Western New South Wales Anglican parishes have been asked to double their contributions to the Diocese of Bathurst as it faces a legal challenge over a $25.5m debt.

The Bishop, Ian Palmer made the announcement at Saturday's Synod, or governing body of the diocese, when he spoke frankly of the financial and legal stress the church is facing, but also of hope and change.

For more than an hour on Saturday he addressed about 90 Synod members, made up of priests and elected lay people.

The Bishop spoke of the latest developments in the Supreme Court action launched on behalf of the Commonwealth Bank which is trying to recoup $25.5m.

The matter is listed for a hearing in April next year.

In July, the 34 parishes across the diocese were given a figure that each would be asked to contribute towards the raising of $1.5m to mount a legal defence.

The Bishop says the region's Anglican Property Trust has now decided which assets will be sold to raise that figure, and sales will happen in coming months.

However he said parishes will also need to put in more to run the diocese.

"The ballpark figure is about doubling it and I know that is awful. In fact, I don't know that any parish can do that, but the difficulty is how else do we fund the situation we're in? It's really, really difficult," he said.

The Bishop said he's spending about 30 hours a week on the defence and the diocese has had to put on an extra casual staff member as it collates thousands of legal documents.

He said as well as the legal challenge and the running of the diocese, the church needs to consider other areas where it may need to put funds.

"As well as the other things, people know full well through the media about the Royal Commission into institutional responses to sexual abuse and abuse in the past and we're not immune from those sorts of things either and all those take resources," he said.

Bishop Palmer said the church will be changed by the legal and financial challenge.

"It will come through different. I believe passionately that it will come through as a servant church. It will serve these communities of the Central West better than it has done before.

"And we will do that in ways which are creative and life-giving, not only to the worshipping communities but also to the wider communities," he said.

"It has been artificially preserved before by income from different places from which that income is no longer available."

The Bishop said if the diocese had to repay the $25.5m it would have a significant impact on people living in central New South Wales.

"We would no longer be able to put clergy in most of the cities and most of the parishes in our area so we wouldn't have people on the ground to take funerals or to do baptisms or weddings; indeed we wouldn't have rectories in some of those places, we might not even have churches in some of those places," he said.

The Bishop spoke about a new development in the legal proceedings regarding the way All Saints College at Bathurst and the Endowment of the See are considered in the action.

The Endowment of the See is for the running of the Bishop and his office.

He said the new development adds a new level of complexity but doesn't alter the situation.

"In a sense this is really the receivers and the sort of dotting the 'i's' and crossing the 't's' and saying, 'OK we want to put these things into our radar'," he said.

"It needs to be quite clear unless the court says we can and we are defending the action against us precisely because we believe they should not be able to do that."

The Bishop also said as part of the legal proceedings there was an examination into several staff of the diocese and others to find out what they knew.

He said it was part of normal legal procedure.

The Bishop also spoke of a possible 'new model' for Anglicans in the isolated north-west of the diocese who may in future have to focus less on bricks and mortar and more on people and serving.

"I'm wondering how we can express it differently with an itinerant ministry in that massive area and whether that might be a possible way forward," he said.

"I think it's got a great opportunity and possibility for the future."