[0:01]
G'day, I'm Scott Sanders and welcome to the Reach Australia podcast. The vision of Reach Australia is to see thousands of healthy evangelistic multiplying churches. We want to see new churches launch and start and not only survive but see evangelistic growth. We also want to see established churches become healthy, seeing lost people won for the first time and also seeing people spiritually mature and grow. great initiatives that we've started over the last few years is the Reach Australia Development

[0:34]
Program. We want to see theologically driven, spiritually vibrant, evangelistically urgent, practically skilled church leaders and this two-year program is all about seeing all those outcomes. The program includes a comprehensive church consultation, monthly gospel coaching and three leadership development intensives. To register your interest go to reachaustralia.com.au This episode is a recording from the 2021 Reach Australia National Conference.

[1:11]
Well, it really is, it's wonderful. It's wonderful to see what God has done. But as Derek drew attention to, it's not even replacing the declining church. It's scratching the surface. Now, why does it matter that we pursue this kind of thing? what does it matter that we invest in it what does any of this matter that we're doing here these couple of days I want to say what I trust we all know but I'm going to say it again for us the thing that drives us is the love and grace of our God who has loved us so much

[1:46]
that he gave his only son that whoever believes shall not perish he's the God who does not delight in the death of anybody, even the wicked. He doesn't delight in the death. He longs it all be saved. He sent his son to seek and save the lost. You know, the driver of all of this is a firm appreciation that without Christ, our world is lost. Truly lost. Outside of a saving relationship with Jesus,

[2:18]
every person in this country is going to hell. Really? Now it's easy to say, Jesus couldn't say it without tears in his eyes. O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, how I've longed to gather you together like a hen gathers a chick, but you were unwilling. The God of the universe has longed to gather, but stubborn humans weren't willing. You know, he stood before the tomb of Lazarus.

[2:49]
Do you remember when he cried? Jesus wept. Now why did he weep? I mean he was going to raise the man again to life again. He didn't weep because he was missing him. I take it he wept because of what human sin and depravity and the righteous judgment of God has created in our world. He wept because we have torn our world apart. We've brought sin into it and death with it. And he weeps at what we have done.

[3:22]
You know, we live in a world trapped in rebellion against a holy God who has given us everything. And so our world stands under righteous condemnation. Those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ will be punished with everlasting destruction. They'll be shut out from the presence of his might forever.

[3:53]
that's a future that almost cannot bear thinking about. But I think sometimes we need to think about it. Could you imagine waking up after death? I mean, how do you picture it? Alone. Forever. In the dark. No family. No friends. Where are you?

[4:25]
forever, without God. Where are you, God? You are under judgment, cursed forever. It almost doesn't bear thinking about it. And some would dismiss it as utterly beneath a loving God, that he might do such a thing? shut out people from his presence forever in utter destruction where the worm never dies and the fire doesn't go out

[4:59]
some would suggest it's beneath loving people to speak of such things but we have the word of God's son himself that secures that truth as real and we have his death why did God pay such a price if death was not such the horror that it is you know in response to questions about this truth it's been said

[5:32]
wonderfully helpfully rightly that to imagine there isn't such a thing to imagine it's beneath God you do not know the holiness of God and you do not know the horror of sin and there is the lot of our world that imagine surely we'll be okay surely God can sweep it under the carpet but to see the true vision of God's holiness and to see what truly we are in our sinfulness, God can do nothing but condemn us.

[6:06]
Except in his grace and mercy he doesn't. Now this is sobering stuff. And our ministries are dealing with such things. We are not offering the world a different lifestyle. Come to Christianity, come to church for the lifestyle. We're not offering them a path to secular utopia. Come to church and we'll be responsible for transforming the city.

[6:36]
We are not responsible for transforming the city. We are not responsible to solve the world's social problems. Do you remember Isaiah 9, that kind of famous passage for Christmas time? To us, a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders. What is important to note there in chapter 9 of Isaiah, that the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. Notice this, the light comes from outside.

[7:11]
We didn't conjure it up. We didn't find some way to bring this to us. Verse 22 of chapter 8, they look towards the earth for answers. There's no answers there. You look towards the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom. The answer's not here. The answer's outside of us. In a God who sends his son. A child who is born.

[7:43]
Who will actually bring a brand new creation. Who will transform the city. And the world. And end all social evil. and bring a new heavens and a new earth. We wait for him to transform the city. It's not us who does it. Oh, love means that we do what we can do, yeah. Love ought to mean that we actually get engaged and activate and care and do what we can do.

[8:16]
But don't buy into the utopian social justice movement of today. it is one of the greatest dangers confronting the church because it's so appealing to our instincts for justice social justice don't buy into it in fact take great care with it it doesn't mean what we think it means it's not got what we're about the answer is not among us you know we are speaking to a world under judgment eternal judgment

[8:51]
A kind of judgment where Jesus says it is better to lose a limb than go there. And we have the only hope available. The gift of forgiveness. Given to us from outside of us. By a God who loves us so much despite our sin. What love is this?

[9:22]
not that we loved him but that he loved us and gave his son as an atoning sacrifice it's all of this which is why we seek to do far more than we're doing these are the drivers it's why it matters desperately that the church is declining it's why it matters that we bend every effort to turn things around under God by his strength prayerfully of course but how will people believe and be rescued from that judgment

[9:58]
how will people believe and be saved if someone doesn't preach to them and how will someone preach unless they're sent You know, we look at Australia and we ought to feel the weight of its lostness because we have the answer. A gift of God that we have. So what do we do? Well, Reach Australia was born of the conviction that we need to do both end.

[10:34]
We need to do both end. Two years ago, which you remember well I'm sure, I spoke of the need to come together and about a number of togethernesses that we needed. So many of us were trying to do bits and pieces in all different places, wonderfully, we are blessed in our country with lots of great men and women who are seeking to make a difference, but lots doing different things in different places, we were fragmenting our efforts and being inefficient and ineffective and when the task is

[11:07]
together and I want to just say at the many of you have experienced this many of you are part of this it is a great blessing to be amongst men and women who who are passionate about reaching Australia it's a great shot in the arm for me and I trust for you and that coming together has been happening but as we came together as we've been coming together we saw the need to keep pursuing a both-and ministry, a both-and ministry. We need to plant churches, they're declining,

[11:37]
they're disappearing, they're closing, just as Derek said, just to catch up. I mean 200's not even close but we need to plant churches and grow established churches, we need both-and. An American author wrote a book a little while ago called Church Planting is for Wimps, captured a very important truth. Established churches and turning them around is hard work. In many ways, planting a church is easy because you get to start again.

[12:09]
It's easier to kind of start something new than raise the dead. It's kind of the whole principle of church planting is much easier. And further, others have made the point that there's a power to turning an established church around. power is that you take a declining church which is a negative if you like and turn it around to a positive rather than just planting a new thing which is a positive you see you just get one extra or you actually gain a negative and in church established that's a nice bit of maths isn't it as they put it for us it's a powerful and it's led some people to conclude that planting isn't

[12:43]
the answer really we should just invest in church revitalization no why choose between the two it's both end we need to plant and revitalize let me give you the reasons there's so many reasons there are a declining number of churches which means there are fewer and fewer doors through which people can come to find christ out of which people can go to reach people for christ fewer and fewer doors we need more doorways but we need bigger ones as well why not have more

[13:21]
have got bigger and bigger, why not do both and, let's have it all. And planters, planters exist in a system, two things, let me tell you about this, planting reaches new people that establishes churches find hard to reach and planting stirs existing churches to get their act together. Let me give you an example of this, some years ago we saw a church planted in another part of the country and they planted the church and within six months they were seeing converts

[13:53]
and each year they were seeing regularly a number of converts. It was only a small church, 50, 60, 70, 80 but they were seeing regularly two or three converts a year in those first few years and continued to as well. There was a church down the road and I'm sorry, it was a Presbyterian church but it could have been an Anglican church, it could have been, it wouldn't have been an FIC church but it could have been some other church like this and this other the prezies down the road had been there for decades I think they came in the first fleet and they'd been there that long

[14:24]
and and for decades hadn't seen a convert now bless them the senior minister there with the humility that we need to have took his elders to the church plant and sat them down and Look at what's happening here. Converts, converts, converts. Look at how many we've had. None. You know what? It's in the same street. It's not the soil. It's what we're doing compared to what they're doing.

[14:59]
That plant established a new ministry but stirred the existing ministry. Do you see the power of it? I heard just tonight of another church plant that has arrived in a town and it's seeing converts. and growing. The established church in that town is finding itself now having to ask questions about why they're not seeing the same. But in their humility they're asking those questions. Planting is a powerful piece to stir the established church. We need to keep planting.

[15:30]
They bring new energy. They try things that established churches thought you could never do and make work. They bring forward new leadership that in established churches would never get a because we've got all the people in place, we've got all the things, established churches give an opportunity, extraordinary blessings that come from planting churches. But planting churches need established churches. I'll give you a couple of reasons here. If we're going to ramp up planting and we need to, 200 is just the start,

[16:02]
wouldn't it be lovely to see 300 in the next 15 years? But planting churches, 200, that's just the start. if we're going to get that far, that number of church planters won't come from the church plants themselves. It takes a long time to see someone converted, established in the faith, produced into maturity and so on to go. They need to come from established churches but for that to happen we need healthy, vibrant, growing, established churches. Not just because they reach new people but because they themselves raise up the next generation of church planters.

[16:36]
If you're an established church amongst us, in your youth group, you have the next church planter, every one of you. He's sitting there, she's sitting there. Established churches, we need them to be healthy and vibrant. But second, planters need established churches because plants can only exist as a church plant for so long. year old needs to grow up at some point and stop wearing skinny jeans. Just

[17:09]
looking around quickly. Do you know what I mean? Once you're 40, just dress like me, come on. Grow up. Do you know what I mean? Like a church plant, how long does it keep calling itself a church plant for? It needs to get to the point where it actually, it just settles into establishment. Now here's the thing, you can thrive on enthusiasm as a church plant only for so long. You need to actually develop systems and structures and put down roots and think about the next generation

[17:42]
and the next generation after that and if you don't pay attention to those things, the church will plateau and decline. So church planters need to learn from established churches, healthy established churches, how to actually do all of that. How do you now run a church that's been going a long time and keep the vibrancy? planters need established churches we need to mix together reach australia was born out of an awareness a conviction that we need to both plant and grow established churches one can't exist without the other for any length of time and if we're going to be serious about reaching australia

[18:14]
we need to be together planting churches and established churches so reach australia we've had geneva push for 11 years and bless geneva push because they were up for the conversation The planters were up for this conversation, which was a big change. And the big change was to become one arm of something else. Reach Australia. So Reach Australia has now got two arms, if you like. It's got the planting work and the established work.

[18:44]
Those two things have now come together and there'll be further changes as well. If we can't keep breaking our status quo and changing what's happening, we will just close down. Reach Australia needs to be born in this way of newness and freshness. And we need each other to meet together, to see what each other's doing. Now, I hope you've been doing this, and perhaps not yet, but that crowd up here on the stage and in your hubs and wherever you are, get to know them if you're an established church.

[19:15]
I find it incredibly stirring to see young men and women, like me, young men and women parachuting into a town somewhere with no safety net and taking their family into that risk and that context and trying new things and being captivated afresh by it all. We need to hang out together and rub off each other. So a conference. But Reach Australia is focused on

[19:47]
a particular thing in both the planting and the established church. Al said it earlier, leadership, leadership. The key to the health of both the plant and the established church is humanly speaking the leadership and here again we're committed to both and we need leaders for planting and established churches who are deeply spiritual deeply connected connected to God deeply abiding in Christ walking with him who know him who love

[20:25]
him, who draw strength from him, who are godly, faithful, spiritually formed, theologically formed, deep Christians, we need that. And who know how to lead, who have the skills to bring change. we need both end leaders who have heart and conviction who are captivated by the vision

[20:56]
of God and draw deeply from that constantly who are broken by that and who have the smarts and the courage and the insight to break things that need breaking in your church to change things that need changing because we're in ruts do not think that you'll get out of a rut by just praying lots and incrementally hoping someone arrives to help you you'll be in the rut for the next 10 years don't think that just by being

[21:28]
deeply spiritual you'll get out of the rut it doesn't work like that we need leaders who are deeply thoughtful spiritually minded and ready to pay the price of change who are if you like breakthrough leaders. Both and. Don't set them over against each other. Churches fight to stay the same way. Churches create this self-sealing thing where my security and my safety is found in being in this way of doing church. The songs that I've always sung,

[22:01]
the chair I've always sat in, the way I group the way it is and we create these self-ruts. someone needs to get in there and break it and it'll be painful. Now I think from what we've heard tonight we all just need to get Phil to come and hang out in our churches for a while. But you see we need both end leaders, deeply spiritual and skilled up who can break things, wisely, graciously.

[22:34]
now how do we get these kind of leaders well geneva again provides some of the answers really help derek gave the story of planting before geneva now you know every church in existence was once a church plant but we have been planting for years in this country and it was hit and miss under God by his grace Geneva changed that it's a simple thing it's actually a Christian thing

[23:04]
it's a God thing the key was establishing relationships wasn't some kind of magic we made up it was how do you get planning to work better you establish sets of relationships because that's how you work so you create a conference where you can form relationships You create a cohort of people so you can walk together in relationships. You create a coaching structure where you can work together in relationships. It's just relationships. It's not like we made this up out of nowhere.

[23:34]
Conference and cohorts and coaching are just fancy words for relationships, intentional relationships. And so instead of a few mavericks trying to work out on their own what to do, we brought them all together. And with capacity to think through the wisdom of planting, we then got planters together annually in small groups with a coach massive difference massive we've seen it work for 11 years both and let's do that with planters and established workers

[24:05]
let's do the same thing with established churches that's a good idea let's get established church leaders together to rub shoulders with planters and with other established church leaders who are trying to work out what to do and how to do it. Let's get everyone together learning important lessons with others who are sharing the same pain, who can give me the courage to work out how I can take that change and make that happen and deal with that problem. Let's get us together to work these things out in a conference each year, God willing we'll be able to be all

[24:37]
together at some point in the future but let's get us together in a big thing and then let's break us down into smaller cohorts of established churches and cohorts of planters and let's get the cohorts of leaders together in established churches to work together on what's happening in their churches. Let's get them each a coach. It's not rocket science. We've seen it work. We can see it actually impact established churches. It will happen, it's happening already. Now there's the Reach Australia vision you see. 200 more church plants by working together in

[25:10]
each other across denominations with a core theology this is not just compromise this is actually to change Australian Christianity with a deep insight into the truth of the gospel but let's get 550 established churches focused on turning things around out of the 1750 reform let's get 500 over the next 15 years together and our hope is that we might see these churches start to grow and if they can move towards 5% growth per year, 3 to 5%, it's a modest

[25:43]
target. If we can get churches, establish churches towards 5% growth a year, in 15 years we'll double in size. Imagine. Now it doesn't just happen by imagining it, though it is nice to think about it. We don't control the future. so we pray for the Lord of the harvest we pray for him who loves our world so much that he gave

[26:15]
his only son he'll answer that prayer we pray in faith you do not have because you do not ask let's start asking and praying to this end both end and working do you see let's not wait for arrive. Let's do both, let's pray to the Lord of the harvest and get down and work, get down and think. So what do we do with all this? We want to invite you to do this. I haven't actually asked

[26:49]
the guys about this. Can you give us together, can we each give each other five years in the next five years. Well, the next five years being five years, let's give each other five years. Be an interesting way to work that one out, wouldn't it? Let's give to each other the next five years and in four years time reassess whether it's another five years.

[27:19]
I'm up for it. I've got a lot to do but I think we could do a great deal together. let's commit for the next five years Lord willing to stir each other up you know we've had various conference movements we've designed this one to be razor sharp focused reach Australia let's pursue theological depth and rigour

[27:49]
spiritual rigour and leadership smarts let's bring some wisdom to the work if you're an established church we want to encourage you to think about jumping in on the development program commit to that a cohort coaching being coached and actually further that if we want to get 550 leaders we need progressively leaders who are being coached and developed and seeing turn around church life we need you to step up

[28:26]
we need you to do both end gain and give and so make yourself available for the possibility that you might become a coach we want every leader those 550 with a coach that's massive and we want all their wives with coaches geneva's shown us this as well if a church planter and his wife have a coach, then together they actually come together in the ministries in a far more thoughtful way. But to get both those things happen need you, it needs all of us in on this.

[29:05]
So what to do? Well, there'll be a Stanley knife at the door, we want to cup thumbs and hold blood together, can we do that? That's the next step, alright? Well maybe just a foot thumbprint on a map or something of Australia but we need to do something like this, that's probably not the way. Can I encourage you to commit to change, to commit to seeing something new happen,

[29:41]
to commit to learning and growing and developing and asking hard questions together. Commit to coming together like this regularly. Commit to, over time, stepping up and being part of the give. And brothers and sisters, we're in a unique time in Australian history. What other time have we had quite the same alignment between denominations? Prezies, Reformed, Evangelical. Independent, Sydney Anglicans, Armidale.

[30:15]
I don't know why that's funny but there you are. Even many Baptists are aligned wonderfully. There's something going on. The leaders of these places, they're friends. We have got this opportunity to actually work together. If we don't capitalise on this in the next five to ten years, it'll be gone. Well, the prezies will have been gone too. gone pray for Queensland prezies goodness have you heard the news pray for that we don't we we can't lose that it's a unique time let's do this yeah who's for this say amen

[30:56]
that's good I heard those who didn't say it we'll just we'll see you later but let's do this It's a great opportunity. Pray the Lord of the harvest does something wonderful in the next 10 to 15 years. Wouldn't it be great? Okay. You've been listening to the Reach Australia podcast. All through September and October, we'll be releasing the talks from the 2021 Reach Australia National Conference.

[31:27]
Registrations are now open for the 2022 Reach Australia Conference. It'll be held at EV Church on New South Wales Central Coast from the 16th to the 19th of May 2022. Get your discounted early bird tickets now at reachaustralia.com.au.