[0:00]
we haven't seen many converted we haven't seen many added to the church we've not seen baptisms we've got a theological dodge that we use and it's called god's sovereignty we're very good at it uh we've read one corinthians 3 god gives the growth we merely plant in water and so we've concluded that we're free to do what we do whatever happens doesn't matter whether there's little or much that's not my problem or my responsibility that's god's thing and i just continue

[0:30]
on doing what i do well is this true do we have a theological dodge of god's sovereignty when we come to think about reaching australia this is such an important question for us to think about but we don't have the answer just yet so welcome welcome to the third episode of the reach australia framework podcast series my name is dave i'm one of the consultants with the reach australia network and you're listening to episode

[1:03]
three and it's so important we have a framework as we've worked with christian leaders christian churches all around australia we've seen this desperate need for a framework so that we can start to think about what it looks like to do ministry together now there's five episodes in this podcast series first one was clarify the big thing second was be faithful to inputs this episode build responsibility take responsibility next episode break it

[1:34]
down and fifthly think about ecosystems now there is an e-book that goes along with this series which you can have a look at at the reach australia website reachaustralia.com.au well it was such a provocative opening and we need to think carefully together about what's the answer to this question of this god sovereignty human responsibility how do those things sort of work together let's take a look at this question from

[2:06]
a different set of eyes mikey lynch the campus director of the university of fellowship at the university of tasmania has got this to say the scriptures clearly teach that a minister of the gospel is responsible for their faithfulness in ministry godliness truth patient endurance and we're considered responsible for the quality of our work the quality of what we build but to what extent are ministers of the

[2:36]
gospel responsible for the results is it right to consider ourselves accountable for the fruit of our gospel ministry and if we believe that's true to some extent in a qualified way under god then exactly how is that qualified in to what extent are we responsible for the results of our gospel ministry we introduced the concept of inputs and

[3:07]
outputs in episode two of this series being faithful is the starting point but in this episode we're going to go a bit further and think through this idea of outcomes and outputs and what the relationship is between inputs and outputs so here's the question that we're wrestling with do we have a theological dodge to what extent are we responsible for outcomes what's the relationship between inputs

[3:38]
and outputs there's a lot of thinking for us to do here and there's some questions for us to sort of wrestle with let's start getting some answers now with andrew heard the senior minister at ev church on the central coast develop a proper appreciation that you as the pastor one of the pastoral team a leader in the various areas of church life develop an appreciation that you are

[4:10]
responsible under god in some fashion for the outcome of that work this thing is fundamental and i think now we're moving into ruts one of the ruts in reformed evangelicalism is that we are input thinkers not output thinkers now many of you have heard me talk about this but let me bang on it again briefly inputs to be an input thinker is to be focused

[4:41]
on being faithful to the tasks i'm doing to be an output leader is to be focused on achieving a difference actually making an outcome happen pastoral leadership we're in a rut we've drifted into it so quickly and easily that we've not even noticed we're in it we focus on being faithful to inputs now there's theological reasons we argue for why we ought to be like this but i want to challenge those theological reasons i don't think

[5:12]
they're valid i don't think they're as strong as we think they are you know the first two be clear on outcomes be faithful to those outcomes third one break it down those ones help us think about outcomes we're called on to make disciples not just be faithful in preaching we call on to make disciples that's our outcome and that therefore means we need people who are deep in the word we need to achieve a depth in the

[5:42]
word people who love god who are together in the work corporately as a community loving one another serving one another and serving the world around us these are the things we need to achieve and paul in colossians 1 20 out talks about how he how to that end he labors to achieve maturity in christ now input thinking being faithful is good but if we only think input inputs

[6:13]
and fight any sense of being responsible for outcomes that are being achieved we will fail to achieve any outcomes what andrew tells us is a key part of the reach australia framework take responsibility take responsibility in some fashion for the outcomes that we do and the way in which we do this is to focus on the outcomes we want to see

[6:44]
focus there rather than the inputs that we do because what we've been told to do the clarify the big thing remember that it's to go and make disciples in every increasing number the big thing was not just to be faithful in preaching we saw last time that that wasn't enough there was more going on than being faithful in preaching which we must do but the key here is to take responsibility towards the outcomes so that they can

[7:17]
shape the inputs that we do let's hear again from mikey lynch who tells us there's two things to avoid as we think about taking responsibility avoid a naive pattern of ministry thinking and planning that assumes that we are entirely control of of the outcomes of our ministry this can lead to um uh trusting in current human techniques and wisdom

[7:48]
that that's that's inadequate or putting too much focus on those current human techniques rather than the emphasis of scripture on preaching and prayer and love it can lead to discouragement amongst those who are not seeing much fruit in their ministry um even though there are many worldly and supernatural things that are beyond their control and it can lead to boasting and pride among those who are seeing great fruit

[8:19]
in their ministry we can fool ourselves that it is our skill and our wisdom that is has entirely produced these outcomes let's hear now from gary miller the principal of queensland theological college on what happens when you overly stress the sovereignty of god i think we feel like we've got an old iteration of that problem which is you know has always been an issue in the kind of the reformed evangelical movement that if you stress the sovereignty of god the temptation is always there to say

[8:50]
you know actually god does it all you know so i just keep doing what i'm doing even though what i'm doing is clearly you know the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time avoid a naive pattern of ministry thinking and planning which downplays or denies that we really have any influence over the outcomes of our ministry this can lead to justifying negligence laziness or not giving proper attention to

[9:22]
practical matters of knowledge and skill that might help the work of ministering it can lead to strangely celebrating approaches to ministry which are organic or intuitive or muddle along even if those things hamper the effectiveness of the ministry and it can lead to judging or looking down on other approaches to ministry that might be more thoughtful and

[9:52]
attentive to these practical matters looking down on them even though they are doctrinally and ethically healthy and good and right in their overall approach to ministry phil colgan the senior minister of st george north anglican really helpfully summarizes the tensions that we've been playing with a different part of the tension needs to be spoken to you at a different point so there are some we we don't want to speak about inputs and outputs i think andrew

[10:23]
in such a way that we can't comfort the person who's gone and slaved away in liberia for 20 years and saw very little fruit but then by god's grace 20 years later a church grew out of it like i heard the story of recently you know and we want to recognize that sometimes you will preach cracking sermons but god's sovereign hand says there's no one there are none of his elect there that day to be to be called into the kingdom but you don't want to so preach that

[10:54]
that you say that another person says yeah so i'll just uh peddle out what i've always been peddling out and work my 30 hours a week and uh but god's sovereign and that excuses my laziness and my lack of effort it you've got to where there's a tension in our theology you've got to allow both sides of the tension to speak i mean in the end we're talking about the the tension between god's sovereignty and human responsibility here just applied to a ministry setting not a salvation setting that's that's what we're talking about and it seems to me that when you look at

[11:25]
a passage like 1 corinthians 3 that's saying if you've got a proud man who thinks his ministry is all about his great oratory and and so with he needs to hear the god sovereignty side of that tension very loudly ringing in his ears if you've got a young man who thinks if i just get the pipeline going and do what andrew is doing at ev church my church will grow then he needs to hear the god sovereignty side of that if you've got a man who's tired and and

[11:55]
and given to laziness and a lack of care and just and uses god sovereignty as an excuse he needs to hear you'll be held account for how you've used the the materials god has given you in that one corinthians 3 sense really helpful words from phil uh as he sort of unpacks for us when each side of the debate speaks too loudly as we start to think about this tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility not just in the

[12:25]
context of salvation but in the context of church ministry well naturally at this point there are some objections that start to arise let's deal with them one by one the first one is that by taking and building responsibility it will lead towards an abusive form of leadership now the desire to take responsibility or to have your church grow it's a good one and a biblical one

[12:56]
but it cannot be at any expense it is a tragedy when we see leaders who are so driven by that responsibility by that outcome that they are prepared to have any expense along the way and sadly and tragically this still happens in churches yes that is true it still happens where leaders manipulate and coerce and threaten their staff or volunteers

[13:29]
towards that's the outcome you know i've taken responsibility and you need to do this no matter what that's not the sort of leadership though that honors who god is and so when we talk about taking leadership and taking responsibility for outcomes we are not endorsing in any way a form of leadership that is abusive here at reach australia we want courageous leaders we want leaders who will

[14:00]
take the responsibility who will build the responsibility amongst their team but we want them to do it as servant-hearted people as humble people and take the stance of a lifelong learner that is you can still take and build responsibility throughout your church as a church leader and lead like jesus would have you lead so the first objection that taking

[14:30]
responsibility you know will naturally lead towards abusive leadership i don't think is true well the second objection is that when we talk about taking responsibility for outcomes as a leader is that you can start to really feel crushed by the weight of responsibility and so you say oh i don't think i can do this it's too much and that's not again the outcome that we want when we talk about taking on

[15:01]
responsibility we don't want in the wake of this aspect of the framework a whole bunch of pastors sort of burned out uh and sort of you know sort of you know left behind that's that's not our desire at all and so what we need to remember here is that there are patterns of work and rest and rhythms that god has built into creation itself while it's good for us to take responsibility it's also good for us to

[15:33]
rest and to remember that god is sovereign throughout all these things but it's also worth remembering that while you're taking responsibility it's about building responsibility throughout the whole church as well and it's where our theology of the body the church you know that building block of the church that comes into play because you've got a whole bunch of people who are keen to see god do great

[16:04]
things amongst your church who would love to share that responsibility with you so you don't have to take it all upon yourself and we also need to remember here the important truth of our identity where our identity is not caught up in the outcomes well we want to take responsibility for them on that's not who we are and this is a good protective mechanism so that success doesn't go to our head

[16:35]
and finally go to our heart when we think about taking responsibilities on so that we're not sort of jumping up and down going oh we know when how good am i or when it doesn't work we're in the absolute pits of despair we need to remember who our identity is before our great god as as one of his children that's the most precious thing so while yes we want people to take responsibility we don't want it to go to the point where it crushes them and they burn out and are no longer in ministry

[17:06]
well our third objection is a theological one and the objection goes like this um when you talk about leaders taking on responsibility for outcomes aren't we moving in the realms of what god does he's responsible for outcomes we just need to be faithful with inputs i mean we saw last episode about how important it is for us to be faithful uh to inputs but what about this responsibility for outcomes and what we're wrestling with here is really that interplay that tension that

[17:38]
sits between divine sovereignty and human responsibility it's god as king and god as judge these are the two terms that j.i packer uses in his book evangelism and the sovereignty of god as he wrestles with these two concepts when it comes to our own personal salvation and how that works and how we think about evangelism you know god is king and god as judge and what we've started to see through this episode is that if you emphasize

[18:11]
one over the other you're going to end up with some mistakes or if you end up with human responsibility over and above god as king or in divine sovereignty again you have mistakes now we don't have the time now to really deep dive and unpack these but what we can say is that from a scriptural scriptural point of view it is okay to say that we can take responsibility for outcomes and not damage divine sovereignty and god as

[18:43]
king it's okay for us to say that one of the clearest places i think we see this is in matthew 25 and the parable of the talents and and you know the analogy and the story that jesus uses there is that he gives responsibility talents to you know his particular servants but he expects them to do something with them and it's the one that does nothing and just says look i buried it and did nothing with it that jesus says you know you you haven't done what you're supposed to do

[19:13]
there's responsibility there's accountability with what god has sovereignly given us so three objections that we've um tackled here as we've sought to go on we're taking responsibility and does it lead to abusive leadership no it doesn't does it lead to crushing weight of responsibility that you can't get past well no it doesn't is it theologically uh unhelpful or you know does it not match up with scriptures to

[19:43]
say that as leaders we need to take responsibility on for outcomes and again what we've seen is that it doesn't we are going to take a break now and after the break we're going to talk a little bit more about faithfulness and fruitfulness we're going to talk about outcomes and the leader and how this impacts more than just the senior minister in church see you in just a few moments i want to announce the 2022 reach australia national conference

[20:15]
it'll be on the 16th to 19th of may at ev church on the central coast and after two years we're finally able to gather in one location getting together as a network to really press into the goal of reaching australia for christ as always the national conference will provide theologically driven practically oriented proven tools for gospel workers to be able to translate into their own ministry contexts we'll have talks panels workshops consultations with experienced ministry practitioners the opportunity to reflect as a team

[20:47]
networking and to pray together these four days will clarify stimulate inspire and encourage all who attend for the task at hand making disciples of all the nations over the four days we're going to be looking at one of the key purpose areas serve andrew reid's going to be opening up the bible and paul harrington will be sharing his ministry experience we'll be answering questions such as how do we build teams what does it look like to raise up leaders and build ministry layers across all of church life what are the key

[21:18]
systems and processes that we need to unleash the saints for good works over the four days we're going to keep coming back to this idea wrestling with what does it look like to have a church where people are joyfully serving and loving one another registrations are now open so go to reach australia.com.eu looking forward to seeing you in 2022 welcome back to the third episode of the

[21:49]
reach australia framework podcast series we have been talking about taking and building responsibility right now let's head to andrew hurd the senior minister at evening church on the central coast and he's going to keep unpacking some of the things that we've been discussing you know the early missionaries in uh in australia and if you've not read the john harris book you ought to all go and get the john harris book the uh the early mission is australia they um won

[22:19]
blood they um they had very mixed results in their evangelistic efforts and uh that many of them labored very hard they were faithful godly committed sacrificial they poured out their lives to bring the gospel to the indigenous people many of them saw no fruit some of them eventually asked the question why and the answer wasn't as simple as

[22:52]
first nations australians don't respond to the gospel many of them actually began to see that they'd mixed in with gospel preaching british culture and they'd called on people to be christian by becoming farmers who dressed a certain way and they realized actually that polluted their gospel ministry did you say but an output thinker would be jumping to that question much quicker

[23:23]
and taking responsibility for what's happening and what i'm doing that might be leading to a failure to bear fruit and take responsibility for that that i might change what i do to see more fruit under god by his grace born do you know if we lead our churches in a language that is incomprehensible latin if we do latin in our churches faithfully preaching the word but in a way that's incomprehensible we are contributing to the father of our people to grow

[23:54]
it's us do you see we are at some level responsible and when you feel that responsibility for the outcome it empowers the ability to make changes actually it should put a fire under you to really rest at why we are not seeing the outcomes we ought to see take responsibility for your work for the outcomes in appropriate measure and build a sense within your church among the people you work with where they're where there is this expectation that

[24:25]
just turning up is not good enough that there are things that are too important too precious you don't miss work because it's so desperately important you ought why would you think to miss the task you've got amongst god's people to bring his word to bear a culture where people begin to take responsibility for their different areas of ministry life in church empowers a church to actually achieve outcomes

[24:55]
a church built on rosters will not reach australia because it encourages input thinking so here is the principle that we're putting forward in this episode take responsibility build responsibility i mean we could fill that out just a little bit more to say take responsibility for outcomes but he's in that's is it that anyway

[25:26]
unloving let's head now to greg lee who's going to help us unpack a little more about why outcomes-based leadership and taking responsibility is actually a really loving thing to do as shepherds we want to love our sheep which means we we need to know what's going on so why does a parent measure the growth of their child of their baby it's because they want to know what's going on why why do schools

[25:59]
um test kids at the end of the year it's because we want to know that the teaching has actually had some impact um we measure what's happening at church because we love the sheep enough to want to know what's going on out there rather than just hoping for the best in guessing well over the last couple of episodes i've started to share a little bit about my church planting experience and so if you remember i planned a church you know clarified the big thing i wanted you know all things to unite under jesus and everyone at that

[26:29]
university campus to have an opportunity to hear about jesus uh you know and the idea was i'd be faithful the doors were open someone was there to preach each and every week and i felt a sense of responsibility for that church but i never shared that responsibility i never built it in to anyone else and so there was good people around and so i think it's fair to say that i contributed to the lack of fruit

[27:01]
in maturity and mission now and i don't say that with a sense of despair i i know who i am in christ and really it's only really been in the last five years or so that i've really started to see the benefit and the power of taking responsibility and building responsibility now god had to knock some arrogance out of me along the way he had to help me start to see what it meant to be a lifelong learner to humble

[27:32]
me in certain aspects to open my eyes up to sort of what was actually going on and to give me the opportunities about what it meant to actually lead something and so i started to take responsibility but it's not just about taking responsibility isn't it most of this episode has been about taking responsibility owning responsibility towards outcomes but it's also about building responsibility because we want to build

[28:02]
it across that whole ecosystem of church and so that's where we want to go to now let's start to think together about what it means to build responsibility well as we talk about building responsibility there's three areas that we need to touch on the first is we want to build responsibility not just in the senior leader we want to build responsibility across our staff team as well it's just so

[28:34]
much more powerful when you charge someone to not just run small groups but think about how we as a church can go deep in the word together now small groups might be a part of it but to have that responsibility let's go deep in the word and i want you as this staff member to take responsibility of it the same with mission you know the the responsibility of you know let's actually see this number of people converted rather

[29:05]
than i just want you to run a couple of evangelistic courses there's just a power to it in terms of how you build that responsibility into your staff team now those five categories that we've spoken about may they may not necessarily be how you staff but the key principle here is to build the responsibility for significant areas of ministry in to your staff team the second thing

[29:35]
is we don't want to just build responsibility into our staff team and the senior leader we want to build responsibility into our high capacity volunteers and so when you charge them are you giving them a task you know this is what i want you to do or are you giving them a responsibility uh you know here's the responsibility here's the things that i would like for you to be responsible for there's quite a difference between them one again is just an input that you're

[30:05]
giving them to run the other one is giving them some responsibility to work through the third area where we want to build responsibility is in team leaders and team members again we don't want to just give them tasks or we don't want them just to understand one aspect of it and so the person that gets up to play guitar it's not just about making sure they hit the right chords it's about them understanding about you

[30:38]
know bringing the whole church to be godwardly attentive or kids ministry their job is not just to run games that the purpose that sits behind is we want to make mature disciples across all ages and that includes our youngest members you start to see as we build responsibility how it transforms every sort of area of service across our churches so that we start to think outputs goals

[31:08]
responsibilities it's such a helpful way to think well as we've started to talk about building responsibility let's meet someone now who has gone through their own journey around the ideas of taking and building responsibility so james chen welcome hello uh it's great to have you here and now james you're the youth minister at some pauls of comfort now you and i have worked together that's right we have some history we do mate we do um

[31:38]
and it's a joy to have you here now i want to take you back uh you've just started a ministry apprenticeship uh with us at some polls uh you've been given oversight of a congregation uh what what did you do what was going through your head and um yeah fill us in a little bit of that yeah thanks dave so start of 2019 started a ministry apprenticeship with some pause and my real goals were to be faithful and love and serve people and not mess up those were really what i wanted to do to be faithful and to not mess up and so there

[32:09]
was a bit of ministry experience that i had before my ministry apprenticeship but now entering into this role doing more things at church i had the opportunity to do more of what i had done before personally historically and so my thought was look just do the same things grow in how you do them you have more time to do them you have more space to do them yeah so that's what i wanted to do yeah great great now um fast forward just a little in that story uh so 2019 that the first reach australia

[32:42]
national conference uh our whole team went to the conference that's right that's right you know and you sort of i guess got introduced to some of this framework thinking what changed for you yeah on one level nothing changed theologically i still was reading the bible and seeing how god is sovereign he works god's plans and purpose is to build his church in maturity and in number so theologically nothing changed but what i

[33:12]
saw through the conference was a whole bunch of dots were connecting for me a huge thing was recognizing that i am responsible not to control the outcomes but to influence them that i need to take responsibility for what's happening in the ministry space to recognize that god saves god transforms people's hearts god's word always accomplishes that which he wants and so if i'm not seeing fruit if i'm not seeing people come to know jesus if i'm not seeing growth the

[33:42]
problem is not god the problem might be me yeah and what i'm doing and how i'm organizing or not organizing or not taking responsibility for what's happening at church and so a big shift for me was realizing that i was i needed to take responsibility and i needed to build responsibility i needed to get organized in order to love people i needed to be clear about what i was aiming to do and put a plan together to see it come to fruition yeah nice now were were there any uh helpful

[34:14]
illustrations or things that helped make it click for you well i think that two big things that stuck with me i mean there are lots of things i i have to say that the reach australia 2019 conference in my opinion was you know top three in terms of conferences i've ever been at which you know on one level some people might say three you know it's have you been to three yes i've been to many conferences i was a uni student i went to you know five six a year but this was up there in terms of its impact on me yeah great two illustrations that stuck out the first one was i remember

[34:44]
the barns and the fields illustration i remember going hearing in a session you know sometimes in churches you can see oh wow there's lots of people sitting here we're pretty full and thinking that you know a barn filled with grain is already pretty full but then we need to remember to set our sights outwards to see the fields to see how much there is still to harvest and so that made me really think about our collingford north rocks area looking at 40 000 or so people according to the

[35:15]
2016 census and realizing you know we're a church of 900 950 to adults there are 40 000 in our area yeah and so are we big well on one level yes on another level no not at all yeah we have so many more people to reach and we need to reach them yeah another one was uh i forgot who was speaking but they were drilling into the one corinthians 3 you know poor planted apollos watered god gave the growth and so is it that you have no task no

[35:47]
role no you do plant and water but remember god god brings the growth god gets the glory yeah nice um really helpful to hear your reflections uh on on that conference um and lots of good times uh and networking with uh with other people there as well um so what what happened you know you you sort of just sort of gives a bit of a sneak peek that you know you're starting to think about this congregation like that what happened over the next you know uh 10 to 12 months yeah yeah thanks dave

[36:18]
it's really interesting so we went to the conference and then i had two weeks of leave which was great because all those thoughts were just percolating in my head i got to reflect a lot on it i got to talk to my wife viv about it while we were on leave and what i realized was that i really was just input thinking i was thinking as long as i have you know sought to prayerfully love people as long as i have maybe led a good growth group study as long as i've made sure no one was too unhappy you know things are fine things are good but over that leave what i

[36:50]
realized is those are good but there's more that i can do yeah and so thinking about how many people were becoming christians thinking about how many people were growing thinking about how many newcomers we were having it made me realize that some things needed to change yeah i got back from leave i sat down with my trainer who also happened to be the senior minister at the time and i said uh i would love to put a plan in place that has these particular outcomes by february 2020. yeah and so i went here's where we

[37:21]
want to be in terms of outcomes and i want to put a plan for the next seven six seven months on how we're going to get there yep so those are your outcomes and here's the the inputs that you wanted to do that's right that's right and so i tried to break it down because having come from the conference there were so many things that i was you know bursting at the city i just wanted to to make all these different things happen and go no i need to be clear i need to have clarity and i'm going to focus on three to four things yeah and of those three to four things i'm not going to go through all of them but one of the big things was

[37:51]
building responsibility in volunteers to take ownership over what they're doing yeah one of the things i realized is that around church i wanted to play a really pivotal role in all the different things that were happening yeah not because i thought i was the best at them yeah but because i thought that that's what i needed to do to make sure that i was faithfully serving and loving people and so i became the bottleneck now if someone had a new initiative for evangelism they had to run through me but my mind might have been in four or

[38:21]
five other places um on top of that people would come to to to church in our sunday service they might arrive at four o'clock it's a four p.m service you know at four o'clock and they they're rushing up the front to pray or bible read and they haven't had a sense of uh what am i meant to do where am i meant to be on that sort of thing and so what happened was that the service was clunky and so what i realized is that i also needed to help build responsibility in the people there to say you need to get

[38:52]
organized you need to be here early you need to know what's happening and it's good for us to pray together and spend some time in the word before we go ahead and serve god's people yeah and so a big aspect was seeking to build responsibility in volunteers giving them real ownership over different parts of church life but also to build responsibility in our volunteers in different aspects so that they felt that they needed to be organized they needed to be faithful and there are ways that they could keep growing they could keep

[39:23]
improving so james one final question then uh what was the impact of all this yeah well uh in the exact numbers i i do have them in my head because i'm i know i'm a bit of a numbers person um so before all of this stuff we had 75 people in growth groups and on an average sunday we might have 75 to 77 people at church so that was around july 2019 in god's kindness

[39:54]
over the next few months and with this plan that i prayerfully sought to implement by february 2020 we had 98 people in growth groups we saw two people become christians in that time and on any given sunday we were having a hundred people present yeah and so that was a remarkable uh surge of growth in that amount of time and i was incredibly thankful and to be honest flabbergasted that that ended up happening um now i i just i'm so thankful that god

[40:26]
worked in and through the plans and brought people to our church yeah uh so good to hear your story uh and it was so good to sort of i guess walk alongside you in in one aspect as you started to sort of you know discover these things about building responsibility and and see that congregation start to uh really thrive under that you know they took that responsibility on and uh you know there's all sorts of things that you did change that i know we haven't had time to go into um but there's a real power

[40:57]
in taking responsibility and building responsibility uh in your congregation and that's what we've been talking about here in this third episode well where do we go from here what are some next steps in this principle that we've started to work through of taking and building responsibility we've got a series of clips that are going to start to pull some of these things together for us we're firstly going to hear again from

[41:28]
andrew hurd then from our stuart and andrew is going to wrap that back up before i finish this episode you are deeply valued our role your role under god as pastors is precious and important this is not meant to be a beat up it's not condemning it's not meant to be a cause for despair because there are things we can do and i'll come to those well we'll come to those through these next two days and we serve a sovereign god

[41:59]
who loves us and gave his son for us our role as pastors and elders and leaders is it's not who we are do you know who we are is children of god loved by god so that gives you the power to look in the mirror and see whether i'm doing it well or not and if i'm not i don't go to despair because my life with god is not based on my performance i can be honest about what's happening and glorious success is being faithful

[42:31]
is standing firm in the midst of a world that is so opposed to the things of christ the sovereign god gives growth where he chooses but the biggest single human factor in gospel growth by a mile is leadership but it's crucial too because the key to reaching the country that we live in is the local church the key to reaching the country is the

[43:02]
local church god has raised up his people and brought them into partnership with himself to make disciples of all nations the key to the local church is us under god powered by his spirit and in this i'm not just talking about the local church as the gathering i mean the community of believers that particularly gather god's people it's god's people used by god to reach this nation

[43:34]
under god empowered by his spirit we're the key local church we're the key under god to its health and it's the key to reaching the country we will not reach australia apart from some experience a revival or unique pouring out of the spirit in some spirit we won't apart from that except that god raises us up to help bring health to his people to be used by him

[44:07]
and except that we embrace our part under god and capture his heart we will not see it happening in our generation well let's not miss what andrew heard has helpfully pointed out for us the local church is key if we're going to reach australia if that's the goal we want to see that australia reach for jesus we need the local church to be firing and for the local church to be firing we need church leaders to be firing we need them to

[44:38]
understand this really helpful and transformative principle of taking and building responsibility but again as we do that let's be reminded that we are children of god firstly and foremostly and so let's drive this episode now to a close it's been great to have you join us as we have seen this third piece of the framework take responsibility build responsibility next time

[45:09]
we are in episode four we're going to break it down we're going to get to the point of some granularity so that we can start to see what's actually going on in different parts of church and our last episode is thinking ecosystems as with every episode we have some australian church music to showcase for you but until then god bless and i'll see you then

[45:41]
there is none like our savior no one like our god always wise will ever be beginning in the end god the author we were made to bring you glory lord you are so glorious

[46:21]
we behold your glory for before mercy

[46:53]
there is we were made to bring you glory lord you are so glorious

[47:44]
you are see glory to the father

[48:22]
glory to the sun glory to glory to the gods oh

[48:53]
we behold your glory you are worthy

[49:24]
my justice you