About Phillip

Childhood and Education

As a child and teenager, Phillip was involved in Sunday School and youth fellowship at St Stephen’s Church Bellevue Hill. He made his public profession of faith in 1959 at the Billy Graham Crusade and started a ministry of the gospel to his friends at school. It was at university that he met Helen, whom he married in 1969. During his time as a student, Phillip taught Sunday School at St Stephen’s Bellevue Hill, was a beach mission member at Coledale near Austinmer, and was part of the university Christian fellowship, an involvement that would bear much fruit later on.

Phillip studied at Moore Theological College from 1967-1970, and served as student minister at St Aidan’s Hurstville Grove and St Andrew’s Roseville. He was ordained in December 1970, and worked at St Matthew’s Manly from 1971-1972. The following two years he worked with John Chapman for Evangelism Ministries (then called the Department of Evangelism).

Philosophy of Ministry

From that time to today, Phillip’s main work has been his regular exposition of the scriptures. Be it at the university at lunch times, on Sundays in church, at the Cathedral lunch time ministry or Two Ways Ministries evening Forums for young adults and weekend conference preaching, Phillip has devoted himself to preaching Christ by consistently expounding the Bible. His pastoral teaching, care and leadership, evangelistic ministries, polemical and apologetic forays, itinerant preaching, and initiatives in founding new ministries, organizations and media have all taken place in the context of this basic work of teaching the scriptures week by week.

KCC and MYC

In 1974, he joined the Katoomba Christian Convention Council. He was Chairman of the Katoomba Youth Convention from 1974-1991 and became Chairman of the Convention Council in 1983, a position he held for eight years until he retired from the Council in 1991.

From 1975–2005 Phillip was the Chaplain at the University of New South Wales, pastor of the University Church and set up Campus Bible Study. In 1976 he launched the annual Mid Year Conference (MYC), a week-long training intensive which was adopted by and still continues in many Christian university groups across Australia.

Ministry at St Matthias Centennial Park

Phillip became the rector of St Matthias Centennial Park in 1978. During these years hundreds of St Matthias members left to serve Christ in full time ministry both in Australia and overseas as missionaries. It was here he started training ministry apprentices and soon developed a program which coached hundreds of ministry trainees and became the Ministry Training Strategy (MTS). Today MTS is a system of apprenticeship training widely used across Australia and in many parts of the world. Graduates of the University of New South Wales MTS serve Christ in churches, Bible colleges, schools and universities both in Australia and overseas.

Origin of Two Ways to Live, Matthias Media and Church Planting

In 1978 he also wrote the gospel outline Two Ways to Live and a set of Bible studies for new Christians called Just for Starters. Since then, these resources have been printed in many editions and are widely used around the world. In 1987 he founded Matthias Media, the publishing arm of the ministries at St Matthias. The Briefing, an evangelical magazine with worldwide distribution, was also launched that year.

1983 saw the first of many church plants originating from the university church of St Matthias, including the Greek Bible Fellowship, and the Korean Bible Fellowship. By 2003 Unichurch had grown to include 16 congregations ministering to a variety of ethnic groups such as Indonesians, Greeks, Koreans, Cantonese, Mandarin, Australian Born Chinese, as well as different sociological groupings such as families, students, youth and workers.

The Birth of FIEC

Recognising the key evangelistic imperative regarding church planting, in the mid 1990's Phillip initiated a number of church plants around Australia. These grew into a partnership between like-minded church planters to see churches planted in key parts of Sydney and Australia. The formal association of independent churches took place in 2004 as the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC).

Itinerant Preaching

Whilst ministering as Chaplain at the University and leading the University Church and St Matthias’ group of churches, Phillip was freed by the parish council to undertake a regular itinerant speaking ministry. This has included university missions, clergy conferences, student training conferences and church planting conferences both nationally and internationally. He was also involved in the early days of the establishment in England of the Evangelical Ministers Assembly, the Proclamation Trust, and the London Men’s Convention.

After over 30 years in student ministry, he resigned as Chaplain for the University of New South Wales in 2005. He continues his involvement with university student work by speaking at student training conferences and university missions around Australia, encouraging and challenging each generation of students to a complete life commitment to Christ.

Dean & Resignation

In 2003 Phillip became the Dean* of Sydney at St Andrew’s Cathedral and Director of the Sydney Diocesan Ministry Training and Development (MT&D). As Dean he guided the Cathedral in its development as a thriving city church with the gospel clearly proclaimed as the Bible was taught. He planted congregations to connect with the city dwellers, workers and players. He was Director of MT&D from 2003 – 2012 where he continued his lifelong passion for training people in ministry as he led the department in providing ongoing training for ministers in the Sydney Diocese.

2015 Until Today

In December 2014 Phillip resigned from parish ministry to commence work with Two Ways Ministries which is based at Moore Theological College. Phillip leads the work of Two Ways Ministries, which seeks to serve people by proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus through teaching people the Bible; challenging and recruiting Christians into this great work by training a network of evangelistic leaders who apply their Biblical knowledge to their priorities and practice, to live boldly and single-mindedly for Christ. Two Ways Ministries’ programs include evening Forums, Trajectory weekends, Launch Camp, seminars for theological students and the King's Birthday Conference. Phillip currently accepts many invitations to preach on Sundays and to speak at national and international conferences where he continues to model preaching the gospel by teaching the Bible.

*A Dean is “The First of Ten” i.e. the head of a college, university or faculty. Cathedrals are led by Deans as they have always been places of what we call today ‘team ministry’ with the Dean as the ‘Senior Minister’.