LCANZ EDCO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF CHURCH OPERATIONS
INTRODUCTION
The Executive Director – Church Operations (EDCO) team has adopted as its guiding light the theme, ‘Mission-focused, connected church’. This goal will remind us why we exist and will help us sift and weigh the options and opportunities that come to us and determine where we focus the finite resources we have. We are committed to keeping ‘mission-focused, connected church’ at the forefront of our attention in all that we do.
This report is divided into two primary sections: (1) Delivery on 2024 projects, and (2) New or continuing projects in 2025.
1. DELIVERY ON 2024 PROJECTS
1.1 PROPERTY MATTERS
Contracts for the sale of the North Adelaide properties were finalised before the 2024 Convention of General Synod, with settlements occurring over various dates up to 30 June 2026. A net sale price (after deduction of costs) of $52.5 million was achieved, which was above the market evaluations that had been received. Most of the proceeds are payable in July 2026.
A new church home for the Churchwide Office and Australian Lutheran College (ALC) has been acquired in the Adelaide CBD. It has five levels and basement carparking. The objective is to ultimately bring other Lutheran entities together in the one location to promote greater collaboration in furthering the mission and ministry of the church.
1.2 LOCAL MISSION FUND
Last year I reported to Districts on the difficult decision to restructure the Churchwide Office, which saw a significant number of staff positions being made redundant. The reason for the restructure was twofold, first, to reduce operational costs to be assist in addressing a large deficit, and second, to provide the opportunity to assess what services are best provided by the Churchwide Office and which should be provided by District offices.
One immediate benefit was the development of a new approach to Local Mission with the establishment of the Local Mission Fund, under which $400,000 is allocated per annum. This is supporting local mission innovations and efforts (at a congregational, district or agency level) that might be applied more broadly across the church. A local mission coordinator (Jodi Brook) has been appointed to oversee the operations of the fund and assist, mentor and monitor groups receiving funding.
1.3 NEW AND IMPROVED WAYS OF SERVING OUR CONGREGATIONS
As well as the restructure, the Churchwide Office has made significant changes to improve its services and operations. The General Church Board highlighted a number of these improvements to General Synod delegates, and I will summarise some of them here for the information of District delegates.
Safe Church Training – Safe Church Training has been modified to enable ‘virtual face-to-face’ training in two sessions of 90 minutes each. The current practice of undertaking physical face-to-face training over a full day has been phased out. This change is designed to reduce the burden on volunteers and make training more readily available at times that suit them. Regular communications to congregations will keep the need for a safe environment at the forefront of our minds. Online training has also been updated to remove the process for the marking of answers/responses and now uses a quiz-based approach.
Congregational ministry reviews – The congregational ministry review for pastors was trialled in the SA–NT District and now is being rolled out across the church. This is an important tool to help facilitate discussions between pastors and their congregations regarding expectations.
Child Safe program – Thank you to congregations for preparing their Child Safety Standards Action Plans, with more than 90 per cent of congregations having done this. The focus now has shifted to working with congregations through discussing plans submitted and providing feedback before any requirement for congregations to produce new plans.
Wellness program – Empatia, a Christian organisation, has been engaged to provide a Christ-centred wellness and support program to replace the employee assistance program (EAP) previously provided by Converge International, which had an engagement rate well below the industry average.
Services are being tendered to reduce costs – For instance, the tendering of insurance-broking services resulted in a reduction in broking costs (a more than $100,000 reduction) while improving the quality of services from the broker. These savings flow through via reduced premiums.
The full report of the General Church Board to General Convention of Synod (as well as all other reports) can be found here: www.lca.org.au/book-of-reports
2. NEW OR CONTINUING PROJECTS IN 2025
2.1 LOCAL MISSION FUND – EQUIPPING AND CULTURAL CHANGE
In the March/April edition of The Lutheran each of the 10 recipient congregations outlined their plans for local mission assisted by their Local Mission Fund grant. Each of these projects are unique and we pray they will begin to inspire other congregations with a missional heart to seek how God might be calling them. Applications for the 2026 grants will be open for expression of interest in July this year. Through her support and mentoring of each congregation, Jodi Brook reports that each team invites the wider church to pray for their mission endeavour, the people involved and those they aim to share Jesus’ love. Therefore, please consider how you might play a part in sharing these stories and prayer points among your districts. These stories are also being shared, one at a time, in the fortnightly eNews as we strategically place local mission at the front of this communication.
2.2 CONGREGATIONAL LIFE HUB
The Congregational Life Hub was jointly launched at General Synod by LCA Communications Manager Linda Macqueen and SA-NT Mission Director Pastor Stephen Schultz. This is a collaborative project of the Districts and Churchwide offices. The project is progressing on schedule. The transfer of resources from behind the portal (e.g. iLearn) and from other websites (e.g. New & Renewing Churches, Prevention of Domestic Violence, Lutherans for Life, Lutheran Earth Care) is about 70% complete.
We acknowledge that at this point in the project, while we are transferring a large volume of resources to the LCA website, people may find it difficult to find what they are looking for. We are working hard to remedy this as quickly as possible. The next steps in the project are: (1) reshaping the LCA website to make access to the resources easier, (2) working with the District mission directors to bring across any District resources that could be shared churchwide, (3) prioritising existing resources for further development and promotion across the church, and (4) assessing where there are gaps in resources and taking steps to develop them. We invite your feedback for how this resource can be developed to best serve your congregations and their leaders.
2.3 NEW CHURCHWIDE OFFICE HOUSE
As per section 1.1, a new church home for the Churchwide Office and Australian Lutheran College (ALC) has been acquired in the Adelaide CBD.
After a competitive tender process, the master contractor has been appointed. Demolition works have been completed as well as design. Over 30 work packages were tendered out to seek best possible pricing. This has been followed by an extensive value management process to reduce overall cost of building services and fit out. We remain on track for relocation of ALC staff on 1 August and the Churchwide Office in September.
A location for the ALC Library has been found after inspecting in excess of 30 sites and undertaking 20 test fits. The library will be located on the corner of Pultney and Rundle Streets in the Adelaide CBD, on the first floor. Work is underway to prepare the site and move the library, which is a substantial task considering the scale of the library, with the relocation to occur in late May to early June.
An investment fund will be established with the balance of the sale proceeds from North Adelaide to support the mission and ministry of the church going forward.
2.4 HUMAN RESOURCE SYSTEM REPLACEMENT
After investigating our options and discussion with users, GCB has approved the transition to a new product, Employment Hero. This follows the use of Preceda, our human resource system (HRS) which has doubled up as a payroll system since 2015. It will be discontinued from February 2026. Thank You Payroll, utilised here in New Zealand, will also be discontinued after Employment Hero goes live. As we commence this project, we are also focusing on improving processes and ease of use for users of our HRS. We have adopted a simple-to-use approach in selecting the software and creating the new processes. We are currently collaborating with the vendor to develop an implementation plan that ensures minimal downtime during the transition. This plan includes change management steps, such as communication, training, support, and minimising interruptions. District Administrators are being updated regularly, and their input has been welcomed.
2.5 PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS / SAFE CHURCH – NEW STRUCTURE
The new-look Safe Church is taking shape. Live online Safe Church Training delivered via Zoom continues to be refined and embedded, and the response from participants has been very encouraging. The team is now using Top Desk technology for the Safe Church Service Desk. This allows for the allocation of inquiries and measurement of workflow. A new 0800 number for New Zealand and 1800 number for Australia has been requested. Once this central contact number is available, the Safe Church Service Desk can be officially launched via churchwide communications. Importantly, the IT team is currently formulating recommendations, in relation to making the Safe Church Training more accessible.
2.6 NATIONAL TELSTRA AGREEMENT
We have negotiated a National Telstra Agreement using the considerable buying power of the LCANZ. Under the contract Telstra commits to reduced communication costs for entities (e.g. congregations, schools, aged-care services) within our group of ABNs. We are awaiting final details from Telstra, prior to commencing churchwide communications. As we proceed with this project, we are already seeing advantages for LCA entities that already have a Telstra account or are in the process of signing up. Leveraging the church’s buying power, we expect to see increased savings across the church.
2.7 WEBSITES MAINTENANCE
From 2018 to 2021, our Communications team built websites for districts, a number of agencies, and more than 40 congregations. Much of this website-building activity was made possible by a generous grant from the NSW District. While the website-building project(s) itself was successful and has provided a much-needed resource for congregations and districts, some websites have fallen into disrepair due to lack of maintenance. Further, the ‘one-page websites’ are not always up to date, as their data is drawn from LAMP2. The IT team is prioritising: (a) how to restore the websites to good order, and (b) the establishment of a fee-for-service system so that appropriate resources can be allocated to supporting websites, ongoing.
3. ‘ON AN ADVENTURE WITH JESUS’
Your Synod theme is a joyful one for our LCANZ community. There have been challenges following the decision of our General Synod to remove the prohibition on the ordination of women. But the historic resolution has also provided new opportunities for our church as we welcome women into the ordained ministry. Please pray for our church’s bishops and other pastoral leaders as they lead our church through the changes upon us and those ahead of us.
As you and your communities leave Synod, I urge you to keep your Synod theme before you. Set out daily upon your adventure with Jesus. As the people of God in Lutheran congregations and communities in New Zealand, work alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ, speak well of each other and encourage one another as we partner together in the gospel.
At the Churchwide Office, we continue to pray for you as you proclaim Christ in this District, and we ask you to remember us in your prayers also.
Brett Hausler
Executive Director of Church Operations
