I just wrote a post on our Missional in Suburbia website about how we spend money as family when we are going out in the evenings. Would love to hear your feedback there.
I am a pastor at The Well in Bucks County, PA and I am also a freelance web designer.
This blog has become a place for me to share my thoughts, reading notes and general reflections on life as a bi-occupational pastor/web designer. I also run the website: www.missionalinsuburbia.com where you might find some related material.
Visit www.toddhiestand.me where I post my personal images, videos, etc.And: The Gathered and Scattered Church
A few weeks ago the book And: The Gathered and Scattered Church showed up on my front step (that’s because I bought it of course). This book was written by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay of Adullam Church in Denver, CO. I was interested in this book for a few reasons.
First of all, we use the phrase “shaping and sending” in our congregation as a short description of what we are doing. I respect (from afar) what these guys are doing so I was hoping this book would be a bit of the struggles and successes they’ve had in trying to work this out in the context of their community. I wasn’t disappointed. I really, really appreciated hearing their story. They didn’t approach the book as “here is how we did it and why we are some awesome.” Rather, I felt like I was sitting …
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Is Evangelism a Dirty Word?
Tonight I hung out with a bunch of people from The Well and we sat around and talked about the scary, evil topic of evangelism. It’s funny, for some Christians “evangelism” is a dirty word and for others its like the …
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La Limonada – Tattooed On Our Hearts
I always love it when you meet someone and from that point on your life takes a difference course than you could have ever expected. About a year ago, at an IdeaCamp conference I was introduced to a young …
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Money and Discipleship.
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ViralHope Video
This year I was part of a book project called ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs. You can get it off the Ecclesia Press Website or Amazon.
This is the description of the book: “In ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs, fifty authors …
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La Limonada – Day 2
Today was our second full day in La Limonada with Lemonade International. We continue to talk about how we don’t have categories in our brain for what we are …
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La Limonada – Day 1
Today was our first day in La Limonada. The picture above is from the top of the ravine where we visited with a family who had lost their home in the recent storms. They are now living in a communal shelter …
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Lemonade International
Last fall I was at The Idea Camp conference in Washington D.C. While I was there I learned that there was some guy representing an organization from Guatemala called Lemonade International. Since our second son is adopted from there, and we had a desire to serve that country, …
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Cole’s Golf Swing
I haven’t really taught Cole how to swing a club. He’s basically taught himself from watching the pro’s on TV.
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Short Survey on Missional in Suburbia
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In the Name of Jesus: From Relevance to Prayer
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What’s for Breakfast?? (Thoughts on Selfishness)
It seems to me that the world trains us to be pretty selfish, individualized people. Thomas Merton writes about this as he describes the problem of pride,
“The self must be treated as if, not merely in feeling but in actual fact, the whole universe revolved around it…If I am …
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Cultivating a Missional Leadership Culture
Download a PDF of this blog post here: Leadership Culture
This post summarizes a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an …
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Missional Leadership Culture – Leading in and With the Congregation for the Sake of Others
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative …
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Missional Leadership Culture – Risk and Failure
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative …
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Missional Leadership Culture – Decision Making and Change
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative …
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Missional Leadership Culture – Working as Team
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative …
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Missional Leadership Culture: Introduction
This post starts a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the …
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White Flight? (and the call of the suburban church)
A few friends sent me the link to this article that points out that white, young males are fleeing the suburbs and that, while the burbs still
“tilt white…for the first time, a majority of all racial and ethnic groups in large metro areas live outside the city. Suburban Asians … -
Hola! Send Us to Guatemala!
This summer we (both Melanie and I) will be heading to Guatemala City with ten other people from our church. From June 20-26 we will be serving some of the poorest people in the world in Central America’s largest slum called La Limonada. We need to raise approximately $600 …
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ViralHope & What is the Good News to Suburbia?
I am honored to have been able to contribute to a really exciting book project called ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Suburbs. This is exciting for a few reasons, it is the first time I’ve …
