Churches will be free to open for vaccinated and unvaccinated people a week earlier than had been expected in New South Wales. With 80% of NSW adult population fully vaccinated, a new Public Health Order comes into force from Monday 18 October 2021.We talk with South Sydney Anglican Bishop Michael Stead about the implications of the new PHO, contradictions between it and the COVID safe plan, and what to do about ventilation. https://www.nsw.gov.au/form/covid-safety-plan/places-of-worshiphttps://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/business/covid-safe-business/ventilationhttps://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.htmlhttps://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/controlguideline/Documents/contact-risk-assessment-business-community-settings.pdfThe 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.

What happened to the idea of Christian Australia?, so long and widely held and so quickly abandoned?How did evangelical leaders respond to the end of Christendom? How have Australian evangelicals appraised their relations with other national cultures? How has the end of Christendom led to a reconsideration and reconfiguration of the movement’s own internal culture?What now is the place of Christianity in Australian civic culture? We are diving back to the middle of last century today and thinking about how different leaders of the evangelical faith navigated the end of Christendom with historian Hugh Chilton from Scots College, Sydney.http://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/evangelicals-christendomHugh says you can save on the price of his book Evangelicals and the End of Christendom, by purchasing a paperback copy at this website using the discount code “PBC30” at checkout https://www.routledge.com/9781138087781. Offer valid until the 31 October.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.

Churches in New South Wales will be permitted to re-open for vaccinated people once the vaccination rate reaches 70%.  At 80%, vaccinated and unvaccinated people will be permitted by the government to come to church. Churches have the chance to pioneer people living together again, vaccinated and unvaccinated side by side. Lee McMunn says the great commandment is not ‘Live a zero risk life.’How do you welcome all while keeping the vulnerable safe? But on the other hand how to avoid overfunctioning and blocking people from taking risks they are willing to take? How to have difficult ‘front door conversations’ that you never expected to have?  Plus how do you encourage ‘church workers’ to present vaccination certificates? A model of what to do when the pastor’s kids catch COVID.We talk with four senior pastors, from St Ives in Sydney, Nigel Fortescue, from Wollongong, Sandy Grant, from Mentone in Melbourne, Murray Campbell, and from Scarborough in the UK, Lee McMunn.http://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/caring-covid-cautiousThe 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.

Australian businessman Tony McLellan describes his pride being broken, feeling wretched and desperately alone, talking openly about things bottled up for years, much of it shameful, in the company of Atlanta pastor Michael Youseff. Tony goes on to describe turning to Christ, to the mercy and redemption won through the sacrifice of God’s son. And his response, first sobs, ‘then with an enormous flood of tears, entirely involuntary.’Michael Youseff: ‘You’re in a mess … You need Jesus.’Tony McLellan: ‘No.  I need help.  I don’t know what the heck is going on.’Michael Youseff: ‘Let’s start by praying together.’ Tony McLellan’s life turns on one week early 1988 in Atlanta, when Rae, his wife of 28 years, left him.  Tony turned to Christ, followed Rae to Sydney, and won her back. Tony’s life story, ‘A Glorious Ride’ is released this week.The first half of the narrative focuses on boardroom deals, corporate power and influence. Then after Tony’s salvation, attention turns to an engaging narrative of influence and leadership for Jesus’ kingdom, through mostly Christian not for profits in Australia and the United States. Tony was chair of the Australian Christian Lobby for a decade.  Before that, in Atlanta, he assisted evangelist Michael Youseff as they led one of the first churches to walk out of the Episcopalian Denomination over theological revisionism. Order Tony’s biography 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 to preach sermons which are hospitable + have a good reputation with outsiders?The former principal of Melbourne’s Ridley College Peter Adam says the bible’s call for us to be hospitable should impact how we preach. How do we exercise thoughtful hospitality? How can we shape our sermons so they serve our people? Hospitable preachers will make people feel warmly welcomed by the sermon. Plus, how will hospitality look different for pastors who are introverts and extroverts?And is there a tension or not between being a God pleaser and a man pleaser in Galatians 1:10?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.

Childrens’ ministry leaders who have not been vaccinated will be asked to temporarily stand down from their ministry roles in NSW Churches. South Sydney Anglican Bishop Michael Stead expects a vaccination certificate to be required for kids ministry, in the same way a Working with Children Check is required. Dr Stead says churches will be required to submit updated COVID safe plans.  The plans include questions about ventilation and checks to ensure active steps are being taken to ensure church staff and key volunteer personnel have been vaccinated, especially those involved in ministries to children. At the 70% double vaccinated point, Dr Stead says kids ministries likely won’t be able to function inside church buildings.  They will be permitted to operate outside. Dr Stead says as a result many churches are planning to delay re-opening until the 80% mark is reached, meaning re-opening on 31 October 2021. Dr Stead has conceded that it’s inevitable that one of our churches will be the site of a super spreading event, and that it won’t be the fault of the local leadership. Dr Stead has urged Christians on both sides of the vaccination debate to read Romans 14 twice. The first time he urges substituting ‘eat meat’ with ‘get vaccinated’ and the second time with ‘not get vaccinated.’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 could we build back better after COVID?  Could evangelicals unite together to rebuild the church with a national co-ordinated evangelistic campaign?COVID has created an unprecedented opportunity for evangelism, but churches and church leaders are feeling fragile and weary. In Great Britain, churches are getting set for a national campaign leading up to Easter 2022, under the banner ‘Find life that lasts. It’s closer than you think.’  Directors Rico Tice and John MacKinnon join us to talk through the origins and purpose of Passion for Life (https://www.apassionforlife.org.uk/)Download the pack: https://www.apassionforlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/APFL-Life-2022.pdfThe 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.

What will happen in churches after the third wave of COIVD as the freedoms return to Australia over the next two months? When vaccination rates reach 70% venues, including places of worship are likely to be reopened, and even more when the rates reach 80%.Governments are planning more freedoms for those who are double vaccinated.  But will they impose restrictions on who can attend worship? Our guests are:Akos Balogh, Executive Director of the Gospel Coalition AustraliaJohn McClean, Acting Principal of Sydney’s Christ College (Presbyterian)Phil Colgan, Minister of St George North Anglican ChurchAre vaccine Passports a Religious Freedom Issue For Bible Believing Christians or not? And if the government doesn’t make it a requirement, how should local church leadership think through what expectations to put on staff, members and guests? Plus what’s our panel’s reaction to the Ezekiel Declaration? Further reading:https://gsandc.org.au/a-response-to-the-ezekiel-declaration/https://www.akosbalogh.com/blog/vaccine-passports-and-the-coercing-of-conscience-what-should-christians-think-12https://murraycampbell.net/2021/09/01/why-we-cant-sign-the-ezekiel-declaration-an-evangelical-response/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.

What are the consequences if euthanasia is legalised?  And how do we fight the issue?Legislation is before the Queensland Parliament and is about to come to the parliament in the UK and in New South Wales to allow euthanasia. And laws permitting euthanasia have already been passed in Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand… there’s a bit of a sense that even if the conservatives succeed in holding out this time…  at some stage it feels like it will happen.Euthanasia is illegal in most of the United States, although significantly it is legal in the more progressive Washington, D.C. and seven states.Andrew Errington is Senior Minister of Newtown Erskineville Angican Church. Megan Best is a palliative care doctor and  associate professor with the Institute for Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame.Further reading: https://www.case.edu.au/blogs/case-subscription-library/assisted-dying-laws-is-suffering-still-the-main-problem.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.

Australia (or the west) is simultaneously post Christian, Christian and pre Christian according to Greg Sheridan, one of the most respected and influencial analysts of domestic and international politics. How can Christian writers and artists, or even non Christian writers and artists who think Christianity has something important and worthwhile to say, speak into the confused and hostile culture of today?Greg started at The Australian newspaper in 1984.  And has been it’s foreign editor since 1992. Greg has just published: ‘Christians: The urgent case for Jesus in our world’, following on from his 2018 book ‘God is good for you: A defence of Christianity in troubled times.’ We talk the media, Christians in the Media, the case for Christ today, and the faith of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.http://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/greg-sheridanThe 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.