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For the last few weeks I've been inviting us into an uncomfortable question about the technology in our pockets, on our desks, and in our driveways. Not whether technology is good or bad, but what we're actually using it for. We've looked at how it distracts us from feelings we'd rather not feel, how it quietly takes over skills we used to build for ourselves, and how it can feel so human that we forget it isn't. Most of that conversation has been about what technology does to us. This Sunday, in the final message of Digital Idols, I'm turning the question outward. What does it cost the people around us when we pick up that technology? How do we balance the good it can do with what it costs? It's not a comfortable place to end a series. I honestly wanted to skip this one until I realized I'd be doing the exact thing this series has been talking about, avoiding something hard because it's uncomfortable. Avoiding hard stuff is not the Friends Church way! Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

You asked for it, so this Sunday we're finally talking about AI. This isn't a debate over whether it's good or bad, and it isn't a warning about robots taking over. Most of us use these tools every day without asking what they're doing to us, or what we're doing to them. Every new technology shows us something about ourselves, and AI might be showing us more than we'd like. But if we're willing to pay attention, these technologies can give us something valuable: insight into what we need to be healthy, to live healthy, and to create a healthy world.  Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

When was the last time you did math without a calculator doing the heavy lifting? Probably a while, and that's okay. We don't need to do long division anymore. But some skills are different. Walking up to a stranger to ask for help or to connect. Sitting with loneliness, boredom or fear without reaching for your phone. Figuring out what you actually like and what makes your life feel like it's worth something. Technology can't do those things for us, can it? Yet we try to let it. Quietly, one swipe at a time, we hand over the things that make us human, because if it can do the math, surely it can do this too. And the cost shows up later. The phone call we dread. The conversation we avoid. The feelings we never learned how to hold. Could this be part of why so many of us feel more anxious, more alone and less like ourselves than ever? This Sunday in the Digital Idols series, we'll look at how to tell the difference: which skills you can happily hand to your devices, and which ones are worth fighting to keep. Join us at the Spiritual Gym this Sunday at 10:30am - invite someone in your life that might need this one. Donate to Friends Church To donate to this podcast and support the making of more of these please visit https://friendschurch.ca/podcast

You've had a long day, and there's a choice waiting. One option is messy and uncertain and might go nowhere. The other is always there and always easy, and it never says no. This Sunday we're starting in a place that will probably get us in a little trouble, with one young man's after-work dilemma, and what it shows about the always-on technologies we all reach for, including the chatbot in your pocket. It's not about shame and it's not about rules. It's about a question most of us feel but rarely say out loud, and an ancient story about a golden calf that turns out to be surprisingly modern.  If you've ever caught yourself choosing the easy thing over the real thing and wondered why, join us this Sunday at 10:30 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

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