Living Centred: Becoming People Transformed by Jesus
What does it look like to build a life that is truly centred on Jesus? In the Living Centred podcast, Adrian Hurst, leader of Oasis Church in Birmingham, explores how we can become increasingly shaped and transformed by the wonder of who Jesus is.
Through conversations with guests, Adrian invites us to reflect on what it means to keep Jesus at the centre of our lives - not just in what we believe, but in how we live, lead and serve.
We asked Adrian about the vision behind Living Centred, why this conversation is important for the church today, and what it looks like to live a life centred on Jesus in everyday circumstances.
Can you tell us a little bit about the vision behind Living Centred and why you felt this was a conversation the church needs to be having today?
Everyone lives with something at the centre - something at the very core of who we are that shapes our identity and character, our emotions and actions, our hopes and concerns, and our relationships with God, others, and ourselves.
I believe Jesus invites us to live centred on Him. His promise is that life with Him at the centre is real life: a rich, true, and satisfying life. This is a life that liberates us from striving, restlessness and from being weighed down, and instead invites us to ease, lightness, and rest - as he promises in Matthew 11:28-30. Jesus longs for each of us to explore, understand, experience, and inhabit this life more fully.
I therefore wanted to create a place to explore how this looks for different people in their day-to-day lives. The aim is to provide encouragement for those who are also seeking to live centred on Jesus…as well as to reveal something to anyone exploring faith!
At Oasis, we have sought to make the most natural question we can ask one another: “What does living centred on Jesus look like for you right now?” This provides moments to learn from one another and to encourage one another in living in the fullness of the life Jesus invites us to. And as this has helped us as a church community, we realised it might help others too!
Can you tell us about why you started the Living Centred Podcast?
One of the really wonderful aspects of my everyday life is hearing from lots of different people about the breadth and beauty of what living centred on Jesus is looking like. But equally, what often comes through is how easily people can undervalue their own lived experience out of a sense that everyone else has got it all sorted! In response, I spoke to others in the Oasis Team and we created the Living Centred Podcast as a way to help share some of these stories. The podcast is built around 5 simple questions:
Who are you and what does your life look like at this point of time?
What does living centred on Jesus look like for you right now?
What helps you to do that?
What are you discovering about God as Father, Son and Spirit?
How are you changing?
Each of these seeks to get quickly into the nitty-gritty of the lives of guests by reflecting the reality of their lives in any given moment in time. They also give scope to consider how God has been at work in and through them over the longer term — sharing stories, learning together, and encouraging one another.
Conversations have now been recorded with people from all sorts of different backgrounds and walks of life: PHD graduates, asylum seekers, stay-at-home parents, senior businesspeople, teenagers, ministry workers, those at the end of their lives, and a whole host of others. Guests have shared about what it’s looked like to seek to live centred on Jesus in the midst of busyness, grief, questions, chronic pain, persecution and upheaval, whilst listeners have tuned in thousands of times from dozens of countries.
When you talk about living a life centred on Jesus, what does that look like in everyday life?
Out of the 100 conversations I have now shared on the podcast, a common thread is that all of us are on a journey with this. Therefore, we need to start where we are, rather than where we think we should be. Secondly, it takes intentionality within our day to day lives to ensure Jesus remains at the centre - so many other things can so easily get in the way. Finally, we were never meant to walk this journey alone, but always with others; seeking to encourage and learn from one another.
After these conversations, what is one thing you hope listeners and readers will take away and put into practice?
Each week, I try to summarise one thing from the conversation that I’m going to consider more in the week ahead, and I encourage listeners to do the same. It doesn’t have to be the most complicated practice or the most profound truth, just something that’s struck them from all that’s been shared which can provide a springboard to reflecting on what living centred on Jesus is looking like for them at this moment. And if they can share that with someone else, even better!
What is your prayer for the Catalyst family as we continue to become people whose lives are shaped and transformed by the wonder of who Jesus is?
My prayer is that as Jesus continues to build his church, even just within our expression of that, we would increasingly take hold of his invitation to ease and lightness in how we live. That doesn’t mean that things will always feel easy and light - the reality of life is that it will often feel precisely the opposite! But it does mean that we carry those things, we get to know what it means for Jesus to carry them with us, redefining how we experience them. And that as we do that, we would grow in seeking to encourage and learn from one another, and that in turn we would then transform the environments we are uniquely placed in.
Episodes from Catalyst Festival 2026
Recorded live at Catalyst Festival 2026, these two conversations feature honest reflections from Charlene Framingham and John Risbridger as they share what it means to follow Jesus in their unique contexts.
From everyday life and leadership to mission and the local church, these episodes encourage us to consider where Jesus is at the centre of our lives and how we can continue to grow as His followers.
