The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele

Senior leaders long to be effective leaders, but we may not be as good as they hope to be. In the church, the demands on the senior pastor has increasingly become more complex. The expectation to be excellent in leadership, managerial, and administrative on top of preaching, teaching and pastoral care is one of immense pressure!Under this kind of stress, we might suffer cyclical patterns of burnout, unhealthy coping modes, or psychological patterns we are unaware of. When under this cloud of stress, one may resort to detaching by excessive use of screens, alcohol, drugs, pornography, running to control, micromanaging situations, overwork, reassurance seeking or over-researching. These traps aren’t that hard to fall into.Valerie Ling and Sarah Hindle, from Sydney’s Center for Effective Serving, say among leaders self awareness an emotional awareness is critical (https://effectiveserving.com.au/)The Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

Australian Anglican Evangelicals are praying that the Australian national Bishops meeting (in March) and the General Synod (8-16 May) will affirm the Bible’s teaching on marriage, sexuality and chastity.The General Synod  will consider three motions and two propositions affirming the Bible’s teaching on marriage and chastity. Relations across the church have been further strained by Archbishop of Perth’s decision to deacon a man who is in a civil partnership with another man; and a second man who has been living in a defacto relationship with a woman for a number of years before being married in December 2021.  There were public objections to the ordinations, both before and during the service on Thursday. After a four minute break in the livestream broadcast, Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy overruled the objections and the service proceeded. (Full service here). This comes on top of the Bishop of Wangaratta’s support for the blessing of the marriage of two men in Albury Anglican Church on 2 January 2022.David Bennett is a former Sydney gay activist, now a Christian, and a member of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s College of Evangelists. David is completing his PhD on the relationship between desire and same sex attraction at Oxford. David reviews the proposed motions before General Synod, talks about potential ways forward for the Australian Church and his reaction to the Perth ordinations. Links:David’s book: A war of loves Draft: Motions for General SynodThe Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

Future mission in Sydney and the National Anglican Church in Australia faces a few challenges which Sydney Anglican Archbishop Kanishka Raffel spells out in this episode. We speak on some of the issues Archbishop Raffel might have brought forward in his first Presidential address, had the 'Synod in the Greenfields' not been postponed due to the Omicron outbreak, as it was scheduled for this Saturday 26 February 2022.Not only this, Archbishop Raffel speaks frankly about the Greenfields challenge, indigenous issues, multiculturalism, the national church and the current religious freedom debate. The Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

‘Exvangelicals’. What’s that, you may be asking? It’s a word we hadn’t heard of a few years ago, however, we are increasingly seeing people's self-identity as being part of this loose group or social movement, mostly consisting of Millennials or Gen Z’s. An ‘Exvangelical’ are people who were once members of evangelical churches but have now been through a process, which they would call ‘deconstruction.’ Jeri Jones Sparks speaks today on the matter. She is the outreach pastor at St James Croydon and has a number of friends who describe themselves as ‘Exvangelicals’.The Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

Recent studies show nearly one in four people are profoundly lonely. In fact, the loneliest generation of all is the under 25 age group. The most serious problem is not transient loneliness, but that 7 to 8 percent of the population have been really lonely for at least eight years. In response to these statistics, Professor Patrick Parkinson is heading up the new Christian think tank Publica (http://www.publica.org.au) which launches this Thursday night. Publica has been researching the most socially connected generation in history, who are also the loneliest. To read more on Publica, see:https://publica.org.au/loneliness/https://publica.org.auhttp://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/loneliness-patrick-parkinsonThe Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

Religious Freedom will be debated in the Australian Parliament this week. Two parliamentary reports were released late on Friday afternoon and over the weekend the MP’s and Senators have spent time reading over them. Thankfully, the reports show the Coalition and Labor Party are broadly in support of introducing improved protections for people of Faith.The report's recommendations are set to go to the party rooms on Tuesday morning, and the House of Representatives as early as Tuesday afternoon. Anglican Bishop Michael Stead is the new chair of Freedom for Faith. To read the Government reports, see the following links:https://bit.ly/JointReligiousFreedomhttps://bit.ly/SenateReligiousFreedomThe Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

How to have the hard conversation with someone about why they shouldn’t go into professional Christian ministry?It’s fantastic to see Christians enthusiastic and willing to serve in a professional Christian Ministry. But it might not be appropriate for anyone. How does one decide to raise a red flag with someone who probably isn’t a good fit for this role of ministry? How do you follow through with a conversation? Who should have this conversation? What if you are the one in the wrong? Today, we discuss how to discern between issues of character, convictions, competency and capacity. We speak frankly about a range of issues such as lack of humility, mental health and pornography that influence the discerning of whether someone should enter professional Christian ministry. Shedding light on this topic today is Paul Grimmond, Dean of Students at Moore Theological College who previously served in ministry at the University of New South Wales, and Rowan Kemp, who leads the ministry team with the Evangelical Union at Sydney University.http://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/red-light-conversationsThe Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

We address the big HR questions faced by senior pastors in leading our ministry teams?How can we do performance management best among our varied team members? What is the difference between conflict and bullying and abuse?  Is it possible for a senior minister to be too conflict averse and not give needed ‘tough love’? Conversely where do senior ministers get this wrong? What difference does it make if one is an ‘office holder’ vs a ‘fair work employee’?What does Jesus’ teaching on servant leadership mean for staff management? Vikki Napier is the Sydney Anglican Human Resources Parish Partner.  She advises senior pastors and parish councils on how to manage clergy and other ministry staff. https://www.sds.asn.au/parish-hr-resourceshttp://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/human-resources-napier The Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

 Australian Evangelist Sam Chan, who works with City Bible Forum, joins us to talk about connecting with our complex world through topical preaching. There are many things to consider when preaching to various people groups that may impact the way we preach. Different cultural groups may think differently on an axis of hierarchy-equality and freedom-control. Sam leads us through how being aware of these factors and having a high cultural, emotional and informational intelligence will impact our preaching for the better. Plus, Sam responds to Phillip Jensen’s response to his critique of the gospel outline Two Ways to Live. He then explores the differences between topical preaching in the evangelistic context and systematic teaching in the context of educating our church family. Sam Chan has a new book out, co-authored with Malcom Gill, called ‘Topical Preaching In a Complex World’ you can find through this link if you wish to learn more on this topic. https://j.mp/3Gz3MJWThe Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show

As the new year begins, there are many ministry trainees who are starting new positions! In this episode, we talk about how we can broaden these new ministry trainees - how to best develop a Christlike character, a deep conviction about God and His word and the ability to teach the word of God, and the ability needed to lead and grow a ministry.  We also discuss onboarding trainees as well as what our overall goals are for our ministry trainees. Charles Gajus, a ministry trainer at Campus Bible Study at the University of New South Wales, and James Warren, the senior pastor at Engadine Anglican Church in Sydney’s south talk us through these topics.http://www.thepastorsheart.net/podcast/ministry-trainees The Church Cothechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.  Advertise on The Pastor's HeartTo advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsorSupport the show