St John’s, Gordon has grown by 15 per cent in the last year and rector the Rev Keith Dalby says the parish’s nursing home ministry has been the catalyst.

The volunteer ministry, which started seven years ago when Lady Gowrie Village’s chaplain retired, has involved up to 20 members of the congregation in visiting, reading the Bible and praying with residents, craft activities and services taken by assistant minister the Rev John Spooner.

Mr Dalby says the ministry has “opened the eyes of our parishioners to other needs and given us an outward-looking focus”.

The parish had done a healthy church check parish survey in 2004 and found, when they repeated the check in 2007, the score had improved significantly, particularly in the areas of outward focus and welcoming.

“All the negatives in the previous check were turning into positives,” Mr Dalby says.

Some of the outworkings of this have been a weekly kids club which now has up to 30 mainly non-church children attending, a mothers group, an op shop and the production of a DVD about St John’s which was letterbox-dropped around the parish.

“Now it’s not just how to connect but how can we make those connections be more intentionally evangelistic,” he says.