In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie sits down with John Ortberg for a deep and disarmingly practical conversation about the inner life required to lead well, especially for planters and multipliers carrying pressure, complexity, and visible expectations. John reflects on seasons of pain and leadership crisis, and why “circumstances being okay” is never a sufficient foundation for ministry or life.

John shares one of the most defining lessons from his friendship and mentorship with Dallas Willard: leaders must arrange their days so they are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in their everyday life with God. He names this as the temptation behind every temptation, because when a satisfying life with God is not being cultivated, shortcuts start to look reasonable.

With an Exponential edge, the conversation turns toward multiplying health, not just activity. John explores how spiritual formation is daily “good soil” work, what a thriving leader actually prioritises, and why the main thing God gets out of your life is the person you become. He then offers two concrete practices that sustain leaders long term: a restorative niche each week and a fully disclosing friend, so leaders can live without hiddenness.

John closes with hope for leaders facing complexity, calling them away from rumination and toward simple obedience, trusting that God never asks us to do more than we have time to do. This is an episode for anyone who wants to plant, multiply, and lead at the pace of love.

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie is joined by Andrew Ranucci, long time church planter and former lead pastor of Coast Community Church, for a deeply practical conversation on what it takes to multiply with health over decades. Andrew shares formative moments from his early discipleship, including an unexpected season of solitude and Scripture in the outback, and the joys and battle scars of planting and leading a church for 26 years, from council battles to internal resistance and the pain of betrayal. Now serving leaders through supervision, mentoring, and spiritual direction, Andrew unpacks what he sees beneath the surface in pastors and planters: the relentless pressure of the urgent, the erosion of personal devotional life, emotional depletion, and a growing loneliness that mirrors a wider societal crisis. He makes a compelling case that one of the most strategic disciplines for leaders is stewarding life giving friendships outside their local church context, the kind of lifelong relationships that stabilise the soul when ministry gets complex. Andrew also previews his conference message aligned to the Multiplier theme, including his personal vision that when the church gathers on Sunday, the pastor would be the healthiest person in the room. It is an episode full of wisdom for leaders who want to plant, lead, and multiply at a pace that produces lasting impact rather than quiet collapse.

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie sits down with Cass Langton from The Local as we continue building toward the National Conference on the Gold Coast. Returning to the podcast for a second time, Cass reflects on what God has been forming in her, Rich, and their church community since planting The Local, including the surprising beauty of discovering that Jesus really does build His church, often in ways we did not first imagine.Cass shares what is giving her hope for the Australian church right now: growing collaboration across denominations and streams, a renewed attentiveness to the Holy Spirit, and a rising spiritual curiosity among people who may be sceptical of institutions but are still hungry for the reality of Jesus. She also reflects honestly on the work and cost of church planting, and how The Local has become a place of return for people rediscovering faith, worship, community, and the presence of God. With her upcoming National Conference session focused on Launching Spiritual Communities, Cass unpacks what it means to form churches that are deeply spiritual, unmistakably local, and shaped by the cross of Jesus. She explores the need for communities marked by authenticity, mission, hospitality, generosity, imagination, beauty, and reproduction, not simply as programs to be multiplied, but as life received from God and given away for the good of the city. This is a hope filled conversation for planters, pastors, and leaders longing to see churches become more than events to attend, but communities where people encounter Jesus, find family, and are sent into the world with fresh joy and courage.

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie is joined by returning guest Sam Harvey, church planter and national leader of 24 7 Prayer New Zealand, as we build toward the August National Gathering keynote series. Sam shares what he is seeing across New Zealand right now, including a growing hunger for prayer and a fresh unity across churches and regions as leaders contend together for renewal.The conversation becomes deeply practical as Sam opens up about the realities of carrying multiple roles as a planter, leader, husband, father, and follower of Jesus. He speaks candidly about the warning signs when pressure rises, the importance of close friendships and honest prayer, and the slow work of letting ministry expose what still needs healing.Sam also previews his upcoming National Gathering session on the Mental and Spiritual Gauge, challenging leaders to care not only about what they build, but how they build it. Doing it the King’s way means pursuing wholeness, cultivating a prayer soaked inner life, and refusing to multiply at the cost of your soul. This is a timely and hope filled conversation for leaders who want to multiply with health, integrity, and spiritual depth.

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie is joined by keynote speaker Lisa Pak, a Toronto born Korean Canadian leader serving with Finishing the Task alongside Pastor Rick Warren. Lisa shares how growing up between cultures shaped her conviction that the global church needs leaders who can bring their full selves to the table, across generations, cultures, and calling. Lisa delivers a clear challenge for leaders in a digitised world: discipleship cannot be fast tracked. You cannot microwave formation, and you cannot call convenience discipleship. She unpacks why deep disciple making requires time, self awareness, and real relational investment, and why leaders must resist the illusion of engagement created by bite sized spiritual content. The conversation then turns toward the internal gauges of the Multiplier life. Lisa calls pastors and planters back to two repeatable practices that protect long term fruitfulness: prayer that brings insight and peace, and Sabbath rhythms that keep leaders humble, human, and anchored in the Holy Spirit rather than performance. She also offers a hopeful and prophetic encouragement for Australia as a multicultural Commonwealth nation uniquely positioned for global mission and collaboration.

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie sits down with Pastor Joel Chelliah, National President of the Australian Christian Churches, for a wide ranging and deeply pastoral conversation as we build toward the National Gathering on the Gold Coast. Joel reflects on the shift from state leadership into a national role, and the intentional boundaries he and Sharon have had to put in place to protect rest, marriage, and family while stewarding a growing apostolic assignment.

Joel’s keynote focus for this year is launching church expressions, and he names two major barriers that repeatedly hold churches back: the lack of a discipleship leadership pipeline, and fear of the cost involved in sending and planting. He reframes planting as gaining by losing, sharing how years of costly sowing have produced lasting fruit across communities, and offers a striking picture of release: what you hold will never multiply, but what you place in God’s hands always can.

The conversation then moves into the heart of healthy leadership. Joel speaks candidly about the difference between genuine Kingdom ambition and ego driven striving, shares the moment God redefined success for him as a healthy home that loves Jesus, and offers practical pastoral counsel for leaders carrying stress, burnout, or unrealistic expectations. He closes with a prayer for renewed faith across the Australian church, that leaders would leave Exponential believing again that God is doing a fresh work and that it is time to do something courageous for Him.

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie is joined by Katherine Chow, Associate Vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton in London, to kick off our keynote speaker series leading into the August National Gathering. Katherine shares her journey from growing up in a Chinese church where everyone served, to practising law in New York City, and how God gradually called her into church leadership through the intentional investment of others.

Katherine unpacks three simple but demanding ingredients of leader development: proximity, intentionality, and continual investment. She then brings a sharp leadership lens to one of the most common questions across the Western church: where are the leaders. Her answer is both sobering and hopeful. Many faithful leaders are serving quietly in hidden places, and many others carry latent leadership that needs to be called out beyond existing structures and biases.

The conversation also explores what it looks like to build diverse teams and create psychological safety, why identifying leaders requires listening for whose voice is missing, and the costly but beautiful decision by senior leaders to create room at the table for others. Katherine closes by pointing toward the deeper question beneath all leadership development: am I a disciple worth replicating, and how might the Holy Spirit empower the church for the season ahead.

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie sits down with Dr Derwin Gray, founding pastor of Transformation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, to explore the kind of healthy multiplication that does not simply grow churches, but forms a gospel shaped people who look like the Kingdom. Derwin shares his journey from the NFL to meeting Jesus through a teammate, and how that conversion ignited a calling toward evangelism, discipleship, and ultimately church planting. Derwin then unpacks the role Exponential played in his own pre plant season, describing a pivotal moment in Orlando where prayer and courage intersected with a call to plant. He speaks candidly about what he wishes he knew before planting, including the loneliness of leadership, the need for thick skin and a tender heart, and the urgency of making the gospel central rather than leading with Christless Christianity. At the heart of the conversation is Derwin’s conviction that a multi ethnic church is not an optional ministry lane but the clear biblical trajectory from Genesis to Revelation. He shares the practices and costs of building a truly integrated multi ethnic and multi generational church, and why the hardest people to disciple in this work can often be Christians rather than unbelievers. With a clear call for Australia to lead with gospel conviction, cross cultural competency, and Christ centred courage, Derwin closes by praying for a move of God that cannot be manufactured and for churches that shine with the glory of Jesus.

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie is joined by Renée Oduko, co leader of the Disciple Makers initiative, for a thoughtful and practical conversation on how churches and church planters can reach spiritually curious people who may never walk through a church door first. Renée shares her international journey through London and New York, and how those years shaped a deep conviction to build “third spaces” where community and trust can form before belief. Renée unpacks the big idea behind Disciple Makers: creating pre church pathways that help move people from online curiosity to real world connection, through simple relational environments like run clubs, socials, and Alpha launch moments. She explains why this is a slower, more human approach to mission, and how churches can mobilise people beyond Sunday teams to disciple neighbours Monday to Saturday. The conversation also explores what Renée sees in the data and in stories on the ground, including a growing openness to faith, a mistrust of institutions but not of Jesus followers, and the importance of making sure the journey feels like a genuine invitation rather than a process. With practical steps for getting started, this episode will encourage leaders to design new front doors into their community and engage the harvest with creativity, patience, and collaboration across the city.

Disciple Makers website - https://disciplemakers.com.au/

In this episode of the Exponential Australia Church Leaders Podcast, Charlie sits down with Luke “Monty” Montgomery, founder of Neighbourhood, to explore what it looks like to build Kingdom “third spaces” that reach people who may never walk into a traditional church building. Monty shares his journey from Sydney to Ipswich, his passion for low socioeconomic and multicultural communities, and why Neighbourhood exists as a network of meeting places, including a cafe, barber, and martial arts spaces, designed to bring people from all walks of life into real community. The conversation goes deep into Monty’s heart for youth justice and the work Neighbourhood is doing inside juvenile detention centres, where dozens of young people each week opt into Bible studies and mentoring, and where the greatest need is not programs but spiritual family. Monty offers a strong challenge to the Australian church to recover one of its greatest strengths, the intergenerational family of God, and to empower the innovators and pioneers already sitting in our congregations to build new front doors into their cities. For more on Neighbourhood, check out http://Nbhd.org.au and follow @our_nbhd_