As Paul Bartlett tells it, some of his most important lessons about faith and leadership were learned court-side in his seventeen years as chaplain of the Illawarra Hawks national basketball team.

“During my first day on the basketball court, the head coach pulled me aside and said: “Rev, I don’t care about a chaplain. I just have one rule… Stay out of my way!” Paul writes in Re-Think It. Being sidelined, Paul says, “was a gift.”

It was an opportunity to unlearn and relearn; about faith, church, community, leadership and power. These were lessons that have shaped his leadership at local, state and national levels. First at Lighthouse in the Illawarra, where he has led with his wife Annette since 2000, and more recently as the state president of Australian Christian Churches (ACC) NSW & ACT where he has led over 300 churches through drought, fire and now, a global pandemic. Paul is also the national leader of ACC Community Engagement, which is focused on helping over 1,100 churches to think and act differently regarding community development.

In a time where the church has had to re-invent itself, Paul is committed to challenging and helping local church pastors and leaders to think differently - even if it means putting some of our most cherished assumptions about ‘doing’ faith and church under the microscope.

His first book Thank God it’s Monday encouraged Christians to look more outwardly by challenging the idea that Sunday was God’s favourite day of the week. Re-Think It is the next step in that journey – and at times an uncomfortable exploration of faith that leaves the reader feeling optimistic about the place of church in community.

 Paul lives in the Illawarra with his wife of 33 years Annette, surrounded by their 3 adult children and many grandchildren. He can still be found at Hawks games and training nights “fetching balls and filling water bottles,” where he is most at home re-thinking it.