While many church leaders feel deeply called and passionate, they often struggle to achieve two crucial goals:

• Building a vibrant, faith-filled church community
• Engaging their local neighbourhood in a meaningful way

Early in my own journey as a senior pastor, I was no different. I faced the same tension—wanting to reach more people while feeling stuck in a model that relied heavily on perfecting Sunday services. Most of the advice I received focused on attraction: make the church more professional, more engaging, more impressive.

That strategy brought with it an unrelenting pressure—one that left our team exhausted and our connection with the community limited. But then, God began to show us a different way.

Not a New Program—A New Mindset

What we discovered wasn’t a better strategy or another program. It was a shift in thinking. We began to realise the greatest resource in our church wasn’t more events or better production.

It was our people.

This realisation changed everything—and this year, I launched Mobilise Australia to share that revelation with other leaders around the country.

The Heart of Mobilise

The people in your congregation are already living, working, and studying within your community. They are gifted. They are passionate. And they are already placed in the spaces the church longs to reach.

They are the church

The core question Mobilise seeks to answer is simple but powerful:

“How do we activate our people to live out their faith seven days a week?”

Over the course of two decades, we saw more people come to Christ through everyday relationships than through church services. Our congregation became known as a trusted presence in our city. And most importantly, we saw Sunday Christians become everyday missionaries.

As our people grew in purpose and confidence, our small groups and Sunday gatherings grew organically in response.

3 Practical Ways to Mobilise Your Church Today

You don’t have to wait for a full training rollout to begin. Here are three practical things you can do this week to start mobilising your people:

1.Teach That Work Is Calling

Too often, church culture communicates (even unintentionally) that only some roles—like ministry or missions—are truly “spiritual.” This leads believers to assume that to live a fulfilling Christian life, they’ll eventually need to leave their current profession for something “more sacred.” That’s a lie.

Start affirming from the pulpit that every vocation—nursing, construction, education, business—is sacred when done in service to God and others. Let your people know: your workplace is your mission field.

2.Make the “Hero Shift”

Sunday platform ministry gets a lot of visibility. But it’s time we shift the spotlight.

Start allocating 10–15 minutes in your Sunday services for “everyday heroes.” Invite a tradie, a schoolteacher, or a business owner to share how they see God at work in their sphere. When people see themselves reflected on the platform, they begin to believe they’re part of the mission.

3. Ditch the Jargon

I love the way John 1:14 (MSG) puts it:

“The Word became human and moved into the neighbourhood.”

If God’s rescue plan for humanity was to become fully human, why have we added so many non-human words to our message?

The goal isn’t to speak “Christianese” on Sundays and then scramble to translate it on Monday. Learn to speak the Gospel in human language—and your people won’t need to switch between church talk and everyday conversation.

Ready to Mobilise Your Church?

If you’re ready to equip your congregation to lead their own friends, families, and coworkers to Christ—not just on Sundays, but every day—then Mobilise Australia is here to help.

📍 Learn more at: www.mobilise.au

📱 Follow: @_paulebartlett

📧 Reach out: paul@paulbartlett.com

Let’s stop building churches around events—and start building churches that move into the neighbourhood.

Paul Bartlett