Connexus Church Video Podcast

You know it's not good for you. You've said "never again" more than once. So why do you keep ending up back in the same place?

Most of us learn quickly when the stakes are low. Assemble the furniture wrong once, and you'll never do it again. But when it comes to the things that matter most, like relationships, money, health and the people we love, we repeat the same mistakes and make the same excuses. Then we wonder how we got here.

It's not because you're weak or broken beyond repair. There are reasons it keeps happening, and once you can see them, you can stop them before they cost you something you can't get back.

In this message, Andy Stanley starts Too Good to Miss, a four-part series about the things in life you can't afford to miss and how to make sure you won't. If you're in the middle of a big decision, stuck in a pattern you can't seem to break, or quietly wondering whether it's too late to change direction, this is for you.

And no, it's not too late.

Take the Regret Audit 10 honest questions. About 2 minutes. Nobody sees your answers but you. 👉 https://connexuschurch.com/regret-audit/

Have questions about faith, or ready to follow Jesus? 👉 ConnexusChurch.com/FollowJesus

People think you're doing great. Your career, your family, your finances, your faith. From the outside, it all checks out. But you know what's going on inside, and it doesn't always match.

So you keep performing. Keep proving. Keep trying to be the person everyone thinks you are.

In the final week of Christian-ish, Jeff Brodie opens a letter from Jesus to a church with a great reputation and a serious problem. Along the way, you'll hear why Mike Tyson lost his first fight, what Jeff discovered about his neighbour's perfect flowers, and a story about a scratched kitchen chair that might change how you see God.

Then comes the question underneath it all: do you have to earn God's love?

If you've spent years trying to make a name for yourself, this message is for you. Jesus already knows your name. And there's a seat at the table with it on it.

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

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.

Maybe you're interested in Jesus. You like what He said about love, forgiveness, and second chances. But you've wondered what following Him would actually cost. Your weekends? Your relationships? Your money? Can you have Jesus and still keep life the way you like it?

Most of us try. We treat faith like a deal. Yes to God, until He asks for something we don't want to give.

In Week 1 of Christian-ish, Jeff Brodie takes that question head-on. Then he asks the question underneath it all: what in your life has veto power over God? You don't need to know the Bible or have your life together to get something from this message.

Bring your questions and your doubts. And if you've been keeping God at arm's length, Jesus held nothing back to love you.

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.

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.

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.

Why does a good God allow suffering? It's the question every pastor gets asked, and usually there's a bigger question underneath it: does God still love me when my life falls apart?

In this message, Jeff Brodie kicks off a new series called Honest to God by walking through Romans 5, where the apostle Paul, a man who was beaten, imprisoned, and shipwrecked for his faith, writes about suffering from experience, not theory. Jeff unpacks what it actually means to find endurance, character, and hope in the middle of pain that doesn't resolve, and shares a personal story about a door he thought God opened, only to watch it close.

This isn't a tidy message. It's an honest one about what it looks like to trust God when nothing about your circumstances makes that easy.