Toowoomba Vineyard Church

This talk is the final hurrah in a 3 week blitz through the theme of work and rest in Genesis 1-3. Weeks 1 and 2 focused on work, so... here's our take on sabbath rest. If you've ever wondered whether Christians need to observe sabbath, this one's for you. Also, if you've ever wondered what Abba's Super Trouper can teach us about the state of modern society, listen on!

Last week we talked about 'the blessing' in Genesis 1 — humanity's role in helping God continue the creative work of seeing the creation flourish. We ended with a fairly significant caveat... that often our work (or vocation) is awful. What's with that? This week's podcast has the answer.

This November we're spending some time in the opening chapters in the bible, looking at the biblical theme of work and rest. Our first message in this short series is all about the reason why humanity was created. Curious? We thought so.

In our third and final instalment of 'Demonstrating the Kingdom', Chris talks about the 'natural' ways we can show people what the Kingdom is like. To wrap up the series, he shares a simple object lesson that could help us understand why it's so hard to share our faith...

We're in a brief 3-week series called 'Demonstrating the Kingdom', which is all about the ways we can show people what the kingdom is like (for when they get sick of us just talking about it). This week, we're talking about the so-called 'supernatural' ways to demonstrate the kingdom, in particular the infamous 'spiritual gifts'. Chris explains how we can follow in...

Fresh after a week off, we kick into a new mini-series called 'Demonstrating the Kingdom'. The idea is that if we want to be followers of Christ, we need to emulate him in his ministry. His ministry can be summed up by the phrase 'the proclamation and demonstration of the Kingdom of God.' As a church (in the West) that loves talk, we get 'proclamation'. But what does 'd...

In our last excursion into Colossians (for now, at least), Chris unpacks one of the trickier bits of the bible... if you read the title, there's a hint at which one. It turns out that with a small amount of context (courtesy of our friend Aristotle), the meaning of this passage totally changes. And if we read it in context, it's not even about what we think it's about... --- Once you&#...

This week our good friend Grant Armstrong (from Toowoomba Wesleyan Methodist Church) brings the word, continuing our series from Colossians. It's so good to get his perspective, coming from a different tradition, reminding us that deep, soul connection is supposed to be at the heart of the Christian tradition. We hope you don't mind the American accent 🤭

We continue on through Colossians, and this week we have the privilege of the venerable Laura Hoek (who you may know from our podcast intro/outro) bringing the word. The passage is a slightly uncomfortable one at the start of Colossians 3, which walks a delicate balance between a list of things not to do, and the fact that we can’t earn our salvation. How do we walk that tightrope? We’re glad you...

In this week's podcast, we really get into the meat of Colossians. In 2:5-16, Paul is writing to this fledgling church about how to experience true fullness — and how to avoid making it more complicated than it needs to be. No actual cows were harmed in the making of this podcast.

This week, we begin in Colossians proper! After some opening banter, the apostle Paul kicks off with a poem (or possibly a hymn) which sums up the gospel, at least as it serves the purpose of the letter. There are two little words towards the end of this passage that totally blow up our narrow minded view of the good news, and help us realise that God's plan for reconciliation is way bigger th...

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.