Has the Katoomba Christian Convention (KCC) lost momentum? Remarks by a former chair of the convention, Phillip Jensen, the former dean of Sydney, suggest that the convention’s links to some major Christian institutions may be weaker.
“When I became the chairman, I looked back at the history and on the council was the Archbishop of Sydney, the principal of the SMBC, the Bible College of Croydon, the principal of the Baptist College, it was Mr. Morling in those days, TC Hammond was the principal of Moore College in those days, and then there were other leading Christian men,” Jensen told the Pastor’s Heart podcast. “And so within the convention in say the 1930s and 40s, when it was a great expanding ministry, it was led by the theological thinkers and Christian leaders of the community. I don’t know who’s on the council now, and that could be the principal of all the colleges today, but I would want to make sure that the council who is operating has good consultations with those who are the full-time teachers of God’s word, who will be helping, making sure that the word of God is being clearly proclaimed from that platform today.”
Podcast host, Dominic Steele, introduced the topic by saying to Jensen that in “Early July, you were here [on the podcast] with David Cook and Al Stewart. … And we were thinking about the days when Katoomba Christian Convention shaped a generation of Sydney Evangelicals. We’ve had a bit of reaction to that episode and people kind of asking, ‘Well, what about the elephant in the room?’ What has changed that Katoomba is now much, much less relevant to the Sydney Evangelical ecosystem?”
The transcript of the podcast does not establish that the elephant is actually in the room, although the listener reaction is something that should concern KCC.
Jensen appears to be saying that KCC is less connected to some evangelical leadership in Sydney, and possibly less vital, losing its oomph. Let’s look at both, in turn.
Looking at the present KCC committee, there are no denominational leaders or college principals on it, although two former SMBC lecturers are present, including KCC’s Executive Director Jonathan Dykes, and one current SMBC lecturer Geoff Harper.
To substitute current leaders, one could imagine a board with Mark Thompson, principal of Moore, on it, alongside fellow principals Tim MacBride of Morling, Derek Brotherson of SMBC, Laurel Moffat of Mary Andrews College and Ian Smith of Christ College. Substitute some of them for their deputies, or for denominational leaders in a mix, and you probably get the sort of team Phillip Jensen suggests.
While “celebrity Christianity” is to be deplored, there are people who invite connection, and it is helpful to have them on a parachurch board.
Readers may have varied responses as to whether that board would work; certainly you would still need the financial and business expertise of current members of the board.
As to whether KCC has lost its oomph, there appears to be a mixed bag depending on which conference is examined.
One KCC ministry that has shrunk is the Basecamp men’s convention, which closed its Sydney-based meeting after 2024 while continuing the traditional mountains event. Announcing the closure was permanent, KCC reported: “Since COVID, we’ve seen a noticeable decline in attendance at the Sydney one-day format, and that pattern has continued even as other parts of life have returned to normal.”
In the past, the Men’s convention ran up to three weekends at Katoomba.
One Love, the Women’s conference, drew 1700 women this year. But over the last ten years it has been held in a variety of sites in Sydney, ratherthan the mountains. When it was in Katoomba, it ran 2 weekends, chaired by the well- connected Sydney Anglican Lesley Ramsey.
There has been significant growth recently in volunteer-run women’s conventions in Wollongong, Brisbane, Orange and Newcastle.
Another conference, Onward, has been shut down. “For now, we will be putting Onward Youth Conference on hold, according to the conference website. “Apologetics, cultural engagement, and Christian witness is still valuable in our convictions. We have decided to take a step back to think through the best way to continue to better engage, equip and empower Christians in this area into the future.”
By contrast, KYCK, the main youth conference, is extremely successful, with a strong track record of helping young people follow Jesus. This year KYCK runs four three-day events at Katoomba and online, and they are regularly booked out in this writer’s experience.
KYCK, which is very connected to and enthusiastically supported by the Sydney Anglicans, is doing well.
This year, Oxygen, a “ministry refreshment” conference held periodically as a multi-day event, returned in a one-day format at St Barnabas Broadway., a major Sydney anglican venue.
The well-established Easter Convention drew 2400 adults, youth and children this year, which is a very full attaendence figure that indicates it is doing well.
Behind Jensen’s concerns lies a suggestion that the KCC’s past strong connection to Sydney Anglicanism is somehow weaker. He uses theological colleges as an indicator: “Sydney is a rich, unusual city. We’re as pagan as any city in the world, but we have three or four evangelical theological training colleges in this one city. It’s extraordinary. There’s hardly any leading cities in the world that today in the Western world that has such wealth of local teaching. And the biggest of them and the one with the greatest influence in the city is Moore College. So if they’re not inviting Moore College speakers, you really have to ask why. … If that’s the case, I haven’t looked, you see? But if you’re saying that’s the case, then I’d want to say, is there some particular unhappiness within the council about Moore College?”
Jensen walks right up to a suggestion of bias, but does not quite get there.
There are a couple of possibilities. The KCC committee is maybe seeking to widen the appeal of the conferences beyond Sydney Anglicans and Presbyterians. That’s quite legitimate – KCC has Open Brethren origins, started by the Young and Deck families – so it has never been an Anglican / Presbyterian operation, and over time the proportion of these groups among Sydney believers has grown smaller as other groups have brought people to Christ.
An indication of this is having a woman, Nancy Guthrie, as a Bible teacher not only at One Love but also at the Katoomba Easter Convention this year. She taught on Habakkuk, alongside SMBC’s Mark Stephens on the Holy Spirit.
In addition, the committee is doing what KCC committees in the past have done, using local speakers that they know and trust. At present there’s more SMBC speakers than Moore College speakers platformed, perhaps – but the stats are a bit thin – and more SMBC connection to the committee. But as Jensen notes of his time as KCC chair: “People used to count how many Baptists, how many Presbyterians, how many Anglicans are on the platform. Unhelpful. But it meant that as the chairman, I had to keep an ear out. I had to watch to make sure. And so I really went to find those people, especially from denominations whose teaching on the Bible is getting very thin, to find the person who still could give from that background.”
If, as seems to be the case, SMBC has more connection with the KCC committee and Moore has less, should that concerns evangelicals? Both are among the colleges that Jensen includes in Sydney’s “wealth of local teaching.” Sydney evangelicals have warm feelings towards boteh colleges.
As to the issue of the gospel focus of the speakers, the presence of City Bible Forum’s Sam Chan, SMBC’s Mark Stevens, and Multicultural Bible Ministry’s Malcolm Gill on the platform assures this writer of the gospel priority of KCC.
Managing a cross-denominational platform is tough. Organisations like the Bible Society and Scripture Union have to manage those relationships very carefully. The Sydney Anglicans have traditionally been large funders of some of these, so relationships with them are always significant.
One important factor, not mentioned by Jensen, is the physical constraints of the Katoomba site. The big tin shed holds 2,150 people. In 2018, KCC planned a major redevelopment that would have included a 3,500-capacity auditorium, but was knocked back by the NSW Government’s Western City Planning Panel. Environmental factors and intense community opposition mean significant expansion at Katoomba will be difficult.
This means that KCC has been constrained from growing. Imagine if the 3,500-seat auditorium had been approved in 2018 and was now in operation. Several of the KCC conferences would fill it, and new ones would have been born.
Perhaps conferences are like churches: when the building is almost full, growth slows down.
Image: KCC from the air showing the big shed. Image Credit: StayKCC