It’s likely that some can’t afford to increase their giving, but we believe it’s probable that many can.

To the end of April 2025, our church had received $342,447 in giving.

There are just over 400 potential givers in our church. (This is church members, excluding children and students, and counting each married couple as one ‘giver’.)

This equates to $214 per giver per month ($2,568 per year/$49.40 per week).

The average weekly household income in the 2777 postcode is $2,014 ($104,728 per year).

Assuming that our church-members’ incomes are around average for our area, our members are giving roughly 2.45% of their incomes to our church.

We realise that our members give to causes and ministries outside our church (quite rightly), but we are hoping for an average increase to around 2.8% of income given to our church.

We also realise that retirees may not have a very high income, but they probably have more assets. So percentages of income are a limited way of viewing giving.

The main function of pastoral staff, as under-shepherds of God’s flock, is to teach God’s Word and pray. The teaching takes the form of sermons, small group Bible studies, and one to one. Pastoral visiting is part of this ministry but, since our church has nearly 1000 members and newcomers, staff often need to go where the needs are.

However, in a church of our size, pastoral staff need to not only do ministry, but also to lead it. A great deal of organisation and attention is required to lead others in ministry (meetings, emails, phone calls, systems, etc.).

Seven church services take place each week in our church, each needing planning, organising, and presentation. (Each of our larger family services require over 40 people with an assigned job every week!)

In addition, there are many other ministries and events that require oversight, resourcing and encouragement which the pastoral staff provides: small groups, evangelistic courses, welcoming ministries, pastoral care ministries, pantry, social events, evangelistic events, youth ministries, kids’ ministries, men’s events, women’s events, seniors events, ablaze events, young adults events, playgroups, missions support, etc… plus the church’s various administrative teams. All of these require at least some level of oversight by the staff team, and most of them are directly led by a staff member.

If we want our church to be active, providing a range of ministry, and for its members to be involved in the ministry, we need a staff team to lead.

As at mid-May, our church’s average attendance at services is 686 (all ages). And, at this point, we have the equivalent of 5.5 pastoral staff members. So the ratio of pastoral staff to weekly attendance is 1:125.

According to Reach Australia, that ratio in a growing church needs to be between 1:60 and 1:90. This indicates that our church is significantly understaffed.

When we add an additional minister later this year, bringing the pastoral staff level up to 6.5, the ratio will become 1:105 – an improvement, at least!

Beyond general ratios we can see specific areas where we would like to grow our ministry, requiring extra staff resources.

Much of the growth in our church over the last 18 months has occurred at the Factory Morning services as new families have come there from Springwood and up or down the highway. Another minister with the capacity to pastor the young families, along with helping to organise the church services, would be very useful. This will be part of the new minister’s job description.

An area across our whole church, which the current staff team does not have the capacity to adequately cover, is ministry development. This involves mobilising, equipping, encouraging and coordinating people to serve together in our church. While many people are serving in our church already, we feel that much more work could be done to help people consider how they serve, establish better structures in which they serve, and make serving in our church a more positive part of their Christian lives. This will be the other main part of the new minister’s job description.

In addition to these two main areas, it will be useful to have another preacher and another person to help lead various ministries.

This is a good time for us to expand our ministry. There is currently momentum as new people have joined us in the past 18 months after we reorganised our church services and began a second Factory Morning service. Given that those changes were fruitful (thanks to God), we are now seeking to keep building on those changes.

Additionally, we are currently proposing a reorganisation of our Winmalee congregations, to open up capacity for growth there. Extra staff resources will give us more flexibility within the staff team to adapt to needs across all our congregations as they arise.

Ideally, we could usefully expand our ministries beyond 2025 in the following ways:

• More trainees, who work for the church part time to gain experience in a range of ministry as they consider theological study and whether vocational ministry is for them;

• a staff member with the capacity for more pastoral work among retirees and an active role in our Christ Church services;

• a staff member who thinks further about the content of our church services and has the capacity to thoughtfully produce extra content to make our services more edifying; and

• more resources in children’s and youth work to grow those ministries further.

Not yet giving but pledged and ready to start? We’re so grateful for you partnering in ministry with us.

Learn more about how to give via direct debit (including account details) and a bit about our budget and expenses breakdown here.