January is the key time of the year for welcoming newcomers in the southern hemisphere.  In the northern hemisphere it’s August/September.But how do we best follow up new people who are moving into the district and looking to join a church?Someone visits your church, but what’s next.  What sort of ‘visitor pipeline’ should you have?What kind of system can be devised that is most effective for welcoming the largest numbers of people over a year? - while making sure that everyone doesn’t get exhausted?Should you visit? phone? email? text? or nothing?Where is too much effort just that.  Too much effort?  How do you grab the ‘low hanging fruit’?What mistakes can we avoid?  Where should we ignore the American advice here as just being too cultural?Someone has visited our church and we have invested lots of effort in them, and it’s all come to naught.  Someone else visits, we do almost nothing, and they end up joining.  What’s with that?  Dave Allen is from Hunter Church in Newcastle and Andy Hobbs from Salt Church in Wollongong.  Both have great advice for us in this area.The Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

It’s time to review what’s happened this year and have robust informed conversations about what we will do next year?  What won’t we do again?  How we will do things differently? And why? To make realistic decisions, we need to know what’s helpful to measure?  And what isn’t? Not everything that’s measurable matters. And not everything that matters is measurable.Mike Hastie has been serving on the team at Newtown Erskineville Anglican Church, and is about to become the senior pastor of Toongabbie Anglican Church. Mike’s the founder of a project called Growing Healthier Churches which is all about helping us pastor better by measuring and tracking. The Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

South Australian Ryan Williams had been a Christian for five years and campus pastor at Mars Hill Everett for twelve months,  when Mars Hill’s founder and senior pastor Mark Driscoll resigned and the church collapsed in 2014.Christianity Today’s podcast account of the rise and fall of Mars Hill has just concluded.Ryan is now senior pastor of City on a Hill Albuquerque and shares on how he and the other ex Mars Hill Staff and Members are processing the pain of the past and the issues raised by the podcast http://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/marshillThe Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

We’re seeing a shift in approaches to doing church. Traditional denominations are becoming more open to moving their focus from solo campuses to multi-campus ministries in order to increase mission capacity. The argument is this may increase the effectiveness of church activity and increase our ability to engage local communities. Church mergers had been seen as a last ditched thing, when one was on the verge of unviability.  But there's a new discussion now, that merging a church with momentum, with another that is viable, but with less momentum, might be a more effective way to achieve overall growth. Antony Barraclough, the senior minister of the newly merged North Light Anglican Church on the North Shore of Sydney, walks us through the effectiveness of this approach, and the missional advantages he has seen. Sydney Anglican Report on Parish and Regional Restructure: https://j.mp/3cYUSYLhttp://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/effective-multi-campus-churchesThe Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

This week, Senior Pastor of Seaforth Anglican Rich Wenden explores his findings on how we as the Gods people can better bring the good news of Jesus to these places.Rich has been researching missional strategies of churches in reaching coastal areas, and has lots of insights to share with us! We talk liturgy of the surf, liturgy of community, the impact of a missional faithful presence, and more intentional discipleship.We also discuss the impact of a missional faithful presence, intentional discipleship and community. Rich also challenges us to start thinking about how we can be contributing to this mission field, as well as what the opportunities are for our own context. Read Rich’s doctor of ministry project here: https://bit.ly/coastalministryThe Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

‘Find life that lasts. It’s closer than you think’How might Churches in Australia and other countries take advantage of the united evangelism campaign being arranged for the UK and Ireland. Can the campaign be used to give us a needed evangelistic shot in the arm? Mission Pastor Elliot Temple and Senior Pastors Jodie McNeill and Tom Melbourne have been reviewing the material and bring their review. Throughout our conversation, we focus on evangelism opportunities within Australia and the potential of this campaign to further communicate the good news of everlasting life with Jesus. Jodie McNeill is senior pastor of Jamberoo Anglican Church, to the south of Sydney.  Tom Melbourne is senior pastor of Central Villages Anglican, in the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney. Elliot Temple is mission pastor of Christ Church St Ives, in Sydney’s North.See also:https://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/passion-for-lifehttps://www.apassionforlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/APFL-Life-2022.pdfhttps://www.apassionforlife.org.uk/The Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

How as the collective complementarian church, are we raising women up for ministry - ensuring they are equipped and given the place to exercise their gifts in ministry roles? What should our vision be for raising up women in ministry? How do you develop a culture in your church that is really positive to women exercising their gifts and hence stepping forward for full-time ministry roles? What can we be doing now? In this episode, Kara Hartley (Archdeacon for Women in the Sydney Anglican Church) and Jane Tooher (Director of the Priscilla and Aquila Centre at Moore Theological College in Sydney) will bring us some insights into these questions.http://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/recruiting-womenhttp://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/recruiting-womenThe Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

We talk, how do we plan for Christmas when we’re just waking up from the COVID lockdown? Senior Pastor of Lower Blue Mountains Anglican Church Ken Noakes, joins Mission Pastor Andy Bootes from Hope Church Leppington and Missions Pastor Jessica Brouwer.We talk from first principles, demographics, what activities will work in this context, how COVID changes things, Christmas themes, strategy for events and follow up plans.Plus what have they done in the past that they are not going to do this year? And what to do about Boxing Day on a Sunday.The Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

We are joined by the authors of Two Ways to Live, Phillip Jensen and Tony Payne, to talk through the changes they have made to the iconic gospel outline. We talk through the what and why behind the changes.Plus how do they respond to recent criticisms of the Two Ways to Live outline? Phillip Jensen is the former Anglican Dean of Sydney. He now leads Two Ways Ministries.  Tony Payne is chair of Matthias Media. See the related discussion with Sam Chan on his 'Evangelism in a skeptical world'For more about the new Two Ways to Live go to Matthias Media's page.https://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/2WTLThe Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.

How we can improve our competency leading the church from the books of leadership, business and management?Archie Poulos teaches at the Center for Ministry Development at Moore Theological College in Sydney.http://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/innovators-dilemmaThe Church Cohttp://www.thechurchco.com is an excellent website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Support the show--Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.