Jenan Taylor
1 October 2024
A west Melbourne church has seen huge growth in attendance numbers over the past 16 years in response to efforts to revitalise it, including introducing new ministries.
St James’ Old Cathedral has grown from 15 people and few if any young people at Sunday services to 80 worshippers, and a strong youth group, since the church embarked on its revitalisation journey.
It now offers a distinctive mix of contemporary Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic traditions, and attracts children and young people.
Vicar the Reverend Canon Matthew Williams said St James’ blossomed because faithful ministry and investing in the necessary structures for church programs drove the renewal efforts.
He said he avoided setting numerical goals because focussing on maximising size could have unwanted costs for congregations.
Read more: ‘Growth, health, life’: Seminar seeks to revitalise congregations
Canon Williams decided instead to follow his conviction that the most effective way to revitalise a human community was through being faithful to God in his ministry and trust that He blessed it.
He said this meant loving and caring for the people God had entrusted him with.
“God wants us to grow his church, and so we need to work with the grain of who God tells us to be. That may not be the fastest growth strategy, but it is the better one,” Canon Williams said.
He said when he started the renewal project in 2008 most parishioners were unhappy about a new church planting partnership St James’ had entered into, believing they might lose their traditions to the plant’s contemporary approach.
Canon Williams consulted them about any changes he planned, and focused on doing the ones they valued as well as he could, to earn their trust.
Key initiatives included introducing a good choir, and creating children’s and youth’s ministries.
The youth service formed from a partnership with City on a Hill Melbourne, and is now a group of about 20 young people, some from a variety of churches, some with no faith.
Melbourne diocese Canon for Church Planting the Reverend Bree Mills said the incredible growth in attendance at St James’ Old Cathedral attested Canon Williams’ unique posture.
Read more: Church planting is pivotal to our future. Here’s how it can flourish
She said he saw the value in investing in all its generations, and was particular about what was important to grow the church.
Canon Mills said this included him entrusting others to preach to the adults on Sundays while he ran the children’s service periodically, to signal to both groups how important they were to the church.
Canon Williams said St James’ growth plateaued at about 80 worshippers in 2017, and has stayed level since then.
He was now focused on strategising to enable him to keep looking after the congregation and its ministries without burning out, as the church had lost its program leaders to other churches since the pandemic.
Canon Williams said despite the challenges this brought, his focus on loving the people God had given him, and discipling them for their wellbeing, would always remain.
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