Viva Vineyard Church

We have a problem. We act. And when we act we make messes. So how can we possibly live with spirals of reaction and revengeance mounting this way and that? Jesus says forgiveness is the way. But what does that actually look like in real life?

What actually happened at the cross? We slow down and take a long loving listen to the Bible as it tells it. 

It's very easy to reduce the message of the cross to being about me and my sin. But Scripture calls us to a bigger story. Key to understanding the incredible victory and freedom that came through the Cross is understanding Passover and the Exodus story. Because Jesus was about to launch Exodus 2.0.

Imagine an alien seeing the devastation of our planet asks, What went wrong? How we answer that question is vital to understanding what followers of Jesus claim is the ultimate solution: The Cross. 

How would you define success? And what would you do to achieve it? Dave invites us to let Jesus to shed some light on these perennial questions. (Apologies for the scratchy audio)

It's Valentines Day. In the church calendar it's also Transfiguration Sunday. That day when Jesus took his close friends up a mountain so they could see him in a newer brighter light. Jesus still leads his friends to mountain tops to places of solitude to meet with him, so we can walk back down the mountain into the valley filled with people he loves that need him. 

We get practical. We explore the intersection of what we love and God's mission and how God loves creating with dust. 

January is almost over. The new year is here. Really. In this talk we dive right into the presence of God to hear what he has to say to us as a church. The message is clear. We need to swim free into his particular purposes for Viva and get the net off our neck. Paul gives us four ways to do just that. 

For David the beauty of a sunrise and the beauty of God's Word go hand in hand. Did David know something I don't?

God became an embryo. That's the Christmas story. It's wilder than any fiction. What god does that and why? 

The wisemen noticed the star and followed. Paul noticed an altar to an Unknown God and asked questions. God is revealing himself in remarkable ways across millennia and culture. Are we noticing?

Life hurts. Our hearts get old and sore. Is faith and wonder only for the young like Mary? Can faith and wonder be restored to old sore hearts like Zechariah's and mine? If so, how? 

Wonder is a word with two almost contradictory meanings depending on if it is used as a noun or a verb. As a noun wonder is a feeling of amazement and admiration, caused by something beautiful, remarkable or unfamiliar. As a verb it is a desire to know something, to feel curious or to doubt.  The Christmas story is extraordinary. It's also really ordinary. Remarkable and unremarkable. Just li...

We met in a garden (as the bird calls will tell you). It seemed an appropriate setting for a conversation about growth and about this adventure of alerting others to Jesus that God is calling us together to. 

(So we may have forgotten to start recording till we were ten minutes in... Sorry) This conversation is all about compassion and authority. We follow Jesus into the world in his compassion. But just like the leper, our world needs more than just Jesus' compassion. It needs his healing. Which begs loads of  questions: is that healing available today? If so what's our part? Are we to walk in co...

"When we're uncomfortable that's often when God is most at work through us." There's a dream that's fuelling this little Viva church plant. It's just we've been kind of awkward, even embarrassed to say it...

The history of humanity is littered with idols and attempts to bring God down to our level. Control him. Box him. Part of that effort involves denying that God has emotions. So does he? And what might that mean for relationship with him?

Be nice. This is our pilot as we sort out technical stuff including launching our site :-). This one's about going low like our servant king Jesus.