Parenting has its challenges in every generation.  But some would argue that the onslaught of things pushing on families today is unrivaled in history.  From the pace of life, dual incomes, cell phones and the media culture it is a challenge to stay focused on the job at hand.  To give us some thoughts based on years of walking with kids and families, Seth Fitzsimmons, principal of a large  Lutheran elementary grade school (St. Paul’s), joins us to talk about some of the challenges and some of the opportunities that this time in history is giving parents along with his BEST piece of advice to parents!

In our talk we reference a few things you may want to check out for yourself.  Here are the links:

www.waituntil8th.org – helping kids be kids longer

The Jesus Storybook Bible - https://a.co/d/iXUl5Vw

The Story for Kids - https://a.co/d/9g0FKET

If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a comment or, if you have questions for us to consider on the podcast, please email our host Mike Westendorf at [email protected]

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast of St. Paul's and The Bridge Lutheran church in Muskego, WI. For more information visit www.stpaulmuskego.org

We continue our conversation from last week with Dr. Brandon Steenbock especially looking at the topic of Marriage Skills that would be really helpful for us to have, but that oftentimes… we never learned.  Building on our conversation from the week before, we will continue to talk about three more skills that are very helpful as couples learn to better navigate the challenges that come in our marriages.  

It is a great listen for all of those who are dating and engaged or hoping to one day be married in a marriage that functions well.  Learning some of these skills will help your friendships today and give you a stronger foundation for marriage in the future too!
 
 If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a comment or, if you have questions for us to consider on the podcast, please email our host Mike Westendorf at [email protected] 

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast of St. Paul's and The Bridge Lutheran church in Muskego, WI. For more information visit www.stpaulmuskego.org

If you’re not married yet, you’ve likely got some ideas of how things will go.  If you’ve been married, you know that many of those ideas and plans you had didn’t go exactly to plan.  We’re joined by Dr. Brandon Steenbock, Staff Minister at St. Mark Ministries and an advisor to married couples and young people getting married for over a decade.  In this episode we will talk about some of the challenges that married people are facing today that might be a bit different from a few decades ago.  We will talk specifically about how to work on repairing a marriage that is hurting or breaking.

This talk was so good that we needed to do a second part, so please be sure to join us for next week’s part two of the Marriage Skills that can help us build a more Jesus centered and more satisfying marriage partnership.
 
 If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a comment or, if you have questions for us to consider on the podcast, please email our host Mike Westendorf at [email protected] 

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast of St. Paul's and The Bridge Lutheran church in Muskego, WI. For more information visit www.stpaulmuskego.org

“Say thank you for the ideas that you don’t have time for today, because a time may come…” Author and retired teacher Carol Kolosovsky joins us on the podcast to talk about become an author and the journey that has led her to continue to write into her 70s.  Not only will you hear about her story of how she got here, but Carol shares wisdom from a life that has loved her Savior well.  If you’ve ever been tempted to give up on your dreams, or if you’ve thought you’re too old to pursue them, you’ll want to spend some time today with Carol and her story.

To purchase a copy of her first book “Little Lamb Gabe” you can find it at many online retailers including Amazon and Walmart.  You can visit NPH as well: https://online.nph.net/little-lamb-gabe.html?srsltid=AfmBOoru6hzPJ_egjqBEFuTOgEKkddIblfHlbJoWk8lS4ojQeNr-gQMp
 
 If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a comment or, if you have questions for us to consider on the podcast, please email our host Mike Westendorf at [email protected] 

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast of St. Paul's and The Bridge Lutheran church in Muskego, WI. For more information visit www.stpaulmuskego.org

“If you want to change the culture, entertain it!”  Story takes us someplace and all effective communication ultimately comes down to story.  Our guest this week is author and professor Dr. Mark Paustian who will be talking about the power of a 2 minute story around a single truth and how we can use communication theory to share our faith and help people connect more deeply to Jesus.  As the discussion winds down we hope you might consider a few questions:
 
 What is your favorite Bible story?
 Why that story? – What does it teach you or convey to you about Jesus?
 What does it do TO you? What does that story do FOR you?
 and lastly – How would you tell it to someone who needs to hear it?

Perhaps the greatest opportunity for sharing your faith might be listening to someone else tell of their challenges and you yourself might reply “That reminds me of a story, stop me if you’ve heard it?”
 
 If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a comment or, if you have questions for us to consider on the podcast, please email our host Mike Westendorf at [email protected] 

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast of St. Paul's and The Bridge Lutheran church in Muskego, WI. For more information visit www.stpaulmuskego.org

Have you considered how your life, family or place of employment is built?  This week, we are joined by President and Principal of Kingdom Prep Lutheran High School Mr. Kevin Festerling to talk about a high school experience that is building up young men to transform their communities and families.  You will hear Kevin talk about the Pillars and Goals of the KP experience along with the challenges and opportunities of teen boys in a larger urban context.  What does it look like to build a brotherhood?

After listening to the podcast, we hope you might be willing to share this with others and consider how you might volunteer your "Ministry of Presence" and answer the question that many teens have "Will someone be there with me??".  It is the best way to help KP achieve their mission and ministry.  To contact Kevin Festerling you can reach him directly at 414-507-4361

You can also visit - https://kplhs.org/
 
 If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a comment or, if you have questions for us to consider on the podcast, please email our host Mike Westendorf at [email protected]

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast of St. Paul's and The Bridge Lutheran church in Muskego, WI. For more information visit www.stpaulmuskego.org

For the past 20 years or so, our culture has been waking up to the impact and power of meditation and the Bible actually has a lot to tell us about that. This week we are joined by Staff Minister Jonathon Favorite of 922 ministries and we'll spend some time talking about his ministry resource called "Favorite Meditations". It is a guided meditation through portions of the psalms that anyone can participate in. In addition we will talk about the potential for Online community and online church and the spread of Christianity in powerful ways through the tool that is the internet. 

To check out Favorite Meditations please visit the link here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqXFXPmM-G2U0xqGEC3YaPw

If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a comment or, if you have questions for us to consider on the podcast, please email our host Mike Westendorf at [email protected]

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast of St. Paul's and The Bridge Lutheran church in Muskego, WI. For more information visit www.stpaulmuskego.org  

As we kick off the new season of Great Questions, Great Conversations, Mike Westendorf sits down to talk with Pastor Pete Panitzke about the sequence of events between Palm Sunday and Jesus Resurrection Easter morning.  Along the way in this conversation we will talk about some translation challenges that show up in the timeline, the topography of the area and the question of how many days. We hope this can be a helpful listen as you prepare to walk through Holy Week in your worship and personal devotion and Bible reading time.
 
 If you enjoyed this conversation, please leave a comment or, if you have questions for us to consider on the podcast, please email our host Mike Westendorf at [email protected]

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast of St. Paul's and The Bridge Lutheran church in Muskego, WI. For more information visit www.stpaulmuskego.org

Episode 40 covered the ins and outs of what Followership is and in this week's episode we will take a look at how it can be applied.  Our guest is Prof. Don Kudek of Wisconsin Lutheran College who has spent a large part of his career studying the role of followers and the importance and benefit of training people to be better followers.  As we'll see, a better follower requires leaders to lead with greater emotional intelligence that looks remarkably like the Bible's description of servant leadership.

While we take a little more look at the application in more of our business and cultural settings, we consider some of the takeaways for Christians as well.

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast out of St. Paul's/The Bridge in Muskego, WI.  You can learn more about our ministry at www.stpaulmuskego.org

If you have questions on this podcast or other ideas for future podcasts please email our host Mike Westendorf: [email protected]

Millions of dollars are spent every year in our country to developing develop better leaders.  And yet, even if you are a leader,  you spend much of your time following.  In some estimates, 80% of the successful outcome is dependent on the work of the followers.  So the question becomes, what is being done to develop better followers?  Especially when many people in organizations aren't trying to be a leader, but enjoy supporting the purpose of the organization and satisfaction that comes when doing their part in a team environment.

In this podcast, we will take a look at the concept of "Followership" with Prof. Don Kudek of Wisconsin Lutheran College (and St. Paul's member too!).  We'll talk about why this is an important topic in not only the business world, but in society in general.  Next week we will take a look at applications of this idea along with how it fits within a Biblical worldview and thus, helpful for Christians to consider what it means to be a better follower.

Great Questions, Great Conversations is a podcast out of St. Paul's/The Bridge in Muskego, WI.  You can learn more about our ministry at www.stpaulmuskego.org

If you have questions on this podcast or other ideas for future podcasts please email our host Mike Westendorf: [email protected]