After hearing that another church just down the road, Colyton Baptist Church, was struggling and looking at closing, Enoch Nagabyrava, Lead Pastor at St Marys Baptist, started to think what they could do. With a “what have we got to lose?” attitude, Enoch met with Mark Chapple, Regional Minister for Greater West Sydney, who supported pitching the idea of a merge to Colyton. Mark also mentioned that another church, New Horizons Community Church, also just down the road from St Marys Baptist, was not sure about their future.
“There was a sense of going through the motions,” explains Shane Conlon, Lead Pastor at New Horizons Community Church, “but we didn’t have the critical mass to do much more than this. There was a lack of satisfaction. It was great to be gathering to fellowship, but we weren’t ‘going into the world and sharing the Gospel’”.
With Colyton, St Marys and New Horizons sharing a sense of dissatisfaction, they decided it was time for discernment and preparing a path forward towards merging. Soon, Colyton Baptist closed, and half a dozen parishioners merged into St Marys Baptist.
St Marys and New Horizons set up a Transition Leadership Team to discern the next steps forward. There was always the option of either church withdrawing, but they quickly found that “people started loving each other” and the path forward became clearer.
In August 2022, they began a time of weekly prayer meetings, leaders’ meetings, combined worship nights, preaching swaps, and combined men’s and women’s events. They also held open meetings, to discuss congregational questions. Anyone could come to raise any questions on their heart. There were lots of strong questions from people, but the team took all of them and worked to make everyone feel heard.
“What brought us together was mission,” says Enoch, “we agreed together we could be a force for God’s mission in this community. These differences were not enough to stop us.”
Overwhelmingly, there was a sense of alignment – culturally, ethically and spiritually. Both churches strongly valued the autonomy of the local church to do what God was calling them to do in their community.
They found that the biggest issue was choosing a name that would bring everyone along and not favour one group over another. The new name, Highway Church, became symbolic of this new shared thing they were doing.
They also had to settle on a new constitution and values. The Transitional Leadership Team preached through each of the adopted values, as well as other key elements of what this new thing would look like. They encouraged conversation and consultation at every step and did not lose any members from either church as a result of the merge.
At a shared AGM in October 2023, New Horizons Community Church and St Marys Baptist Church both closed, and a new church, Highway Church, was born.
The official launch was held in February 2024, and the place was full, including previous pastors from both churches, denominational representatives, pastors from other local churches, and a local member of parliament.
Since the merge, Highway Church has been thriving.
Having a bigger congregation has brought more gifts and complimentary strength. A Pastoral Care Team has been launched, an initiative both churches had wanted but didn’t have the resources on their own to sustain.
There has been a cultural shift in the church, with a growing outward focus and the clear fruit of outreach activities motivating more people to step in and volunteer. The Chat n Play playgroup was not sustainable as the mums who were leading it were moving on, but with new enthusiasm and leadership it is now resourced and thriving. Off the back of its success, they have hosted a Mother’s Day event and Open Day, both of which had people from the community welcomed into the church and hanging around for hours.
Highway Church has also established a new governance model, and their new eldership is strong and diverse. The church has better administrative resources, and Enoch and Shane are able to divide the pastoral load between them, with Enoch as the Lead Pastor and Shane as the Executive Pastor.
The church is also looking to recruit a part-time Community Chaplain to run various community and family outreach activities. Conversations are underway as to what this might look like, and how to best leverage such a role in the local community such as combining the oversight of Lavender Cottage or School Chaplaincy to create a fulltime role.
Highway Church is buzzing with activity every day of the week and plans to be a resourcing and disciple making church in the St Marys area into the future.
“This isn’t the destination,” reflects Shane, “it’s the starting point”.
“By 2030, we want to be a church that plants churches… it may sound pessimistic to some, but that is my mustard seed sized faith,” states Enoch.
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Love and Life
Bradley Dodd- Back of the Brush Designs
This artwork was commissioned for Highway Church St Marys and is designed to capture sharing God’s abundant love and life in our communities.
For God so loved the world he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3: 16
When we receive God’s love and life, we become part of his church and in turn share God’s love and life with each other and with people are yet to receive Christ.
The centre circles of the artwork (the yellow/orange dots) represent God and his love flowing out. The gradual changes in colour as the dots flow out represents God’s constant presence in our lives and also how he provides for our everchanging needs. The white lines coming off the centre circle represent the role of the Holy Sprit connecting and guiding his people and church. The small brown circles around the centre circle represent Jesus Christ. The centre of the artwork shows the triune God connected and then flowing out.
The Boomerangs represent the church, they are facing in towards the centre to reflect the church facing God and seeing and understanding God through the life and love of Jesus. The symbols on the boomerangs represent some of the attributes of the church and how the church lives out God love and life.
The spears represent the word of God, the shield represents faith, the sun represents love and the clap sticks represent worship and joy.
The blossoming gum tree represents life, growing in our journey with God and being connected to him.
