Anglican deans from across Australia and New Zealand have congregated in Adelaide for the first Australasian Deans Conference held in Australia.

Twenty-four dioceses are represented at the conference, which focuses on sharing experiences and teachings across the Anglican Church.

The Dean of Adelaide, the Very Rev Frank Nelson, said it was the first time deans from across Australasia had met in Australia.

"It's a great time of celebration; it's wonderful to have people prepared to travel so far," he said.

"It's a time for colleagues to get together. We all work in isolation; you only have one dean per diocese in the Anglican Church, so it's a time of collegiality of some pretty open and frank sharing and mutual support.

He said dwindling membership numbers remained a challenge for the church.

"It's a well-known phrase in the church that the church is always only one generation away from extinction, and that's always been true because if the message isn't handed from one generation to the next it's going to die out.

"So it's always a challenge... and at one cathedral it might be more of a challenge than other places."

The 18 Australian deans and six New Zealand deans took part in a service at Adelaide's St Peter's Cathedral, entering in a procession.

The Dean of Auckland, the Very Rev Jo Kelly-Moore, delivered the sermon.

She told the ABC it was her first time in Adelaide and she was excited to be part of such a large conference.

"It's been very good to be together. We have so much in common and as people who are in roles that are fairly unique it's good to get together and talk about our ministries, our lives and the challenges and joys we have and also to be inspired by one another," she said.

The conference runs from July 30 to August 3.