I’ve been working on the following thoughts for the last year or so and I am honestly apprehensive to even publish this because it has morphed and changed so much over the last year. It’s far from perfect but I’d love to hear your thoughts to improve it and tighten it up a bit. Discipleship as the Bottom Line “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” Colossians 1:28 The church, in the context of its missional calling, must work with all its energy to present people fully mature in Jesus Christ. I think we can say...Read More →
Category: The Church
-
October 21, 2011
Towards a Discipleship Framework
-
June 29, 2011
The Primary Task of the Church?
“We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” Colossians 1:28 The church, in the context of its missional calling, must work with all its energy to present people fully mature in Jesus Christ. I think we can say that mission without discipleship is ineffective and discipleship without mission is pointless and honestly can’t really even be called discipleship. It was Alan Hirsch who said, “I have come to believe we are never going to be the movement Jesus wants unless we first et the issues of discipleship right. This is because the health and growth of transformative...Read More →
-
March 4, 2011
What is the Form and Function of the Church?
A community that is guided by the scriptures. Without the scriptures, we’d have no direction or compass. Its our family history. It’s gives us a trajectory for our future. When we read the scriptures we read them in community with a missional bent. A community that is dependent on the Spirit. Without the dependence on the spirit, the church is merely wasting its time! God sent the son, the son sent the spirit, the sprit sends the church. A community where people are learning to become disciples of Jesus. We’re learning to do the things that Jesus would do if he were us. A community that is incarnational rather than attractional. If you build it they will come just doesn’t work in post-Christendom. A community...Read More →
-
February 28, 2011
Submission in Leadership
One of the major early themes in The Imitation of Christ is that of humility. I will be honest. I am not a big fan of humility. Humility is one of those things that constantly seems desperately out of grasp. Just when I feel like I am getting close to understanding it and getting it, it moves further away from me. As a pastor however, I know its the one thing that I need the most. It is the one thing that fights against most pastor’s greatest temptation: Pride. It is a strange thing that pastors and leaders struggle so much with pride. We are supposed to be the ones who are most grounded in the scriptures, grace and truth. I think therein lies the...Read More →
-
December 2, 2010
Diversity, Unity and Submission
I can’t believe it’s been almost nine years since I met Laurence Tom. LT, as we call him, in a Chinese-American pastor in Chinatown Center City. I met him while we were in seminary. I should actually say I met him while he was in seminary as I am still in the process finishing my degree 10 years later. The wonderful thing about our friendship is that while we have very similar beliefs on leadership, mission and theology we come from very different backgrounds and we lead in very different contexts. I come from a semi-fundamentalist upbringing where I am a 5th generation pastor. I grew up in white-suburbia where my pastor was a proud dispensationalist graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary. LT was raised in...Read More →
-
June 24, 2009
It’s Official: I’m Going Back to Starbucks
It’s hard to believe but I have been a pastor at The Well for about nine years now. In those years, I’ve served at The Well on a part-time-paid basis. This has been an intentional model for us as it allows our church to have a more diverse staff and leadership. This has served us very well as our other part-timer, the one and only Gary Alloway, complements my gifts really well. I can truly say that being “bi-occupational” has been a great asset to the mission of our church community. (By the way, I use the term “bi-occupational” instead of “bi-vocational” because I believe that my vocation as a Christian is “witness.” What I do for pay does not change my vocation. My vocation...Read More →
-
November 26, 2008
Mental Illness & The Church
For the last five years I have had a friend named Michael who has been part of my life. We’ve lost touch recently touch due to some circumstances but his friendship has been one of the more challenging experiences of my life. See, Michael is a paranoid schizophrenic. He hears voices. He called my phone one day cause his therapist told him he should try out our church. The therapist thought it was a “wellness” church. I thought that was kinda funny but I obviously reached out to him. However, I’ll admit that this is one of the hardest friendships I have ever had. Why? Because frankly he doesn’t have much to offer back. He’s very needy and very high maintenance. He can’t drive. And...Read More →
-
November 7, 2008
The Church: Shaped by Prayer?
This month (Nov. 16th) we are meeting as a community at The Well for our quarterly discussion on issues that are important to our mission together. We call these meetings Midrash meetings. This month we’ll be addressing the issue of prayer in our community life. Our mission statement reads “…a community shaped my scripture and by prayer…” We’ve got some big time room to improve in being a community that is actually shaped by prayer. In preparation for this gathering, I’ve been doing some reading on the subject and picked up the late Stanley Grenz’s book on prayer called “Prayer: A Cry for the Kingdom.” It’s really a great book and here is a collection of short excerpts from the introduction. The greatest challenge facing the...Read More →
-
September 22, 2008
Children, Families and Worship
This week at The Well we had a child / parent dedication. We do dedications in a pretty cool way and I’ll write about that this week, but I wanted to share something I wrote that outlines our overall approach to children, worship and community. Children & Families at The Well There is no question that children are a precious gift from God. Because of this, how they fit into the life of our community is no small matter. At The Well, we believe that the family is the best place for spiritual formation of children. It is the role of the church community to partner with parents in helping children to love God and love others. Therefore, our goal is to work alongside parents...Read More →
-
July 14, 2008
What are Some Practical Examples of What it Means to be Missional?
In the comments of the last post, Jim asked this question: “I’m just beginning to try to help my established congregation turn itself into a missional focus. I really like the notes and presentation, but where I struggle is where your presentation leaves off…what does this look like practically…what are the practices your community is a part of…in what ways is your community different in appearance, look and action than what I see going on in my established non-missional congregation? just looking for some practical, concrete things I can point to as I think about helping my congregation move in another direction.” This is really a great question! I began to make a comment but realized it was really long and figured it may as...Read More →
-
July 14, 2008
Intro to the Missional Church Class Notes
This past weekend I taught a class at The Well called, “An Introduction to the Missional Church.” It as basically a very broad overview of the topic and a crash course in how we structure things here at The Well and why we do the things that we do. I’m more than happy to post my notes here (At hte request of a few friends) because, well, most of this stuff is borrowed from people who are much, much smarter than I. I’m really not sure how much you’ll be able to get from these notes if you weren’t there but hopefully you can get something… For the record, it was John Chandler who provided me with the idea for the outline of the class....Read More →
-
July 11, 2008
How does the gospel judge suburbia?
I’m working on a class at The Well for tomorrow that is basically serving as an introduction / overview to missional theology. It’s been a blast to put it together and I think we’ll spark some great conversation about our specific context and calling here in suburban Philadelphia. Of course, I’ve been looking back through a few of my Newbigin books and came across this gem in The Open Secret: “The day-to-day worship and word and witness of the local church has to be developed in relationship to all these in such a way that it becomes credible to the inhabitants to the local culture as a sign, instrument and foretaste of that one universal reign of God that is the true origin and goal...Read More →
-
July 6, 2008
The Great Sin of the Western Church?
Last week I wrote about the way that my Zambia has effected me and one of the things that came from it is that we’re hosting a new small group in our house on Sunday nights. We were talking in this new group about how easy it is to departmentalize our lives and so easily miss how the gospel actually calls us to live differently from how we are. Thoughts went to things such as the crusades, the church in Nazi Germany, the white church and segregation during the civil rights movement, etc. Here’s the question that came to us. In 200 years, what will be the great sin that our culture has been blind to? The more we talked, the more it seems likely...Read More →
-
July 2, 2008
Are You Rioting with the Suburban Mob?
Okay, its been about a half a week since I’ve been back from Zambia. I’ve not done much deep writing around the trip because there is so much in my head that I am just trying to sort it all out. Sunday morning, I preached a mess of a sermon that I am hoping made sense. I really tried to share my heart and what God is doing with Melanie and I since I’ve returned. The sermon didn’t record for some reason so I’m going to try and lay it out in a shorter version here: Thought #1 – The culture in Zambia is beautiful and they get worship, prayer and community better than we ever have. Its part of their DNA. It’s beautiful really....Read More →
-
July 1, 2008
Forum on Suburban Poverty
We’re doing our summer missions trip this year a little differently. We’re going to the far away land of Feasterville, PA! Yes, that’s right. Feasterville. The hotbed of today’s youth culture… or something like that. Two years ago we went to New Orleans. Last year we went to Philadelphia. Next summer looks like another trip to Zambia. But this summer we’re staying local. Gary has lined up a week full of serving the poor in our suburban area and its shaping up to be an awesome week. One of the highlights of the week will be the Thursday night when we are hosting the “Bucks County Forum on Suburban Poverty.” We’re basically bringing in four local leaders from different types of organizations and will have...Read More →
-
June 28, 2008
Final Zambia Reflections
I am finally back from Zambia after two weeks of spending time with Pastor George Palo of Harvest City Church in Ndola, Zambia. I have a ton in my head and I have to say that these two weeks will likely turnout to be a watershed moment for the lives of the Hiestands. You’ll have to be in church tomorrow to get my more complete reflections (or listen online when i post it) but here are some major themes/thoughts: Community Sunday night was awesome as we sat around the fire sharing stories with the men from Harvest City Church after studying the scriptures together, taking communion and praying for one another. They told some awesome stories about the community and life in the bush. From...Read More →
-
June 21, 2008
Zambia Update: Saturday, June 21, 2008
I am sitting in nice cosy guest house that we are in and just reflecting a bit on our last two days. Its been an encouraging and challenging two days as we have begun to meet with the Zambian people and specifically some of the church leaders. Last night Tom and I spoke at the leadership team meeting for George’s church, Harvest City Church. There were about 40 people there. Some were pastors and some were lay leaders. We spoke on the topic of leadership and creativity. As I wrote in my last blog post there is a challenge of having creativity as they seek to be witnesses to Jesus here in Zambia. This is mostly because the western missionaries brought with them a “correct”...Read More →
-
June 11, 2008
Envision 08 Conference Thoughts
I spent the last two and a half days in the sweltering heat at Princeton University / Seminary at the Envision 08 conference. This conference was described on their website as: “Envision ‘08 is about the power of the gospel to transform the public square. It’s about Jesus and justice, evangelical history and heritage, and practiced theology. It’s about the next one hundred years of the church and its impact on the common good.” I was pleasantly surprised at the conference. There was such a wide range of speakers and views shared but they were (relatively) hopeful and spent a lot of time trying to imagine a better future. I have been to enough conferences where there was simply deconstruction and this was refreshing. I...Read More →
-
June 3, 2008
How Does the Church Engage the World? Build an Ark?
I grew up with two kinds of music in my household: 1950′s rock and roll from my dad and the Gaither Vocal Band from my church. I loved the Southern Gospel of the Gaithers as a kid. Honestly, its kinda nostalgic to listen to these days. But, I was reminded recently of this song by the Gaither’s called “Build and Ark.” I am not sure if you’ve ever heard of this song, but here are the lyrics (video is at the end of the post): Build an ark Head for the open water Save your sons and your daughters Build an ark Build an ark When the storm is ended You’ll know the world has been mended Build an ark I’m tired of all the...Read More →
-
May 28, 2008
Ordinary People Answer 7 Big Questions
I read recently in Relevant Magazine’s article on 7 Big Questions. In this article they asked 7 questions of Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Frederica Mathewes-Green, Lauren Winner, Efrem Smith, Rick Warren. These are some big names in the evangelical world and its no surprise that everyone wants to know what they have to say. But, being a small church pastor myself, I am always interested in what the “no-namers” have to say. Men and women like my grandfather, who I consider one of the best pastors I have ever known, doesn’t get quite the voice that these people because he served in smaller communities. This is not their fault and its not his fault. It just is. I’m okay with that. I am...Read More →
