Women in Leadership Network

A network for women in key leadership roles in churches across Australia
Belong
This network is for women leading, serving and contributing in diverse ways in churches – whether you are volunteering part time to lead the kids ministry, directing the Membership portfolio, serving on parish council or working in admin and communications.
Connect
Meet like-minded women who are making significant contributions in gospel ministry. Share your experiences and insights needed to reach Australia with the gospel.
Mobilise
A springboard to see more women mobilised for gospel ministry. Women face specific challenges and we need to work together to target leadership pipeline blockages and develop solutions.
Our story
Reach Australia (originally Geneva Push) began as a network of church planters with a single focus on establishing new churches across the country to reach Australia with the gospel. As our network and resources have grown we’ve had the capacity to expand our focus to senior leadership of established churches, their spouses, and now men and women in key leadership roles.

With our focus on teams ministry, each year it’s exciting to see more and more women involved in the Reach Australia network. At the 2023 National Conference, 35% of attendees and 37% of workshop speakers were female.

The 2023 Women’s Networking lunch had 130 women attending covering diverse ministry areas including mission, serving, community, hospitality, marketing & communications, maturity, magnification, children’s ministry, women’s ministry, youth and young adults.
Here are just some of the challenges women can face in leadership

Join our network to connect with other women and develop some solutions together.

  • Blockages in the leadership pipeline
  • Personal confidence – seen in women hearing the voice of their inner critic, comparing with others, or experiencing imposter syndrome
  • Juggling ministry with the busyness of life and family responsibilities
  • Higher rates of ministry burnout
  • The ‘onlyness’ of being the minority or only woman on a team
  • Challenging team dynamics
  • Awkward and discouraging comments
  • Lack of diverse role models within their own church
  • The emotional toll of regularly answering questions about women’s roles in the church
  • Unclear leadership development pathways

Hear from women in ministry roles across Australia

Meet the team facilitating the network

Jo Gibbs
Lead Consultant - Healthy Teams, Women in Leadership
Jo is the Women in Leadership Network facilitator and consults with churches about building healthy teams. She has served cross-culturally and in numerous ministry roles before joining the team at Reach Australia.
Natasha Maier
Support Raising Manager
Tish connects people who are passionate about seeing women in leadership to be patrons of the network. She has a background in fundraising, digital marketing and student ministry in Slovenia.

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Practical resources for women in leadership

Got questions?

The Reach Australia network is made up of over 260+ churches from over 12 denominations. We are a national, reformed and evangelical movement with shared convictions.

Under God, the leaders of churches are key to the vibrancy and progress of the church in Australia. Our vision for thousands of healthy, evangelistic and multiplying churches means we must work together across denominations. In fact we believe that a network can do things other structures are not set up to do. We’re excited to serve pastors from across Australia including Presbyterian, independent evangelical, Reformed, Baptist, Anglican and others who affirm our biblical convictions.

The Reach Australia network is made up of over 260 churches of different sizes and structures from over 12 denominations. As a result there is a wide range of church models and incredible diversity in roles for women. Women are serving on teams as Associate Ministers, portfolio Ministry Directors, in ministry support (including admin, comms and graphic design), next generation ministries (young adults, youth and kids), pastoral care, hospitality, operations, and governance. These include part-time and full-time roles, both paid and volunteers.

Our focus on making mature disciples in ever-increasing numbers has led to innovative and new roles being created across the ecosystem purpose areas: Deeply trusts the Word, On Mission, Serves Others, In Community and Loves God. These roles allow for specialisation and depth around personal interests and gifting, and have opened up more roles for women than are often available in a congregational pastoring model. Our emphasis on building team-based ministry and mobilising the whole church for gospel ministry has seen an increasing number of roles for women at different levels of leadership.

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