Putting the complementarian jigsaw together with Graham Beynon

Graham Beynon says there are a variety of patterns impacting our thinking on ministry models.  He calls them: separatism, permissions, de-contextualisation and individualism. 

Graham says men and women are similar but different.  He’s encouraging us to have an honouring of the differences.  And at the same time pursue godliness rather than genderness. 

A war of loves with David Bennett

29-year-old David Bennett, who describes himself as a former anti-Christian gay activist now Christian, says Jesus is good news for same sex attracted Christians.

David joins us on The Pastor’s Heart to talk through his story and his two ‘coming outs,’ one as a 14 year old, and then later a second as a Christian believer. 

On trial for heresy and how to preach with application and momentum with Gary Millar

We launch The Pastor's Heart for 2019 with an 'on the road' edition from the CMS Summer School in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. 

Dr Gary Millar answers questions on how to preach better so that your sermon lands with real application.

Gary is the principal of the Queensland Theological College and is the chair of the Gospel Coalition Australia.

He was the main speaker at the 2019 Church Missionary Society Summer School in NSW. During the conference he took time out with Dominic Steele to share the story of when he was put on trial in Ireland to face 27 charges of heresy. 

The pastor, the church and social media

What’s best practice for churches and Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok?

How does a pastor’s non Christian and Christian audience impact the way we use social media?

To what extent do potential church members decide to join/not join your church, based on your social media posts?

How can we shift internal church disagreements off social media, rather than airing disputes before unbelievers?

Leadership pipeline with Raj Gupta

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 training program for senior ministers of churches built around the leadership pipeline.

Caring for divorcees with Melinda Hunt and Michael Sheedy

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.

They've seen more than 100 divorcees helped and heal through this program.

They join Dominic Steele to talk about the things they've learned along the way. Every divorce is different. But there are some common threads.

Concerns with changing the name of ‘Elvanto pastoral care’ to ‘Tithely church management’

There are four sorts of churches, working along two difference axis.  On the horizontal axis put relationship, on the vertical, put mission.

The best kind of a church is a visionary/going somewhere church with good relationships (top right).  The great strength of this kind of church is that it has a clear mission and really good pastoral care, with lots of people caring well for each other.

How to manage and lead the staff team? with Peter Mayrick

‘How to manage and lead the staff team?’ with Peter Mayrick.

How 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, delegation and coaching?

How to preach better at Christmas? with Luke Tattersall and Kanishka Raffel

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 Church and Kanishka Raffel, the dean of St Andrew's Cathedral Sydney.



Some of my questions are:

• In your preparation how do you think about a Christmas talk differently to a regular in series talk?

• What else are you aiming to achieve in your Christmas meetings?

• How do you choose your Christmas passages?

• What does preparation look like for these occasions?

• What's the goal of a Christmas talk?

• What makes a boring / interesting Christmas address?

• How much are you looking for guests and how much for regular members?

Getting professional with Archie Poulos

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 adequate for Christian ministry?

How can we do the task of ministry better?

This is the heart of Archie’s PhD studies and we are looking forward to hearing from him. 

Best strategy for welcoming and follow up with Andy Hobbs and David Allen

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 you spend ministering to different people?

How do you work out how not to put too much energy into people who will never come back? 

Andy Hobbs from Salt Church Wollongong and David Allen from Hunter Bible Church and Unichurch, Newcastle in Newcastle have both thought lots about these questions. 

Understanding and engaging with our changing community with Mark McCrindle

‘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 ‘Australian Community and Church Summit 2018’.

Mark will be our guest on www.thepastorsheart.net this Tuesday afternoon at 2pm to discuss the Australian Community and how we can best minister to our changing neighbourhoods

There are issues of demographics, technology, debt, life expectancy, cultural diversity.