Category: Interviews

Episode 162: A Conversation with Brit Windel

On this brief episode of Essential Church, Andrew and Rory sit down with Brit Windel a pastor and church planter from Kenosha, Wisconsin. Brit shares the story of Daybreak Church, a church that is ‘making much of Jesus’ and serving the city. Brit’s story is one of faithfulness, longevity and serving. 

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Host: Andrew Arndt 

Co-Host: Rory Green

Guests: Brit Windel

Producer: Briggs Boyd

Episode 161: A Conversation with Kenneth Tanner

On this week’s episode Andrew and Daniel are joined by Ken Tanner, Pastor of Church of the Holy Redeemer in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Ken takes the time to wade through his own story of life and maturity, as well as the complexities of living a life devoted to ministry(2:30). Much of Ken’s life and ministry is wrapped up in the great journey he took through traditional charismatic church, into the great traditions of the church across history (17:09). The episode wraps with ken sharing three words of prophetic encouragement for the American Church(36:33).

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Host: Andrew Arndt

Co-Host: Daniel Grothe 

Guests: Ken Tanner

Producer: Briggs Boyd

Episode 160: A Conversation with Greg Waybright

Greg is a former university president and pastor, and Andrew and Daniel start a conversation around how to sustain longevity in ministry (01:18).  The trio lean into a discussion around Sabbath and work, and the reciprocal relationship they hold for pastoral faithfulness (11:05). The pod wraps up with an emphasis on the pastoral relationships we need to carry (29:00. 

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Host: Andrew Arndt

Co-Host: Daniel Grothe 

Guests: Greg Waybright

Producer: Briggs Boyd

Episode 159: A Conversation with Geoff Holsclaw

Andrew and Geoff Holsclaw sit down to discuss how the field of neuroscience and spiritual formation intersect in the life of faith (3:43). Andrew and Geoff go on to discuss how these new fields of combined study can actually help people who are beginning to wrestle with, or even deconstruct their faith (12:45). A rabbit trail about attachment theory and how it potentially relates to our experience of God, round out the episode (30:10).

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to stay connected with us throughout the week!

Host: Andrew Arndt 

Guests: Geoff Holsclaw

Producer: Briggs Boyd

Episode 158: A Conversation with Bri Stensrud

Andrew Arndt and Daniel Grothe are joined by a New Life congregation member and author Bri Stensrud to talk about the complexities and challenges of what it looks like to “meet the strangers at our gates.” (01:35) The trio discuss how this issue moves far beyond simply a social or political issue, Bri helps guide a discussion around immigration and caring for the foreigner and its biblical roots. (10:54). The last stretch of this episode includes both the practical and the personal ways we can all get involved in this conversation. (29:45)

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to stay connected with us throughout the week!

Host: Andrew Arndt
Co-Host: Daniel Grothe
Guests: Bri Stensrud
Producer: Briggs Boyd

For pastors/churches:

Evangelical Immigration Table

World Relief

For laypeople:

Women of Welcome

Books: 

Start with Welcome 

The Bible and Borders 

Welcoming the Stranger

Find Bri: Instagram 

Episode 157: A Conversation with Derek Vreeland

Andrew and special guest, Derek Vreeland have a detailed discussion around Derek’s new book Centering Jesus: How the Lamb of God Transforms Our Communities, Ethics, and Spiritual Lives. One of the core values of Essential Church is that Jesus is at the center, and this is exactly what Derek’s book reveals — from the book of Revelation, the COVID pandemic, and the power of unity (02:22). At the crux of Derek’s book is the metaphor of Jesus as the Lamb of God, and the multitude of ways that metaphor is fleshed out through Jesus’ life (15:34). This conversation lands by discussing how prayer is the ultimate act of seeing Jesus at the center of all things (24:22).

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Host: Andrew Arndt
Guests: Derek Vreeland
Producer: Briggs Boyd
Derek Vreeland’s books — https://derekvreeland.com/books

Episode 156: A Conversation with Dr. Russell Moore

Andrew and Brady take the time in this episode to sit down with author Dr. Russell Moore to discuss his book Losing Our Religion, An Alter Call for Evangelical America. Russell shares the history that created a need for such a book, but also the weight of utilizing his prophetic voice in a time of need (3:36). Dr. Moore goes on to share a few key ideas and principles around how to better discern and live wisely when dealing with the great social challenges of our day (15:53). The trio then round out the conversation contemplating the moral fiber of future leaders as well as pondering what needs to happen in America for true revival to take place (24:06). 

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Host: Andrew Arndt

Co-Host: Brady Boyd

Guests: Dr. Russell Moore

Producer: Briggs Boyd 

Losing Our Religion, An Alter Call for Evangelical America by Russell Moore — https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Our-Religion-Evangelical-America-ebook/dp/B0BPWRF4C5/ref=sr_1_1crid=3I076VEZFKVJK&keywords=losing+our+religion%2C+an+altar+call+for+evangelical+america&qid=1696973367&sprefix=losing+our+religion%2C+an+alter+call+for+evangelical+america%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-1

Episode 155: A Conversation with Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt

On this episode of the Essential Church podcast Andrew Arndt is joined by Pastor Daniel Grothe for a conversation with special guest Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt. The trio ask the all-important question about the nature of prayer (00:50). Andrew then guides the interview towards a breakdown of the Lord’s Prayer and raises the question: is Jesus teaching us to pray backwards (8:00)? Our hosts and guest spend the remainder of the episode having a truly honest and vulnerable discussion around the struggles and tensions of prayer — the distractions, the theological stumbling blocks, and more (18:40)! 

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Host: Andrew Arndt

Co-Host: Daniel Grothe

Producer: Briggs Boyd 

Episode 153: The Ache for Meaning – An Interview with Tommy Brown

In this episode we sit down with pastor and author Tommy Brown to talk about his new book The Ache for Meaningand how the temptations of Christ reveal who we are and what we are seeking. 

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I was more depressed than I realized and was at a near crisis in ministry… I had lost touch with what it meant to be a pastor…

Reading through the temptations of Christ one day, I knew I was on the scent of the trail that I needed to be on… it really started a seven-year journey for me of learning to name my ache and my questions as a pastor…

The temptations are symbolic… the devil didn’t make them up on the spot… they’re each an echo from Israel’s wilderness wanderings… and they speak to our perennial needs for security, significance, and control… 

You can boil them down into questions: Will I have enough? Am I enough? And do I matter? In any given situation, we can ask ourselves those questions to see what’s driving our anxiety…

For pastors, it’s a deep seduction to get the deepest needs of our lives met by the church… which means that when things aren’t going well at the church, it strikes at our identity… our identity can’t be based in externals but in sonship…

Jesus is the already the Son of God by nature as the second person of the Trinity and by gift as the Spirit descends upon him… and so the devil is trying to get Jesus to do something that doesn’t need to be done… 

The enemy plays with our minds trying to convince us that there’s something to be done to achieve something that’s already been given… and that’s where we get screwy…

There’s an over-functioning in ministry that comes from the fact that we haven’t settled ourselves into our “aready-ness” as sons and daughters of God… 

As you grow in your faith, the tests don’t stop… what I’ve learned is to spot them and respond to them earlier… the space between stimulus and response is the place where our freedom lies… 

The higher you go in leadership, the more sophisticated and nuanced the temptations become… in every moment there’s an opportunity to respond in one way or another… 

Episode 152: Neuroscience and Spiritual Formation – A Conversation with Michael Hendricks

In this episode we sit down with Michel Hendricks to talk with him about his book The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation.

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This book was written out of frustration and confusion… some pastors and I were talking about our frustrations with discipleship, and one of the pastors said, “Michel, I think we’re ignoring the neuroscience angle,” and I had no idea what he was talking about…

The left side of the brain is what in popular culture we think of AS the brain… it’s the problem-solving side… but the deeper, relational questions are handled in the right brain—it’s the more powerful side of the brain… 

Before the left brain even kicks in, the right brain is asking, “Who are these people? Are these my people? Am I safe here?” Most of our discipleship is left-brain oriented and doesn’t take the right brain into account at all…

Our brains are designed to change us through love… our attachments and bonds with others are the strongest force in the brain for the formation of our character… 

I’m not saying that we should drop left-brained discipleship skills, but that we ADD the right-brain relational skills… e.g., joy—are we creating environments where people are happy to see one another…? Joy is fuel for transformation… and when our joy is low, nothing really works…

For the Hebrew mind, the face and presence of God were inseparable… the face WAS the presence, like a baby looking into its mother’s face… that’s how a baby grows… and how we grow with God…

Our churches need to function much more like families than they do like religious organizations… families are primarily and fundamentally about creating bonds…

If our relational skills are right, we can do church discipline in a way that’s healthy… it’s about flipping on the self-regulating principle in the body of Christ… 

There is a form of healthy shame and toxic shame… toxic shame is what most of us have experienced… healthy shame is deeply relational and helps remind us of who we are… it reinforces our good group identity…

Forming community this way makes us virtually immune to narcissism… if we are a deeply bonded family which self-corrects, we are creating a soil that narcissism can’t thrive in… 

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