At The Gathering incorporating the Annual Assembly 2025, The David Brown Scholarship was awarded to Terry Allen, solo pastor at Sandy Beach Baptist Church.
The David Brown Rural and Regional Scholarship is awarded annually to a pastor who is recognised as having potential or demonstrated excellence in pastoral leadership in a rural or regional setting. The scholarship was established in memory of Rev David Brown, once a Team Leader, Ministry Support and Development with the Baptist Association of NSW and ACT.
Before starting in formal ministry, Terry worked as a journalist in Sydney. In the early-1990s he moved to Sandy Beach, a quiet seaside village outside the main city of Coffs Harbour, for work.
Terry and his family joined the Sandy Beach Baptist Church as members. Terry’s love for the Bible and sharing the Gospel grew, and he enrolled at Bible college via correspondence. Then, a little over 25 years ago, the church began to struggle. Terry stepped in and was preaching and leading the church in a volunteer capacity. In 2005, he became a Recognised Minister and went on the church payroll.
“We’ve been through the lifecycle of a church a couple of times,” reflects Terry, “and two years ago the church was in a season of decline.” The congregation was aging, with no young families joining the community. The Sunday school had stopped, and there was no youth for whom to run a youth group.
The demographic inside the church and the demographic outside the church had grown apart. Terry could see that these differences were making it hard for young families to feel welcome and at home in the church. He had to strike the balance between recognising the contribution of longstanding church volunteers but also focus the church on moving forward and reaching new people.
“I made a deliberate effort to restart the lifecycle of the church,” reflects Terry, “if the trajectory continued, we would have been dead within ten years. We’d lost touch with the local families in our community.”
With a fundamental shift in their focus, Sandy Beach Baptist Church began, and continues, to grow. They changed how they used their church building. Last year, a couple joined the church who run a puppy school. They now use the church property on Saturday mornings for the puppy school. “It’s all good and no bad,” says Terry, “all sorts of people are coming through and seeing our facility that didn’t even know we were here.”
Now, Sandy Beach regularly has new people from the community visiting their Sunday service. The Sunday school has re-launched, with 8-10 children coming each week. And, their youth group is approaching 20 attendees each week, many of whom are community members that don’t, yet, come to church.
A small Burmese fellowship meets in the church hall on Sunday afternoons. The congregation of around two-dozen is made up of young families and four times a year they join Sandy Beach Baptist for a combined service. “An added bonus is, they bring huge woks of food for morning tea,” says Terry, “No one leaves early that day.”
They have also launched a Main Music playgroup, and ¾ of the parents who attend aren’t part of the church, another area that they are reaching out into their community.
At their Easter Service, attendance grew another 50% and they ran out of everything, from parking, to chairs, to communion supplies. “A lot more people know where we are and what we do,” says Terry, “and people are willing to bring along their friends and non-Christian neighbours.”
After the Easter Sunday service, a man pulled Terry aside and said he wanted to give his life to Jesus. Terry gathered a small group of people, and they prayed with him. The next Sunday a 21-year-old man walked into church without any prior connection and asked the same thing – to give his life to Jesus.
God can do amazing things just through your perseverance in pastoral ministry,” reflects Terry, “It can be a demoralising sometimes, and you can forget God is still at work. But then He delivers a gift, and you remember that He was in charge all along. Through simple perseverance God has does amazing things in little country churches.”
Having served at Sandy Beach for 25 years, Terry will take some long service leave later this year. He has asked and equipped the pastoral team at Sandy Beach Baptist to conduct a pastoral review while he is on leave. The team will ask themselves what the direction of the church is and where they’d like to head. Terry’s humility in leadership is evident in his willingness to hand over control, and his plan to hand over the leadership of the church in the next five years to a younger leader.
