HISTORY PAGE

The life of a long established church such as St Phils will always involve the ministry and work of hundreds of people. This means that in a brief account such as this, many who had a significant role may unfortunately not be mentioned.

St Phils began in 1917 when the resident population in the area was fifteen to twenty families. A block of land fronting President Avenue was purchased for £100 and then gradually paid for and cleared by voluntary labour. Services commenced in October 1924 in the Burns Hall which was on the corner of President Avenue and Port Hacking Road.  Four years later, in 1928, the services moved to the new weatherboard church in President Avenue after it had been dedicated by the Right Rev G D'Arcy Irvine. 

Even though this building was extended in the years that followed, it became too small for the growing congregation. So in the late 1950s land was bought in Port Hacking Road as the site for a new and bigger church.

In 1958 St Phils became a Provisional District and therefore a separate area from its mother church in Cronulla. Rev Jack Derrett, the first minister of this new district, was instituted as Curate-in-Charge in January 1959. At the same time St Stephen’s Taren Point, where services had commenced in the new small church in 1936, became the branch church of St Phils. A church hall was added to the Taren Point site in 1965 and became a much used community centre.

Following a long period of planning and consultation, a new church complex on the Port Hacking Road site was completed and dedicated by the Most Rev Hugh Gough on 24 June 1961. And while services then took place in the new church, the old church in President Avenue was still used for Sunday School and other activities.

In August 1961 the church was granted the status of a full parish and so Jack Derrett then became the Rector. In the years that followed the congregation grew in all sorts of ways. Having one thousand pupils regularly in Sunday School, fifty-four weekly Scripture classes, fifteen girls’ netball teams and a good number of boys’ soccer teams. These were very much the formative years of the suburb with many families financing new homes and raising young children.

In 1966 Jack Derrett moved to West Wollongong and the Rev Tony Lamb became the new rector. There followed a 19 year ministry where the emphasis was on Bible teaching, the formation of Home Bible Study Groups, prayer and a commitment to service both at home and overseas.

Tony Lamb moved to St Ives in 1985 and was replaced by the Rev Reg Barker. For the next five years Reg Barker provided a caring pastoral ministry, which was a real blessing and encouragement to many members of the congregation.

His departure on missionary service saw the beginning of another long period of very fruitful ministry with the arrival of the Rev Stephen Fifer in 1990. Many significant events took place during the next 16 years. Among them was the merging of the Taren Point congregation into the fellowship of the main church, St Phils. This was followed by the sale of the property at Taren Point with the funds being used towards the construction of the present extensive church complex on the St Phil’s site. The original historic wooden Taren Point church building was given to the local primary school to use as a resource centre.

Stephen Fifer moved to Bowral in 2006 and was replaced by the current Senior Minister, the Rev Stefan Bull. He came to what was already a very busy and active church with a wide variety of ministries taking place, but one that had not grown numerically for a number of years. With this in mind Stefan Bull launched the 20/20 Vision for St Phils in 2008, the aim being to see the congregation grow to 2020 by 2020. This vision is already starting to be fulfilled as the church family has begun to grow in numbers; and a specialist ministry team is being brought together to cover all aspects of the church’s life.