By Garry Sanossian
Faced with rising domestic violence cases across the Central Coast, churches in the area gathered last October to discuss domestic and family violence.
Held at Coast Community Church in Killarney Vale, the conference brought together around 90 pastors, parents, educators and community workers for a day of prayer, listening and honest dialogue, united in their commitment to confront domestic and family violence and build safer, more resilient communities.
Unlike other conferences, Contend Conference sought to help the Church respond to issues facing the Central Coast through prayer, action and shared purpose, rather than programs.
“Rather than a mission statement, we have a statement of calling,” Jeff Nagle, minister at Coast Community Church at Tumbi Umbi explained. “We don’t get to make up our own mission. We say yes and participate in what God is already doing.”
That sense of calling has been articulated as “contending” for the renewal of the Central Coast, a vision that reaches beyond one church and invites the wider body of Christ into God’s work of reconciliation.
“In subsequent years, we’re going to be looking at what parts of society on the Central Coast that are in need of renewal,” Jeff said. “Where do we see evidence of brokenness, decay, fragmentation and that the Church can be a minister of reconciliation in those spaces.”
Jeff Nagle and Karen Gould speaking at the Contend Conference.
Attendees during a session.
This year, the Conference focused on domestic and family violence, combining teaching with a panel of local practitioners who explored its underlying drivers, how it manifests, and the ways the Church has been both a source of help and at times harm.
Kristen Crossfield, Chair of Coast Community Care and Chair of Common Grace chaired the panel. Panellists included Carolyn Cousins, a counsellor with specialist expertise in domestic and family violence and contributor to safe-spaces training, Danielle Habib, a highly regarded practitioner with CatholicCare Broken Bay and Natasha Kelley, who works with Peninsula Lighthouse, a Christ-centred ministry on the Central Coast supporting survivors of domestic violence, including men.
“The panel helped us understand the drivers of violence, how it presents, where the Church has been both helpful and harmful,” Jeff said.
Panelists sharing insights during the Contend Conference.
For a significant portion of the day, Common Grace and Cottage Counselling facilitated Active Bystander Training, which grounded the conversation in personal awareness and responsibility.
“The overwhelming advice was not to rush into creating new church programs but to begin by paying attention to your own biases and assumptions,” he said. “Recognising that I can foster eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart to respond, and have some safe ways of being attentive and intervening in reasonable ways.”
Throughout the conference, Open Space Technology was used in the call to prayer to close the day which enabled participants to respond in real time to what they heard and discussed, an approach first introduced at the Churches of Christ Collective Gathering in 2024.
“People proposed prayer topics and prayer responses to everything that they’d heard and broke out into a whole range of prayer spaces. That was beautiful, like contending prayer,” Jeff said.
Through Coast Community Care, Jeff explained that domestic violence is a common reality for many people seeking help, often occurring alongside housing insecurity, financial stress and substance addiction.
“These things all kind of co-contribute. They’re often present together,” he said. “Family and domestic and family violence was the issue that we chose to focus on first.”
Alongside emergency support, people are also offered access to CAP (Christians Against Poverty) Money Mentoring, providing practical financial guidance to help individuals better understand their finances, manage everyday expenses and build resilience for the future.
Looking ahead, Jeff says that the work is far from finished. Emergency accommodation and housing insecurity remain major gaps on the Central Coast and no single church has the answers.
“We ourselves don’t have good solutions,” he said. “The Central Coast as a whole is just grossly under-resourced in that regard.”
Yet for Jeff, Contend Conference represents something vital taking root: a church willing to listen, to learn, and to take responsibility.
“I think it’s really important that the church is seen to be informing itself,” he said.
“That the body of Christ is taking a stand against violence in a really grassroots kind of a way.”
At its heart, the conference challenged the long-held belief that violence is a private matter and silence is faithful.
“That has not served people well,” Jeff said. “It’s not served women well; it’s not served kids and families well.”
Instead, Contend Conference called the Church to name the real enemy and to stand together against it.
“Violence is the enemy,” he said.
“We need men and women to lock arms in standing up against violence.”
Churches of Christ, as a network rooted in the values of unity, life and restoration, we remain dedicated to a path of healing. Just as Christ modelled compassion and united, our priority is to respond to this problem by providing meaningful support and restorative care to those who have experienced harm.
