For Dubbo Baptist Church, growth has never simply been about numbers.
It has been about people. Families finding a spiritual home, children learning the gospel and young people gathering on a Friday night. It’s about a multicultural community worshipping together in the heart of a regional city, and, over time, a church building that needed to make room for the ministry God was already growing.
“We’re largely an urban population,” says Executive Pastor Rob McGorman. “A lot of school teachers, people involved in health, people from all ages, and about a dozen different nationalities represented in the church.”
It is also a church with a large number of children. On a Sunday morning, Rob says, it is not unusual for Dubbo Baptist to have around 60 children in kids church, with a strong core of young families bringing their children along each week. On Friday nights, the youth ministry also gathers young people from across the community.
That growth created a very practical challenge.
For years, almost everything had to happen in the main auditorium. Chairs were packed up and moved. Children and young people made do with whatever areas were available and if the weather was cold or wet, the options became even more limited.
“We had the church, but we didn’t have the hall,” Rob says. “Everything happened in the main auditorium. We’d grown to fill it, and there was no dedicated area for youth activity or any activity other than what we could accommodate in the auditorium.”
The dream of a dedicated youth and children’s space had been discussed for close to a decade. For Rob, that long period of discernment sat within a much longer story.
As the church looked back over its history, it recognised a pattern. Across roughly 100 years, Dubbo Baptist had repeatedly reached moments where the ministry required a new kind of space. Again and again, the church had grown, built, adapted and grown again.
“I said to our people, ‘Let’s not be frightened of it. It’s part of our DNA to grow. Build something, grow. Build something, grow.’”
With that history in mind, the church moved ahead with a major building project: a new multi-purpose youth and children’s hall, approximately the size of a basketball court, with an additional breakout room. While the hall was the first priority, the project also created the opportunity to extend and reconfigure the main auditorium, increasing capacity and making the overall site more fit for purpose.
But the story of the project is not only about what was built. It is also about how the church arrived there.
Before a formal vote was taken, Dubbo Baptist’s leadership deliberately separated the time for questions from the time for decision-making. Over several months, the church held discussion meetings where people could ask questions, walk the site, look at drawings, understand the footprint of the project and raise concerns.
“We said to people, ‘Come on a Sunday after the service and we’ll answer any question you’ve got. We’re not making a decision that day. We’re just talking about it,’” Rob says.
By the time the decision meeting came, the process took just 20 minutes for all to agree on the drawing down of a 1.6 million dollar loan.
“It just seemed like a seamless process of taking people’s concerns, answering them, helping them to understand, and getting to that point where we’re just going to go, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do this. It’s the right thing to do.’”
Long before the building work began, Dubbo Baptist had also been preparing financially. The church had invested funds with Christian Finance over many years, carefully stewarding its resources as the vision slowly moved closer to reality.
When the time came to complete the project, that long relationship continued through Christian Finance.
For Rob, who had previously worked as a financial counsellor, the loan application process was familiar and straightforward. But what stood out most was the relational support.
“Peter was excellent,” Rob says. “I had lots of long discussions with Peter to get this thing over the line.”
By late 2025, after years of prayer, planning, giving and careful stewardship, the new space was ready. The occupation certificate arrived just in time, late on the Friday before the church’s planned opening Sunday.
“We reckoned by midday Friday we would have to pull the pin if we didn’t have our occupation certificate,” Rob says. “But we got it at quarter to 12, and so we went ahead.”
The timing was tight, but the celebration was full. In the weeks that followed, the church held its opening celebration, Christmas dinners, a multicultural lunch and a farewell for its youth and children’s pastor.
For the children and youth leaders, the difference has been immediate and practical.
They no longer need to set up and pack down in the same way. The children have somewhere to go after church. If the main service is still finishing, kids can kick a soccer ball around inside the hall. Leaders have more flexibility. Ministry feels less squeezed.
“It’s just made it that much easier for the teachers,” Rob says. “It doesn’t have to be quite so coordinated.”
And yet, when Rob reflects on the project, he is careful not to make the story about one leader, one decision or one moment.
He describes it as the whole body of Christ working together.
There was the 80-year-old pensioner giving $10 a week toward the building. The person who gave $20,000 to help get the project over the line. The children’s leader teaching the gospel to 60 kids on a Sunday morning. The youth leader welcoming 50 young people on a Friday night. The people with building experience. The finance team. The elders. The congregation.
“No one of us has made it all happen,” Rob says. “It’s been pulling together, which is the appropriateness of the body working together.”
That is why the building feels right.
Rob does not describe it in grand or sentimental terms. Instead, he uses a simpler word: appropriate.
“It’s an appropriate building for the church and for the people and for where we’re at at this point in time.”
For Dubbo Baptist, the new building is not the end of the story. It is a faithful next step.
The church now has room for the ministry already happening among its children, young people and families. It has room for people to gather, play, learn, worship and belong. It has room to keep welcoming the community God has placed around it.
And for Christian Finance, this is exactly the kind of story its work exists to support: finance serving ministry, resources enabling mission, and local churches being equipped to thrive in their communities.