Going to church was once a fixture of community life in Australia — the local church was the lifeblood of a small town and the destination of much-anticipated weekly catch-ups with your neighbours, relatives and friends.
But as prosperity increased in Australia in the post-war era, church attendance began to decline and now fewer Australians than ever identify as religious.
But in rural communities across Australia, dedicated multi-tasking ministers are working hard to keep their small congregations alive.
Catholic priest Avinash George clocks up hundreds of kilometres in his car every Sunday to attend services across eastern Victoria.
"Sometimes it can get really busy, for example I have a mass this evening, one tomorrow at 8am in Paynesville, 9.30am in Bairnsdale and then 11am in Lindenow," he said.
"I have to go to one after the other."
Father George migrated to Australia from India in 2011 to join the priesthood, and is now based at St Mary's Catholic Church in Bairnsdale within the diocese of Sale.
He tends to tiny, remote parishes in the high-country towns of Swifts Creek, Benambra and Omeo once a month.
"It's a joy to say a mass for these communities and bring Jesus to them," he said.
Tiny churches run by multi-tasking ministers
In the dairy farming Gippsland hills of Boolarra, 150 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, minister Peter Carter coordinates up to three weekly church services across different parishes.
A motor mechanic and disability technician by trade, Reverend Carter answered the call to become a minister of the Boolarra Co-Operating Church after his mother died in 2006.
"The appeal of being a minister is to be able to help every day, make somebody's life so much better," he said.
Dwindling congregations have forced many parishes to pool assets and resources, amalgamate clergy and in some cases even denominations into 'cooperating churches'.
Like Father Avinash George, Mr Carter services a roster of alternating church venues and denominations, racing between towns on a Sunday to conduct his services.
"So we have three denominations, Anglican, Uniting Church and the Church of Christ all working together as one church across these communities," Reverend Carter said.
"We get on average about 15 people, the average age would be people in their 70s, but there are some young families and a couple of teenagers — but admittedly, they're my daughters!"
Parishioner Elaine Olsen lives in Budgeree, south east of Boolarra.
Just as Reverend Carter travels around, she often attends services in the neighbouring towns as well.
"I find the Churchill and Boolara and Yinnar community were very welcoming and included me in their lives," Ms Olsen said.
"I sometimes go to the Churchill service because Churchill is usually a lot earlier than ours is here — Churchill starts at 9am, we start at 11am."
More to do than just 'hatch, match and dispatch'
Like many of the new generation of young ministers and priests, Reverend Carter often finds himself multi-tasking numerous community welfare roles in town.
Ministers jokingly refer to their role in 'baptisms, weddings and funerals', but for Reverend Carter the role is more involved.
He volunteers at the local Men's Shed and several community programs across Boolarra, Yinnar and Churchill.
Mr Carter believes local church services in regional towns are particularly important for those who have battled family trauma, illness, poverty, drought and loneliness.
"A lot of people are very lonely, particularly in the upper age groups, families have separated and gone to other parts of Australia, so you are dealing with a lot of loneliness," Reverend Carter said.
"You're also dealing with a lot of people who have been abandoned by their families, their friends and communities.
"I think the survival of a church has a lot to do with how the church involves itself within the community.
"The church is not about the minister, it's about the people. It's not about the buildings it's about the people."
Pilgrimage to church in 'the middle of nowhere'
On the fifth Sunday of the month, which usually only occurs twice a year, the entire congregation from Boolarra meet at a tiny 20-seat church in the middle of a paddock at Yinnar South.
The tiny Holy Innocents church, built in 1894, is one of Australia's tiniest churches, at just four metres by five metres in size.
This rare gathering is the congregation's way of keeping this church alive and preventing its historic doors from closing, as has been the case at many small churches across Australia that have been sold off as attendance has diminished.
And Holy Innocents is a cosy fit for parishioners with just eight pews.
"It's in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't have heating, it doesn't have power, but we go along to that church just to keep the word of god alive in that little area," Reverend Carter said.
