Toowoomba Vineyard Church

It's new series time! Between now and the end of May we're going to be working through a set of 'genuine' biblical tensions we have to navigate in the life of faith. Chris begins with a slightly awkward analogy for how to navigate tensions, then unpacks the core Vineyard theology of the 'now and the not yet'.

This week we're privileged to have special guest speaker, Vineyard veteran Greg Trainor. Tracking through the gospels, he shares about the calling on our lives to be supernatural people, operating in the authority of Jesus and power of the Holy Spirit. It's a good one. Buckle in.

It's Easter Sunday, and this year we're taking a slightly different spin on the resurrection. In fact, we're taking the bible as a set of historical documents and seeing what happens when you study the life of Jesus from there. Do you get a different picture of Jesus from the one church tradition suggests? Let's find out.

It's the final parable! In our series, anyway. We're a week out from Easter and this one's a doozy — Jesus predicts his death, and in fine form the crowd says 'surely not!' But as we have come to learn, Jesus was right. While the parable itself seems like an easy interpretation, there's a sneaky link to an old song, and it turns out the villain isn't who you think it is...

As his ministry went on, Jesus' parables got increasingly spicy and increasingly cryptic. This week Mandy has the joy of unpacking the parable of the ten (which is actually three) minas, and what that teaches us about the kingdom (hint —

it's not investment advice).

It started out as a seemingly very simple parable... but turns out the story Jesus tells about a Pharisee and a tax collector is a very interesting study on the topic of humility. Laura takes us through the parable and why the old 'humility is thinking of yourself less' doesn't do it here.

This week we turn our attention to one of the other very well known parables of Jesus — the prodigal son. This is is profound story of a wayward child and a gracious father. Yet we often miss the other storyline, of the jealous older brother. How do we read these well-loved verses with fresh eyes, and what does it teach us about welcoming people who don't fit in church?

When Jesus was dining at a Pharisee's house, he had some things to say about their constant jostling for position and prestige. Even after teaching them directly, some still loved the fact that it was the cream of Jewish society's crop around the table. Jesus told a controversial story in response, and this is Jen's thoughts about that parable.

In our next instalment of the Parables in Luke series, Jen shares about two tiny but mighty examples that sit next to each other in chapter 13. The first is about a mustard seed, and the second about leaven (or yeast) in bread. They show us that the kingdom is both simpler and more profound than we could possibly realise.

The second parable in Luke is very, very well known — both inside and outside the church. But it turns out, in context, there was a whooooooole lot more going on in this story than what we typically realise. It's not a nice story with a moral. If anything, it's deeply challenging, and hits just as hard today as it did back then.

There's a big shift happening in the Western church right now. The way we tell the gospel story, and the way we read the bible, are changing. One of the most helpful types of scripture to understand this shift are the parables. In today's podcast we launch into our first series for the year, delving into Jesus' parables in Luke.

It's 2024, summer break is over, and the podcast is back! We kick off the year with a bit of a look forward, recognising our vision is less about what we're doing, and who we're becoming. It's so easy to slide into church-as-a-business mode, that we forget culture is more important than numbers. Chris talks about the kind of church we want to become, a little about what we're doing in 2024, but mostly about his favourite product fails from recent history.

Can you believe it's the final podcast for 2023? Despite apocalyptic weather we gathered at the Bowlo to celebrate Christmas Eve, and Chris shared our final Isaiah 9:6 message: "Prince of Peace". Working from Psalm 46, he suggests that in fact, we're all doing peace wrong. Here's how to do it instead.

This week's title for Jesus (from Isaiah 9:6) is 'everlasting father'. It's a bit odd to ascribe a title like this to a child. So Laura does a wonderful job of helping us getting our heads around this, and what it means about letting God be our father.

It's almost Christmas, which means it's time for our advent series! This time we're going through the four titles of Jesus in Isaiah 9:6, starting with 'Wonderful Counsellor'... is Isaiah saying Jesus is our therapist?

This talk is the final hurrah in a 3 week blitz through the theme of work and rest in Genesis 1-3. Weeks 1 and 2 focused on work, so... here's our take on sabbath rest. If you've ever wondered whether Christians need to observe sabbath, this one's for you. Also, if you've ever wondered what Abba's Super Trouper can teach us about the state of modern society, listen on!

Last week we talked about 'the blessing' in Genesis 1 — humanity's role in helping God continue the creative work of seeing the creation flourish. We ended with a fairly significant caveat... that often our work (or vocation) is awful. What's with that? This week's podcast has the answer.

This November we're spending some time in the opening chapters in the bible, looking at the biblical theme of work and rest. Our first message in this short series is all about the reason why humanity was created. Curious? We thought so.

In our third and final instalment of 'Demonstrating the Kingdom', Chris talks about the 'natural' ways we can show people what the Kingdom is like. To wrap up the series, he shares a simple object lesson that could help us understand why it's so hard to share our faith...

We're in a brief 3-week series called 'Demonstrating the Kingdom', which is all about the ways we can show people what the kingdom is like (for when they get sick of us just talking about it). This week, we're talking about the so-called 'supernatural' ways to demonstrate the kingdom, in particular the infamous 'spiritual gifts'. Chris explains how we can follow in the way of love, operate in the gifts, and how to do it in a way that doesn't accidentaly traumatise people or ruin their faith.

Fresh after a week off, we kick into a new mini-series called 'Demonstrating the Kingdom'. The idea is that if we want to be followers of Christ, we need to emulate him in his ministry. His ministry can be summed up by the phrase 'the proclamation and demonstration of the Kingdom of God.' As a church (in the West) that loves talk, we get 'proclamation'. But what does 'demonstrating the kingdom' mean? We're glad you asked.

This week our good friend Grant Armstrong (from Toowoomba Wesleyan Methodist Church) brings the word, continuing our series from Colossians. It's so good to get his perspective, coming from a different tradition, reminding us that deep, soul connection is supposed to be at the heart of the Christian tradition. We hope you don't mind the American accent 🤭

We continue on through Colossians, and this week we have the privilege of the venerable Laura Hoek (who you may know from our podcast intro/outro) bringing the word. The passage is a slightly uncomfortable one at the start of Colossians 3, which walks a delicate balance between a list of things not to do, and the fact that we can’t earn our salvation. How do we walk that tightrope? We’re glad you asked.

In this week's podcast, we really get into the meat of Colossians. In 2:5-16, Paul is writing to this fledgling church about how to experience true fullness — and how to avoid making it more complicated than it needs to be.

No actual cows were harmed in the making of this podcast.

This week, we begin in Colossians proper! After some opening banter, the apostle Paul kicks off with a poem (or possibly a hymn) which sums up the gospel, at least as it serves the purpose of the letter. There are two little words towards the end of this passage that totally blow up our narrow minded view of the good news, and help us realise that God's plan for reconciliation is way bigger than we could ever have imagined.

This week is the beginning of a new series (which the community is apparently VERY excited about) looking at the book of Colossians... so naturally, we start in the book of Philemon. It turns out this curious little book has a lot to teach us about living as a reconciled community, putting aside our differences and placing Jesus at the centre of it all. It gives us an important piece of context for Colossians too!

This week we turn to vision... who is God calling us to be, and why on earth does Toowoomba need another church? Chris shares about the why, how, and what of our little church, and a story about his dubious criminal past...

Probably one of the most famous biblical passages to churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike comes from Matthew 7, where Jesus says 'do not judge'. But what exactly is Jesus prohibiting here? Judging can mean anything from choosing which flavour of pie you want, to deciding on someone's future. Chris unpacks Matthew 7:1-5, and an unexpected passage from the Old Testament shines light on this urgent topic for today's church.

This week, guest speaker Helen Gould (Vineyard Brisbane West) shares everyone's favourite passage from Matthew — the 'do not worry' bit. In particular, we dig into some of the Jewish context to this passage, and why these words are so important for our day. Finally, yes, there's a Bob Marley impression. We thought it was pretty good.

This week's podcast started on a clean note with Chris telling us about the benefits of deodorant, and only improved slightly with a game of Jenga. All of this was in the pursuit of unpacking this week's portion of the sermon on the mount, in Matthew 6, when Jesus talks about 'treasures in heaven'.

The slides for this week would be helpful, so here they are:

https://tvc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/2023-06-09-Slides.pdf

This week we dive deep into a section of last week's passage (that we conveniently skipped) — a collection of verses sometimes known as the Lord's Prayer. Chris leads us through it nearly word for word (it's better than it sounds), with some disconnected thoughts at the end (have we convinced you to listen yet?).

The Sermon on the Mount takes a crucial turn this week, as Jesus tells us why our motivation for living out Christianity matters a lot. Chris takes us through (most of) Matthew 6:1-16 (apparently the Lord's prayer isn't important), and three ways we can live it out in church culture.

Apologies about the slightly dodgy audio this week, it seems our fandangled mic didn't actually engage, so the audio you're hearing is Chris' phone. We did our best to make it nice for you!

Oh, and slides for this week were helpful, so we uploaded them here for your viewing pleasure.

https://tvc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/June-25-2023-Church-Slides.pdf

We've been so privileged to have Phil and Kath Henry (founding pastors of Northridge Vineyard, and long time friends) in town with us for the last few weeks. This was their last Sunday with us (for a while anyway) and Kath shared our next Sermon on the Mount message — on the topic of looooooove. It was beautiful. Give it a listen.

This Sunday we're privileged to have the venerable Phil 'Lasagne' (had to be there) Henry, continuing our Sermon on the Mount series. Since he's a guest speaker and won't be around as much, he got the joy of speaking about some of Jesus' most challenging teaching. Thankfully, it's good news...

After a week off church (no, we didn’t forget the podcast!) Mandy returns with week two of our Sermon one the Mount series. One of the key themes in this scripture is Jesus’ treatment of the ‘law and prophets’, and this weeks passage sets that up for us.

We've done it — we've made it all the way through Surprise The World! This week's letter is... well, in the interests of being exegetical, you'll find out after the passage. Chris wraps up the series with a look at the Great Commission in Matthew 28, and what it means to be 'sent' (oops) people.

It's week 4 of BELLS and this time, the subject is 'learning' Jesus. Mandy shares about how we can regain our passion for Jesus, and why studying him helps us represent him well.

This week, the BELLS series takes a slightly awkward turn... it switches gears from 'doing' to 'being'. If we want to transform the world around us, and not be transformed by the world around us, we need at least as much input as we give output. Today's habit, 'Listen', invites us to spend at least one period of time listening to the Spirit's voice.

We live in a world that's becoming increasingly polarised — opinions are black and white, and shades of gray just don't seem to exist anymore. What's more, there's this idea that beliefs come in sets... if you believe A, you must also believe B, and C, and D as well.

As it turns out, the Vineyard movement was born into just such a world, and gives us frameworks to navigate these tensions. In this week's podcast (a 'bonus episode' for our values series), Chris talks through the quest for the radical middle, and explores language that might just fit a bit better in the 21st century.