Welcome to the first of teen podcast. I'm so excited about today's conversation. Rachel and I sat down with Erin Nyquist, one of our favorite Christian voices today.

Erin is a liturgist, writer and pastor currently living in New York City. In 2018, he released the eternal current, how a practice-based faith can save us from drowning.

It means continuing to create resources to help us all flesh it out. But that's just job stuff. The best part of his life is his wife Shana and his boys Henry and Mack.

You're going to love today's conversation, so let's dive right in.

Well, Erin, thanks so much for joining Rachel and me on the first of teen podcast.

You and I first met at a service he led in New York called Embracing Silence, which was sincerely one of my favorite sort of, I guess, communal experiences with God across the past few years, actually.

The way you craft and lead practices and experience for God's people, I find so creative and so needed and our faith expression, especially in the West. And so, really excited to have this conversation with you today.

Yeah, well, thanks for the invitation. Before we jump into talking about some of the principles from your book, the eternal current, maybe just let our listeners know a little bit about you and your family and your work.

Yeah, well, I am sitting here in our apartment on the general theological seminary campus here in Manhattan, so in the Chelsea neighborhood.

I just graduated with Masters of Arts and Ministry. But up till this point, I've been a worship leader and liturgist in a couple different churches, mostly in the Midwest.

And yeah, I'm really, really passionate about the intersection of things. So we're, you know, I'll say a lot more about this later probably, but like where the evangelical hospitality and energy intersects with the Anglican liturgy.

And the roots and, you know, a number of different intersections are really, really have been energizing me, especially as it feels like everything is crumbling.

So yeah, so glad to be in this conversation with you both today and we're looking forward to jumping in.

Awesome. So we've loved your book, the eternal current and would say it's been honestly very helpful for us in our faith journey and your podcast along with it has been so great.

And we just want to hop into talking about that. Can you share, you know, in the first chapter, it's called losing my religion and finding the kingdom.

And I would love if you would just share with us a little bit about your faith journey that led you to starting the practice at Willow Creek and where you are today.

Yeah. Oh, man. Well, so I went to a small liberal arts Christian college in the Chicago land area, Judson University, and it was a great experience.

And then I graduated and got a job as the worship leader for the high school ministry at Willow Creek Church outside of Chicago.

And it was super fun and exciting and huge and all this great stuff. And about two years in my faith just imploded, it just kind of ended.

And it wasn't a big railing against anything. It wasn't like a specific issue. It just ran out of gas.

And I just remember thinking, if this is it, I don't know why I'm going to keep doing this. And so as, you know, many pastors and worship leaders can relate, it's very complicated when you're leading songs, you don't think you believe anymore.

But fortunately, my boss was a true pastor and really made space for me. Like I thought I was just going to get kicked out immediately.

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