St Marks Anglican Church

St Mark’s is about growing people, about lives filled with the hope, purpose and community that Christ brings. We have a pretty laid back style, but we take the Bible seriously, we care about your questions and issues and we’re passionate about Jesus.

At the heart of our parish life are our Sunday services where we gather as ‘spiritual family’ to listen to our heavenly Father speak in his word and to encourage one another in various ways as we follow Jesus together. Each Sunday gathering has its own style but all of them aim to be focused on Jesus, clear and welcoming.

Our Sunday services are held at the following times:

8.15am

A traditional service taken from ‘An Australian Prayer Book’ and, on the fifth Sunday of the month from the ‘Book Of Common Prayer’. It is a conservative, weekly communion service for those who like a traditional style of worship. (No children’s ministry)

10am

A contemporary service catering for families and children. During the service our kids Sunday Cool and Creche programs are running. A relaxed style of meeting with modern Christian music. Service format varies week to week with interviews, missionary spots, kids presentations, and various other items.

6.30pm

A contemporary service with modern music, youth and missionary presentations, testimonies, interviews, and musical items. Although this has a youth focus, both young and old attend and love this service.

There is Church on Wednesdays at 9.30am each Wednesday for those who find Sunday’s a bit of a struggle. This is church like you’ve never seen it before! ‘Formal informality’, reverent, joyful and totally uplifting!

The St Mark’s property is located on the corner of Rosemount Ave and Warne St. Pennant Hills:

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Craig Schafer is our pastor. Craig and his wife Julie moved to Pennant Hills in July 2007. They have two little daughters Emma and Zoe. Prior to joining the family at St Mark’s Craig ministered at Springwood – Winmalee Anglican Churches. Craig loves talking to people about Jesus, playing a mediocre game of tennis and watching Iron Chef. He drinks way too much Pepsi Max. You can contact him here.


Jennifer Flower is our children’s pastor. She coordinates our Sunday programs for children and some great mid-week programs. Somehow she also manages to bring together HAWK our mega mid-year holiday program that caters for around 200 children



Debbie Lawson-Smith is our women’s pastor. She meets with women one-on-one and in groups to help them find out about Jesus and to follow him. She also leads a team that puts on a number of events each year especially focused on issues relevant to women.

St Marks is Evangelical and Anglican.

Being evangelical means being committed to the ‘evangel’ – the ‘gospel’ – the ‘great news’ about Jesus. How does that work out in practice?

• The death and resurrection of Jesus are at the heart of our worldview. According to the Bible Jesus died bearing the penalty that we deserve for refusing to trust God as God over us. In the death of Jesus God himself takes on the penalty for our rebellion. He does it to give anyone who will turn to Him with trust a fresh start. We will discuss that reality, we will help others work through their questions about it but we will never let go of it.

• We’re convicted that the Bible is the word of God and so we strive to have our hearts and minds immersed in the things that God says in the Bible and shaped by them.

• We’re committed to sharing the good news. The news of Jesus death and resurrection is great news. We think it is such great, significant and important news that we are committed to sharing it with other people so that they have a chance to start to trust Jesus too.

Being Anglican means we are in partnership with other churches in the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia. Our heritage theologically and historically is in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th centuty and its expression in the 39 Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. We value the stand taken by the Anglican reformers of the 16th century and the sacrifices they made.