word of God is connected with members, and by God’s grace, members lives are transformed, membership morale improves, and the church members gain confidence to reconnect with family, friends, and community, as believers. The negative trends of membership decline begin to reverse, and the sphere of influence of the church begins to widen again.
Growth: how to promote a growth mentality
With a growth mentality, and improving morale, genuine and repeated engagement with the community becomes possible and leads to people hearing the gospel. This mission is ideally a corporate venture; all members can be part of this mission.
Members are noticed and rewarded for engagement in the community and concern for those outside the church.
The church discovers areas of service, such as children’s ministry, where it can be generous and demonstrate the love of Christ.
Internal affairs are minimized so more mission is possible, and institutional control blockages are eradicated to create a movement mentality, such as having fewer administration meetings, creating less formal decision making processes, empowering members as priests, leading by inspiration and not by rules.
Rediscover the biblical distinctive and heritage of our denomination, and use it to make disciples. The church's members are to grounded in the Scriptures, and all of them acknowledged as being priests, forming a holy nation in the service of God.
The biblical distinctives and heritage of Presbyterianism should also inspire members “to go to the ends of the earth.”
Until a growth mentality is being achieved it is of little use to propose anything but limited mission activity, hence the need to identify where the churches are in their life cycles before implementing this mission strategy.
A sending mentality has the potential to transform the churches of our network from a survival mentality to serious players in their communities. The local suburb is the Judea for each church. Our current churches have strategic mission opportunities in their suburbs:
Granville: Moslems comprise 25% of population, very large TAFE, significant Chinese presence;
Merrylands: Moslems and Lebanese opportunities;
Canley Heights: Vietnamese and Buddhist outreach.
For GMC the SWS region is our Samaria. Take the needs and gospel opportunities of the region to heart, as part of our mission responsibilities.
Inform members of the demographic and spiritual state of the surrounding communities and suburbs and what is happening in other churches in the region.
Encourage and model prayer for SWS.
Relate our denominational distinctive to the needs of the community and how neighbouring suburbs are neglected if there is no Presbyterian church there.
Create a mindset that we have to go to non-Christians, not wait for them to come to us.
Create an urgency that makes the cost of sending seem less than the cost of not reaching the lost in the region. Samaria can be more easily reached than the “rest of the world” and should receive special focus.
Teach a view of the local church where size does not show the health of the church. Sending will reduce numbers, so it must be clear that numbers are not the key indicator of church health. Health is better gauged by the authenticity of the fellowship and the impact of the word of God in people’s lives.
Recruit and send key members to plant new fellowships.
The region spans from Parramatta in the north, Cabramatta in the south, Granville and Guildford to the east, and Greystanes and Bossley Park in the west. The mission zone is the region that our present parish encompasses, or suburbs that adjoin our parish but which have no Presbyterian community church.
There are 242,000 people in the region with a regular Protestant church attendance level of 4,220. If the number matched the average rate for Sydney, there would be 11,200. SWS is the least evangelized area in Sydney.
SWS is our Samaria. The nations of the whole earth have come to SWS. By reaching SWS with the gospel we will be sending missionaries to the ends of the earth, as people from SWS visit and or return to their home nations.
The region has many ethnic groups and religious backgrounds. Non-English speaking homes comprise 70% of the population, and 85% of the population is not of a Protestant background. The three major non-Christian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam) are heavily represented in the region. Hindus are concentrated in the north, Moslems to the east, and Buddhists to the south.
We need to plant an additional six churches to have a presence in every main suburb in the region. The major centres and their predominant religious affiliations (after Roman Catholic and Orthodox) and strategic opportunities:
Parramatta: strong Hindu presence, a very multicultural suburb, in the centre of Sydney with hospitals and university;
Greystanes: Protestant, but very few churches, the most English-speaking suburb in the region;
Cabramatta: the centre of Buddhism in Sydney;
Guildford: strong Moslem presence, mainly from Lebanon;
Smithfield: Protestant, but few churches, predominantly English-speaking;
Fairfield: Very heavily populated, Moslem, from Iraq/Afghanistan.
This strategy plan is fulfilled if and when there are nine growing churches, one in each of the major suburbs of SWS.
If we are going to reach SWS with the gospel, our plans need to be based on the size of the task, not on the resources apparently available;
From the teachings of Jesus, we rediscover the essentials of mission which show small is a viable mission strategy (Matthew 9 & 10).
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few”: there will always appear to be too few workers and resources for mission;
“Send out workers into his harvest field”: what is needed are labourers (or pioneers), not spectators;
“Go to the lost sheep of Israel”: it is natural to focus first on our closest cultural and linguistic grouping, therefore our mission will be primarily English-speaking;
“Search for some worthy person there, and stay at his house”: we need to look for worthy people and households to start with, which means a small group, home church concept.
The urgency and size of the task can be contrasted with our limited resources.
New churches can be planted from cuttings or by seeds. Plantings from cuttings require larger mother churches, say at least 150 members. They require a large number of starting members—usually at least fifty people—and need to support a full-time pastor from the start. This is the "big is beautiful" strategy. Failures in these plants are very costly. On the whole, successes do not exceed the growth rates of mother churches.
Plantings from seeds, however, are small. The desired number of people is six to twelve, with a lower number being preferred. Their composition is very important; they must be labourers. Failures are more frequent, but far less costly. Such church plants are relatively easy to start, and many more can be planted. Overseas missions typically operates this way.
Our labourers may best be termed pioneers, to give the right meaning to the type of people best suited for such ventures. They may be leaders or labourers, but they must be prepared for and capable of ministry. They must be players and not spectators or cheer squad members.
Each new fellowship must have at least one member/couple of pastoral eldership quality or be under close oversight of such a person. Recruitment activity should be focused on this sort of person.
Training of potential pioneers will be important, and the resources of the broader church will be helpful in this regard. The AOG and Anglicans have very sophisticated organizations supporting church planting.
This is a simple, objective and challenging target. There is no doubt whether we have or have not achieved it.
The six suburbs that are first priority are: Parramatta, Guildford, Greystanes, Smithfield, Fairfield, and Cabramatta.
Fortunately we will not be the first denomination to aim for this target. The AOG denomination is now working on the third church for every suburb, even in SWS. They have long since moved on from big church expressions such as Hillsong in the Norwest as their mission strategy. Their leadership seems to be heavily committed to influencing community and church planting. The Anglicans do not seem to be so geographically driven, more focused on planting big churches. Their new plants tend to be offshoots from mother churches and therefore in close geographic proximity.
The initial starting point for each plant should be flexible. The most critical determinant will be the people who are involved in the plant.
If a home is available (an honourable home) for a home group, then it will determine the location. Home based churches will facilitate reaching across cultures and religions as people are more relaxed in their own homes.
Priority should be given to reaching non-Christians, and meeting places and times should suit their needs. Focus on growth leads to the expectation that the small groups grow by conversions. The plant should have a mission-shaped beginning, not a mission-flavoured beginning.
If more resources are being committed to the cause then options such as pre-schools or larger facilities may be contemplated sooner. Starting of these ministries should commence as soon as practicable.
New plants are instilled from the start to have a concern for the whole of their suburb. Though they may start as a small home group/church they are hoping to grow to hold public meetings and be accessible to any member in the community.
Each new church has the opportunity to take on the shape and identity of its local suburb.
At GMC we have at least fourteen different nationalities in our membership. Nationalities proudly represented in our fellowships include: English, Scottish, German, Dutch, Russian, Ukrainian, Fijian, South African, Japanese, Pilipino, Chinese, Vietnamese, Liberian, and even a few Australians. There has also been regular attendance from Koreans, Indians, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Cook Islanders, and Iraqis.
Children’s ministries have reached children of other faiths including Hindu, Buddhist, and Moslem children.
Given that Parramatta Council notes there are 121 different nationalities in its local government area, we have a long way to go.
Accepting that the gospel is for all nations, and makes them one nation under Christ. It is a mission imperative that we build a catholic church from all tribes so that they become one tribe in Christ.
Given the imminent danger of social fragmentation and sectarian division, it will be essential for the future wellbeing of the community that the gospel brings peace among the different segments of society. The gospel of the grace of God will be vital in overcoming fear, hatred, and racial discrimination in our society in the future. When the present prosperity (which has ensured there is sufficient for all) ends, and overpopulation becomes more pronounced, churches binding communities across racial lines will be incredibly vital. They will also be a great testimony to the love of God for all nations.
It is expected that growth will be slower, at least initially, if ethnic network groups are not specifically catered to, but the reward in the long run will be far greater with a community-focused approach.
Other churches and denominations will have networked based churches, and ethno-specific fellowships, but our calling is to a community focused membership. The members will predominately be local to the area of the church and active members of the local community. All the inhabitants of that suburb will be the mission for the local church.
The expectation is that all believers and fellowships be held accountable to the broader body of Christ.
Each fellowship should have a pastor/elder that is a member of the GMC Session (i.e., the local board of elders).
The faithfulness of each church is also held to account by fulfillment of its mission responsibilities to the local community. That is, by whether it is reaching all nations within its suburb, and by whether it is conducting ministry in both a public and a private manner.
The session should ensure the spiritual oversight of each fellowship and each public meeting.
When a local fellowship is of sufficient size, application to the presbytery should be made for it to form its own session.
When feasible, and as soon as practicable, a fellowship should support dedicated pastors, full-time and ordained being most desirable.