By Peter Corney
Australian churches stand at the threshold of a great evangelistic and church growth opportunity. The challenge is to evangelise and plant churches among the large number of new immigrant groups in Australia. As a result of increased immigration and the receiving of refugees and asylum seekers many local congregations now find themselves [...]

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
Not long ago I attended a service at which a senior Melbourne Anglican Church leader spoke. I was encouraged by his obvious enthusiasm for mission and his concern to contextualize our churches in the local culture. But the bit that made me nervous was his comments on congregational size. He put forward the idea [...]

By Peter Corney

A current challenge being faced all around the Australian Church is in bringing this generation of young adults to mature Christian discipleship.
There are a number of contemporary cultural factors that seem to be contributing to this:

The experience of family dysfunction and breakdown. With such a high proportion of marriages ending [...]

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
Albert Einstein said: Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted. Einstein’s insight is very valuable but it is also true that counting some things can be an important tool for evaluation of effectiveness and a reality check on our ministry.
Numbers are not everything – quality [...]