The biannual GSC Think Tank 2022 took place on 18-19th February. Delegates from over 102 churches across Greater Sydney Conference, including churches from Wollongong to Western Sydney, descended upon Sydney Olympic Park and the newly renamed Accor Stadium to discuss the modern church, the spiritual outlook of young Australians in the 21st century, and what it takes as a movement to truly raise our spiritual temperature. Across the two days the focus was on ways we can make our churches reflect more of Christ and less on tradition.
The first night kicked off with a devotional from newly appointed GSC President Pr Alban Matohiti. Pr Alban reminded churches that the “biggest privilege [we have] is to make disciples and bring others to Jesus Christ”. He emphasised how strategies, plans, board meetings, church music (whether traditional or contemporary), and evangelistic seminars are all pointless unless the focus is on Jesus. The devotional was capped off with a reminder that Jesus prioritised relationships and connections with others over anything else, which became a reoccurring theme across the weekend.
Plenary 1
Pr Darius Jankiewicz’s plenary explored how we can raise our spiritual temperature by knowing, understanding, and sharing the true God, using 1 Corinthians 13:12 to examine how many people only see a “dim reflection” of God and have not yet uncovered His true image.
Pr Darius shared that all humans are yearning for spiritual connection and many try to fill this spiritual hole with activities including travelling, yoga, meditation, decluttering, and exercising. Why? He explained that this was due to the four main worldviews of God that people possess: Autocratic God, Indulging God, Critical and Judgemental God, and Distant God, as identified in Christopher Bader and Paul Froese’s 2010 book America’s Four Gods. Pr Darius revealed a fifth worldview of God revealed in Isaiah 53—the Servant God. He then concluded that to raise our spiritual temperature, we need to understand and fall in love with the true image of God.
Brad, an attendee from Wollongong church, shared, “Pr Darius effectively emphasised that all people have gods they worship because they don’t know the true God. If more people had an accurate image of God, then more people would worship Him. It is really important that as a church we demonstrate God’s love in our lives.”
Plenary 2
The second plenary was led by Ashley Fell from McRindle Research to discuss the results from the Future of the Church survey. The report highlights that while 70 percent of Australians are spiritually hungry, few attend church or participate in organised religion. The main reasons responders gave for not attending church included church culture being detached from daily life and poor church leadership.
Fell spoke of the current trends that churches should be aware of, including how the rise in work from home has increased community engagement, and the uptake of digital communications and technologies since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, both of which present significant missional opportunities for the church.
Patrick from the Epping church band mentioned these two points as being of significant interest, saying, “Churches in the New Testament were the breadbasket of their communities; if we can get people back into their communities, then the church needs to be there, too.”
The plenary also highlighted Gen Z trends, with research concluding that Gen Z is a purpose- and relationally driven generation. The research from McRindle suggests that strategies used to reach other generations will not work on Gen Z, with Gen Z being a more visual and digital generation that is yearning for relationships and wants to be listened to. Another point Fell reinforced was that working within church infrastructure (e.g., clergy, pastor, chaplain) and organised religion is unpopular with this generation.
This presentation sparked the most widespread discussion, with Patrick from the Epping church band stating that their church plans to “focus on building Christ-centred relationships in every choice and decision, including in leadership. Every approach should be Christ-centred. We need to stop criticising young people and actually give them an opportunity to learn and live Jesus in their context.”
Plenaries 3 and 4
“Do not imagine that things are going to go back to the way they were before March 2020.” Pr Peter Roenfeldt (author of If You Can Eat… You Can Make Disciples) emphasised that modern evangelism is too complicated for a post-COVID world.
He asked the audience to read Luke 10:1-7, which, to the surprise of many delegates, paints a very different picture of evangelism than what many churches practice today. Pr Peter emphasised that successful evangelism is a transitional process; that we should be “listening rather than talking”; work is rooted in authentic, slowly built, genuine relationships. He shared, “It needs to be about quality of relationship, not quantity of people… don’t go door to door, house to house. Instead, stay in one place and build up your relationship from there.” He encouraged delegates when engaging in relationships with those they’re evangelising to “eat their food and hear their story,” and he emphasised that church leaders do not need to have all the answers but should be willing to learn along with whomever they are studying the Bible with.
Brad agreed with Pr Roenfeldt’s talk, saying that he feels the church needs to “find ways to adapt our missional methods for the modern world.” He added, “Too often we evangelise like we’re trying to advertise a brand. We should be trying to genuinely get to know them like Jesus would. We’re making church transactional when we should be making church relational.”
Later, Pr Gary Webster spoke on the keys of successful disciple making. He mentioned that the best way to build disciples is to teach them in the context in which they are living. In other words, that it’s important to understand the culture and understand the people. The main question asked was, “Is the Seventh-day Adventist Church following the traditions of people, or is it following the will of God as expressed in Scripture?”
Final devotion and final plenary
The weekend was capped off with Pr Alban’s farewell message—one of encouragement that highlighted the main aims for churches over the next few years. He also encouraged delegates to focus on people, diversity, and changes, with his main message being “eat [with others] and be quiet” and, most importantly, “let’s immerse in Jesus.”
The theme of the weekend was that churches should not expect people to come to them, but instead that churches should be going to the people to connect with them, to learn what they are doing, to live their lives, and to eat their food and hear their stories.
In summary, according to participants Brad and Patrick, Think Tank 2022 highlighted three key details that churches should take note of:
- Gen Z-ers and Millennials are spiritually hungry, but are not interested in traditional, organised church;
- Modern evangelism needs to be focused on building genuine relationships with people; and
- Church is not a building, it is a people.
Delegates, including Brad and Patrick, came away saying they were inspired by Think Tank and are looking forward to implementing these strategies in their own churches.
by Timothy Pinzone, Photos by Gustavo Rossi
Timothy Pinzone is a former student leader of Adventist Students on Campus at Macquarie University. He now works in national security.
Gustavo Rossi is an up-and-coming photographer keen on urban photography.
