The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele

We feature an interview conducted in church with a domestic violence survivor.  It’s a confronting and personal interview and does deserve a ‘trigger warning.’ Jenni Woodhouse and Dominic watch as the abuse survivor tells her story, then Jenni critiques Dominic’s pastoral handling of the situation. Anglican Aid To find out more about supporting Anglican Aid . Support the show

There’s been lots of talk recently about ‘The Leadership Pipeline’ but what exactly is it and how can the senior church leader make the most of this new pastoral practice. The leadership pipeline is a super helpful tool to think about leadership development, for yourself as a senior church leader, but also for others. Senior MInister of Toongabbie Anglican Church Raj Guptahas been developing a tra...

How do you care for people where a spouse has just left? Or committed adultery? There's pain and hurt. How do we care best for divorcees in the wider non Christian community? And if they are Christian often one at least of the partners ends up leaving the church. Michael Sheedy and Melinda Hunt have been leading Village Church Annandale's divorce care program for the last eight years. Th...

How do we go about employing people?  What are the issues we face with with structure, culture, job descriptions?   How do you best 'onboard people' onto your team?   How you function in the first 90 days?  How do you introduce behaviours that you plan to repeat such as, discipleship, positive feedback and trusted corrective feedback?  What about ongoing management, six monthly reviews,...

It’s less than two months to Christmas and we are sharpening ourselves on the practice of proclaiming Christ at Christmas.  Whether you are speaking at a carols service, a gingerbread and wreath making event, a Kids service, Scripture Christmas Service or Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, this discussion will be helpful for you.  We’re joined by Luke Tattersall from The Campbell Street Presbyterian...

Today we are talking, ‘the profession and professionalisation of Christian ministry,’ with Archie Poulos. Archie lectures in ministry at Moore Theological College, and is completing a PhD on building the competency of ministers. In what sense are ministry leaders ‘professionals’?What separates ordinary Christian ministry/ministry leaders from amazing ones? Why is a theological eduction no longer a...

UK pastor author Tim Chester is pastor of Grace Church, Boroughbridge, and author of more than 30 Christian books. He’s with us to speak about his new book, Enjoying God, but also how you balance a busy pastoral ministry with being such a prolific author. How do you have so many thoughts? How can you write them all down? Anglican Aid To find out more about supporting Anglican Aid . Support the sho...

In a special extra edition of the Pastor's Heart, Freedom for Faith director Michael Kellahan joins Dominic Steele to discuss how Christians can best respond to Australia's religious freedom review. Recommendations are here http://bit.ly/religiousfreedomreview Anglican Aid To find out more about supporting Anglican Aid . Support the show

How can your church be more loving to newcomers? How do you do welcoming well? What are the strategies for best connection? Not so much the arrival on the first visit, but what is best practice to see people journey from that first visit to becoming a fully integrated member of your church - so that they are still with you 12 months later? How do you triage people? Then what resources/energy do yo...

In this revealing and frank discussion with former Archbishop Peter Jensen discusses the particular responsibilities of senior leaders and the pressures that senior leaders are under. Plus an extended review of the state of the Anglican Communion and the response around the world to #Gafcon2018. Anglican Aid To find out more about supporting Anglican Aid . Support the show

‘It’s not that we don’t care on purpose … it’s just that we don’t care’ – Generation Z.Jesus has given us a job to do, make disciples of all nations. We want to better engage in our changing community. But it’s going to be an easier task if we understand the people we are reaching out to. Mark McCrindle of McCrindle Research has been looking at this topic for years, and has just presented at the ‘...

Fresh from the Singleminded Conference, we speak to Conference Chair Dani Treweek about how we can better love and pastor the single members of our church family? What are the particular pastoral issues that singles face? How can we encourage single Christians in their gospel maturity, contentment and service. Anglican Aid To find out more about supporting Anglican Aid . Support the show

Craig Hamilton, author of Wisdom in Leadership, says getting one’s heart right is the most important think in leadership. So we are speaking today specifically about the heart of the Pastor. Craig says when it comes to leading yourself, the hardest person to lead, there are key issues of pride and fear that need to be addressed. Anglican Aid To find out more about supporting Anglican Aid . Support...

On www.thepastorsheart.net we aim to help Christian leaders better fulfil the mission that Christ has given us. Today we are thinking about how to best love and care for the same sex attracted Christians in our churches. We are talking about theology, maturity, history, emphasis, holiness, sin, language and culture. Our guests are Rev Dr Wesley Hill, from Trinity School for Ministry in Pittsburg a...

Mitch joins Dominic Steele to tell his story of living a ‘double life’ in his early twenties, before things came to a head in Dubbo in country New South Wales. And then his journey working things out with God, and into Evangelical Presbyterian ministry and heterosexual marriage. Anglican Aid To find out more about supporting Anglican Aid . Support the show

There are health issues, work deadlines, the pressure of family to be together, the overall stress of life, personal mental capacity to face the day, and the crucial assessment of the kind of reception one could expect from church that day: ‘Will I have someone to sit with? Will I have to sit with unpleasant people again? Will the sermon be worth it? What if Rev X is preaching? Will I belong? ......

What do you do when there’s conflict in your church?  Because there will be at some point. How can you deal with conflict well? What do you do when there’s no conflict to prepare for the times when conflict will come? How to you give your people a framework for understanding and resolving conflict? What do you do when a couple comes to you and the marriage is a warzone? What should you outsource?...

How do you not just work ‘in the ministry’ but ‘on the ministry’?How does a senior pastor lead in vision, finances, staffing and money to promote the gospel of Christ? How do we communicate, execute and celebrate the vision? How to teach on generosity? How do we ask graciously? What are the mistakes to avoid? Rod Irvine was senior minister of Figtree Anglican Church Wollongong and has written ‘Giv...

A good friend tells you when you have something stuck between your teeth just before the photograph is taken. Scotland’s David Andrew Robertson was a guest on The Pastor’s Heart a few months ago and is a good friend (http://bit.ly/2vp3MJ4).  In an interview with ACR, having spent three months in Sydney, he’s had some significant things to say about the Sydney Anglican Church and asks have we gone...

What is poverty?  What gospel do poor people need?  How have parachurch ministries made the problem worse?  What does evangelism look like in poor communities?  What role for preaching?  What does church membership and discipline look like? How can we see a transformation in desperate poor communities in Scotland or Australia? Mez McConnell is the senior pastor of Niddrie Community Church in Edinb...

As a senior minister what should you do if you have a porn addiction? What if it’s a staff member of senior lay leader? How do you preach to the congregation about these issues? We talk to Marshall Ballantine-Jones who is doing a PhD on this topic, and who says there’s a significant rate of porn consumption in the general community, the church and amongst church leaders. Anglican Aid To find out m...

Albert Bernstein calls them ‘Emotional Vampires’  How do I (as a senior pastor) express the love of Jesus to those with different personality disorders: the narcissist, histrionic, paranoid personality disorder, OCD (both types), psychopaths, or the person with borderline personality disorder?   There are people in every church who consume much more than their fair share of everyone's time an...

Sacrifice: The tension between living the good life and dying to self. Have you tried zealously to serve the Lord and hit the wall? Are you living the sacrificial Christian life and wondering why so few are keeping up? Do you regularly give spiritual advice to others? Do you have the sneaking suspicion that you are not a real Christian? We do some of the worst things in the name of the greatest ca...

We are talking about and with the minister who loses it all, when the diocese moves into apostasy, leaving you and your people as faithful followers of Christ Jesus, but without denominational support, stripped of your ministerial license, church building and house. This week we talk to four men and one woman who have been and are in that situation. - From Canada, David Short. - From the US, Chuck...

The Anglican Dean of Sydney Kanishka Raffel and Senior Minister of MBM Rooty Hill Ray Galea join Dominic Steele, by the shores of Lake Galilee in Israel, to discuss last week’s important Anglican Gafcon Conference in Jerusalem. Plus we play out an extended interview with Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, who serves as the Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, with it's 25,000,000 mill...