The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
The discussion is broadcast live on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thepastorsheart">Facebook</a> then on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ThePastorsHeart">YouTube</a> and on our <u><b><a href="http://www.thepastorsheart.net">thepastorsheart.net</a></u></b> website and via audio podcast.
The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Riding the young adult revival - Dave Jensen, Sam Mahdavi & Pre Shunmugam
Something is happening. In England the data shows a quiet revival. In France a new evangelical church is opening every ten days. But what about here in Australia?
Among young adults we’re hearing stories of renewed interest in Jesus, fresh conversions and surprising openness. Is this a cultural phenomenon or is it something deeper? And how do we ride the wave?
We talk about ground level experiences, the big picture, the influence of politics, and the five percent conversion growth goal for Sydney Anglican churches.
We’re joined by three frontline evangelists:
• Dave Jensen from Sydney Anglican Evangelism and New Churches
• Sam Mahdavi from Wollongong Baptist Church
• Pre Shunmugam from MBM Rooty Hill in multicultural Western Sydney
The Church Co
http://www.thechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.
Advertise on The Pastor's Heart
To advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsor
Can we ride the cultural wave? Is there a revival among young adults in Australia? Dave Jensen, pre-Shunmigan, and Sam Madavi are my guests. It is The Pastor's Heart. It's Dominic Steele, and it is clear that there is something going on. In England, the statistics are in. There's something they're calling it a quiet revival. Over in France, we're hearing that an evangelical church is opening every 10 days. But what about here in Australia? Our guests, well, Dave Jensen leads the evangelism part of the Sydney Anglicans, Evangelism and New Churches. Sam Madavi, he heads up evangelism at Wollongong Baptist Church, and Pree Shunmigan is the mission lead and youth pastor at MBM Rudy Hill in Sydney. Let's start with the pastor's heart and with you, Pri. And uh, you are in the heartland of multiculturalism in Sydney's West at Rudy Hill. Um, what's going on on the ground among the 70 nationalities or so that are part of your network?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, like you said, like we've definitely noticed uh and heightening interest in people coming into church. So, you know, across all services from morning until 5 p.m., people walking in, coming to check out what's going on at MBM. Uh, but particularly in our 5 p.m. service, uh, we've noticed as there's a lot more young adults coming in and a lot more of our people just bringing their friends along. Uh, we have like an OSTAG team that's just sort of started up, or they've been going for a year or so, but about three rows off our um of the seating that is just filled with people from this OSTAG team that have just sort of come along, which is meaning three rows of seating in your auditorium.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's great. It's so good. Uh, and just simple invites. So they're playing on you know during the night, and then especially one of the guys starts with praying with the team beforehand. Not everyone's believers in there, and he just invites them along to 5 p.m. and they've been coming along, which is yeah, it's been so good.
SPEAKER_05:Uh Wollongong Baptist? Yeah, similar to us. Um, we've seen a rise in church attendance, especially among uh the young adults. We've we've had people literally walking in, just you know, they've been like watching videos on YouTube with TikTok, and now they're interested about Jesus, looking for purpose, meaning, life. They're coming to just hear about Jesus. And we've also had um like people inviting their friends because there's an openness among this generation to come to church. So we've we've seen that too at Wollingong Baptist, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Dave, is it just Wollongong Baptist and MBM? Uh praise God, no. Yeah, in my role, I get to travel all across Sydney, New South and Australia actually, uh, preaching. And it's undoubtedly true that there is uh increase in attendance of the two groups we're talking about, which is uh people just turning up to church uninvited, and that's almost unparalleled in our history, uh, and also people responding positively to an invitation. And here's the I think the big headline is that that demographic most evidently presented is young adult men. Uh and you know, if you've been in ministry for more than six minutes, you'll know, oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03:They're a hard group to reach.
SPEAKER_01:They're very, very difficult traditionally, the most difficult group.
SPEAKER_03:And yet suddenly we're starting to think, are they the easier group?
SPEAKER_01:And are they the easier one to hit? And and I think that the big, big headline is there are more and more young adults interested in Christianity, and particularly young adult men, and that has been evidenced by coming or being brought along to church.
SPEAKER_03:Um, I'm seeing as uh as we see people more willing to receive our invitation, that's causing us to up the enthusiasm for inviting as well. Are you are you see that's people are more on the front foot in inviting?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. I I I think that when they trust what's going on, that they're trusting the good news of Jesus, they're trusting the church that they're going through, uh going to, it's an easy invite to you know, bring your friends along and come to this, especially if their friends are searching for something that's more, you know, authentic, searching for something that they can, you know, hold on to. With I think I would think a lot of things in life at the moment, people have put their trust in things that have eventually sort of saying promise something, but doesn't deliver. Uh, and I think that's what people are coming to Jesus saying, actually, there's something real behind this and hoping to coming along.
SPEAKER_03:Now, um, cultural groups, is it more one cultural group than another? What's your take there, Sam?
SPEAKER_05:Um, not really sure about that. Um, uh Wollingong's quite special. We've got the uni. Um, we we've seen special. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Wollen Gong thinks it's special. I'd like to say it's special.
SPEAKER_05:Um we're very close to uni, I can say, and we've seen more international students coming in. I'm not sure uh about MBM or other churches in Sydney. Um, but we've had people from different cultures, it's not just dominantly um just one group of people. Yeah, what's going on culturally there, Dave?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I think there's a couple of things, but on a very surface, non-spiritual, everything's spiritual, but on a surface level, I think what we're seeing is the consequence of the social, political, cultural chaos uh that has engulfed Gen Y, Millennials, and Gen X. It's all the boomers' fault, of course, but in essence, that postmodern, incoherent uh view of life where there is no right or wrong, there is no stability, no solidity. Uh, and that in essence, particularly for young men, they're told from very, very young childhood, you're the problem. It's your problem. It's all your fault. It's all your fault. You can't fix it. There's no hope. This is just you've done something wrong before you were born. This is what you have. Now, we've got that. And of course, I want to offer that I've seen in my own children. I've got four young boys in primary school. I've seen that actually another part of this is rebellion, believe it or not. Because most of their teachers who are proffering this viewpoint are millennials, they hold the most woke positions. And what do young people always, always do?
SPEAKER_03:They rebel against authority. They rebel against authority.
SPEAKER_01:And they rebel against teachers, they rebel against politicians, they rebel against so if you want to be punk, if you want to be a rebel, if you want to, well, what we're seeing is that that's a rejection of the institutional, uh, and forgive me, I don't like the term wokery, but the interinstitutional uh liberalism of life. Uh, and actually, if you combine that with the chaos, with the hopelessness, well, it's a search for solidity, for solid ground, for a rock to stand on, for something to believe in, to be something part of something bigger than themselves. And that instinctively, of course, I think drives people up to God. Uh, and in a culture such as ours in Australia and the UK, Canada, New Zealand, America, the other Protestant nations where we've got the evidence from, uh, it's leading people to church.
SPEAKER_03:Fascinating, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Unheralded. And it's taken us by surprise. But I do want to offer as well that um it's also producing the thing you talked about, the enthusiasm of inviting people, I think it's producing amongst our Christians, leaders and lay people, optimism, hope-timism. You know, just this idea that, oh, hold on, because for years, what's the narrative been? Well, we're in Babylon, not Jerusalem, we're the enemy, we're gonna be in prison in a decade, we're this that the other. The census forms to go, oh my goodness. And yet we're sort of coming up against the fact that no, no, we believe in a God who can and does keep saving people, uh, and that it by you know, for every no one could have predicted, and yet two years ago, we wouldn't have been sitting here talking about this or ever thought of it. And yet it's undoubtedly, I think it's true. There is an openness that doesn't mean a conversion or a revival, I think, but there is an openness that we haven't experienced before.
SPEAKER_03:What's going on in the politics? Um, because um I mean, some people, I mean, this phenomena was happening before the shooting of Charlie Kirk, but um uh I mean there have I mean you were telling me some people turned up at your church because of Charlie Kirk.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I mean they left their church because their church didn't have like an opinion or stance on what happened to Charlie Kirk. So they were wondering if we would talk about it and we would like share our opinion on what we think of what happened in America.
SPEAKER_03:Just hang on there then. What I'm gonna do is um I had a discussion like two months ago with uh Sinclair Ferguson, yeah, and I threw the ball to him that we as pastors should stay in our lane on um uh preaching Christ and not getting involved in the the politics. Let's just watch a clip of that, then I'm gonna make a comment, then I'm gonna ask you to expand. Our congregation members wouldn't know which way I I vote. Um, and I want people to come to our church who are highly left-wing and highly right wing, and I stay in my lane of preaching Christ and don't get in the lane of expressing political views.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I am I'm very much with you, I think, Dominic. Uh it's kind of church-state separation in its in its own way. That what I'm wanting to do in ministry is really to give people what I call the lenses through which they can see the world fairly clearly that will enable them to assess situations in a fallen world and if it's a vote, then to vote accordingly. I think American friends have found themselves in recent years in pretty considerable difficulty because they found themselves uh faced with candidates, neither of whom actually appeals to them as a person. But at least in my world, you know, they have they have they have at least understood this principle that the person of the individual is not the most important thing that what will happen as a result of the individual may be very different from the question, do you like him or her or not?
SPEAKER_03:Now we coped or Sinclair Ferguson and me in the backwash copped quite a bit of flack over that uh um those comments online, particularly from people in America. And we've got it going on, uh you had Mark Driscoll saying, uh anyone who any preacher who doesn't talk about Charlie Kirk leave that church.
SPEAKER_01:Um what's I'll start with you, Dave. I think how Sinclair put that is the perfect way that I would view preaching. That uh preaching is well, Andrew Heard calls, I don't know if he invented this, but worldview preaching. Not that the world shapes your preaching, but that as you preach the word, uh, that you allow in application as you're preaching through what we're learning, and particularly the eschatological reality, the eternal focus of the word to shape how we view the world and how we view issues. I think we're very fortunate in Australia that both major parties are dreadful. When we're not driven with religion, thinking, oh, well, every Christian must vote uh liberal. Or Labor. Yeah, yeah. Or Labor. We're used to them.
SPEAKER_03:We're used to both of them being we've been profoundly disappointed with both sides.
SPEAKER_01:We're not disappointed on both sides, and so we don't have that same pressure, I think, as the Americans feel. Uh, but I would offer that that means that we can freely speak about Charlie Kirk or COVID or immigration or the voice or whatever it is, from the scriptural view and paradigm, but I think we need to resist at all costs uh even sharing our own opinion on it. Uh, it's not a moral issue like abortion or gay marriage. On these issues where you can hold either viewpoint and not sin, I think it's very important.
SPEAKER_03:You're talking about the various political issues. All the issues.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's very important that we don't share how we vote, we don't share our opinion.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But we are willing to talk about the issues facing the world and how a Christian would view them, Charlie Kirk being a good example, if your demographic of your church would care. You know, if where we're filming right now, I dare say the view count for Charlie Kirk videos would be very, very low.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We're right in the center of left wing and in suburban Australia where it was higher, well, yeah, it's absolutely, I think, suitable, appropriate to mention it, but to actually do it from a biblical perspective.
SPEAKER_03:Now you were saying um at Wollongong Baptist, you had some people turning up wanting Charlie Kirk allegiance.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's right. They wanted to know where do we stand, like what's happening, and just tell us about that. Um, but I can be said to them that we are a church where we like we want people from they were annoyed with the Anglicans because they weren't talking about Yeah, that's right. They left the church thinking maybe Wollingham Baptists will talk about that.
SPEAKER_03:Um we'll go to Willong. Yeah, we'll go there'll be more and then what did you do?
SPEAKER_05:Well, we want to we want to be a church where people from different opinions and different political views come and hear about Jesus. Jesus is at the center of our church. We preach Jesus, we preach the cross. This doesn't mean we are ignorant of what's happening in the world. No, we pray about it, but we don't tell people what to do or who to vote for or where do we stand. I don't think that's helpful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Have you tackled it in Western Sydney?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, similar to you. So I was preaching that weekend when everything happened with Charlie Kirk, and I got a message from a guy saying, I'm bringing my brother along to church. He's very upset about the Charlie Kirk thing. Uh, and I don't know what he was wanting me to do, but like I wasn't gonna make Charlie Kirk the center off my sermon. But I do think, like, with what Sinclair said and with what you just said then, Dave, as well, I think there's a difference between like aligning politically and then also being aware of what's going on. And so I did mention Charlie Kirk in my sermon of saying it was a tragedy of what happened, but he wasn't the center of my sermon. Like, I think issues are always gonna come, you know, there'll be someone else 10, 20 years from now, it's gonna be another issue that comes along. That can never be the center of what we're doing. Jesus always has to be the center of what we're doing because Charlie Kirk's not gonna save anyone. Jesus is the one who's gonna save people. And so we want to keep pointing people to him while at the same time being culturally aware, culturally aware of what's going on. So in our growth group, I um we were going and then I realized, okay, I'm not gonna go on with this study. I'm gonna help our young adults think through. Just seeing all the stuff going on on social media about Charlie Kirk as Christians, how are we supposed to respond to this? And just having a conversation and engaging with them, because I think that's helpful for them to see, okay, I'm not totally unaware of what's going on, but at the same time, we've got a mission from Jesus. Let's get on with that.
SPEAKER_03:We've talked before, David, about uh Dave, about people coming to church looking for something other than Jesus, like looking for, if you like, the right-wing political position or looking for the anti-vax. And what happens when they're coming for that and you give them Jesus?
SPEAKER_01:Generally speaking, it's the same phenomenon as you get when someone comes to church at Christmas or Easter to tick a box. So they're coming for something we're not offering. And what they're looking for at Christmas or Easter is a tick-in-the-box assurance that that's okay, you'll be fine. They're not generally listening, so they don't get offended. Uh, however, the COVID thing was fascinating. The political response uh phenomena is fascinating because in many respects they're coming because they're offended, they're shocked, they're and some of them I would offer are genuinely so shocked they're looking for something deeper. But the vast majority are coming because they're viewing the church because of American politics alignment with Christianity as a bastion of conservatism, and so they leave very, very disappointed. Maybe not very, very disappointed, but they leave not um satisfied because when we meet people like that, we want to love them and convert them and confront them with the gospel and bring them to hear the good news of Jesus. And that's not often what they're looking for. COVID was fascinating. We saw a bunch of people come because of the Christian-ish uh uh tenor, I suppose, of the protest movement. Uh, and they would come, there was an openness, but it because it was driven not by a search for God, but driven by a political angliness or unsettledness or things. Yeah, it wouldn't generally last. Of course, God does what he wants and he saves people through that, but generally speaking, it doesn't land.
SPEAKER_03:Now we've not spoken properly since the Sydney Synod when the um uh goal of trying to see five percent conversion based on average adult attendance or based on average attendance. Um I'm imagining I mean, I was excited about that. I'm imagining you're excited about that. I'm just thinking about you guys, the way you're talking about your evening congregations, you're probably over five percent conversion at the moment. But what are you doing and what are you hearing spoken of about how to get this happening across the board? Let's start with you. Well, you're not an Anglican, but I guess you're going for 5% anyway. How do we well?
SPEAKER_05:There are different ways. Um, the most important thing is the word of God. Yeah, we we invite people so they can hear the word, so they can hear Jesus. When we preach Jesus to them, when we preach the cross, that's when the conversion happens. There are different ways. Um, the most effective way, in my opinion, is our evangelistic courses. Like at our church, we have an evangelistic course where um like during the week we um provide um a very like easy, uh comfortable, uh chill environment for people to come and ask questions and hear the gospel. Um, and just that's that's the most important thing. Bring people it's the same with the praise.
SPEAKER_03:Is it the evangelistic course that you're doing? Is that your main conversion engine technique?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, that's our main. So, yeah, similar to what just Sam just said. Um, but I think like maybe to talk about like why that's effective, because we have the same philosophy at our youth group. We had a we have a bring a friend night week five. It's predictable, people trust it, uh, and they know that when they're gonna bring their friends along, I'll use youth term here, uh, it's not cringe, right? So they're gonna hear that Jesus preached, but do it in a way that relates with the people that are coming along. And so I think that when people have trust in that and we trust the gospel, it's not gonna fail. Like God's will will, God's word will produce fruit. Uh, we keep doing that and knowing that he will do it. But I think the important thing is like we have to be intentional about it and we have to just keep pushing because I think maybe one of the quickest things to drop out, you might guys might disagree or agree, but mission can be the quickest thing to drop off our radar. So if we're not always on about it, it's gonna be the first thing that goes. And so I think as no, I love it, these guys love it, we just have to keep making sure we're intentional about it. So whether it is a uh evangelistic course or whatever people decide to do, make sure mission's on the agenda.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Now, I think we are probably getting the 5% target amongst our Sunday night cohort. Do you know? And if I was to look at our Sunday night average service attendance, I'm I'm I'm absolutely sure we're at over five percent. And the way you're talking, if you've got three rows from OzTag, you'll be over five percent in the Sunday nights. Yeah, yeah. The the question for me is are we getting it in the morning? And I'm not sure we are. Yeah, Dave, what's your sense of how are you encouraging people on that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, in essence, uh what we need to do, I think, when it comes to evangelism, is work out uh what converts people, uh, which is the gospel. How does it happen? Over 2,000 years, we've seen the word, people, time, and prayer are generally always combined in some way. Uh, and that predominantly works for old adults, young adults, youth, uh in different formats. Uh, I'm certainly seeing, I think, churches that have for the last 20 years seen a good ratio, that 5% figure uh of conversions happening all the time. Um, they have seen an increase in conversion with their young adult, not the same radical increase in mourning in the older crew, but a still steady stream of people converted. So, what converts people when it's hostile and what converts people when there may be openness is actually the same thing. Uh, and so uh yeah, I I I think the main thing I'm noticing is not that the mourning uh older generation is getting harder, but rather they're staying hard. So it's always difficult. And the younger people, it's still difficult, uh, always hard, but yeah, there hasn't been the same openness, the same willingness. I also wonder if a part of that is um we are riding the wave of with a younger generation of the increase of Christian schooling. And so Christian schooling can be overdone in its effectiveness. We can't overthink all this is particularly profoundly effective. But one of the most helpful things is that it can shape people's plausibility of the gospel. And I've noticed with young adults, in particular in the last two years, that huge swath of the new converts are people who have had more than one or two meetings with Christian people over their previous 20 years or whatever. And that may be a Christian teacher, it may be a friend they've met who goes to youth, and a lot of them have gone to a Christian type school where they weren't converted, they're not from Christian families, but it was enough that as they go out into the world and they drink the world's water and they realize this is toil. This is not taking it. This is poison. Yeah. That actually, so long as we have stuff, we're ready, we're prepared to have events and um uh conversion moments where young adults can be brought into, well, and adults, but just that we have stuff appropriately pitched and targeted uh for those demographics, we'll get them.
SPEAKER_03:Now, what about um as we've talked about this kind of revival amongst the young, and um some people have been saying we've got to go more liturgy. And um, I mean, I had a conversation with Glenn Scrivener um a couple of months ago here. He said you should go that way. I'll I'll just play that just a couple of seconds and then we'll pick that up. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:And what they want is something deep and rich and old and tethered and challenging, and the strangeness of Christianity is actually an attractive thing. The ancientness of Christianity is actually an attractive thing. And I I think we we need to be clever about how we respond to this surprising rebirth. Because I think the sort of things that I learnt at Bible college 20 years ago was kind of to get rid of anything challenging, to get rid of anything that was a barrier to faith, to get rid of anything that that made Christianity look ancient. And we were constantly trying to let's do cafe-style church, right? Let's let's have you know chairs in a circle rather than in rows, and let's let's get rid of sacraments, and we we won't do a weekly communion because that might not be good for mission. The people who show up in church now, they're like, Where's your communion? Why have you got kneelers and nobody's kneeling? And like, why, why, why are we not reading the Bible more?
SPEAKER_03:Now that's Glenn Scrivener, but it's not just him. Lots of people I'm I'm um among my friends seem to be saying, uh, we've got to get back to back to liturgy, back to prayer book. And I'm thinking, I just can't see that as effectively connecting with the young adult. But what do you think, David?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I think I have a very strong opinion, Dominic. I I think that's nonsense, actually. Uh I think what we're doing, uh the what Glenn did, and I respect Glenn, but that was a false dichotomy he's presenting there, where he's saying, ah, uh people are coming, and in the past we did cafe church and we got rid of everything just to make it palatable, and that didn't really work. Now they're looking for things that are ancient. I agree with that, and I don't think we should change. Well, I think cafe church has always been a dud, by the way, but I don't think we should change and uh try and pander to our culture and be cool, we're not cool, all those type of things. But the thing they're looking for, truly, that's ancient is not that we're wearing dresses or lighting candles or reciting words, it is the living, breathing word of God that transforms souls. So the the battles that were fought here in Sydney to get rid of the trope of uh liturgical form, which by the way, is prevalent and present in every heretical denomination you can come up with. And not only that, if you look at the denominations and churches which see the least conversions and are responsible for the most people walking away, they are liturgy heavy to the max. Okay. So what what are we actually saying? That's not liturgy. It's not liturgy people need nor want. It's the word. The mistake is to view oh, what they what the mis what he is fighting against, I think, is the seeker service movement, which cuts out even the word because we don't want to confront people with that. And what we have fought for, I'll use Sydney Anglicanism, if I may, uh, so hard, was to to try and strip away unhelpful barriers to the living, breathing word of God where people encounter the living, breathing, ruling, reigning king of kings. Uh, and and that's only because the liturgical framework is so unhelpful in uh building false assurance of salvation. So the I've certainly I'll just put it as as plainly as I can, not that I've been subtle so far, but I'll put it as plainly as I can. If we're just to talk pragmatics about conversions, the churches in England, the United Kingdom, America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand that see the most conversions have almost no liturgical framework whatsoever. It's fake news, and often, I'm not saying like this of Glenn, but unfortunately it's often driven by a confirmation bias that I like it. So I'm gonna make sure everyone else has to go through it because I like it. And so I'm gonna put on a collar and I'm gonna light a candle. Uh, but it's not shown by evidence whatsoever that it leads to people to Christ or to conversion. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And I I became a Christian a few years ago. Um, and I was a young adult, and one of the things that caught my attention from Iranian background. Yes, yes, yes, from a Muslim background, and one of the things that caught my attention was the building that this is normal building, and people are normal people, and they're not weird. So that was that was the thing that caught my attention, not liturgy and the service, the order of service and stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Now, um, both of you, Sam, and you pre spoke about the main conversion engine in your churches being uh the course. And and that's been my experience, and I've been thumping on about running an evangelistic course four times a year for 20 years, and but um uh Dave, you're doing one night evangelism and why when we're seeing the course work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so uh pre-Sam.
SPEAKER_03:I mean you just you argued for it a minute ago. Time, word, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Prayer people are spot on. So uh pre-Sam and I uh are part of uh the alive movement where we are launching a series of yeah, one night evangelistic rallies uh in Sydney and Wollongong, five of them, uh across the city. And they're and they're gonna be targeted at young adults. Now, why?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because it goes against the whole logic that we've been arguing the last 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I don't know if it does. I think it's all about understanding churches and understanding where this fits in. So I think in the last 20, 30 years, we've seen evangelistic one-off events done very badly in Sydney, and that's predominantly because they really are not paying much attention to churches and churches' pathways and frameworks. So therefore, they'll come into town, they'll put something on, uh, and then you've got a choice. Should I bring my friend to introducing God or discover, or should I bring my friend to this evangelistic event?
SPEAKER_03:Um, I mean, we gave a pretty damning critique of the Franklin Graham one a couple of years ago.
SPEAKER_01:And and of course, I hold the position, as I know these brothers do and you do, uh Don, that the most important place to bring a non-Christian is to a course, to a church where they're hearing the word overtime with people. However, what I identified in the last few years, but also through working as a mission pastor at churches, was that people need multiple evangelism moments. So is it possible to do events that don't clash but complement the existing pathway? And so the Alive movement, we're putting our events on at the end of term, not at the start of term. So, for example, a young adult, let's say some of the OzTag guys, they come along to the life series or Explaining Christianity, they do their five weeks there, they're in a couple of weeks of follow-up, they've had a call to response, but then on Saturday night, a whole crew of people are going out to Penrith to this event, which again we we hope will not be cringe, we'll be good, where the gospel will be really clearly proclaimed. And what I've seen over the last two years is the places where young adults are most often professing faith that I've been able to witness is actually in preaching. It doesn't just work in youth, it still works with young adults so long as this isn't the first ever encounter with the gospel. It's often the the third or the fourth. It's an emotional moment. So we're giving it a crack because we think if this is a moment where God is doing something, what would it look like for us to raise the sails and and and and take advantage of it the most that we could and to actually do stuff that we're better together that complements churches that doesn't clash with them. Uh and so that's that's the heart of the uh the movement. But that would be yeah, also using the wisdom of pre and and Sam and a bunch of the others who've seen the same thing happen in youth for for years and years as well.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, that's really helpful because when you when I first heard about it, I remember how does this work when it just felt like it went against the the grain of where we'd been going.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, and it's not just a one night thing, like we have a clear follow-up process, we partner with churches, so it's not like people become Christians and we let them go. No, we use these churches, we partner with churches, we connect people to churches so they can go and maybe even like keep going to the course.
SPEAKER_01:So it's not like just all right, you became a Christian and like Yeah, and I think part of the part of the the reason behind it all is a deep, deep commitment to the word of God doing the work, but also the importance of church. That the church is the starting place and the finish line of evangelism. It's where we want people to come in and go. Uh, and so these are not really designed to be the very first experience for people. They're not going to be pitched towards cynics, atheists, and people of other religions, they're pitched towards people who are close.
SPEAKER_03:It's I mean, that's really helpful to hear because um uh I mean one of my big dilemmas in when I was doing itinerant evangelism is am I doing the first date talk or am I doing the will you marry me talk? And uh and if I know which which talk I'm doing, then I've I know which lane to drive in. And it's very helpful for me to hear that you're talking more at the end of the will you marry me talk than the first date talk.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's let's book the venue talk. Yeah, you know, no, it is it is pointing to uh uh so the talks will if, for example, they won't be they won't be fixated on can we trust the Bible. Yeah, they'll point people to we can trust the Bible. There will be resources for people after it's about trustworthiness of the Bible. But the talk will be about what is a Christian, what is Christianity? Because I think the Bible certainly points to my experience has been that most people have never heard the gospel clearly explained enough to reject it. Uh, but these people, some of them they have, and to be honest, a lot of it is pitched at myself at 21. I know for you, Pri, you at 20 as well, or just to go, hey, as soon as I left youth group, I didn't have a university Christian group experience, uh, and church was full of young families. I was kind of like in a in a nether world, and I want to say, no, no, we've got a group of people here who are the most open statistically since what, World War II to the gospel. Well, let's do something that doesn't hurt but helps churches. Uh, and as part of that as well, we've got um our social media, the Alive movement on social media, madealive.net website. So we're building a website which is designed explicitly for non-Christians, which will have evangelistic course content and all the things that we actually just want to make sure people are pointed to and from churches uh because I'm a church guy.
SPEAKER_04:I think the thing that I love about it as well is that I think we need to stop viewing each other as competitors as churches, and this is like an event that brings us all together. Like we're on about the the same gospel, we're on about people saying like coming to know Jesus. It's not about like my church or your church or your church. It's like we're on we're on this mission together, and I think that's what a live brings together for me, which is I'm I love it. Alrighty, I'm persuaded.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, your original cynicism wasn't like that. But I'm encouraged.
SPEAKER_03:I'm persuaded. My guests on the pastor's heart. Dave Jensen, he leads the evangelism part of Sydney Anglicans, Evangelism, and new churches. Sam Madavi, he's uh leading evangelism at Wollongong Baptist Church and pre-Shun Megan Heads Up Mission and his youth pastor at MBM Rudy Hill in Western Sydney. My name's Dominic Steele. You've been with us on The Pastor's Heart. We will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
