Toowoomba Vineyard Church

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 fo...

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...

In our last talk from the Sermon on the Mount, Chris explores the concluding remarks of Jesus from this teaching—the 'don't build your house on sand' bit. Although the teaching itself is pretty simple in principle, it's anything but easy to live out... it turns out we can't just agree to Jesus' words and move on, we have to actually behave differently in response. Slides ar...

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 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-c...

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,...

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.

Having finished up our ‘Surprise the World’ series last week, we’re turning to Matthew’s gospel to explore Jesus’ epic ‘Sermon on the Mount’. The hope is we can learn to be the kind of church who walk with integrity — that what we believe and how we live are the same. Chris opens with a dive into the so-called ‘Beatitudes’, and how Jesus’ surprising sermon intro is good news for those of us who ar...

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.

Give the people what they want — this week's podcast isn't Chris! In week two of our series on Surprise the World Jen takes us through the second habit of highly missional people... hospitality. Following on from last week, Jen unpacks the problem with the Christian huddle at middle of church, and how we can live like Jesus on the edge. ------- Find us on social media: https://instagram.co...

Have you ever wondered how the church can be effective in telling people about Jesus, in a culture that’s becoming increasingly hostile to the faith? Us too. In this week’s message, Chris kicks off a series called ‘Surprise the World’, working through Mike Frost’s book of the same title. The premise is that we can take up a set of simple, repeatable habits that help us be missional in our everyday...

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 te...

It's finally happening... we're becoming a real life church! Not that house churches aren't proper churches... but, you get the idea. We're meeting publicly from next week onwards. In this week's message, Chris reflects on the journey so far, fills us in on the roadmap moving forward, and the invitation for those of us who are going to call Toowoomba Vineyard Church home. Hint:...

If you've ever visited a Vineyard church, chances are you've come across the movement's favourite (and sometimes only) liturgy — 'Come Holy Spirit'. Since pretty much the beginning, the ongoing work of God's spirit has been central to our practice, and the Vineyard has always used this prayer as a way to get the fun started. But is the Spirit just about having fun after a S...

When you pick up a bible, what exactly do you have in your hands? What is it trying to communicate? When was it written, and why does it have these books (as opposed to the many other ancient texts we have that speak about God)? This week, Chris shares 5 'fun facts' about the bible, which help orient us to what it actually is. It turns out when we read on its own terms, we get a 'higher' view of s...

Have you ever wondered how the church got to be so divided and argumentative? Us too. Sadly, we don’t have a quick fix to make everyone get along, but we do have a value of ‘keeping the main thing the main thing’, which would help a bit. In this message, Chris unpacks what the ‘main thing’ is and how we can learn to coexist with people who think differently from us. ------- Find us on social media...

This week we turn our attention to the aphorism 'come as you are, don't stay as you are'. Chris talks through John 8:1-11 (the woman caught in adultery), a passage where Jesus perfectly navigates the tension between welcome and challenge. He goes on to examine how we can practice this tension as we welcome people who don't neatly fit into white, middle class Christian subculture. The short version...

This week, Chris talks about something that's been almost assumed knowledge in our talks thus far — the Vineyard's practice of the supernatural. We unashamedly believe that God can and does continue to be involved in his creation. Sometimes this looks very 'natural'. And sometimes it doesn't.  This talk is split into two parts. The first looking at how to be naturally supernaturally supernatu...

As we continue to work through our values, this week's message is about 'Everybody gets to play / Everybody needs to play'. But... due to some personal hangups from our speaker, we're calling it 'The Kingdom is not a spectator sport'. In said message, Chris explores three possible models for ministry in the church and what it means for everybody to 'play' in a post-Covid world. If you're after the...