What if the most important question isn’t “What should I do for God?” but “Am I staying connected to Him?”

In this episode of The Script Pod, with Laszlo Liebhardt, we return to Jesus’ words in John 15: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” The Christian life doesn’t begin with activity, strategy or performance — it begins with abiding: staying close to Jesus, remaining in His presence and allowing His life to flow through ours.

A branch doesn’t have to strain to manufacture fruit. Its responsibility is to remain connected to the vine. In the same way, we can organise, plan, preach and serve — but lasting spiritual fruit is something only God can produce.

And abiding doesn’t mean doing nothing. Genuine connection with Christ eventually becomes action: prayer becomes service, compassion becomes involvement, conviction becomes obedience and love becomes mission.

It also reminds us that none of us is the whole vine. We are branches — different gifts, personalities, cultures and generations, all drawing life from the same Christ and therefore connected to one another.

So perhaps the prayer isn’t simply, “Lord, use me.”

It’s:

“Lord, before You work through me, work within me.”

Because when we remain in Him, fruit will come — perhaps not immediately, and perhaps not in the form we expected, but a life continually connected to Christ will never be fruitless.

What if the shame you’ve been carrying was never yours to keep?

In this episode of The Script Pod, Pastor Matthew Herel explores the story of the woman who enters Simon the Pharisee’s house carrying a reputation everyone seems to know — and encounters a Jesus who knows exactly who she is, yet refuses to push her away.

She comes asking for nothing. She simply wants to honour Him. But in His acceptance, she receives something she may not have expected: freedom from shame.

While Simon sees her past and thinks her shame should keep its distance, Jesus does the opposite. He allows it to come close. He takes it upon Himself. And in doing so, He reveals something at the heart of the gospel: Jesus did not come to make us better at hiding our shame. He came to take it from us.

From the fig leaves of Eden to the foot of the cross, Scripture tells the same story — our own coverings will never be enough. Only God can provide the covering we truly need, and that covering comes at a cost to Him, not to us.

Your past may still shape how people see you. Your reputation may still follow you into certain rooms.

But from heaven’s perspective, your shame has already been taken away.

Jesus took it.

Shame on you? No. Shame on Me.

Sometimes the rain has already come — the grass just hasn’t caught up yet.

In this special two-part episode of The Script Pod, we mark the beginning of a new season with Shift: Acts Church’s seasonal programme exploring what creation can teach us about transition.

First, Destiny Malcolm-Anti takes us into autumn: the changing colours, migrating birds, falling leaves and the rhythms of a season that invites us to notice, prepare and let go. Because transition is happening all around us and often within us too.

Then Pastor Matthew Herel shares The Grass Is Greener, reflecting on the tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” Christ has already won the victory, yet there are still moments when our circumstances don’t seem to reflect it. Like rain falling on dry ground, change can be happening beneath the surface long before we can see the evidence above it.

You may still feel the dryness. You may still be waiting for something to shift. But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

The rain has already come. The roots already know. The grass is catching up.