Our mission to SHARE JESUS for LIFE was given to Jesus’ first disciples 2,000 years ago and it remains his mission for his disciples today.
He commands his disciples to:
“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
The disciples’ task was to make more disciples; to gather with them more and more people who would be absolutely devoted to Jesus, prioritise him above everything else in their lives, and seek to conform their lives to the pattern of his teaching.
Our task corporately, as the people of God in the Anglican church across our diocese, is to continue this work of SHARING JESUS for LIFE.
The Anglican Church in Central & Western NSW covers about a third of NSW, stretching from the Blue Mountains to the Queensland border. The regional church office is in Bathurst, assisting the region’s 28 Parishes.
The Anglican Church is territorially organised, with the diocese usually being the basic unit of our administration. There are seven dioceses in NSW and 23 in Australia. The Diocese of Bathurst was formed in 1870. It covers the region bordered by: Oberon, Cowra and West Wyalong in the south, west to Cobar and Bourke across the north-west to Coonamble and Coonabarabran, and in the east by Coolah, Mudgee and Rylstone.
Find out more about each of our Parishes.
The first record of any movement towards organised Church-life west of the Blue Mountains dates from the visit of the Reverend Samuel Marsden, Senior Chaplain of the Colony, in 1822.
In 1825, the Rev. John Espy Keane, MA, was stationed at Bathurst. His parish extended from “Mount York, without limitation westward”, a daunting task for a young man.
It was not until 1834 that the construction of Holy Trinity Kelso, the first church building west of the mountains, began.
The discovery of gold rapidly transformed Bathurst and its district into a busy mining region, with a growing population and economy.