On the Record with: ‘Pulpit Fiction’ Podcast host, Crystal Lake pastor Eric Fistler

CRYSTAL LAKE – Eric Fistler figured the only people who would listen to the podcast he started with a friend from seminary would be family and close friends that they could coerce into listening.

But the Christian podcast, “Pulpit Fiction,” co-hosted by Fistler – who grew up in St. Charles and in December became the pastor at First Congregational Church of Crystal Lake – and Robb McCoy of Two Rivers United Methodist Church in Rock Island, has accumulated between 1,000 and 1,500 listeners a week.

“I think, part of it, people are looking for just an open conversation, a struggle,” Fistler said. “Our approach is that we don’t have it figured out by a long shot. It’s mainly us struggling with it and challenging each other. It’s just a conversation between friends about the biblical text, which we both take so very seriously.”

Reporter Emily K. Coleman sat down with Fistler to talk about the podcast and his work as a pastor.

Coleman: Let’s start with why you decided to become a pastor.

Fistler: I got my call to the ministry when I was 17 years old. I had gone through a really difficult time, just some of the usual things that you go through when you’re in high school. Break-ups with girlfriends. Lost a job. I got into a car accident. I had some people very close to me die – that sort of thing. It was very hard, and I wasn’t sleeping well, as often happens. One night I went to sleep, and I woke up with the most deep and profound sense of just restful peace, and I knew I was going to be a minister.

Coleman: You said that your path in the church has been very unexpected. How so?

Fistler: First, when I went to college, I planned to go anywhere but Augustana [College] because that’s where my sister went. I looked at a lot of different schools and interviewed at a lot of different schools and got accepted at several different schools, but ultimately knew that Augustana was the place for me.

When I graduated seminary, I said, “God, I’ll go wherever you want. I just don’t want to work with children. Christian education is not my thing.” And my first call was to Edwards Church in Northampton, [Massachusetts,] as the minister of education, predominantly working at rebuilding the Sunday school. It was profound. It was great. It was exactly where I needed to be.

Each place when I feel like, ‘This is the moment I think this is exactly what God has in store; this is what I need to do,’ those are the moments when usually God pulls the rug out from under my feet.

Coleman: Is this where you see yourself settling?

Fistler: For now, absolutely. I mean, hopefully. The plan is to settle, set roots, but again, part of it is always open to God calls and where God moves.

Coleman: So how did the podcast come about?

Fistler: The podcast came about from a New Year’s Eve conversation. I’ll leave it at that. It was a New Year’s Eve conversation.

Coleman: I’m guessing alcohol was involved.

Fistler: I will neither confirm nor deny that comment [laughs], but yeah, Robb [McCoy] and I were together. He’s one of my best friends. We’re talking about church and things like that.

Both of us had served rural congregations, or rural-ish I should say. Both of us talked about how isolating the ministry can be and how we wanted an opportunity to engage in regular conversation, a conversation of pastors talking about the scripture for the week, because we missed that from seminary. That’s where the conversation began.

It’s really grown, inviting not just pastors but also anybody into a deeper engagement with the text and what it is saying for us today, how is it challenging us, how is it pushing us, how is it comforting us, and what is the good news in it. ... Then it’s grown, too, to now monthly.

We have interviews predominantly with authors along sometimes with musicians or professors or other pastors.

The Fistler lowdown

Hometown: St. Charles

Lives in: Crystal Lake

Family: Fistler and his wife, Nina, have a 19-month-old son, Samuel.

What did you miss most about the Chicago area?

I missed the food and how nice people are.

What is your favorite podcast besides your own?

I listen to a lot, a lot of podcasts. I have to say “RadioLab,” but I want to give a shoutout to a group called the “Frog Pants Studio Network.” They do a bunch of nerdy podcasts on everything from video games to a morning show to comics.