The One Thing

Most staff meetings feel like a drain. Too long, unclear, and full of talk that changes nothing. But what if your weekly meeting could actually strengthen your team, sharpen your culture, and leave people encouraged? 
In this episode, Andrew Mitchell (Executive Pastor at EV Church on NSW's Central Coast) joins Pete Hughes to unpack why great staff meetings are one of the most overlooked leadership tools in ministry, and how to run them well.
• Why the best staff meeting may not be about decisions at all
• How healthy meetings shape culture across the whole church
• A simple framework that creates energy, clarity, and momentum
• The common mistakes that make meetings frustrating and ineffective
• Practical ideas for small teams, not just large churches

Key points: 
Why the main weekly meeting isn’t for making decisions
How to structure a Monday meeting, from lunch to prayer to training
The hidden cost of mixing decision-making with culture-building
Why encouragement and shared stories aren’t optional extras
What smaller teams can actually apply without copying everything

Toolbox:
Andrew Mitchell’s terms of reference staff meeting document 

Credits: 
This episode was brought to you by Safe Ministry Check
The One Thing is brought to you by ⁠⁠Reach Australia⁠⁠
To pray for Reach Australia, join our ⁠⁠WhatsApp Group⁠⁠
For ideas or questions please email ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠
Support Reach Australia's online library

The Point Community Church in Port Macquarie, NSW was growing at 10% a year, but barely anyone was actually becoming a Christian. When they benchmarked themselves against other churches, the gap was stark: other churches were seeing 5–7x more non-Christians come through their evangelistic courses.

So they asked hard questions about what was actually happening, and made a series of deliberate changes, especially around how they invited people into their evangelism course.

Registrations jumped from 5 to 37. Around seven people came to faith, with ten more still exploring.

Derek Hanna talks with Steve Covetz (Lead Pastor) and Kate Stace (Director of Ministry Operations) about facing brutal facts, mobilising a whole church to invite, and what actually moved the needle.

Toolbox:
Discover Magnet used by Kate and Steve
Mission ebook by Dave Jensen
Evangelism in the Local Church by Dave Jensen and Paul Brennan
Previous Reach Australia Conference Resources
Mission Consults by Reach Australia

Credits: 
This episode was brought to you by Safe Ministry Check
The One Thing is brought to you by ⁠⁠Reach Australia⁠⁠
To pray for Reach Australia, join our ⁠⁠WhatsApp Group⁠⁠
For ideas or questions please email ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠
Support Reach Australia's online library

If you stepped away for a month, would your church stall?
The hero complex in ministry rarely announces itself. It feels like diligence. Responsibility. Sacrifice. But underneath can sit something more dangerous — the quiet belief that everything depends on us.
In this episode, we explore:
What the hero complex really is and why it shows up in gospel ministry

The warning signs, from micromanaging to confusing busyness with fruitfulness

How our identity in Christ steadies us when things go well or poorly

When to say no, and how to do it with clarity

Why building teams and sharing responsibility is part of faithful leadership

If you’ve ever felt indispensable, exhausted, or quietly resentful that others don’t carry what you carry, this conversation is for you.

Toolbox:
Steve Waugh’s Cricket Highlights
Reach Australia’s Coaching Program

Credits: 
This episode was brought to you by Exdia 
The One Thing is brought to you by ⁠⁠Reach Australia⁠⁠
To pray for Reach Australia, join our ⁠⁠WhatsApp Group⁠⁠
For ideas or questions please email ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠
Support Reach Australia's online library

You can usually tell what’s going on in a pastor’s ministry by what’s on their bedside table. Not the books they recommend, but the ones they are actually reading, half-reading, or quietly avoiding.

Rory Shiner opens up his own reading habits and presses the question most of us avoid: are we still being shaped, or just repeating what we learned years ago?

Are we still the kind of people who are learning, so that when we open the Bible we are not simply repeating ourselves, but speaking with fresh clarity shaped by a life still being formed by God’s word?

In this episode:
What your current reading habits reveal about your ministry
Why finishing books is often the wrong goal
The kind of reading that actually feeds preaching over time
Why reading ahead matters more than scrambling each week
What poetry, fiction, and biography give you that ministry books cannot
How shallow reading shapes shallow instincts in people work
Why curiosity fades in ministry and why it is worth protecting

Toolbox:
Biblical Critical Theory by Christopher Watkin
Collected Poems by Les Murray
Poems Chosen by Paul Kelly
The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis
One Forever by Rory Shiner
Forgiven Forever by Rory Shiner
Raised Forever by Rory Shiner
The World Next Door by Rory Shiner

Credits: 
This episode was brought to you by Lending Hands Mortgage Brokers 
The One Thing is brought to you by ⁠⁠Reach Australia⁠⁠
To pray for Reach Australia, join our ⁠⁠WhatsApp Group⁠⁠
For ideas or questions please email ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠
Support Reach Australia's online library

Church planting is often treated as something only large churches can do. The latest Growth and Change report suggests otherwise. Across the Reach Australia network, smaller churches and unlikely partnerships are launching new congregations and reaching people who were never going to walk into an existing church.
This episode explores what last year’s church plants are teaching the rest of us. If most Australians still don’t know Jesus, the question isn’t whether churches feel ready to plant, but whether we are organising our ministry to reach the 95% who aren’t in church.
In this episode:
Why new churches continue to reach new people
The rise of partnerships between churches to plant together
How smaller churches are multiplying through intentional leadership pipelines
The tension between filling staff roles and sending church planters
Practical first steps for churches wanting to move toward church planting

Toolbox:
Reach Australia’s Full Online Resources Library
Growth and Change Report 2025
Church Planting Podcast
Multiplication
Partner financially with Reach Australia

Credits: 
This episode was brought to you by Exdia 
The One Thing is brought to you by ⁠⁠Reach Australia⁠⁠
To pray for Reach Australia, join our ⁠⁠WhatsApp Group⁠⁠
For ideas or questions please email ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠
Support Reach Australia's online library