September 9, 2025 • 32 mins
Reaching the 70% of the population who are significantly underrepresented in our churches.
We’re talking about everyday Australians — people who’ve gone straight into the workforce rather than university. That includes hairdressers, plumbers, builders, business owners, factory workers, truck drivers, IT staff, and media creatives — as well as many in marginalised communities.
Within this group, there’s huge diversity:
- Some are winners — financially successful builders and entrepreneurs.
- Others are respectables — valuing hard work, morals, and family.
- Some are survivors — juggling multiple jobs and doing it tough.
- And there are those living in hard places — facing struggles with welfare, addiction, and family stress.
Yet while this group represents the majority of Australians, they make up only a small minority in our churches. Why is that? And how can we do better?
- Andrew Beddo — principal trainer at the Vocational Bible College, equipping gospel workers for everyday Australians.
- Coz Crosscombe — director of The Well Training Program at Mount Druitt, focused on training leaders from marginalised communities.
- Simon Gillham — vice principal at Moore Theological College, working on cross-cultural and literacy challenges in ministry.
We discuss why this group is missing from many of our congregations, the cultural and learning barriers they face, and how we can shape ministry, training, and preaching to better reach them with the good news of Jesus.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
reaching those who go straight into the workforce
without tertiary education.
It is the pastor's heart, it'sdominic steel, and our guest is
simon gillam, andrew beddow andcoz croscombe.
They are significantlyunderrepresented in evangelical
churches.
Some of them well, they'rewinners.
They're financially successful,they're builders and business
owners.
Some of them well, they'rewinners, they're financially
successful, they're builders andbusiness owners.
Some of them, they'rerespectables.
(00:29):
They value moral, uprightness,speech and manners.
Some of them are the survivorsmultiple jobs but doing it tough
.
And some are hard living socialwelfare struggles, addiction
and family stress.
We are talking about thehairdressers and the plumbers,
or some very wealthy businessleaders and entrepreneurs.
Others with no formalqualifications but have learned
(00:52):
their skills on the job truckdrivers, factory workers and
some who are working in media,it and the arts.
But we are also talking themarginalised.
And how do we reach that?
How do we effectively reachthat wide, diverse, non-tertiary
educated group?
We are joined today by an expertpanel Andrew Betto trains
(01:15):
people for ministry and servicethrough the Vocational Bible
College.
Cos Crosscombe he leads theWell Training Program, looking
to train in ministry people whoare marginalized.
And Simon Gillum, vicePrincipal of Sydney's Moore
Theological College, who's beenworking on cross-cultural and
literacy issues as we developministry models to the less
(01:37):
literate.
I want to dig in in a moment onthe different perspectives that
each of them have, but beforewe do that, our common pastor's
heart, andrew Betto, can westart with you?
We were at the Gospel Coalitionmini-summit just a few weeks
ago talking about reachingAustralia and doubling the
number of evangelicals over 20years, and you talked about your
(02:00):
heart for this percentage ofthe Australian population who
don't have a tertiary education,who are significantly
underrepresented in our churches.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
In Australia and in Sydney we're very blessed.
We have many churches, manyChristian conferences, but many
people in the world don't havethat access, and so I grew up
thinking well, maybe I couldserve God amongst the unreached
people in another country.
But as I grew up and became ayoung man, god showed me this
large group of people in oursociety who do go straight into
the workforce from school butaren't well represented in the
(02:33):
churches that I was a part of.
And so God then has directedthat heart for unreached people
to a group in Australia.
It was the last place I thoughtI'd serve God, because of the
wealth of churches and Biblecolleges we have here already
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Cos, as I was researching for this discussion
and ringing each of you guys up,I realised actually you're
talking about slightly differentgroups.
You use the term marginalised,although Andrew's thinking about
a broader group.
I think Is that right.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, we talk about a smallsubsection of that, mostly those
who've been either pushedoutside of the mainstream
society or haven't quite fit in,and so some of that is economic
marginalization, some is ethnicmarginalization or language
marginalization.
Yeah, so those who tend not tofit in, or do so well, in our
normal society structures.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And I mean, what's the terminology we should use?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean, there's so many different things.
I mean, you know, I spent a lotof time in the US where urban
was kind of a nice word for that, which doesn't work so well in
other parts of the world.
We were playing the other daywith saying you know, this is
kind of majority world, whatmost of the world looks like,
which is a little bit differentthan often.
The dominant culture in Sydneyor other parts of the Western
world looks like Fringe groups,vulnerable people, there's all
(03:52):
kinds of ones.
We tend not to use the wordlike socially disadvantaged,
because actually the socialsystems are quite extensive and
we don't see that as being adisadvantage based upon your
economics.
But yeah, terms are hard, soyou kind of define it each time
you get into the room.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Marginalized.
Almost sounds like a put-down.
Do you know?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah, so I think it depends on the way right we look
at what society has done tothat.
So, rather than saying thatyou've done something that's
marginalized yourself, we'resaying that the society, the
structures of society don't suitthe way you learn or the way
you work or the way that youfunction.
So it's more that what societyhas done to the person.
But I wouldn't call anybodymarginalized.
I mean, for me it's just myfriends and my neighbors.
(04:35):
But, yeah, always looking for aterm that kind of describes it.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Andrew, you've used the term everyday, which leaves
some of us feeling, oh, am I notan everyday guy?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Do you know?
And so how do you wrestle withthat?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we've usedlots of terms.
We started with the blue collarpeople, but then people thought
, well, I'm not blue collarbecause I'm not a tradie.
And yet there are so manypeople who we were concerned and
interested to help and support,who do go straight into the
workforce from school but aren'ttradespeople.
So, because it's 70% of theworking population don't have a
university degree, have gonestraight into the workforce from
(05:14):
school.
They're the I suppose, they'rethe majority, they're, I suppose
, the norm, because they are themajority and it's not a term
that's negative or derogatory tosay that you're everyday.
Most people would be content tosay, yeah, I'm happy to be an
ordinary, everyday person, andso that's.
But it's yeah, it's not alwayshelpful either.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
How do you think about these things, Simon?
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Well, I guess, in the terms that we've talked about,
I'm an everyday person.
I left school to be a labourer.
I went to more college, havingnever been to university.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I dropped out of university and became a disc
jockey.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
There you go.
I didn't make it in the frontdoor and so most of the friends
that I grew up with, and so thestats where I went to school,
there was way less than 20% ofpeople heading to university, so
that's a demographic I'm verycomfortable with, and yet I
(06:11):
spend most of my life now,particularly in the Anglican
world, dealing almostexclusively with people who've
been through university, so Ifeel that disjunction pretty
close to my heart.
Yeah, I think for me, I'vebecome increasingly convinced
(06:33):
that one of the issues is theway that we think about
word-based ministry and literacy, and I love the fact that we
are always centered aroundword-based ministry.
It's so important, alwayscentered around word-based
ministry, it's so important.
But it's so easy for us tothink word-based ministry and
immediately equate that withliteracy.
And the thing that I've becomeincreasingly convinced of is
(06:56):
that that's not actually how theBible talks about word-based
ministry and it's not how mostChristians throughout most of
the world for most of history,have thought about word-based
ministry, and it's not how mostChristians throughout most of
the world for most of history,have thought about word-based
ministry.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
When you've got that one Bible in the center of the
village in the church and oneperson who can read it.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Absolutely, and so we're in a rut, which we're in
because of privilege.
We're in because we can affordBibles and because education's
been so high.
But I think it's allowed us tobecome comfortable with a model
of ministry that excludes people, and I know I do it myself.
(07:33):
So, even coming from thatbackground, I know when I preach
I drop into models of ministrythat exclude huge parts of the
population.
So what are you trying to doabout it that exclude huge parts
of the population?
So what are you trying to doabout it?
Well, I'll tell you how I do it.
And then this is how I do it.
I stand up and I say how greatit is to be here.
Open up your Bibles to thispage.
(07:55):
Can you see in verse 7 what itsays there?
Now, everyone who can read can,and everyone who can't read
knows they don't belong, and Ido that reflexively so often.
So instead, what I'm trying todo is say listen to what God is
(08:15):
telling us through his word,listen to this, read it out.
Did you catch that as it came?
Or something like that.
It's just changing myexpectations that people are
actually listening to the wordof God as I preach.
They're not necessarily readingit Great if they can, but I
(08:36):
don't want to exclude those whocan't.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Cos.
How do you approach this?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, I mean the first thing on the stats is
right.
The exciting part the SydneyAnglicans do an exceptional job
at reaching the highly educated.
There's not many in the worldcan do it that well and, you
know, just running into people.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, I mean it was crazy.
Last Sunday I walked into ourchurch in the morning and I
looked at the sound desk.
We had three people on thesound desk one on sound, one on
sound, one on the slides and oneon the live stream and all of
them had PhDs.
We are in a particular part ofSydney, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, no, and I think that's a common right.
But I've lived since I was,yeah, early teenagers in very
poor communities or rural orgovernment housing, and what
really struck me was that inthose communities, the people
that I lived around were theones running the churches.
And then, coming and seeingthis super highly educated group
(09:32):
giving up professions to gointo churches right on the one
side, it's fantastic.
Just the other group wasmissing from that conversation
and so for me it's not sayinghey, you know, let's get rid of
this other part.
That's working great, it's justtrying to bring some balance.
So every time I walk out myhouse, I see people that are
incredible at leading things,yet I never see them leading in
(09:53):
the churches when I go toconferences, they've got
leadership gifts.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Yeah, I mean, I'll use one example, right?
So we're in Penrith Territory,I'm not?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
a.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Panthers fan.
But we're in Penrith territoryand you've got world-class
leaders coming up through thosecommunities who are leading
teams state level, nationallevel, international level.
They're incredible leaders.
Somehow the football coachescan see, identify and develop
leadership out of thosecommunities.
We see it in other ways,sometimes in unhealthy ways,
whether it's gang activity orcriminal activity.
But just even in the local shopyou see leadership.
(10:29):
Or the local factory you seeleadership.
Yeah, it's all through thecommunities.
Mums running PTAs, running PNCstuff yeah, there's leadership
everywhere around there.
We just don't really have manypathways to allow that
leadership to shine.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
So recognizing leaders like who we're looking
for starts to narrow down thepool that we're actually using,
isn't it?
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It is.
It is.
I mean, you know, it's beenfantastic.
We set out to try and find fiveleaders that we could train.
That was kind of our mandateand we're up to 30 now and if
you just meet them they'rephenomenal.
I mean, they're great.
A guy down in Shell Harbour whowithin two months has got 18,
20 guys coming out to read theBible with him.
He's a leader of men and yousee the guys that he's leading
(11:14):
they're not the normal ones thatyou're seeing in our church
pews.
You know bodybuilders,weightlifters, guys in factories
that are coming out.
You know Andrew sees this allthe time and it's just once you
give opportunity you start tosee people shine.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
But you've got to give opportunity in the first
place, I think.
What's the literacy issue thatyou're finding?
I mean, we just heard it fromSimon.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, we find a few different things, so we find the
.
So I'm an experiential learner.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It took me until I was in my mid-30s before someone
taught me that.
Gave you that label.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, what's it mean?
Yeah, so it means that I learnby experience.
I don't learn really well frombooks.
I love to read stories.
I read every night stories, butI've got a whole library full
of texts that I really struggleto ever read.
But I can go and processinformation.
And so someone put me in aprogram for my master's.
I didn't.
I got a master's and I got adoctorate, I think from a good
place, because I was able to useexperiential learning, go to
(12:05):
the street and talk to people,go and interview people.
I mean, this is experientiallearning doing here and that was
so much fun, better for mylearning style than trying to
read a book.
And so we find that, you know,we find indigenous students who
learn through artwork or music.
Their depth of knowledge isexceptional.
Their ability to teach isamazing.
But it's not out of a book,it's by doing a painting or you
(12:29):
know.
I remember Michael Duckertaking me for a walk around his
little farm and pointing outcreation and telling me through
the biblical stories, by showingme the trees and the pathways.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
He's clearly a visual thinker.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
He is absolutely, and so you take those techniques
and you start to give people theopportunity to use that.
It's quite amazing how muchthey begin to shine.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
There are even things we can do in the higher
education sector to better equippeople for ministry, I think,
but also better recognise theirdifferent models of learning.
So the partnership that we'vegot with the Well part of it's.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
COS's group.
Cos's group?
Yeah, the Well.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
A part of their program is something that is a
more college product.
All of the assessments are oralassessments and there's an oral
exam.
They're not written, and sopeople will go and do a ministry
task preach a sermon, lead agroup, whatever the task is and
then, on the back of that, havea conversation where you get a
(13:31):
very good idea about whether thestudents actually learnt the
things, but their capacity towrite an essay is irrelevant to
that.
And we're running the samething up in Armidale Diocese
with early retirees or peopleheading towards early retirement
who haven't been in schools forages but are great learners and
(13:53):
are terrific leaders and aregoing to actually do most of
their ministry orally anyway.
And so seeing what they do inministry and having a
conversation with them is abetter mode of assessment than
can they write an essay.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Even on precision.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, so you can get to a lot more precision if I can
just ask you one more questionabout what you meant there than
by you submitting an essay andme having to guess.
Oh, I wonder what that linemeant.
So it actually does allow forgreater precision.
We've known this for centuries,right?
(14:30):
So the highest kind of degreethat you can do anywhere as a
PhD In the most esteemedinstitutions.
What's the final assessment forthe PhD?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
An oral exam.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
So we're not saying we want a lower standard, we
want a less rigorous way ofdoing it.
It's a different way of doingit and we've actually recognized
the rigor of this for centuries.
So we're using a lot more oralexams at Moore College, partly
for that reason, so the personcoming out of vocational Bible
(15:14):
training or coming out of thewell, where are they going?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, for us we're looking for ministry leaders.
So we have three that arepastoring congregations at the
moment out of our first 10 grads.
We have a couple other churchplanters.
We've got a few others who'velaunched new work, um, so
they're going into thecommunities that fit them.
You know we've got palo, who'suh church planting amongst
filipinos.
Palo is just fantastic and justremember he went through a more
formal training program for oneyear and he left and he said,
(15:39):
look, because I'm no good atministry, because I'm always
getting the lowest grade inclass, and we looked and
assessed and talked to othersand said, actually you're quite
exceptional at ministry, justthe system hasn't worked for you
.
So he blitzes it through theprogram, comes out and church
plans.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
We recognize that a lot of the people who go
straight into the workforce fromschool don't actually have an
opportunity for the discipleshipand training that often happens
on a university campus throughAFES.
And so we, at our first leveltraining, we're just wanting to
train people to be effectivedisciple makers where they're
confident to share their faithwith others, confident to share
the Bible and help others growmature.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
What's the minimum literacy level required for a
senior pastor?
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah, well, I think, if we think biblically, leaders
have to be readers, they have toengage with the Word of God.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I've had this line in my head.
I don't know where I've got itfrom, but just wherever the Word
of God goes, literacy levelswill increase.
And so because if I want to bea person of the book, I'm going
to be wanting to follow afterthe God who speaks.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
I think that's true.
So historically that'sdemonstrably true.
We often go the next step andsay and so does university
education and that particularway of being literate which is
going beyond increasing basicliteracy so that everyone can
(17:02):
read the word.
So the idea of reading the wordis a much newer concept.
So, leaders reading the word,you see, the only people Jesus
criticizes for not reading theword are the scribes and
Pharisees.
Jesus criticizes for notreading the word are the scribes
and Pharisees.
The only people in the NewTestament who are expected to
(17:23):
read the word.
Timothy is to read the wordpublicly and the church is meant
to gather around.
So certainly, literacy.
I think it makes sense that whenpeople get a taste for the word
of God they'd love to be ableto read it for themselves.
But it's not a bar for everyChristian person.
I think it is a requirement ofa leader.
(17:44):
You can't rightly handle theWord of God if you're not able
to engage with it.
You can certainly hear it andrepeat it.
I mean there'd be manyevangelists who are not literate
.
I think that's absolutely true.
So whatever you make of thesenior pastor idea, that
(18:05):
demography, if you're talkingabout an elder teaching elder
biblically, it's somebody who'shandling the word of God, I
think.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Do you agree disagree ?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
We've had this discussion before.
Yeah, I probably have a littlebroader take on it.
I mean, I think you know, inthe book of Acts we've got the
comments about you know whenPeter and John are speaking and
people say you know who arethese uneducated people?
So whether they're literate ornot, I'm not quite so sure that
you have to be literate to be aminister in a church.
(18:38):
But I think for me theassociation, and I think a lot
of it, came around when theReformation happened in the same
kind of time period as theEnlightenment and we ended up
putting education, formaleducation, as a high bar of
society.
And I don't think it was in theearly church at all.
And even Paul, writing in 1Corinthians, talks about right.
Remember, not many of you wereenlisted the things that he's
(19:02):
addressing.
The church, I mean the earlychurch, was mostly the poor, the
marginalized, the outcasts,those who didn't fit into
society following the savior whodidn't fit into society.
Right, even his execution wasone for the poor.
You know he wasn't given therights of execution of the
wealthy or even the middle classat that time.
So I'm not quite convinced thatthe literacy levels have to be
(19:24):
a certain way.
I just think the wholeassociation with higher
education and gospel ministry isa fault.
I don't think it's got anybiblical basis to put those two
things together.
I think competency in ministryisn't measured by education
level, nor is competency insociety measured by education
level.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I'll just sit back and listen to Andrew Gillum
respond.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Yeah, I think in the New Testament what you do get is
churches are expected to sitaround and hear the word read.
Somebody there is reading itout.
The letters are written and theword of God was committed to
writing for good reason, sothere were oral traditions.
But even back in the OldTestament, when Moses writes the
(20:09):
law, you have this great changein the way that God is now
communicating with his people,so that when Joshua speaks you
see, in Deuteronomy 34, thepeople heard what Joshua said
and obeyed what God hadcommanded Moses.
And so there's a referring backto the written word, which is
(20:31):
why the priests and the kings,the Levites, the elders, had to
read the word for Israel.
I think we see that in the NewTestament communities as well.
So I thoroughly agree with whatKoz is saying about the
enlightenment and the educationmodel.
But literacy is not the same asthat.
So somebody being able to readthe word, so that we know that
(20:56):
what that teacher is saying isactually coming from the Word,
we can hear it for ourselves.
That doesn't mean everybody'sliterate, but somebody is
handling the Word and in thatsense, the handling of the Word,
I think, is the written Wordthat's being given to us.
I think that's the difference.
It's not because it's quiteright.
(21:16):
What happened at theEnlightenment was that we then
put higher education on the samelevel as literacy, and I don't
think it would be true to saythat the early church or the
medieval church thought of thatas literacy.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
How do you think about it in terms of not so much
the teaching exercise but theorganisational exercise of the
church?
And I mean, I just think aboutthe compliance levels and all
those kind of things that I,just as a senior leader, have to
be across, and I can't see away out of it.
(21:52):
Yeah, I hate it but I can't seea way out of it.
It depends what the church isright.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah, I love that question because that's a really
common one, right?
And so we've got this massiveskewing in churches that got
elders or wardens.
We've got this massive skewing.
I think about it.
Right.
I was talking to a lawyer thismorning about a house sale.
He's amazing at his job.
He doesn't tell me what to do.
His job is to facilitate whatI've asked him to do.
An accountant's job is to helpme but not to be in charge of me
(22:19):
.
And what we've done is we'vekind of skewed that and said
those with organizational skillsor certain skills are the ones
who are in charge, not those whoare best equipped to lead.
And I've got a great examplefor us.
I sit on the board of a healthclinic based in Philadelphia, an
amazing Christian health clinic.
Our budget's about $50 milliona year.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Our board is made up primarily You're on the board
from Mount.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Druitt.
I'm on the board from MountDruitt.
Yeah, they're very kind to letme stay there.
Our board is made up of thosewho come from the poorest
section of the poorest city inthe United States, so people who
are living in extreme poverty.
How can a board be made up ofvery poor people?
Because they're really reallygood at understanding the
community and what it takes.
Then what we do is we hireexceptional people to do the
(23:03):
other things.
You hire exceptional doctorsand exceptional managers, but
it's the board who dictates thedirection, and I think what
we've ended up with in somechurches is we've ended up with
really good managers but notnecessarily really good gospel
leaders, and that's a realdifference.
So I can bring somebody in tobe my architect, I can bring
(23:24):
somebody in to be my engineer ormy accountant or my lawyer, and
their job is to take directionfrom me.
That's different than being theperson who's telling me what to
do, and I think we've skewedthat.
Our communities are full ofpeople who know what to do.
If you came to our communityand wanted to navigate it, you
would ask local people.
You'd be crazy to ask theoutside person to come and tell
you how to navigate Mount Druitt, the same in Philly.
(23:46):
I don't think you survive verylong in the communities I lived
in, but local people know how tonavigate those communities.
There's a great book writtencalled Code of the Street and
talks about the differentsystems that work in different
places.
Systems that work in this areawe're in now, like in Annandale,
don't work in Mount Druitt.
They're very different systemsand so we've skewed it again to
there.
(24:06):
So just because somebody's beenmarginalized or poor doesn't
mean that they don't haveleadership, don't have
intelligence, can't managethings.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
They can just hire people to do those other roles
can't manage things, they canjust hire people to do those
other roles.
I think another way ofresponding to the question, too,
is if the model of church thatwe have now has become so
complex that only people withall of that suite of
extraordinary gifts couldpossibly lead it.
(24:36):
And maybe it's not the peoplewho are the problem, it's the
model.
So rethinking the model isreally important and I think
again, we get ourselves into abit of a rut and we think
there's no other possible way ofdoing this, but some of the
things that you see people whoare coming through these other
(24:57):
pathways can teach us is well,okay, we've got a church of 30
Filipinos who weren't meetingbefore and weren't going to go
to another church, and they'rehere there.
Why would we turn that churchinto another one of the churches
, like us, that's?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
got all these problems that they weren't going
to go to, that they weren'tgoing to go to in the first
place.
Let's learn from how they'redoing stuff and yet some things
have to happen.
I mean there needs to be safeministry stuff and there needs
to be all these differentcomponents.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Yeah, absolutely, and the accounting and all of those
things.
Well, yeah, just.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I don't know how.
I mean.
How do you do it if you're incharge and you don't understand
a spreadsheet?
Speaker 3 (25:41):
I think there's lots of people who can be leaders of
things without understanding aspreadsheet.
I mean, you know, I've seensome great-.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I'm not talking about persuading people setting
vision, that kind of thing.
I'm just talking about makingrisk decisions.
You know, if I yeah, look.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
I think we see some great modelling in the UK at the
moment where you've got achurch that would fit more as a
middle-class church working witha poorer church.
The middle-class church mayhave an administration system, a
safe ministry system.
They handle all the compliancework, they handle all the
accounting and let the ministerat the other church do what he
really wants to do, which is doministry to people.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?
In the New Testament, in thebook of Acts, we find this very
problem coming up for theapostles and they're like
they're being taken away fromword ministry because of all of
the administration.
And so what did they do?
They found a bunch of godly menand women who could do that
administration so that theycould be freed up to do the
ministry of the word.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
One of the models we've used locally, for that is
actually the thing that sitsunderneath a lot of the church's
causes.
Talking about the evangelismand new churches as an
administrative organisation thatdoes look after the safe
ministry, the finance, thepayroll, those kinds of things,
enables people who are able todo great ministry but, frankly,
(27:01):
would not be able to be therector of a parish in the Sydney
Anglican system, would not beable to take that role that
actually does take on all theresponsibility you're describing
.
It's interesting.
Even as I hear you describe it.
I can kind of see the weightcoming down on your shoulders.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I mean, I just think there have been.
There's all sorts of thingsthat I've done in the senior
minister role which are aboutpastoring the word of God and
prayer, but we built a buildingat one point and a couple of
years ago we bought anotherhouse and you know there have
been.
There.
Isn't just the leading thepeople to make that decision, to
(27:42):
make that decision, there'sactually going and having the
fight with the council andworrying about whether or not
the risk that we're taking istoo big for us, or can we do it
and then, when it turns out tobe too big, managing that.
I mean, there's a whole lot ofthings in leadership there that
don't directly do you know theother day.
I was talking to my wife's boss.
(28:04):
We were talking about his jobrunning a medical practice with
11 doctors and I thought, oh,there are all these similarities
between your job and my job.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Well, he's dealing with patients and vaccines and
things like that, but there aresome things that are quite
similar.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, oh, absolutely, and the employment issues are
the ones that keep me up atnight.
But I think when we ask thesequestions, it's worth saying
does it need to be like that?
Because if it does, we areexcluding a whole lot of people
from potentially leading.
We are excluding a whole lot ofpeople from potentially leading
(28:44):
.
So if it doesn't need to belike that, if we can set up a
structure that better supportsand enables those decisions to
be made by qualified people whocan service really well and that
enables a lot of other peopleto do word-based ministry, gee,
that'd be worth exploring,wouldn't it?
So, yeah, I think, whatever thesolution we come to, if we can
(29:06):
do that, we will see a lot morepeople in ministry and people
from a broader range of society.
And if we see people leadingsociety who are not from the
same kind of narrow band,they're much more likely to
serve well in communities thatare dominated by that kind of
population.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm for reducing the load on the
senior minister.
Okay, thank you so much forcoming in.
It's been super helpful.
Andrew Betto has been our guest.
He trains people for ministryand service through vocational
Bible college.
Cos Crosscombe leads the WellTraining Program and looks to
train people in ministry to themarginalized.
And Simon Gillum, viceprincipal of Sydney's Moore
(29:48):
Theological College, working oncross-cultural and literacy
issues.
As we develop these ministries,my name's Dominic Steele.
This has been the Pastor'sHeart and we will look forward
to your company next Tuesdayafternoon.
reaching those who go straight into the workforce
without tertiary education.
It is the pastor's heart, it'sdominic steel, and our guest is
simon gillam, andrew beddow andcoz croscombe.
They are significantlyunderrepresented in evangelical
churches.
Some of them well, they'rewinners.
They're financially successful,they're builders and business
owners.
Some of them well, they'rewinners, they're financially
successful, they're builders andbusiness owners.
Some of them, they'rerespectables.
(00:29):
They value moral, uprightness,speech and manners.
Some of them are the survivorsmultiple jobs but doing it tough
.
And some are hard living socialwelfare struggles, addiction
and family stress.
We are talking about thehairdressers and the plumbers,
or some very wealthy businessleaders and entrepreneurs.
Others with no formalqualifications but have learned
(00:52):
their skills on the job truckdrivers, factory workers and
some who are working in media,it and the arts.
But we are also talking themarginalised.
And how do we reach that?
How do we effectively reachthat wide, diverse, non-tertiary
educated group?
We are joined today by an expertpanel Andrew Betto trains
(01:15):
people for ministry and servicethrough the Vocational Bible
College.
Cos Crosscombe he leads theWell Training Program, looking
to train in ministry people whoare marginalized.
And Simon Gillum, vicePrincipal of Sydney's Moore
Theological College, who's beenworking on cross-cultural and
literacy issues as we developministry models to the less
(01:37):
literate.
I want to dig in in a moment onthe different perspectives that
each of them have, but beforewe do that, our common pastor's
heart, andrew Betto, can westart with you?
We were at the Gospel Coalitionmini-summit just a few weeks
ago talking about reachingAustralia and doubling the
number of evangelicals over 20years, and you talked about your
(02:00):
heart for this percentage ofthe Australian population who
don't have a tertiary education,who are significantly
underrepresented in our churches.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
In Australia and in Sydney we're very blessed.
We have many churches, manyChristian conferences, but many
people in the world don't havethat access, and so I grew up
thinking well, maybe I couldserve God amongst the unreached
people in another country.
But as I grew up and became ayoung man, god showed me this
large group of people in oursociety who do go straight into
the workforce from school butaren't well represented in the
(02:33):
churches that I was a part of.
And so God then has directedthat heart for unreached people
to a group in Australia.
It was the last place I thoughtI'd serve God, because of the
wealth of churches and Biblecolleges we have here already
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Cos, as I was researching for this discussion
and ringing each of you guys up,I realised actually you're
talking about slightly differentgroups.
You use the term marginalised,although Andrew's thinking about
a broader group.
I think Is that right.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, we talk about a smallsubsection of that, mostly those
who've been either pushedoutside of the mainstream
society or haven't quite fit in,and so some of that is economic
marginalization, some is ethnicmarginalization or language
marginalization.
Yeah, so those who tend not tofit in, or do so well, in our
normal society structures.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And I mean, what's the terminology we should use?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean, there's so many different things.
I mean, you know, I spent a lotof time in the US where urban
was kind of a nice word for that, which doesn't work so well in
other parts of the world.
We were playing the other daywith saying you know, this is
kind of majority world, whatmost of the world looks like,
which is a little bit differentthan often.
The dominant culture in Sydneyor other parts of the Western
world looks like Fringe groups,vulnerable people, there's all
(03:52):
kinds of ones.
We tend not to use the wordlike socially disadvantaged,
because actually the socialsystems are quite extensive and
we don't see that as being adisadvantage based upon your
economics.
But yeah, terms are hard, soyou kind of define it each time
you get into the room.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Marginalized.
Almost sounds like a put-down.
Do you know?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah, so I think it depends on the way right we look
at what society has done tothat.
So, rather than saying thatyou've done something that's
marginalized yourself, we'resaying that the society, the
structures of society don't suitthe way you learn or the way
you work or the way that youfunction.
So it's more that what societyhas done to the person.
But I wouldn't call anybodymarginalized.
I mean, for me it's just myfriends and my neighbors.
(04:35):
But, yeah, always looking for aterm that kind of describes it.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Andrew, you've used the term everyday, which leaves
some of us feeling, oh, am I notan everyday guy?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Do you know?
And so how do you wrestle withthat?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we've usedlots of terms.
We started with the blue collarpeople, but then people thought
, well, I'm not blue collarbecause I'm not a tradie.
And yet there are so manypeople who we were concerned and
interested to help and support,who do go straight into the
workforce from school but aren'ttradespeople.
So, because it's 70% of theworking population don't have a
university degree, have gonestraight into the workforce from
(05:14):
school.
They're the I suppose, they'rethe majority, they're, I suppose
, the norm, because they are themajority and it's not a term
that's negative or derogatory tosay that you're everyday.
Most people would be content tosay, yeah, I'm happy to be an
ordinary, everyday person, andso that's.
But it's yeah, it's not alwayshelpful either.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
How do you think about these things, Simon?
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Well, I guess, in the terms that we've talked about,
I'm an everyday person.
I left school to be a labourer.
I went to more college, havingnever been to university.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I dropped out of university and became a disc
jockey.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
There you go.
I didn't make it in the frontdoor and so most of the friends
that I grew up with, and so thestats where I went to school,
there was way less than 20% ofpeople heading to university, so
that's a demographic I'm verycomfortable with, and yet I
(06:11):
spend most of my life now,particularly in the Anglican
world, dealing almostexclusively with people who've
been through university, so Ifeel that disjunction pretty
close to my heart.
Yeah, I think for me, I'vebecome increasingly convinced
(06:33):
that one of the issues is theway that we think about
word-based ministry and literacy, and I love the fact that we
are always centered aroundword-based ministry.
It's so important, alwayscentered around word-based
ministry, it's so important.
But it's so easy for us tothink word-based ministry and
immediately equate that withliteracy.
And the thing that I've becomeincreasingly convinced of is
(06:56):
that that's not actually how theBible talks about word-based
ministry and it's not how mostChristians throughout most of
the world for most of history,have thought about word-based
ministry, and it's not how mostChristians throughout most of
the world for most of history,have thought about word-based
ministry.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
When you've got that one Bible in the center of the
village in the church and oneperson who can read it.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Absolutely, and so we're in a rut, which we're in
because of privilege.
We're in because we can affordBibles and because education's
been so high.
But I think it's allowed us tobecome comfortable with a model
of ministry that excludes people, and I know I do it myself.
(07:33):
So, even coming from thatbackground, I know when I preach
I drop into models of ministrythat exclude huge parts of the
population.
So what are you trying to doabout it that exclude huge parts
of the population?
So what are you trying to doabout it?
Well, I'll tell you how I do it.
And then this is how I do it.
I stand up and I say how greatit is to be here.
Open up your Bibles to thispage.
(07:55):
Can you see in verse 7 what itsays there?
Now, everyone who can read can,and everyone who can't read
knows they don't belong, and Ido that reflexively so often.
So instead, what I'm trying todo is say listen to what God is
(08:15):
telling us through his word,listen to this, read it out.
Did you catch that as it came?
Or something like that.
It's just changing myexpectations that people are
actually listening to the wordof God as I preach.
They're not necessarily readingit Great if they can, but I
(08:36):
don't want to exclude those whocan't.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Cos.
How do you approach this?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, I mean the first thing on the stats is
right.
The exciting part the SydneyAnglicans do an exceptional job
at reaching the highly educated.
There's not many in the worldcan do it that well and, you
know, just running into people.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, I mean it was crazy.
Last Sunday I walked into ourchurch in the morning and I
looked at the sound desk.
We had three people on thesound desk one on sound, one on
sound, one on the slides and oneon the live stream and all of
them had PhDs.
We are in a particular part ofSydney, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, no, and I think that's a common right.
But I've lived since I was,yeah, early teenagers in very
poor communities or rural orgovernment housing, and what
really struck me was that inthose communities, the people
that I lived around were theones running the churches.
And then, coming and seeingthis super highly educated group
(09:32):
giving up professions to gointo churches right on the one
side, it's fantastic.
Just the other group wasmissing from that conversation
and so for me it's not sayinghey, you know, let's get rid of
this other part.
That's working great, it's justtrying to bring some balance.
So every time I walk out myhouse, I see people that are
incredible at leading things,yet I never see them leading in
(09:53):
the churches when I go toconferences, they've got
leadership gifts.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Yeah, I mean, I'll use one example, right?
So we're in Penrith Territory,I'm not?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
a.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Panthers fan.
But we're in Penrith territoryand you've got world-class
leaders coming up through thosecommunities who are leading
teams state level, nationallevel, international level.
They're incredible leaders.
Somehow the football coachescan see, identify and develop
leadership out of thosecommunities.
We see it in other ways,sometimes in unhealthy ways,
whether it's gang activity orcriminal activity.
But just even in the local shopyou see leadership.
(10:29):
Or the local factory you seeleadership.
Yeah, it's all through thecommunities.
Mums running PTAs, running PNCstuff yeah, there's leadership
everywhere around there.
We just don't really have manypathways to allow that
leadership to shine.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
So recognizing leaders like who we're looking
for starts to narrow down thepool that we're actually using,
isn't it?
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It is.
It is.
I mean, you know, it's beenfantastic.
We set out to try and find fiveleaders that we could train.
That was kind of our mandateand we're up to 30 now and if
you just meet them they'rephenomenal.
I mean, they're great.
A guy down in Shell Harbour whowithin two months has got 18,
20 guys coming out to read theBible with him.
He's a leader of men and yousee the guys that he's leading
(11:14):
they're not the normal ones thatyou're seeing in our church
pews.
You know bodybuilders,weightlifters, guys in factories
that are coming out.
You know Andrew sees this allthe time and it's just once you
give opportunity you start tosee people shine.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
But you've got to give opportunity in the first
place, I think.
What's the literacy issue thatyou're finding?
I mean, we just heard it fromSimon.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, we find a few different things, so we find the
.
So I'm an experiential learner.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It took me until I was in my mid-30s before someone
taught me that.
Gave you that label.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, what's it mean?
Yeah, so it means that I learnby experience.
I don't learn really well frombooks.
I love to read stories.
I read every night stories, butI've got a whole library full
of texts that I really struggleto ever read.
But I can go and processinformation.
And so someone put me in aprogram for my master's.
I didn't.
I got a master's and I got adoctorate, I think from a good
place, because I was able to useexperiential learning, go to
(12:05):
the street and talk to people,go and interview people.
I mean, this is experientiallearning doing here and that was
so much fun, better for mylearning style than trying to
read a book.
And so we find that, you know,we find indigenous students who
learn through artwork or music.
Their depth of knowledge isexceptional.
Their ability to teach isamazing.
But it's not out of a book,it's by doing a painting or you
(12:29):
know.
I remember Michael Duckertaking me for a walk around his
little farm and pointing outcreation and telling me through
the biblical stories, by showingme the trees and the pathways.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
He's clearly a visual thinker.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
He is absolutely, and so you take those techniques
and you start to give people theopportunity to use that.
It's quite amazing how muchthey begin to shine.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
There are even things we can do in the higher
education sector to better equippeople for ministry, I think,
but also better recognise theirdifferent models of learning.
So the partnership that we'vegot with the Well part of it's.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
COS's group.
Cos's group?
Yeah, the Well.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
A part of their program is something that is a
more college product.
All of the assessments are oralassessments and there's an oral
exam.
They're not written, and sopeople will go and do a ministry
task preach a sermon, lead agroup, whatever the task is and
then, on the back of that, havea conversation where you get a
(13:31):
very good idea about whether thestudents actually learnt the
things, but their capacity towrite an essay is irrelevant to
that.
And we're running the samething up in Armidale Diocese
with early retirees or peopleheading towards early retirement
who haven't been in schools forages but are great learners and
(13:53):
are terrific leaders and aregoing to actually do most of
their ministry orally anyway.
And so seeing what they do inministry and having a
conversation with them is abetter mode of assessment than
can they write an essay.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Even on precision.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, so you can get to a lot more precision if I can
just ask you one more questionabout what you meant there than
by you submitting an essay andme having to guess.
Oh, I wonder what that linemeant.
So it actually does allow forgreater precision.
We've known this for centuries,right?
(14:30):
So the highest kind of degreethat you can do anywhere as a
PhD In the most esteemedinstitutions.
What's the final assessment forthe PhD?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
An oral exam.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
So we're not saying we want a lower standard, we
want a less rigorous way ofdoing it.
It's a different way of doingit and we've actually recognized
the rigor of this for centuries.
So we're using a lot more oralexams at Moore College, partly
for that reason, so the personcoming out of vocational Bible
(15:14):
training or coming out of thewell, where are they going?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, for us we're looking for ministry leaders.
So we have three that arepastoring congregations at the
moment out of our first 10 grads.
We have a couple other churchplanters.
We've got a few others who'velaunched new work, um, so
they're going into thecommunities that fit them.
You know we've got palo, who'suh church planting amongst
filipinos.
Palo is just fantastic and justremember he went through a more
formal training program for oneyear and he left and he said,
(15:39):
look, because I'm no good atministry, because I'm always
getting the lowest grade inclass, and we looked and
assessed and talked to othersand said, actually you're quite
exceptional at ministry, justthe system hasn't worked for you
.
So he blitzes it through theprogram, comes out and church
plans.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
We recognize that a lot of the people who go
straight into the workforce fromschool don't actually have an
opportunity for the discipleshipand training that often happens
on a university campus throughAFES.
And so we, at our first leveltraining, we're just wanting to
train people to be effectivedisciple makers where they're
confident to share their faithwith others, confident to share
the Bible and help others growmature.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
What's the minimum literacy level required for a
senior pastor?
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah, well, I think, if we think biblically, leaders
have to be readers, they have toengage with the Word of God.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I've had this line in my head.
I don't know where I've got itfrom, but just wherever the Word
of God goes, literacy levelswill increase.
And so because if I want to bea person of the book, I'm going
to be wanting to follow afterthe God who speaks.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
I think that's true.
So historically that'sdemonstrably true.
We often go the next step andsay and so does university
education and that particularway of being literate which is
going beyond increasing basicliteracy so that everyone can
(17:02):
read the word.
So the idea of reading the wordis a much newer concept.
So, leaders reading the word,you see, the only people Jesus
criticizes for not reading theword are the scribes and
Pharisees.
Jesus criticizes for notreading the word are the scribes
and Pharisees.
The only people in the NewTestament who are expected to
(17:23):
read the word.
Timothy is to read the wordpublicly and the church is meant
to gather around.
So certainly, literacy.
I think it makes sense that whenpeople get a taste for the word
of God they'd love to be ableto read it for themselves.
But it's not a bar for everyChristian person.
I think it is a requirement ofa leader.
(17:44):
You can't rightly handle theWord of God if you're not able
to engage with it.
You can certainly hear it andrepeat it.
I mean there'd be manyevangelists who are not literate
.
I think that's absolutely true.
So whatever you make of thesenior pastor idea, that
(18:05):
demography, if you're talkingabout an elder teaching elder
biblically, it's somebody who'shandling the word of God, I
think.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Do you agree disagree ?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
We've had this discussion before.
Yeah, I probably have a littlebroader take on it.
I mean, I think you know, inthe book of Acts we've got the
comments about you know whenPeter and John are speaking and
people say you know who arethese uneducated people?
So whether they're literate ornot, I'm not quite so sure that
you have to be literate to be aminister in a church.
(18:38):
But I think for me theassociation, and I think a lot
of it, came around when theReformation happened in the same
kind of time period as theEnlightenment and we ended up
putting education, formaleducation, as a high bar of
society.
And I don't think it was in theearly church at all.
And even Paul, writing in 1Corinthians, talks about right.
Remember, not many of you wereenlisted the things that he's
(19:02):
addressing.
The church, I mean the earlychurch, was mostly the poor, the
marginalized, the outcasts,those who didn't fit into
society following the savior whodidn't fit into society.
Right, even his execution wasone for the poor.
You know he wasn't given therights of execution of the
wealthy or even the middle classat that time.
So I'm not quite convinced thatthe literacy levels have to be
(19:24):
a certain way.
I just think the wholeassociation with higher
education and gospel ministry isa fault.
I don't think it's got anybiblical basis to put those two
things together.
I think competency in ministryisn't measured by education
level, nor is competency insociety measured by education
level.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I'll just sit back and listen to Andrew Gillum
respond.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Yeah, I think in the New Testament what you do get is
churches are expected to sitaround and hear the word read.
Somebody there is reading itout.
The letters are written and theword of God was committed to
writing for good reason, sothere were oral traditions.
But even back in the OldTestament, when Moses writes the
(20:09):
law, you have this great changein the way that God is now
communicating with his people,so that when Joshua speaks you
see, in Deuteronomy 34, thepeople heard what Joshua said
and obeyed what God hadcommanded Moses.
And so there's a referring backto the written word, which is
(20:31):
why the priests and the kings,the Levites, the elders, had to
read the word for Israel.
I think we see that in the NewTestament communities as well.
So I thoroughly agree with whatKoz is saying about the
enlightenment and the educationmodel.
But literacy is not the same asthat.
So somebody being able to readthe word, so that we know that
(20:56):
what that teacher is saying isactually coming from the Word,
we can hear it for ourselves.
That doesn't mean everybody'sliterate, but somebody is
handling the Word and in thatsense, the handling of the Word,
I think, is the written Wordthat's being given to us.
I think that's the difference.
It's not because it's quiteright.
(21:16):
What happened at theEnlightenment was that we then
put higher education on the samelevel as literacy, and I don't
think it would be true to saythat the early church or the
medieval church thought of thatas literacy.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
How do you think about it in terms of not so much
the teaching exercise but theorganisational exercise of the
church?
And I mean, I just think aboutthe compliance levels and all
those kind of things that I,just as a senior leader, have to
be across, and I can't see away out of it.
(21:52):
Yeah, I hate it but I can't seea way out of it.
It depends what the church isright.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah, I love that question because that's a really
common one, right?
And so we've got this massiveskewing in churches that got
elders or wardens.
We've got this massive skewing.
I think about it.
Right.
I was talking to a lawyer thismorning about a house sale.
He's amazing at his job.
He doesn't tell me what to do.
His job is to facilitate whatI've asked him to do.
An accountant's job is to helpme but not to be in charge of me
(22:19):
.
And what we've done is we'vekind of skewed that and said
those with organizational skillsor certain skills are the ones
who are in charge, not those whoare best equipped to lead.
And I've got a great examplefor us.
I sit on the board of a healthclinic based in Philadelphia, an
amazing Christian health clinic.
Our budget's about $50 milliona year.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Our board is made up primarily You're on the board
from Mount.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Druitt.
I'm on the board from MountDruitt.
Yeah, they're very kind to letme stay there.
Our board is made up of thosewho come from the poorest
section of the poorest city inthe United States, so people who
are living in extreme poverty.
How can a board be made up ofvery poor people?
Because they're really reallygood at understanding the
community and what it takes.
Then what we do is we hireexceptional people to do the
(23:03):
other things.
You hire exceptional doctorsand exceptional managers, but
it's the board who dictates thedirection, and I think what
we've ended up with in somechurches is we've ended up with
really good managers but notnecessarily really good gospel
leaders, and that's a realdifference.
So I can bring somebody in tobe my architect, I can bring
(23:24):
somebody in to be my engineer ormy accountant or my lawyer, and
their job is to take directionfrom me.
That's different than being theperson who's telling me what to
do, and I think we've skewedthat.
Our communities are full ofpeople who know what to do.
If you came to our communityand wanted to navigate it, you
would ask local people.
You'd be crazy to ask theoutside person to come and tell
you how to navigate Mount Druitt, the same in Philly.
(23:46):
I don't think you survive verylong in the communities I lived
in, but local people know how tonavigate those communities.
There's a great book writtencalled Code of the Street and
talks about the differentsystems that work in different
places.
Systems that work in this areawe're in now, like in Annandale,
don't work in Mount Druitt.
They're very different systemsand so we've skewed it again to
there.
(24:06):
So just because somebody's beenmarginalized or poor doesn't
mean that they don't haveleadership, don't have
intelligence, can't managethings.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
They can just hire people to do those other roles
can't manage things, they canjust hire people to do those
other roles.
I think another way ofresponding to the question, too,
is if the model of church thatwe have now has become so
complex that only people withall of that suite of
extraordinary gifts couldpossibly lead it.
(24:36):
And maybe it's not the peoplewho are the problem, it's the
model.
So rethinking the model isreally important and I think
again, we get ourselves into abit of a rut and we think
there's no other possible way ofdoing this, but some of the
things that you see people whoare coming through these other
(24:57):
pathways can teach us is well,okay, we've got a church of 30
Filipinos who weren't meetingbefore and weren't going to go
to another church, and they'rehere there.
Why would we turn that churchinto another one of the churches
, like us, that's?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
got all these problems that they weren't going
to go to, that they weren'tgoing to go to in the first
place.
Let's learn from how they'redoing stuff and yet some things
have to happen.
I mean there needs to be safeministry stuff and there needs
to be all these differentcomponents.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Yeah, absolutely, and the accounting and all of those
things.
Well, yeah, just.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I don't know how.
I mean.
How do you do it if you're incharge and you don't understand
a spreadsheet?
Speaker 3 (25:41):
I think there's lots of people who can be leaders of
things without understanding aspreadsheet.
I mean, you know, I've seensome great-.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I'm not talking about persuading people setting
vision, that kind of thing.
I'm just talking about makingrisk decisions.
You know, if I yeah, look.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
I think we see some great modelling in the UK at the
moment where you've got achurch that would fit more as a
middle-class church working witha poorer church.
The middle-class church mayhave an administration system, a
safe ministry system.
They handle all the compliancework, they handle all the
accounting and let the ministerat the other church do what he
really wants to do, which is doministry to people.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?
In the New Testament, in thebook of Acts, we find this very
problem coming up for theapostles and they're like
they're being taken away fromword ministry because of all of
the administration.
And so what did they do?
They found a bunch of godly menand women who could do that
administration so that theycould be freed up to do the
ministry of the word.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
One of the models we've used locally, for that is
actually the thing that sitsunderneath a lot of the church's
causes.
Talking about the evangelismand new churches as an
administrative organisation thatdoes look after the safe
ministry, the finance, thepayroll, those kinds of things,
enables people who are able todo great ministry but, frankly,
(27:01):
would not be able to be therector of a parish in the Sydney
Anglican system, would not beable to take that role that
actually does take on all theresponsibility you're describing
.
It's interesting.
Even as I hear you describe it.
I can kind of see the weightcoming down on your shoulders.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I mean, I just think there have been.
There's all sorts of thingsthat I've done in the senior
minister role which are aboutpastoring the word of God and
prayer, but we built a buildingat one point and a couple of
years ago we bought anotherhouse and you know there have
been.
There.
Isn't just the leading thepeople to make that decision, to
(27:42):
make that decision, there'sactually going and having the
fight with the council andworrying about whether or not
the risk that we're taking istoo big for us, or can we do it
and then, when it turns out tobe too big, managing that.
I mean, there's a whole lot ofthings in leadership there that
don't directly do you know theother day.
I was talking to my wife's boss.
(28:04):
We were talking about his jobrunning a medical practice with
11 doctors and I thought, oh,there are all these similarities
between your job and my job.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Well, he's dealing with patients and vaccines and
things like that, but there aresome things that are quite
similar.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, oh, absolutely, and the employment issues are
the ones that keep me up atnight.
But I think when we ask thesequestions, it's worth saying
does it need to be like that?
Because if it does, we areexcluding a whole lot of people
from potentially leading.
We are excluding a whole lot ofpeople from potentially leading
(28:44):
.
So if it doesn't need to belike that, if we can set up a
structure that better supportsand enables those decisions to
be made by qualified people whocan service really well and that
enables a lot of other peopleto do word-based ministry, gee,
that'd be worth exploring,wouldn't it?
So, yeah, I think, whatever thesolution we come to, if we can
(29:06):
do that, we will see a lot morepeople in ministry and people
from a broader range of society.
And if we see people leadingsociety who are not from the
same kind of narrow band,they're much more likely to
serve well in communities thatare dominated by that kind of
population.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm for reducing the load on the
senior minister.
Okay, thank you so much forcoming in.
It's been super helpful.
Andrew Betto has been our guest.
He trains people for ministryand service through vocational
Bible college.
Cos Crosscombe leads the WellTraining Program and looks to
train people in ministry to themarginalized.
And Simon Gillum, viceprincipal of Sydney's Moore
(29:48):
Theological College, working oncross-cultural and literacy
issues.
As we develop these ministries,my name's Dominic Steele.
This has been the Pastor'sHeart and we will look forward
to your company next Tuesdayafternoon.
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