Advertise on podcast: Friends Church Calgary Weekly Message

Speaker: Vince Klassen Everyone has one: the scroll that never really ends, the show that autoplays into the next one, the project that always needs one more hour, the busy that keeps you too busy to notice what you're avoiding. It works, until the day it doesn't, and whatever you built it to outrun is still sitting there waiting. There's an old story about a group of people who couldn't sit with their pain either, so they built a statue of a calf out of gold to make the feeling go away. We all have our own version of that Golden Calf. This Sunday we're looking at what ours actually is, what it's been standing in for, and how we deal with what we've been trying to make go away. Come find out this Sunday at 10:30 at the Spiritual Gym. AI Prompt: I think there's an emotion I'm avoiding instead of working through, and I want help finding it and naming what I use to distract myself from it. Walk me through this one question at a time. Don't give me the whole list at once, wait for my answer before moving to the next question. Start by asking me when I last felt something rise that I didn't want to sit with. Then help me find the actual emotion itself and name it. Check whether there's a second emotion riding along with the main one, since feelings often travel in pairs. Once we've named the emotion clearly, help me name the distraction I used, whether that's overthinking it, scrolling my phone, staying busy, joking about it, or something else. Then help me come up with a plan to use that distraction less and feel the emotion more. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

You have a story, the real one, not the Instagram version. And this Sunday we're talking about what happens when you finally let it out into the open, how one honest story, told or heard, can be the spark that gets you unstuck and moving again. You don't need a tidy ending or a lesson learned to make it worth telling. You just need to have lived it. If you've ever felt spiritually stuck and wondered what it would take to catch fire again, come find out this Sunday at 10:30 at the Spiritual Gym. Bring your story. You might be surprised what it lights up in you, and in someone else. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Some of us gave up on the Bible a long time ago. Too many crazy stories that don't seem to happen anymore, too many fights over what you're required to believe before you're even allowed to open it, too much of a "why does this even matter to my life today" feeling. So it sits on a shelf, more like a museum piece than something that could matter today. Here's why I still think it's worth picking back up: I see it as an ancient collection of writings from people wrestling with the exact same things we are. How do we navigate this life? Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there a purpose behind any of it? How do I live a good life? And so many more. You've probably got a few of your own. So let's explore the Bible through a new lens, one where you don't need to already believe a word of it. Just bring an open mind and your own story. I'll show you a way into these old stories that might surprise you, one that could inspire the next stage of your spiritual journey. Bring someone in your life who wants a way into the Bible that inspires their life today.  See you at the Spiritual Gym! Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Some days it doesn't bother you. Other days, a story you've told yourself for years stops feeling like a story and starts feeling like the truth, no matter what's actually in front of you. It might be about relationships, about God, about who you are or aren't allowed to be. This week we're looking at what happens when a story takes over, and what it costs us and the people we love when it does. You'll leave with a real way to loosen that story's grip and start evolving it, instead of staying stuck inside it. Come with the story that gets you at your weakest. Leave with a way to change your relationship to it. Join us this Sunday, 10:30 am, at the Spiritual Gym, and bring someone who's stuck in a story of their own. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Speaker: Vince Klassen We've all heard someone say "the Bible clearly says so" right before defending something that made our stomach turn. Racists leading Christian organizations. Immigrants locked out. Entire groups of people told God is against them. And every one of them is pointing to the same book we are. So who's right? One book. 70,000 denominations. Everyone convinced they've got the corner on truth, and everyone using the exact same text to prove it. Here's what nobody wants to sit with: maybe the goal was never to find the one correct reading everyone else missed. Maybe it's about something closer, and harder. Finding your own way through this book, one that's actually yours, not one you inherited without ever checking where it came from. Join us this Sunday at Friends Church as we dig into it together. For more information about this message, please refer to the following: Dan McLellen - https://linktr.ee/maklelanBart Erham - https://shor.by/kE06Monte Mader - https://linktr.ee/MonteMaderFriends Church Recommendations - https://friendschurch.ca/booksDonate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Speaker: Vince Klassen There's often a story running underneath our relationships, and most of us don't even know it's there. We feel it more than we see it: the distance that creeps in even when nothing's technically wrong, the guard we keep up around someone, even family members, the exhaustion of loving someone who isn't giving as much as we feel we are. We tell ourselves that's just how they are, that's just how it is, but underneath that feeling is a belief we've never questioned. An unconscious belief decides how we treat the people right in front of us, and our relationships pay for it. Where are we feeling this pain? And how do we finally get honest about the stories driving it? Come find out this week at Spiritual Gym.  Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

You did the work. The routine, the discipline, the daily showing up. It got you somewhere real. And then, without warning, it stopped working. The thing that used to bring you to life goes flat. You try harder. Nothing moves. This isn't just a spiritual problem. It's the same wall you hit in the gym when the weight stops moving, at work when the promotion stops feeling like progress, in a relationship when the routine starts feeling like drudgery. This talk unpacks why the strategy that used to work stops working, and why the way out isn't just trying harder or thinking more. Come find a way out of the rut you are in this Sunday at the Spiritual Gym Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Are you waiting for life to begin? Most of us tell ourselves that someday we'll have more time. Someday life will slow down. Someday we'll finally pursue what matters most. But what if "someday" never arrives? This Sunday at Friends Church, we'll explore a surprising perspective on time, purpose, and the choices that quietly shape our lives every single day. Through stories, unexpected insights and practical wisdom, we'll discover why one simple question may be more important than finding more hours in the day. We'd love to have you join us - you may never think about your time the same way again. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Have you ever had a financial advisor tell you to save less? Spend more today? Yeah, me neither. We only ever hear one message: save more, sacrifice now, future you is counting on it. But here's the question nobody's asking: what if that same logic is running your spiritual life too? What if you've been taught, without ever saying it out loud, that today you is the villain in future you's story? There's a guy from the 5th century who took that idea all the way. Lived on top of a pillar. Fifty feet in the air. No shade, no rest, nothing between him and the sky, because he believed killing off today him was the price for future him. This week, we're asking whether your faith has quietly built the same pillar for you. Come find out at the spiritual gym. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

There's a phrase you've probably said out loud more than once: "that's just not me." Someone hands you an opportunity, an outfit, a role, a way of doing things, and something in you just knows. But have you ever wondered if there's something almost spiritual happening when you say that? Here's the thing about church you might not expect: a lot of us walked away from religion, or are still limping through it, because it felt like one long project to fix what's wrong with us. Stop sinning. Manage the bad parts. Become someone else. But what if that's not actually the whole story? What if the parts of you that come easy, the things you're just naturally good at, aren't a distraction from your spirituality, but the actual point of it?  This Sunday I want to tell you a story about a kid who was handed armor that wasn't built for him, and what happened when he had the guts to take it off. Come find out what he used instead, and what it might mean for the thing you're carrying that was never built for you either. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Most of us know what it feels like to be at the end of our rope. The demands of work, family, relationships, and life never seem to stop, and sometimes even a vacation doesn't feel like enough. This Sunday at Friends Church, we'll explore a surprising perspective on why simply pushing harder often isn't the answer - and discover a practical, life-giving way to find renewed energy in the middle of ordinary life. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed, running on empty, or simply looking for a healthier rhythm, this message offers a fresh, engaging look at rest, purpose, and what it means to truly be refreshed. Come prepared to laugh, think, and maybe see a familiar story in a completely new light. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Here's a question worth sitting with: what if the thing that's slowly destroying your most important relationships isn't the big blowup, the betrayal, or the obvious stuff — but something you do so regularly you don't even notice it anymore? Something you probably did this week. Maybe this morning. Researchers who study relationships have identified a handful of specific behaviors that are so corrosive, so quietly destructive, that they can predict whether a relationship will survive — with over 90% accuracy. Not might damage. Will destroy. And the brutal part isn't that these behaviors are rare or extreme. It's that they're completely ordinary. People do them every day in their closest relationships and genuinely believe they're just being honest, or protecting themselves, or handling things the only way they know how. This Sunday is the final talk in our series and I'm going to name them. All of them. Fair warning - you're probably going to recognize yourself in at least one. Probably more than one. But knowing is the whole point. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

There's someone in your life right now who just gets under your skin. Maybe it's a family member who turns every gathering into a minefield. A colleague who makes everything harder than it needs to be. A partner who seems wired completely differently than you and you cannot figure out how to stop bumping into each other. And the really fun part? You can't just walk away. You live with them, work with them, or married into the same family as them. Here's something that might actually help: researchers who study relationships for a living say that most of the problems in your closest relationships aren't actually fixable. They're permanent. And that sounds depressing until you realize what it means - because there's a way to navigate permanent differences that most people never figure out. This Sunday I'm going to use one of the greatest creative partnerships in history to show you exactly what happens when you get this wrong - and what it looks like when you finally get it right. If there's someone in your life who drives you a little crazy, this one's for you. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Have you ever been in a conflict with someone you love and realized halfway through that you're not actually fighting about what you think you're fighting about? Like the argument on the surface makes no sense - but something underneath it is absolutely real and it is not going away. Here's what nobody tells you: every person in your life is running on a core set of drives that are older than language, older than personality, older than anything therapy has ever tried to fix. And when those drives don't get honored - by the people around you, or by the life you've built - things go sideways. Quietly at first. Then not so quietly. This Sunday we're going to look at what's actually underneath the tension in your closest relationships - not the symptoms, but the source. I'm going to show you something about yourself that's going to make a lot of things suddenly make sense. And honestly, it's going to make you a lot more patient with some of the people in your life who have been driving you absolutely crazy. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

Speaker: Emily Wight Think about the last difficult conversation you had. You were listening to the words, maybe even choosing your own words carefully, trying to say the right thing. But what if the most important part of that conversation wasn't what was being said at all? What if the person in front of you was telling you exactly how they felt - and you missed it completely? There's a researcher who spent decades studying human faces and what he found is both fascinating and a little unsettling: people are broadcasting their inner world constantly, in ways they can't fully control or hide, and most of us have no idea how to read it. Not because we're bad people. Because nobody taught us how to look.  This Sunday we're going to learn how to actually see the people right in front of us - and why that skill might be the piece that builds beautiful connection. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast