Vision
We are a community following Jesus spread across the Blue Mountains. We believe the Gospel of Jesus is good news for today, and our desire and ambition is to follow him together for the renewal of the Blue Mountains and beyond. We are part of a global family of churches called ‘The Soma Family of Churches.’ Soma’s passion is for every woman, man, and child to encounter Jesus through his people.
5 unique things about us
A church of missional communities
We equip ordinary disciples to live life in community and on mission. This work results in new disciples, new missional communities (or ‘Gospel Communities’), and new churches. We structure our church around these communities, but we are not a house church movement.
Gospel fluency in everyday life
The good news about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection isn’t simply a message to receive when coming into the faith but is the core reality that shapes how we live, serve, lead, speak, and grow as followers of Jesus within community and on his mission.
Holistically healthy leadership teams
Our church and our gospel communities are led by teams of leaders. We want to develop healthy leaders working together in healthy teams.
Creativity, the arts, and music
We want to be a community of creativity in the tradition of small creative Christian communities in beautiful places. These communities tend to be dominated by young creatives who produce many great resources, art, and music.
A ‘centre church’
For over a decade, we’ve seen God use our church to inspire and equip other churches. And we’ve initiated and helped lead the Soma Australia movement, including running training for pastors and leaders across Australia (Soma School, Soma Immerse, Soma Internship, Soma One Days).
Soma Beliefs & Distinctives
We are part of the Soma family of churches. Soma has adopted the Lausanne Covenant as our statement of faith.
In addition to this, Soma has 10 Distinctives. We’re tired of division based on what we’re ‘not’ or what we’re against. Instead, we want to be known as a family of churches that defines itself by who we are and what we’re for.
These 10 Distinctives are the proactive and formational pursuits our churches and leaders strive to align with as we establish and equip churches. Each describes a unique emphasis within our churches and the broader movement.
We Pursue Gospel Centrality.
The good news about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is not simply a message to receive when coming into the faith, but is the core reality that shapes how we lead, how we serve, how we speak, and how we grow as followers of Jesus within community and on His mission.
We Are Story-Formed.
The story of God, as told in the Bible, reveals the missional record of who God is and what God is doing in, through, and for the world. It is the true story of the whole world. Discipleship is participating in that story and allowing it to shape your entire life.
We Start With Being Before Doing.
When making disciples through community and while on mission, we root disciples first in their new identity in Christ. We believe knowing who you are leads to how you live. If we reverse this, we’ve created legalism apart from the powerful gift of grace to make us new.
We Are Spirit Empowered.
We pursue a reliance on the power, wisdom, and presence of the Holy Spirit for all we do. We don’t look to models, gifts, or tools to transform lives, but look to the work of the Spirit operating in us and through us in everything we do.
We Make Disciples In Community On Mission.
We believe the context for disciples to be made, to grow into maturity, and sent out on mission is within community. When the Apostle Paul made disciples he did it as part of a community-on-mission. After people responded in faith to the Gospel the first thing that he did was to form them into a community so that they could learn and submit to Jesus’ commands. As they learned as a community to love as Jesus loved they drew others to obedience and to faith.
We Have Shared Leadership.
We strive to ask and answer the following questions – What type of leadership was modeled in the New Testament? What principles did they base their leadership on? What are the implications for us in our culture today?
Leadership in the New Testament was based on teams of co-workers rather than exalted individuals. These teams were made up of both genders and valued various giftings.
Leadership in the New Testament was based on service rather than lording over others. The New Testament shied away from title and privilege and focused instead on role and mutual honoring.
Soma believes therefore that leadership should be team-based, include both genders, value various giftings, and look to serve the church rather than gain status or privilege.
We Pursue Multiplication.
We pursue multiplication because we see it in the New Testament. God is a missionary God and we are His people – our community is saved and given gifts so that we could be a valuable part of making disciples who make disciples.
In order for multiplication to happen churches need to be part of a community of churches who are pursuing Gospel Saturation together. They also need to have a simple, reproducible discipleship pathway that is seen by both the leadership and the membership.
We Contextualise Everything.
As we do the work of being missionaries to our communities in our generation we acknowledge that our work carries on in the great traditions of the missionaries/apostles in years gone by. Some of these missionaries left all they knew, learned a new language and culture, and became Irish, or German, or Chinese, or African, in order to reach a community with the Gospel. Others figured out how to reach people in their family, neighborhood, school, or co-workers. Regardless of the distance traveled all of us ultimately imitate our savior, Jesus, who lived as a sent-one in order to reconcile the world to its creator.
We Are Always Being Reformed.
We don’t believe we’ve arrived. In fact, the process of discipleship is growing in repentance and belief as we follow Jesus. We humbly walk in repentance as a way of life that leads to changes in how we behave, how we lead, and how we speak.
We Choose Kingdom Collaboration.
We pursue partnerships, connections, and genuinely shared ministry with other churches, organizations, and nonprofits. We choose the kingdom over logos. Regional leaders particularly bear the responsibility to work for peace and cooperation between Soma churches and other believers in the region.
Key resource people:
Gospel Community Leaders –
On Belay GC (Springwood) – James & Hannah Coomer, Chris & Maz McEwan
King’s Table GC (Wentworth Falls – Katoomba) – Liam & Jenny Denny
The Brook GC (Hazelbrook) – David & Glenda Miles, Dan & Min Coleman
Feast GC (Springwood – Woodford) – Toby & Annie Dedden, Rhys & Emily Dane
Millennial Falcons GC (Blaxland – Springwood) – Ro & Anita Miles, Cameron & Chanelle Henderson
Venture GC (Blaxland) – Jeff & Claire Meijnderts, Bruce & Sue Coomer, Geeta
Riverview GC (Blaxland – Mt Riverview) – Tim & Katie Small
Olive Tree GC (Valley Heights) – Stuart & Marion Brooking
Banksia GC (Warrimoo – Lawson) – Lachlan & Rosie Price, Tim & Hope Foskett
The Rock GC (Yellow Rock – Blaxland) – Sarah & Isaac de Keizer, Tom & Jess Arundell
Staff – Dave Miles, Toby Dedden, Cameron Henderson & Jess Arundell
Pastoral Care Team – Dave Miles, Marion Brooking & Toby Dedden
Elders (pictured) – Dave Miles & Stuart Brooking
Committee – Soma Inc and Soma Committee are the operational side of our church. We invite all members of our church to be members of Soma Inc, but we recognise this is for people who like talking about policy, finances, and management. We have averaged about 20 members of Soma Inc. From that group we vote in a committee each year – consisting of a chairman, vice chairman, treasurer, secretary and 2-4 others. The senior pastor is ex-officio. The mood is we don’t want to deal with what the pastoral staff and elders are responsible for. We do want to make sure we are compliant with child safety guidelines, and that we have adequate insurance, careful budgeting, proper processes for hiring staff and so on. We also like to avoid group-think by encouraging different opinions. Current Committee:
Stuart Brooking (Chairman), Tim Small (Treasurer), David Miles, Josh Orr, Dan Jackson, Nick Ryan, Lisa Harding, Hannah Coomer & Isaac de Keizer
Child Protection – Jess Arundell
Workplace Health & Safety – David Miles
Kids – Toby Dedden, Lisa Harding, Leone Read & Katie Small
Website Photography – Min Coleman, Hadley England, Ro & Anita Miles, Lisa Grant & Dan Coleman
Meet our staff
David Miles
Lead Pastor
Dave planted Soma Blue Mountains in 2012, with a large team. He then was the key driver in starting an Australian Soma movement. His role is the oversight of our church, and he’s also leading Soma Australia. Married to Glenda, they have 4 children and 10 grandchildren. He has degrees in Architecture (BScArch) and Theology (B.Th).
Toby Dedden
Assistant Pastor
Toby is the 4pm Gathering pastor and Gospel Community coordinator. Toby has a heart, both to see people come to know Jesus and to see followers of Jesus live out their missional identity in Christ. Married to Annie, they have 2 children Alba (4) and Tigris (2).
Cameron Henderson
Creative Catalyst
Cam works with us as a ‘creative catalyst’ helping people realise their God-given creative potential through projects. In 2024 he formed ‘Mountainkind’ an original Christian band formed from Soma Blue Mountains members and is currently finishing off their next EP. He’s an experienced session guitarist having toured nationally and internationally with rock bands, theatre shows, TV and radio shows and his own solo project ‘CJ Stranger’. Cam has an honours degree in classical guitar performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of music and has taught at schools, tertiary master-classes and music therapy programs such as ‘Guitar for Veterans’ around wider Sydney.
Jess Arundell
Administrator
Hope Foskett
Soma australia administrator
Hope was part of Soma Blue Mountains from the beginning. Then she journeyed to the US to pursue further training with Soma Tacoma (2013) and Soma Spokane (2016). She’s earned degrees in art history, teaching and theology. Hope was also on the staff at Anchor Church Sydney, serving with teams, training and discipling women. She’s passionate about helping people grow in the gospel and excited about equipping churches across Australia through her role with Soma Australia. She’s married to Tim, a mother to Jem, and enjoys her side-hustle as a make-up artist.
Complaints Mechanism
If you have an issue with something… obviously talk to the people involved where appropriate… but apart from that…
- First port of call would be your GC leaders. If it’s dealt with there – great – if not…
- Go to an elder (Dave Miles and Stuart Brooking), or someone on the pastoral care team (Toby Dedden, Dave Miles, Marion Brooking)
- If it is still unresolved… Go to Brad Watson, Soma Global Areas Leadership Team… Or go to one of the National Leadership team (apart from Dave Miles) – Stephen Tan… or another Soma Australia pastor…