Belair Baptist Church Podcast

🎙️ Originally recorded on 14 August 2024. 🎙️ Nic Cassar with Nathan Bennett.

In this re-released episode, Nic sits down with Nathan for an honest conversation about divorce. They work through Jesus' words in Matthew 19, showing how the Pharisees' "any and every reason" question reflects a flippant view of divorce common in that culture, and how Jesus responds by first raising the value of marriage rather than lowering it. Turning...

🗓️13 September 2026. 🎙️Speaker: Dianne Marshall

Conflict touches all of us, in families, workplaces, churches and often most painfully within our own hearts. Di Marshall, part of Belair's global mission team with SIM, and a trained peacemaker and mediator, offers four pictures to work with: the storm of conflict itself, the wind of hidden opportunity, the currents of desire running beneath the surface, and the harbour of God's wi...

🗓️ 6 September 2026. 🎙️ Speaker: Nick Varady-Szabo. 

We have all been hurt, and we have all hurt someone else, which makes forgiveness one of the costliest things we ever wrestle with. Nick works through three threads running across Scripture: God is first and foremost a forgiving God, repentance and honest confession go hand in hand with forgiveness, and we forgive others in light of how much we have been forgiven. He does...

🗓️ 30 August 2026.🎙️ Speaker: Nic Cassar.

⚠️ Please note: this episode discusses sex openly and includes some graphic language and mature themes. Listener discretion advised.

Sex is one of the most powerful and most complicated parts of being human, and the church has not always known how to talk about it well. Continuing our Relate series, Nic works through five biblical themes: that sex is God given and good, that it has a purp...

🗓️ 3 September 2024. 🎙️ Nic Cassar, Claire Landers, and Sarah McCutcheon.

In this re-released episode, we continue our Relate series. Nic & Claire sat down with Sarah McCutcheon, author of a book on singleness, for an honest and warm conversation about what it really means to be single in the church. Drawing on real, anonymous comments from our own community, they name the isolation, pressure, and unintended assumptions that...

🗓️ 23 August 2026. 🎙️ Speaker: Sam Delfs.

We are more connected than ever, yet so many people report having plenty of acquaintances and no real friends. Kicking off our Relate series, Sam turns to Scripture to show that we are hardwired by a relational God for deep, genuine friendship, and that a couple of true friends can shape who we become and the whole trajectory of our lives. Drawing on the covenant friendship of Jonathan a...

🗓️ 16 August 2026. 🎙️ Speaker: Nic Cassar.

Sixty years ago a handful of families stepped out in faith, took a loan, and started a church, and today we live off the fruit of their vision. On this anniversary Sunday, Nic invites us to practise the ancient discipline of remembering, not simply recalling the past but letting it fuel fresh faith and action. Drawing on Peter's confession in Matthew 16 and the Great Commission in Matthe...

🗓️ 9 August 2026. 🎙️ Speaker: Luke Reed.

After shipwreck, storms and years of hardship, Paul finally reaches Rome, and the apostle Luke sums it all up in one understated line: "and so we came to Rome." This closing chapter of Acts is a portrait of a faithful God who keeps His promises, working not only through the miraculous but through the ordinary, the difficult and the unexpected. Even under house arrest and chained to a guard...

🗓️ 2 August 2026. 🎙️ Speaker: Sam Delfs.

On his way back to Jerusalem, Paul calls the Ephesian elders together for a final conversation, knowing he will never see them again. What follows is part farewell and part handover, as he reflects on three years of ministry among them and urges them to carry the work forward. Sam draws out six marks of faithful leadership from Paul's words: being a doer of the word rather than just a tal...

🗓️ 26 July 2026 🎙️ Speaker: Nic Cassar.

When Paul spends two years in Ephesus, the gospel takes such deep root that it begins to reshape the whole city, and not everyone is pleased. A silversmith named Demetrius, watching his idol-making trade decline, stirs up a furious mob chanting to the goddess Artemis until the city is in uproar. Nic unpacks this dramatic scene to show how the good news of Jesus genuinely changes cities, eve...

🗓️ 19 July 2026 🎙️ Speaker: Nic Cassar.

In Athens, Paul steps into a city full of idols, big ideas, and endless debate, and finds a way to speak about the living God that genuinely connects. Rather than tearing people down or watering down the truth, he affirms what he can, gently corrects what is distorted, and confronts what stands opposed to the gospel. Nic uses Paul's approach as a picture of how ...

🗓️ 12 July 2026

🎙️ Speaker: Ryan Zweygartt

The early church was never conflict free, and Acts 15 proves it. As the gospel spreads to the Gentiles, a sharp dispute breaks out over circumcision and the law of Moses. Rather than avoiding the tension, the apostles and elders gather in Jerusalem and land on a shared conviction: salvation comes through the grace of Jesus, not religious performance. Ryan uses this account to explore how...

🗓️ 5 July 2026.

🎙️ Speaker: Sam Delfs.

The church at Antioch marks a hinge moment in the story of Acts. Ordinary believers, scattered after Stephen's death, carry the message of Jesus across cultural lines and unknowingly plant the church that will launch the gospel into the wider world. Sam draws out three marks of a healthy church from Antioch, which are new life, intentional formation, and sending. He also challenges the quie...

🗓️ 28 June 2026.

🎙️ Speaker: Nic Cassar.

Few moments in Acts are as dramatic as Saul's encounter on the road to Damascus. In Acts 9:1-31, a man set on destroying the church is suddenly confronted by Jesus and everything changes. Blinded, humbled, and redirected, Saul is drawn into a completely new story. One shaped not by his own ambition but by God's grace. Alongside him, an ordinary disciple named Ananias steps forward in obedi...

🗓️ 21 June 2026.

🎙️ Speaker: Nic Cassar.

As pressure rises and the church is scattered, the mission doesn't slow down, it spreads. In Acts 8:4-24, Philip brings the gospel into Samaria, crossing cultural and spiritual boundaries as people encounter Jesus in new ways. What begins as disruption becomes momentum, with healing, freedom, and joy breaking out in an unexpected place. At the same time, the story of Simon the sorcerer exp...

AWAKE // God's Spirit Awakening People, Communities and Cities (Acts 3:1–4:31).

🗓️ 7 June 2026. 🎙️ Peter Schultz.

At the temple gate called Beautiful, Peter and John stop for a lame beggar they had likely walked past many times before. But Peter is no longer the aimless disciple who went back to fishing after the resurrection. He stops, sees, and speaks with bold clarity: "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I...

🗓️ 31 May 2026.

🎙️ Speaker: Nic Cassar.

What does a Spirit-awakened church actually look like? In Acts 2:42–47 and 4:32–37, we're given a compelling picture of the early church marked by shared life, deep devotion, radical generosity, and genuine joy. This isn't an abstract ideal or a one-off moment in history, but a real community formed and sustained by the Spirit of God. As Nic unpacks these passages, he traces ho...

🗓️ 24 May 2026.

🎙️ Speaker: Nic Cassar.

On the day of Pentecost, everything changes. In Acts 2:1-41, the Holy Spirit comes in power, filling ordinary people with boldness and enabling them to proclaim the wonders of God across language and culture. What looks chaotic at first is actually deeply intentional: God's presence breaking through, fulfilling ancient promises, and opening the door for all people to be drawn into His stor...

🗓️ 17 May 2026.

🎙️ Speaker: Nick Varady-Szabo.

Before the church moves outward, it must awaken. In Acts 1:1-11, the risen Jesus commissions his followers and promises the Holy Spirit, shifting their focus from building their own kingdom to participating in God’s. The story of Acts begins with a call to wait, receive power, and step into a mission far bigger than themselves.

This message is for anyone who feels stuck, distra...