Toowoomba Vineyard Church

This week on 'Life on a mission', we interview Nancy Thomas, one of the great treasures of the church in Toowoomba. We're still pinching ourselves that she calls TVC home. Nancy shares stories about her dad preaching to the queen, meeting husband Deryck in questionable circumstances, but most of all, how again and again the Holy Spirit comes and changes everything for the better.

This week in 'Life on a mission' we get to hear from one half of our pastoral duo, the wonderful Jen Gresham-Britt. Jen shares a bit of her life, which includes an incredible story of healing and a whole lot of unexpected turns, which got her exactly where she needed to be.

For the next four weeks we're going to be learning what it looks like to live 'Life on a Mission' (as introduced last week) by interviewing four wonderful members of or community and hearing their stories. This week, we introduce you to our good friend Barb Bluett, who has an incredible ministry here in Toowoomba working with Yazidi refugees. She shares the incredible story about how after visitin...

With Exodus finished, it's new series time! We're taking a look at living 'life on mission'. To begin with, we're talking about some things we commonly mistake for mission.

Our final foray into Exodus finds us... not in Exodus? Chris unpacks the very last scene from the story of Moses (Deuteronomy 34) and what it teaches us about finishing well.

As our Exodus series nears its end, Mandy takes us through a passage where Moses' father in law brings some helpful father-in-law-ly advice. Moses is individually dealing with every dispute in the Israelite nation, but Jethro suggests this might not be the most efficient use of his time. They shake things up and the effects are, well... quite significant.

The Israelites have been wandering the desert for quite some time, when the find themselves at war with a mob called the Amalekites. But this is no ordinary battle. For some reason, when Moses' staff is in the air they're winning, but when his hand tires and the staff drops, they start losing. Jen discusses this curious tactical masterpiece, and explains why it provides a surprising cure f...

We take a brief hiatus from our Exodus series to talk vision. Who are we and where are we going? As we talked about back in February, our priority is culture, rather than size or programs. But what does that actually look like? Chris breaks down our 4-part framework that answers the question 'what do we do?' and asks some big 'what if' questions.

As our Exodus series reaches the deciding moment when God led Israel through the waters, Laura makes a really interesting observation. It wasn't an instant miracle. There was a whole night where God's people had to wait for the seas to part, and walking through the sea took time. What do we learn from this 'waiting' time? How do we deal with it in our own lives?

In this week's foray into Exodus, Laura takes us through a thoroughly confusing passage. Moses returns from the burning bush, and boldly tells Pharaoh it's time to let the people go. But instead of gladly setting his whole workforce free, he makes their work more difficult! Has God deceived Moses? Why, when we do what God asks, do things sometimes not go well for us?

As we journey through Exodus, we come to the moment Moses receives his calling, instigated by a strange incandescent shrub. So often this passage is applied to the modern Christian idea of calling — 'don't miss your calling', or 'it's not about your ability, it's about God's presence'. This isn't wrong per se. It's just... does this message rest on a faulty...

In our second week of Exodus, Mandy unpacks chapter 2:11-25. This passage features three significant encounters with Moses that see him end up a 'foreigner in a foreign' land, cast out of the Egyptian royalty. Yet in classic form, this passage ends up being an incredible testament to what happens when God's people cry out in prayer... Got thoughts in response to Mandy's message? If...

After a few weeks of misadventure (week off, technical glitches, and a pseudo-week-off), the podcast is back! Between now and the end of September we're going to be taking a deep dive into Exodus — the nation-formation story of Israel in the bible. We're in a somewhat similar moment as a church community, so we'll be drawing all we can from this most excellent piece of scripture. Chris...

We finish 'We don't talk about that' with an absolute banger... It's time to talk about hell. For something that would seem like an essential doctrine in Christianity, there's not actually that much in the bible to go off. Maybe we don't talk about it because the bible doesn't? But if it's real, surely we'd want to warn people? Chris takes us on a brief biblical...

In the Vineyard, we love to talk about healing. Sometimes people get healed, and sometimes they don't. But what happens afterwards? Rarely, if ever do we talk about health, and staying healthy. Armed with a litany of funny nursing stories (which she's not allowed to share for legal reasons) Laura gives us a brief overview on the topic of health.

It's week 2 of 'We don't talk about that', and this week, Mandy certainly does talk about 'that'. Conversation about singleness isn't completely unheard of in the church, but it's usually in the form of cheap platitudes. Drawing bravely from her own story, Mandy prevents a new vision for singleness in the church that recognises the diversity of the experience.

We begin a short, four week series called 'We don't talk about that' with a brief overview of the topic of sin. Chris opens with a controversial quote from Pope Francis as we ponder the question — is humanity, at its heart, good or bad?

In our final instalment of 'The Awkward Lurch' Chris explores the tension between staying relevant and being orthodox. We look at three examples of church movements speaking to their culture, and ask what's next for the Vineyard — ergo, us.

This week's 'Awkward Lurch' instalment comes courtesy of the wonderful Mandy, unpacking the tension between public and private faith. Her language for this is all about 'dwelling' and 'doing' — which one do you lean to more naturally? And how do you follow Jesus' example?

After a week off last week, we return to our 'Awkward Lurch' series. Cindee shares about how to hold the tension between grace and holiness — it turns out it's not so much a tension to be held as a relationship to be nurtured.

In a famous verse found in Exodus 34, God seems to say two contradictory things. First, that he is gracious and compassionate, forgiving sin and extending mercy. A sentence later he says that he doesn't let the guilty unpunished, punishing not just them but the generations after them. Which is it? Laura takes us through the justice-mercy conundrum we find all through the bible, and it turns ou...

As our tensions series turns towards 'unity and diversity', Chris unpacks this important topic by looking at the biblical thread of 'nations'. It turns out this is a really important theme throughout both the Old and New Testaments, but surprisingly, God does not resolve it in the way you'd think. As a result, as God's people today we're supposed to embrace diversity in...

It's week two of our tensions series and this we tackle a doozy — honour culture vs humility. Working through two different stories from the life of David, Chris explores why these two have to be held in tension, particularly in light of what seems like a constant stream of prominent leaders failing morally. We finish by talking about how to create a culture of 'goodness' that combats...

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.