Derek caught up with Richard Coekin while he was visiting Sydney on a series of speaking engagements to ask him about what he would say are the keys to resilience in Gospel mission during an age of increased global persecution.

It’s harder to get a bigger vision for ministry than what we might find in Matthew 28, Colossians 1 or Ephesians 1 – the ministry being preached to the whole world, and God bringing all things under Jesus. However, how do we cast a vision in our local ministries that both aligns with what God has said and takes people on from where they are?

You’re part of a church that has a vision to plant another church. But the place you have in mind is possibly too far away to reach with the resources you have. How do you build a ‘ministry beachhead’ that will put you in a position to reach that goal?

Being stressed out can actually help a ministry; being burnt out can be fatal. Being able to tell the difference is essential.

Women make up statistically more than half of the people in any Australian congregation, but so often male preachers end up preaching to themselves. What do speakers need to include and exclude if they want to impact both genders for Christ?

There are many ways to plant a church out of your existing church – parachute, team, mother-daughter and of course the campus plant. But like every model, planting a new congregation that remains essentially linked to your primary location has its challenges.

Handing over ministries is a skill – being aware of your own feelings so that you’re able to loosen your grip and effectively enable someone else to take that area further for the Gospel.

There’s a natural lifespan to every human endeavour, and all things come to an end, especially in ministry. How do you prevent yourself so identifying with a ministry that it’s impossible to move on?

Derek Hanna and Scott Sanders move into their fourth episode of their first in-depth TOT collection: Growth barriers.

Derek and Scott talk to Rory Shiner from Providence Church in Perth, Western Australia. Rory has taken two churches through the ’125 barrier’ and he shares the benchmark problems he’s come to look out for.