History of Independent Evangelical Churches in Australia
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Central Coast Evangelical Church, The Lakes Evangelical Church and Northern Lakes Evangelical Church are three evangelical churches on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia. These churches desire to be conservative in their theology, yet contemporary in their practice. A distinctive practice of each of these churches is their verse by verse teaching of the Bible.
Central Coast Evangelical Church started ten years ago by Andrew Heard, of Christchurch Gladesville, with a handful of people in a house. They eventually met publicly in February 1996, and have grown to be a church of about a thousand people.
Orange Evangelical Church was started in late 1995 by Martin Morgan as an independent congregation with no official links to the Central Coast Evangelical Church. However there is a good relationship between the leaders of these Evangelical Churches. Currently, Bruce Bennett, ordained as an Anglican in the Armidale Diocese is the Senior Minister of Orange Evangelical Church. Orange Evangelical now has three congregations with a total of around 400 people.
Bathurst Evangelical was planted by David Coy and a core group in 1997. Rod Macready, an ordained Baptist is the senior minister there.
The Lakes Evangelical Church was started four years ago when Dave Sheath, another minister at Christchurch Gladesville, went to the Central Coast and met with a group from Central Coast Evangelical Church. They met together for several months and then met publicly in a meeting in Berkley Vale High School. The church has grown to be several hundred people.
Northern Lakes Evangelical Church was started in 2005 when Connan O'Shea, also an Anglican Minister from the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, met with a group of people from The Lakes Evangelical Church and they decided to establish a church in the expanding Warnervale area. These 60 or so people met publicly at Gorokan High School from February 2006.
The establishment of these churches on the Central Coast attracted controversy, as seen in the reporting in the The Sydney Morning Herald on 27 May, 2000 and 16 October, 2000. The Anglican Diocese of Sydney was accused of taking over another Diocese. However the first minister, Andrew Heard, had given up his Anglican licence, as had the other two ministers, six and ten years later.
These churches are part of a loose fellowship of other evangelical churches around Australia called The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches. Over the last five years, eight new churches have been established outside Sydney. Many of the pastors of these churches have been ministers in Anglican Diocese of Sydney and all except one has been through Moore Theological College. A number of ministers from the Anglican Diocese of Sydney are on the Board of Reference for these churches. In the Sydney Anglican synod of 2005, the links with Sydney Anglicans and the Independent Evangelical Churches was strengthened, with the possibility of the Independent churches becoming affiliated with the Anglican Diocese of Sydney[1]. This evangelical fellowship in Australia is similar to the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches in the United Kingdom.
