When Brooke Rutherford walked into her first Arrow session, she didn’t realise she was stepping into a story already written in her own family.
“I didn’t know Dad had done Arrow until I was already in it,” she laughs. “I was two when he did it. But I’d grown up around leaders like Kylie Butler and Julian Dunham, who’d been part of our church and were also connected to Arrow. So it felt like I’d stepped into a legacy I didn’t even know I was part of.”
Now Youth and Young Adults Pastor at Crossway’s Burwood East Campus in Melbourne, Brooke is just three years into vocational ministry after a career in corporate marketing. Her father, Dale Stephenson, has served as Crossway’s Senior Pastor for 18 years and is in his 37th year of ministry. The church now welcomes over 5,500 people onsite each week and reaches around 20,000 online.
Dale completed Arrow in the late 1990s, and Brooke joined Arrow nearly three decades later. Dale says it was foundational for him. Although he was already serving as a senior pastor, Arrow gave him exposure to world-class thought leadership, national networking, and a deeper sense of formation.
For Brooke, Arrow came at just the right time. She had just started at Crossway, after resisting going into Christian ministry. She didn’t want to be ‘the pastor’s daughter who works at church.’ But God got the better of her stubbornness, and Arrow helped Brooke figure out what it meant to be a pastor, not as her father, but as herself.
The differences in their Arrow experiences are far outweighed by the similarities. “The world’s a radically different place than it was 27 years ago,” Dale says. “But the core challenges of spiritual leadership remain the same. We’re still forming people to live purposeful lives that honour God in an ever-shifting landscape.”
What hasn’t changed over the decades is Arrow’s heartbeat: leaders led more by Jesus, leading more like Jesus, and leading more to Jesus. That last phrase “leading more to Jesus” is something the Crossway team takes seriously.
In 2024 alone, 545 people made first-time commitments to Jesus through Crossway.
“And you can only make that decision once,” Dale notes. “We track these commitments carefully, we require a name, contact details, and a story. We weed out recommitments. These are real, distinct decisions for Jesus.”
What’s more surprising is the demographic: over half of those who made commitments were over the age of 18.
“We’ve broken the mould,” Dale says. “It’s not just kids and youth. We’re seeing adults come to faith in significant numbers.”
This culture of intentional discipleship isn’t accidental: “Arrow didn’t exclusively build it,” Dale says, “but it definitely strengthened it.”
At Crossway, the mission of God is placed in the hands of ordinary people, and the team tracks discipleship data in detail.
“Part of being a healthy leader is developing other leaders,” Brooke explains. “and part of being a healthy leader is creating leaders who go beyond you. So it’s all in the melting pot of how do we mobilise other people to be great disciples of Jesus?”
That kind of multiplication is a growing concern for Brooke, especially as she looks ahead to the future of leadership in the Australian church. There is a wave of senior leaders nearing retirement in the next decade, so she’s keenly aware of the need to develop emerging leaders fast,and the importance of those leaders being deeply formed, well-mentored, and empowered.
Arrow has helped her do just that. Not only did Brooke complete the program, but she’s now integrated much of what she learned into her ministry.
“Our young adults retreat includes silence and solitude just like Arrow taught me,” Brooke explains. “We built a mentoring program off the same model. I’ve brought in conflict tools and strength-based leadership models straight from Arrow.”
For both Dale and Brooke, the relationships formed through Arrow have also been deeply enduring. Dale still connects with friends from his Arrow cohort 27 years on. Brooke, meanwhile, is heading to the Gold Coast later this year for an Arrow 26 reunion.
“There are a thousand places you can get information, but there are not many places where you can get high-quality community that aren’t within your own church context,” Brooke reflects.
As a father, Dale couldn’t be prouder. “Brooke’s had a rapid rise with people recognising her leadership, her spirituality, her communication gifts,” he says. “And the youth and adult ministry is growing very healthily under her and a broader team leadership.”
Both father and daughter are grateful for their shared Arrow experience and the shared ongoing impact of that experience.
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