Today, my son and I took a (now annual) trip to Dover, DE to see the NASCAR Nationwide Series race. It was a beautiful day and a great race. Since I had a zoom lens, I took the opportunity to take some pictures that give you a little picture of the diverse group of people who attend these races. Mullet + Stache = Awesome. This guy is rocking this classic look with total confidence. Well done my friend, well done… The Mullet II Add in the Oakley’s with the flames on the side and you’ve got yourself an awesome combination! Down Home You can’t see it but this stylish woman is knitting. I wonder if she’s knitting a #88 on a flame pattern. Oh, and...Read More →
Archive for May, 2009
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May 30, 2009
A Short Introduction to NASCAR Fashion
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May 29, 2009
Barna Describes Casual Christians
George Barna, in a recent interview sent to me from your friend and mine JR Briggs, says the following when talking about the group he calls “casual Christians”… Casual Christianity is faith in moderation. It allows them to feel religious without having to prioritize their faith. Christianity is a low-risk, predictable proposition for this tribe, providing a faith perspective that is not demanding. A Casual Christian can be all the things that they esteem: a nice human being, a family person, religious, an exemplary citizen, a reliable employee – and never have to publicly defend or represent difficult moral or social positions or even lose much sleep over their private choices as long as they mean well and generally do their best. From their perspective,...Read More →
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May 28, 2009
Throwback Thursday: Giving is Only As Strong As Your Mission
One of the things that is annoying about blogs is that once a post has been on your site for a few days, it gets buried under the new stuff and people tend not to find it unless they find it from google search results or from another form of link. This is a shame because most of us have some good stuff in our archives that would be worth reading again. So, I’m starting a new series here on my blog. It’s called: Throwback Thursday. Basically, each Thursday I’ll be posting a link from my archives that I’d love to share again. This week, since I’ve been doing a lot on giving here, I’m reposting a link to my post called “Giving is Only as Strong...Read More →
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May 25, 2009
The Natural: Cole Hiestand
At Bat: Cole Hiestand from Todd Hiestand on Vimeo. Cole is 5 1/2 and has been hitting like this for about a year and a half. He loves baseball and he asks to play almost everyday. Since we watch the Cubs all the time, his swing is a combination of Derek Lee and Alphonso Soriano. What impresses me most is that I have not really taught him how to swing the bat. He has pretty much learned from watching MLB players. The only thing I have taught him are my four keys to hitting (which I made up one day while we were playing) in the yard: Elbow up Bend your knees Watch the ball. Whack! I figure if he gets these down, he’ll be...Read More →
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May 23, 2009
Pastors in their Offices
“The initial locus and primary focus of [pastors] work is in their offices. Time-management studies again and again have confirmed that pastors invest a large percentage of their time in their offices – in meetings, in doing administrative work, and in taking care of administrative details…Pastors continue to spend so much time their offices because it is a familiar and habitual behavior pattern that has been nurtured and reinforced for many, many years. And the foundation underlying that behavior pattern is an understanding of the nature of leadership that is no longer helpful.” - Kennon Callahan, Effective Church Leadership Of course. I wrote this post from my office (which is actually a starbucks).
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May 22, 2009
Blogging on the Good News
JR Woodward has been running a great series on the Good News over at his blog the last few months. Some good people have contributed. My effort appeared on his blog late last week. You you check it out here.
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May 22, 2009
Are American Christians Selfish?
The book Passing the Plate is addressing the “generosity problem” of American Christians. The authors claim (and I believe them) that their research shows that if American Christians were more generous, we could change the world. They write, “We estimate that if committed Christians in the United States gave 10 percent of their after-tax income – fully but no more than 10 percent – that would provide an extra $46 billion per year of resources with which to fund needs and priorities.” Whoa. That’s a lot of money eh? They go on to state six facts that they find in their extensive research. Here they are: Fact #1 – At least one out of five American Christians – 20 percent of all U.S. Christians –...Read More →
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May 21, 2009
The Furious Longing of God
I’m almost embrassed to say that I have never actually read a book by Brennan Manning. From what I gather a lot of his books are the same lyrics but just to a different tune. If that’s true, its just fine with me because he’s writing about something that seeminly takes a lifetime to grasp. And, if I can summarize this book (The Furious Longing of God) in one sentance, its this: God loves you like crazy. To me, that’s one message that we just can’t hear enough and can’t be reminded of enough. Someone, i forget who, once said that “Sometimes we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed.” Brennan Manning seems to take this advice and I’m thankful. God....Read More →
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May 21, 2009
What Role Does Confession Play in Your Life?
I’ve been working with someone in our church to take a long hard look at the culture and practices of we’ve developed in our church around the issue of spiritual formation, spiritual direction and discipleship. In this, I’ve been doign some reading about how other denominations and traditions have approached this topic throughout the history of the church. One book that has been immensely helpful is Gary Moon and David Benner’s book Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls. In this book, they give an overview of how spiritual direction is approached from different traditions. One thing that has surprised me has been how almost every tradition has a strong emphasis on some form of confession. Now, this probably shouldn’t have surprised me. But, its no secret...Read More →
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May 19, 2009
Life with Three Kids
We have three kids in our house. Three different personalities. Three different temperaments. One of them just sits there and sleeps most of the day. The other two go back and forth between being best friends and wanting to kill each other. The friends thing is amazingly cute and fun to watch. The wanting to kill each other thing makes Melanie and I want to jump out of a window. Who knows what will happen as the third gets moving, talking and into the mix. It’ll likely a combination of beautiful friendship and complete insanity. No matter what, this family is beautiful. And just when we thought things couldn’t get better… …We just got a dishwasher. Talk about living the dream. Now, if we could...Read More →
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May 13, 2009
Welcome Elliot James Hiestand
For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook you might not have heard that we now have three kids. Elliot James Hiestand was born on Saturday at 12:59pm. As you can tell from the images he’s quite a good looking kid. Here he is with his two brothers:
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May 12, 2009
The Next Steps for The Well
May 12, 2009 Dear Church Family, During our worship gathering on Sunday we took a break from our regular sermon series in order to look back at the early dreams and passions of The Well and to celebrate how God is making these dreams a reality. (You can listen to the audio on the church website here: http://church.thewellpa.com/podcast/the-history-next-steps-for-the-well/) The Well has four foundational values: Discipleship (we are a community of people becoming more and more like Jesus) Justice/Evangelism (we reach out and share the love of Jesus with others, especially those on the fringes of society) Locality (we are locally embedded in our neighborhood, especially through the use of our building) Unity (we are connected to the historical and global Church) On Sunday we focused...Read More →
