In 2011 Dave and his wife Pip returned to Australia after working and traveling in the United States as musicians. Dave took a job coordinating music at St Matthews Anglican in Manly, whilst also studying at Sydney Missionary and Bible College.
During this time, Dave participated in a Church Planting Course (Now SENT) at Morling College, that equips participants to serve as leaders for new communities of faith locally. Towards the end of the course Dave thought to himself, “if church planting isn’t for me, I don’t know what is”.
Part of the course work involved demographic studies, where students apply what they’ve learnt to a potential church plant location. Dave did his assignment on the Mosman area. Steve Bartlett, now Director of Ministries, was running the course at the time, and called Dave after he handed in his assignment on Mosman to ask if Dave would be interested in planting a church in that area. At the time, Dave said he’d thought of the assignment as more of a theoretical task but was interested to hear more about the opportunity and agreed to explore it with Steve.
Dave and Pip had been thinking about church planting in general but had not thought seriously about planting in Mosman. Dave jokes, “we never would have thought ‘we’re going to deny ourselves, take up our cross and move to Mosman’, but because we’d been asked to consider, we decided to take a year to discern”.
Throughout 2017, they surrounded themselves with trusted friends and guides, who prayed with them through this decision. Steve also encouraged Dave to do the NewStart Church Planter Assessment, a key element of the discernment process.
At the end of 2017, and after serving at St Matts for six years, Dave and Pip left to plant a church in Mosman. They left on good terms, and St Matthews sent Dave off with a small team of people to be part of the church plant.
Discussions had been underway with Mosman Baptist Church, which had been in decline for some time, about a new work starting there. But just when Dave had resigned from St Matthews, things went further downhill at Mosman Baptist, and Dave was told that there was no guarantee that the church building would be available to use.
Dave, Pip, and their team of twelve spent three months waiting to hear what would be next. Dave chose to be completely honest with his team and reminded them regularly that this had always been a leap of faith. And the team kept growing.
“We didn’t have all the answers, but God was asking us to take a leap of faith,” Dave reflects, “He took many of the material things away and we believe God was asking us to trust in him. And so, we decided to do it, even with all those unknowns – without even a place to meet or a place to live.”
Dave and Pip found an apartment in the area, and the day they moved they received a call from the Association saying that they could use the church building, sharing the space with Mosman Baptist. For the next six months, Dave continued to work on building the team. They met in Dave & Pip’s living room, and with great views of Mosman they prayed over the area and the people there.
During this time, the interim pastor at Mosman Baptist invited Dave along to preach and love the congregation. Dave’s message to the congregation was clear: “This church is coming to an end, but there will be a place for you in the new one.”
“I made that super clear and every single one of them came with us,” reflects Dave.
After a moving final service of Mosman Baptist, the church building was empty for a month. After a lightning-quick property renovation, Harbourside Church launched there in September 2018. The church celebrated six years of evangelism and discipleship last month.
“There’s so much I could say about the last six years,” reflects Dave, “it’s been an incredible journey.”
“The majority of our church is fairly de-churched and unchurched,” explains Dave, “new things seem to attract new people. A lot of people here had some kind of faith when they were young, spent some time away, and have come back.”
Dave thinks part of the appeal of Harbourside is their willingness to “take the mask off”. “It’s pretty common around here to project success, and this can lead to fairly fake, cold and inauthentic relationships. We decided to be the opposite; vulnerable, warm and genuine and people have found that very refreshing.” explains Dave.
Harbourside has a strong culture of small group evangelism, running regular Alpha courses and seeing fruit from this. They also focus on hospitality and welcoming, with an approach that “everyone is on the welcoming team”.
One thriving ministry at Harbourside is their Playgroup, which Dave and Pip started when their own children were young. Now with over 100 attending each week, the Playgroup runs on both Mondays and Thursdays, and the team work hard to love the children, parents, carers and grandparents. “It’s very encouraging seeing people coming from Playgroup to church or to faith, and then to leading kids ministries,” shares Dave.
In 2025, Harbourside will launch a night service targeting younger people in the area. “Young people are the smallest demographic in our church, and we want to do something about that,” explains Dave.
Dave prays that Harbourside will always be focused on the outsider and making space for them in the church. “We want to see people come to Jesus and experience the hope he offers. And I believe to do that we have to be starting new churches and services.”
