[00:00:00] Nathan King: Welcome to the Wholehearted Way podcast, brought to you by the Wellspring Group. I'm Nathan King, a facilitator of Wellspring programs. One quick announcement before I introduce today's guest: this is our 11th and final episode of our first season of the podcast. It's been a thrill to interview a great set of guests on matters of the heart over the last few months, and we're looking forward to many more episodes in the future.
[00:00:30] Nathan King: As a new show, we know we can make it better, and we are eager to get your feedback on how to do so. You can go to feedback.wholeheartedwaypodcast.com and let us know how we can improve, what your favorite episode was, and we've got a few more questions in there as well. The link is also in the show notes for today's episode.
[00:01:00] Nathan King: Our guest today is Will Reinmuth. Will is the founding pastor of All Souls Community Church in New York, which launched in 2009. He is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary and the Redeemer City to City church planting fellowship as well. Co-hosting today's episode is Laura Arnold, who is the Director of Research and Development at the Wellspring Group. Will and Laura, welcome.
[00:01:25] Laura Arnold: Thank you.
[00:01:26] Will Reinmuth: It's great to be here.
[00:01:27] Nathan King: Will, I want to start in a very specific place. You're at a Christian retreat, I think it's in 2021—the retreat's called "The Battle for the Heart" and it's at Sandy Cove. At this point in your career, you've been preaching the gospel for 20 years, and then you see a movie clip from the film Blood Diamond. Take us into that moment that followed the clip. What was actually happening inside you?
[00:01:54] Will Reinmuth: That moment was life-transforming for me because I think watching that clip put on the screen in front of me what I had already always believed God believed about me—and I didn't realize it. So let me explain.
[00:02:12] Will Reinmuth: In the scene, there's this guy whose son is taken as a hostage by these warlords in Africa. He's confronting his son who's got a gun out, pointing it at his dad. And he says to his son, like, "You're my son. You're going to come home with me. I know what they made you do, but that's not who you are."
[00:02:37] Will Reinmuth: The thing that shocked me in that moment was that son was terrified of what his dad's response was going to be to the "monster" that he thought that he was, because of the things that he had done and the things that had been done to him. I realized in that moment that that's what I had believed about God my whole life. And I didn't know it.
[00:03:04] Will Reinmuth: But what I knew was the distance. What I knew was the heart that was turned off towards Him. What I knew was the way that I protected myself. I had the "gun" out. I didn't know that I was actually believing that God, my Father, was thinking the things that I was thinking about myself. When I saw that clip, it utterly destroyed me. I went back to my room and I cried for like 45 minutes.
[00:03:41] Will Reinmuth: It finally put words to this deeply held lie and fear that even though I had preached the gospel for 20 years, there was grace enough for everyone else, but there wasn't grace enough for me. I'd never said those words out loud, but something about that process made me ready to actually see what was underneath. Yes, it crushes you, it destroys you, but it also puts you back together.
[00:04:14] Laura Arnold: Wow. Will, I can feel my heart literally racing hearing you share that story and imagining having lived all those years with that deeply held belief unaware. As you were in your room, what did that feel like in those moments that followed?
[00:04:36] Will Reinmuth: For a really long time, I would have expected that to feel like shame. My body and my heart had walls up, and I knew the walls were up, I just didn't know why. The lie is, "Hey, if you bring down those walls, you're going to feel shame." But that's not what I felt at all. I felt the love of God like I've never felt it before. He said to me, "That's never what I thought of you." It was like I expected hell and I got heaven.
[00:05:22] Laura Arnold: What is happening right now as you take us back to that room?
[00:05:25] Will Reinmuth: Just wonder. You can get in touch with the deep pain that those lies are tied to, but it's not pain in the sense of living in that place—it's utter wonder at the love of God that has so transformed me and set me free from weight I didn't realize I was carrying. You know, I'm a believer, but I was just stuck.
[00:05:54] Will Reinmuth: It's that notion Paul brings out in Colossians 3: "If therefore you've been raised with Christ... put to death the old way." That was the old way that God wanted to put to death in me. And it was a true death. I died in that bed, and I rose in that bed. And you can't go back.
[00:06:17] Nathan King: You've been formally trained, very methodically, in the gospel and rich theology. To spend your waking hours on these topics and yet have this massive "blind area"... What do you think explains how we can be trained and yet not really grasp it as richly as you grasped it in the aftermath of that picture?
[00:06:48] Will Reinmuth: There are layers to that, but for someone like myself, we spend so much time in our training in our heads—training ourselves to think rightly. That's important, but where my education was lacking was in spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is experienced. It is in relationship. It's the difference between religion and relationship. If you go to church to check a box, you're doing a religious thing. But we meet because we have a relationship with the living God.
[00:07:29] Will Reinmuth: Part of the "secret sauce" of Wellspring is that they take Jesus's model of teaching in parables—stories that help you see yourself in the story—and they use movie clips to do that. It's so disarming. I'm tempted to stay in my head. I can tell you all the right answers; I give the tests now! But there was this gap—the "longest 18 inches" from your brain to your heart.
[00:08:00] Will Reinmuth: The Wellspring model of taking the elevator down to the place of your gut, your deepest desires, and learning to be honest about them... that was part of the process of recognizing where the trauma happened and all the protective strategies I had built around my heart.
[00:08:24] Nathan King: Will, you said "deceptive desires" and "lies." For people not familiar with Wellspring, what makes that 18 inches such a long trip?
[00:08:44] Will Reinmuth: It's because we build a wall around our heart to protect ourselves because we've been hurt. And that trauma teaches us lies. In response to those lies about ourselves, about God, and about our world, we make "vows"—promises we make to ourselves about what we're never going to let happen again. Most of that is subconscious. That's why there's this gap between what we know and where we're willing to go. In a lot of our hearts, it's like a house with a lot of rooms that are locked, and no one's allowed in. Not even you.
[00:09:25] Nathan King: And when you talk about lies, where do we find that in scripture? What's the biblical basis for these "lies"?
[00:09:32] Will Reinmuth: It starts from the very beginning—the "Garden Lie." From the very beginning of humanity, when Adam and Eve have intimate communion with God, here comes the devil who speaks lies about the identity of God. "Did God really say?" In other words, "Can you trust Him? Is He holding out on you?" If He's holding out, then you need to act in a way that protects yourself. In so doing, you're believing a lie, you're telling a lie, you're living a lie. And the result is always separation and shame.
[00:10:14] Will Reinmuth: This is the pattern we're living. We've bought into this belief that God is holding out on us, so we have to do something to protect ourselves. We all build a wall. Wellspring helps to simplify how all of our hearts and minds think: identity, value, and purpose. Those are the issues at stake in the Garden and when the devil's tempting Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus comes to restore all three.
[00:10:53] Nathan King: You mentioned getting in touch with feelings. Is that new to this shift in you, or have you always readily touched emotion when talking about important things?
[00:11:04] Will Reinmuth: I'm somewhat atypical as a guy that way, but I come from a family of "fighters." A lot of families "flee" or they "fight." Aggressive anger feelings were comfortable to express; others maybe not. What Wellspring has given me eyes to see is the deep desires of my soul that God alone satisfies. Even as a Christian, I was running after all these other things because I was afraid He wasn't going to give me those things. I'd never say that out loud, but I would feel it. There was a deep level of resentment I had towards God.
[00:11:53] Nathan King: When you say you could "feel" it, were you consciously aware or was it just a sense?
[00:11:58] Will Reinmuth: I'll give you two concrete examples. One is intimacy. I had a certain level of intimacy with God, but it wouldn't go any further. I loved God, but there was always something there. Connected to intimacy is discernment—the ability to hear His voice and feel His embrace. I would hear people talk about it, but there was something in the way. What was in the way was this huge lie: that I was a "monster" like that child in the movie.
[00:12:44] Will Reinmuth: He knew what was done to me, and He knew the life I lived because of it. The enemy of our souls is a child abuser. He gets us when we're kids and we're vulnerable, and he teaches us those lies. And then, in my case, I was beating myself up because I didn't act like an adult when I was a kid. The truth is, shame wants to keep it in the dark, but God wants to bring it into the light and set you free.
[00:13:19] Nathan King: That's a heavy reality. How do these beliefs operate when you don't really recognize that they're there?
[00:13:30] Will Reinmuth: They just win. If you're going out to battle and the enemy army is behind you and you never turn around to see them, you've lost. You're walking around with this huge weight you've been convinced you have to carry. It feels like shackles, but the whole time you are the one holding them on you. Wellspring helps you to put them down.
[00:14:02] Will Reinmuth: I've watched it, I've been in the room and wept with guys who say, "I never used to cry, now I cry all the time!" Praise be to God. Tell your wife I said you're welcome.
[00:14:15] Nathan King: I laugh because I can remember being on an airplane watching Shrek or something and just crying. But now, I know there are things I can say in response. If I don't say them, the person who has shared emotion is going to be wondering—they're in a vulnerable spot. It's the community around the person that can really guide them: "What was it that touched you about that?"
[00:14:55] Will Reinmuth: I love how you're sharing that because you've highlighted a primary tactic of the enemy: to make everything about me. When someone else is crying, I might think, "That makes me uncomfortable." Who is at the center of that? Me. Instead of loving the person in front of you and recognizing it's not your job to fix them. Here's one really awesome tip I learned from a Wellspring coach: Stay curious. Just ask questions.
[00:15:35] Will Reinmuth: Wellspring calls it "covering." I see you've just taken a step of vulnerability, so I want to cover you and let you know that I see you. The more we've done that, the more all of us have grown. I watch my kids do that with one another now. It just rings true and sets the captives free.
[00:16:04] Laura: I'm imagining what a gift you and your wife have given your children. Your vibrancy comes through so richly.
[00:16:22] Will Reinmuth: Thank you. My mentor said to me years ago: "Your job as a parent is not to teach your kids how much Jesus loves them, but to show your kids how much Jesus loves you, so that they will be jealous for what you have." We run hard after Jesus because His love is better than life. What matters most is knowing Christ and watching your family know Him.
[00:16:58] Nathan King: For somebody who's listening and they're getting in touch with the reality that there are walls in their heart... what would you advise them? What's a step they could take?
[00:17:10] Will Reinmuth: The most important spiritual discipline I've learned is silence and solitude. Creating space to sit with the Lord and ask Him what He wants to say to you, and then actually expecting that He's going to respond. He's our Dad. He's not a theological idea.
[00:17:40] Will Reinmuth: Sadly, this is not something a lot of pastors get trained in. I've spent 20 years going through curricula and Bible studies, and not that there isn't value in those things—they just don't deal with the depth, the pit, the stuff that's keeping you anchored in hopelessness. So my second piece of advice is: Come check out Wellspring. [00:18:15] Will Reinmuth: You're going to get "soaking" for a long period of time—nearly a year—with a small group of people in these truths and these tools. There's so much healing and joy that happens. I want to love and protect my leaders from the stuff they've been hiding underneath that gets triggered under the weight of leadership. It's changed the way we do everything.
[00:18:55] Nathan King: "Covering" is letting the person know they are not alone.
[00:19:05] Will Reinmuth: We have a little mnemonic: "I AM SAFE." Identify, Affirm, or Share. But you're not taking over the conversation. You're just saying, "I see you, you're not alone, and I'm in your corner."
[00:19:25] Laura: Will, what's underneath the emotions you're feeling right now?
[00:19:30] Will Reinmuth: See? She did it right there! Just a deep sense of gratitude. I feel redemption. I hear God's "well done." We spend our whole lives not looking at the stuff that's in the way. Now we get to not just look at it, but move it out of the way. That is life to the fullest.
[00:19:59] Nathan King: Will, it's been a privilege to have you on to tell your story. I feel inspired to go deeper with my own heart. Thank you for the inspiring sharing of your experience.
[00:20:15] Will Reinmuth: It's been an honor. I felt seen and safe. Thanks for loving on me and for the opportunity to give testimony to the King of Kings.
[00:20:30] Nathan King: Amen.
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