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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
The discussion is broadcast live on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thepastorsheart">Facebook</a> then on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ThePastorsHeart">YouTube</a> and on our <u><b><a href="http://www.thepastorsheart.net">thepastorsheart.net</a></u></b> website and via audio podcast.
The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
A bounceback in attendance – and a clear mission goal - with Pete Stedman, Jon Kwan, and Jo Gibbs
Twelve months ago we heard the sobering news of a significant attendance drop in Sydney Anglican Churches. Over the decade from 2013 to 2023, weekly attendance fell by 7% – and when you factor in population growth, attendance was 14% behind.
At last year’s Sydney Anglican Synod, the mood was serious. A resolution was passed calling for confession and humble repentance – acknowledging that their hadn’t been sufficient priority, attention, reflection, or resources to seeing the lost saved by Jesus. Synod called for a five-year focus to reverse the decline – putting prayer, evangelism, church health, and leadership development at the very centre of priorities.
Ahead of this year’s Synod, there is a response. The Standing Committee appointed a subcommittee, led by the Archbishop, to bring forward concrete proposals. And what they have come back with is significant:
- A galvanising target – to pursue 5% annual growth through conversion for the next five years.
- A range of initiatives and actions designed to support churches, leaders, and congregations in this mission.
Our guests are Pete Stedman, senior minister at Norwest Anglican Church, and a member of the Archbishop’s subcommittee that has proposed the new goal, Jon Kwan, lead pastor at St. David's Forestville and Jo Gibbs, senior consultant with Reach Australia.
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a bounce back in attendance and an initiative to significantly increase the number of people saved. Pete stedman, john kwan and joe gibbs are my guests. It is the pastor's heart. It's dominic steel. It was 12 months ago that the news came out hard, hard news to hear about a big attendance drop in Sydney Anglican churches Over the decade 2013 to 2023, attendance was down 7%, or 14%, against population growth. Last year, at the Sydney Anglican Synod, there was a resolution calling for confession and humble repentance where we've fallen short in not giving sufficient priority, attention, reflection and resources to seeing the lost throughout the diocese saved by Jesus, and there was a call for a special five-year focus to respond to our attendance decline making prayer, evangelism, church' time. There's a response. The Standing Committee of the Sydney Church appointed a subcommittee led by the Archbishop and they have come up with a range of actions to be implemented. And they have come up with a range of actions to be implemented and a proposal of a galvanising target pursuing a 5% growth goal through conversion growth each year for the next five years.
Speaker 1:Our guest today on the Pastor's Heart Pete Stedman. He was on the subcommittee that has proposed this goal. He's Senior Minister of Norwest Anglican Church. John Kwan, lead Pastor of Forestville on the northern beaches of Sydney, and Joe Gibbs, senior Consultant from the Reach Australia Network and disclosure. I also served with Peter on that subcommittee. Pete Stedman, let's start with you and your pastor's heart and look after a super confronting report last year. Great news to see evangelical church attendance in Sydney bouncing back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fabulous, isn't it? And I loved that the Synod repented, reflected and prayed. I mean, what a lovely posture, the right posture, the only posture to take before our God and to do the hard work of asking questions about what we're doing, how we're going, and we'll get to this. But that's what we want to keep doing as a diocese, certainly what I want to keep doing as a pastor. Yeah, really encouraging the people coming back.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if the COVID bounce back has just taken a bit longer. I'm not sure if the you know, the sniffle effect is sort of losing its sting. You know people got a sniffle and then wouldn't come to church for a month because they were terrified of getting people infected. But maybe people are more happy to go out now. But we're seeing new families and even on the weekend I spoke to a new family. They've been back six weeks but they were at Norwest four years ago and they're saying it's just taken us out of the rhythm through COVID and are saying we now want to get back into it. So it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:We'll put the graph up on the screen and you can see here that 4.3% whatever it is bounced back in the last 12 months and it does mean that whereas last year we were talking about a 7% drop over 10 years, we're now talking about a 3% drop. Now, john Kwan, regional breakdown You're on the North Shore. Northern beaches Northern beaches, yeah, of Sydney, but we were looking at statistics and we can put them up here. Where the North was really struggling, you know, down 14%, but actually in your area there's been a rise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really encouraging. It's actually a wonderful joy. One of the things that I've really enjoyed over the last couple of years in particular is us, as the Northern Beaches region of the Anglican churches, working together, and so we had a prayer and praise night together as all our churches, and then we did a Hope for the Beaches youth event, and at that youth event we had I think it was over 500 youth and over a hundred of them put their trust in the Lord Jesus and that was just an awesome moment. And so there is something happening that we're starting to see in our part of Sydney, which is really encouraging.
Speaker 1:I mean just still looking on that graph. There's some super encouraging news about South Sydney, with an 11% growth and a bit of a bounce back as well in Wollongong. But, Jo Gibbs, I feel worried about that drop in Western Sydney, particularly when you take into account the crazy population explosion in that Greenfields area.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and as you pointed out before, this is still a decline of 3%, but against population growth.
Speaker 1:You think what's going on there?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so areas that are seeing large population growth, we should be seeing bigger growth numbers, just to be tracking with population growth but we're not seeing those yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so there's clearly some scratching of heads that needs to happen amongst the Western Sydney leadership. There there's also been going on. We're talking in the UK about a quiet revival, and I was discussing this on the phone with you, john, and you're seeing some evidence of well teenagers and young adults, where something different seems to be going on in the soil.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've had the wonderful privilege and history of having quite a healthy evangelistic youth group for many, many years before I even got to St David's in Forestville. But over the last couple of years we've seen something different happen, where they're going to youth and going I want to know more about Jesus. And then they're coming to church without their parents. You're seven, you're eight, you're nine kids coming to church and then they're coming to Christ. We have this beautiful story of one young teenager. She came to our camp in the middle at the beginning of the year still trying to work out Jesus been coming to youth and then comes to church and then tells her growth group leader halfway through this year I think it was just because I was just keep coming to all these things that I want to trust Jesus now, and isn't that awesome. So there's that.
Speaker 3:But then also we're seeing a lot of young men who have no kind of church background at all, just finding friends who are Christian in our church, going hey, can I come to church with you? I want to know what's going on. And they're seeing things on Reels or TikTok or Instagram or something that's getting them to think and I've been reflecting, just wondering what is something in our culture is getting particularly young adult men going. There's something about Jesus that I've got to work out, and so that's really exciting for me. It's my heart. I love sharing the good news of Jesus with people and seeing them turn to Christ. The evangelist in me loves that, and so I love that they've got all these people who don't yet know Jesus coming to church going. I'm going to keep coming back. I want to hear more. I want to know why these people love this person, jesus. What is it about him?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's really exciting and my sense is. I mean I think it was perhaps late last year that I first started to think young men and something special about young men, but the number of people who've told me that story since then and actually what we've seen in our context, I mean you said it's not quite as pronounced where you are, pete.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think it is. I was just sitting here thinking, oh, I don't want to ruin the episode, but I just wonder if there's regional differences or things like that. But in the hills we're not quite seeing that and, as I've spoken to my mission pastor, we're still seeing a number of women coming through and plenty of guys as well.
Speaker 1:We're still seeing a number of women coming through and plenty of guys as well, but not that elevated piece that John's speaking to, whereas I think every course we've run this year there have been more men than women, and that's not been our experience for 20 years.
Speaker 4:Do you know, jo, I was going to say Life Anglican at Quakers Hill are seeing something very similar as well. So, yeah, seeing young men come and just kind of out of the blue and a little bit sceptical. So I was talking to James Barnett at Life Anglican and he said I was thinking this guy's having me on. You know he's not really serious. And no, no, really serious about wanting to know about Jesus and making decisions, so really exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I interviewed a guy on Sunday night after church. We're just recording a little bit for our Term 4 vision season and as he was telling me his story of coming to Christ, you know he's exactly the person that you're describing there, John.
Speaker 3:But praise God, whether it's men, women, young, old. It's awesome, like I think we're seeing it as well. We're seeing people from all ages wanting to investigate Jesus, so from the young adults all the way up to seniors, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1:But bottom line there feels like there's something going on in the soil that has changed. And now talk to us about this galvanising 5% target that you and the committee and led by the Archbishop. What are you saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny, we have different relationships with numbers. Some of us quite like them, some of us don't like them.
Speaker 1:As it's gone out. There's definitely some people who don't like numbers.
Speaker 2:Well, numbers are very concrete and they're clarifying, and they don't always tell us the right things, but sometimes they don't tell us the things we want to hear either, and so I think one of the things that we felt as a committee was that it'd be enormously helpful for us to actually have a goal to which we could work towards, pray about and measure ourselves against.
Speaker 2:Now you need to be careful with goals, because goals can become tools that you can hit people over the head with, or they can be a scaffold or a framework within which you play and pray and plan and be strategic, and they're more that for us at Norwest. So we don't really we have a 5% goal. We don't really talk about the number much. We all know what it is you, the staff, yeah, the ministry team. We talk about people a lot. We talk about stories a lot, because every number is a person, and I remember once speaking to a pastor who said numbers are for staff but stories are for people. So we just talk about people, but we know what a church of our size could do, should do, might do under God, and we wrestle with that.
Speaker 1:Now I'm just going to get that synod resolution of repentance back up on the screen. We call for confession, humble repentance, where we've fallen short in not giving sufficient priority, attention, reflection and resources to seeing the lost saved. Now, pete, you were telling me about a moment of repentance for you as a pastor at Norwest and I just wonder if you could take us into your pastor's heart and that journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've been at Norwest 15 years. In God's remarkable kindness. We've only ever seen growth. Look, there's a few things to say about that. We're in the Hills District. We've now got a metro. There's a lot of infrastructure going in. The pastor before me laid a beautiful foundation. People in the Hills get up and think about going to church even if they're not converted.
Speaker 1:You're the buckle in the Bible belt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in some ways we are. A number of churches around us closed. I think we picked up 150 people over the years from other churches who were wonderfully pastored by other godly men. But we grew and grew and I was of the conviction that we were doing really well at evangelism because every week there was new people around. I then did a consult with Reach Australia, who Joe serves with, and I was really looking forward to them coming. And telling you, you were brilliant.
Speaker 1:Well, pretty much. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that actually I couldn't wait for Scott Sanders to turn up and review us. You guys are awesome.
Speaker 2:We've got nothing to teach you, I just couldn't wait to read the report, which would just affirm all the things we're doing. Well, which was everything we were doing you know of course.
Speaker 3:Well, which was everything we were doing. You know, of course.
Speaker 2:And that wasn't quite the report that came back.
Speaker 2:Actually what came back was that it was pretty hard hitting. It was it was 2021, end of 2021. It came back that in 2021, we saw four people converted in a church of about 800. What's that percentage was? Oh, less than half, less than half. But if you were to ask me before that how many people did I think were converted, to ask me before that how many people did I think were converted, I would have said oh, 20. So actually, my perception was so out of step with reality.
Speaker 1:And then that really was a moment of repentance. You told us about standing up and making an apology to your church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did. I told the church, I said to the church that I was sorry for leading them to believe that we were better at sharing Christ than we were and that as a staff, we were reflecting on that and we're going to make some changes. And we did. We made lots of changes that started a four-year 2025, now 2021 then started a four-year process. Essentially, there's nothing we haven't changed and it's been wonderful, stretching, painful at times and remarkably fruitful under God and remarkably fruitful under God.
Speaker 1:So if it was half a percent conversion growth in 2021,. What was it in 2024?
Speaker 2:It was around 4.3% conversion growth. Yeah, so we had in 2024, we had around 56 confessions of faith and around 30 first-time commitments.
Speaker 1:So we break that down. The first-time commitments are the really one we're really interested in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we had 30 people who, for the first time, said we have moved from darkness to light. We've never known Jesus before and now we can't but give our lives to him. Incredible, incredible.
Speaker 1:And you'd say that's actually fruit of that decision of repentance.
Speaker 2:Oh there's no doubt yes, there's no doubt that actually that was a result of us taking stock, looking at what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it not just thinking about the courses we're running, but actually why we're running events and courses and thinking about what's the point of this and how would we know if we were doing well anyway, I ran Norwest for about 10 years. On anecdote and humour, can I say it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:You are a funny guy and it's highly inaccurate.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of fun and it's highly inaccurate. In my 11th year I realised I probably need to do a bit better. There's a little bit of humour and there's lots of stories, but there's a little more intentional, deliberate reflection, counting, planning and praying Right.
Speaker 1:And actually I'm just reflective listening here what you're suggesting is that we as a diocese have that kind of moment of what's our conversion rate and what might our target be.
Speaker 2:I think the thing that shocked me was how the discrepancy between what I thought and reality and I couldn't have got there myself without I mean, others might, but I needed someone external, someone expert, to show me things that I thought I could see but couldn't. And so I think, yeah, I think it's worthwhile for every senior pastor, every pastor, to slow down and to think to themselves is what I'm thinking accurate? Do I need help, and what might that look like?
Speaker 1:Now, when I put out on Facebook that we were going to talk to you about this, I got a message from one senior leader and say, well, that's great, you've got Pete coming in and he's amazing and all that kind of thing. But buckle of the Bible belt and all that kind of thing, it's tougher where we are. And he was a northern Sydney person who messaged me and I messaged him back saying I've got John Kwan, who's more normal coming in.
Speaker 3:That's my label Awesome Thanks, dominic. Yeah, I think praise God for what's happening at Norwest. That's awesome, and I used to live in that area, so I love that that is happening. So I'm very excited for what God is doing there, I think for us. I've been at St David's now for three years just over three years and we'd had a wonderful, beautiful history, as I said earlier, of seeing youth come to trust in Jesus, and not just the youth of church families, but youth of our community. So our camp about 40% of the youth that are coming to the camp every year were community kids, which was awesome, and I think that was a wonderful blessing of what was happening at our church.
Speaker 3:But I think part of that was then we said we're doing so well at youth and kids ministry, we forget to go. What about adults? And so I think part of one of the things that just drives me is I want to see everyone come to know Jesus, not just kids and youth. And how do we help that? And I think that's been a slow process over changing me and my heart and being patient. I'm sometimes impatient and so God has taught me to be patient. But also, how do you help a whole church go? We want to be on about seeing the lost saved, not just about us and our kids growing in Jesus, which is awesome. And we live in a part of the area where we do have people just come at Christmas and Easter and that's it. But actually we want them to be in the kingdom, we want them to go from darkness to light, and so I think it's been slower for us. We haven't had 45 people in one year. It's been slower.
Speaker 3:So over the last three years we've seen 12 people come to Christ, which is awesome and I love that, but at the same time my heart breaks because I know of those 12, we've had about 50 people or more hear the gospel for a long period of time. They've done a course, they've done a course and they've said no to the love of Jesus, and that breaks my heart because I'm like, oh, you can't see the beauty of Jesus. That's what I think. While I get so excited and we see people growing in Jesus, what breaks my heart is when you see people come hear the gospel and then choose to go.
Speaker 3:That smells like death, like I've got a friend at the moment who we've been praying for and she's come along bit by bit. And then she finally said at Christmas I'm going to come to Christianity Explored, which is awesome. It's taken her nine months to finally get there, but she's in the course at the moment. But now she's really wrestling. Do I really want to trust that Jesus rose from the dead? I'm praying hard but at the same time there's that tension. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And one of the things you guys say, and I think, is that really to see something like 10 people say we're going to need to see 40 people start the course.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so tracking across churches. Usually you run an evangelistic course and about 25% of people make first-time commitments.
Speaker 1:Also helpful to put into it, although maybe not right, at the end of the course over the next six months.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it was interesting hearing Matt Varko from Grace City Church the Christian pastor speak the other day and he was saying actually the runway now is so much longer. So on average it takes about one to two years for someone to become a Christian, about 50 gospel conversations, and so he actually runs a course that runs for 22 weeks and he runs it twice a year because he's just seeing how long and how much it takes.
Speaker 1:I find it so frustrating when people say I need a three-week course. It's just so totally unrealistic. Yeah, I mean, we know we're not selling them on three weeks, but I don't say come for my 22-week course, I say come along to our course and check it out.
Speaker 4:And also just making a commitment that the people that we're regularly praying for, we're committing to pray for them and love them over a period of years.
Speaker 1:It's not just during a short period. Yeah, so we've got two clear anecdotes of people in U2 who have we weren't tracking high on adult conversion rate. Now we've made some changes and now we've got some significant change in the number of people who are becoming Christian. Now we've got the significant change in the number of people who are becoming Christian. Now we've got the data in from both. We'll do the Partners in Ministry report first and if you look on the bottom right of this thing, there they're saying of the people that they're doing the consultancy program with, they're getting 6.7, or they've rounded it up to 7% of adult attendees become Christian. Now when I was talking to you and Scott Sanders from Reach Australia, you were saying, oh, 7% sounds a bit ambitious. But now I think you're saying that number is the same number that you're getting.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so very close. So Partners in Ministry work across a wider range of denominations than we do. It includes Pentecostal data which can push a little bit higher, but before this year's National Conference Reach Australia National Conference we did a survey of 74 churches opted in to do the survey and we asked about their conversion growth.
Speaker 1:Let's put that up.
Speaker 4:So this is that survey of 74 churches here 74 churches, 65 established churches, 9 church plants across about 11 denominations, most states and territories. Established churches are seeing 6% conversion growth. Church plants are seeing, on average, 9% conversion growth.
Speaker 1:Isn't that interesting. I mean, both of those numbers are exciting. Yeah, really exciting, amazing yeah.
Speaker 4:Really exciting and the lovely thing. Of those conversions for the established churches, only 25% are returnees. Three quarters are first-time confessions of faith.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:So, which is really really exciting.
Speaker 1:Now people are going to say, all right, what about in the Sydney Anglican Network? And we've got a graph here from when you first started to talk to Anglican churches in Sydney and there's, it looks like 13 or so churches there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so these are only Sydney Anglican churches and when they start our leadership development program we take baseline data to work out where they're tracking on a number of different areas and one of them is conversion growth. So at the start of the leadership development program they're seeing an average conversion growth of 1.7% and you can see that varies across different churches and then we take that data regularly. So we've now got from June 2024 last year, same churches. If you want to go to the next slide, I mean that's a big jump.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just visually you can see it.
Speaker 4:And you can see variety. So for some churches it's very high, for some churches they're not so much.
Speaker 1:Let's put the graphs side by side. Yeah, what do you make of that, Pete Steadman?
Speaker 2:That's our story. We're not up at 10%. We've gone from half a percent to 4%, which is incredible. I mean we're still below where I'd love to be, but we've seen 100 people converted first-time commitments in the last few years. That's a hundred people whose names written in the book of life it's amazing, you know but I just love that.
Speaker 2:shows what intentionality does Prayerful, thoughtful intentionality, senior leaders working with the team saying how are we going to do this better, what can we do, what changes do we need to make? And the data's compelling. It's compelling to me and my experience John's experience backs that up.
Speaker 3:But it's hard, isn't it, pete? I feel like it's hard because you have to change what's happening in your heart first. Then you've got to work out how do you lead your team, and then you've got to work out how do you lead the church so that they might have a heart for the lost and some of them do, but some of them are comfortable.
Speaker 2:And it might mean that leaders like you and me, john, actually have to step away from things we love for the church, for the ministry to function better, for the team to function better, to actually do some of these things, because some of the things that I was doing was getting in the way of this and I needed to actually move back to enable it to grow.
Speaker 1:I want to put to you a pushback that when I put it out on Facebook that we were going to have this conversation, somebody has written Church growth theology is missing the point. You can't force the Holy Spirit to do anything Better. To just be a consistent, faithful witness, if necessary using words. Discuss.
Speaker 2:Discuss. Amen. You can't force the Holy Spirit to do anything. Thank goodness that we have a sovereign God who is on the throne, who is Lord of all, and yet I think that question pushes into the area of compatibilism and the idea that we see in the Scriptures two equally true things put before us that God is entirely sovereign over all things and yet people make real decisions in time and space that impact and influence. We're working through Genesis at the moment, the story of Joseph. You absolutely see that with God meant you meant this to harm me, but God meant this for good with the brothers at the end. But we see it in Acts 14, in Iconium, where Paul and Barnabas preach so effectively that a great number believe.
Speaker 2:Now, what's going on there? Well, there is a preaching that is effective, which means there's preaching that's less effective, and so I want to say that God holds all things and all ways, and yet my efforts I say this humbly do matter. And perhaps it's a ridiculous example, but maybe it makes the point. At Norwest, we've found that the best language to preach in our services is English, not French. That's because no one speaks French, so people actually understand my sermons when I speak in their language. That's a decision I've made in time and space and it has a demonstrable outcome on how people react with God's word. But there's other decisions we make. Our services don't go for four hours, we don't do it in the, and it just goes to make the point that actually there are decisions we make that help people engage more, that we can influence how God works through the preaching of his word with people, whilst not touching on his sovereignty in any way.
Speaker 1:Okay, Some of the other pushback or discussion we've had is just in terms of measuring this 5%. What are we exactly talking about? And I guess you were on the committee, pete, so I'll put it to you Are we thinking adults? Are we thinking youth? Are we thinking high school? What are you thinking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's important to be clear on this and it's important to be consistent internally. So whatever you're going to count, count the same thing within your church, and it's not always helpful to talk to other churches about what they're doing, because people count different things. We start with our average Sunday attendance, which is the total number of adults, youth and kids who come on a Sunday to Norwest, and then the 5% is. We take that raw number of however many people come let's say it's 100 in the average every year adults, youth and kids on a Sunday, and the 5% is that we want to see five people come to know Christ for the first time. Now, that's adults, youth and kids. So in a church it might be 70 adults with 20 kids and 10 youth. It would be great to see three adults find Christ and say yes to him, two kids and one youth or something like that. Yeah, and then it just scales from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was thinking about that. In our church, we've been running at roughly 10 adults coming to Christ each year for the last five years and yet, as I was thinking about it in the lead-up to this conversation, more of them have been from our evening church than from our morning church. And so, as I've thought about goals for us next year, I've thought, ah, we need to have a goal of five adults from the evening and five from the morning saved.
Speaker 3:And the reason why you're doing that, dominic, is not like partly for the sake of seeing the loss saved, but also it's trying to drive you to go. Well, what strategically do we need to do differently?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because we're being ineffective in some sense. Now again, like people saying God is sovereign, but there is an aspect of what we do makes an impact, and so the reason why you're thinking that goal is so that you go. Well, what should we do differently? Yeah, and I think that's tiring.
Speaker 1:And depending on where you are, I could have actually been complacent in the morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's. I reckon that's one of the hardest things about having a goal is that you have to then be willing to make changes.
Speaker 4:Make changes, yeah.
Speaker 3:And when you're tired, that's hard. And so I, like I'm looking at those comments on Facebook, I'm going yeah, if you're tired and you've been trying and trying or doing the same thing over and over again and not seeing any fruit, it's hard to go. Can I have the energy to do something else? And that's why something like Reach or anyone that's going to give you some external inputs, just challenge you on what you're currently doing I think is really helpful, but it's humbling and it has to take out all our pride to go. Okay, god, strip me bare and help me go. What am I willing to do for the sake of the gospel? And that's hard, I found.
Speaker 3:Trying to help our church have a bigger heart for the lost in one sense is a joy and we're seeing that happen. But at other times people are feeling the grief because if you're growing, whatever growth that happens, it's not the same as what it was before. And yet there's like we've got 113,000 people that are 10 minute drive away from our church. That's a lot of people who don't know Jesus. A lot of them don't. Thousand people that are 10 minute drive away from our church that's a lot of people who don't know jesus. A lot of them don't, uh, and so whatever we're seeing happen, it's great, but I'm still going, but there's still so many more people who need to know jesus, but that's a harder thing to, I think. Keep pursuing when I I think some people just go, but I've tried and it hasn't worked. And and and joe, yeah, what do you do you have you have any tips of what you guys have shared with people who might be more in that kind of situation where they're trying and they're just like, oh, I'm just exhausted.
Speaker 4:And ministry is really tiring. There's a lot in a minister's diary and if church is declining then you've got less volunteers, you've got less resources. It's a bigger workload on the senior minister. I think it's not only helpful to have outside eyes to see what's happening and to confront the brutal facts, but it also can be quite galvanising for the church community to actually bring key leaders in, for them to hear from someone outside, to cast their vision a bit bigger than the church.
Speaker 4:And I think it's helpful, as you said, whichever organisation it is, to actually have a coach to walk alongside the senior pastor, to have a cohort of senior ministers that you're in, where you're sharing what it's like in the trenches, where it's got a church health consult, whatever it is, but multiple components input, because it's not like a two-month thing. It's not a silver bullet. It takes time and energy and perseverance to keep seeing that culture change happen prayerfully under God over a number of years. So yeah, I think I would say it's unfair to expect that a senior minister can come up with all of that and see that change and do it all themselves. We're in the body of Christ. It's really helpful to have other people walk with you.
Speaker 1:Facebook question. At what point do you call it conversion, public profession, baptism, the captain's call of? Yeah, they probably weren't saved before, but I think they are now. Where do recommitments sit? I know people always say pick what you think and then stick, but what do you use? We're going to ask Joe this question because you're the one who advises us on what to do. Also, let's chat long-term how do you check if they're still maturing in church? I've talked to Phil Colgan about this and he said there's a joke about it that they won't count somebody as saved until they're at theological college. That's pretty strict, he's hardcore.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he is Within our network. We've got a range of denominations so you would have different views denominational polity on infant adult baptism. So partly it depends on where you land in those areas. But you will always have a mixture of first-time confessions, also some de-church returnee. So you want to be clear on what time period you're looking at for that. I think it's important to include kids and youth in that. So the NCLS newcomer information I think only counts adults, but I think it's really key to break down that age. But yeah, it depends on your church. But you'd want to be seeing a clear commitment with clear understanding. So it's not a one-off. They've been part of an evangelistic course or reading the Bible with someone one-to-one. They clearly understand the gospel and they have made that decision to turn to Christ.
Speaker 1:But yeah, pete and I were just having lunch together before coming in here and I was showing him my Google Doc of the names of people who've been saved over the last five or six years here, and we've gone back and colour-coded them red, green and orange about whether or not, as we know now whether or not they're still walking with.
Speaker 1:Christ, and some of them we've lost contact with. We don't know, but some of them we definitely know are still Christian and it's been really helpful for us to do that. Yeah, pete, what's your strategy on that?
Speaker 2:So we do different things Because we count adults, youth and kids. It's different at each level. We just finished a Discover course 12 people started, 16 started, 12 finished, four made commitments. They wrote on a form that they didn't believe in Jesus before the course, didn't trust in Jesus do at the end. And then there was a diagnostic question if you stood before Jesus tonight, what would you say? And so, out of all those answers, my mission pastor and I thought there was four Of the 12 who finished. They're all going to do our next course, firm Foundations, which is to your point.
Speaker 2:It's not just six weeks, there's 12 months of walking with someone at least, as they keep understanding more and more. And to build assurance as well. Assurance is hard for all of us, even if we've been a Christian a long time, let alone a six-week course. In youth. It needs to be a verbal declaration backed up with a lived experience and a lived commitment, and that could be to a youth group, to a Bible study, to church attendance, to things like that.
Speaker 2:Youth often conversions happen on youth camp and our youth team are across that. And then in kids ministry. Our kids pastor is the expert there, so we take the lead from him. But the comment there about tracking over time is interesting. I spoke to my mission pastor today about that, where we've just started to do that. It's also worth saying that when people are converted to the West, they actually join a pathway that all people are on. So even if we haven't been tracking them specifically for new converts, where are they in three years? We do know where they are in the life cycle of the church as they move along a broader pathway, and so we are able to actually check in. Because, again, they're not stats, they're people. We know them, we know their stories, we know their families. It's Val who's just become a Christian here, and then it's Mary who heard that sermon, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 4:And you're wanting to see that growth in maturity, that discipleship pathway, and so this isn't the only information you're collecting.
Speaker 2:That's right, it's actually about?
Speaker 4:are they integrated into church life, are they joining a growth group and then, as they're maturing, you know, are they serving at church? There's a whole bunch of things you'd want to be looking at as well. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:We could talk much more, but we're out of time. Thank you so much for coming in. Pete Stedman and he is the Senior Minister at Norwest Anglican Church, john Kwan, lead Pastor at Forestville and Jo Gibbs, senior consultant with the Reach Australia Network. My name is Dominic Steele. This has been the Pastor's Heart and we will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.
