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 Well
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October 21, 2011
Towards a Discipleship Framework
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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 →
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February 25, 2010
The Well: What Are We Doing?
A semi-concise, not perfect, overly-wordy description of what The Well is all about… I have said many times throughout the last couple years that I would rather work nowhere else than at The Well. You could make me an offer to work full-time with a $120,000 salary in a well established, very respected congregation and I would turn it down to work here part-time. I just love this community and I’d give my left arm to be part of it (I’d prefer not to have to test this commitment!) However, sometimes I have had a hard time putting words to what makes this community special and unique. When I find myself in conversations with people who do not know much about The Well, the conversation...Read More →
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August 24, 2009
Scripture & Culture Seminar with Guder & Crouch
I’m breaking out of my blogging slump to make sure you know about a conference/seminar that I’m really looking forward to. On Saturday October 24, 2009 from 10 am to 4 pm The Well and Renew Community will be co-hosting Dr. Darrell Guder and Andy Crouch for a conversation about Culture and Scripture. The event will be at The Well in Feasterville, PA (a suburb NE of Philadelphia). In the morning, Dr. Darrell Guder (Dean of Academic Affairs at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of the seminal work The Missional Church) will help to answer the question: How do we read and interact with Scripture as communities of faith? After lunch, Andy Crouch, author of the book Culture Making, will wrestle with the question: How...Read More →
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July 9, 2009
July 2009 Update on The Well
I’ve posted a new update on some of the things we are focusing on at The Well, the church community I am part of. You can read them here. Enjoy.
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June 25, 2009
The Ol’ Pastor Swap
This weekend I am swapping pulpits with Rev. Greg Holston of St. Matthew United Methodist Church in Trevose, PA. St. Matthew is a predominately african-american congregation in our town that we partner with on occasion. Pastor Greg will be preaching at The Well, which I will be very sad to miss. I heard him preach at our combined Easter Sunrise service and he was awesome. He has a great handle on the scriptures and the gospel and preaches it with a ton of passion. I know The Well will be blessed and challenged by him this weekend. Part of the deal is that I get to head over to preach to his community. I’m tremendously excited about this as I love being given the opportunity to speak...Read More →
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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 →
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April 22, 2009
My Interview at The Idea Camp
When I was at The Idea Camp in LA I had the privilege of sitting down with Cynthia Ware and talking a bit about our church and our mission. Disclaimer: I’m bad with dates off the top of my head so i don’t know that the years in this interview are totally correct. :) The Idea Camp – Todd Hiestand from The Idea Camp on Vimeo.
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December 15, 2008
Surprised by Scripture
I never cease to be amazed at how scripture surprises me. Over the last two years we’ve preached through Exodus, Acts and now we’re finishing up Ephesians. Each of these books (especially Exodus and Acts) have had some seemingly difficult, boring or irrelevant passages in them. Exodus and Acts had more because they are narratives. Each time I would come to one of these passages I would get frustrated that I had to preach it. But, like I said, the scripture never ceases to amaze me. I have found that out of those passages come some of the most amazing truths, stories and thoughts about faith and mission. Yesterday morning at church I had the “privilege” of having one of these difficult passages again. This...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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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 →
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August 15, 2008
Update on the Poverty Forum, Missions Trip, Anniversaries, The Well
So, I’ve had a few crazy weeks and blogging has been on the way back burner as far as priorities go. I need a short break from working on my sermon so here we go… This will serve as a summary and update of my last two weeks. Mission Trip To Suburbia I posted recently about our week long missions trip to suburbia. We basically spent the week serving in Lower Bucks County. We worked with different housing groups and social service agencies. A highlight for me was the evening we spent with the “Chapel and Chow” folks at Philadelphia Park Racetrack. There is apparently a chaplain there (Jack) who has been quietly serving the workers of the racetrack. Most of the workers are immigrants...Read More →
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July 21, 2008
A Suburban Missions Trip
A few years ago I wrote a post asking what it might look like to have a suburban missions trip. Well, in about two hours we will be begin our first missions trip to suburbia. I’ve gotta be up front here. I’ve done very little to make this happen other than maybe share in the creation of the idea and what kinds of things we might do (I forget who thought of it and that’s really irrelevant). Gary (my now blogging co-pastor) has done an enormous amount of preparation for us to spend the next 6 days working with 9 different non-profits in suburban Philadelphia. We have about 25 people from The Well who will be participating in serving others in our own neighborhoods. Thursday...Read More →
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July 21, 2008
Suburban Blog Worth Reading – Gary Alloway
I would be remiss (and a jerk) if I didn’t mention that my co-pastor, side-kick, friend and all around good guy Gary Alloway is now blogging. For those of you know Gary, you know that this is a big deal. A few thoughts about Gary and why you should not only visit his blog often, but subscribe to his blog in your RSS reader: Gary is awesome. Gary is funny. Gary kicks butt as a pastor. You can learn a lot from Gary. Gary thinks you would be cool if you read his blog. Gary is a city guy at heart intentionally living in the suburbs. This brings an amazing dynamic to his leadership in our setting. Ok. Go read his blog. Now. I’m certain...Read More →
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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 →
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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 →
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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 →
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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 →
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June 15, 2008
Zambia Interary
This is the tentative itinerary for our team while we are in Zambia so that you can pray more specifically while we are gone. I might be posting updates here on my blog during the trip if time and technology allows. In case you missed it, there are two main goals for the trip: The first is the immediate interaction with those we are speaking with and meeting. Obviously the goal here is that we can be an encouragement and begin many friendships that where we can learn from each other. A lot of our interaction will be in the areas of leadership development and pastoral encouragement. The second is that this trip would be another step towards a long-term partnership between The Well and...Read More →
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May 21, 2008
Growing Generosity vs. Meeting the Budget
A friend and I were talking through some of the characteristics of The Well today and he made an observation that was very, very encouraging. He said to me, “I love The Well because our focus is on generosity vs. meeting the budget.” I think this is a big difference that is also very subtle. I think this is seen in my previous post on the stimulus checks and the church that asked for them. The issue here is that this church’s main goal is not to merely increase generosity. Their main goal is to meet their budget and get out of their deficit. It’s not that meeting their budget is contrary to growing generosity. I just don’t think the best way to grow the...Read More →
