What’s Going On…
Cathedral Newsletter – 8 October 2026
Friends in Christ, today’s newsletter has a bit of a “what’s coming up” aspect.
Firstly, I wanted to let you know that two Sundays away, 18 October, all the congregations of the Cathedral will be particpating in the National Church Life Survey (NCLS).
We will also give those attending mid-week services a chance to complete the survey as well, either the week before or after.
The NCLS occurs every five years, in the same year as the Australian Census we all did earlier in 2026. Hundreds of thousands of church attenders at thousands of Christian churches of many denominations will attend.
The survey is voluntary and confidential. It takes 15-20 minutes. It is designed to listen to the views of our attenders and leaders, and any visitors on the day who wish to participate. We will ‘trim’ other aspects of the service to ensure we do not run massively overtime on the day.
You will be able to do the NCLS via a paper form, or online on your device. You only have to do it once, even if you attend multiple services at the Cathedral during the week.
There will also be a separate survey for all who watch the Cathedral livestream services, so we can get your feedback and a sense of demographics there too.
The NCLS is one way to provide a picture of the Cathedral’s health and vitality. The results should enable us to identify our strengths and provide processes to help us evaluate, make decisions and connect effectively with our community. It also helps us track our own church's trends over time, and the wider data is helpful to inform denominational leadership.
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Further off is the Service of Confirmation with our Bishop of South Sydney, Michael Stead.. Confirmation is scheduled for the 5pm service on Sunday 29 November. This is an opportunity for those baptised as infants to affirm the Christian faith in which they were brought up. Likewise those who were baptised as teenagers or adults may wish to take the chance to again profess their faith publicly.
Our Bishop leads us in praying over those to be confirmed that God’s indwelling Spirit will strengthen and guide them in following Jesus as Lord.
If you were confirmed in another Christian denomination but would like to formally indicate your wish to join the Anglican church, you can also be received by the Bishop at this service. There is no obligation to do this, but some people appreciate the opportunity, especially if our Church has been a place of spiritual growth.
You should advise Jonathan Adams, our Precentor and Assitant Minister, ASAP if you are interested, as there is a little bit of preparation, which is designed to strengthen your own spiritual growth and maturity.
Of course, Confirmation is a useful human tradition. It is the prior baptism in water that Jesus commanded. In his ‘Great Commission’ (Matthew 28:19) he told his followers to “make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.
And so if you have decided to trust and follow Jesus, the more important thing is to be baptised, rather than confirmed. Once again, please reach out to one of the Ministers at church, and we can let you know about when the next opportunity is coming up.
(If you are interested you can read a bit more about why we baptise the babies of believers here).
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Lastly, I do want to commend the Reformation Day conference coming up on 31 October. (Info below). At the recent Synod, we were reminded that there are plans for Pope Leo XIV to attend a “Eucharistic Congress” in Sydney in Spring 2028. That might seem a long way off, but it there will be lots of discussion in the long lead up. So it will be important for Protestant Christians, like us at the Cathedral, to be ready to speak sensitively with their Roman Catholic friends about Jesus.
The Reverend Mark Gilbert from St Matthew’s Manly explains in this video, in under a minute why you might consider coming along to the Reformation Day conference at the Cathedral. (He includes some notable statistics.)
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney