Helping Others Restore Personal Worship & Connection with God | An Interview with John Eldredge

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

John Eldredge is a bestselling author and counselor. He is also president of Wild at Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God and recover their own hearts in God’s love. John and his wife, Stasi, live near Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Highlights

2:00 Introduction and updates with Wild at Heart.

4:30 We are now in the after effects of the pandemic. How do we recover?

6:00 One of the after effects of the pandemic is that many people are walking away from traditional religion. They are going to other places to try and find relief. They are walking away from the source of their rescue and recovery.

8:50 The Edens in our life. The things that we long for. Instead of finding replenishment in God we go on vacations, we scroll our phones, etc. to find relief.

10:00 We are dealing with the traumatic aftermath of the pandemic. John explains how it has changed us and our ability to deal with everyday life. The classic trauma symptoms are:

Mental fragmentation
A loss of a sense of time
The exhaustion
The lack of grace for irritating people

12:30 We are struggling to go to church after the pandemic. We are exhausted, dealing with trauma, and our reserves are gone.

15:20 Advice for leaders trying to help people find Jesus in their Sunday meetings.

You design opportunities for quiet and prayer.
You don’t have to fill every moment.

21:00 Spiritual warfare creeps in. It’s not always a big, traumatic event. The adversary wants us to give up on God.

23:20 Notice how you react when someone gets in the way of your “Eden agenda.”

25:10 How leaders can help people reconnect with God. We need to recast the vision.

28:30 Kurt shares his own personal experience of connecting to God in a new way. His running routine has become a spiritual experience.

29:45 Nature heals as opposed to technology. First thing in the morning don’t look at your phone or listen to the news. Give a quiet moment to God.

31:00 John unpacks the meaning of the shallows, the midlands, and the depths.

35:20 How do we get our hearts out of the shallows? We begin by loving God and expressing gratitude. If we expect results and fixes from God then we are just going to be frustrated and disappointed.

38:00 How do we love God? It’s more of just keeping the commandments.

41:15 Written prayers can help us articulate things in a way that maybe we couldn’t do on our own.

44:00 John talks about his app called One Minute Pause.

46:50 The pressure of leadership is having to come through for people. They don’t need you. They need God. You are there to help them get to God.

48:15 Invite people to be a part of the larger story that God has for them. God’s story puts everything into perspective. Human beings use stories to make sense of reality.