This has been going around and I forget where I first saw it, but its a really well done introduction to the missional church. Too bad they didn’t use flannel graph.
Category: Missional
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March 6, 2010
The Missional Church Made Simple
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February 23, 2010
Ecclesia National Gathering & Diversity & Dallas Willard
Last week I spent 4 days at The Ecclesia National Gathering in Chevy Chase, MD. This is usually one of the highlights of my year and this year didn’t disappoint. The pastors and leaders in this network consist of some of my closest friends. Dallas Willard and Bob and Mary Hopkins were the featured speakers this year. We also had a lot of opportunities to hear from other leaders from within the network during the week as well. Of course Dallas was pretty mindblowing, in fact, I’m still processing all he threw at us and I’m pretty convinced that I need to read his new book to even come close to having a chance of comprehending what the heck he was talking about. I do...Read More →
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January 16, 2010
What Are Your Habits?
Sometimes I miss really obvious things. I think it is because of familiarity. You know, you see or hear something over and over again and you miss the significance of something. For example, most of you would know the name Dick Butkus (pronounced by most people: Dick Buttkiss). He’s one of the best Chicago Bears of all time and a symbol of the smash mouth style the Bears have tried to have over the years. Well, about two years ago, after being a Bears fan for my whole life, it finally hit me just how unfortunate this guy’s name is. I mean, Dick Butkus!? It doesn’t get much worse that than eh? How would you have liked to be him in grade school and middle...Read More →
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December 3, 2009
Teaching Your Kids about Giving To Others
Two weeks ago I posted on twitter that to be an activist without actually doing anything is hypocrisy. I was quoting a friend and I think the statement is meant to be a little overstated to make a point. The point is this, if you are gonna get all judgmental on other for not caring for the poor then you better be doing something. I’m not trying to be a prick or make people feel like crap. But, its just simple common-sense. Let your words and your deeds match up. So, after I posted that on twitter I had a good friend write me a message and say, “So, who are you giving your time and money to? Just trying to keep you accountable to...Read More →
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October 22, 2009
About One Day’s Wages
As I mentioned yesterday, on Saturday we are donating all the proceeds from our Seminar with Darrell Guder and Andy Crouch to two fantastic organizations that are committed to taking care of the poor. One of those organizations is One Day’s Wages. Below is a short video from the founder, and a friend of mine, Eugene Cho. Take a look at it and also check out their website. The Movement of One Day’s Wages from One Day's Wages on Vimeo.
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October 20, 2009
What Story Are You Living? Reflections on Don Miller’s Book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”
Like many others, I read Donald Miller’s book, “Blue Like Jazz” in about three sittings. That’s not only cause it’s an easy read, but mostly because he’s a great story teller. I enjoyed Don’s first book a lot (I can call him Don, after all, like everyone else who reads his book, I feel like I know him). But, I’ll admit I mostly enjoyed Blue Like Jazz, it wasn’t too life changing or transforming for me. But in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, he really struck a chord with me. In fact, I was hooked on the first page where he wrote, If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for a few years to get it,...Read More →
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September 6, 2009
Broken Eikons, Being Made New
We are made in God’s image. As eikons of God our role in this world is to point others to what God is like. This is our role in this world individually. This is our role in this world communally. “That’s community, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world.” ? – Henri Nouwen One thing I think is important to get in this is the individual and unique nature of you being an image. One of the truths that has changed my life more than anything in recent years is for me to understand that who I am and have been created to be is good. In fact, its very good. I can’t tell you how freeing it is...Read More →
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September 2, 2009
On Being Sub-Contextual
Sub-contextual. I am pretty sure I just made that word up. I may have stolen it from someone smarter, but I don’t remember doing so, so I am claiming it as my own. But, I think that’s the best way to describe our church, The Well. You see, we are a church in the heart of suburbia and, well, we aren’t very contextual for this culture. We’re not really very refined. We meet in an ugly warehouse (at least on the outside). We don’t cater to consumer mentality very well (we somehow miss the church-shopper circuit in Bucks County). We don’t have a super polished worship service (though it is awesome) and we certainly don’t have slick bulletins. You see, people who find a home...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 2, 2009
The Suburban Mob: A Year Later
It has been exactly a year since I put some of the most significant lessons that God had taught me in the last few years to words. It was called, “Are You Rioting with the Suburban Mob.” I’ve been reflecting on these thoughts and where we are as a family now, a year later. I can say that we have put some great effort into refocusing our lives and being aware of the culture we are living in and how it is offering a way of life that has some major roadblocks to a distinctly christian life. This has expressed itself in different ways. Some ways we have been successful and other ways have been harder. For example we’ve made great progress on living more...Read More →
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June 26, 2009
Revolutionary Road & Suburbia
Last night my wife and I watched the movie Revolutionary Road. I really didn’t know much about it other than it was a critique on suburbia. Wow, this is a movie that one needs to sit with for a while. Have you see it? What were your reactions to it? I loved the voice of the “mentally ill” friend who called out the suburban bluff. Interesting that he’s the one who is considered “insane.” The movie reminded me of my reactions to coming back to suburbia after being in Zambia last summer in this blog post here.
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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 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 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 →
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April 29, 2009
Church as Family
In the next few weeks I’ll be a dad for the third time. This is kind of a strange thing and, despite the size of my beautiful wife’s belly, it hasn’t sank in quite yet. I keep asking her, “are you sure there is a baby in there?” She keeps saying yes. I’ll trust she knows what she is talking about. We have a number of friends at The Well who have had babies in the last few months and when I look at the size of those kids I realize that it’s been a while since we’ve had an infant in the house. Cole turns 6 this July and Mason came home when he was 10 months (he’s adopted from Guatemala). That whole prospect...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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April 17, 2009
What is the Good News?
JR Woodward, a good friend, fellow church planter and fellow member of the Ecclesia Network has started a great series on is blog called “The Good News”. He has essentially invited a number of authors, theologians, pastors and writers to answer the question “What is the Good News” in 300-500 words. The cool catch is that the short article has to be written as if it were going to be an article in the local newspaper. So far, the entries have been really good. I’m working on forming my response for May 15th. Check out the series introduction here and a full list of contributers here.
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April 15, 2009
Bored in Suburbia?
Today Dave Gibbons wrote a post on the topic of Suburbia. He’s a great voice for this kind of stuff and in his post he addresses something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Boredom in suburbia. He writes, “And [suburban teens] are bored. . . this boredom’s outlet is doing something crazy often with activities that would impact their relationship with God and others. The spirit of adventure intrinsic in many youth is wasted in the lifestyle of the burbs, the American dream.” I think he’s right. My 5 year old is already saying he’s bored way too often. I also think he’s onto something we’ve been thinking through at The Well a bit when he writes, “My sense is that the greatest...Read More →
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March 31, 2009
Rethinking the Evils of Suburbia
Mustard Seed Associates invited me to write an article around the topic of Suburbia and the Missional church. Over the last few months I have started to realize that I needed to take a more positive approach to this topic. This article details a little bit of this shift. You can read the article on the MSA website here.
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March 31, 2009
Mustard Seed Associates Sampler on Suburban Missional Church
Mustard Seed Associates just published a series of excellent resources in their April 2009 “Seed Sampler” on the topics of the Suburban and the Rural Missional Church. This is an excellent collection of articles around these two topics. See the entire Sampler here. I am honored to have an article in this sampler that I wrote entitled, “Rethinking the Evils of Suburbia.” This article shares a subtle, but I believe important, shift in my thinking around this topic. I would love to hear your feedback. There are also a number of other excellent articles in the sampler that I have yet to dig into but I am looking forward to reading them. Happy reading!
