A New Parish Centre!

    Our Parish is well on the way towards developing a new Parish Centre.  Although the parish has had it in mind to re-locate St. Mark's Church away from Terrigal's CBD for several years now, the need to do so has been much more urgent in recent years.  Traffic difficulties, parking problems, and the exodus of full-time residents from the Terrigal "Bowl" have contributed, but the primary reason for considering such a move has been the massive population growth in the area between Erina and Terrigal's CBD.  All along Terrigal Drive, great housing developments have been built, and the population has increase tremendously.

    We have watched as our Uniting Church and Roman Catholic partners have made a similar move "up Terrigal Drive" and has grown from strength to strength.  Now it is our turn. 

• We have located a 1 hectare (2.5 acre) site on Serpentine Road, just off Terrigal Drive and visible to Terrigal Drive traffic.  We have purchased a one year "option-to-buy" on this property.

• We have engaged Coastal Synergy Pty. Ltd. to act as our project manager, and they have been busy putting into place the structures necessary for the sale of our Terrigal site, the engaging of an architectural team and are preparing to engage the necessary consultancies required prior to the lodging of a Development Application.

• We have been fortunate, indeed, to attract the attention of the Very Rev. Richard Giles, Dean of Philadelphia Cathedral, author of "Re-pitching the Tent", and one of the Anglican world's foremost liturgical design consultants.  He has agreed to act as our advisor/consultant throughout the project.  You can find out more about him by clicking here.  Recently, Richard prepared a DVD/Video recording for our use, outlining some basic liturgical design principles that we need to consider.  A summary of those design principles is here:

1. The building must proclaim good news – exciting, fresh, bold – encapsulating the hope in the Christian faith and expressing it in a contemporary design that speaks to contemporary society and culture.
2. The building should recall us to the Judeo-Christian insight that God is encountered in journey; that we are a pilgrim people, living in tents, not temples.
3. The building must be welcoming and inviting.  This helps make the building a primary tool in our work of evangelism. 
4. We are a gathered community, and the gathering/sending out space (narthex) should be a primary space, providing a kind of “decompression chamber” between the frantic world and the place of prayer, the place of encounter, of waiting upon God.  This is important so that the worship space retains a numinous atmosphere.
5. The building should be spacious.  “Spaciousness in an overcrowded world is an immediate sacrament”.  We should keep the seating reduced to what we actually need. 
6. The building should be so designed as to work equally well for small groups as for large gatherings, in order to recall us to the Judeo-Christian roots of worship in the domestic setting. This can be achieved by zoned directional lighting as much as well as by the form of the building itself.
7. Water should be incorporated into the new building.  It evokes images of “oasis”, of “refuge”, “new life”, “replenishment”, and (of course) baptism.  The water feature should be central to the place of baptism.  It is especially helpful and evocative in an arid country like Australia. 
8. The altar table should be prominently visible and accessible and should reflect, not sacrifice, but the fellowship of the sacred meal.  It should be a readily apparent symbol of hospitality. 
9. The ambo (combining pulpit and lectern) – should act like a ‘twin pillar’ of the table, so that it becomes a readily apparent symbol of the proclamation and exploration of the spoken Word of God
10. The building should express the nature of our community.  “The seating plan is the most important thing you will do in your new building.”  The seating plan should immediately speak to who we are.  It should speak of “gathering” and “community of gifts and ministries”.   
11. The building should allow for movement during the liturgy.  This should make it apparent that we are a ‘pilgrim’ people for whom everything around us is provisional and transitory. ‘For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come’. (Hebrews 13:14).
12. The building should integrate outside and inside, celebrating creation, enabling dialogue, and blurring the edges between traditional concepts of ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’.
13. The building should end in a question mark, an unfinished sentence, a glimpse of the sky or of the world beyond, thereby recalling us to the transcendent and eternal.

                                                                                      Richard Giles      25 April 2007

• We have engaged Thrum Architects and their principal, Chris Baker, to develop the design of the new centre.

• We have engaged FPD Savills and L.J. Hooker to conduct the sale of the Terrigal sites by "Expressions of Interest".  The sales campaign began on 13 April and will close in late May. 

Keep checking this site for up-dates!