The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele

Disappointment is a difficult topic to deal with in ministry. As humans, we tend to make mistakes and sometimes, disappointment can come at nobody's fault at all.  So, how do we process the disappointment in ministry then? Personally process as leaders and processing with our people? What about when the church plant fails? Hans Kristensen planted the Resolved Church in Newtown, and six years...

How to navigate change management in church?  Change within the church is ongoing and unavoidable. This is to strengthen the church and continually make it a better and more spiritually helpful place for its members to worship God and grow in their faith. However, war stories of ‘church change resistance,’ where well meaning ministers have tried to pursue these changes have sadly led to the disrup...

Matt Fuller, the Senior Minister of Christ Church Mayfair in the centre of London, speaks on why weakness is good for us.  He describes standing up in front of his church, telling them he couldn’t cope with being told to take time off by his elders. Matt describes a conversation with his senior elders when he was in trouble and was confronted by his senior elder about time off and burnt out.  Matt...

Mothers Day is a day of both celebration and sorrow for some.  In today's episode, we think theologically, historically and pragmatically with Kate Stace and Phillip Jensenon on how to make Mothers Day excellent at church and how to serve the church family well for maximum mission impact!  Since Mothers Day is emotionally complex for a number of members inside and out of the church, we also t...

Noticed the influx of memes after the Oscars? You then, no doubt, are probably aware of the fiasco that took place that night. Actor Will Smith has apologised for his actions at the Oscars and former Hillsong Global Pastor Brian Houston has apologised to his church . It makes one think then - what makes a good apology, and how can we apologise well? Bruce Burgess from Peacewise speaks to us today...

Power and authority are very dangerous. The recent fall of Brian Houston solidifies this statement and brings significant lessons for Christian leaders everywhere! On the matter, The Chair of the Australian Gospel Coalition Gary Millar brings light to the topic. Dr Millar notes that Brian Houston’s actions and the poor response of leaders in his theological space, are telling reminders that power,...

‘Stand for Christ.  Stand for the truth.  And let the chips fall where they may.’ Senior Pastor of Atlanta’s Church of the Apostles, Dr Michael Youssef, has a prophetic call to share with evangelical pastors today. It is to not give up trust in the scriptures in the face of contemporary challenges on sexuality. Dr Youssef tells the story of leading his church to depart the US Episcopal Church when...

For 15 years Hugh Isaacs has been at the centre of messy pastoral transitions, as an ‘emergency responder’ to churches going through a transition crisis. Today, he he joins us to give us insight into the process.  After initially helping members deal with their grief, there are five key steps Isaacs tells that need to be worked through for the best outcome. However, Isaacs warns of the land mines...

Senior leaders long to be effective leaders, but we may not be as good as they hope to be. In the church, the demands on the senior pastor has increasingly become more complex. The expectation to be excellent in leadership, managerial, and administrative on top of preaching, teaching and pastoral care is one of immense pressure! Under this kind of stress, we might suffer cyclical patterns of burno...

Australian Anglican Evangelicals are praying that the Australian national Bishops meeting (in March) and the General Synod (8-16 May) will affirm the Bible’s teaching on marriage, sexuality and chastity. The General Synod  will consider three motions and two propositions affirming the Bible’s teaching on marriage and chastity .  Relations across the church have been further strained by Archbishop...

Future mission in Sydney and the National Anglican Church in Australia faces a few challenges which Sydney Anglican Archbishop Kanishka Raffel spells out in this episode.  We speak on some of the issues Archbishop Raffel might have brought forward in his first Presidential address, had the 'Synod in the Greenfields' not been postponed due to the Omicron outbreak, as it was scheduled for...

‘Exvangelicals’. What’s that, you may be asking? It’s a word we hadn’t heard of a few years ago, however, we are increasingly seeing people's self-identity as being part of this loose group or social movement, mostly consisting of Millennials or Gen Z’s.  An ‘Exvangelical’ are people who were once members of evangelical churches but have now been through a process, which they would call ‘deco...

Recent studies show nearly one in four people are profoundly lonely. In fact, the loneliest generation of all is the under 25 age group. The most serious problem is not transient loneliness, but that 7 to 8 percent of the population have been really lonely for at least eight years.  In response to these statistics, Professor Patrick Parkinson is heading up the new Christian think tank Publica ( ht...

Religious Freedom will be debated in the Australian Parliament this week.  Two parliamentary reports were released late on Friday afternoon and over the weekend the MP’s and Senators have spent time reading over them.  Thankfully, the reports show the Coalition and Labor Party are broadly in support of introducing improved protections for people of Faith. The report's recommendations are set...

How to have the hard conversation with someone about why they shouldn’t go into professional Christian ministry? It’s fantastic to see Christians enthusiastic and willing to serve in a professional Christian Ministry. But it might not be appropriate for anyone.  How does one decide to raise a red flag with someone who probably isn’t a good fit for this role of ministry? How do you follow through w...

We address the big HR questions faced by senior pastors in leading our ministry teams? How can we do performance management best among our varied team members?  What is the difference between conflict and bullying and abuse?   Is it possible for a senior minister to be too conflict averse and not give needed ‘tough love’? Conversely where do senior ministers get this wrong?  What difference does i...

 Australian Evangelist Sam Chan, who works with City Bible Forum, joins us to talk about connecting with our complex world through topical preaching. There are many things to consider when preaching to various people groups that may impact the way we preach. Different cultural groups may think differently on an axis of hierarchy-equality and freedom-control. Sam leads us through how being aware of...

As the new year begins, there are many ministry trainees who are starting new positions! In this episode, we talk about how we can broaden these new ministry trainees - how to best develop a Christlike character, a deep conviction about God and His word and the ability to teach the word of God, and the ability needed to lead and grow a ministry.  We also discuss onboarding trainees as well as what...

What should a Christian leader do when their role is to care for people, and they don’t want to interact with people? What impact does depression have on preaching? What kind of friendships should ministry leaders have? What about suffering in the leaders life? What would you say to a leader who is walking through the tough of depression for the first time?  We ask Peter Adam the hard questions ab...

The whole concept of a tolerant society is being spun around. Sydney Anglican Bishop Michael Stead says there are moves afoot to block Christians from being able to say that ‘Christ is the only way to heaven.’ It’s also being claimed by Equality Australia that to say ‘marriage is between a man and woman’ is an offensive statement.  Bishop Stead says he wants to protect moderately expressed stateme...

January is the key time of the year for welcoming newcomers in the southern hemisphere.  In the northern hemisphere it’s August/September. But how do we best follow up new people who are moving into the district and looking to join a church? Someone visits your church, but what’s next.  What sort of ‘visitor pipeline’ should you have? What kind of system can be devised that is most effective for w...

It’s time to review what’s happened this year and have robust informed conversations about what we will do next year?  What won’t we do again?  How we will do things differently? And why?  To make realistic decisions, we need to know what’s helpful to measure?  And what isn’t?  Not everything that’s measurable matters. And not everything that matters is measurable. Mike Hastie has been serving on...

South Australian Ryan Williams had been a Christian for five years and campus pastor at Mars Hill Everett for twelve months,  when Mars Hill’s founder and senior pastor Mark Driscoll resigned and the church collapsed in 2014. Christianity Today’s podcast account of the rise and fall of Mars Hill has just concluded. Ryan is now senior pastor of City on a Hill Albuquerque and shares on how he and th...

We’re seeing a shift in approaches to doing church. Traditional denominations are becoming more open to moving their focus from solo campuses to multi-campus ministries in order to increase mission capacity.  The argument is this may increase the effectiveness of church activity and increase our ability to engage local communities.  Church mergers had been seen as a last ditched thing, when one wa...

This week, Senior Pastor of Seaforth Anglican Rich Wenden explores his findings on how we as the Gods people can better bring the good news of Jesus to these places. Rich has been researching missional strategies of churches in reaching coastal areas, and has lots of insights to share with us! We talk liturgy of the surf, liturgy of community, the impact of a missional faithful presence, and more...