By Peter Corney
(This was originally delivered as an address to the teaching staff chapel service at Trinity Grammar School Kew in Melbourne in 2010)
During the American civil war and the battle to emancipate the slaves, the then U.S President Abraham Lincoln said he “often felt like a man standing on a burning platform.”
Many [...]

by Peter Corney
There is no effective leadership without power. By power I mean the ability to influence people organizations and structures, the ability to effect change. I will call this ‘real power.’ Such power can be acquired and used legitimately or illegitimately. Formal authority and power are connected but power can be exercised without formal [...]

An exercise for a church staff retreat or training day.
 If you lead a church with a staff team the following could be a very useful basis for a staff retreat or training day.
 One of the problems that can develop when staff are appointed to develop particular areas of ministry like youth or children’s ministry is [...]

Chapter Eight:  Leaders and Teams
By Peter Corney
(This is a free chapter from the new book A Passion for Leadership, Insights from Arrow Australia Leadership Team, edited by Peter Corney and Evonne Paddison. Coauthors include: Karl Faase, Stephen Hale, Evonne Paddison, Ian Harper, Sandy Jones, Graham Johnston and Stephen Abbott. It is published here under the [...]

By Peter Corney
The church is a voluntary society, a ‘community of volunteers’, if you like.  Without volunteers almost everything we do would grind to a halt.  All those rosters and committees and leadership of groups and ministries would cease.  Most parachurch organisations live or die on the strength of their volunteer base.
But we live in [...]

By Peter Corney
There is sometimes a real tension between Biblical theology and some of the pragmatics promoted by proponents of Church growth. But there can also be a false dichotomy created between them, particularly by those who do not understand the difference between ministry and leadership.(1) It is now well established that to plant a [...]

By Peter Corney
In part one of these two articles I made the point that while we are in a difficult environment for growing Churches there are healthy growing congregations out there. It is only common sense that Christian leaders should be studying them to identify what makes them effective.
The following are the principles and practices [...]

By Peter Corney
A worrying trend is at large in the Australian church today. The servant leadership model of Jesus is being misused and distorted to justify an inadequate style of leadership that is exercised by some pastors and ministers of local congregations. A leadership style that avoids creative initiative, is reactive and passive rather than [...]

By Peter Corney
When I was ordained in 1963/4 at St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral Melbourne there wasn’t a mitre in sight. Archbishop Frank Woods was the presiding Bishop. In fact mitre’s and copes did not appear reguarly in St Paul’s untill Bob Dann became Archbishop (1977 – 83), although Frank Woods, inspite of opposition in the Cathedral [...]