Todd Hiestand

Archive for February, 2008

• February 27, 2008

  Inspired by the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr

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  I’ve always been fascinated by the life and ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I just never imagined I would be able stand behind the pulpit where he began his ministry as a 26 year old young man. Today my dad, Gary and I took the afternoon off from our conference here in Pine Mountain, GA and took a little trip down to Montgomery, AL. Honestly, there is not much in this fine town. In the downtown, most of the store fronts are empty and the place was fairly deserted while we were there. But, despite the presence of current stores and people, the place is filled with the amazing history of the Civil Rights Movement. We all know about Rosa Parks and here...Read More →

• February 27, 2008

  How Not to Grow the Mission of your Church

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  I am in a seminar with Ken Callahan and we’re talking about growing and advancing the strengths of the mission of your church. Here are some notes that I think are helpful: When we are looking at a church, how do we improve our mission? Do we look for the weaknesses or the strengths? Where do we start. Most people would say we start with our weaknesses. This is the wrong approach. The usual approach we take to advance our strengths is: Preoccupation with weaknesses Compulsion toward perfectionism Misunderstanding of un-churched people Neglect some of the characteristics of a strong healthy church If this is your approach, what you have is the Natural Church Development approach. This approach, in a round about way, uses these...Read More →

• February 27, 2008

  Ecclesia National Gathering Audio

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  If you are interested, I posted the audio for the Ecclesia National Confernce with Alan Hirsch and David Fitch yesterday on the Ecclesia Website. Check it out here

• February 21, 2008

  William Willimon on Acts 5

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  I am preaching the ever dreaded passage on the death of Ananias and Sapphira this week: Acts 5:1-11. At the risk of giving away some of the big points of my sermon on sunday, let me share this quote from Willimon, “If money is some how linked to our idolatrous attempts to secure immorality for ourselves, it is also the occasion for much self-deceit. There is something quite natural about the lies of Ananias an Sapphira, for we all know the way we rationalize and excuse our own covetousness, acquisitiveness and greed. “I am not really that well off,” we say. “I have all I can do to just make ends meet.” “I worked hard for this and deserve it.” Our lies are a correlate...Read More →

• February 17, 2008

  Welcome to Media Temple

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  I’ve been using dreamhost since the beginning of this blog in December 2003 (yeah, i’ve been blogging that long!). Dreamhost has been a decent host for me so far but they have just had too many problems and too much downtime on their shared server for me to be happy enough. Though, I guess when you are paying as little as I was, you can’t argue too much. I recently bought a virtual-dedicated server with Media Temple and have been trying to figure out how in the world to use the thing. I finally spent a few hours getting my blog set up as a trial and will soon move some of my clients to this server as well. What is the difference? Well, there...Read More →

• February 13, 2008

  “Giving and Stewardship” in the Local Church

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  I’m doing a little talk at this week’s Ecclesia gathering here in Maryland. Here are some notes that I promised I would put on my blog. Six Motivations for Giving: Compassion (sharing, caring, giving, loving, serving) Community (good fun, good times, belonging, family) Hope (confidence, assurance in the grace of God) Challenge (accomplishment, achievement, attainment) Reasonability (data, analysis, logic, it makes good sense) Commitment (duty, vow, obligation, loyalty) Some extremely helpful books where I have stolen borrowed most of my thoughts: Giving and Stewardship in an Effective Church Effective Church Finances

• February 11, 2008

  I’m Officially 31

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  I forget what time I was born but it was sometime in the morning. This means that I am now officially 31 years old. All my bones are now creaking.

• February 10, 2008

  Community: Stop Making Excuses

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  I was at the bank last July to send a large sum of money to Guatemala as the last part of our payment for the adoption. As I was waiting in line the man in front of me, in somewhat of a panic, was pleading with the bank tellers to help him with his situation. He had apparently deposited a check earlier in the day for a client that he wasn’t supposed to deposit, and he needed that check back. From the way he was talking, he needed it back badly. He wasn’t being rude. He was just very intensely trying to plead with the tellers and let them how know big of a deal this really was. The tellers, while trying to help, were...Read More →