Growing in Character – Mark Sayers

In the first week of a new series on hope, Mark Sayers turns to the book of Ezekiel and a group of exiles in Babylon who had lost everything: their homeland, their temple, and any sense that God was still on the move. Looking for hope inside a closed system gets us nowhere, but when hope runs out, God breaks in. Mark unpacks Ezekiel’s strange, thunderous vision by the Kebar River and the promise of a snapped-off branch planted on a high mountain, and asks what it looks like to be disrupted by God rather than simply overwhelmed. A timely, countercultural word for a weary world, and an invitation to be consecrated for what God is about to do.To find out more about Red Church, head to https://redchurch.au/

We spend our lives chasing two things: more stuff and more years. One is the drive of accumulation, the other the drive of extension, and neither can quiet the restlessness God has set in the human heart. In week five of Growing Up in Christ, Chris Magnussen asks what it would look like to reprioritise around eternity, and argues that eternity is far closer than we think. Drawing on 1 John 1 and John 5, Chris offers a better priority: eternity. It is fleshy, because eternity put on skin in Jesus. It is now, because those who believe have eternal life, not just will have it. And it is participatory, something we practice day by day. Chris makes it practical with an unexpected invitation: hospitality, the table where heaven’s feast begins early. A call to trade the temporary for what lasts.To find out more about Red Church, head to https://redchurch.au/

Before C. S. Lewis ever climbed into the sidecar of his brother’s motorcycle and finally believed, he spent years caught between a mind of cold reason and a quiet longing for something he couldn’t name. He would later call it the “bright shadow,” and eventually, holiness. In week three of Growing Up in Christ, Trudi Sayers turns to Ephesians 4 and asks a question most of us rarely consider: are our minds attuned to holiness? Through Lewis’s reluctant conversion, the awe of Aslan (“he isn’t safe, but he’s good”), and Isaiah’s vision of the throne room, Trudi shows that we can’t mature in Christ without growing in holiness, and that holiness isn’t a tutorial to follow or something we borrow from others. It’s caught by drawing close to the One who is perfectly holy. In a world of endless distraction, this is an invitation to fix our eyes on Jesus and be transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory.To find out more about Red Church, head to https://redchurch.au/

Potholes have become one of the biggest issues in Victoria’s upcoming election, and as Mark discovered, they have a surprising backstory: decades of cutting back on quiet, unglamorous maintenance. In week four of Growing Up in Christ, Mark uses the humble pothole to name a deeper problem, the cracks appearing in our culture’s character as we trade becoming good people for having good times. Turning to Ephesians 4, he shows that Christ’s vision is far bigger than damage control, and draws on Dallas Willard’s VIM model (Vision, Intention, Means) to explain how Christlike character is actually formed: slowly, daily, and often unseen. Along the way, he explores why the work of character is more like road maintenance than a lightning strike, and why talent without character can’t carry the presence of God. A grounded, hopeful invitation to stop settling for sin management and start becoming the kind of people God can fill.To find out more about Red Church, head to https://redchurch.au/

In week two of Growing Up in Christ, Mark takes us from the eerie “Backrooms” meme to the collapse of Enron, where the smartest people in the room made foolish decisions, and asks what we’re actually missing: wisdom. Drawing on Ephesians 4 and Proverbs, he shows that information fills the head, but wisdom changes the heart. It requires submission, and it can’t be downloaded; it’s caught from those who have walked the road before us. As a youth-obsessed culture runs short on wisdom, the church has a chance to shine like a light on a hill, and the invitation is to stop chasing more information and start asking God for his wisdom.To find out more about Red Church, head to https://redchurch.au/

Trudi Sayers opens a brand-new series, Growing Up in Christ, by naming something many of us feel but rarely say out loud: our culture has stopped valuing maturity, rewarding emotional reactivity, entitlement, and the endless chase for instant gratification instead. Paul writes to the Ephesians that the church is meant to grow up no longer infants tossed by every wind of teaching, but built together in love until we reach "the full measure of the fullness of Christ", and Trudi traces what that actually costs, landing on the staggering true story of Maximilian Kolbe, who walked into a Nazi death bunker in place of a stranger. The chief mark of maturity, she argues, was never ambition or achievement — it's self-denying love, and the invitation this morning is to put away childish ways and discover what a mature church can do for a world in crisis.To find out more about Red Church, head to https://redchurch.au/

Picking up where last week's message on intercession left off, Daniel looks honestly at the uncertainty pressing in on all of us AI, war, economic strain, a shaking world and asks a simple question: will the church shrink back, or step forward? Drawing from Hebrews 10 and the extraordinary true story of Brother Andrew, the young Dutchman who smuggled Bibles behind the Iron Curtain, Daniel makes the case that courage isn't a personality trait reserved for the bold it's hardwired into every believer's identity in Christ, and it's exactly what the enemy works hardest to steal. This message is an invitation to name your discouragement, take hold of faith and the Holy Spirit, and walk forward into whatever God has called you to.To find out more about Red Church, head to redchurch.au

In this weighty, urgent message, Mark traces the extraordinary story of Rees Howells, a man called out of public ministry into hidden, relentless intercession that history would later credit with turning the tide at Dunkirk and helping defeat the Nazis. Mark names something many are quietly feeling: a rising sense of global instability, from war and AI to economic shocks, and a temptation toward fear or doom-scrolling numbness. Rooted in Jesus' words in John 14, "you may ask me for anything in my name", this is a call for the church to step out of comfort and complacency and into the ancient, world-shaping work of prayer. Will you be one who stands in the gap?To find out more about Red Church, head to redchurch.au

Coming off a week of prayer that saw a cathedral papered in prayers for the nations and a neon "now praying" sign transforming a Hornsby shopfront, Trudi Sayers turns to a deeper question: what does it mean to pray the Word of God, knowing that Jesus himself is the Word? Drawing from John 1 and the extraordinary faith of 19th-century prayer warrior George Müller, Trudi explores how Scripture becomes our true language of prayer: a sword that cuts through lies, a bread that sustains us, and a living voice that speaks directly into our darkest moments. A powerful reminder that God's word isn't just information for the mind, but life for the heart.To find out more about Red Church, head to redchurch.au

As Red Church joins the Global Week of 24-7 Prayer, Chris Cameron takes us into prayer rooms from Lebanon to Peru to Japan, gathering practical wisdom from believers around the world on what it actually looks like to sit with God. Chris unpacks common myths about prayer — it's not magic, not a formula, not a way to earn favor — before offering simple, tested frameworks like the Lord's Prayer, the Psalms, and the PRAY model (Pause, Reflect, Ask, Yield) to help us grow in a life of prayer. Whether you've never prayed before or have been at it for decades, this episode is an invitation to keep it simple, keep it real, and keep it up.To find out more about Red Church, head to redchurch.au