Spotlight: Greater West for Christ Training Centre

It may not host the beaches of the east, but Greater Western Sydney has its own amazing landscape, both geographically and socially.

In fact, Greater Western Sydney has the 3rd largest economy within Australia, just behind Sydney CBD and Melbourne. In 2017, the population of the region was sitting at approximately 2,288,544 — that’s over 9 times the population of the Northern Territory. It’s suburbs are also an incredible mixture of cultures, with 38% of the population speaking a language other than English at home.

Greater Western Sydney is a huge area and it’s rapidly growing both in area and in population. It’s this growth that saw the birth of the Greater West for Christ (GWFC) training centre — the largest hub Morling partners with to date and one that has a kaleidoscope of potential for impact in the region.

Mark Chapple, Director of GWFC, knows that there are unique opportunities in Sydney’s West and it was these opportunities that spawned the idea of having a hub dedicated to raising the next generation of leaders to serve churches and communities across the region.

“We made a decision to take a more missional approach to leadership development — in other words, we wanted to raise people ‘from the west, for the west’. Just like a missionary would go to a country and seek to raise local leadership and pass the baton on, so we decided to do the same thing in the Greater West.”

“It’s proven to be a wonderfully blessed initiative by our Lord with generational transition of leadership of nearly all our churches and the birthing of new churches across the region as well.”

The apprenticeship or internship style approach the hub has taken to training also has its own set of perks, Mark says.

“It means that students stay in their churches doing ministry on the ground, trained by their local church leader. Because they stay in their church, they have natural relationships and great passion for the communities their churches serve.”

There’s something for everyone, with Internship, Ministry Training and Accreditation programs, students can work towards their own learning goals while developing their skills in ministry.

It’s this holistic approach to training, based on a passion for serving God, being equipped for service through Morling College's online courses and seeing the transformation of suburbs, towns and cities that the students themselves call home — this is why they train at the GWFC training centre.

The team at GWFC has big plans for the future as they pray for and work towards seeing the next generation of church planters, pastors, administrators, cross-cultural ministries, local evangelists, community chaplains and Christian leaders in the Greater West training side-by-side.

Want to know more about what GWFC has in store for 2020 and beyond? Come along to the Open Night at the GWFC Training Centre. Thursday 14th November at 7.30pm, 175 Cranebrook Road, Cranebrook. A Morling College representative will be there to answer questions. Head over to the Facebook event to let us know you'll be there: https://www.facebook.com/events/416321902404261/

If you live in a different area, Morling College is also holding an Open Day on 4th November at their campus in Macquarie Park. Please click here to register.