This week marks the 100th birthday of Dick Lucas, one of the most influential evangelical leaders of the 20th century. For nearly four decades as Rector of St Helen’s Bishopsgate in London, Dick shaped a generation of preachers and transformed a quiet city parish into a global centre of expository Bible ministry. The influence of his clear, fearless, and creative preaching continues to ripple out through pulpits around the world.

We’re joined by Peter Jensen (former Archbishop of Sydney and Principal of Moore College) and Phillip Jensen (founder of Two Ways Ministries, former Dean of Sydney Cathedral, and long-time leader of Campus Bible Study). Both were impacted by Dick’s ministry and friendship.

Dick Lucas was a trainer of preachers. He helped us see what could be done with city pulpits, and founded the Proclamation Trust and Cornhill Course.

Our focus is on learning from Evangelical History from a faithful, eccentric, humble servant of Christ. 

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Reaching the 70% of the population who are significantly underrepresented in our churches.

We’re talking about everyday Australians — people who’ve gone straight into the workforce rather than university. That includes hairdressers, plumbers, builders, business owners, factory workers, truck drivers, IT staff, and media creatives — as well as many in marginalised communities.

Within this group, there’s huge diversity:

• Some are winners — financially successful builders and entrepreneurs.
• Others are respectables — valuing hard work, morals, and family.
• Some are survivors — juggling multiple jobs and doing it tough.
• And there are those living in hard places — facing struggles with welfare, addiction, and family stress.

Yet while this group represents the majority of Australians, they make up only a small minority in our churches. Why is that? And how can we do better?

• Andrew Beddo — principal trainer at the Vocational Bible College, equipping gospel workers for everyday Australians.
• Coz Crosscombe — director of The Well Training Program at Mount Druitt, focused on training leaders from marginalised communities.
• Simon Gillham — vice principal at Moore Theological College, working on cross-cultural and literacy challenges in ministry.

We discuss why this group is missing from many of our congregations, the cultural and learning barriers they face, and how we can shape ministry, training, and preaching to better reach them with the good news of Jesus.

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After a significant debate over two days, the Sydney Anglican Synod has voted unanimously to embark on a bold new five-year mission focus, praying and working towards five percent growth in church attendance through the conversion of the lost, each year.

The resolution, “in a spirit of humble dependence and pastoral flexibility,” invited every part of the diocesan fellowship to commit to the goal. 

Pete Stedman, Senior Minister of Norwest Anglican, spoke of a turning point for his own parish after a review.

“We realised we had drifted from what matters most. We were measuring busyness, not fruit. We were celebrating activity, but not conversion. That day, God convicted us. We repented, and we asked him to change our hearts.”

“This is about humble dependence. It is about acknowledging that we cannot change a single heart. Only God can. But in his kindness, he calls us to pray, to preach, and to persevere.”

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This episode (from before the synod debate) will help with your staff team and   to stimulate thinking about how you might best get across this issue. 

Our guests are Pete Stedman, senior minister at Norwest Anglican Church, and a member of the Archbishop’s subcommittee that proposed the 5% goal, Jon Kwan, lead pastor at St. David's Forestville and Jo Gibbs, senior consultant with Reach Australia.

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The call to ministry is a call to lay down your life for others, but how do we create a well-thought-out roadmap toward pastoral perseverance - when there are external and/or internal difficulties? 

How do we approach congregational conflict, criticism, unrealistic expectations or personal health, financial and family stress? 

Why is pastoral friendship not optional, but essential? 

Today on The Pastor’s Heart, there’s advice for pastors who feel isolated and are feeling like quitting. 

Brian Croft leads Practical Shepherding in Louisville Kentucky.

Matthew Spandler Davison also lives in Louisville, serves with Practical Shepherding, and as an executive director of 20 Schemes, Church in Hard Places in Scotland as well as the preaching pastor for Redeemer Fellowship in Bardstown, Kentucky. 

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Today our focus on The Pastor’s Heart is on how to preach for transformation for real changes in people’s lives. 

Two men with a lifetime’s passion for preaching — Robin Sydserff,  Director of the Proclamation Trust and David Cook, former principal of Sydney Missionary and Bible College and a long-time preaching mentor - now with the Expository Preaching Trust.

We start by looking at how Christian leaders the UK and Australia influenced preaching patterns overseas. 

We look at preaching that has led to record enrolments at Bible Colleges, the purpose of preaching, the life and relationships of the preacher, training preachers and what patience is needed in preaching growth. 

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A training culture for the next generation:  Healthy Churches producing new ministers for the next generation.

Across the world, the number of candidates putting themselves forward for gospel ministry is in decline. Many churches are feeling the pinch—struggling to find leaders and often looking elsewhere to fill ministry gaps. 

Yet healthy churches don’t just maintain ministry; they reproduce it. They raise up and send out the next generation of gospel workers.

This week in Sydney, a group of evangelical movement leaders from across the globe have gathered to sharpen one another in this task: creating a culture of training that will multiply gospel workers for the decades ahead. 

The shift they are calling for is from passively plotting decline to actively asking, What are we going to do?—and then taking decisive steps toward it.

We’re joined this afternoon by three of those symposium participants. From the UK, Robin Sydserff of the Proclamation Trust. 

From Santiago, Chile, Matt Pope—pastor and trainer of pastors in five Latin American countries, formerly of St Ebbe’s in Oxford. 

And from Cleveland, Ohio, Marty Sweeny—pastor for training at Old North Church and long-time champion of multiplying ministry apprentices.

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In the past month, two of the most respected evangelical training institutions in the world have closed or announced closure of their campuses.

In July, Spurgeon’s College in London—a pillar of Baptist theological education for nearly 170 years—closed, citing financial strain and a dramatic decline in student numbers. 

A few weeks earlier, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) in Chicago —long regarded as a flagship seminary of North American evangelicalism— said they would shut down its Illinois campus and relocate to Canada, merging with Trinity Western University in British Columbia.

TEDS student numbers have dropped from 750 to 400 fulltime equivalents. 

These are not isolated incidents. Across the UK, Australia, and globally, churches are asking:

Where will the next generation of gospel workers come from?

Orlando Saer—lead pastor of Christ Church Southampton, Chair of the Reach UK South church planting network, and Chair of 9:38, a UK ministry seeking to raise up gospel workers, has helped lead the Yarnton Consultation, the most comprehensive look yet at the state of ministry recruitment in the UK.

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What change would a leader and church need to make for a congregation, denomination or movement to grow by five percent annual conversion growth. 

The Gospel Coalition pulled together a mini summit of evangelical movement leaders from across Australia in June.

That gathering set an aspirational goal of doubling the number of evangelicals over twenty years. 

They said a key way to do it is by pursuing a target of seeing five percent of the average attendance saved each year. 

David Jensen leads the Evangelism part of the Department of Evangelism and New Churches in the Sydney Anglican Church. 

Chris Braga is senior pastor of Grace West Church at Glenmore Park in Western Sydney.

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It is an uncomfortable but important question: What place should numbers have in our thinking about ministry success?

We all want to be faithful. But what happens when the numbers are down? Do we need to change something? Or should we just continue in the same trajectory?

And should we be counting at all?

This is the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. A tension between preaching the word and evaluating what’s actually working.

Phil Colgan has been the long term senior pastor of St George North Anglican in Sydney and presented on a Theology of Numbers at the recent Nexus Conference.

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We evangelicals, says Richard Coekin, have a problem—and it’s a preaching problem.

Richard Coekin says we are too often careless—his word—when it comes to application in preaching. 

We work hard on exegesis, we labour to understand the original context and the author’s intent—but then we stop short. We leave our congregations with sound doctrine, but little direction. 

Richard has just concluded 29 years as senior pastor at Dundonald Church in London and as the founding leader of the Co-Mission network across the UK capital. He now heads up Reach UK.  

Richard’s new book, Apply: How to Preach the Bible for Real Life, will be released in the UK Spring —and today he joins us to explore why good application is not an optional extra, but the very purpose of preaching.

Correction: Apply will be published by 10 of those not The Good Book Company as was stated in the program.

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