The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele

A three step plan to reopen Australia - with Peter Mayrick We are reacting quickly to the announcement today from Australia’s Prime Minister Morrison of a three step program to re-open Australia by July. Peter Mayrick, from the Moore College Center for Ministry Development joins us to unpack this. Peter Mayrick has recently completed a survey of churches and ministers on how we are negotiating COV...

Lots of our churches have been using evangelistic courses as part of our long term strategy.  But many leaders and evangelism teams are nervous about how to lead in the new world of online evangelistic courses. Laura Riley was leading a term one evangelistic course that switched to online halfway through. And she’s now co-ordinating a fully-online course that started on Easter Monday with 13 guest...

Having focused on the how-to’s of Covid-10, this week we are focusing on us: our personal lives, our teams and our relationship with Jesus during Covid-19. Greg Lee, senior pastor of Hunter Bible Church and Kirsty Bucknell, a researcher who have developed a program for resilience and mental health, join us to help senior leaders support their teams for the long term, big picture. Rather than fumbl...

What should we be aiming for now? What does a win look like?  Most of us have been doing Church online while socially distancing for a month - but aside from getting a video service online at the right time, how do we measure success right now?  Is it likes on Facebook? Online “attendance”? Reach? Number of people engaging in Bible study groups?  This week on The Pastor’s Heart, we speak with Tim...

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The zeitgeist has changed profoundly in the last month. Our 2020 vision calendar has been ripped up. We can’t predict what will happen next week, or even tomorrow.  As we prepare online presentations for Good Friday and Easter Sunday in this tumultuous context, two of Australia’s leading Chistian communicators  Mike Raiter and Sam Chan join Dominic Steele to talk about how COVID-19 has changed our...

This week on The Pastor's Heart we talk big COVID changes: individualism and community, autonomy and submission, free press & censorship, materialism, wealth and its assumptions and the seriousness of life. Plus the massive advantages for ministry and evangelism in a society which has much more time on our hands and is much more aware of the reality of death. Plus we ask Phillip how Chris...

"Our buildings are shut down, but we can’t shut down our identity of being salt and light and love for the world" Buildings closed. Hearts open with Sydney Archbishop Glenn Davies Sydney Anglicans Archbishop Glenn Davies joins Dominic Steele in a live broadcast to answer questions on how we can lead our churches through the COVID-19 crisis. From midday Monday (23 March) religious gatheri...

Leading your church in the corona era with Pastor Eugene Hor, Bishop Gary Koo and Dr Irmgard Pascoe  How to give spiritual leadership in a highly anxious season? How to lead from the word of God? What does calm leadership look like? How can we lead when other church leaders around us are making different calls? Why do different contexts lead to different decisions? How to see this season as a bles...

It’s a confronting conversation this week - especially for senior pastors - as we discuss the top 15 mistakes senior leaders make, with Craig Hamilton from Glenmore Park Anglican Church . Craig will challenge us to redefine success, develop and consider a leadership pipeline and assess the ways we use our time. It will be a challenging - potentially painful - discussion, but it’s one every Christi...

Seven million Australian  Non Christians Would Accept an Invite to Good Friday  Easter is a key time in the calendar year where Churches see non-believers visiting. How does Easter fit into your evangelistic pathway? How can you get Easter guests back? How do you create an atmosphere which helps believers celebrate the truth of the resurrection and equally, helps newcomers consider the resurrectio...

Do you put on attractional events, just to keep evangelism on the agenda? Do you preach the importance of sharing the gospel and not see any action? Is our issue with evangelism fueled by a reliance on introductory courses? Or are courses the only approaches bringing any measurable fruit? This week we speak with leaders in the evangelistic space in Australia: Sam Hilton, Mission Pastor at Hunter B...

‘ Church in Hard places ’ co-founders Mez McConnell and Matthew Spandler Davidson are in Sydney to present a key elective on Friday on ' Abuse in the Church ' at the Acts29 conference for Australia, New Zealand and Japan . Ahead of the conference they are leading ‘Church in Hardplaces’ bootcamps.   Mez and Matthew talk to Dominic Steele about the transitioning of Steve Timmis out of Acts...

There are women in all our lives and churches who have had an abortion. Men, women and children who have been touched by abortion - in our workplaces, churches and families.  Senior pastors need to stop turning a blind eye to this subject and talk much much more about abortion in church.  New Testament scholar and former nurse Dr Claire Smith says we are currently not meeting this pastoral and eva...

Is it possible for our different churches to be unified, without watering down the Gospel? What is the role of the church in an increasingly individualistic society? Introducing Julius Kim - the new President of The Gospel Coalition . With over 30 million users on their website in 2019, TGC clearly has a key role in speaking into evangelical spheres and representing Christianity to a wider public....

Getting money right in the Christian Church What’s your word to the pastor, when just down the road there is a big prosperity church doing flashy ministry?  The Prosperity Gospel is a different gospel, not good news, says the Generosity Monk Gary Hoag .  Seminaries have not done a good job teaching on money.  There are big errors: Prosperity - Taking Old Testament promises out of context, Slavery...

How should a leader respond, when a member of a church community takes their own life? And what can leaders do to prevent such tragedies?  Dr Karen Mason teaches counselling and psychology at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston. Karen will discuss suicide in the church from the perspective of senior pastors on The Pastor's Heart. Dominic and Karen discuss the right and wrong reactio...

Evangelicals standing up to the culture over the treatment of our indigenous peoples. As Australia Day gets closer, we evaluate the history of Australian Christianity’s interaction with Indigenous people. From Mary Bennett in the 1930s to William Cooper and more recently Kevin Rudd's apology in 2008, we will discuss the impact of the gospel on interactions between indigenous Australians and C...

Trigger Warning - this post discusses abusive relationships This week on the Pastor’s Heart, we address the complex issue of domestic abuse within the relationships of ministry leaders.  While all abuse is wrong, there are added complexities in ministry relationships.  Often a ministry job is entwined with a ministry families house, income stream, city and community for a ministry family. With tha...

Simon Manchester explains to Dominic Steele how he prepares to teach at a major conference and how to show your congregation the beauty of 1 Timothy 2.  Simon’s been lead pastor of one of Sydney’s larger churches, St Thomas’ North Sydney, for thirty years, before standing down last December.   He shares stories about when the St Thomas’ congregation didn’t want him, being summonsed to the Archbish...

EV Church's 'Rhett Harris was super provocative at a ministry conference a while back.  As Rhett was promoting ministry teams, he was arguing that rostering is contrary to the gospel.'  Dominic Steele says "I can't let him get away with these statement and maintain credibility," so I pushed back, and we had a big debate in front of the whole seminar group.' The t...

How to pastorally approach the death of a little child. We are having this conversation with three pastors who have had children die, because around the Christian world and in the secular press there has been discussion about the death just over a week ago of two year old Olive Aylne, the daughter of Andrew and Kalley Heiligenthal, who are key figures at the Bethel Church in Reading California.  I...

Moving on from a ministry is a natural part of life - but when done badly it can be debilitating for a ministry. This is a key area for Christian leaders to get right.  Leaving a ministry is never easy, especially when our families, friendships are embedded within it. Tim Hannah is coming to the end of his fourth major ministry role as the CEO of Compassion Australia. He joins us this week to answ...

On the Pastor’s Heart we speak to Greg Powell, clinical psychologist focusing on helping Church and mission organisations work well together. Greg consults on complex leadership breakdown and helps team increase in effectiveness. As our society and Churches focus on mental health, Greg has a lot to say about how ministry leaders can maintain their own mental health and support their congregations....

A new study of student wellbeing at Sydney University carried out by McCrindle Research highlights the positive impacts that faith groups are having in the lives of students on campus.   Dominic Steele speaks with Rowan Kemp from the Sydney University Evangelical Union and Geoffrey Folland from Power to Change USYD about the impact of the gospel on campus life. McCrindle research has recently foun...