29-year-old David Bennett, who describes himself as a former anti-Christian gay activist now Christian, says Jesus is good news for same sex attracted Christians.

David joins us on The Pastor’s Heart to talk through his story and his two ‘coming outs,’ one as a 14 year old, and then later a second as a Christian believer. 

We launch The Pastor's Heart for 2019 with an 'on the road' edition from the CMS Summer School in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. 

Dr Gary Millar answers questions on how to preach better so that your sermon lands with real application.

Gary is the principal of the Queensland Theological College and is the chair of the Gospel Coalition Australia.

He was the main speaker at the 2019 Church Missionary Society Summer School in NSW. During the conference he took time out with Dominic Steele to share the story of when he was put on trial in Ireland to face 27 charges of heresy. 

Raising up and training ministry trainees as harvest workers!

Why those of us in local churches should? And how we should?

Our guest is Carl Matthei, who leads the ministry team in the Campus Bible Study and Unichurch UNSW at the University of New South Wales.

Carl has more ministry trainees than anyone else in evangelical ministry in Australia.

How Christians can and should wisely engage with our increasingly hostile secular culture. How can we have a posture of grace in a time of outrage?

CEO of the Gospel Coalition Australia, Akos Balogh, has a background in Campus Ministry, and is a influential christian writer and blogger.

We feature an interview conducted in church with a domestic violence survivor.  It’s a confronting and personal interview and does deserve a ‘trigger warning.’ Jenni Woodhouse and Dominic watch as the abuse survivor tells her story, then Jenni critiques Dominic’s pastoral handling of the situation.

There’s been lots of talk recently about ‘The Leadership Pipeline’ but what exactly is it and how can the senior church leader make the most of this new pastoral practice.

The leadership pipeline is a super helpful tool to think about leadership development, for yourself as a senior church leader, but also for others.

Senior MInister of Toongabbie Anglican Church Raj Guptahas been developing a training program for senior ministers of churches built around the leadership pipeline.

How do you care for people where a spouse has just left? Or committed adultery?

There's pain and hurt. How do we care best for divorcees in the wider non Christian community?

And if they are Christian often one at least of the partners ends up leaving the church.

Michael Sheedy and Melinda Hunt have been leading Village Church Annandale's divorce care program for the last eight years.

They've seen more than 100 divorcees helped and heal through this program.

They join Dominic Steele to talk about the things they've learned along the way. Every divorce is different. But there are some common threads.

There are four sorts of churches, working along two difference axis.  On the horizontal axis put relationship, on the vertical, put mission.

The best kind of a church is a visionary/going somewhere church with good relationships (top right).  The great strength of this kind of church is that it has a clear mission and really good pastoral care, with lots of people caring well for each other.

‘How to manage and lead the staff team?’ with Peter Mayrick.

How we go about employing people? What are the issues we face with with structure, culture, job descriptions? 

How do you best 'onboard people' onto your team? 

How you function in the first 90 days? How do you introduce behaviours that you plan to repeat such as, discipleship, positive feedback and trusted corrective feedback?

What about ongoing management, six monthly reviews, delegation and coaching?

It’s less than two months to Christmas and we are sharpening ourselves on the practice of proclaiming Christ at Christmas.

Whether you are speaking at a carols service, a gingerbread and wreath making event, a Kids service, Scripture Christmas Service or Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, this discussion will be helpful for you.

We’re joined by Luke Tattersall from The Campbell Street Presbyterian Church and Kanishka Raffel, the dean of St Andrew's Cathedral Sydney.

Some of my questions are:

• In your preparation how do you think about a Christmas talk differently to a regular in series talk?

• What else are you aiming to achieve in your Christmas meetings?

• How do you choose your Christmas passages?

• What does preparation look like for these occasions?

• What's the goal of a Christmas talk?

• What makes a boring / interesting Christmas address?

• How much are you looking for guests and how much for regular members?

Today we are talking, ‘the profession and professionalisation of Christian ministry,’ with Archie Poulos.

Archie lectures in ministry at Moore Theological College, and is completing a PhD on building the competency of ministers. 

In what sense are ministry leaders ‘professionals’?

What separates ordinary Christian ministry/ministry leaders from amazing ones? 

Why is a theological eduction no longer adequate for Christian ministry?

How can we do the task of ministry better?

This is the heart of Archie’s PhD studies and we are looking forward to hearing from him. 

In a special extra edition of the Pastor's Heart, Freedom for Faith director Michael Kellahan joins Dominic Steele to discuss how Christians can best respond to Australia's religious freedom review.

Recommendations are here http://bit.ly/religiousfreedomreview

How can your church be more loving to newcomers? 

How do you do welcoming well? What are the strategies for best connection?

Not so much the arrival on the first visit, but what is best practice to see people journey from that first visit to becoming a fully integrated member of your church - so that they are still with you 12 months later?

How do you triage people? Then what resources/energy do you spend ministering to different people?

How do you work out how not to put too much energy into people who will never come back? 

Andy Hobbs from Salt Church Wollongong and David Allen from Hunter Bible Church and Unichurch, Newcastle in Newcastle have both thought lots about these questions. 

In this revealing and frank discussion with former Archbishop Peter Jensen discusses the particular responsibilities of senior leaders and the pressures that senior leaders are under.

Plus an extended review of the state of the Anglican Communion and the response around the world to #Gafcon2018.

‘It’s not that we don’t care on purpose … it’s just that we don’t care’ – Generation Z.

Jesus has given us a job to do, make disciples of all nations. We want to better engage in our changing community.

But it’s going to be an easier task if we understand the people we are reaching out to. 

Mark McCrindle of McCrindle Research has been looking at this topic for years, and has just presented at the ‘Australian Community and Church Summit 2018’.

Mark will be our guest on www.thepastorsheart.net this Tuesday afternoon at 2pm to discuss the Australian Community and how we can best minister to our changing neighbourhoods

There are issues of demographics, technology, debt, life expectancy, cultural diversity.

Fresh from the Singleminded Conference, we speak to Conference Chair Dani Treweek about how we can better love and pastor the single members of our church family?

What are the particular pastoral issues that singles face? 

How can we encourage single Christians in their gospel maturity, contentment and service.

Craig Hamilton, author of Wisdom in Leadership, says getting one’s heart right is the most important think in leadership.

So we are speaking today specifically about the heart of the Pastor.

Craig says when it comes to leading yourself, the hardest person to lead, there are key issues of pride and fear that need to be addressed.

On www.thepastorsheart.net we aim to help Christian leaders better fulfil the mission that Christ has given us. 

Today we are thinking about how to best love and care for the same sex attracted Christians in our churches.

We are talking about theology, maturity, history, emphasis, holiness, sin, language and culture. 

Our guests are Rev Dr Wesley Hill, from Trinity School for Ministry in Pittsburg and Jackson Stace from Liberty Christian Ministries Inc. Sydney (www.liberty.sydney). 

Wesley is best known for his book Washed and Waiting. His most recent work is Spiritual Friendship.

Mitch joins Dominic Steele to tell his story of living a ‘double life’ in his early twenties, before things came to a head in Dubbo in country New South Wales. And then his journey working things out with God, and into Evangelical Presbyterian ministry and heterosexual marriage.