‘Stand for Christ. Stand for the truth. And let the chips fall where they may.’

Senior Pastor of Atlanta’s Church of the Apostles Dr Michael Youssef has a prophetic call to evangelical pastors today to not give up a trust in the scriptures, in the face of contemporary challenges on sexuality.

Dr Youssef tells the story of leading his church to depart the US Episcopal Church when the denomination moved against biblical teaching on sexuality, and the way God has blessed them since.

For 15 years Hugh Isaacs has been at the center of messy pastoral transitions, as an ‘emergency responder’ to churches going through a transition crisis.

After the initial work of helping members deal with their grief, there are five key steps that need to be worked through. Hugh says there are land mines everywhere and lots that can go wrong.

Senior leaders long to be effective leaders, but we may not be as good as we hope to be.

Leadership in a church context has become much much more complex, with increasing demands on the senior pastor to be excellent in leadership, managerial, and administrative on top of preaching, teaching and pastoral care..

Valerie Ling and Sarah Hindle, from Sydney’s Center for Effective Serving, say among leaders self awareness an emotional awareness is critical

Australian Anglican Evangelicals are praying that the Australian national Bishops meeting (in March) and the General Synod in May will affirm the Bible’s teaching on marriage, sexuality and chastity.

David Bennett is a former Sydney gay activist, now a Christian, and a member of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s College of Evangelists.

Increasingly we are seeing people self identity as being part of the loose group or social movement - of mostly Millennials or Gen Z’s - who call themselves ‘Exvangelicals.’

They were once members of evangelical churches. But have now been through a process, which they would call ‘deconstruction’ and are now generally critical of evangelical churches.

Jeri Jones Sparks is outreach pastor at St James Croydon and has a number of friends who describe themselves as ‘Exvangelicals’.

Nearly one in four people are profoundly lonely. 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.

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.

Religious Freedom will be debated in the Australian Parliament this week.

Two parliamentary reports were released late on Friday afternoon. MP’s and Senators have spent the weekend reading them.

The reports show the Coalition and Labor broadly in support of introducing improved protections for people of Faith.

The reports recommendations are set to go to the party rooms on Tuesday morning, and the House of Representatives as early as Tuesday afternoon.

How to have the hard conversation with someone who is enthusiastic about why they shouldn’t go into professional Christian ministry?

How do you make the decision to raise a ‘Red light’ or an ‘Orange light’?

Discerning between issues of character, convictions, competency and capacity. We talk frankly about a range of issues including lack of humility, mental health and pornography.

Who should have the conversation? Is anyone having these conversations? What if you are wrong?

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?

Australian Evangelist Sam Chan joins us to talk about connecting with our complex world through topical preaching.

How an awareness of high cultural intelligence, high emotional intelligence and high informational intelligence will impact our preaching?

Plus how do different cultural groups think on an axis of hierarchy-equality and freedom-control?

Sam responds to Phillip Jensen’s response to his critique of the gospel outline Two Ways to Live.

Plus what are the differences between topical preaching in the evangelistic context and systematic teaching in the context of educating our church family?

As the new year starts many ministry trainees are start new positions.

We talk ‘on boarding new ministry trainees, as well as what our overall goals are for our trainees.

How we can best develop Christlikeness of character, deep convictions about God and his word, an ability to teach the word of God, and the abilities needed to lead and grow a ministry.

What should a Christian leader do when their role is to care for people, and they don’t want to interact with people? What impact does depression have on preaching? What kind of friendships should ministry leaders have? What about suffering in the leaders life? What would you say to a leader who is walking through the tough of depression for the first time?

We ask Peter Adam the hard questions about friendship, mental health, avoiding burn-out and investing in senior ministers. Peter will speak openly about his own experience - one which is mirrored by a surprisingly large number of others.

Peter Adam is vicar emeritus at St. Jude’s Carlton, formerly principal of Ridley College Melbourne, and vicar of St. Jude’s.

He mentors 28 young pastors, has written extensively on how God speaks into our lives and is a founding member of the Council of The Gospel Coalition Australia.

The Australian Parliament is debating religious freedom. There are two parallel parliamentary inquiries taking submissions at the moment. Michael Stead is ‘taking point’ for the Sydney Anglican Church on this issue.

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?

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.

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

There’s a new move to multi-campus churches within the traditional denomination, with a growing argument that this is a potentially better way to mission effectiveness.

There’s a shift in thinking going on to encourage a different approach to doing church… shifting from solo campus to multi campus.

Antony Barraclough is the senior minister of the newly merged North Light Anglican Church on the North Shore of Sydney.

We explore how to reach the subcultures of the coast.

We talk liturgy of the surf, liturgy of community, the impact of a missional faithful presence, and more intentional discipleship.

Senior Pastor of Seaforth Anglican Rich Wenden has just completed a Doctor Ministry project researching missional strategies of churches attempting to reach coastal areas.

How might 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.