The Presidential Address delivered by the Most Rev. Dr. Peter Jensen, Archbishop of the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church, on the opening night of the 2008 synod.

One of the signs of a healthy church is the need to expand facilities for meeting together around God’s word. Of course it is not an essential sign of health, as some choose to subdivide when growth outstrips facilities, but it is usually an encouraging sign.

It would seem hypocritical to be writing about this with one minute to go till my deadline for submission. But at least, you are hearing from an expert and a master at this.

About a year ago I wrote a short piece outlining Rich and Julie Lanham's pioneering ministry in Gilgandra in Western NSW. Given the high level of interest which that story generated, I decided to contact Rich and get a sense of how the Lord has been prospering this ministry.

I pulled up at a service station behind a kombi van a while ago. There was a young guy, (a bit of a hippy really) filling the car and on the back of the kombi was a sticker with the words “Jesus” clearly printed.

Have you ever been involved in creating a mission or purpose statement for a Christian group? If you have, then you will know the challenge in trying to generate a sentiment that is broad enough to include every possible activity of the organisation, and yet narrow enough to help define the core passion.

Another massive change is occurring within our own parishes. We are moving from an autocratic mono-ministry parish model to team ministries. Don’t be scared off by the words. Let me explain.

We are being inundated with a glut of Christian conferences and conventions.

Darren introduced himself to me at the Cursillo weekend. I didn’t recognise him at first. We hadn’t met in twenty years.

Willow Creek is abandoning its famous seeker services after nearly 30 years of running weekend services tailored explicitly to the unbeliever. The tension between relevance and integrity very much lies with us here in Sydney.

As a result of market-driven ministry models, many churches have tried to work out how to make church more tasty (i.e. entertaining).

I am sometimes asked by the church pastor for my opinion on how his church is going. It is an absurd question to ask of someone who does not know what is happening on the ground. However, here are some questions for pastors to ask of themselves if they want to measure their own church.

Did you know that you can earn the equivalent of a university degree over a few years just by listening to quality audiobooks and/or lectures on your daily commute?

Has the Archbishop’s call to Prayer for Connect09 got you thinking as well as praying?