Epping: Starting on common ground

(photo: Wendy Parrett, Caroline Clark, Mikey Nhieu, Ian Wallace, Darwin Agahari of Epping Presbyterian Church.)

Epping Presbyterian Church has recently begun navigating one of its most delicate conversations yet: how to embrace women’s involvement in ministry without sacrificing doctrinal convictions.

As a congregation with women currently serving as elders, within a wider denomination where the prevailing conviction is that Scripture reserves the
role for qualified men, there was always the potential for tension. Rather than ignore the issue or allow the tension to grow however, recently inducted pastor Darwin Agahari embarked on a pathway of theological honesty seasoned with relational grace in this long-established congregation.

Darwin chose to write a pastoral letter — not to argue or impose, but to bring clarity, invite grace, and help the church speak honestly about what had long gone unspoken.

Elder Wendy Parrett told the Clarity not Consensus podcast that through the proces, they found common ground.

“We realised we are all on the same page; even though we might have had foundational differences," Wendy says. “I think the general consensus is that we are all brothers and sisters.”

“Doesn’t mean we’re the same and heaven help us if we are, but we’re all children of God.”

Darwin agrees, saying that while there was a lot of pain over perceived differences, the best place to start was recognising agreement.

“There’s a lot of things we actually hold together. We wanted to achieve clarity, common ground, freedom and safety, and also to bring encouragement to the church,” Darwin says.

“The [pastoral] letter that we completed together, I started in draft and we went through many edits. But first, I spoke with many, many people.”

A congregation member and returned missionary, Steph Schwartz, saw merit in the process.

“As one who’s being listened to, I took the important step to pray about how I respond, and asked that God will lead our congregation, because he’s bigger and stronger,” Steph says.

The pastoral letter that resulted reminded congregants that though eldership was a secondary matter, it was necessary to discuss, because ignoring it had created confusion.

“So even though I believe elders should be men, they should be godly men who want to share their leadership with others in a responsible, inclusive way,” Darwin says.

“Good leadership shares the decision-making power with others. If we say leadership is all about making decisions, I think we’re just framing it around the idea of power and fighting for power. But leadership is about taking responsibility.”

And ultimately, that means more listening.

“You have time to do your monologue once a week already. The rest of the time, why don’t you do a lot more listening,” Darwin urges.

In the end, Epping Presbyterian didn’t emerge with total agreement — but they did emerge stronger. Their marriage of honest convictions and gospel-shaped listening has positioned them as a model of what healthy theological dialogue looks like in practice.

Click here to read more from our Ministering Together magazine.