Connexus Church Audio Podcast

Your life is working. A good job. A decent house. Maybe a Costco finally opened nearby. You have more convenience and security than any generation before you. So why does something still feel missing?

We keep thinking the next upgrade will settle us. A bigger house. More in the retirement account. A better phone. The latest health hack. But the more we get, the less settled we feel.

In Week 2 of Christian-ish, Jeff Brodie opens a letter from Jesus to one of the wealthiest cities of its day. They had everything they wanted and believed they needed nothing. Jesus saw something they couldn't. Jeff also tells the story of a hospital visit for one stitch that ended with a diagnosis he never saw coming. Then he asks: what if getting what you want is making it harder to see what you really need?

You don't need to know the Bible to get something from this message. If you've ever felt empty in a life that looks fine from the outside, this one is for you.

Christian-ish is a three-week series about the faith we settle for and the relationship Jesus is inviting us into.

Can you follow Jesus and still live life on your own terms? In Week 1 of Christian-ish, Connexus Lead Pastor Jeff Brodie explores the difference between a covenant and a contract, and how faith slowly shifts from "I'm all Yours" to "I'll follow You, except..."

Drawing on Jesus' letter to the church in Thyatira in Revelation 2, Jeff shows how small, reasonable-sounding compromises gave other things veto power over God. He unpacks the slippery slope of compromise, the fear that usually sits underneath it, and Jesus' words that no one can serve two masters.

This episode closes with one question to carry into your week: Jesus, where am I negotiating with You? And a reminder that when you come back to Him, His forgiveness is complete.

Christian-ish is a three-week series from Connexus Church in Barrie and Orillia, Ontario.

You get the thing. The job, the relationship, the truck you've wanted for years. And for about five minutes, you're happy. Then you're already looking at the next thing. This isn't about trying harder to believe in God. It's about the difference between believing something exists and actually wanting it more than anything else in your life.

Wherever you're at with faith right now, whether you're all in, walking away, or just curious, this one's worth sitting with.

This is Week 4, the final message in Mark Clark's Reset series. Catch Week 1 (Mental Health), Week 2 (Relationships), and Week 3 (Purpose) on our channel now.

Some things happen that you can't explain. A diagnosis. A funeral for someone way too young. A season so dark you can't see any reason for it.

In this message, Mark Clark doesn't offer easy answers, he's honest that there aren't any. Instead, he walks through the story of a man born blind, and what Jesus actually says about pain: it isn't punishment, it isn't karma, and it isn't proof that you did something wrong. It's something God can work through, not something he causes.

Mark shares some of his own hardest moments, his mother's heart attacks, his wife's surgeries, losing his father as a teenager, to make one simple but powerful point: your identity doesn't change because your circumstances do. If you belong to God, that status holds, no matter what you're walking through.

This is a message for anyone who's ever asked what good could possibly come from the thing they're going through. You don't need to have an answer to that question to watch this. You just need to be willing to ask it.

If you want to make sure your heart never gets broken, there's one guaranteed way to do it: never open it up to anyone. That's the trade every real relationship asks you to make, and most days, it feels like too much.

In this episode, Mark Clark walks through nine simple postures from Colossians 3 that actually make relationships work: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiveness, love, and unity. Nothing complicated, nothing that requires you to already have it figured out. Just nine honest shifts that change how you show up for the people you love, whether that's a spouse, a friend, or someone else you've been struggling to stay close to.

This episode is part of Reset, a 4-week series recorded live at Connexus Church.

If your mind has felt like it won't settle down lately, like you're carrying more than you were built to carry, this episode is for you. Mark's honest about his own lifelong struggle with anxiety and mental health, and he offers something better than "just pray about it." He talks about what real peace actually looks like, peace that doesn't wait for your circumstances to get better first, and how to stop carrying everything alone.

This episode is part of Reset, a 4-week series recorded live at Connexus Church.

Have you ever felt like something that happened to you, a mistake, a diagnosis, a rejection, is now a label over your life that you can't shake?

There's a woman in Luke 13 who carried a painful condition for eighteen years. Every week she showed up, prayed, gave what she had, and went home unchanged. Then one day, Jesus saw her. He called her forward. And he gave her a name nobody else was using.

If you've been waiting a long time for something to change, or you've been carrying something that isn't your name to keep, this is for you. You are not what's happened to you. You are who God says you are. Joseph shares some of his own story in this message too.

If it resonates, you can read more in his book, You Are Never Alone.

Ever prayed the same prayer for weeks and felt like you were talking into silence?

In this bonus episode of Honest to God, Sydney Jackson sits down with Toni Nieuwhof and Sarah Piercy, two of the contributing authors behind the Honest to God book, for an honest, unfiltered conversation about what to actually do in the seasons when God feels distant. They talk through breath prayer as a way to stay grounded when words won't come, the difference between complaining and lamenting, and what it means to keep showing up even when you don't feel anything happening.

Toni also shares more of her own story about her son's serious illness and the long, difficult process of surrendering control she couldn't hold onto anyway.

This conversation goes deeper into themes from the Honest to God series and book, and works whether or not you've heard the messages that inspired it.

Connexus Church is based in Barrie and Orillia, Ontario, and online every Sunday. Learn more at connexuschurch.com.

Have you ever said yes to something before realizing you had no idea what you were doing?

In the final week of Honest to God, we look at what happens when the thing you're being called toward is bigger than what you feel capable of. If you've ever talked yourself out of something because you didn't feel ready, smart enough, strong enough, or qualified enough, this one's aimed straight at you.

Connexus Church is based in Barrie and Orillia, Ontario, and online every Sunday. Learn more at connexuschurch.com.

Have you ever prayed the same question over and over, hoping that if you asked enough times, God would finally explain himself? Why this. Why now. Why me.

In week two of Honest to God, Toni Nieuwhof shares her own story of watching her son face a life-threatening illness and the moment she realized her prayers had turned into demands, trying to take control instead of trusting God with the outcome. Drawing from the life of Moses, who led people through decades of hardship without ever getting a full explanation, Toni unpacks what it looks like to trust God when understanding isn't on offer. She shares a simple practice, "filing" unanswered questions under Deuteronomy 29:29, that's helped her hold her hardest questions without letting them block her relationship with God.

This isn't a message about giving up on your questions. It's about what happens when you stop needing the answer before you're willing to trust him again.

Connexus Church is based in Barrie and Orillia, Ontario, and online every Sunday. Learn more at connexuschurch.com.