Leading Conversations

A teenage promise forged in a camp chapel changed the course of Jeff Crandall’s life. From growing up with MLB legend Del Crandall as dad to drumming in one of the first Christian punk bands, Jeff’s story bends through unexpected turns toward a clear calling: serve people, build teams, and give small churches the tools they rarely receive.

If you care about worship that includes the whole room, about healthy teams in small churches, and about reaching people who feel forgotten, this conversation delivers both hope and handles you can use this Sunday. Subscribe, share with a leader who needs encouragement, and leave a review with one practical change you’re trying this week.

Arizona School of Worship

https://arizonaschoolofworship.com/

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A minute-long phone call from an unknown Phoenix number set off a chain of events that brought Garrett Nates back to Colorado to lead a 70-year-old church—and to champion a bold, sustainable plan to plant three new congregations in nine years across Northern Colorado. We open with the story behind that call and zoom out to the forces reshaping Longmont, a city wedged between Boulder and Fort Collins and serving as a gateway to the Rockies, where rapid growth has outpaced the number of healthy, gospel-centered churches.

Garrett walks us through his journey: a childhood conversion, a teenage identity wrapped in soccer, and the pivotal moment when being cut from a college team cleared space for calling. He shares how mission trips that used soccer as a platform led to his first experience leading someone to faith, and how mentors at Biola and Wheaton helped him discover gifts for teaching and shepherding. That path wound through a vibrant season in youth and discipleship ministry, then into a lead role at a church embedded on the campus of Miami University, before years of daily prayer led back home to Colorado.

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A camp quiet time, a seven‑minute first sermon, and a calling that survived Seattle headwinds, LA creativity, and an Austin reset—Eric Bryant joins us to trace a lived map of ministry that is honest, hopeful, and deeply practical. We open with his world in South Austin, where skepticism runs high and belonging often precedes belief. Eric unpacks how his team builds space for spiritual explorers, why no‑phone camps still change lives, and what it takes to disciple people in a culture allergic to churchy answers.

The journey moves through Seattle’s tough soil, where a planter’s heart met legacy expectations and taught hard lessons about change, patience, and the power of a single grandparent showing up for her grandson. Then to Mosaic in Los Angeles, where art met mission, a nightclub became a sanctuary, and young believers were deployed around the world. Eric shares the thrill of multiplication alongside the cost of an unsustainable pace—and the counseling, boundaries, and honest conversations that realigned his marriage and ministry.

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Hurt and hope can live in the same room, and sometimes that room is a borrowed auditorium in the heart of Seattle’s tech campus. We sit down with pastor and church planter Tyler Gorseland to trace a winding path from AA basements and a late-teen encounter with Jesus to launching A Seattle Church surrounded by Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Google Cloud. Tyler opens up about layoffs, the slow work of healing after the Mars Hill collapse, and why his community refused to sprint past grief to chase growth. The result is a church that learned to name pain, practice forgiveness, and become a harbor that sends.

We get practical about “church hurt”—what it is, why it’s inevitable in real community, and how forgiveness works not as a feeling but as obedience that sets us free. Tyler shares how planting in South Lake Union forced a rethink of ministry: embrace the churn, disciple deeply and quickly, and send people well. From a co-working space that functions like “church without Jesus” to a discipleship training approach built for a transient neighborhood, he walks through the choices that turned constant turnover into a mission advantage.

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A clear plan, a humble posture, and one simple patio moment—that’s how a baton gets passed and a church keeps moving. We sit down with James Grogan, lead pastor of EastLake Church in San Diego, to explore what healthy succession actually looks like when a larger-than-life founder hands leadership to a different kind of leader, and why clarity and security beat charisma and ambiguity every time.

James traces his path from a vibrant Illinois pastor’s home to two summers of nonstop preaching reps, then into the diverse fabric of South San Diego. He shares why he paused planting to learn inside EastLake’s thriving culture—and how that decision compressed hard lessons into an apprenticeship that still bears fruit. We dive into the written, date-bound succession plan that worked because both leaders were secure: the outgoing pastor gave authority away freely, and the incoming pastor didn’t grasp for titles or control. The result was continuity, trust, and momentum.

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The story starts with two very different paths to faith—one raised in church but resistant to ministry, the other the first Christian in her family who woke up changed at seventeen. Those paths converged years later, when we compared dreams on a first date and said the quiet part out loud: we felt called to plant and pastor a church. The only mystery left was where. The answer became Chicago—its food, architecture, and energy, yes, but also its honest mix of beauty and brokenness. For Sarah, returning to her hometown felt impossible until a moment looking down from a departing plane turned resistance into a clear invitation: come back for redemption.

They moved in 2019 with a solid plan—team, timeline, funding—and watched it collapse within months as the pandemic swept through the city. Our people left. Support paused. The playbook evaporated. What remained was presence: loving literal neighbors, sharing backyard meals, praying simple prayers, and letting a table culture do the work a stage couldn’t. That season changed our approach and our hearts. We traded a metrics-first mindset for formation-first habits, asking what God wanted to build in us before anything He might build through us. Humility, integrity, and self-awareness became non-negotiables, and a small daily prayer—“God, give me one connection”—kept us moving with faith instead of frenzy.

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Sean Morgan's path from disillusioned churchgoer to ministry leader unfolds as a powerful testimony of God's patient pursuit. Growing up in a Christian environment but becoming lukewarm in his faith, Sean details three pivotal incidents that pushed him away from organized religion—a church staff member abandoned during divorce, an elder involved in a murder, and a youth leader refusing to support a troubled young person. For years, he maintained belief in God while rejecting His church.

The turning point came during an unforgettable spiritual encounter at 3 a.m. on a Pacifica beach, where Sean finally surrendered to God's call. What he imagined would be a brief year or two helping his local church blossomed into nearly a decade of full-time ministry before God redirected his path to serving multiple churches.

Now leading the Ascent Leader, Sean creates transformative cohort experiences where pastors find authentic community away from boardroom politics. His longest-running group has met faithfully for over nine years, demonstrating the power of peer ministry relationships. "The living room environment is always more relational and connectional and honest and pure," Sean explains, contrasting it with the pretentiousness that often characterizes organizational leadership spaces.

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Dominique Beaumont's life reads like a modern-day parable of divine orchestration. Born to a severely schizophrenic mother who worked as a prostitute, Dominique bounced between foster homes until landing with a Pentecostal foster mother who introduced him to church. What followed was nothing short of miraculous—at just eight years old, he felt drawn to ministry, organizing "churches" with his cousins and stuffed animals, complete with offering collections and maple bar communion.

The podcast takes a stunning turn when Dominique reveals a recent discovery. After conducting an Ancestry.com DNA test, he learned his biological father was the founder of a prominent Los Angeles gang. Though his father passed away before they could meet, Dominique discovered his father had written a book revealing his own spiritual journey and call to ministry—an incredible confirmation of the inexplicable pull toward preaching Dominique had felt his entire life.

Despite his early calling, Dominique's path wasn't straightforward. During college, he rebelled against being known as "preacher boy," joining a fraternity and distancing himself from church. It took a supernatural encounter during graduate school in Las Vegas to reignite his commitment to ministry. Now, he's planting a church specifically targeting those who, like himself, didn't experience faith through traditional family structures—foster youth, young adults, and those needing transformational encounters with Jesus.

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Andrew McDonald never imagined he'd become a pastor, let alone a church planter. Growing up in eastern Canada, church was something you endured weekly while wearing uncomfortable clothes—a religious obligation completely disconnected from daily life. After pursuing what he thought would bring fulfillment—parties, marriage, career success, and material possessions—he found himself at 22 with everything he'd wanted yet feeling "empty and hollow."

In a moment of spiritual honesty, Andrew prayed what he calls "the worst prayer I ever prayed," asking God to make him need God. Within a month, his life collapsed as his marriage ended, his company went bankrupt, and he lost everything. But instead of becoming bitter, Andrew recognized something profound happening: "While everything in my life was chaos, there was a sense of peace and purpose that I experienced in the midst of the brokenness."

For leaders wondering if they're on the right path, Andrew offers this hard-earned wisdom: "Just because you're a good communicator doesn't mean you're good at communication," and "just because you are a gifted leader doesn't mean that you are leading well." His journey reminds us that authentic leadership isn't about executing our perfect plan, but about recognizing when God is redirecting us toward something better. As he puts it simply: "To us it makes no sense, but God knows better than we do."

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The power of the local church to transform lives sits at the heart of Spencer and Sarah Green's remarkable story. When a youth pastor Spencer only knew as "the more than enough guy" (because he always brought extra pizza to school) became the lifeline that saved him from suicide, he discovered what genuine Christian community could be. Having lost 33 loved ones to addiction, violence and suicide, Spencer found in the church what his broken family couldn't provide—acceptance, belonging, and purpose.

Sarah's journey contrasts sharply with her husband's. Raised in a Christian home, her faith crumbled when her severely disabled sister suffered endlessly from complications of bacterial meningitis. "By middle school, I never doubted God existed, but I hated his guts," she confesses. Through patient mentoring at the same church that would later save Spencer, Sarah rebuilt her understanding of God's character, recognizing His presence even in suffering.

When these two met in college and discovered they attended the same church, they had no idea God was weaving their stories together for a purpose. Unlike many church planters motivated by dissatisfaction, the Greens planted from gratitude: "The local church saved us. It is family, and there has to be more churches like that because the world needs it."

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