Future Church Brisbane
Join Luke Kennedy and friends at Future Church in Brisbane, Australia.
Talks from our gatherings as well as deeper discussions and Application panels around the practicals of Following Jesus.
Future Church Brisbane
Spiritual Renewal in A Changing Australia ( For Future Church
Can the church in Australia flourish amidst cultural shifts and growing secularism? This episode promises to explore the resilience needed for Christianity to thrive as a minority faith in the land down under. Drawing upon the wisdom of John Maxwell and the historical insights of Tom Holland's "Dominion," we uncover how the early church's enduring values of humility, service, and human dignity can light the path forward. We dig into the rich tapestry of Christian history, highlighting how adversity has often strengthened the church's mission, compelling it to refocus and grow.
We then pivot to practical strategies for nurturing resilient Christians in Australia. With the establishment of a new pastoral care ministry, we're equipping believers with the tools needed to support each other through prayer, life transitions, and personal challenges. Facing the reality of a shrinking Christian populace, we underscore the importance of strong personal convictions and prophetic voices that resonate even in a secular society.
--------------------------------
Future Church Brisbane Website // https://www.futurechurch.io
Future Church Brisbane INSTAGRAM // https://www.instagram.com/futurechurchbrisbane
Okay, I want to talk to you today about a subject that's a little bit heavy on my heart and, I think, is slightly challenging, but hopefully also motivating and encouraging to us as a church, and this is a message for our church. Okay, this is not a message necessarily for everyone, but it is for our church that I feel in the direction that God is taking us. So I want to talk to you about thank you so much, sir the future of the church and a new operating system for the church for a changing country that we are in today. John Maxwell once said that people change when they heard enough that they have to, they learn enough that they want to, or they receive enough that they are able to. Change is hard, there's no doubt about that, and most of us don't love change. If you want to hear the notes for this message, you can use QR code on the screen. There's notes right there, so grab them. There's notes in Japanese, korean, mongolian, spanish, portuguese, so you can get all those notes, okay, and if we have missed your language, please tell us and we'll get your notes next week. Okay, they'll be there every week, so you can do that, okay.
Speaker 1:Matthew 28, verse 18,. So then Jesus came and said to them All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. The start of the church in Acts started with the big bang. A lot of people came to faith very fast. There was about 2,000 people came to faith in one day and were baptized, and then it just kept growing. So it was fast. There was a lot to do, a lot to organize, a lot to rebuild. They were establishing a new way of being human. In so many ways they were establishing ethics, christian ethics. They were so countercultural, everything they were doing was so new. But Jesus, from the very beginning, told them that I don't want you to stay here. I want you to go into the world and I want you to share Jesus with everyone. Something interesting happens in the middle of all of this messy community building, meaning they had a lot of work to do in this community, but in the middle of that they kind of lost the mission of why Jesus gave them this thing in the first place was to not keep it but to take it to the world. They lost that heart and something interesting happens there, and you can see this. They made amazing impact in the community that they're in, which was in Jerusalem, the city.
Speaker 1:They made amazing impact in his book Dominion, in Tom Holland's book Dominion how the Christian Revolution Remade the World. It's a fascinating read. Basically it's about how Western civilization was extremely affected by these early Christians. It said that the last should be first, that the mighty shall be brought low, that the poor and the hungry should be fed. This was a reversal of values so profound that the greatest empire on the planet had been brought to acknowledge it. Christianity had given voice to those who had previously had none, affirming the dignity of all people, regardless of their status, gender or power. This is a new concept that the church brought the ethics of humility and service. Humility was not a desired value, by the way. It was something to be looked down on. Humility was a value that was a new value and that was brought in by Jesus. Of service embedded within Christianity proved more enduring and influential than the sword or the scepter or any empire. Christianity made human dignity intrinsic. It was not something granted by the emperor or kings. It was given because every human was made in the image of God. This was the community that they were establishing. Sounds like a lot of work to establish something like that where everything is new. Huge lot of work to establish something like that where everything is new Huge amount of work. So inevitably, what happens is they get off mission. They start focusing inwards and not outwards, and something happens which really challenges this. The comfortable place was suddenly taken away from them. When they start getting persecuted and in that persecution they remember God's plan for the world.
Speaker 1:In Acts 8, we read this. It says On the day the great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, all except the apostles were scattered. Everyone scattered. Godly men buried. Stephen, who was the first Christian martyr. Saul you've heard of Saul. He began to destroy the church, going from house to house, dragging them, throwing people in prison. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.
Speaker 1:Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip, they saw the signs he performed. They all paid close attention to what he said, for, with streaks. Impure spirits came out of many and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed, and so there was great joy in that city. What happened was persecution forced them to get back onto mission. It forced them to get out of their comfort zone, out of their inward focusedness, and to actually go and do what Jesus originally said. Tom Holland said it this way the Christians expelled from Jerusalem went not as defeated people, but as missionaries of a faith that defied the boundaries of both nation and creed. So persecution became this catalyst for the church to remember.
Speaker 1:So many times throughout the church history, the church has done much better when it's being persecuted, much better than when it's been in power. Christianity thrives in difficult situations. That's when the gospel really shines. The contrast of the gospel shines greatest in the most difficult times. That's when Christians really come to the fore. Which leads me to the church in Australia and the state of our country. This sounds pretty dire, and it is, but we'll get to some hope. Okay, so just stay with me.
Speaker 1:In 2023, we closed 505 charities that were started for the advancement of religion. Basically, what that means is most of them are churches. We closed 500 churches and we planted 92. That's a huge loss of churches. This is normal in Australia. This has been normal for some time now.
Speaker 1:In Australia we are going backwards in church planting. We are going backwards in the number of churches by some estimates it's not quite able to get it super clear, but by some estimates we are closing 5% of churches a year and planting 1% of churches per year. 18% of local Protestant churches have experienced net growth. 69% are in decline. Seven out of 10 churches in Australia today Protestant churches. The Catholic Church is much worse than this, sadly, 33% down over the last several years in Australia. Seven out of 10 are in decline in Australia and only two out of 10 are growing. When it comes to our pastoral leadership in our country, 35% of pastors seriously considered quitting last year and I can understand why. There's a lot of pressure on pastors to be a lot of things to a lot of people. The Bureau of Statistics in 2021 showed widely that older Christians are more likely to be Christians about 70% of those over 80.
Speaker 1:The most anti-Christian generation that we have today is Gen X. Shout out Anyone here from Denix? No, a couple of people, not that we're underrepresented. Denix Come on Is the most anti-God generation that we have, followed closely by boomers. Yeah, now let me ask you this question who controls the media in Australia, boomers? Who controls the media in Australia, boomers? Now, that's just a little food for thought as we look to what is in reality and who is actually controlling the narrative of how Australians feel about God. The most open generation by far that we have in Australia is Gen Z. They are the most open generation to God we have ever seen in a very long time. This gives me great hope, and they are exciting. They are open. The way they think about God and want to engage God is so inspiring. Their values more align with the gospel than previous generations, even though not necessarily with the church, but with the gospel.
Speaker 1:Add to this immigration in Australia. In 2022 to 2023, immigration reached a migrants arriving to 737,000 immigrants into Australia. As of March 2024, the population exceeded 27 million. 83% of the growth in this country is coming from immigration. Based on that, it won't be it's not a stretch to say that by 2030, 35% to 37% of this country will be immigrants first generation new to Australia, and many more than that will be second generation Australians, meaning their children. Many, many more it could be. Half of this country is new to Australia.
Speaker 1:Our country is changing dramatically in front of us and the church is not ready. That is my conviction that we need to change, that we must be ready for what God is doing in this country. It's not all on us. I'm just speaking to us here today. We're a local church. It's not all on us. This is not a message for everyone, but we are called to be ready for that change. And if you are here from another nation I say this a lot and I hope if Australia is your home, you would join me in saying welcome, we want you here, we're glad you're here, and we believe that God has brought you here not for study, not just for work, but he has brought you here to show you how much he loves you, to introduce you to the goodness of God, that you could go back. Some of you will stay here, some of you will go home to your country. Wonderful, we're going to send you back to your country with Jesus. And many of you are coming from countries that have very little Christian population in your country, especially Japan, and that is obviously a huge part of our story as a church. Okay, little Christian population in your country, especially Japan, and that is obviously a huge part of our story as a church. Okay, can we be honest? We need to change In Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:The biggest need in Jerusalem was taking care of Christians. That was the biggest need. The church was very large, strong, comfortable. Taking care of Christians was a priority, was the main priority. Okay, pastoral gifts led the church in most cases, and in our country, pastoral gifts have led the church In a majority Christian nation, pastoral gifts have led the church meaning how do we take care of Christians? And that is a good thing. That's a wonderful thing. In fact, today we are launching pastoral care ministry in our church for the first time. Okay, will is going to lead that. We're going to pray for him at the end, and so that means we're going to have prayer ministry every Sunday. We'll be here If you have a prayer need, our team.
Speaker 1:We have a team of prayer people now who will pray with you. We can pray for you. We want to do that. It's important Also to give help to people who are having babies. That's a growing need in our church and we want to get more organized around that. People who are getting married, so pre-marriage preparation for those people and then hospital, people who are in hospital and have needs. Those four areas. We're going to start doing work and Will is going to lead. That Does that sound good?
Speaker 1:Yeah, good, yeah, okay, good, you approve? All right, that's good, okay. But the main question was how can we take care of you? How can we connect you? How can we help you?
Speaker 1:This is generally how Australian churches have been modelled in the recent decades, where Christianity has been the dominant operating system in our country. This is changing. The world needs to become Christians need to become more resilient in a new world where we will not be the majority religion in this country, that we will become a minority. Some of you look scared by that. You should not be. The church will do better. The church will shine brighter. It will reinvent, it will innovate. It always does.
Speaker 1:This is pushing us out of our comfort zone. It's the same thing that happened in Jerusalem. It's not necessarily persecution. I'm not saying we're not persecuted in Australia. Come on, let's be honest. Getting a Facebook post is not persecution. All right, people are facing real persecution in the world. Most Christians today are facing real challenges. We are blessed, okay, but us being pushed out of our comfort zone is probably what the church in Australia needs to actually become much more effective than what we have been, including us. That's why we planted a church. Okay, prophetic voices, evangelistic voices, will become more and more prevalent as these changes happen.
Speaker 1:If you've read Ephesians 4, verse 11 to 13, it says this so Christ gave himself. This is now establishing leadership in the church the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, the teachers to equip his people for the works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of God. So we've got these apostles, who are probably the most misunderstood gift that we have and, to be honest, sometimes are abused. The apostolic gift is not there to build empires unto themselves. That is not what that gift is. It's more about empowering everyone else, laying foundations to empower everyone else. That's what an apostolic gift is. It brings people together and empowers them. It lays foundations and platforms for others, not just about building names for themselves.
Speaker 1:And we have the prophets, those who are from. They often call from outside the church. They call into the church for the church to change and repent sometimes of the junk that we have in our own lives. Many of these prophets now are calling for revival and I think that is good. But revival is for Christians okay. Revival is not evangelism. Revival is for people who were alive in God but now they've kind of gone cold. They're dead. They're dead inside. Revival is about bringing dead things back to life. This is not evangelism, and I'm all for. You know, revival meetings are really popular right now in Australia and I say great, have at it. But if we do not do evangelism in this country, the church might be dead in a generation. We have to be serious about that. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Without this gift of evangelism becoming stronger in our country, we might not have much to give to our children. Are you enjoying my motivational talk? Teachers will become more important. People need to know what they believe because it will be challenged more and more. Culture will not support you.
Speaker 1:We saw this many times in Japan, where people would come from Texas. Really strong Christians would come from Texas, surrounded by Christians, surrounded by Christians. They would come to Japan and they would really flip out. I mean, they would question their own faith. Why is that? Why is that possible? It's because the culture around them was holding them up. It wasn't personal conviction and resilience, it was the culture that was holding them up and made them seem like strong Christians, but they in fact were not. This is where we are. We are fast moving towards a place where the next generation does not know Jesus and you will be in a place where you have to know what you believe and why. This is good things to wrestle with. Teachers will help this with. Until we reach the unity of the faith, obtaining the whole measure of the fullness of God, our heart for the Christians in this church is that we'll become mature in our faith. That's our heart for the Christians in this church.
Speaker 1:One of the best descriptions for that is resilient resilient Christians. There was a huge study, one of the largest studies done in America. What does resilience look like in a new world, based on extensive research by Barna? There's four categories of young adults. Right now that we have 18 to 29-year-olds, shout out. There's four categories. Put them in prodigals, which means people have left the faith.
Speaker 1:22. Nomads, people who have lapsed christianity. I mean they identify as christians but they're not really living as christians. Not engaged, that's 30. So that's 50. We're up to now habitual church goes, 38 who regularly go to church but they don't actually have deep personal roots in God. And then 10% have strong resilient faith. 10% that's in the church. 10% of our young adults have strong resilient faith. What is strong resilient faith? It doesn't mean like martyr, like St Augustine or something like that. It's simple stuff. I'll tell you the measure of it Experiencing intimacy with Jesus meaning having some personal relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1:Number two culturally discerning ability to critically engage with the world around you from a biblical perspective. Meaningful intergenerational relationships. Meaning they have mentors in their life. Vocational discipleship, integrating their faith and their work together. Countercultural mission, actively participating in mission work that challenge social norms and embodies the teaching of Jesus. I would not call that a super Christian. I would just call that being a Christian.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's where we're at currently. Okay, so here's my invitation to the christians in our church we have to become resilient christians. We have to. I'm inviting you into the deep end.
Speaker 1:Okay, for so long we have had a church culture here, where it has been, we've got an amazing discipleship. Deep end here, an evangelistic heart over here, but most Christians live in a shallow in-between. They are neither actively and passionately pursuing a life of following Jesus literally in their lives, nor are they evangelistic and helping new people. They are mostly stuck in the middle, and that needs to change. That needs to change. We have many people that have been Christians a long time in our church who do not read the Bible. This will not get us into the future. You will need to know what you believe in the future of Australia. This is my humble challenge to you today and humble challenge to us as a church, as a leadership team and for the future. Okay, should end soon. Eh, let's bring this up a little bit before we go. Thanks, sarah. Are we challenged? Are we okay? Are we still friends? All right?
Speaker 1:So I met a church planter this last week and they told me that the reason they planted their church is because so many Christians have left big churches that you would know the name of and they basically are there to pick up the pieces of those churches. That's the reason they planted the church. Now, I don't think that's bad. There's a big group of those people and they need a place, and this has also been a safe place for people who have had difficult experience of church to come and sit and find hope. That's a good thing. But let me just be clear though that is not the mission of this church. We must reach new people. 84% of our country has no connection to church. If Jesus was telling the parable of the sheep today, he would say a man had 100 sheep and 84 left, so he left the 16 to go after the 84. That's our country. We must reach the last we have to if we want to have any hope of the future. I know this is uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:I grew up in a rural town. I went to a rough school with 2,000 kids. I was one of the only Christians in the school that helped fortify my faith. My kids go to a great Christian with 2,000 kids. I was one of the only Christians in the school that helped fortify my faith. My kids go to a great Christian school. I love that. It's awesome. But that was not my experience. It really fortified my faith when I was 19,.
Speaker 1:I had spent 18 months in Japan as doing missions. I came back. We started a young adult ministry. My pastor asked me to start a young adult ministry. I started a small group and in that small group we said we're going to read the Bible, we are going to pray and we're going to share Jesus with our friends. That's what you're signing up for. Okay, so let's do that. So people started coming. We started doing that. More people started coming. We started doing that, more people started coming. We started another five groups from that group within a short period of time and then we thought, okay, let's do something. Let's do a gathering together. So we rented the nightclub at the university, brought in DJs to lead worship that was a thing back then and we shared the gospel. We invited everyone we knew at the university. So many people responded to the gospel.
Speaker 1:We were looking around. There was more people who were not from faith than people who were Christians in the room. We were looking at each other and saying we're living the dream. Man, this is the dream. This is what it means to live as a Christian in a place where there's not many Christians.
Speaker 1:We went from there, moved to Japan at 21, planted a church on one of the busiest streets where you can see four kilometres down the street there's 200,000 people on the street at the time and almost none of them have ever heard about Jesus. We planted a church right in the middle of that. We did outreach for three months, invited everyone that we knew. On the first day we had 10 Christians and we had 70 people who were not Christians. Come to the first service. We're looking at each other saying people who are not Christians come to the first service. We're looking at each other saying we're living the dream. What else would we want to do? We're right in the centre of what God is doing in the unreached. It went on from that for many years after that. It didn't change. It was not uncommon in Osaka that we would have more people who are not Christians than Christians in a room that became the normal and in a culture that has 99.8% people who are not Christians, that probably is a good ratio. That's probably the right thing.
Speaker 1:Australia is not that bad, but we need help for sure. Australia is not that bad, but we need help for sure. I don't have any. I don't know what time. It's 15, we're going to finish. Let me finish this one last story and we're going to finish.
Speaker 1:When we were in Japan last time, the last recent trip was probably the worst trip we've ever done. We, yeah, it was, isn't it we? We lost our daughter at a theme park probably the worst trip we've ever done. We, yeah, it was, wasn't it? We lost our daughter at a theme park. She got separated with Hugo on the rides. We lost her and I wasn't too worried.
Speaker 1:I was in another part of the park with Kaylee, my two-year-old, and I get this phone call from Ms. I mean can't find her Fifteen minutes gone by. We tell them the staff, they're just looking around and can't find her anywhere. And so we go to the head office and they start, you know, we start talking. Like I say, like tell all the staff that my daughter's lost. Like here's a photo, tell them all and we'll find her. And they're like no, no, we don't want to do that because we don't want to disturb the staff. Like I don't want the staff to have a bad day or to be worried about, you know, I don't want them to have a bad experience today, the staff. So we're not telling them that your daughter's missing. We're just going to we're really good at this She'll come back.
Speaker 1:I'm losing it. I mean, this is now. We're an hour into. We can't find her. She's gone for an hour. I'm starting to get really angry and I said some nasty things in Japanese to the guy. Sorry, not sorry.
Speaker 1:Hour and a half later can't find her. We're like taking turns, searching and the staff are doing nothing, they're being totally useless. And I say, like, give us the, give us the footage of the gates so at least I know if someone's taken her out of the park. And they say, no, we're not giving you the footage, it's privacy. And I'm like, for whose privacy? Like I'm a parent, I just ask all the parents do you want to know if your child's? All right? Yes, okay, find the child. They won't give us the footage, they won't look themselves, they don't want to disturb anyone's privacy. And I said I'm going to go to the police if you don't give me that footage. And they said go to the police. So now we've left the park.
Speaker 1:This is now two and a half hours. I'm losing it because I can't find her and we've left. We've left her so anyway. So the police are amazing. They come in, four police come in and start threatening the staff at this big place and they refuse to let the police in. They say it's private property, you're not coming in.
Speaker 1:So now we're like three, three and a half hours of losing her and the head policeman comes over to me and says if they won't let us in. We're going to go to the governor, enter the media and we're going to bring a whole search, like a whole search party, into the park. We'll close the park down and I'm like, do it, I'm going to do it. So this is now four and a half hours into it. We can't find her and they won't even tell the staff. So the general manager who's been a total jerk, the general manager comes over and he says we're leaving now to go to the government to get a warrant to close this down and we will bring everyone in. And then he goes okay, I'll tell the staff. So they put out, they tell the staff that she's missing. In five minutes they found her. She was scared. You know she'd hidden because she was scared behind this toilet in Jurassic Park Sorry, I shouldn't have said that Around the back of one of the attractions, and we brought her back in.
Speaker 1:When I held her it was like nothing else mattered. I wasn't too worried about who you got that time. I was like more worried about, you know, the one that was missing. You see where I'm going with this. This is the way.
Speaker 1:How do you think God feels when the church cares not for the lost and God does not mean. God knows where his children are right, so God cares about the lost. We must learn how to care for the lost in this church. We have to. There's so many people around us every day, and that is what I pray that our church will become Christians. We need to become resilient and deep, and then we need to turn outwards real quick. That's where we're going.
Speaker 1:So let me pray for you, as we invite you to. I just pray. The application of this is I pray that the Holy Spirit will work in your heart and give you a heart for those outside the church, to give you a heart to go deeper in your faith and stop being wishy-washy, go deeper in your faith and then actually care about others. Thank you, god. God, I pray that you would help us, help us to change, help us to care.
Speaker 1:I pray that the future of our country that's changing so fast in front of us, god, you give us eyes to see, to not live in a dream world but to wake up and see the reality of the situation that we're in, and I pray you would fill us with hope through your spirit that your church would rise up, that your church would wake up and we would reach the lost. I pray, god, that so many people who have never heard of you, who don't know you, would come into this place and many of our homes and into our lives and our workplaces and would meet you, would change their lives and fill their lives with hope. Restore them, restore the broken. Build your kingdom, god, on this earth, not this church, but build your kingdom. We're here for it, god. Change us, god. There's a selfishness in our hearts, but I pray that you would wash it away In Jesus' name amen.