Ministries > Ministerial Association

The Ministerial Association exists to serve the needs of pastors and their families. It facilitates the professional development of pastors and gives spiritual support to them and their families.

Pastors are often placed under extreme pressure in their ministry. They are on call 24/7. People have high expectations regarding their professional performance, their relational capabilities, their moral behaviour and their family life. They feel within themselves the frustrations of not being able to do all that their sense of duty calls them to do. They sometimes go through personal crises, unasked and unexpected. There are occasions when, in their humanness, they make wrong decisions which have devastating consequences. Theirs is often a lonely and trying profession.

But their ministry is also richly blessed with rewards and reasons to rejoice. They are privileged to represent the mind and heart of God to people in sermons and visits and evangelistic outreach. Their greatest challenge factor--people--is also their greatest reward factor. They have the supreme joy of bringing people to know Christ and baptising them into His kingdom. They have the satisfaction of knowing they are making a difference in the lives of scores of people.

To weep and to celebrate with them, to support them and to encourage them, to enable their growth and to ensure their survival--for all this, there is the Ministerial Association. The Greater Sydney Conference currently has over 50 employed pastors and a number of volunteer or bivocational pastors whose interests are served by this Association.

The Secretary of the Greater Sydney Conference Ministerial Association is Garth Bainbridge. Garth is South African by birth and has lived in Australia since 1997. His last church pastorate was Fox Valley SDA Community Church in Wahroonga, Sydney, which he enjoyed filling for five years, He has held the post of Ministerial Association Secretary since September, 2005. Following the death of his wife in December 2005, he married Aleta, a fellow South African, in September 2007; he has three children and, at last count, three grandsons who all live in South Africa.

Contact:

Ministerial Association Secretary - Garth Bainbridge- garthbainbridge@adventist.org.au
Administrative Assistant - Dulce Ferguson - dulceferguson@adventist.org.au