?A new church?: why a Uniting reverend is preaching to Anglicans in a gay couple?s home

On a cool, grey Sunday in November, in a small home on the edge of Armidale, a new church is born.

About 30 parishioners are crowded on the wooden deck, spilling back through the sliding doors and into a living room dominated by a black Kawai concert grand piano. They sit on patio furniture, white plastic lawn chairs and stools from the breakfast bar.

On the edge of the deck is an altar, a table draped with the purple cloth of Advent with candles, flowers, wafers and wine. A hand-quilted Celtic cross with a love heart at its base drapes over the front, facing the parishioners.

The new church doesn't yet have a name.

Stop reading if you've heard this before: a congregation of Anglicans are having an Advent service delivered by a Uniting church reverend in the Armidale home of a husband-and-husband duo, Peter Sanders and Peter Grace.

They could no longer attend their regular church, St Mary's, because they would have been forced to separate in order to continue their church roles. Peter Sanders was the musical director and organist, and Peter Grace had an unpaid leadership role on a small committee.

"According to the Armidale diocese, you would have to be in the right state of grace to receive communion," Grace says.