Friends Church Calgary Weekly Message

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 lik...

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 t...

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 cou...

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 s...

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 st...

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 peopl...

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...

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 ourselv...

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...

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 storie...

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...

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 f...

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...

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 behavi...

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 wi...

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...

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...

Has someone ever pulled away from you and you genuinely didn't know why? A friendship that got quiet. A family member who keeps their distance. A relationship that used to be easy and now feels like work - and you can't put your finger on what changed. Here's the uncomfortable truth: most of us are doing things right now, in the relationships that matter most to us, that are slowly...

There's probably someone in your life right now who's a little more distant than you'd like. A relationship that's a little harder than it needs to be. And if you're honest, somewhere in the back of your mind, you already know why. Something happened - something you did, or maybe something you've been doing for years without realizing it - and now you're paying f...

Most of us have a list of reasons why our lives are harder than they should be. Things we didn't choose. Ways we're different. Losses we didn't deserve. And somewhere along the way, we quietly made peace with using that list as a reason to stop pushing. This week at the Spiritual Gym, we're sitting with a question from a man who earned the right to ask it - a Rabbi who lost his...

Speaker: Vince Klassen What do we do when we're confronted with something unforgivable? Not the small stuff. The real thing. The kind of act that makes us wonder if some people are just… evil . Our answer matters. Not in some abstract philosophical way - but in something that cuts right to the heart of this series: what it actually looks like to Live Life Abundantly. Because underneath that a...

Johnny Cash made Hurt famous—but it was written by Trent Reznor, a 30-year-old caught between two versions of himself: the person on stage and the kid alone in his room. And in that tension, he asks a question most of us quietly carry: What have I become… and how did I get here? This week, we’re using that question to rethink something many of us were taught to fear—sin. What if it’s not about pun...

Ever catch yourself thinking, “I just need to get through this week… then life will feel better”? Or “once that thing changes, then I’ll finally feel okay”? This week, we’re going straight at that feeling - the quiet sense that something’s off, something’s missing, something about your life (or you) just isn’t quite enough. And instead of trying to fix it or outrun it, we’re going to unpack it. Be...

I had a bit of a moment a few weeks ago. I went through the Bible and looked up every single time the word “sin” shows up… and what I found honestly surprised me. Not in a good or bad way – just… not what I was taught. I didn’t find the clean, clear list of do’s and don’ts I grew up with. I didn’t find Jesus obsessing over defining sin or making sure people avoided it at all costs. What I did find...

We just watched something incredible happen. 21 people from our community showed up in Mexico and, together with local families and donated resources by you, built a home that didn’t exist before. This Sunday, we’re going to celebrate that story - but not just to look back. We’re creating space for you to step into something that can shift your life right now. Because “Taking Water” isn’t just abo...