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/