Commending & Contending

When we ask ourselves, 'What is Gospel Ministry?' there are a few important answers; and in our Foundation Documents, one of those answers is all about how we trust and use the Bible in our churches, congregations and ministries.

In this episode I am joined by co-workers Ann Moseley and Rory Shiner, who serve together at Providence Church, in Western Australia. Together we talk about what it looks like to trust and use the Bible for our own discipleship, and how it looks in the leadership roles we take up in our churches.

The previous episodes in this series on 'What is Gospel-Centred Ministry?' are:

Weekly Gatherings;

Effective Evangelism.

What a journey The Lord has taken Emma on. To find herself working as a freelance writer and getting a collection of her writing published in a book.

Emma joins me to talk about life and writing, and the things we might pay attention to that reveal more about ourselves, our world and the God who made and loves us.

You can find her book (being released in early July, 2026) to read Emma's writing.

Explore more of her work at her website.

All around us are Eastern Orthodox Churches. Their buildings look different to many other church building and their teaching is unfamiliar to us. We are joined in this episode by John Diacos to get started in understanding Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and why it might be important for us to understand it.

John has written some book reviews for our website

More of John's resources can be found at his website.

And here's a review of the book that John talks about writing

God's word helps us to talk about, and think about difficult parts of our lives, the parts we might put under the heading of 'Ethics' (or even, 'Bio-ethics'). Knowing who God is and who we are, will help us navigate the world we find ourselves in.

Robyn Bain joins us to talk through these things and to help us address how we might show compassion and kindness in talking about tricky issues, and why we struggle to share about our own challenges, sin and limitations.

Robyn recommended some books to us:

Joined-Up Life, by Andrew Cameron

Marriage: Sex in the Service of God, by Christopher Ash

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, by Megan Best

Crossway Publisher, Books on Culture and Social Issues

They can go places we might not be able to; and they can say things we might not be able to; continuing conversations that we might not be able to.

Books are a passion for Jonathan Carswell, especially as they can serve the greatest news the world has ever heard - the saving work of the the Lord Jesus.

Jonathan is the founder of 10 of Those, a book selling website aiming to get multiples of clear and faithful gospel resources into people's hands.

Our conversation included the book version of this talk from Alistair Begg, The Man on the Middle Cross.

James Hoey joins us on this episode to dig into that last dot point of the Doubling Vision: the need to grow (even double) the number of leaders being raised up.

We talk about why this needs to be in the statement and how we might take action to pray and work towards reaching this outcome.

This is the last in our series on the Doubling Vision. All the other episodes:

Doubling Vision: a story and an opportunity

The power of a preamble

The five percent measure

Reaching all kinds of people (especially the under-reached)

The Doubling Vision calls on us to pray and work towards bringing Christ clothed in his gospel to all kinds of people. There is a particular commitment to seek out those who are under-reached, under-represented in our existing congregations and equally in need of the life giving news of Jesus.

Laura Wolfenden joins us in this episode to talk through the reasons why this might matter to us and the implications it might have for our churches and ministries, and also for how we might partner together.

When we talk about a movement of Christians and churches and ministries praying and working towards doubling the number of disciples, we intend to measure that with a target of five percent growth.

For some of us a concrete target like this gets us motivated and engaged. For others, the whole idea of counting and measuring feels wrong. In our conversation with Jo Gibbs we get to unpack some of why a five percent target might be helpful, and how we can frame it around our deep desire to see people we care about joined to Jesus forever.

Episode 61 was all about the Story and Opportunity of the Doubling vision

Episode 62 drew us into the Power of the Preamble

Before we jump into the action - the call to pray an d work towards doubling - we would be wise to take a breath and pause over the preamble to the statement.

We are joined in this episode by Board of Directors member, Anne Eckermann, who will help us pay attention to the anchoring truths expressed by the preamble. Here is that preamble:

We acknowledge God works out all things according to the counsel of his will and in his mercy saves his people through the faithful preaching of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Go back and listen to the previous episode introducing the Doubling Vision.

Read the article at our website all about it. 

We return for the new year, in the wake of some exciting developments at The Gospel Coalition Australia and among Australian Christian leaders.

In TGCA we have established a Board of Directors to enact our vision and mission, with new directors joining some of the existing Council members. In this episode we are joined by Bill Salier, the Chair of TGCA and also chair of the the Board of Directors.

We also had the Doubling Vision statement developed and published. We chat with Bill about how this Doubling Vision came about and what might be possible if we pray and work together toward this goal, across Australia.

Visit our website for the paper from Andrew Heard presented at the Leader's Summit.

Read Rory Shiner's article about this Prayer for Australia, for a Doubling of ministries.