Beyond Church AU

You didn't choose what your family handed you. But you do get tochoose what you hand on, even if what you received was a mess. Everyone leaves alegacy, whether they plan to or not. The real question is what kind. In this first part of Legacy, we open the last letter a man wrotefrom a prison cell to the young leader he loved like a son, andnotice who's in the story and who's missing fro...

Two people sat down at the next table in a coffee shop and worked through every church they had tried and every reason they never went back. Ask anyone what they want in a local church and the list comes out fast. Good music. Good coffee. Not too big, and please, nothing that runs long. Now ask someone who is exploring faith and has never really done church, and you get a completely different list...

You can believe something is completely true and still not feel it. That gap shows up with God more than most people admit. This one starts with a quick trip to the pound that was only ever meant to be a look. An hour later there was an extra dog in the back seat, the kids were thrilled, and the drive home came with the question, wait, is this actually real? It is a small story about a much bigger...

You have worked for someone who had power over you and handled it badly. You have probably also worked for the rare one who did not. Every one of us ends up with power at some point. A promotion, a platform, a paycheque, a spot on a team, a house full of kids who do what you say. This episode is about what happens next, because what you do with power says more about you than how you got it. It wor...

Most people think God gets angry when we wander off. Jesus said the opposite: God throws a party when we come home. This message kicks off a brand new series with a question that's hard to shake: if this church disappeared tomorrow, would our community even notice? Jason Perkins opens the series by digging into an old story about a runaway son, a resentful brother, and a father who does the mo...

You can be connected to more people than ever and still feel completely alone. We live in the most connected moment in human history, and loneliness is at epidemic levels, and the two are far more related than we’d like to think. This message unpacks how the convenience that now runs our lives, from dinner to friendship, can easily trade real relationships for a feed that only ever takes from us....

Your feed is full of voices telling you what’s true but the algorithm amplifies the loudest ones, not the truest ones. We’re more informed than any generation in history and somehow less sure of what’s actually real. This message looks at why the things that feel true online the post with a million views, the take you’ve seen repeated until it sticks, the confident voice with the slick production,...

You don't think of yourself as an angry person. So why does ten minutes of scrolling leave you fuming at strangers you'll never meet? Anger is the number one emotion the apps use to keep you hooked, because outrage is what keeps you scrolling. This message digs into why being angry online can feel so good, like clarity, like energy, like finally being on the right side, and why that same f...

You grab your phone to escape for two minutes and lose an hour. What is all that scrolling quietly doing to you? The average adult spends more than four hours a day on a screen, and most of us reach for our phone the second we want to escape, feel better, or fill a spare minute. This opening message in the Starve the Algorithm series asks a bigger question than screen time: what are the algorithms...

Seven out of ten of us secretly hope our job will prove that our life matters. It was never built to carry that. Most of us don't hate our jobs, we've just quietly started surviving until Friday. This episode digs into why Monday feels so heavy, and offers a different answer than a better boss, abigger salary, or a new roster. Drawing on an ancient letter written to workers who had almost...

Only about 1 in 4 people feel engaged at work on an average day. If Monday feels like something to survive, this one's for you. Most of us spend more waking hours working than doing anything else, and a lot of us quietly wonder whether any of it counts for much. This episode pushes back on the idea that work is just a paycheque, or worse, a punishment you're stuck with. Drawing on the olde...

You send a message, see it marked “read,” and then… nothing. A lot of us feel that way about God too. This week we look at an old story about a kid working in a religious temple who hears a voice calling his name in the middle of the night, three times, before he even realises it's God. It's a strange, oddly relatable story about how easy it is to miss God's voice, not because it's...

We've all bought something that felt like a great deal at the time, and now we're still paying it off, wondering what we were thinking. If money has ever kept you up at night, this one's for you. This is the final part of a shame-free, guilt-free conversation about money, the kind most of us are already having at home about debt, savings, and what's actually enough. Chris digs into...

You think you're a generous person. The round-up at the checkout, the Christmas appeal, the mate who needed a hand. But what if giving and generosity aren't the same thing? This is a shame-free, guilt-free conversation about money, the kind most of us are already having at home about fuel prices, budgets, and what things cost, just with Jesus' perspective added in. Chris unpacks the di...

Cost of living is up. Groceries are brutal. And somehow, no matter what you earn, it never quite feels like enough. In this episode, Chris Podlich sits down with a pretty uncomfortable question: why doesn't more ever actually satisfy? We're talking social media comparison traps, the mental gymnastics we do around money, and why the goalpost for "enough" keeps moving no matter how...

We all love a good upgrade. Free business class. Getting the corner office. That little rush when your name gets called first. Be honest, it feels good. We're wired for it. But what if that feeling, that constant hunger for status, recognition, and getting ahead, is actually the thing keeping us from the life we actually want? In this final episode of This Is Living , we're sitting with on...

Most of us know what it feels like to have our peace under attack. The news, the parenting load, the work stress, the comparison spiral, it's relentless. And no matter how much we try to solve or control our way to calm, real peace always seems just out of reach. If your peace feels fragile, borrowed, or just completely missing, this one has something real to offer. 👉 Plan A Visit: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠htt...

What's actually giving you confidence right now? Maybe it's what you own, what you've accomplished, or what people think of you. And if you're honest, those things matter more than you'd like to admit. We all do it. We build our lives around what we have, what we do, and what others think. And when it's going well, it feels like living. But here's the problem: we're...

There's a version of life we all picture. More joy. More peace. More of those moments where you think to yourself, this is living. But if we're honest, most of us feel something else: striving after something that never quite satisfies, surviving a season that won't end, or just going through the motions wondering if there's more. In Part 1 of This Is Living , we open in the most u...

Of all the questions people submitted for this series, one came back more than any other. This one: if God is good and God is powerful, why is the world this broken? It's the question that has ended more faith journeys than probably any other. In this final episode of Questions for Jesus, Chris doesn't offer a neat theological solution. Because there isn't one. What he does instead is...

We all have questions when it comes to faith. This week, we take some of the questions you've submitted throughout this series and have a conversation with Chris about them. Got a question for Jesus? Submit it at: ⁠⁠https://beyondchurch.com.au/questions-for-jesus⁠⁠ 👉 Plan A Visit: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://beyondchurch.com.au/new⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👉 Discover more about Beyond: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠beyondchurch.co...

If God is all-powerful, why couldn't he just forgive without the cross? Why did Jesus have to die at all? And honestly, given the state of the world, was it even worth it? These are some of the most common questions we received, and they're good ones. In Part 2 of Questions for Jesus, Chris Podlich tackles them head-on by reframing the question most people are actually asking. It turns out...

We all have questions about faith. The kind that keep you up at night. The kind you hope nobody asks you. And maybe the kind that brought you here in the first place. In Part 1 of Questions for Jesus, Chris Podlich digs into one of the most common questions we received: Are the Gospels actually reliable accounts of real historical events? From ancient manuscripts to non-Christian sources, from P46...

Most people have heard the Easter story. Fewer have heard it told through the eyes of someone who refused to believe it. Thomas was one of Jesus' closest followers. He watched the crucifixion, went into hiding, and when everyone around him started claiming Jesus was alive again, his response was basically: prove it. Dead people don't come back. He wasn't being dramatic. He was being ra...

Most people have a version of this story. God created, things went wrong, Jesus died, believe and go to heaven. It's tidy. It's familiar. And according to the Apostle Paul, it's missing the point. In this Good Friday episode, Chris Podlich makes the case that Jesus didn't go to Jerusalem simply to forgive sins. He went there to pick a fight with death itself. And he won. Paul descr...