Peter Stone served as Program Director of the Arrow Leadership Australia Executive Leaders Program from 2014–2020. Over those six years, he didn’t just run the program, he helped shape it, building a curriculum and framework that still carries his fingerprints today.
When Peter first stepped into Arrow, he saw huge potential. “Arrow had a bit of a blue ocean to explore,” he recalls. “Very few theological colleges were doing anything in the leadership space.” With decades of experience across teaching, business, and theology, Peter fused his professional expertise and personal faith to give the program sustainable structure and direction.
“I wanted to create a curriculum that would build. The technical term is reflexive. I wanted a reflexive curriculum. One that would talk to itself, and so I built language into it that we could share at Arrow, creating space to have complex and important conversations about capability, character, and calling.”
But Peter’s work wasn’t just about curriculum. At the heart of the Executive Leaders Program is a big idea: that Christian leaders in high-performing, senior roles often need more than skills, they need community. Those roles can be isolating, even confronting, but when leaders are brought together, they find not only encouragement but also a rare kind of honesty.
Arrow, Peter explains, created “a space where it is safe to tell the truth. Tell the truth to myself, tell the truth to God. Sometimes tell the truth to each other. But making that safe space, I think that is where the magic really happens.” Peter was resolute in nurturing this powerful attribute of the program whilst developing tools and structure within the training.
So, Peter got to work, not simply attaching Bible verses to leadership models, but designing a program where Scripture itself shaped leadership practice. He wanted to help leaders talk honestly about capability, character, and calling, the three pillars of Arrow’s leadership vision.
Those conversations often surprised participants. “People expect business training with Bible verses,” Peter laughs. “Instead, Arrow throws you straight into some really heavy-duty reflection on your character and your relationship with God, and our astonishing capacity to be hypocrites.”
For Peter, this was the real gift of Arrow: watching Christian leaders come alive as they wrestled with their faith in the context of their work. “I got to see and hear somebody’s passion and their heartbeat and the cost of being faithful, and witness the determination to persist in that.”
Among its ability to connect leaders across sectors, Arrow challenges denominational boundaries by creating a space where people can collaborate meaningfully outside their theological tribe. Peter explains that Arrow’s approach to denominational differences is not to homogenise or discount differences but to draw focus towards the main thing, “How do I lead faithfully in Jesus’ name?”
What Peter cherished most while working at Arrow was the chance to have “glimpses into the hearts and lives of really sincere, godly people.” He valued the passion and faithful determination of those in Arrow to bring Jesus into the very heart of their work and mission. During his time, Peter says he “got to see and hear their passion, their heartbeat, the cost of being faithful, and witness the determination to persist in that.”
For Peter, these moments pointed to something bigger. He believes that Arrow is a small representation of what “the new heaven and the new earth will be like,” describing those involved as “faithful people who’ve got a servant heart and who love Jesus.”
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