Planning Christmas Preaching.

What we are nervous about? What we want to get right? What has worked best? What hasn’t? 

And how do we leverage the cultural moment?

How do we proactively serve Jesus in retirement? How might we motivate our older church members to prioritise the work of the gospel?

I want to be a big hearted encourager like Barnabas. I want to be a reliable assistant like Timothy. I want to be passionate preacher like Apollos.

When you think about the qualifications for Christian ministry in 1Timothy 3, the significance of personality is pretty much ignored.

What is the relationship between character and personality?

In a significant interview on the Rest is Politics Podcast England’s Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, has denied the teaching of the bible, and the teaching of his church. 

It is Archbishop Welby’s most public betrayal of his ordination and consecration vow to ‘banish error and to uphold and defend the truth taught in Scripture.’

How to best structure ministry teams in your church? And how to equip your team leaders for joyful service?

Team leaders do the bulk of their ministry in between events not at events.

How can someone become a more fruitful team leader?

Why all conversations with your team fit into four categories - and how most team leaders get this wrong.

5,000 believers gathered from more than 200 nations last month in South Korea.

It is 50 years since Billy Graham and John Stott first launched the Lausanne movement in Switzerland.

Anglican Bishop of North Sydney Chris Edwards has described the congress as like an all you can eat buffet - where some parts tasted amazing / fantastic and  I kept wanting more and yet other parts even a mouthful made me feel nauseous.

Historical literacy is a critical tool for Christians, deepening faith and enhancing evangelism and discipleship.

Sarah Irving Stonebreaker says we’ve forgotten how to engage well with the past, we don’t know why the past might be relevant to us today, and we have missed out on being part of a larger story.

What is Christian parenting?  How do we do family Bible time well?

How can we prioritize church, even when it’s hard?  Navigating social media with teens?

And how to parent teens who are doubting, drifting or deserting?

Parenting is joyous, magical, tiresome, boring, stressful and complicated.

How to preach to build confidence so members want to invite Islamic friends and workmates to church and better educate our Christians for conversations with Muslim friends.

What topics might we address?  How to best engage with the authority and authorship of the Bible vs the Qur’an, plus Jesus and Muhammed, the Trinity, Incarnation, Sin and human nature, Judgement and Salvation.

How do you work in a team excellently with those above you in ministry?

How do you as a team member take responsibility for the success of your church?

What can ministry team members do well to help the whole team function better?

What mistakes do team members make? And what about confidentiality on team?

How do we help children in Christian families escape and recover from the devastating effects of domestic abuse?

Pastoral consultant Jenni Woodhouse says there is a hidden epidemic of coercive control where a parent with narcissism or borderline personality disorder makes life impossible for their both their spouse and children.

What should the church pastor / staff team / church council or bishop do about the big drop in attendance?

The issues are not just external. We have internal issues. There are denominational and congregational factors at play. There are key church health characteristics that show internal health factors are lower in those regions - factors relating to congregational character and leadership. 

Plus how the Tanzanian Church has been built through the labors and prayers  of Australian Christians, and why prosperity gospel preachers are as wicked as witch doctors!

We are joined by Bishop Mwita Akiri from Tarime in rural Tanzania, Judith Calf who served as a missionary in theological education in Tanzania for 20 years, and Tim Swan who leads the Anglican Aid Ministry here in Australia.

What impact does growing up in a pastoral family have on ministry kids?

Valerie Ling from the Sydney Centre for Effective Living joins us to unpack the ‘Ministry Kids Wellbeing Survey,’ revealing what Australian ministry children, say about their upbringing.

They tell of heightened responsibilities and an acute awareness of adult realities plus concerns about  feeling different from their peers.

One of the world’s leading New Testament Scholars Thomas Schriener is in Sydney for the Moore College Lectures on ‘The Battle for the truth of the gospel.’

At the center of his attention is NT Wright and the New Perspective on Paul, a debate that questions whether ancient Judaism was legalistic.

Religious Freedom leaders are calling on Australia's Government to quickly bring a Religious Discrimination Act to the parliament.

Mark Sneddon says the Religious Discrimination Act is not about granting unlimited freedoms, but about preventing adverse treatment of religious individuals and organizations.

He says there needs to be a fair compromise that the rights of all involved, which should be supported by both sides of politics.

What does Expressive Individualism mean for churches?  And what specifically does it mean for church music?

Here is the expressive individualism worldview: ‘Truth comes from inside me.  It’s important that I look inside to discover who I truly am’ and ‘I need to express my individuality and personal truth to the world around me to receive validation.’

That truth comes from within - is the unspoken assumptions of guests who come to our churches.

And it’s a worldview that has impacts inside the church, including inside our music teams and inside the heads of the songwriters who write the songs that we sing.

Disillusionment is one of the great threats to the Christian life and to Christian ministry  

A wise man said the worst thing in ministry was not a pastor who quits, but a pastor who doesn’t quit, but who keeps going when they’ve given up.

Sydney Missionary and Bible College Karl Deenick shares his own experience of hitting a major wall after seven years of pastoral work. 

We unpack how ministry challenges can lead to a sense of disillusionment, especially among millennials, plus a way back. 

What would Dave Keun and Jon Kwan like to tell their younger selves if they could travel back in time before they took on the position of senior minister?

How has their sense of ownership changed?

What has been most difficult about the transition to the role? What mistakes have they made?

The chair of Gafcon Laurent Mbunda and chair of Global South Justin Badi Arama are to meet to work out a roadmap for the resetting of the Anglican Communion.

Global South Anglicans have endorsed the Former Sydney Archbishop Glenn Davies call for the communion to be reset on biblical foundations.  The Global South have called on their Primates to work with the GAFCON Primates Council and other Orthodox leaders to reset the communion on its biblical foundations as a matter of urgency.