Bright Church Podcasts

One of the most important parts of being a Christian is prayer. It’s how we connect with God in a direct way. But everyone has prayed and wondered if God has heard them, or at least asked the question ‘God, why haven’t you answered me?’ If God doesn’t answer our prayers, why should we bother praying? Does it affect what God does? Does he really control everything? If he can answer my prayers, why...

If you’ve ever had doubts about the bible, you’re in good company. We all have experiences that try to convince us we cannot trust the Bible. When we have an experience that doesn’t match our belief, it causes us to reconsider what we have believed. So what do we do with those unanswered questions? How do we really know we can trust the bible? What does it really say? What’s the bible about? What...

Communion is an important part of being a Christian. Amazingly, the bible doesn’t say a lot about taking it. A few hundred years after Jesus lived, church culture made communion a mystical event only to be performed by the church. But is this what the bible teaches? In week one of our ‘You Asked For It Series’, Ps Ben explains what communion is, who can take it and how to avoid messing it up. It d...

As people we love to be comfortable, but as Christians we are not called to a life of comfort. How comfortable are you? It is worth getting uncomfortable so that the name of Jesus can be known.

As we wade through the storms of life, our minds can be easily distracted. When our circumstances and trials begin to pull us in, we need to remember to keep our ‘eyes up’ and focused on the one who walks with us through it all.

If you’ve always wondered about some of the rituals in church, so have I. There are some things we see in churches today that are totally unbiblical. They’ve become rituals to follow. But the church isn’t supposed to follow rituals, it’s supposed to follow God. This week’s message is about what it really means to be connected to God and His church. PS: there’s a little ‘straight talk’ in this mess...

The early church in Acts looked a little different to how church looks today. They met with God daily where we tend to struggle to make time for Him weekly. They grafted their world around meeting with God where we try and graft God into our busy schedule. How do you view your time with God? Has meeting with him become a chore? The truth is, meeting with God isn’t something we have to do… it’s som...

Most Christians I know don’t want to be called religious, that's because the word religion doesn’t mean what it used to in the bible. In fact, the whole series is about getting religion out of the church. Sound strange? I would go as far as saying ‘becoming religious’ is one of the worst things that can happen to the church. This week we look at what the church really is and what they really did,...

Father’s Day is a day we love to celebrate, but for some it can be a challenge. It can drag up experiences and emotions that some would rather forget. What is incredibly important to remember is that we don’t let our past dictate our future or define ourselves. In this incredibly powerful and insightful message, Ps Shane explains the power of taking responsibility over our lives and how we can all...

Every time we get off track with God’s plans for our lives we live below our created potential. Sometimes we even make decisions that send our lives in a different direction. That was the case for a young man 2000 years ago named Onesimus, who’s life dramatically changes with the help of a mentor who introduces him to Jesus. The terrible decisions of Onesimus past no longer set the path for his fu...

It is an incredible privilege to be used by God in a significant way. But even when we are called, anointed and appointed for a task, it doesn’t mean that we won’t face challenges. When we face challenges, it’s incredibly important that we bring them to God. There are some things that only he can solve. The story of King David is an amazing journey of a young man who was appointed by God to become...

We can often find ourselves in situations we just don’t want to be in. That was the situation for Israel thousands of years ago. They have been influenced by the surrounding culture, let go of their faith; values, and they had even begun to worship other gods. It’s incredibly important that we hold onto our faith and values no matter the culture we find ourselves in. God’s faithfulness to Israel c...

Great leaders are never just born, they are made. Great leaders inspire confidence, but confidence is something that is developed. Joshua was an incredible leader, but God had taken the time to craft and build his experiences. Our experiences shape us. What is truly amazing though, is that two people can go through the same experience and learn different things. Joshua was an incredible leader bec...

It’s so easy to see our own insecurities and believe that God could never use us. But that is simply not true. In fact, the Bible is filled with stories of people who struggled with their own insecurities, and yet God use them. Moses is a great example of this. The truth is, there will be many times where we feel outmatched and outclassed, and when this happens it’s so important that we turn to Go...

One of the things that we know about God is that his timing and our timing are completely different! The story of Abram is an incredible journey of how one man believed God despite waiting a long time to see God's promises come to pass. There were times when Abram took matters into his own to fix his own problems and it is easy for us to do the same. It’s so important that we don’t try to move ahe...

Noah was an incredible leader in his day. He stood out from his culture. In Noah’s day, the bible says the whole earth was evil. But what does that mean? Evil is just a word. You need to measure it. How do we measure evil? Our standard often comes from our culture, but whatever standard we have, God has his own. Sometimes going in the opposite direction to our culture is hard. If we live like Noah...

With the rise of social media, the comparison game has never been easier. We find ourselves peering into the lives of others, thinking they have it all figured out and that we are not enough. Pastor Richard Kobakian from LifeHouse Church passionately reminds us to run our own race and fix our eyes towards Jesus instead of each other. With pearls of biblical wisdom, he reminds us that God purposely...

Human beings have a way of taking things that are simple and making them complicated when we don’t want to do them. The bible encourages us to give our finances and be generous. Simple right? Well, sometimes we complicate it because we can have an addiction to acquisition (we like stuff) and want to find a way around it. Jesus had so much to say about this topic, and this week we look at why it ma...

It is so important that we do not deviate from the true gospel; one of grace, freedom and unmerited favour. We cannot add to our salvation. We must guard our hearts and our minds to ensure that we do not deviate from the truth or become deceived as the enemy desires.

We all have challenges in life. Sometimes we don’t know if our circumstances are mid-way through a season, or is it the end of a season? Does our story end with a great testimony, or tragedy? Often we just don’t know. Is this the end of a marriage; the fall of a business, the end of a healthy life? Wherever life takes you, no matter the circumstances or what you hear, you always need to let Jesus...

What does it mean to be blessed? If blessed is rich, then the poor can never be blessed. If blessed is always more, then you can never be blessed. 2000 years ago Jesus radically redefined what it meant to be blessed in His Sermon On The Mount. Blessed is not the catch cry of the rich but the declaration of the poor; those in morning; those who need justice; the persecuted. You are blessed, because...

Living in a world of ever-changing opinions, sometimes it can be hard to work out who you are supposed to be. We all feel the pressure of becoming somebody that world says we should be and as a result, we can easily find ourselves ‘shopping’ for our identity. This isn’t how God has called us to live; your identity is not up for grabs and it doesn’t go out of fashion. When we declare truth over our...

We all have seasons that try to convince us they’re bigger than God. If you lean into that, you might be filled with fear over faith. But, fear and faith entertain possibilities. Fear and faith both ask the question “but what if...?” Why do some people have great faith and others struggle? Why do some have faith and others don’t have faith at all? What is faith? When it comes to God -faith is prof...

We can’t remember everything that happens in life but there are moments that stick out. It’s the specific events and life defining moments we never forget. We use chronos time to measure days, hours and minutes, but ‘karios time’ is the moments of ‘divine appointment’ as in ‘the set, due or opportune time. We can’t plan these moments, but we can position ourselves for them. One moment with God can...

We often go through the same circumstances, but we don’t always see them the same way. We can approach our situations as either problems or purpose. We live out of our reality, so we need to make sure that we see clearly so we can walk boldly. Often the truth can be veiled, so we need God to reveal truth to us, so we don’t get trapped in our problems.