Director of Revitalisation
Catalyst - Tasmania
Jamie is the Director and a Lead Consultant of the Revitalise program. He is an ordained Minister with the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania and leads a working group for the Diocese, developing new ministries throughout the state.
Jamie has a science and business background, previously working as a consultant to rebuild failed businesses and start new ones. These experiences and gifts have transferred into ministry roles focusing on church planting and parish revitalisation.
Jamie studied Ministry & Theology at Ridley College and completed the City to City Asia Pacific Church Planting Intensive and Preaching Incubator prior to planting Southern Beaches Anglican Church. Until recently he has led the Anglican Parish of Clarence South in Hobart through a season of revitalisation before starting full-time with City to City.
Jamie is married to Claire and has seven children (yes, that’s right!) covering a wide range of ages. When he's not spending time with his family he loves nothing more than exploring Tasmania's rivers and lakes with fly- rod in hand.
Jamie and Claire have a deep God-given passion to serve the Lord with a particular call to develop organic ministry opportunities, believing that God is planting His plans into the hearts of local communities and cities for the growth of the Kingdom.
Jamie Bester
Revitalisation Consultant, New Zealand
Rev Dr Mark J. Keown is the Revitalisation Consultant in New Zealand. He is also the Director of Evangelistic Leadership at Laidlaw College and a Presbyterian minister who presently attends Massey Presbyterian. He is passionate about evangelism, apologetics, discipleship, church planting, and revitalisation.
He has served in a variety of spaces in evangelism, children’s and youth ministries, worship, and as Minister at Greenlane Presbyterian and Mt Roskill Baptist Churches.
Mark has written a number of articles, essays, blog posts, and books including Congregational Evangelism in Philippians (2008), What’s God Up to on Planet Earth? (2010), Philippians, EEC, 2 vols. (2017), Jesus in a World of Colliding Empires, 2 vols. (2018), Discovering the New Testament 3 Vols (2018–21),Understanding Mark’s Gospel (2022), Reading the New Testament (2024), Galatians (2024), Pneumaformity (2024), and Jesus as the New Joshua (forthcoming).
Married to the Rev Dr Emma Keown from Northern Presbytery, and owned by Redmond the dog, he loves cycling and playing in his band, Already Not Yet.
Mark Keown
Revitalisation Consultant, Canada
Ben is a specialist consultant supporting our work across all countries, with a special focus in Canada. He is a pastor, author, and equipper. He is honored to serve everyday disciples, ministry leaders, and church planters across the world through The Equipping Group, and to help lead Salt+Light Community and Plant Fort Worth, both in Fort Worth, TX.
Ben has written/contributed to several books, workbooks, articles, and publications, has overseen church planting efforts for multiple organisations, and has also taught university and seminary classes.
He and his wife, Jess have three children and at times, host short-term foster kids too.
Ben Connelly
Lead Consultant
David has worked in local church ministry for almost 30 years. He has worked in Sydney, Tasmania, and Victoria. He is ordained as an Anglican and Baptist. He has worked in big and small churches, while they were growing or, at times, declining. He has planted congregations and closed churches, led a merger, built a new church building, and sold others. He has followed predecessors who fell into misconduct, and transitioned churches back into health and growth. He has worked with Anglo and ethnic congregations and staff. David's broad experience will help him empathise and walk alongside your church, whatever season you are in.
David is a published author - his book Being Christian after Christendom explores four questions: Where are we? How did we get here? What went wrong? What is the solution? This book is a dialogue between sociology, philosophy, history, and theology about the state of the world, and the church's role.
David commenced a PhD and has published journal articles on listening to preaching. He is also trained to lead Intentional Interim Ministry with TMAA, and in Conflict Management with the Alban Institute.
David has a heart for cross-cultural mission. He has led partnerships between Australian churches, and sister churches in Cambodia, Myanmar and Uganda. He was the chair of CMS Tasmania.
David is married with four adult children.
David Rietveld
Lead Consultant
Tim started his ministry career and has been working in paid church ministry since 1978. He was ordained as a Baptist pastor in the US in 1983, and felt the call of God to Australia shortly after that time. He and his family arrived in Australia in 1986, and planted the Suburban Church in the western suburbs of Melbourne in 1987. Over the last 39 years, the church has grown to be a multi ethnic, family church of over 300 people in the booming suburb of Wyndham.
In 2019 with the help of City to City and a launch team out of the mother church, Suburban successfully planted a church in downtown Werribee. Tim has also been a member of the Heathdale Christian College board where he served in various ways for 27 years. He has been part of our ministry coaching church planters for the past 9 years and in 2023 he joined our Revitalise team as a Lead Consultant.
Tim Loftis
Lead Consultant
Rod is a Lead Consultant within the Revitalise Australia program. He has worked in corporate management, corporate change and management development roles, and prior to joining City to City, served in a range of ministry roles within various churches and parachurch organisations, including a training role with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in Europe.
Rod has an enduring interest in developing people for Christian ministry, particularly in the areas of leadership, preaching, and bible study groups, and together with his wife, Karen, has written a book on small group bible studies called ‘Leading Better Bible Studies’. He has degrees in Theology, Economics, Adult Education, Professional Development, and Professional Supervision, and has conducted ministry training workshops internationally and around Australia.
Rod Morris
Lead Consultant
Pete Greenwood is a lead consultant within the Revitalisation Department at City to City Australia, currently based in London. He partners with churches across the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada, helping established congregations rediscover health, mission and renewed gospel vitality.
Pete is passionate about helping people see how the gospel transforms all of life, and how everyday Christians can live with missional intentionality. Drawing on more than a decade of experience planting and pastoring Inner West Church in Melbourne, he helps equip church leaders to cultivate healthy church cultures, strengthen discipleship and lead lasting renewal. He also specialises in gospel fluency and small group ministry, assisting churches in building communities where the gospel shapes everyday life and disciples are equipped to make disciples.
Pete is husband to Jackie and dad to Jonathan and Tommy.
Pete Greenwood
Operations Manager
Based in Nelson, Renata serves as the Operations Manager for City to City Australia. With a background in administration and church ministry, she is passionate about supporting gospel-centred church growth. She also works part-time for the Anglican Diocese of Nelson and attends a local Anglican church.
Renata’s faith is central to her life, and she is deeply grateful for the undeserved grace of God, which continues to shape and sustain her.
Originally from Christchurch, Renata enjoys reading, musicals, and making music—whether singing or playing guitar, piano, violin, or ukulele. In her spare time, she loves spending time with friends, watching movies, and playing games.
Renata van der Wal
Admin
Claire works as the Administrator of Revitalisation. Married to Jamie, she has served alongside him as City to City church planters and in parish ministry roles within the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania. Together they have four school-aged children and have co-parented a further three to adulthood.
Claire is a Built Heritage Advisor with a love of the built environment. With degrees in Australian & Architectural History, qualifications and experience in Cultural Resource Management, and an active membership with ICOMOS Australia, Claire is part-way to completing a Masters of Architecture.
Having become a Christian at age 28, Claire is thankful to be known and loved by God and feels so privileged to use her gifts to serve alongside the greater City to City team in reaching and revitalising Australia and New Zealand.
When not organising the Revitalisation team, Claire can be found spending time on their family farm in South-eastern Tasmania, drinking coffee, op-shopping, and swimming in the ocean (but not all at the same time!)
Claire Bester
Admin
Taarika is the Admin for the Revitalisation team at City to City Australia. Her role includes making sure communication is effective, and systems function smoothly.
Taarika previously worked in the development sector in India for 10 years, and enjoys being able to communicate in creative ways to get more people interested in the things that matter. Her job at City to City helps her serve churches in Australia as they communicate about the most important thing - the love of Christ.
Taarika is married to Felix, and together they have a son Avyarth.
Taarika Chandy Pakki
Get to know our
other team members
