Viva Vineyard Church: Recent Episodes
Viva Vineyard Church
This is the podcast of Viva Vineyard Church. We're a church plant in Hornsby, a northern suburb of Sydney. We pray it's an encouragement for you. If you're in town, drop in for one of our Sunday gatherings. Details and our story: www.vivachurch.org.au
“Chosen” in the Bible and its story means something quite different to chosen in our culture.
Our culture
- chosen for the team, chosen to represent your country or your school
- You got in, and other people didn’t.
- You are special, elite, better. Based on your abilities and efforts.
- You benefit from being chosen, and other people miss out.
The Biblical story
In the story of God, the story of the Bible, being chosen is a totally different thing...
Everything is ready. Just come! "Our Christian life begins with the discovery of what God has provided." Watchman Nee
Hezekiah was at the point of death under the sentence of death. What was left? More than he could have ever hoped.
Hezekiah faced extraordinary life-threatening situations as he lead Israel. Terror was not far from him. But somehow he kept faith. How was that possible? Here's the punch line: he brought his whole self into the presence of God - the gritty details of the problem, the full bandwidth of pain and fear. There's a lot we can learn from this ancient king...
This is the first of three talks looking at the life of King Hezekiah. He is remarkable in his transforming trust in the Lord in the face of extraordinary generational, cultural and political opposition.
Jesus story of two sons speaks volumes about our hearts, how deeply we misunderstand our Father and how desperately that needs to change.
Part Two. Greg Trainor continues to workshop how to join the Father in His healing work.
At the start of a new series focused on "doing the stuff" we're diving deep into who God actually is. After all, Tozer tells us, what we think about God is the most important thing about us.
Herod's temple in Jerusalem occupied about a quarter of the land and could hold around 75,000 people. It was marked by splendour and segregation.
Jesus had other ideas.
Jesus taught most about the kingdom of God, but next topic that he taught on the most was money. Learning how to handle money is a core part of what it means to be a student of Jesus and it always will be.
Not because God needs money. He has no need for it. God really cares about how you and I handle money,
- Money is connected to our very purpose. The purpose that God gave mankind was to be stewards, managers of creation. Not using and abusing resources, but caring for this world. Not controlled by resources but faithful managers. Needless to say mankind has made a total mess of that, but the restoration of that role is core to our restoration into who God created us to be.
- Money is the main power setting itself up as an alternative to God - offering you security and meaning and pleasure and control and significance. Your practices about money reveal what you really think about who is in charge of this universe.
- Handling money is a series of daily choices. There’s no avoiding it. You’re going to face it every day. So God is going to use these choices to shape you, to form your character.
Q: What is your heart relationship to money like?
When Jesus speaks his dream for community we can barely hear him. We've been been formed a world away from his vision for how his family is to care for each other. In this talk we take a fresh look at Jesus' vision and some of the big blockers to seeing us become the community Jesus has in his heart.
Two weeks ago, we started looking at this issue of anxiety in our lives: that the root of our anxiety is our independence from God. Leads to chaos, overwhelm, fear. What we truly need is reconnection to God.
What do we mean by Reconnection?
- Not talking about how to reconcile with God - that all happened through the cross. No barrier from God’s side. He is always available to us.
- Talking about our experience of connectedness to God
- For us who trust in Jesus, God is always transmitting (his love, wisdom, help, strength, power). The lack of reception is at our end.
- Our hope through this series is that we will all go from 1 or 2 bars of reception, or no bars, through to 4 bars.
Into our hurt, anxiety and chaos Jesus says, Come to me and I will give rest for your souls. But so does every other marketing campaign. What makes his invitation so different? Why listen? Why do it?
Follow Jesus. How? Three things to get us started. We know it'll be marked by new relationships, new purpose and new power.
We put destinations into Google Maps all the time. Destinations matter. Forget your dream destination for a moment. Let's take a moment to continue where this world is headed. Let's talk about that, and let's use hoops!
God is about rebuilding places and people long devastated. Often others have been benefiting from that devastation. The work of rebuilding is therefore always opposed. Let's not lose heart!
It's hard to face how broken down the walls of our lives are. Really hard. But it's possible with this hope that Tim Keller immortalised: we are worse sinners than we can imagine, and more loved than we could ever hope.
Nehemiah 1. Nehemiah allows news from afar to pierce his heart, despite his affluence and influence.
- He turns that compassion into prayer.
- Prayer leads him to risk it all before the king.
- God's question to us is never, Are you able? It's always, Are you willing?
We're starting a new series: Rebuilders. We'll be looking at the book of Nehemiah. But in this first week we set the scene by drinking deeply of some incredible words from Isaiah.
Healing. Some are sceptical. Some are trying to profit. Some take steps of incredible faith for the sake of another...We explore the questions and the conflict through the ancient story of Naaman.
Is it possible for people to move in the power of God without being abusive? Paul says yes. As tempting as it is to through out the gifts of the Spirit to avoid possible abuse, Paul encourages the Corinthians to pursue love and the gifts. Both are essential wings of the beautiful ministry that Jesus modelled to us and called us to follow him in.
The Doomsday Clock says we're 90 seconds from midnight. But what does God say? God's Spirit among us is the presence of the future God has for us. Wrap your head around that!
However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)
This is the first talk in a new series called, God gives His Spirit without limit. We ask, What is the normal Christian life? We lay some foundations looking at the person of the Spirit and his activity.
Jesus' ministry is marked by healing and setting people free. In Matthew 12 this ministry meets deadly religious pushback. But Jesus doesn't flinch. He knows the work of cleaning house is a big part of how the Kingdom comes, so he sticks at it for the sake of this lost trapped world that he dearly loves.
Jesus' work of cleaning house is a big part of how the Kingdom comes. The wonderful news is that He continues to free people from the oppression of evil today. Claire Esgate explains how.
'John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”' Mark 1:6-8
Ascension Day was one of the earliest festivals of the new church. Today, we rarely note it. Why? And what critical piece in our understanding of Jesus might
we have missed in the process?
Jono Ives dropped by to guide us through the final instalment in our G.R.O.W series: Witness. And yes, it's possible.
In this third installment of G.R.O.W. we're talking Obedience. It's not a popular word but look it up in the dictionary of Jesus and we discover it's anything but stuffy religion.
Easter was a week ago but we don't rush on. We stay in the Easter story reading John's account and discovering the incredible resources to be found in the news of the Risen Jesus.
Paul takes us into the heart of Father God and the incredible lengths he has worked to reconcile this world to himself, us included.
Jesus tells the people a story about a man who thinks like this: Invest. Flip the property. Go again. Buy more. Flip them. Go again…and you’ll be set. Retirement will be early and a time of infinite happiness as you take things easy, drink and be merry. On a cruise, in the south of France, at a billabong in the north of Australia somewhere, whatever…
What’s the trouble with that plan?
The only trouble with this man’s plan for prosperity and the good life was that the plan didn’t include God.
He’d ignored God and he’d ignored his neighbour, the poor. He forgot that he was a mortal creature, whose every breath is a gift.
Jesus invites us into a completely different way of life grounded in ultimate reality - the never ending flow of God's love.
The Christmas story is a story of hope. But it's hope in very unlikely places. What might these stories teach us about where to find hope when despair is the air we breathe in some many places today? Eve is our speaker.
Well this could have been a 1.5 hr sermon... and Jesus is so worthy of it, but here we are, beginning the silly season, harried, tired, in need, not of information but encounter... So this week we did something a little different...
As we walk through the biblical story we’ll discover that exile is a recurring feature. The first exile was Adam and Eve banished from the garden, then there’s Abraham called from his homeland and shifted around by famines and violence. And of course there’s the massive exile of the Israelite nation which is the focus of this talk today.
It shouldn’t surprise us that it’s a thread through the biblical story because exile seems to be a thread through most of our lives. I don’t think exile has to be simply migration from a country. It can be growing older and feeling unheard and irrelevant to the culture in which you live. It could be the experience of someone walking out on you. It could be your child estranging you. It could be being fired from your job or simply retrenched. It could be retiring and feeling exiled from the purpose and status of work. It could be declining health that forces you to feel like you’ve been sidelined. It could be feeling rejected by a group of girls at school.
They’re all mini or major exiles.
How do they fit in the loving work of a good God?
As we follow the story of Scripture we come to kingdom and Saul and David two very different kings, with very different hearts.
God saving plan gains momentum. At the centre of this chapter of that story is God's decision to reveal himself as I AM. God present and Lord. Then, now, forever.
So the story got off to a great start and then... That's what this talk is about. Something is very wrong, isn't it? We all seem to agree on that but until we understand what that is any sort of solution we propose is going to be bandaid at best.
This series is all about helping you get into the Bible. It's a big story. But there are key themes that we can use as guide rails as we explore the landscape of this incredible story. Here we explore two and dive into the start looking at the Who? and Why? of humanity's origin story.
Paul described it as treasure in jars of clay. It's so easy to overlook the Gospel invitation, particularly, given the state of the messengers but it's still an unbelievable treasure. The King's banquet will be extraordinary.
Matthew 9:1-13
Here we see Jesus getting to the heart of his mission, talking about his purpose in coming and demonstrating that purpose in his interactions with the people.
Matthew 8:18-34
In this series of stories we see there is risk, cost, adventure and even danger as we follow Jesus among the people.
Jesus comes down the mountain and does an incredible thing: he practices what he just preached! In the mess and demand of damaged lives he lives out the Sermon on the Mount. It's all done among the people... and he's calling us to love like that too....
Gifts are a means by which God expresses Himself. Get that and Monday and Tuesday and... and... begin to look quite different.
Why would I want the Holy Spirit's gifts? The fact that we would even ask that question suggests we need to go back to mind-bending basics...
Pentecost Sunday. A day long prophesied, happens. The Spirit is poured out. What about today? This talk kicks of a new series where we get really practical about how to grow your relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Red pill, blue pill? We’re talking about moments when God helps us see things how they actually are. Sometimes that can be deeply unsettling, but if we can stay in the unsettling, these moments also present us with an incredible opportunity for change.
Where you and I see rusted scrap someone else sees a 1964 Lotus Elan. God's in the business of restoration. And he has no, Too Hard basket. For you and me that's the best hope we can possibly imagine.
C.S. Lewis writes, "But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world…"
Somehow disasters and suffering can be instrumental in freeing us into happiness. Really, how? In the ancient words of Joel we look for answers.
Old. Awkward. Confusing. Grating. Offensive. And - Christians believe - God's Word. But is it worth the effort really? What harm is there in just reading the New Testament and avoiding the other 3/4s of the Bible? Well, to show our cards, we think it's as bad as just watching episode 8 in an 8 episode series.
In our first time in our new venue, we pause to pull the doors back on what's going on, what we're about and where we're headed.
The old spider or starfish metaphor is at the heart of this moment. So are three bored kids and a picture that began to swim...
This isn't a talk, rather it's a collection of voices from the Viva family retelling the Easter story. It's the recording for our Easter journey at Feaster 2022 - Easter Sunday.
How do we find hope when the prognosis is clearly terminal, when all our spin and optimism about everything’s going to get better if…. When that runs out, where can we find hope?
Easter is next week. At the heart of Easter are historical events recorded over a 3 day period. For 2 millennia billions of people have looked to these events as the way to find hope when the prognosis, personally, in their communities or for the planet itself seems terminal.
Why?
Worship and pleasure? Not the sort of word association you'd expect, perhaps. But the Bible is clear - worshipping God is an experience of profound pleasure. Ok, but how do we experience that?
That's the substance of this talk.
This is a big important topic if we're ever going to understand worship on planet earth. Claire and Sarah circle in on the story of a woman who poured out her best. A story we're still talking about 2000 years on. That's got to say something about what it means worship when it hurts.
In this episode we grab a cup of tea, sit down and Claire and Sarah and I take a first swipe at what the Bible tells us about the purpose of worship. It's our introductory conversation to our new first four part series on worship.
Core idea: we all worship something. This issue is what?
But that's just the beginning...
We’re finally at the conclusion of Jesus’ ridiculously famous teaching, The Sermon on the Mount, which has been occasionally called the constitution of the Kingdom of God. Jesus came declaring, “Repent, the kingdom of God is here.” With Jesus’ healing ministry in full swing, crowd control has become an issue. But there is a growing band of people who are getting serious about following Jesus, so he decides to sit them down and lay out what it actually looks like to live in the kingdom of God - where God rules and reigns.
Our text this week is the final chunk. The conclusion. And it’s a warning. A big, big warning. Jesus has poured out his heart and now he wants his followers to understand how significant this big download of teaching has been.
We unpack Matthew 7:7-12 and ask, Are there areas of life where you’ve stopped asking of God? Maybe you’ve gone down the DIY route? Where are you at in terms of your vulnerability with God? Do you need to give yourself space and permission to lament your way back to worship?
Jesus is clear, Do not judge. But what exactly is he saying? Is he calling his followers to stop thinking? To stop discerning who can be trusted or can't? As always the way Jesus is calling his followers to live is radical but it's radical like an open prison door.
In the secret place we learn what is truly of value. As we experience our Father God we realise the truth of what Jesus said in John 17:3 “This is eternal life to know God.”
There is nothing greater than knowing God but only time in the very presence of that God will convince you of that fact.
In the secret place we change how we invest. Our eyes shift in focus. Our treasure is no longer the security of money but the eternal reward of God. Jesus describes this as seeking the kingdom first. Finally we are investing in something that can never spoil or fade. Not once ounce of our labour is in vain. Our lives are supercharged with purpose.
What are the barriers that are stopping you from really spending time with God? Here are three that need our attention: shame, religiousness and rebellion. And Jesus has a way through each one in a prayer he taught his followers to pray.
How can we stop settling for snacks and power bars and actually sit down have a meal with God? Well, it takes T.I.M.E.
Jesus flips the script on prayer. Public, showy religious, seen needs to go. But what goes in its place? How do you get motivated to pursue something no one else sees?
Christmas is full of messages about joy and peace. But we're never given a good reason why. In short, we want the emotions of Christmas without looking at the why. What would happen if we did?
Jesus assumed his followers would fast. Why? How does going without food help deepen your walk with God?
Jesus is famous for telling us to love our enemies. It's a great idea until you actually have an enemy. How, in the real world, is it possible to not lash out but love?
People living in the kingdom of God don't need the puff and bluster of religious language and big impressive oaths. When each person is honest in their intentions we are free to trust each other. How good is that!
Matthew 5:33-37
What do we do when we know we need to move on, to get going into the next stage of life, new season, new thing but somehow our hearts feel stuck?
For many of us, for our families, our communities and even our countries are facing very significant points of transition - personal transitions - loss of a loved one, new job, loss of job, loss of mobility, transition out of lockdown, transitions economically, climatically…
But often times these transitions are not what we wanted. We can feel like they’ve been thrust upon us. So understandably our hearts feel resistant. Where is God? Is there a way forward?
"You could be forgiven for thinking that this talk is for the married, previously married or remarried but if you're not in any of those categories stay with me because there are nuggets in Jesus teaching that actually apply to all of us wherever you are in the relational spectrum."
The question is this, Are your intimate relationships ones of consumption or covenant?
Coldplay asks a good question, How in the world I am going to see you as my brother and not my enemy? This question haunts our world. Violence, hatred, rejection, cold shouldering, trolling and cynicism.
Does Jesus have any hope to bring to a world in this kind of pain?
Life can be terrifyingly fragile. Especially if you're in a place where all your comfort and security have been removed and you don't know where your next meal is coming from. But when things get better we can forget that fragility and our need for God.
God knows that about us. So he put in the calendar of his people one week a year where he commanded his people to camp and to party and to remember...
40 million people today are trapped in slavery. Does God care? And if he does, is he doing anything about it?
Jo French-Morales shares about her time serving with International Justice Mission in Guatemala and the heart of God for justice for the poor and oppressed. She shared this Franciscan Blessing at the end, which we've included here:
“May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
Amen.”
Followers of Jesus are to the world what salt is to food. As someone who couldn't eat salt for many years, Sarah knows a little about how important this stuff is and why Jesus thought it'd be a really helpful word picture for Jesus' new followers to understand their identity and purpose.
Jesus’ ministry has launched. He’s preaching his slogan, Repent for the Kingdom of God is here. He’s gathering a community of followers. He’s healing people like crazy. It’s beginning to look like a new Israel is being formed. He’s passed through the waters. He’s gone through the wilderness. He’s gathering a community. Just like God did with Israel under Moses.
We can imagine some of the questions early followers were asking at that point seeing what they’re seeing and hearing what they’re hearing? God’s kingdom come. God’s power at work. What does this mean for me/for us?
Jesus is healing people. We’ve never seen that before. Does that mean that life in this Kingdom of God Jesus is talking about is pain free, all smiles, full of popularity and getting what you want immediately?
Or in the words of a friend I was talking to about Jesus, Won’t everything be wonderful if I follow Jesus?
Jesus goes up the mount to help answer some of those questions for his new followers. In his teaching he begins unpacking what life in the kingdom of God looks like. How it’s different.
And in the first picture of life in the kingdom - the Beatitudes - he gives his early followers some incredibly Good News!
Today we zone in on Jesus’ message. If Jesus was a brand, what was his tag? What was his slogan that summed it all up? What was Jesus’ “Just do it”, Jesus’ “I’m lovin’ it” Jesus “It’s more fun in the Philippines” Jesus’ “Aussie kids are Weetbix kids”
A good slogan captures the essence of a company’s brand. It engages us emotionally. And it also involves a clear call to action.
What would you say was Jesus’ slogan?
Maybe, Love God? Love your neighbour? Love everyone? Jesus certainly said those things. But so did others. Maybe, God loves you? Was that the essence of his teaching? Was that the call to action?
Or maybe it’s, “Turn or burn”. Yes, Jesus spoke about the need to return to God. It’s a clear call to action. But was the essence of his message simply threat of divine wrath?
The slogan was simply this: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.”
Early on in Matthew's account of Jesus' life he describes how Jesus is "healing every disease and sickness among the people." Guest speaker Phil Henry asks, Why was Jesus' ministry marked by healing? What might that mean for us today? Does Jesus still heal today? If so, how?
Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tested. Why? What possible purpose could God have for leading his Son into lockdown?
In Jesus, God is doing a new thing and it's immersive and life changing. Drew Williams is the speaker.
Tim Watkinson shares about a simple spiritual practice of Centering Prayer that saved his sanity.
Disruption. It's everywhere. How are you responding? Trying to flee it? Quash it? Accept it by faith? At a time of real upheaval we celebrate Christmas in July and find the ancient story of Jesus' birth speaking crystal clear into today.
We introduce our new series: ReMeeting Jesus. We look at why we all have Next Guru Syndrome and 3 wears to avoid missing Jesus as we read the Gospel of Matthew.
Change is slow. As we’ve been looking at emotional and spiritual growth over the past 8 weeks or so, the question arises of how do we see lasting impact in our lives? Or do we just move on unchanged from this series?
We all make plans about many things in our lives - plans for our careers, plans for retirement, plans of how we will raise and educate our children, plans to travel, plans to buy a home, plans to renovate our home, plans for financial security. But very few of us have a plan about how we are going to develop our spiritual lives. And yet there is nothing more important.
None of us get through life unscathed. The wheels fall off. What happens then? What do we do with our pain, our loss, our questions, our anger at God? When the wheels fall off, Jesus offers us himself.
The push for productivity in our culture is pervasive. It shapes how we work, how we prioritise, how we do friendships, how we parent etc. But after his work, God rests. And then to a people freed from slavery he gives the gift of one day a week to stop and not work. That gift is available to us too. But how do we receive it?
Last week the National Anglican Family Violence Research Report was published. Two key findings deserve a great deal of attention. We’re doing this series, Tooling Up to Love because we know we need to grow up. Emotionally immaturity is having an extraordinary cost on our households across this country. Core to our growth in emotionally maturity is what we do with conflict.
As Christians, we often settle for peace-faking rather than peace-making because we think God wants peace without truth. Is there another way?
Accompanying talk notes including graphs and whiteboard scribblings.
"The first time I encountered the Wall, I didn't know what it was and I was totally unprepared. My hope in talking to you today is we can learn to value and trust what God is doing in us through the Wall."
The story of Joseph in Genesis 37 to 50 is a great guide on how we can do the work of journeying through the things that negatively impact our discipleship and learning to love well, that we inherited from our families. Go to our blog to access a tip sheet to do your genogram.
This week Matt talks about the importance of self knowledge in our growth into emotional and spiritual maturity. (And no this is not a self help course!) Its truth rooted in the rocking story of David and Goliath and the God who saves.
"My emotional mess, my failing physical health were his merciful lights flashing brighter and brighter on the dashboard of my life… God was calling me to stop, pay attention, return to him. But I didn’t want a bar of it."
Emotional health and spiritual health are inseparable. In our new series Tooling Up to Love, we're following Pete Scezzaro's (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality) lead. We're choosing a brave path...
Through his death, resurrection and outpouring of the Spirit, Jesus defeated every obstacle to us living in the love and freedom of God. So what? How do we actually live into that? If life comes down to what we actually desire, how does our desire change so we actually want to love God and serve others? Well, perhaps the answer lies in coffee: instant or real?
In life we can get stuck like a container ship. Look around our global village and there's a lot of potential and a lot of stuck. What power is big enough to free our world from the fear of death and the pain that cripples it? The Easter Story, we'd humbly suggest, is the answer.
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 like God's work in our lives.
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 compassion and authority too?
"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.