I’ve been devouring this new book I have by the late Edwin Friedman called “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.” It’s been one of those books that came at the perfect time for me as a person and as a leader. One of the many great topics he discusses is our society’s constant blame placing and lack of personal responsibility. When challenges and struggles come, we are constantly blaming others. He writes that good leaders don’t do that and take personal responsibility for the situations. I am beginning to realize that to be a strong leader/person, you have to be willing to take the responsibility when things go wrong. Too long have we been too quick to “displace blame.” While its really...Read More →
Archive for October, 2008
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October 31, 2008
It’s Not My Fault: A Word on Blame Displacement
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October 31, 2008
ESPN Linkage: My 15 Minutes of Non-Fame
Most of you know a recent blog post of mine was one of the links in this article on ESPN.com (go to #6 and click the link there). Needless to say, it was pretty cool. There was a bit of a traffic spike for me from the link but I’m almost sure that is because I wrote everyone I knew and told them to check it out. Then I posted the news on twitter and facebook. So, while I had about 150 hits from that one link, I am assuming most of you people were the ones doing the clicking. But, who really cares. I just think its cool that an author at ESPN the mag linked to my site. Most of you are probably...Read More →
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October 30, 2008
Book Recommendation: Linking Arms, Linking Lives
Read Me. I have received a bunch of amazon gift certificates so I’ve bought about 6 new books in the last two weeks. Soon I’ll list a bunch of them here. But I just wanted to take a quick post to recommend a book that I just started reading called “Linking Arms, Linking LIves: How Urban-Suburban Partnerships Can Transform Communities.” My friend JR Rozko recommended it and when he recommends a book, I usually do what he says. Most of you also know that I love talking about the suburban church and the challenges that we face in this context to live out a whole Gospel. This book is right up my alley. I have spoke with a number of urban pastors who look skeptically on partnerships...Read More →
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October 28, 2008
God Hates Philadelphia Sports Teams
Perhaps William Penn and God are in cahoots on this one...
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October 27, 2008
Super Christians? Nope, Just Normally Obedient.
We’ve spent the last couple days hanging out with Tim and Jenn Fidanzo who are from Portland, OR. We met them on Sunday morning when they showed up at our church. About four months ago, Tim and Jenn felt that God was calling them to give up to very well paying jobs, sell their belongings, buy a mobile home that runs on recycled Veggie oil (their last fill up came from Burger King) and travel around the country doing their best to love and care for the poor and homeless. They showed up at The Well because they saw that we have a weekly homeless ministry on our website. So, tonight, after plugging into our building since last night and today, they are heading down to...Read More →
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October 24, 2008
Church History Class – 400 years in 4 hours.
My co-pastor, the one and only Gary Alloway, will be teaching a course on church history tomorrow morning at The Well. The class starts at 9am and goes till 1:00. In those four hours he’ll be covering 400 years of church history from the end of Acts to Constantine. Gary is a history buff and is a great teacher so I know that it will be good. If you are in the area and you are interested, come on by! No need to register or anything, just show up at 9:00. There will be plenty of coffee…
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October 24, 2008
Reflecting on Adoption
Tomorrow we are celebrating our son Mason’s 2nd birthday. (His birthday is on the 30th though). It’s hard to be believe that he’s that big. It’s been a whirlwind since he came home to be part of our family (he’s adopted btw). He’s such a spunky kid and has a lot of personality. His smile and big eyes melt my heart. As I was thinking about his birthday, I started looking at some of the blog entries that I wrote when we were down in Guatemala meeting him and bringing him home. If you are new to the blog, you may have missed these. For me, reading them reminds me again just how much of a gift this child has been to our lives. So, in...Read More →
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October 23, 2008
How To Start a Blog…
So over the past few years I’ve had a number friends who have said they wanted to start a blog but they didn’t know how. There is always the “here is why I have a blog” approach and often people start out saying “i don’t know why I am blogging” or “I am not sure what to say” but others start out pretty well. So, because I am kind of a nerd, I went through some of my favorite bloggers and checked out their first post. I figure, if you want to have a successful blog, learn from the best. Here is a run down of how some my friend’s first posts: Uber-blogger Scot McKnight just jumped right in with a post about praying...Read More →
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October 22, 2008
Does God Close Doors? Or Are We Scared of Difficulty?
You may have heard the saying, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Well a simple search of the internet tubes you’ll find that there are many other versions of this. For example, when the going gets tough… the tough get knitting!” (my wife would be included in this) slime molds start synthesizing” (bet you didnt know that. I didn’t.) the tough find alternatives to slashing prices to entice home buyers in slowing markets.” the tough outsource” (why not when you can get labor for half the cost!) the tough revive 90210” (oh yeah! there’s a sure fire winner!) Despite these amazing examples, I’ve come the wonder if Christians need a new slogan. Perhaps this one: When the going gets rough, the Godly...Read More →
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October 22, 2008
My Article on Preaching and Politics on Neue Ministry.com
I was recently contact by the people at NeueMinistry.com to turn my recent blog post on preaching and politics into a featured article for them. So, I did a bunch of work cleaning it up and tweaking some thoughts and sent it over. I was happy to see that they published it today in the features section. You can read it here.
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October 21, 2008
My Workspace
One of the nice things about my line of work (pastor / freelance webdesigner) is that I get to work from anywhere. Most of my friends know that if they want to find me, there is a good chance I am at the nearby Starbucks. I’m a fairly social person so I like to be in locations where there are other people. But sometimes, I need to find some peace and quiet and lose all the distractions. The picture above is my “new” work space in my basement. I used to have all kinds of stuff on my desk and on that shelf you see. I had a ton of books, file shelves and other office type stuff. But, yesterday I organized my desk again...Read More →
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October 19, 2008
The Most important Jobs in the world (repost)
I had some weird, strange happenings with WordPress this weekend. So, this post has moved to a new url… http://www.toddhiestand.com/the-most-important-jobs-you-never-think-about-or-appreciate/01/
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October 18, 2008
Wasteful Spending?
Dorie Morgan, who I am proud to call a member of our church community has written a wonderful little reflection on spending in suburbia and reminds me of how we need to continually think carefully about our way of life. Oh, and I personally think her blog looks awesome too. (Yes, that was a shameless plug for my super-duper design skills).
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October 16, 2008
Learning to Read Like Daddy
Today is my day off so I’ve been doing my best to stay off the computer. While Mason has been napping and Cole watching a short video, I’ve been reading a new book that finally came by way of USPS today. I am the kind of person who has to read with a pencil in my hand (preferably a Pentel Forte .05 mechanical pencil as pictured above). If I don’t have a pencil, I probably just won’t read. Underlining really helps me concentrate, retain and also helps when I go back over the book later remember what I found helpful. I’ll confess it also makes me feel smart. Today as I was reading, Cole asked me why I was writing lines in my book. I...Read More →
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October 16, 2008
USPS Shipping Blunder
I’ve been waiting for a new book that a friend strongly recommended to me for the last week or so. But, my effort at using the Free Super Saver Shipping on Amazon.com didn’t work out in my favor. Go USPS. The book is called “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix” and Tim told me that he’s recommending it to almost everyone he meets these days. When I told him I was about to start reading it (assuming it was showing up that day) he told me to “hang onto my hat.” I don’t wear hats that often anymore but maybe I will when I read this book.
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October 10, 2008
Misusing the Word Missional?
Somehow I fear that the word missional is often misunderstood merely as “social justice.” That might be the fault of how we talk about that aspect of the concept. But, if we understand the church as “a sent community” then it entails so much more than that. Like I have said before, David Bosch’s book Transforming Mission is a really helpful text to understanding the concept. There is a short section where he addresses the holistic nature of viewing the church as sent. He writes, “[The idea that the church is sent] does not suggest that the church is always in and everywhere overtly involved in missionary projects. Newbigin has introduced the helpful distinction between the church’s missionary dimension and its missionary intention: the church...Read More →
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October 10, 2008
Resources on Suburbia
Today I spoke at Biblical Seminary for the installation of John R. Franke as the Lester and Kay Clemens Professor of Missional Theology. Gary and I will be discussing the challenges and opportunities the church faces in the Suburbs. In my talk I promised that I would post some resources for further reading here on my blog. So, here it is. This is a link to the paper that I wrote that started this whole thing for me. Books: Al Hsu has put together a fantastic reading list here. Tom Sine’s new book “The New Conspirators” is a great companion to this conversation. Some posts from my blog: Are You Rioting with the Suburban Mob? Four Movements of the Suburban Missional Church Personal...Read More →
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October 9, 2008
The Church as Sent: Five Important Thoughts from David Bosch
I’ve been reading David Bosch’s book “Transforming Mission” for almost four years now. If you are familiar with the book, you will know why its taken me so long to get through it. It is essentially a summary of paradigm shifts in how mission has been understood throughout history. It’s widely respected and largely identified as one of the most important books in missional theology ever written. My friend John Chandler and I talk about this book being required reading in order to get your missional drivers license. In fact, Steve Taylor, author of The Out Bounds Church, writes here that “IMHO no-one should be allowed to talk about emerging church until they have read this book. It is such an essential missionary text.” So,...Read More →
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October 9, 2008
The Connection Between Debt and Mission.
I’m becoming convinced that in suburban America one of the things that hinders our ability to respond to God’s call on our lives is money (and the mishandling of it). Too many followers of Jesus are so busy trying to keep their heads above water financially that they don’t have the freedom to live as generously as they really want to. We’re enslaved to our debt. This causes us to be over-worked and under generous and pretty even cranky. Living debt free is more than just the prudent, wise thing to do (though, it is that!). But living debt free is directly connected to our ability to more freely give our lives to God and to others. I know for certain that there are...Read More →
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October 8, 2008
Light Bulbs and Really Big Rooms
Sometimes I feel like we start life sitting in a dark room that is full of unlit light bulbs, except for one. This lone bulb gives off just enough light to see your immediate surroundings. With this light we see a small, fairly simple world. Not too much is complex. Not too much is complicated. Not too much is painful on the grand scale of things. Of course, since we can’t see the “grand scale” anyway, it is all we know. In this small world the very simple things can bring very great joy. Life’s traumatic moments consist of things like scraping your knee on the concrete while playing soccer and perhaps even something as tragic as someone taking away your Tonka truck. ...Read More →
