From 5 to 37: how one church reworked their evangelism course invitation

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00:00:01:20 – 00:00:22:12

Derek Hanna

All righty. Okay. I’ll just kick off with the intro, and we’re going, The question was going to ask you to start. I’ll just pick your brains about, what’s I think I’ve got. What’s the reason people move to and stay in port? And I’ll try not to include comments that gospel into interjecting if that is.

00:00:22:14 – 00:00:51:03

Derek Hanna

Yeah. Yeah. Clapping for them. Good eye on Derek Hannah. Welcome to the one thing a podcast is on to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry every week. And today we’re talking about inspiring story, church, where God has worked tirelessly. How they had their discover course, rejigged and changed and had they’ve seen, heaps of people come explore Jesus and got to know we are joined today by Kate Stace and they go it’s now Steve.

00:00:51:03 – 00:01:13:21

Derek Hanna

Kate, welcome. Thanks for having me, Derek. Thanks, man. Yeah, you’re you’re in the Point Community church, you guys. You, which is in Port Macquarie if people don’t know. Steve. You been up there for how long? 20 years now. Okay, tell me, how far between Brisbane. Sydney? Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Nice. Now you can tell me. What is it that,

00:01:13:23 – 00:01:30:18

Derek Hanna

What’s the reason people move to port and stay in port and. And you can tell us because you’ve only more recently moved up there for you. Yeah. So, Steve, why do people go and stay? Yeah. Let me kill them first. So. Yeah, my mates, Jamie, 20 years ago, coming up here to look after retirees, which which is true.

00:01:30:18 – 00:01:55:04

Steve Covetz

We have a higher than average in New South Wales. So over 65. But yeah, there’s also all our schools are full and they continue to build a couple of new schools every few years. So I reckon it’s coastal people moving back after they’ve got their trade or uni degree and come back to work and raise their family, is the biggest demographic where we’re growing.

00:01:55:06 – 00:02:28:05

Kate Stace

Yeah. Okay. Lifestyle. Nice place to live. Yeah, I think that’s definitely a big part of it. Yep. So okay. What did you move up there for. Well I mean the job. No. So I think one of the other growing demographics in Port Macquarie is 29 to 40 year olds who can’t afford Sydney anymore. That’s May well and truly but town is full of people moving from big cities.

00:02:28:07 – 00:02:52:19

Kate Stace

You know, it’s the koala capital of Australia, but I can get a coffee before work and see dolphins. Which is pretty amazing. But, yeah, it’s going through a big period of change. Like to get my three year old into a preschool, I had to apply for 17. Got a spot at one. So that gives you an indication of, I guess the demand that the town is under as it grows.

00:02:52:21 – 00:03:15:06

Derek Hanna

Yeah. So it’s, it’s a growing population. It’s a place people want to live. It is. It’s a beautiful place. Port Macquarie. But there are tens of thousands of people there who don’t know Jesus in public or who desperately need him. Yeah. So the one thing where going from 5 to 37, that’s this episode had one church reworked their evangelism course, to see more people come to know Jesus.

00:03:15:06 – 00:03:34:02

Derek Hanna

Now, Steve tells let’s just continuously for a moment, tell me what drove you and Nicole, your wife, to plant a church in Port Macquarie all those years ago? Yeah. Like it. So it was one of those God moments, sort of things. It was obvious it was time for me to move on from a role I was at.

00:03:34:05 – 00:03:55:00

Steve Covetz

And, at the same time, a new diocese on the Central Coast. So just reach out to him for ideas and, so human. Andrew heard they had some mates up in Port Macquarie who’d been meeting as a Bible study group for the previous 18 months, watching port grow, but not necessarily seeing the churches grow.

00:03:55:00 – 00:04:15:04

Steve Covetz

So they were praying for a church plant, put us in touch with each other and over a six month period. Couple of trips up meeting with that Bible study group. Convinced? Yeah, the church plane idea was a great one. So, that’s the quick fly over and, I’ll be grateful for that. Just told church at a 20th birthday, a month ago.

00:04:15:06 – 00:04:39:24

Steve Covetz

And one of the things I’ll be eternally grateful for is that Bible study group injected our DNA submission that they wanted to see a church reach their friends. And so so the missional DNA has been part of us. And I think it goes right back to the beginning before I even arrived. So and that’s really key because there is a from the very beginning, at the point, there has always been a desire to reach the lost.

00:04:39:24 – 00:04:58:22

Derek Hanna

It’s been the center of, of who you guys are. No one else’s question to both of you because, Steve, you’ve obviously had that for port right from the beginning. This this discontent of you, as you were saying, people reach, but you weren’t saying as many. And you’ve come up as well. You come from a church, Vine Church in Sydney, which has that same hold on of holy discontent as well.

00:04:59:03 – 00:05:26:18

Derek Hanna

But you’ve seen it from Fresh Eyes in port. What was the discontent around, the kind of conversion and, you know, evangelism, of course, the mission you were both experiencing at the point. Yeah. So, like, Jesus is clear, isn’t he? Go make disciples and teach them to observe all I’ve commanded you so that the whole making disciples and mature in disciples really, really simple.

00:05:26:20 – 00:05:49:14

Derek Hanna

And, since 2016, when we planted a church just south of us, we’ve been growing at 10% a year. And I think we got distracted by that. Derek. Because, yeah, Port Macquarie is a place that is growing in population. And some of that population’s Christian, and they happen to be looking for a reformed evangelical church.

00:05:49:19 – 00:06:32:01

Derek Hanna

And so we’re growing at 10%, mostly through Christians. And the distraction is, well, when you’re growing you you’ve got to grow your communities, too. You’ve got to grow your sense of belonging. Membership. You need to grow in structures. So there’s a lot of focus on the maturing side of Jesus’s command. But then the brutal facts sort of really hit the whole staff team at our staff conference last year, when we realized that our conversion growth was less than 1%, and which might be okay, you know, you preach the gospel and God’s decision is there’s hard hearts out there.

00:06:32:03 – 00:06:53:07

Derek Hanna

But I think the brutal facts for us is we weren’t actually holding up our conversion right, and analyzing it, asking the hard questions around it, which is sort of a hard thing to publicly admit on a podcast with you. Except the whole staff thing, we’re like, no, no, no, we want to face the the brutal facts.

00:06:53:07 – 00:07:16:18

Derek Hanna

You know, that whole Stockdale paradox? Well, we can definitely face the brutal facts with hope, because we’ve got a God who wants to reach and save the lost. And so I think at this point, it’s really helpful to hear from Kate because she’s come in fresh, new to the team with fresh eyes to say, yeah, here’s how to answer some of those brutal questions that we need to answer.

00:07:16:20 – 00:07:40:09

Derek Hanna

So what did you bring? Yeah, you saw that. What did you see? I think I immediately noticed there was a lot of warmth towards church from both visitors, but also people I spoke to in town. So I think that’s a great thing about Port Macquarie is that there’s a lot of warmth towards us. You know, we had, some of this program biggest ever this year.

00:07:40:11 – 00:08:05:19

Derek Hanna

Steve’s wife, Nicole, does an incredible job with lots of our kids program. So lots of things were pumping, but we weren’t necessarily seeing the, Those people move through into a conversion engine. And then I think the other thing I noticed was, so I where I’ve moved from, we had 30% of turnover every year in church members.

00:08:05:21 – 00:08:29:11

Derek Hanna

It’s actually lovely to be on the other side, to be in the place where everybody moves to. But I think we we weren’t quite capitalizing on that. And so that kind of led me to the question church is growing. There’s a lot of community warmth towards us. A lot of our, like, particularly our next gen mission stuff is really well-run and really well attended.

00:08:29:13 – 00:09:07:01

Derek Hanna

And then church itself is quite stable in, you know, we had our 20th birthday recently, and quite a few people from the early days are still around. So I felt like all the ingredients were there. But we weren’t quite seeing. I guess people make that next step into church life. Yeah, yeah. It’s good. The so when you just for, people listening that conversion engine, when you talk about that, you’re talking about the primary place in which at the point people would in a repeatable, sustainable way, engage with the clients with Jesus and get to know and hopefully make a commitment.

00:09:07:01 – 00:09:32:09

Derek Hanna

That’s the kind of conversion engine you’re talking about. Yeah, yeah. And I think the term can come across as a bit cold, but actually, I guess the mentality behind it is we really want to invest in something that’s really clear, warm, personal. And, you know, we don’t want anybody drifting out of church life when they’re exploring faith. So I think it’s something that we felt really passionately about.

00:09:32:11 – 00:09:50:00

Derek Hanna

Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. And Steve, you mentioned when you were talking there, the 1% conversion rate for just a bill that that’s often that’s a metric we use, or a church health indicator we would use to say, 1% would be one person becoming a Christian. If there were 100 people in church, so 2% would be two people.

00:09:50:06 – 00:10:10:22

Derek Hanna

Often in established churches, the figure is between about 2 to 3%. Established churches. That’s not always the case in church plans. It’s higher for the first few years of met for 46%. Obviously we love it a huge amount more than that. But part of what you would do. How did you know though, in in Port Macquarie, that it wasn’t just a sort?

00:10:10:23 – 00:10:34:01

Derek Hanna

Maybe port is just a hot a place to do then sorry heals yet? Well and I’m new. So what did I know? So I ended up researching with a bunch of other, if I see churches and churches around us, probably six in the end. And I asked them how many, how many non-Christians are you getting along to your courses?

00:10:34:01 – 00:11:00:01

Derek Hanna

Kind of how many people are bringing them? Roughly what’s your church size on a Sunday to know? We were comparing kind of apples and apples and then, kind of an anything of note. So I went north and asked, like Coffs Harbor, the FISA church there, and church Co, CC down south, lighthouse, Orange Evangelical and probably another one which I’m forgetting.

00:11:00:01 – 00:11:32:16

Derek Hanna

But then I worked out okay. If they were the same size as us, roughly, what would that look like? And you know, these things aren’t maths based, but what what I ended up realizing was all of those churches were experiencing something that we weren’t. And so I think actually the numbers showed a spiritual thing happening where they were all getting between 5 and 7 times the number of people that we were getting so huge difference in, I guess, what they were saying.

00:11:32:16 – 00:11:55:03

Derek Hanna

And, you know, it’s an hour and a half north, it’s an hour south, quite similar towns. You know, where the soft teams are operating similarly. So that kind of led me to go. I actually think that we’re missing something and that we need to make some changes because it’s not a small difference. Yeah. I really felt like it was an opportunity there.

00:11:55:05 – 00:12:08:22

Derek Hanna

Nick had I want to pick up on some of those changes that you made in a second to you and stayed in the team, worked on. It’s a curious pause for a second. It’s really this is really hard as a leader to kind of look at that stuff like you planted in order to reach people. Great.

00:12:08:22 – 00:12:29:16

Derek Hanna

You growing at 10%. But just explain how did you navigate that moment of, you know, that that sleepless, dark night where you realize we’re not quite we’re not doing what you said that necessarily to do, or there’s something more. How did you navigate that as a leader? Yeah. So here’s the beauty of a godly wife. Yeah.

00:12:29:16 – 00:12:48:12

Derek Hanna

Like it’s just like she doesn’t let me not hold the mirror up and have a have a look at it. And so there’s this part of the answer is just I’m really grateful for my wife’s, that my temptation might be to talk about all the really good things that are going on around church. And then, Kate, like, what do you do?

00:12:48:12 – 00:13:08:11

Derek Hanna

You look at the table, look at a half dozen other churches that I love and respect. And we did that together as a staff team as well. And so I think in God’s providence, it wasn’t just Kate bringing the information forward. It was looking at the information as a staff team and going, yeah, we want to own this now.

00:13:08:11 – 00:13:38:03

Derek Hanna

So yeah, it was a dark night, but I’m grateful for it. And it wasn’t that long really, Derek. It was it was worth it. Yeah. It’s it is that tension in a between one is there’s a a driving need. We know we want to reach Australia for Christ. And we can face that reality. And even when it’s hard that that we aren’t quite doing or we haven’t quite achieved what we hoped under God to say that to achieve, we can still be secure in Christ in this, which actually helps us face reality moving forward.

00:13:38:05 – 00:14:01:07

Derek Hanna

So describe some of the changes that you guys made. In this space. What what did you change? What did you do was adjust to that conversion engine, the core. So were there other things? Yeah. Okay. Go. So. Well, firstly, I should say, actually, I think Steve did take it really well when I kind of gave him that table.

00:14:01:07 – 00:14:41:10

Derek Hanna

And I think I’m really grateful for that because I realize that’s not an easy thing to have a new staff member, you know, present you with this. But, we did change a lot of practical things. So we went simple one course, aiming to make it a really clear next step, make it bigger. We’ve been running a bunch of different courses through the year, but actually the main focus was we had a staff conference where Steve got me to present the kind of what we discovered, and then we talked about all the different aspects of the ecosystem, because we didn’t want it to come across as an individual criticism or a failure

00:14:41:10 – 00:15:01:21

Derek Hanna

of sorts, but actually something that every staff member and area probably could change some things, but also could contribute in a really positive and meaningful way. So, you know, how does your welcoming team feed into what we’ve we’ve launched, discover, how do they connect with that? How does the food help us connect with people over morning tea?

00:15:01:23 – 00:15:27:18

Derek Hanna

We kind of went through all of the different parts of the ecosystem and had quite a long discussion, with the staff team. And then we, we invested a bit of money into things like, banners and postcards and, we did a really, really clear sign up form that was the front, the first thing on our church website when you open the website.

00:15:27:20 – 00:15:53:14

Derek Hanna

But probably the best thing we did was, do a testimony video that highlighted the importance of church partnerships. So there was a woman called Rene who became a Christian last year after, a family that she worked as a support worker before they invited her along to church. And the kids had gospel conversations with her and we did a video, like a testimony video of Rene.

00:15:53:16 – 00:16:17:11

Derek Hanna

But it was Rene and Stef going through their experiences of, you know, Steph saying like, oh, I was nervous when we invited Rene along to church. And Rene then would show her experience, because we wanted church people to come away hearing if I invite my friend, my neighbor, my sibling, this is a church where they can become a Christian.

00:16:17:13 – 00:16:45:04

Derek Hanna

And I think the video really resonated with people and broke down a lot of the anxiety because people could see this real life example of, you know, Rene being invited to church and then six months later, becoming a Christian. So that was, I think, one of the best things that we ended up doing. That’s great. So not only the the story conversion, but the stories around the inputs that led to that conversion.

00:16:45:05 – 00:17:14:07

Derek Hanna

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I and then like, our situation, our context is like we’ve had years of good evangelism going on as well. So we had trust around church and so like so like just under 1% conversion. Gross. Like we weren’t we were thankful for like, every conversion, whether it was a teenager just owning their face or a genuine adult, you know, just brand spanking new conversion.

00:17:14:09 – 00:17:35:14

Derek Hanna

So we were grateful there was trust within church. And so that, phrase we use around reach, mission hate, like all those things Kate, we’re talking about, we just went, yeah, we got to turn the heat up for church and make the invite to the, evangelism course for us discover much easier, better than we’ve ever done before.

00:17:35:14 – 00:18:14:05

Derek Hanna

So we just put a lot of energy into helping church on the mission together because we we are excited to see people saved. Well, and we, we also change the timing of it, which I don’t think I mentioned earlier, straight out of a lot of our, some kind of mission stuff. And we actually did physical calendars for everybody at church with a big magnet on the back for 2026, which had an invite on the left hand side and a bit of information about discover and then the the physical calendar of the year on the right hand side with the discover dates for the year highlighted.

00:18:14:07 – 00:18:38:22

Derek Hanna

And I think that really helped drive home. You know, this is a really clear next step. And it was amazing to see like we we had a list of kind of all the non-Christians that were hanging around church or that we’d known had come to things. And, you know, I think there was a day or a week where Steve called 25 of those people and 22 of them signed up, and lots of friends came with them.

00:18:38:22 – 00:19:06:08

Derek Hanna

Like it just was this amazing high of a moment, seeing the the clarity and the energy. And then, you know, every time your email is pinging with another registration form, it really was amazing to see. Yeah. We often we often talk about convictions in terms of mission convictions and confidence and competence in this space. The convictions, the point never really in question.

00:19:06:08 – 00:19:22:17

Derek Hanna

People want to say so, but it sounds like you guys were really pushing into the giving people confidence that the gospel does work and they can be involved in it. I can invite someone and the competence, how is it that I do? What does that look like for me in there? Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing. Yeah. You know, that’s really good.

00:19:22:17 – 00:19:43:02

Derek Hanna

And then I think I’ve heard you guys use the other, see, like the constructs and that some of what Kate was talking about and just building some of the scaffolding that we needed to help church do the easier invites in amongst that conviction and competency and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s excellent. So, Torben, so on, give me your reflections.

00:19:43:02 – 00:20:11:20

Derek Hanna

You’ve gone from, five people exploring previously to 37 people exploring in a relatively short space of time. 12 months. Give me your reflections side of things. What have you learned? What would you say to others if they’re at that point where they’re a little bit of holy discontent about, reaching the lost around them? Yeah. So, so out of the 37, over the five week course, not all 37 ended up turning up.

00:20:11:22 – 00:20:34:05

Derek Hanna

And so there was 23, non-Christians that did end up turning up, throughout the five weeks. And so learning to celebrate, it’s not just the 37, but all the invites that didn’t get a yes as well. So that that some of what we learned is, you know, we’ve got to keep turning the volume up. The wine is more and more of us inviting non-Christians along.

00:20:34:07 – 00:20:58:14

Derek Hanna

And yeah, the super win is coming along. And then out of the 23, it’s good we’re doing this interview after the course. So three, the non-Christian said. Yep. Now, a Christian, through all of this, three said, I think I’m a Christian, and one is saying, something very similar to it. So like we’re thinking God save seven people.

00:20:58:16 – 00:21:22:21

Derek Hanna

There’s another 17 that is still say, that seven plus another ten, keen to say, yeah, I want to keep discovering more. So, I actually forgot your question, Derek. I hope I’m answering it. You are the highlight that’s on. Yeah. So then it’s a highlight. And then. Yeah. So some of the learnings. Yeah.

00:21:22:24 – 00:21:43:23

Derek Hanna

Mission. How it actually does take a lot of energy. And so it’s not just the lead up, but then the follow on continuing to tell the story around church of. Yeah, let’s just have a think about what God has done since Christmas. So that I don’t know, the technical stuff we know in the background. We’re thinking about that calendar.

00:21:44:04 – 00:22:15:03

Derek Hanna

Kate talked about we’re thinking about this mission funnel, but just continuing to tell the stories of, you know, where. Look at work Todd’s done since Christmas. Our January mission, preaching series leading into discover, so that when this all comes around again next year, we’ll turn three. We do discover again. And then next year into January, there’s a collective excitement, whereas I tend to move on to the next thing where Kate and other staff members will help us realize, no, no, no, no, we’ve got to we’ve got to keep doing the story.

00:22:15:03 – 00:22:39:03

Derek Hanna

God’s story. Well yeah. Well and and I think for me it was it can be a bit awkward to stop and evaluate those different things in church life. And I, I think it was actually a really humble moment from the team to go, okay, we’re going to trust this new person and be open to talking about how we could do things better.

00:22:39:05 – 00:23:02:24

Derek Hanna

And then I think there was, a lot of wisdom we got from other people about, you know, we ended up renting a venue, you know, really nice function room that kind of enabled us to think more about the vibe and people’s experience. And so I think there was a high, high level of willingness to do things differently this time, which I really appreciated.

00:23:02:24 – 00:23:28:03

Derek Hanna

And I think God has used that to save people and to build a lot of confidence in our church. In, yeah, the non-Christian friends can be saved and they know what to do with them and they bring them to church. That’s brilliant. Just a like seven people. New life, more people still exploring. It takes so long for some people who are being exposed to it also to come to know face.

00:23:28:03 – 00:23:47:16

Derek Hanna

So just to be able to be able to walk with them as well, that’s great. Yeah. And learning to celebrate that like like sort of expected in the first place. Not everyone’s going to be saved. But don’t forget to keep inviting them back for more like we’ve got contact. We’ve got a relationship that’s worth celebrating as well.

00:23:47:17 – 00:24:14:01

Derek Hanna

So yeah, definitely church or praying that that’s been a huge thing to like. I just think it’s not just about the inviting, having to pray and excited to pray and pray, focus teams or praying for the specific names of people. That was powerful. Yeah. And deeply involved in mission. The whole church mission in that point. Yeah. Now there’s two of you.

00:24:14:01 – 00:24:32:07

Derek Hanna

So you get one thing if you like, but, what’s the other one thing? We’ll start with Steve, and I’ll give Kate time to do you guys, what’s the one thing Steve you’d want to say to people, around mission. Mission heat and turning around in a church? You. Yeah. So I guess, like, my role is the lead pastor.

00:24:32:09 – 00:24:57:19

Derek Hanna

And so, I guess, I tend to fly by the church. That’s part of the role God has given me in that space. And so there is a line in discover. I think it’s week for, every person you meet will be alive in a million years. So. Yeah. What’s the one thing that that holy discontent for the lost.

00:24:57:21 – 00:25:23:01

Derek Hanna

We’ve got the good news of Jesus Christ. God is powerful to save. So how do I remember that? Front of brain? Front of heart? So that, front of mouth constantly speaking that are in church. Yeah. Okay. I think for me it, you can learn from other churches in this space about how to partner with your members as they go on mission.

00:25:23:07 – 00:25:49:20

Derek Hanna

I think that that’s been a huge thing for us. Yeah. So good. Excellent. Well, listen, we’ve got we’ll throw a few things in the show notes in the toolbox, which might help you in this, there’s a missionary book by Dave Jensen who wrote the discover course that these guys use. Dave’s also got a new book coming out in the next couple of months called evangelism in the Local Church that he’s written with Paul Brennan, which lives in a lot of the principles and thinking.

00:25:49:20 – 00:26:07:15

Derek Hanna

And it’s it’s theologically driven. It’s really practical. It’s excellent. It’s coming out in a couple of months to to do these heaps of resources from the previous are I got richest right converts. This is a heart to sober one for Jesus in our churches. God is being very generous at the moment and giving lots of people to Jesus.

00:26:07:17 – 00:26:27:15

Derek Hanna

As well. If you want some help on the ground with this, rich Australia runs Mission Consult. So get in touch with us and we can talk to your church about connecting you with other people. Like the point? Who is saying people become Christians across Australia under God? Listen to this as a staff team. If you think it’s helpful, pass it around.

00:26:27:17 – 00:26:57:02

Derek Hanna

Kate. Steve, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us. God bless. Matt. I’m Derek Hannah Jetson. Now that no technical issues. Greg. Well, please help me. Yeah. Sure. It’s a good story. Such a good story. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for persisting and sharing it. So when do you run your next course? Term three. Okay. And more towards the end of term three.

00:26:57:02 – 00:27:20:23

Derek Hanna

So we’re hitting the nicer months. I’m sorry. Yeah. Okay. What are people doing? Because in Brisbane, nothing shuts down over winter. Just keeps going. But does port shut down a bit? Not. No, but at the same time, getting people out at night. But the other one is I didn’t know whether to throw in extra advertising outside of reach.

00:27:20:23 – 00:27:50:02

Derek Hanna

But Dave Jensen’s, Revolutionary Evangelism Podcast is an excellent training podcast of just walking a team through how to build the whole system. And one of the things he says, if you’re having to rebuild or start, don’t do more than two a year. Run only two courses a year and make them both excellent because you’ve got a bunch of work in the lead up and a bunch of work in the lead out.

00:27:50:04 – 00:28:12:11

Derek Hanna

So just start with two. So sort of being bloody minded with that advice from Dave Jensen. Yeah, yeah. Let’s go. I’ll put that. I’ll put a link to in the show notes as a good one. Yeah. Cool. I don’t know if it would be helpful, but we could send through, for example, the calendar that we talked about, if that’s like just the PDF version of that.

00:28:12:13 – 00:28:35:13

Derek Hanna

Yep. That would be excellent. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. That’s before I forget. Yep. Not all of that. That’s great. Well, appreciate you guys. Thanks for the job. Thanks, Derek. I think thank you. Yeah. Any tips? Derek, because you do this all the time. I’m. I’m an old like me. I like. And I want to think about helping young blokes.

00:28:35:13 – 00:28:54:22

Derek Hanna

I like. Did we hit the right topics at the right time. Like how do you how do you both inspire, educate. Like, what did you think? The interview went well. Yeah. Well, I’m an all black as well. Steve. So I’m saying I want to do more handling on investing, and I want to do well. I want to speak well, clearly.

00:28:54:23 – 00:29:22:08

Derek Hanna

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, it’s interesting. Other networks. Okay, you you can I can give you a time. Obviously free to disagree. It’s interesting. Other networks that I see, like X 29, have always tried to play the youth card in this space. And, yeah. The thing about and it, I think actually works better than network is so I this is getting around to answering your question.

00:29:22:10 – 00:29:39:22

Derek Hanna

It’s not the age thing is not a thing. I don’t think as much like I’m not saying we ignore it. But actually I think the, the beautiful thing about our network is that, we do have people who are of different ages and no matter what their age, it’s the things that they’re doing on the ground that speak to it.

00:29:39:24 – 00:29:57:10

Derek Hanna

So I don’t think it matters if you 60 or 40 or 30 or whatever. I think when people are thoughtful, theologically driven, practical, I think our network is happy to entertain that within that. So, Steve, I think the the power of this in the things that I think younger leaders need to hear in this is you even at your age.

00:29:57:12 – 00:30:16:13

Derek Hanna

Sorry, that sounds rude. Right. You know, in that era, even, even at our age, we do 20 years in planning a successful church in the eyes of a world of the world growing at 10%. Even you were willing to pause and say, what are we not quite getting? Or I think that 10% thing is really powerful, actually.

00:30:16:15 – 00:30:40:21

Derek Hanna

Yeah. But two young guys in ministry, they’re looking for growth. And we’re saying that growth is fine, but actually the core game here is we want to keep everyone. So I, I think it’s see like like you’re really listen to stay. But I think it’s actually the compelling the humility within that that I think conveys again, not a lasting not I, just had my three boys.

00:30:40:21 – 00:31:01:23

Derek Hanna

I think the thing that I was, I watch them who they gravitate to towards in the moment. It’s little to do with age, actually, because I watch a few old guys, these old guys in America, it’s it’s about the clarity and conviction that these old guys have, that’s what they’re drawn to, actually. So that’s curious. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I, I totally agree.

00:31:01:23 – 00:31:27:15

Derek Hanna

And I think as this is maybe slightly different, but there’s a real gap in. So I’m 35, there’s, there’s not heaps of women in the 35 to 40 5 or 50 age range. A lot of them aren’t in ministry anymore and had quite negative experiences. And I think that’s thankfully been really different for me where I’m like, hey, stage a bunch of things to change.

00:31:27:15 – 00:31:44:22

Derek Hanna

And you’re like, okay, and I think a lot of the generation older than me actually haven’t had that experience. And then have ended up not being in ministry anymore, like I was at college in the last couple of years when before Carillion House got closed down.