Church Planting For Less Than a Million

Perth Church Planters take note: There are now 31 suburbs in little ol’ Perth with a median house price of over one million dollars. Ten years ago there were two.  29 have been added to that list in a decade, and there are a whole bunch of other suburbs sitting between the 800-999 thousand mark.

One of those suburbs is Rossmoyne.  Sorry Rossmoynians, you may be lovely people, but you don’t look a million dollars. You’re not even near the city.  I know the quality of your local government high school has driven up house prices, but I’d be wanting at least two Nobel Prize winners, a Rhodes Scholar and an X Factor winner graduating per year for that sort of cash.

Fortunately out here in the eastern suburbs house prices have stayed stubbornly low.  No chance of moving to Rossmoyne for us. Good thing that the need for church planters in the eastern suburbs is, conversely, very high.  What a happy coincidence! Low high prices (read “undesirability”) and a high need for gospel church plants.  Midland, near where I live, is a great part of town, bit rough around the edges, but with a certain “charm” as the real estate agents might put it. Lots of people, lots of activity and a good town centre.  Oh, and if you want to meet people for whom persecution in the Middle East has been a reality, and who many Aussies don’t even want living here, there are plenty of people who need friendship and help.

So if you want to plant a church in Perth in a suburb in which you can afford to live whilst you plant, the eastern suburbs are looking nice, nice and cheap. And given the inheritance we have as God’s people then you’re not really going to be losing out in a place in which the annual house price increase will never reach double digits.