Archive for June, 2010

The Archbishop of Sydney has announced a new structure to organise Anglican churches for their local mission. He has created 18 Mission Areas across the diocese and appointed a local minister from each area to be the mission leader (including our rector Stephen Semenchuk).  Bishop Lee has summed up the aim: “to see more people come to Christ and be established in a local church.  Mission Areas are about ministers and churches working in greater partnership in mission, in areas such as researching our local community, finding new gospel opportunities, devising new strategies to reach more people, equipping one another and sharing resources.”

Our area is basically the 15 parishes of Wollongong and Lake Illawarra plus Kiama, Jamberoo and Gerringong. The diocese provides some financial reimbursement to Dapto for some of Stephen’s time. He will be resigning from many of his other diocese responsibilities to free up the time to devote to this new initiative. He has resigned from the National Church Synod; he is also resigning as Chairman of the Diocese’s Policy 3 Committee (which oversees ministry education, training and development) and resigning as a member of the Archbishop’s Mission Board Strategy Committee. He is also becoming inactive as an Archbishop’s Ordination Chaplain.

As our parish seeks to have a wider impact for the gospel throughout our district we look for what God will do as the Anglicans from all the churches around us endeavour to find ways of working and supporting each other.  Pray that God will bring a revival to our city and that we will prove faithful in our service of him.

Stephen Semenchuk
Senior Pastor