The Leadership Journey Podcast with Mark Sayers

Sep 4, 2025

Mark Sayers, Lead Pastor at Red Church in Melbourne and author of influential books on missiology, discusses his journey of faith, highlighting the impact of his upbringing and mentors. He delves into the transition of leading a struggling church and emphasizes that personal spiritual renewal is key to organizational change. Sayers reflects on the intersection of culture and theology in his writing process, warning of the Western church's need to prepare for rapid cultural shifts and the unique spiritual authority formed in times of pressure.

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ANECDOTE

Formative Hospitality At Home

Mark Sayers grew up in Melbourne in a hospitable Christian home where the dining table was central to faith and conversation.
That environment shaped his ministry focus on hospitality, cultural conversation, and pastoral formation.

ANECDOTE

Counseling Turned Belief Into Commitment

At 16 Mark faced severe depression and his parents sent him to a Christian counselor who helped him find renewed faith and purpose.
That counseling turned his belief into a lived commitment and led him to deeper church involvement.

ANECDOTE

Alleyway Calling In Los Angeles

A summer volunteering in LA and San Francisco confronted Mark with urban poverty and gangs and prompted a dramatic call to ministry.
He describes crying into his pillow and surrendering to serve God in the world after that experience.

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Mark Sayers is Lead Pastor of Red Church in Melbourne, Australia and the author of a growing catalogue of books, including, most recently, Platforms to Pillars, published earlier this year. He has become a significant voice in helping the Church in the Western World understand and respond to a rapidly changing context for ministry and mission.

In our conversation Mark talks about growing up in a believing family and some of the key moments and influencers in the development of his own faith. He discusses some of the early challenges he faced in church leadership and his understanding of mission and of how 'personal renewal leads to corporate change'.

We also discuss his writing, which he summarises under the rubric of missiology. Mark describes his process of writing, driven by his curiosity about how the world works and how God interacts with it - all grounded in his rootedness in local ministry.

Mark believes that the world is in a process of rapid change and that spiritual authority, created in moments of pressure, is what will set Christian leaders apart from other forms of leadership.

As is usual for these podcasts, we finish with some of what Mark would say to his 20-year-old self.

For more from Mark, you can subscribe to his Rebuilders podcast or pick up some of his books - see the list below:

A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World Will Create a Remnant of Renewed
Disappearing Church: From Cultural Relevance to Gospel Resilience
Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture
Facing Leviathan: Leadership, Influence, and Creating in a Cultural Storm
Strange Days: Life in the Spirit in a Time of Upheaval
The Road Trip That Changed the World: The Unlikely Theory That Will Change How You View Culture, the Church, and, Most Importantly, Yourself
The Vertical Self: How Biblical Faith Can Help Us Discover Who We Are in an Age of Self Obsession
The Trouble with Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises
Platforms to Pillars: Trading the Burden of Performance for the Freedom of God's Presence