All the time in church there are unexpected things happening. We or someone else makes a decision to change something which then relationally or missionally impacts another area of church life that we didn’t expect.Sometimes we put too much attention into one area of church - and now other areas are suffering.Whatever size your church is - the church system is complex, interdependent and interconnected.Sometimes the presenting problem won’t actually be the real problem, there’s so...
Jul 2, 2024
28 min
How do you balance the instability and chaos of external ministry with adding a foster child or adopted child to a ministry family?What are the implications of taking children in crisis into the ministry home? What motivates ministry families to become foster parents or to adopt? How do older children and the church respond? Sarah and Mat Yeo serve at Hurstville Grove Anglican Church in SydneyMatt Wilcoxen pastors St John’s Darlinghurst in inner Sydney.To purchase ‘The Forgetful Prince’: http...
Jun 25, 2024
28 min
What is it to be #likeaman?There are not many places in the New Testament where men are spoken to specifically.Today we are thinking about being a Christian man.In the ESV and NASB the translation of 1 Corinthians 16:13 has ‘Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong’. (ESV)But what does that mean?Dominic Steele put that question to panelists at the recent Men Meeting the challenge conference:Adrian Russell, senior minister of Northmead Anglican Church.Craig Hamilton, senio...
Jun 18, 2024
30 min
There are three different ways that the adult population of churches can grow:Adults being saved. Christians transferring from another congregation within your denomination of switching from another denomination. Children of members growing up in the church and taking on their parents faith for themselves.Most evangelical churches - even growing churches - are underperforming in the first and third ways.In the Sydney Anglican Church parents report that an average of only 65% of thei...
Jun 11, 2024
26 min
A new massive ethical question has risen up with the advent of artificial intelligence. How will people decide what kind of morality to give to their artificial intelligence creations?There will need to be a morality. But what should it be?The market is already making different choices. Elon Musk has said he wants the AI behind X (formerly Twitter) to be morally flexible. He wants his AI to appeal to all people: left and right, authoritarian and democratic, kind and brutal.Stephe...
Jun 4, 2024
24 min
How can a senior minister best train junior preachers (student ministers and assistant ministers) in preaching?There’s a tension we all feel: we want to be a training church raising up the next generation of leaders and yet we also want to make sure that the quality of what happens in our gatherings is high.We don’t want a Sunday morning ‘plane crash in the pulpit’, where people at church that day think‘I wish I had stayed home today’ or ‘I wish I had gone to St Bloggs down the road.’Toby Nea...
May 28, 2024
28 min
Artificial Intelligence is an oncoming tsunami that will catch all of humanity off guard. It is a change more like a wheel than a typewriter.But what will this do to our sense of self?Stephen Driscoll, in ‘Made in our Image - God, artificial intelligence and you’ says artificial intelligence may do great harm - giving more power to sinful people, governments or companies.He says artificial intelligence will likely trend towards people pleasing - giving each of us what we want now/a sense of h...
May 21, 2024
29 min
‘God wants all of me to love all of God all the time’ says Senior Pastor of Fellowship Dubai, Ray Galea.We want our staff and leaders to live and serve in ministry out of an overflow of the love of God for them. Grasping this love properly lifts our service from duty to desire.As pastors we are so committed and focused on encouraging our congregations to love God with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strengths. But do we stop to consider that our own love for God might be the limiting fact...
May 14, 2024
27 min
“It may be that God is destroying the Church of England and who am I to stand in his way? “The real tragedy would be if, in this traumatic, confusing time, if all of the evangelicals and the broader Orthodox group fall out with each other… if we can bear with each other in our different strategies, then that will be what we need (in whatever the future in England is going to be), whether that's within the Church of England or outside. Charlie Skrine, the senior minister of Al...
May 2, 2024
31 min
Australia’s former Prime Minister Scott Morrison releases a new autobiography this week where he speaks explicitly about his Christian faith, and there’s a bible quote on almost every page.Akos Balogh of Blue Fox Media joins Dominic Steele to review Mr Morrison’s new book where the former Prime Minister writes of wrestling with whether to study at Vancouver’s Regent College, being helped by listening to sermons by Tim Keller and Rick Warren, being rebuked and encouraged by Christian pas...
Apr 30, 2024
22 min
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