Planetshakers City Church www.planetshakers.com
-we spoke to Mike Guglielmucci (Youth Pastor) and Chad Harding (assistant YP)
Emphases
 Calling on staff – go for the call, not comfort, leave Egypt for the promised land
 Accountability and disciplining
o Accountability comes out of close friendships with other staff
o Don’t have time to guess what’s happening in other’s lives so ask – demand honesty, not
perfection
o Use Hebrews 12 “God disciplines His sons” to push disciplining – leaders often ask where
they need disciplining and where they need to change
 Schools ministry very strong
o Bus students in from schools to friday night programs – 500 attend, 450 are bused in
o Tell schools they will serve them – that’s what they are there for
o Run RE, chillout lounges, outreach programs, multi-media presentations
o Don’t go to schools where other Churches are
 Small groups
o Have as many in their fortnightly “Urban Life Groups” as on Fridays
o Have praise and worship, offerings in groups
 Assimilation of new people
o Has a new Christians team of 80 people, achieving a 75-80% retention rate!
o After a decision are visited before Tuesday and phoned 4 times
o Have people greeting newcomers very warmly
o Passion for welcoming new people comes form modeling by leaders
o When core Christians aren’t greeting others, Mike pulls them aside and challenges them,
reminding them of how they stayed in the Church because they were loved
 Friday night program
o praise and worship, offering, teaching, praise and worship, occasional game, videos
o similar to adult services but louder and younger
o Have people guarding exits to ensure people don’t leave the building and run off
o Allows people to leave building during sermon only – they have come for the P&W so must
stay inside for it
 Very high standards set for self, and then to leaders
o Sees modelling as key - passions and habits get imitated by others
o Strict standards such as: no guys talking to girls after dark on phone, no drinking or alcohol in
your house if youth come over, praise and worship music must be playing in your car when
driving youth, no alone time with the opposite sex
o Mike often had 100 youth around his house after Church, bought them all pizza, loved them,
encouraged them to be all they could be for God
o Pays for lots of things for others himself to demonstrate generosity
Other information
 3000 in Church after 18 months, very young average age
 26 interns
 Took 540 kids on camp, collected offering of $28.500
 Mike works massive hours
 Discourage grade 12s from being leaders and ban them from attending during exams – want them to
get great marks so school is impressed by their example
 Church doesn’t meet on Sunday mornings because noone wants to wake up early!
 When people get saved they are asked if they are part of another Church and sent back there if so
 85% of Church hasn’t been to PS conference and most don’t realise that the conference is even their’s
 Other Yps have suggested PS growth was at their expense, but when compared membership rolls with
one example PS hadn’t taken any of them
Key Lessons
 Passion, sacrifice and commitment



The modeling example of leaders
Heavy emphasis on schools ministry
Confronting and disciplining
St Mark’s Anglican Church, Emerald




Wayne Collins is Youth Pastor. Has been there for 20 years, senior pastor 25 years
In 1980 had 6 kids, now 500 each week, 5 people on youth staff, $300,000 youth budget
Most irreligious post code in Australia, fairly poor
Wayne works 70-80 hours per week
Emphases
 Welfare work
o Receive a lot of Government money for various programs
 Local IGA, grants, philanthropic trusts
o Have a contract to work with kids out of jail
 Programs
o 6pm High School service, 7:30 young adults, 8am traditional, 10am families
o Small groups weekly – leaders are in 2 groups, one for them, one for others
o Friday nights has occasional outreach night – previously 6 per term, reducing to 2 to keep their
focus on individual relationships
 Agenda of musical items, drama, message, hanging out time with cool options
o One Sunday night service per term aimed at outreach
 Schools
o Runs student focus in schools
o School banned them for 5 years, but now pays them $11,000 p.a. to run student focus and lounge
o Mentors kids in school
 Leadership
o Lead well and people will follow!
o High expectations of leaders
o Use peer leadership – youth lead ministry in schools- high level of ownership
o Leaders have span of care of 8 maximum
o
 Strategy
o Young people must understand they are wired by God to serve God now
o Teach how to pray for, witness to and love friends- heaps and heaps
o Kids taught their responsibility for new Christians
o Ensure leaders model evangelism in their own lives
 Young Adults
 Needs to resolve a lot of YA conflicts
 Key to them staying after fights is having an atmosphere where it isn’t about them – they come for
others
 Restricts group to 18-24, as older people dominate and exclude younger
 Get involved in issues– political, activism
Youth Dimension www.youthdimension.org.au/



Spoke to Rob Coyle
Student Focus
o Schools outreach program aimed at junior high – lunch time games plus brief message plus
relationship building
o All leaders must do a week of training
Senior lounge
o Grades 11-12, go into school and setup a coffee lounge
o Use pool table, foosball, coffee machine, milo, cards, put music on
o Place to relax, destress, provides responsible supervision for school, helps welfare arm of
school
Connections Church of Christ www.connection.org.au













Senior Pastor Wayne was transitioning to SP role in another Church, and realised the dreams of his
heart would be constrained by that Church. Croydon Church of Christ closed and sold its building,
but 15 young adults were left wanting to reach their friends. Started a Church in 2001. It grew heaps,
mostly with youth, and decided to reach families
Pub services – called life connections
o Meet in 2 pubs on a Sunday morning, 10:00am-11:30. Pub isn’t open to public, and staff
provide coffee and cake for a break in the middle of the service.
o Use multi media, interviews, table discussions, based around a theme
o No singing
o 6 per table
o Start with a table game, have discussion, maybe quiz, eat food, more discussion, 5 minute
mini-talk to wrap up conversations
o Has a crèche at each venue, plus primary schools children are dropped at Church offices for
Sunday school, while teenagers have their own table together
Evening services
o Aimed at younger audience, high energy
o Has message, musical worship
All services are aimed at non-Christians
Connections? Found it hard to balance building Church community with evangelism. Instead focuses
on “connections” with others, whether in or out of the Church.
Internship – train people in ministry via Bible college subjects, practical ministry, service, character
formation
Measure Church by 7 subjective cultures: pursuit of God, generosity, fun, leadership development,
change, outward focus, building up people
Building a café/community centre for café, playgroups, tutoring, counseling centre
Discipleship is encountering God and responding to Him. They seek to encourage people in their
responses to God, no matter where they are in their faith journeys.
CPR small groups meet of 3-5 people (care, purity, relationships) – same gender, are small Churches,
are primary pastoral care unit
Older people have home groups
Schools ministry
o Go on all camps, excursions, do breakfasts on Fridays, girls ministries, coach sports
o Told school they will serve any way they can and won’t ask to run their own programs
o Agenda is serving and building relationships – try to socialise with teachers
o For 14 years school blocked all Church relationships. Nugget phoned school asking if they
could serve there – took 3 seconds to say no. Principal phoned back to give 10 minutes to
present case. Then gave 2 hours to present case to senior leaders of school. Grilled with very
hard questions. Given a chance to send 2 leaders on a camp- ignored and followed all week,
but eventually respected. Made to sleep in the boys cabins. Later told they had been
repeatedly set up to fail.
Chris.spratt@connection.org.au, nathancrouch@connection.org.au
Northern Community Church of Christ www.nccc.org.au/



4 dying, aging, white Churches merged in a multi-ethnic area. Bought a warehouse (ex
bowling/skating rink)
Building now has carpark, op shop, hospitality room (great couches, tables and chairs, kitchen, open
space, wired for sound), prayer room, chapel, meeting rooms, kidsmin room (with blank walls so other
groups can us), youth room, warehouse
Is now a church with multiple congregations to be in mission to multiple communities




o Formal blended Sundays AM- includes kids program
o Y - Sunday pm – youth – sometimes Church services, sometimes prayer stations, community
building, youth activities – all in the same timeslot and understood to be Church
o Thirst - Sun PM – 20 mins silence, readings, focus on spirituality
o Tangent – Young Adult congregation, meal together, serves wine
o Connect – Tursday lunch time meal, bus people in, tell stories, ask for $3
o Jeebus another YA service
o Bundoora – in a retirement village monthly
Most congregations have offerings, communion, shared meal, get into Bible
Governance stuff
o Use carver governance – separate management from leadership
o Congregational leaders lead each group
o Ministry team is staff, not allocated to a specific service
Want everyone to be part of a service, a missional team and spiritual disciplines
Missional teams are service or evangelistic projects eg teaching English to migrants, serving food,
work in op shop
Darren Rowse, The Living Room http://www.livingroom.org.au/blog/













House Church
Formerly involved in schools ministry with Corazon, realised he spoke different languages in schools
and Churches. Many kids became Christians through ministry, but rarely found Churches to connect
with, leading to frustration. Hirsch and Frost said he could spend his entire life angry and frustrated or
do something new.
Focuses on three journeys – inner, outer, together
o Inner - love God with heart soul mind
o Outer – love others – mission, justice, service
o Together – love one another as I have loved you
o Always eat together, have discussions. No sermons and very rare singing
Also meet in groups of 2-3 for accountability questions re three life journeys
Want to create space for non-Christian friends in lives
Now divided into three groups
7 week cycle in groups
o Admin night – discuss anything needed eg giving
o Everyday spirituality night – in cars explore someone’s life, visiting wherever they normally
go in a day to hear of the daily rhythm of their lives and pray for them along the way
o Meaty bible night – bible study
o Prayer – use lectio devina etc
o Topic night – eg spirituality and food, guests
o BYO worship night – everyone brings something for 3-4 mins – poem, rant, art
Groups gather every 6 weeks together
No paid staff
Spent lots of time working out their values
Throw redemptive (Matthew) parties – allow worlds to collide
Don’t knock traditional or emerging Churches
Frost’s 4 P’s of mission very important – proximity, presence, powerlessness, proclaimation
City Life Church
 Formerly Waverly Christian Fellowship
 Aim to saturate a few schools, not do a small amount in many
 Uses cell Churches – just moved cells from Church property to houses (working much better)
o Cell coaches catch up monthly with leaders
o Focus on care, discipleship, ministry, evangelism
o Use electronic reports for leaders to communicate with pastors what happens in their groups –
attendance, communion?, icebreakers?





Friday night programs
o Spend half an hour at the start having fun setting records – sculling etc
o Use worship music to help people encounter God
Has 30 minute leadership training at start of the night – creates focus!!!
Pastors visit cell groups regularly – 2-3 per night
#1 question asked by youth when they arrive at youth – do I belong here????
Senior High and young adult leaders have crucial relationships, as SH supplies Ya with youth each
year, and YA provides most leaders
UNOH – urban Neighbours of Hope www.unoh.org
 UNOH is a missional order of people committed to cross-cultural mission, but instead of going
overseas they commit to the poor of Melbourne. They voluntarily limit their income to the Henderson
poverty line, limit their travel outside their community and live amongst the poor. They encourage
open houses and being available to their neighbours 24/7, joining in whatever is happening in the
neighbourhhood
 They are exploring what it means to follow Jesus
 Act on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers
 Help with bread run, homework club for Burmese, kids club, various campaigns
 All have a 24 hour Sabbath where they leave their community and stay with friends
 Prefer staying in flats as the proximity space is closer
 Insists on workers taking personal responsibility for their own lives so they aren’t institutionalized
themselves into poverty eg no shared purse
 Suggest running tear cafes – “Just Tucker” to sell third world food at 1st world prices to raise
awareness of poverty and raise funds for the poor
 Use “Making connections” for evangelism – similar to Christianity Explained but more Jesus-focused
than idea focused
 At each worship service they recite their vision: To be a missional order, living out the Gospel
and seeking transformation through Christ with urban neighbourhoods facing poverty
in the Asia-Pacific region.
 Are careful with boundaries – eg might make kids sleep in room with parents if others share their












house, single women only in single women’s houses, people need to earn trust before moving in
People commit for 1 year, then three years, then units of 6 years with 3 months break in between each
6 years
Are a missionary order designed to engage with world, not retreat
Believe it takes a village to raise a child
Making neighbours a priority (which means saying no to others eg don’t leave the community more
than once per fortnight)
Spend a minimum of 1/3 of each day with neighbours
Notes that most of the world lives the way they do
Think it would be much easier creating community amongst poor than amongst middle class or rich
Course options
o 9 day mission exposure – hear stories, serve somewhere
o Misso Deio – retreat reflecting on how God has shaped you
o Internships in Bangkok
o Surrender conference last weekend in August – Tony Campolo 06
Encourage neighbours to join them in creating incarnational communities
Value leadership – those who have invested the most in any context have the most say
As rich people, our attitude to the poor is to try to shut them out to some degree, as they will try to rip
us off. This relationship won’t change unless we are poor ourselves!!!!!
Do our Churches represent kingdom priorities?
Kardinia Christian Church
 Youth ministry doesn’t have own vision, but is part of the overall Church’s










Call schools and welfare work Kardinia Youth Service, so people associate them with an official
department, not a Church
Area very poor, with girls wanting to be pregnant by 15 so they can receive the dole, highest suicide
and drug rates in Australia
Work with drug addicts, rehab, dealing with crises
Formerly Manifold Heights CofC, 3 hymn sandwich, 100 people. Current pastor Rick was 28 y.o.
alcoholic whose brother had just died from drug overdose and went to Church. Everyone was
surprised when he came forward. Asked uncomfortable questions about why things were done –
“that’s the way we’ve always done it” Offered role of senior pastor eventually, said yes subject to
conditions re Church governance. Now SP leads Church, and elders or 65% of Church can sack. In 9
months Church grew to 350, now 1000.
Bought a $400,000 property when offerings were $500 per week, and built a $1,200,000 building
when offerings where $1200 per week – key was casting vision to people
Run leadership programs in schools, camps
o Eg give assignment on comparing Jesus, Gandhi, Hitler and other 2 leaders. The kids present
their assignments to class and end up preaching the gospel
o Approach schools and say “Can we help?”
o Work in 5 schools with breakfasts, leadership programs, help in RE
Starting a cafe ministry un university
Largest demographic was 25-35 1/3 of Church – second largest = youth
Kids Hope – volunteers go into primary school for one hour for one week for 2 years – World Vision
Biggest success is men’s ministry – if save man get the family 78% of the time
Chaplaincy Ministry at Melbourne Demons
 Voluntary role, but very time intensive
 Has had to support himself, and feels bi-vocational ministry is the way of the future
 Sees it as incarnational ministry (didn’t use that word) in that he is going out to the world, rather than
hoping players come to Church
 Helps players through crises, provides marriage counseling, is generally available to help
 Tries to help people deal with their success
National Gathering
Paul Cameron, CEO, Vic/Tas Conference
 Church should be a laboratory, not a museum
 Questioned why we sings the songs that we do
 The crises in Churches must be confronted, not ignored, therefore we must disturb people
Mark Sayers, Forge, part of Red Network, missional Church planter
 Chinese Proverb “If you want a definition of water, don’t ask a fish.” I think this means..
o Fish only know what it is like to be in water and hardly are aware of what it is like, for they
have nothing ton compare it with
o We Church Christians can’t see the problems of the Church clearly
o We westerns can’t see the sins of our culture clearly
o We probably don’t know what will work in discipleship for a new, young Christian, as what
worked for us might not for them
 Australians do believe in a God, but this “God” has three parts
o The “Distant God of Therapeutic Consolation”. This God offers no ethical framework and
makes no demands. He is a God for emergencies only to cry out to.
o Consumerism as religion. God exists to give us stuff, and we achieve our highest selfactualisation when we buy things. Look in a shopping mall to find the messages we are
bombarded with. We normally don’t see this as we are fish. People read John 10:10 through
consumerist eyes. Mark advertised for people who were about to drop out of Church and their
faith in God to come and talk to him and share their story. So he heard tale after tale of





people’s reasoning for leaving the Church. All the stories were different, but they all ended
the same, and all included the same reasoning. Each dropout felt that their life didn’t match up
to what they had been promised when they were listening to the Christianity sales pitch. They
felt that they were offered an awesome life, and they didn’t get it. They said they had done
whatever they had been asked to – serve in various ministries, receive counseling, exorcism,
turn up to bible studies and Church services and special outreaches business meetings, read
their bibles and prayed, but here they were – in an unhappy marriage, or with their career
going nowhere, or still single, or with them still being sick after all these years, or any other
problem that hadn’t gone away. They felt they had been offered the world, and Christianity
hadn’t come through with the goods. Somehow people have bought into the consumerist idea
that there is a world where you can have the perfect partner, buy heaps of stuff, have great sex,
drink beer and travel the world.
o Self as God. Gods exists for our pleasure. Some French philosopher said “When middle class
people are denied pleasure they are outraged”
o Unfortunately, when people are converted, all we do is replace their distant God with “Cool
Jesus” who will meet all your needs from the other two views of God.
Napoleon Dynamite is a movie funded, acted and made by Mormons, yet it doesn’t convert people
into mormons. A few years ago 5 out of the top 10 music singles in Australia were by Christians, yet
there was no revival. Why do we put so much effort into music, TV, movies hoping that they will
reach the world for us?
Consumerism is about avoiding our pain. We need to connect with our own pain and see where Jesus
is in the pain. As we share our pain/doubts/fears with others we make disciples.
Suggests asking people confronting questions, such as when they say they will go shopping, ask “Will
that make you feel better?”.
The primary way we learn is through socialisation, not information treansfer. Studies show that
missionary children do much better with their faith than do pastor’s children, as missionaries need to
live out their faith 24-7
Part of our problem is sermons, bible studies, counselors etc all giving advice to people as to how to
live. It stops people from asking their own questions and having their own relationship with God.
Steve Said – Forge, Tear Australia http://neurotribe.net/blog/ , www.tear.org.au, http://advoc8.tear.org.au/
 How we treat poor is incredibly important. When Jesus was asked about heaven and hell, he always
replied with a comment about how we treat the poor!!!!!
 A Christian girl couldn’t get a friend to attend an outreach activity because friend was too busy
attending amnesty international
 George Bernard Shaw “The gift of accurate insight is often mistaken for cynicism by those who don’t
have it”
 The idea of splitting social justice and the gospel or spirituality is only 100 years old. The wesleys or
Jesus would say there is no difference between them
 A big idea of forge is stopping people having to cross cultural barriers to reach the gospel
 We need to be active in each of these areas
o Spirituality – bible, private morality, prayer, evangelism
o Social Justice – lifestyle, public morality, activism, advocacy
o Culture – service, incarnation, presence
 Don’t try to convince youth or your Church about social justice or culture through your words – let
your actions speak louder in the example of St Francis