September 2020 – Essential Church

Episode 094: All Flame

In this episode we sit down to talk about Andrew Arndt’s new book All Flame: Entering into the Life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Available on Amazon HERE!)

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God’s intent with the human life is not to displace our humanity but to sit within in and radiate through it so that we become all flame… it’s not something for the spiritual elite, and no one’s life is better calibrated for holiness than anyone else’s…

We were a church that nobody knew about… but the life of the Spirit was so present among us… I was surrounded by very ordinary people who were full of the Spirit… that became my bar of what’s normal…

Jesus Christ did not come to write a book but to form a community… one of the pitfalls of the spiritual life is that people try to run off and do it by themselves… that can only end in nonsense or despair…

The only way you hang on during hard seasons in when you are surrounded by the church, which keeps putting in front of you the reality of the Triune God, the hope of Jesus Christ, and the practical support of their own commitment to you…

This is not an academic book of theology, nor is it purely a book of spiritual formation… if God is the fundamental truth of our existence, and God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then his Triune identity shapes our stories…

My mom approached her spirituality like a farmer… up early in the morning seeking God… I’d wake up and wander down the stairs to the sound of my mom praying in tongues, covering her family in prayer…

My routine these days is similar… I’m up early with coffee and my Bible and I’m praying and asking God to put me to death and make me alive… if I don’t get that time, I’m just not right in the head…

I hope that people are taken again by the wonder and mystery of God… that they are awed again… we’re short on awe in the church… we do a great job giving people principles, but often wonder is missing…

I also hope that people whose faith is hanging on by a thread will see that there is no human experience they can have that is not already an event of the Triune God…

Episode 093: Covid-19: Where Are We Now?

Welcome to the start of Season 7 of the Essential Church Podcast. In this episode we sit down to discuss the state of the church seven months into Covid-19.

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We’re seeing that fear is a powerful motivator… fear is front and center in our culture right now… pastors are wrestling with it in a way they haven’t before…

Pastors weren’t trained for this in seminary… they weren’t trained in social media or on the nuances of the culture right now…

I am concerned that if we’re not careful we are going to see a mass exodus of pastors from pastoral ministry… there’s a growing concern about this around the country…

I am telling pastors to mute the wrong voices and amplify the right voices… who we listen to will very much determine the condition of our souls…

Right now about half the churches in the US are open for in-person worship… what I am hearing from pastors across the country is that 25-30% of people are actually returning to church… people have started forming new habits…

In person church attendance has been on the decline for years… all Covid did was accelerate a trend that had already started…

I’m hearing from really committed churchgoers that they have new habits on Sundays… they wake up late, eat brunch, turn on the broadcast, and then head out hiking… that’s the new habit… we’re going to have to reshape people’s ecclesiology to help them understand the power of the gathering…

Our services don’t feel the way they used to feel from a “production” standpoint… but the spirit was as strong as ever… that’s something we can’t manufacture…

For most of church history and most of the church global, “suboptimal” is just how you do church… and those pastors who don’t want to jump in because it’s going to be suboptimal are making an enormous mistake…

I think right now we need to simplify what we’re doing… the pastors out there that are trying to push forward with a big, bold vision – you’re going to burn out…

I’m taking about simplifying everything… meetings, what you say yes to, your fall relaunch… complexity is not our friend right now… you need to have one or two things every day that you’re doing well…

We have been breathing out really hard these last seven months… now we need to start to breath in again… simplify everything…