Paul Young of Providence Bayswater on the urgent gospel needs in Perth, and finding good soil in unexpected places.

What do people in the rest of Australia need to know about and pray for Perth?

Currently, there are large areas and whole people groups without churches to reach them. Perth is big – it’s a long stick of a city, spread out up and down the coast, with people scattered all the way along it. The kind of place you need a car to get around.

What that means is that people need churches close enough to them, that have figured out that area and how to reach the people there. There are some churches doing great work, but just not enough.

South of the river in Bentley we have Curtin University, the largest in Perth, with over 55,000 students. There are a couple of churches who are doing some great work trying to reach that university, but I could count them on one hand. With over 55,000 students, we need more like a dozen churches doing that work.

Currently, there are large areas and whole people groups without people to reach them.

So, planting more churches means more staff to lead them. What’s the leadership pipeline like in Perth?

I think the leadership pipeline in Perth is looking very strong right now. The faculty at Trinity Theological College at the moment is excellent. There’s a reputable MTS training pathway now at universities and churches, and the training in churches is way better than it used to be. 

That’s fantastic, because we need a huge number of good pastors to address the needs of churches already in the ground – before even counting retirement vacancies and staff for church planting.

You planted Providence Bayswater in 2021… what’s on your heart for this church?

We have a big number in our heads, and that’s 67,000. That’s the number of people we think are in Bayswater who don’t know Jesus. So we’re talking about the 67,000 and praying that they come to know Jesus.

You mentioned that a lot of your new members are people who had completely left church, but are coming back. How is that different to reaching people who’ve never been to church before?

They’re really quite pastoral conversations. There’s normally a reason why someone has stopped going to church. So it’s working through those personal experiences with them, and then helping them see the great worth of Jesus in light of that.

Maybe it means explaining to them lots about how this church operates, and how it’s different from what they’ve been through. Not to say that we’re perfect, but just to say that we’re different. Whereas I think, for unchurched people, there’s still that kind of stuff happening, but it’s a lot more about: Who is Jesus? What does following him mean?

It’s working through those personal experiences with them, and then helping them see the great worth of Jesus in light of that.

Have there been any common themes emerge in that ministry?

It seems that the transition from being married to having kids can be a particularly difficult one that causes people to leave church. So we’ve put a great deal of thought into our kids programs, and how we manage sensory issues, neurodiversity, a whole range of those things that parents face early on. That means it seems much more plausible for them to come to church at Bayswater than what they experienced before.

What have been some of the challenges of planting Providence Bayswater?

The nature of church is that it’s complex. You’re not dealing with numbers, you’re dealing with people, and people’s lives are so complex. Often you’re making mistakes, and getting things wrong, and wishing that you didn’t. So I’m thankful that it’s by the grace of God that people are sustained, and protected, and grow.

I feel pulled and stretched in lots of different areas at the moment, and it can be hard to balance meeting the pastoral needs of our current members whilst also reaching out to new members. We run a gospel outreach course at Bayswater, but no-one is going to call me up and say ‘Why didn’t you think about Taste and See this week?’ However, someone will call me with a pastoral situation where someone is hurting, so that gets my attention – and rightly so. But I need to remember to keep gospel outreach and mission in focus.

What can we be praying for you, and for Providence Bayswater?

I think the hardest thing for me is to juggle kids, life, and family, and to make sure they actually get good time with me – not just the excess of my energy. Sometimes I struggle to remember that I’m not just a human ‘do-er’ but a human who is loved by God. I’ve always found that a challenge, to be honest – probably something I’ll be working on my whole life.

I’m on the committee for the Perth Gospel Partnership, and I’d love to see our network result in some tangible action together. Pray that we can have a greater and greater impact in the Perth community.

We’re putting on some new staff members at Bayswater next year. Pray that their efforts, particularly in mission, would be a real benefit to us as we reach more and more people, and that we’d get on well as a team.

Pray for Christians in Perth to grow into deeper disciples, and for more unchurched people to be reached by the gospel.

Pray that we have greater and greater impact in the Perth Community.