Meet our Vicar
The current Vicar of St Agnes’ is the Reverend Dr David Powys. He began his appointment in September 2024, having retired with his wife nearly three years earlier to their own home, about a kilometre north of St Agnes’.
Before retirement David had been ordained for over forty years, serving mostly as vicar of a number of large Anglican churches in Melbourne’s south. His initial training was in social work and psychology, but his major qualifications are in theology.
David has held numerous senior church positions and responsibilities throughout his career, and is now delighted to be half retired (painting, learning music, travel and gardening) and half-time Vicar for the people of Black Rock.
David’s working days are Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, and you’re welcome to call his work phone on 0411 688 234.
Our History
St Agnes’ origins lie in the time when Black Rock was a small European settlement surrounded by farms on Port Phillip Bay. Arising from a desire to minister to the children of the area from the 1880s onwards, locals worked to establish a local Church of England. As larger blocks of land were subdivided for housing, George Hamilton Traill donated a site for the building of a church. The first St Agnes’ church building, a weatherboard structure, was completed on 21 July 1899.
A Sunday School hall was also built around that time, likewise set amongst the tea tree and sand dunes. Both buildings were destroyed in a bushfire the day before Ash Wednesday in 1913. Within two days it was decided to rebuild the hall as a temporary place of worship, and to construct a new church. The hall was built in around six weeks, and the brick church was opened on Easter Eve 1914, just one year later. That building, extended in 1975 with a narthex, is the St Agnes’ church building today.
The church takes its name from Agnes, one of the earliest and youngest Christian martyrs. She was a Christian teenager from a noble Roman family, martyred in her early teens in 304 AD because of her faith in Jesus Christ, and particularly because she refused to marry any of her wealthy and powerful Roman suitors.
Our Ethos
We’re an Anglican church keen to make space for all Christians in Black Rock who want to worship with other local believers.
Anglican churches vary from place to place, but they are meant to be characterised by orthodox teaching, as derived from the Apostles of Jesus Christ and expressed in the creeds; a focus on the authority of the Scriptures and the realities of life; worship that is intelligible and accessible; and the empowerment of ordinary church members. St Agnes’ takes all of these seriously.
These days Anglican churches in Australia tend to divide between those with only new music and those with only traditional music. St Agnes’ aims to have both, with a bias towards hymns that have stood the test of time.
Come and visit
Join us at 10am on Sunday at 35 Arkaringa Crescent, Black Rock. You will be very welcome.