THE INCUBATOR

The Incubator is our key two-year program WHICH AIMS to serve, train, and develop church planters and ministers in Australia.

Each Incubator learning module involves time for peer-to-peer coaching, personal spiritual formation, application of ideas to real-world problems and hands-on training that combines theology, church leadership theory and best practice in adult learning.

In 2021 City to City Australia is offering the Incubator in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Canberra, and Hobart.

More information can be found in the City to City Australia Training Programs Guide, dates and registration for 2021 can be accessed below.

Preaching is vital for the life and health of God’s people. In this age of lockdown and live-streaming, leaders need to keep growing in their ability to faithfully handle the Bible and communicate its message effectively so that Jesus is proclaimed in a way that deepens faith and transforms lives.

The online preaching incubator has three components:

1. Five 90 minute webinars that will help you explore the model of preaching Tim Keller proposes in his book, Preaching

2. Access to material on Pathwright giving you exercises and tools that will help you understand and apply the model (with roughly 2 hours/month worth of material)

3. A small cohort of 3 preachers with a facilitator in which you will spend 2 hours/month workshopping the application of this model to your actual sermons (via Zoom).

The program will help you do this in the company of other preachers from around Australia by:

• Walking you through Tim Keller’s model of preaching the text, Christ, and the gospel to the heart and cultural context

• Helping you grasp the dynamics of this model at depth and giving you tools to apply it through a sequence of purpose-built activities and exercises

• Enabling you to workshop implementing the model in your actual sermons in a small, facilitated cohort with two other preachers

Dates and details are on registration page.

A targeted learning experience to guide you through auditing your ministry design and re-engineering it to promote and achieve genuine spiritual transformation in your context. 

The program is structured as eight full days over the course of a year with significant practical work to do reviewing/auditing, architecting, implementing and measuring changes to the ministry design in your context. 

The Ministry Design Incubator addresses this significant leadership challenge by:

• Introducing you to a clear, workable, mission-focused, and contextually-sensitive framework for designing ministry to promote spiritual transformation

• Applying this mission-orientated design thinking to the architecting of crucial ministry systems to facilitate spiritual transformation

• Engage you in a carefully designed and curated learning process to give you the tools and confidence to lead change in this area

• Enlisting you in a community of peers who are committed to learning, living, and supporting each other in this change process

• Offering you the opportunity to add coaching to this training to accelerate your application of the learning by means of gracious accountability 

Dates and details are on registration page.

How is it that some churches crack under the slightest pressure and descend into bickering, disunity and fractured relationships; whereas other churches can experience the most devastating losses, and yet retain an even keel? How is that some ministers can find themselves in very dark places even when things seem to be going reasonably well; whereas other ministers can thrive under intense pressure and challenges?

Of course, there are many factors that go into each of these scenarios, and being reductionist or simplistic never helps. At the same time, one factor at play in every situation, and in the life of every leader, is the emotional system. A substantial part of faithful and fruitful leadership is managing skilfully one's own contribution to the emotional systems of which one is a part.

This incubator will take a sustained look at Family Systems Theory, as applied to the content of ministry, both our own personal lives (nuclear family and family of origin), as well as the wider church context. The theory of family systems will be explored thoroughly, but the incubator will not leave things at theory - and participants will have the opportunity to present a family systems analysis of a current situation.

Dates and details are on registration page.

The International Intensive is a training program for those starting churches in global cities. It is held over two weeks in the Asia Pacific region. 

The program is designed to prepare church planters by exposing them to church planting concepts, theological resources to grow churches, leadership modules, and other church planting principles.