In a bold move, a meeting of movement leaders from across Australian Reformed Evangelicalism has resolved to work together to see their numbers double over twenty years, through seeing sinners saved.
Leaders gathered for a mini summit organised by The Gospel Coalition Australia at Sydney’s Moore Theological College last week.
Gospel Coalition Australia Chair Rory Shiner says given the unparalleled theological and missional unity between the different organisations there’s a significant window of opportunity to work productively together for God’s glory.
They agreed to work towards an effective target of growing five percent per year through conversion growth.
The Gospel Coalition’s Rory Shiner and Sarah Kuswadi, Reach Australia’s Andrew Heard and Queensland Theological College Principal Gary Millar came straight from the Summit to our The Pastor’s Heart studio to discuss the outcomes of the day and plans for the future.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
A potentially significant moment, a new
collaborative goal forAustralia's Reformed
Evangelicals.
It is the pastor's heart, it'sDominic Steele, our guests today
Rory Shiner, gary Miller,andrew Heard and Sarah Kaswadi.
We are at a significant momentof unity, of theological and
missional alignment in theReformed Evangelical Community
(00:29):
of Australia.
But having arrived at thatsense of theological and
missional alignment, whereshould we go?
Today, on the Pastor's Heart,we are taking you inside the
discussions of the GospelCoalition Australia mini-summit
just wrapped up at MooreTheological College in Sydney.
A key target flowing out of theday is to work to double the
(00:50):
number of Reformed evangelicalsin Australia over the next 20
years through conversion growth,that's, pursuing a 5% growth
each year through Saving theLost.
Our guest today from the GospelCoalition Australia, rory Shiner
.
He's here from Perth and chairof the Gospel Coalition
Australia.
Sarah Kaswadi, from Brisbane,is the chief operating officer
(01:12):
of the Gospel Coalition.
Andrew Heard is with us from EVChurch on the Central Coast and
from REACH Australia.
And Gary Miller, principal ofQueensland's Theological College
, is also with us.
Gary, I wonder if we mightstart with the pastor's heart.
And you raised that God hadcalled up Jeremiah when he was a
teenager and he wasn't justfeeling hopelessly inadequate,
(01:36):
but was hopelessly inadequatefor the task of mission.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, rory asked me to kick the day off by opening
up the Bible.
Jeremiah seemed like a helpfulplace to go, because I do think
one of the dangers that we allhave when we start to think big
picture, when we start to try topull leaders together, is that
we slip into thinking that,ultimately, we have the power to
change people's lives.
(02:03):
We have the power to change thechurch, to change the world,
when we know, at the end of theday, every conversation we have,
every responsibility that fallsto us, it's all operative under
the sovereignty of God, and Ithink that's where we began the
day, knowing that we were goingon to look at some things that
we are responsible for, somethings that we want to do, some
(02:25):
things that we want to pursueand pray for.
But at the beginning we wantedto express our dependence on God
, which isn't really an option.
We are dependent on God for himto give the growth, change
people's lives, bring people tonew life across Australia and
beyond.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And yet, rory Shiner, I'm paddling through doing the
ministry and sometimes I don'tstop to look up.
But you got me to stop and lookup and reflect that there is a
moment of unity amongstevangelicals in Australia at the
moment that perhaps we haven'tseen since 1959.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, I do think that I think I could defend that.
It's actually one of the thingsabout you know, you don't ask a
fish what water's like, andit's one of the things that you
don't notice in the day-to-day.
And reflecting on 1959, whichis when Billy Graham came to
Australia, and it was a verysignificant moment in Australian
(03:25):
history in general and letalone in the history of
Australian evangelicals and thereaching of people.
It was a very significantamount of conversions and people
presenting for missionaryservice, so it was a very big
moment.
And, of course, to pull off1959, there's a lot of work in
1958, 1957, 1956, 1955, and thechurches really coalesced and
(03:49):
gathered around Billy Grahamcoming to put a lot of time and
effort into that.
And there's a natural thingthere where you have a goal and
it's a goal at a certain timeand place that Billy Graham will
come out and is very good.
And people talk about the unitythat evangelicals had at that
time and my reflection is thatin that unity was very
(04:11):
worthwhile and made a very goodthing possible.
I that you should use the wordjust but beyond believing in an
evangelical, believes that thesaving work of Jesus, personal
(04:34):
faith in him, repentance andfaith in Jesus is necessary for
salvation to save us from thejudgment of God.
And in addition to that, as Ikind of you know, go around
Australia and do my day job anddo work with the Gospel
Coalition.
I go into room after room,ministry after ministry, context
(04:55):
after context, and think, oh,we agree, like almost to the
decimal point.
So, on the priority ofevangelism, the use of
expository, preaching, workingthrough the Word of God, a
biblical, theological approachto the Bible, having the Bible
(05:15):
at the center of our evangelismand discipleship, a very strong
kind of intuitive sense ofkeeping second things in second
place and a really almostunselfconscious work across
independent Anglican,presbyterian, baptist.
You know context that I takefor granted and shouldn't take
(05:38):
for granted, because it is anextraordinary thing to do with
the people that came before usand the kind of work and the
shoulders that we stand on, andI think it is.
We should do something withthat.
We should think well, giventhat you know, historically our
ancestors were able to pull offa thing with probably less in
common, when we have theseagreements right down to
(06:02):
ministry, philosophy and so on,and it does feel like we're
better than we were 10 years ago.
Yeah, yeah, and so you know youwould never want to take that
for granted.
But that, yeah, I think thatand I think I mean unity as an
end in itself is notparticularly worthwhile, because
you've got to work out unityaround what and to what end.
But I think, because that unityis around a shared
(06:26):
understanding of the gospel anda shared understanding of the
urgency of the gospel for thesalvation of the lost, and a
biblical theology and all theseother things, I think we could
do a lot together.
That would be worthwhile,without having to second guess
what we meant by this word andthat word, and so I think we
(06:46):
should just make hay while thesun shines and say what could we
do?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And so, sarah, as you planned the mini summit, you
wanted to put to us that it'snot just what we might do, but
what we might do together.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yep, that's right.
So we feel quite strongly that,while there are differences
between the different groups ofpeople that came together, there
actually is heaps more that aresimilarities, and so that's
what the focus was on, and howbeautiful is it that we can come
together as sisters andbrothers in Christ and be
(07:22):
unified and think about what itis we can do together, rather
than looking at the smallerthings that set us apart.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Andrew, perhaps we could start with you in terms of
the content of the day, becauseyou really began the day by
throwing some rocks into thepond and stirring us up.
Yeah, what we do and how we do,it makes a difference to the
outcomes that we're going to seein the gospel in Australia.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Yeah, I started with a bunch of principles and the
first one was that, yeah, thatif we take seriously that under
God's sovereignty we have animpact on what happens, the way
we do things, what we do, theychange the consequences, the
(08:10):
spiritual outcomes.
If we take that seriously, thenwe need to grasp what
opportunities we have and dealwith what problems face us and
see under God what we can do tomake a difference.
So that's a very big principle,it's a compatibilism of
understanding God's sovereignty,our responsibility and the
peace in that that we take thatseriously.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You then said the fruit that matters most is
conversion fruit.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
And elaborate.
Well, I made the case thatthere's lots of things we are
called to do, but, given therealities of God's righteous
judgment to come, the eternalityof hell, the fact that before
him this life is very brief, hiscalling in Matthew 28, various
(09:05):
of these things, it's very clearthat what the church is called
to do as a priority is to seekand save the lost, to make
disciples, where makingdisciples means getting people
saved and growing them in theirwalk with Christ, so that
there's genuine transformationof life.
This has to be our priority andI think, as Rory's reflecting,
(09:30):
it is something that is a sharedconviction amongst us.
This is not something that wetend to need to argue for so
much, but I do think we need tobring it to the surface.
There's a kind of in thebusyness of all the ministries
that we do, all the differentpressures on us, there is a
collegiality, there's a kind ofa get together and remind each
(09:51):
other of what we already areconvinced of.
That can strengthen and firethe heart, and I think that's
all we're doing together.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And Rory, I think there was a sense that we do get
swamped.
It is foggy, we get draggeddown by the minutiae of the day,
but the idea that we mightstrive to really see the number
of Reformed evangelicalChristians in church double in
20 years did seem to kind ofgrip the room during the day.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, I think that's right.
That was in Andrew's originalpaper.
Now, I hadn't heard Andrew'spaper before, and I don't think
anyone had, because it had beenwritten quite close to the day.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
There's the spirit, lead right, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But it was interesting that you know the
way we designed the day was tonot prejudice the results, to
say let's see what happens, andso on.
It's interesting that you knowthe way we designed the day was
to not prejudice the results, tosay let's see what happens, and
so on.
It's interesting that by theend of the day, that had stuck
in people's imaginations and weclarified what we meant by that,
that we don't, that doubling issimultaneously imaginable.
(11:01):
Like you could, I think anyonecould, look at the ministry
they're currently involved inand think what would this look
like if it was twice as manypeople involved?
Like you could, I think anyonecould look at the ministry
they're currently involved inand think what would this look
like if it was twice as if itwas twice as many people
involved, and you can imaginethat.
But then I, I think the thingthat got me and maybe got got a
number of us is I thought that'senough of a change that I would
need to change and we wouldneed to change.
So, uh, close enough to beencouraging.
(11:23):
And you know, if someone, ifsomeone says, oh, wouldn't it be
great if this was, you know,10x or whatever, I think that
would be great and it's almostunimaginable.
But twice as uh, you know, tosee things double grow twice as
much is simultaneouslyimaginable.
You know, one would thinkachievable, um, but not
achievable by a situation.
(11:45):
Normal, steady as she goes.
I think there's a thing therethat puts the right amount of
fire to your feet to think okay,I would need to think
differently about some of whatwe're currently doing.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And we're talking 5% conversion growth a year.
Really.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Yes that's right.
It's probably a bit lessactually, but yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Now, sarah, one of the things Rory got us to do,
and perhaps you could describeit for us the horseshoe as we're
processing this, and then we'llget you guys to weigh in on the
horseshoe issues.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yep.
So Rory, in his infinite wisdom, asked everyone in the room to
stand up, which was a reliefafter being sitting down for a
while, and then we were asked tostand in a position of where we
felt we were in relation towhat it was that Andrew had said
.
So whether you felt reallystrongly, less so in the middle,
or really anti, Gary, wherewere you?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I was depending on the question, I was either right
beside Andrew or as far fromAndrew as it was possible.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Only for a moment.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Only for a moment.
Yes, I think, on the doublingthe number of Reformed
evangelicals, again, like Rory,I was quite, I mean, I was
deeply encouraged by it.
But I think having a high-levelgoal like that it doesn't
necessarily mean that everychurch in Australia will double
in size, because, well, we knowthat won't happen for all kinds
(13:13):
of factors.
Some may shrink but we willneed to plan new churches in
order to reach that.
But I think for me it's thekind of goal you know it works
on the Central Coast, it worksin, you know, Chinchilla in
regional Queensland, it works inPerth and, you know, across the
nation.
I think it is something thattogether, all of us can say,
(13:34):
yeah, that's something we canpray for and work for.
And it sharpens the focus onneeding to grow by the
proclamation of the gospel andpeople coming to new life in
Christ.
And I think that there was areal sense in the room.
Even those who were kind ofright the horseshoe a little
(13:55):
were really right the horseshoein terms of how best do we
articulate this?
But preface any objections bysaying yes, we're right with you
.
In fact, some of those who wereopposed to the doubling goal
were actually saying we shouldgo with tripling.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
But I think if the goal had been too massive, it's
not going to be achievable ormeasurable.
So, yes, we want all ofAustralia to become Christians,
but let's be realistic, so wecan have a goal that we can
actually be working towards,rather than something that
you're unlikely to achieve.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Break it down for us a bit, Andrew.
What's it going to look like toachieve that?
How would that happen?
Speaker 5 (14:38):
To double.
Yeah Well, there's two bigthings and we've talked about
these before.
But at the very least eithermeans each church twice as big
or twice as many churches, andas soon as you articulate it
like that, it's not business asusual anymore.
It's helping us capture ourcongregations in existing
(15:00):
churches with a sense that wecan't just do church for what we
find comfortable.
We actually have to think aboutreaching the region around us
in such a way that it changesthe dynamics.
This church can't be like it'salways been.
There's got to be some changethere, or we've got to be
prepared to accept a church astreet away, another church
(15:22):
plant, and we've got to embracethe financial cost of all of
that If we're actually going todouble.
It has implications forproperty.
It's got implications forpastoral staff.
It's got all kinds ofconsequences that will cost.
And to capture people with thatvision, driven by a love of
God's glory, that peopleappreciate the need to save
(15:44):
their neighbours, friends,families, these things, I think,
can motivate us to bring aboutsome real change that might
facilitate a real outcome that'sto the glory of God.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah, I think it's.
One of the things that wegrappled with a bit was that I
don't think any of us and Idon't think the average
congregation person findsnumbers for numbers sake
exciting, and I don't think theyshould or need to.
But the background to thesummit was a bunch of.
(16:17):
We had an opportunity on theTGCA website to speak into where
you thought some of the issuesand challenges were, and one of
the things that came throughreally clearly was that people
you know, christians inevangelical Christian Australia
just genuinely love the Lord andwant their neighbours to know
(16:37):
the Lord.
And it really helps to say,well, that's what it would look
like and I think everyone wouldthink, oh, I want you know.
It really helps to say, well,that's what it would look like,
and I think everyone would think, oh, I want you know, I want my
friends and neighbours to knowJesus, to stand in his grace, to
be saved from the wrath of Godand so on.
(16:58):
And then the next step in theimagination to say is to be able
to look around and say, well,there's not enough room for them
and we've got to be able toreach them.
And other thing that came upwhich you might end up talking
about is a really strong concern, both in the responses that
came in through the website andin the room that we reach.
When you talk about doubling,it does make you think who
(17:22):
aren't we reaching?
Where are the groups of, I meanyou think, the physical places
where it's tough to plantchurches, to establish
ministries, remote suburbs, forwhatever reason, that are
difficult, and where are thepeople groups that we're perhaps
missing and so on?
And I think part of it, part ofthis thinking, is to just help
(17:46):
us unlock that and drive at thatachievable but very stretching
goal by thinking about what itwould actually mean to reach
friends and neighbours in waysthat they could have a fighting
chance to come in on.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Let's come to that in a moment, but first I just want
to come back to you, andrew.
And you then landed, I think,on two areas.
One which was if we're to getthere, we're going to need godly
and effective senior leaders,and that's an area.
But also there's a heart issue,a lack of evangelistic zeal
floating around it.
Let's do the senior leader taskfirst.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
Look under God.
The key structure that we havethat God has given us is the
church, that's the community offaith that God's called together
by the gospel as the means bywhich he empowers and
strengthens us to go out andreach more people.
(18:48):
But the key, humanly speaking,to the health of that community
are those put in place to leadit, whether it's depending on
the governance structure, ofcourse, of your church, and so
paying attention to that dynamicmatters.
If we want to see gospelcommunities that are captivated
by the things of Christ and ableto deal with all the blockages
(19:11):
like materialism and greed andthis worldliness, and be
envisaged to see the lostness ofthe lost, we need people to be
bringing the word to bear, to bestirring our hearts through the
word and so on, and that fallsvery often on the key leaders of
the church, and so we've got topay attention there.
We want to pay attentioneverywhere, but of course that's
(19:34):
a key piece that we need toconsider and think about.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
You got a little pushback from Gary Miller on the
plurality of leaders.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
There was a Presbyterian voice led alongside
that.
Yeah, I don't just I don'tdisagree with that, but I do
think across the breadth of ourkind of reformed evangelical
churches, it's, it's also veryimportant in many contexts to to
train elders or elder typefigures, because, you know, we,
(20:06):
in some contexts I can think of,you know, you get a, a grinding
of the gears when you have a,you know, a new pastor arrive,
but the local leadership who, inmany places, have been there
for a long time and are going tobe there after the pastor, that
if, if we are going to seelong-term growth in every
community across australia, ifwe are going to see long-term
(20:26):
growth in every community acrossaustralia, if we are going to
see, you know, continued growthof the gospel, um, that that,
alongside this senior pastorbeing equipped and shaped and
formed and motivated, I I thinkthere is another piece in terms
of the shared leadership, whichis, you know, obviously is more
(20:49):
of an issue, you know, in somekind of ways, of doing church
than in others.
But I think it was reallyaugmenting what Andrew was
saying, rather than you know,than arguing with it.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Rory, yeah, on the leadership piece, yeah, yeah, I
mean, I do think that that is.
We grapple with that.
I think that is a veryimportant point, both in terms
of I think generically you canmount a very strong biblical
case that the elders, pastors,teachers of the church are
(21:24):
hugely significant for thehealth of the church and so you
can, by putting energy intocreating the kind of character
and competency and commitment,that's a place where you can
pull a lever and affect thewhole, the nature of leadership
at one level.
And I think that, sittingalongside that determination to
(21:46):
think um, uh, instead ofthinking um, you know what,
what's business as usual,whatever, to think, what does it
take to do this work?
And I think andrew just saidbefore that you've either just
on that little thoughtexperiment of doubling the
numbers you either need you knowtwice as many churches or
(22:10):
require almost all of us to growin our capacity to do that,
because I think church plantinghas its own set of dynamics and
demands and skills, and so notthat we're choosing between
these, but if you said, let's doit by planting more churches,
that's a huge amount of peoplethat have to learn a very
specific set of both skills andthen resilience and capacity to
(22:32):
do that, and or the people thatare going to see these churches
grow.
I think we had the Presbyteriansaying his piece and we need to
think through that.
That's an important thing,because you are touching now, I
think, maybe something that Garymentioned, that we are.
(22:53):
We're not just being pragmatic.
We're coming up againstecclesiology there and what it
means to be the church and whatit means to lead the church, but
I think as a summit, we're infurious agreement at that level
that the health of the church isso caught up in the leadership.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
But in a sense the ecclesiology is important.
Of course there's differences,but whoever functions in a
leadership role, whatever churchthey're in, they've got to pay
attention to leading people andworking together with other
leaders in the church, whetherit's an eldership board or a
parish council or whatever it is.
(23:33):
So developing leadership sothat it's engaged, connected,
able to bring along with thecause that we're about, that's
the thing we need to all developtogether, and doing that in
whatever context.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And we're going to have to grow if I'm going to
learn to manage a bigger group.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need to grow in our leadership.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, that's right, yeah, sarah.
Next area and Rory alluded tothis a moment ago is other parts
of Australia that we're noteffectively reaching, and I mean
we could name a whole lot likethe divorced community, that
kind of thing, but the big onewas the non-tertiary educated.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Sure.
So, yeah, we had a whole lot ofstats, but one of the main ones
was that around 70% of peoplearen't coming from a tertiary
education background and thatactually isn't necessarily
reflective of the attendance inchurch at the moment and that,
(24:34):
yeah, that that's actually a gapand we are seeing that sort of
reflected in the way that peopleare welcomed into church.
That, like when you meet someone, straight after asking their
name, you say, well, what is itthat you do during the week?
And the feedback was thatpeople who aren't necessarily
from a sort of universitybackground might not necessarily
(24:57):
identify so much about what itis that their career is and that
maybe that isn't actually beingwelcoming to those people.
And yeah, I sort of feel sadabout that because I would want
anyone who walked into church tofeel welcomed and feel
appreciated, and I think it'sworth, like exploring a bit more
to make sure we fullyunderstand how to do that,
(25:20):
because when you first meetsomeone, it is a little bit
awkward, like you want to have aquestion that gets them talking
about themselves, so that's whyyou ask it.
But I'm sure there are otherquestions that could be asked
and I'm sure that we couldbecome better at welcoming
people so that they getconnected into the gospel and
(25:41):
that that isn't a barrier tothem returning another time.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
It was quite striking .
You know the statistics, acrossthe board it was roughly it was
about 50, we have 50% with halfthe proportion of non-tertiary
educated people in church thanthere are in society.
(26:05):
You know that's a big gap andit was across every age range,
which was really quite striking.
Which says, you know, whateverthe precise nature of the
problem, there is an issue, andI suspect it's partly that there
are large, there are probablysocioeconomic areas that we just
(26:29):
don't really have Reformedevangelical churches, and that's
something we need to takeseriously.
And that's only part of theproblem, but it's a significant
piece.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
The growing percentage of migrants born
overseas living in our.
The changing face ofmulticultural Australia is also
a massive issue for us for thenext 20 years, rory.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, that's right.
We took a paper on thatparticular piece.
I think, from memory, about 30%of people born overseas.
So the way I think about it, ifyou're on a bus and there's 100
people there, you can expectyou know, on average, 30% of
them to be overseas born, andthen you expect another however
many percent.
I mean, go back long enough andit's 99% but you'll have these
(27:15):
very large migrant communities.
We did a bit of reflecting onthat because you've got a few
things going on there.
You've got the migrantchallenge of the second and
third generation and that's avery interesting and complicated
dynamic of what does it meanfor the kids of people that have
integrated their children intoAustralian society, dynamic of
(27:35):
what does it mean for the kidsof people that have integrated
their children into australiansociety.
We had some interestingdiscussion around um, the
religiosity of migrantcommunities, often much higher
than the um, the kind ofanglo-australian I was really
quite surprised about that.
Yeah, keep going well, it's just, it's just interesting to
reflect on.
I don't think we, you know, isit?
We were, we were together for ashort period of time, so we
(27:57):
weren't, we were askingquestions rather than purporting
to have any of the answers.
But you do, yeah, you do havevery religious communities in
places like in the southwest ofSydney, in certain parts of
Melbourne and so on, where ourconversation is often about
(28:18):
secularism and secularisation,and it's just worth noting that
those communities are not verysecular, whatever else, they are
Catholic or Muslim orbackgrounds and so on.
And I think, both with thenon-tertiary educated and the
migrant communities of differentreligious hues and so on, and
(28:42):
as well as just the migrantexperience and what that means
for church and life and stuff, Ithink the consensus, the zero
pushback in the room was on thatwe ought to reach everyone for
Jesus and whatever it takes andI think the tricky bit is
whatever it takes, because itdoes take something Like it's
(29:03):
not just putting up a signsaying you know migrants welcome
or you know blue-collar peoplenow included.
There's a whole lot of reallydetermined work which I think
you pick up in the Apostle Paulin somewhere like 1 Corinthians
in his letter to the Corinthiansthat doing all things by all
(29:25):
means beating his body, that thekind of discipline and hard
work that sits alongside, whichis part of your compatible, the
compatibilism of those two, thatsits alongside the grace of God
, and we can't.
God needs to be at work foranything worthwhile to happen,
but to have to name that as achallenge, and a challenge where
(29:50):
we don't want to just let slide, it's not okay.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
It's not okay to be in a country where whole
substance of people, where ourministry, isn't meeting them Now
acknowledging that thestatement it's not only that the
ink's not dry, it's still inyour head and on your laptop and
that kind of thing, but bulletpoints were listed at the end of
(30:14):
the day and agreed on and we'releaving the work, smith, to you
and a little committee.
But what are you excited aboutcoming out of the day?
What are you excited about?
We'll go around the room andfinish with you, andrew, so
we'll start with you, gary.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
One of the issues that the Gospel Coalition has
had here in Australia is wepulled people together, but what
were we actually doing?
And I think it was veryexciting to identify just, I
think, some key challenges thatwe can all say, yes, those are
(30:50):
the things that are right in ourface.
And to be in a room with abunch of people who were all
going, yes, we're going to prayand throw ourselves into meeting
these challenges in this day.
I think there was actually realenergy in the room and it was
very encouraging to be part ofthat.
Sarah.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
I was quite excited that, from the data, so many
people pointed out that theythink the most important thing
to do is to pray.
And I think we can often say,oh yeah, we should pray and feel
quite godly about saying that,but actually you've got to do it
.
You've got to be committed todoing the praying.
And I also feel quite excitedthat it was kind of like we had
(31:31):
structured the day and had a lotof meetings like planning it
out.
But yeah, we have this phrasewhere we talk about landing the
plane and I feel like the planelanded.
It just needs to get to theterminal now.
And if the plane's alreadylanded, that's pretty good,
right.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It's not that far to go.
Well, you said to me atafternoon tea I don't know
what's going to happen now, it'sall going to land, and then
actually everyone was safe atthe end, rory.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, look, you alluded to it.
As I say, it wasn't the plan atthe beginning of the day, but
as a room, you know, we movedtowards this idea of working on
a statement to kind ofcommunicate, at least to each
other what we committed to.
And I think the thing that Ithink there was a determination
at and there's been a lot ofback work for these previous
(32:19):
meetings with similar groups andanalogous groups, I think
something Andrew said is thatthere's just an air miles that
you've just got to clock up timewith each other to think, pray,
go down a corridor that turnsout to be the wrong corridor, go
this way, hear each other andso on, and so it was very
(32:42):
encouraging to think thatthere's a sense of let's do what
we can to see, I guess, toseize that moment I was saying
at the start, that unusual ornever-take-it-for-granted sense
of unity around the gospel andministry practice and so on.
Come away, my heart is full,andrew.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
Look, I think there's a lot that can happen when a
group of people are captivatedby the cause of the gospel and
that's been something that'sbeen sitting there for a long
time in our world and I think tobring it together, to get it to
come to the surface, with asense that there's a growing
crowd of leaders around thecountry in diverse groups who
(33:30):
now want to sing more and moreclearly from the same song sheet
, you know, there's a growingsense that we don't just want to
do church and we've never justdone church.
We don't want to do church, wejust don't want to do it.
We want to actually see atangible change across our
country for the cause of Christand we want to give ourselves
(33:52):
wholeheartedly to that.
I think, once there's a growingenergy for that, I think it's
exactly the kind of thing Godblesses, isn't it?
As we cry out to him in agrowing sense together for that,
we're right to expect that.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
God will bless it.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Before you fly back toQueensland, fly back to Western
Australia and drive back to theCentral.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
Coast Drive back to the Central Coast.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
My guests on the Pastor's Heart Andrew Hurd from
Reach Australia and SeniorPastor of EV Church on the
Central Coast.
Rory Shiner leads theProvidence Network of Churches
in Perth and is Chair of GospelCoalition Australia.
Sarah Kaswadi is ChiefOperating Officer of the Gospel
Coalition Australia and GaryMiller is the Principal of
Queensland's Theological College.
(34:41):
My name's Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastor's Heart and we'll look
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
A potentially significant moment, a new
collaborative goal forAustralia's Reformed
Evangelicals.
It is the pastor's heart, it'sDominic Steele, our guests today
Rory Shiner, gary Miller,andrew Heard and Sarah Kaswadi.
We are at a significant momentof unity, of theological and
missional alignment in theReformed Evangelical Community
(00:29):
of Australia.
But having arrived at thatsense of theological and
missional alignment, whereshould we go?
Today, on the Pastor's Heart,we are taking you inside the
discussions of the GospelCoalition Australia mini-summit
just wrapped up at MooreTheological College in Sydney.
A key target flowing out of theday is to work to double the
(00:50):
number of Reformed evangelicalsin Australia over the next 20
years through conversion growth,that's, pursuing a 5% growth
each year through Saving theLost.
Our guest today from the GospelCoalition Australia, rory Shiner
.
He's here from Perth and chairof the Gospel Coalition
Australia.
Sarah Kaswadi, from Brisbane,is the chief operating officer
(01:12):
of the Gospel Coalition.
Andrew Heard is with us from EVChurch on the Central Coast and
from REACH Australia.
And Gary Miller, principal ofQueensland's Theological College
, is also with us.
Gary, I wonder if we mightstart with the pastor's heart.
And you raised that God hadcalled up Jeremiah when he was a
teenager and he wasn't justfeeling hopelessly inadequate,
(01:36):
but was hopelessly inadequatefor the task of mission.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, rory asked me to kick the day off by opening
up the Bible.
Jeremiah seemed like a helpfulplace to go, because I do think
one of the dangers that we allhave when we start to think big
picture, when we start to try topull leaders together, is that
we slip into thinking that,ultimately, we have the power to
change people's lives.
(02:03):
We have the power to change thechurch, to change the world,
when we know, at the end of theday, every conversation we have,
every responsibility that fallsto us, it's all operative under
the sovereignty of God, and Ithink that's where we began the
day, knowing that we were goingon to look at some things that
we are responsible for, somethings that we want to do, some
(02:25):
things that we want to pursueand pray for.
But at the beginning we wantedto express our dependence on God
, which isn't really an option.
We are dependent on God for himto give the growth, change
people's lives, bring people tonew life across Australia and
beyond.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And yet, rory Shiner, I'm paddling through doing the
ministry and sometimes I don'tstop to look up.
But you got me to stop and lookup and reflect that there is a
moment of unity amongstevangelicals in Australia at the
moment that perhaps we haven'tseen since 1959.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, I do think that I think I could defend that.
It's actually one of the thingsabout you know, you don't ask a
fish what water's like, andit's one of the things that you
don't notice in the day-to-day.
And reflecting on 1959, whichis when Billy Graham came to
Australia, and it was a verysignificant moment in Australian
(03:25):
history in general and letalone in the history of
Australian evangelicals and thereaching of people.
It was a very significantamount of conversions and people
presenting for missionaryservice, so it was a very big
moment.
And, of course, to pull off1959, there's a lot of work in
1958, 1957, 1956, 1955, and thechurches really coalesced and
(03:49):
gathered around Billy Grahamcoming to put a lot of time and
effort into that.
And there's a natural thingthere where you have a goal and
it's a goal at a certain timeand place that Billy Graham will
come out and is very good.
And people talk about the unitythat evangelicals had at that
time and my reflection is thatin that unity was very
(04:11):
worthwhile and made a very goodthing possible.
I that you should use the wordjust but beyond believing in an
evangelical, believes that thesaving work of Jesus, personal
(04:34):
faith in him, repentance andfaith in Jesus is necessary for
salvation to save us from thejudgment of God.
And in addition to that, as Ikind of you know, go around
Australia and do my day job anddo work with the Gospel
Coalition.
I go into room after room,ministry after ministry, context
(04:55):
after context, and think, oh,we agree, like almost to the
decimal point.
So, on the priority ofevangelism, the use of
expository, preaching, workingthrough the Word of God, a
biblical, theological approachto the Bible, having the Bible
(05:15):
at the center of our evangelismand discipleship, a very strong
kind of intuitive sense ofkeeping second things in second
place and a really almostunselfconscious work across
independent Anglican,presbyterian, baptist.
You know context that I takefor granted and shouldn't take
(05:38):
for granted, because it is anextraordinary thing to do with
the people that came before usand the kind of work and the
shoulders that we stand on, andI think it is.
We should do something withthat.
We should think well, giventhat you know, historically our
ancestors were able to pull offa thing with probably less in
common, when we have theseagreements right down to
(06:02):
ministry, philosophy and so on,and it does feel like we're
better than we were 10 years ago.
Yeah, yeah, and so you know youwould never want to take that
for granted.
But that, yeah, I think thatand I think I mean unity as an
end in itself is notparticularly worthwhile, because
you've got to work out unityaround what and to what end.
But I think, because that unityis around a shared
(06:26):
understanding of the gospel anda shared understanding of the
urgency of the gospel for thesalvation of the lost, and a
biblical theology and all theseother things, I think we could
do a lot together.
That would be worthwhile,without having to second guess
what we meant by this word andthat word, and so I think we
(06:46):
should just make hay while thesun shines and say what could we
do?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And so, sarah, as you planned the mini summit, you
wanted to put to us that it'snot just what we might do, but
what we might do together.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yep, that's right.
So we feel quite strongly that,while there are differences
between the different groups ofpeople that came together, there
actually is heaps more that aresimilarities, and so that's
what the focus was on, and howbeautiful is it that we can come
together as sisters andbrothers in Christ and be
(07:22):
unified and think about what itis we can do together, rather
than looking at the smallerthings that set us apart.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Andrew, perhaps we could start with you in terms of
the content of the day, becauseyou really began the day by
throwing some rocks into thepond and stirring us up.
Yeah, what we do and how we do,it makes a difference to the
outcomes that we're going to seein the gospel in Australia.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Yeah, I started with a bunch of principles and the
first one was that, yeah, thatif we take seriously that under
God's sovereignty we have animpact on what happens, the way
we do things, what we do, theychange the consequences, the
(08:10):
spiritual outcomes.
If we take that seriously, thenwe need to grasp what
opportunities we have and dealwith what problems face us and
see under God what we can do tomake a difference.
So that's a very big principle,it's a compatibilism of
understanding God's sovereignty,our responsibility and the
peace in that that we take thatseriously.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You then said the fruit that matters most is
conversion fruit.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
And elaborate.
Well, I made the case thatthere's lots of things we are
called to do, but, given therealities of God's righteous
judgment to come, the eternalityof hell, the fact that before
him this life is very brief, hiscalling in Matthew 28, various
(09:05):
of these things, it's very clearthat what the church is called
to do as a priority is to seekand save the lost, to make
disciples, where makingdisciples means getting people
saved and growing them in theirwalk with Christ, so that
there's genuine transformationof life.
This has to be our priority andI think, as Rory's reflecting,
(09:30):
it is something that is a sharedconviction amongst us.
This is not something that wetend to need to argue for so
much, but I do think we need tobring it to the surface.
There's a kind of in thebusyness of all the ministries
that we do, all the differentpressures on us, there is a
collegiality, there's a kind ofa get together and remind each
(09:51):
other of what we already areconvinced of.
That can strengthen and firethe heart, and I think that's
all we're doing together.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And Rory, I think there was a sense that we do get
swamped.
It is foggy, we get draggeddown by the minutiae of the day,
but the idea that we mightstrive to really see the number
of Reformed evangelicalChristians in church double in
20 years did seem to kind ofgrip the room during the day.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, I think that's right.
That was in Andrew's originalpaper.
Now, I hadn't heard Andrew'spaper before, and I don't think
anyone had, because it had beenwritten quite close to the day.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
There's the spirit, lead right, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But it was interesting that you know the
way we designed the day was tonot prejudice the results, to
say let's see what happens, andso on.
It's interesting that you knowthe way we designed the day was
to not prejudice the results, tosay let's see what happens, and
so on.
It's interesting that by theend of the day, that had stuck
in people's imaginations and weclarified what we meant by that,
that we don't, that doubling issimultaneously imaginable.
(11:01):
Like you could, I think anyonecould, look at the ministry
they're currently involved inand think what would this look
like if it was twice as manypeople involved?
Like you could, I think anyonecould look at the ministry
they're currently involved inand think what would this look
like if it was twice as if itwas twice as many people
involved, and you can imaginethat.
But then I, I think the thingthat got me and maybe got got a
number of us is I thought that'senough of a change that I would
need to change and we wouldneed to change.
So, uh, close enough to beencouraging.
(11:23):
And you know, if someone, ifsomeone says, oh, wouldn't it be
great if this was, you know,10x or whatever, I think that
would be great and it's almostunimaginable.
But twice as uh, you know, tosee things double grow twice as
much is simultaneouslyimaginable.
You know, one would thinkachievable, um, but not
achievable by a situation.
(11:45):
Normal, steady as she goes.
I think there's a thing therethat puts the right amount of
fire to your feet to think okay,I would need to think
differently about some of whatwe're currently doing.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And we're talking 5% conversion growth a year.
Really.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Yes that's right.
It's probably a bit lessactually, but yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Now, sarah, one of the things Rory got us to do,
and perhaps you could describeit for us the horseshoe as we're
processing this, and then we'llget you guys to weigh in on the
horseshoe issues.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yep.
So Rory, in his infinite wisdom, asked everyone in the room to
stand up, which was a reliefafter being sitting down for a
while, and then we were asked tostand in a position of where we
felt we were in relation towhat it was that Andrew had said
.
So whether you felt reallystrongly, less so in the middle,
or really anti, Gary, wherewere you?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I was depending on the question, I was either right
beside Andrew or as far fromAndrew as it was possible.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Only for a moment.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Only for a moment.
Yes, I think, on the doublingthe number of Reformed
evangelicals, again, like Rory,I was quite, I mean, I was
deeply encouraged by it.
But I think having a high-levelgoal like that it doesn't
necessarily mean that everychurch in Australia will double
in size, because, well, we knowthat won't happen for all kinds
(13:13):
of factors.
Some may shrink but we willneed to plan new churches in
order to reach that.
But I think for me it's thekind of goal you know it works
on the Central Coast, it worksin, you know, Chinchilla in
regional Queensland, it works inPerth and, you know, across the
nation.
I think it is something thattogether, all of us can say,
(13:34):
yeah, that's something we canpray for and work for.
And it sharpens the focus onneeding to grow by the
proclamation of the gospel andpeople coming to new life in
Christ.
And I think that there was areal sense in the room.
Even those who were kind ofright the horseshoe a little
(13:55):
were really right the horseshoein terms of how best do we
articulate this?
But preface any objections bysaying yes, we're right with you
.
In fact, some of those who wereopposed to the doubling goal
were actually saying we shouldgo with tripling.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
But I think if the goal had been too massive, it's
not going to be achievable ormeasurable.
So, yes, we want all ofAustralia to become Christians,
but let's be realistic, so wecan have a goal that we can
actually be working towards,rather than something that
you're unlikely to achieve.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Break it down for us a bit, Andrew.
What's it going to look like toachieve that?
How would that happen?
Speaker 5 (14:38):
To double.
Yeah Well, there's two bigthings and we've talked about
these before.
But at the very least eithermeans each church twice as big
or twice as many churches, andas soon as you articulate it
like that, it's not business asusual anymore.
It's helping us capture ourcongregations in existing
(15:00):
churches with a sense that wecan't just do church for what we
find comfortable.
We actually have to think aboutreaching the region around us
in such a way that it changesthe dynamics.
This church can't be like it'salways been.
There's got to be some changethere, or we've got to be
prepared to accept a church astreet away, another church
(15:22):
plant, and we've got to embracethe financial cost of all of
that If we're actually going todouble.
It has implications forproperty.
It's got implications forpastoral staff.
It's got all kinds ofconsequences that will cost.
And to capture people with thatvision, driven by a love of
God's glory, that peopleappreciate the need to save
(15:44):
their neighbours, friends,families, these things, I think,
can motivate us to bring aboutsome real change that might
facilitate a real outcome that'sto the glory of God.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah, I think it's.
One of the things that wegrappled with a bit was that I
don't think any of us and Idon't think the average
congregation person findsnumbers for numbers sake
exciting, and I don't think theyshould or need to.
But the background to thesummit was a bunch of.
(16:17):
We had an opportunity on theTGCA website to speak into where
you thought some of the issuesand challenges were, and one of
the things that came throughreally clearly was that people
you know, christians inevangelical Christian Australia
just genuinely love the Lord andwant their neighbours to know
(16:37):
the Lord.
And it really helps to say,well, that's what it would look
like and I think everyone wouldthink, oh, I want you know.
It really helps to say, well,that's what it would look like,
and I think everyone would think, oh, I want you know, I want my
friends and neighbours to knowJesus, to stand in his grace, to
be saved from the wrath of Godand so on.
(16:58):
And then the next step in theimagination to say is to be able
to look around and say, well,there's not enough room for them
and we've got to be able toreach them.
And other thing that came upwhich you might end up talking
about is a really strong concern, both in the responses that
came in through the website andin the room that we reach.
When you talk about doubling,it does make you think who
(17:22):
aren't we reaching?
Where are the groups of, I meanyou think, the physical places
where it's tough to plantchurches, to establish
ministries, remote suburbs, forwhatever reason, that are
difficult, and where are thepeople groups that we're perhaps
missing and so on?
And I think part of it, part ofthis thinking, is to just help
(17:46):
us unlock that and drive at thatachievable but very stretching
goal by thinking about what itwould actually mean to reach
friends and neighbours in waysthat they could have a fighting
chance to come in on.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Let's come to that in a moment, but first I just want
to come back to you, andrew.
And you then landed, I think,on two areas.
One which was if we're to getthere, we're going to need godly
and effective senior leaders,and that's an area.
But also there's a heart issue,a lack of evangelistic zeal
floating around it.
Let's do the senior leader taskfirst.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
Look under God.
The key structure that we havethat God has given us is the
church, that's the community offaith that God's called together
by the gospel as the means bywhich he empowers and
strengthens us to go out andreach more people.
(18:48):
But the key, humanly speaking,to the health of that community
are those put in place to leadit, whether it's depending on
the governance structure, ofcourse, of your church, and so
paying attention to that dynamicmatters.
If we want to see gospelcommunities that are captivated
by the things of Christ and ableto deal with all the blockages
(19:11):
like materialism and greed andthis worldliness, and be
envisaged to see the lostness ofthe lost, we need people to be
bringing the word to bear, to bestirring our hearts through the
word and so on, and that fallsvery often on the key leaders of
the church, and so we've got topay attention there.
We want to pay attentioneverywhere, but of course that's
(19:34):
a key piece that we need toconsider and think about.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
You got a little pushback from Gary Miller on the
plurality of leaders.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
There was a Presbyterian voice led alongside
that.
Yeah, I don't just I don'tdisagree with that, but I do
think across the breadth of ourkind of reformed evangelical
churches, it's, it's also veryimportant in many contexts to to
train elders or elder typefigures, because, you know, we,
(20:06):
in some contexts I can think of,you know, you get a, a grinding
of the gears when you have a,you know, a new pastor arrive,
but the local leadership who, inmany places, have been there
for a long time and are going tobe there after the pastor, that
if, if we are going to seelong-term growth in every
community across australia, ifwe are going to see long-term
(20:26):
growth in every community acrossaustralia, if we are going to
see, you know, continued growthof the gospel, um, that that,
alongside this senior pastorbeing equipped and shaped and
formed and motivated, I I thinkthere is another piece in terms
of the shared leadership, whichis, you know, obviously is more
(20:49):
of an issue, you know, in somekind of ways, of doing church
than in others.
But I think it was reallyaugmenting what Andrew was
saying, rather than you know,than arguing with it.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Rory, yeah, on the leadership piece, yeah, yeah, I
mean, I do think that that is.
We grapple with that.
I think that is a veryimportant point, both in terms
of I think generically you canmount a very strong biblical
case that the elders, pastors,teachers of the church are
(21:24):
hugely significant for thehealth of the church and so you
can, by putting energy intocreating the kind of character
and competency and commitment,that's a place where you can
pull a lever and affect thewhole, the nature of leadership
at one level.
And I think that, sittingalongside that determination to
(21:46):
think um, uh, instead ofthinking um, you know what,
what's business as usual,whatever, to think, what does it
take to do this work?
And I think andrew just saidbefore that you've either just
on that little thoughtexperiment of doubling the
numbers you either need you knowtwice as many churches or
(22:10):
require almost all of us to growin our capacity to do that,
because I think church plantinghas its own set of dynamics and
demands and skills, and so notthat we're choosing between
these, but if you said, let's doit by planting more churches,
that's a huge amount of peoplethat have to learn a very
specific set of both skills andthen resilience and capacity to
(22:32):
do that, and or the people thatare going to see these churches
grow.
I think we had the Presbyteriansaying his piece and we need to
think through that.
That's an important thing,because you are touching now, I
think, maybe something that Garymentioned, that we are.
(22:53):
We're not just being pragmatic.
We're coming up againstecclesiology there and what it
means to be the church and whatit means to lead the church, but
I think as a summit, we're infurious agreement at that level
that the health of the church isso caught up in the leadership.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
But in a sense the ecclesiology is important.
Of course there's differences,but whoever functions in a
leadership role, whatever churchthey're in, they've got to pay
attention to leading people andworking together with other
leaders in the church, whetherit's an eldership board or a
parish council or whatever it is.
(23:33):
So developing leadership sothat it's engaged, connected,
able to bring along with thecause that we're about, that's
the thing we need to all developtogether, and doing that in
whatever context.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And we're going to have to grow if I'm going to
learn to manage a bigger group.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need to grow in our leadership.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, that's right, yeah, sarah.
Next area and Rory alluded tothis a moment ago is other parts
of Australia that we're noteffectively reaching, and I mean
we could name a whole lot likethe divorced community, that
kind of thing, but the big onewas the non-tertiary educated.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Sure.
So, yeah, we had a whole lot ofstats, but one of the main ones
was that around 70% of peoplearen't coming from a tertiary
education background and thatactually isn't necessarily
reflective of the attendance inchurch at the moment and that,
(24:34):
yeah, that that's actually a gapand we are seeing that sort of
reflected in the way that peopleare welcomed into church.
That, like when you meet someone, straight after asking their
name, you say, well, what is itthat you do during the week?
And the feedback was thatpeople who aren't necessarily
from a sort of universitybackground might not necessarily
(24:57):
identify so much about what itis that their career is and that
maybe that isn't actually beingwelcoming to those people.
And yeah, I sort of feel sadabout that because I would want
anyone who walked into church tofeel welcomed and feel
appreciated, and I think it'sworth, like exploring a bit more
to make sure we fullyunderstand how to do that,
(25:20):
because when you first meetsomeone, it is a little bit
awkward, like you want to have aquestion that gets them talking
about themselves, so that's whyyou ask it.
But I'm sure there are otherquestions that could be asked
and I'm sure that we couldbecome better at welcoming
people so that they getconnected into the gospel and
(25:41):
that that isn't a barrier tothem returning another time.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
It was quite striking .
You know the statistics, acrossthe board it was roughly it was
about 50, we have 50% with halfthe proportion of non-tertiary
educated people in church thanthere are in society.
(26:05):
You know that's a big gap andit was across every age range,
which was really quite striking.
Which says, you know, whateverthe precise nature of the
problem, there is an issue, andI suspect it's partly that there
are large, there are probablysocioeconomic areas that we just
(26:29):
don't really have Reformedevangelical churches, and that's
something we need to takeseriously.
And that's only part of theproblem, but it's a significant
piece.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
The growing percentage of migrants born
overseas living in our.
The changing face ofmulticultural Australia is also
a massive issue for us for thenext 20 years, rory.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, that's right.
We took a paper on thatparticular piece.
I think, from memory, about 30%of people born overseas.
So the way I think about it, ifyou're on a bus and there's 100
people there, you can expectyou know, on average, 30% of
them to be overseas born, andthen you expect another however
many percent.
I mean, go back long enough andit's 99% but you'll have these
(27:15):
very large migrant communities.
We did a bit of reflecting onthat because you've got a few
things going on there.
You've got the migrantchallenge of the second and
third generation and that's avery interesting and complicated
dynamic of what does it meanfor the kids of people that have
integrated their children intoAustralian society, dynamic of
(27:35):
what does it mean for the kidsof people that have integrated
their children into australiansociety.
We had some interestingdiscussion around um, the
religiosity of migrantcommunities, often much higher
than the um, the kind ofanglo-australian I was really
quite surprised about that.
Yeah, keep going well, it's just, it's just interesting to
reflect on.
I don't think we, you know, isit?
We were, we were together for ashort period of time, so we
(27:57):
weren't, we were askingquestions rather than purporting
to have any of the answers.
But you do, yeah, you do havevery religious communities in
places like in the southwest ofSydney, in certain parts of
Melbourne and so on, where ourconversation is often about
(28:18):
secularism and secularisation,and it's just worth noting that
those communities are not verysecular, whatever else, they are
Catholic or Muslim orbackgrounds and so on.
And I think, both with thenon-tertiary educated and the
migrant communities of differentreligious hues and so on, and
(28:42):
as well as just the migrantexperience and what that means
for church and life and stuff, Ithink the consensus, the zero
pushback in the room was on thatwe ought to reach everyone for
Jesus and whatever it takes andI think the tricky bit is
whatever it takes, because itdoes take something Like it's
(29:03):
not just putting up a signsaying you know migrants welcome
or you know blue-collar peoplenow included.
There's a whole lot of reallydetermined work which I think
you pick up in the Apostle Paulin somewhere like 1 Corinthians
in his letter to the Corinthiansthat doing all things by all
(29:25):
means beating his body, that thekind of discipline and hard
work that sits alongside, whichis part of your compatible, the
compatibilism of those two, thatsits alongside the grace of God
, and we can't.
God needs to be at work foranything worthwhile to happen,
but to have to name that as achallenge, and a challenge where
(29:50):
we don't want to just let slide, it's not okay.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
It's not okay to be in a country where whole
substance of people, where ourministry, isn't meeting them Now
acknowledging that thestatement it's not only that the
ink's not dry, it's still inyour head and on your laptop and
that kind of thing, but bulletpoints were listed at the end of
(30:14):
the day and agreed on and we'releaving the work, smith, to you
and a little committee.
But what are you excited aboutcoming out of the day?
What are you excited about?
We'll go around the room andfinish with you, andrew, so
we'll start with you, gary.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
One of the issues that the Gospel Coalition has
had here in Australia is wepulled people together, but what
were we actually doing?
And I think it was veryexciting to identify just, I
think, some key challenges thatwe can all say, yes, those are
(30:50):
the things that are right in ourface.
And to be in a room with abunch of people who were all
going, yes, we're going to prayand throw ourselves into meeting
these challenges in this day.
I think there was actually realenergy in the room and it was
very encouraging to be part ofthat.
Sarah.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
I was quite excited that, from the data, so many
people pointed out that theythink the most important thing
to do is to pray.
And I think we can often say,oh yeah, we should pray and feel
quite godly about saying that,but actually you've got to do it
.
You've got to be committed todoing the praying.
And I also feel quite excitedthat it was kind of like we had
(31:31):
structured the day and had a lotof meetings like planning it
out.
But yeah, we have this phrasewhere we talk about landing the
plane and I feel like the planelanded.
It just needs to get to theterminal now.
And if the plane's alreadylanded, that's pretty good,
right.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It's not that far to go.
Well, you said to me atafternoon tea I don't know
what's going to happen now, it'sall going to land, and then
actually everyone was safe atthe end, rory.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, look, you alluded to it.
As I say, it wasn't the plan atthe beginning of the day, but
as a room, you know, we movedtowards this idea of working on
a statement to kind ofcommunicate, at least to each
other what we committed to.
And I think the thing that Ithink there was a determination
at and there's been a lot ofback work for these previous
(32:19):
meetings with similar groups andanalogous groups, I think
something Andrew said is thatthere's just an air miles that
you've just got to clock up timewith each other to think, pray,
go down a corridor that turnsout to be the wrong corridor, go
this way, hear each other andso on, and so it was very
(32:42):
encouraging to think thatthere's a sense of let's do what
we can to see, I guess, toseize that moment I was saying
at the start, that unusual ornever-take-it-for-granted sense
of unity around the gospel andministry practice and so on.
Come away, my heart is full,andrew.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
Look, I think there's a lot that can happen when a
group of people are captivatedby the cause of the gospel and
that's been something that'sbeen sitting there for a long
time in our world and I think tobring it together, to get it to
come to the surface, with asense that there's a growing
crowd of leaders around thecountry in diverse groups who
(33:30):
now want to sing more and moreclearly from the same song sheet
, you know, there's a growingsense that we don't just want to
do church and we've never justdone church.
We don't want to do church, wejust don't want to do it.
We want to actually see atangible change across our
country for the cause of Christand we want to give ourselves
(33:52):
wholeheartedly to that.
I think, once there's a growingenergy for that, I think it's
exactly the kind of thing Godblesses, isn't it?
As we cry out to him in agrowing sense together for that,
we're right to expect that.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
God will bless it.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Before you fly back toQueensland, fly back to Western
Australia and drive back to theCentral.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
Coast Drive back to the Central Coast.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
My guests on the Pastor's Heart Andrew Hurd from
Reach Australia and SeniorPastor of EV Church on the
Central Coast.
Rory Shiner leads theProvidence Network of Churches
in Perth and is Chair of GospelCoalition Australia.
Sarah Kaswadi is ChiefOperating Officer of the Gospel
Coalition Australia and GaryMiller is the Principal of
Queensland's Theological College.
(34:41):
My name's Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastor's Heart and we'll look
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
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