SPACES

As of this year, Wayside is proud to have two gardens – our Rooftop Garden in Kings Cross and our brand new Bondi Garden in Wayside Bondi CSC. In Kings Cross, high up on the roof is a 200 square metre garden filled with over 50 different varieties of organic fruit, herbs and vegetables. It has rainwater tanks, solar panels, worm farms, a compost system and bee-hives. The garden – boasting sweeping views across the parklands and the CBD – is a community space where people facing disadvantage and local residents can work together, sharing skills and supporting each other to nurture a vast array of plants.

The Bondi Garden, unlike Kings Cross, is in full view of the kitchen and café and these three parts work in synergy with each other. The organic produce grown in our gardens are used at both Cafes, as well as featuring in local restaurants like Billy Kwong in Potts Point. The gardens now have a stronger focus on Indigenous plants, native saltbush, lemon myrtle and more. The wider purpose of the gardens is to create community, teach living skills, practice sustainability, engage with our neighbours and beautify the space.

There are few more radical examples of community than are encountered in our little gatherings on Sunday mornings. You are just as likely to sit next to a working girl or someone struggling with addiction, as you are to sit next to an ex attorney general of Australia. Many of the barriers that divide people are fairly effectively dissolved for a time.

We are fairly free of much of the baggage of the church and yet we are a church. We are a people who don’t have all the answers, and we find our lack of answers rather liberating. We enjoy each other’s company and we remind each other that all of religion is satisfied when love is lived in community. Eucharist is celebrated every week using stale old Wayside bread. It makes the point that the Divine is usually found in the least likely places and that humanity flourishes at its most beautiful when it is mindful of its own frailty.

Weddings, Namings & Funerals 

A place for people of all faiths, and of none

For over 40 years, Wayside Chapel has been a destination for many people, from all around the world, for marriage, naming ceremonies and other rites of passage. Some take place in our famous Chapel in Kings Cross, and many occur in key locations around Sydney.

Rites of passage include:

Marriage, spiritual blessings and renewal of vows
Christenings
Naming ceremonies for children
Divorce ceremonies
Funerals and memorials
Celebrations for vocational decisions and other special occasions
Sunday Service. 11am every Sunday at The Wayside Chapel