Posts by toddhiestand
Making coffee soda with your SodaStream and your Aeropress
I just bought a Sodastream and it has already made me a better person. I am now one step closer to sainthood because of it. This is not a hyperbolic statement. This morning, in a brilliant epiphany, I realized that I can make the coffee soda that I always get when I go to fancy coffee…
Read MoreThe Suburban Life is Not Normal
Over the last week or so I have been doing my best to listen and reflect in my own experience of life in America. It has become more and more clear to me that my experience does not reflect the experience of so many people in this world. Of course, I have always known this.…
Read MoreIncreasing Engagement In Your Marketing Campaigns
In our noisy, busy, over informed world, you can still create social media, email and marketing campaigns that will actually be opened and read by your donor base and community (and raise more money in the process)
Read MoreThree Essential Elements of Successful New Year’s Resolutions
If you are like me, your resolutions (whether they are for the New Year or not) constantly fail. Let’s look at three successful elements of what makes lasting change possible.
Read MoreWhen A Public Figure Doesn’t Agree with you. Oh the Horror!
I’ve been trying to place my frustrations from watching what happens to people when they disagree with a Christian Celebrity – or really any kind of Christian public figure. It’s amazing how crazy people get when they come across something this “celebrity” believes that they disagree with. I been saddened today as I’ve watched some well known…
Read MoreA few thoughts on PPSD – (Post Pastoral Stress Disorder)
A friend messaged me this afternoon… I call this PPSD. Post Pastoral Stress Disorder. Here’s a challenge: Don’t only meet with your pastor when you have something to complain about. In my unscientific research, I’d say that at least 90% of the time when someone wants to meet with a pastor, its because they “need…
Read MoreMy Journey into Never Writing
I struggle as a writer. Wait, there are already problems here. I am not sure its fair to call myself a writer. I think it would be more accurate to call myself an “aspiring writer.” I mean, I do not really ever write. I am now, of course, but this is literally the first time I’ve…
Read MoreOpen Your Door to the Problem of Racial Injustice
Dr. King once spoke the following words: “No American can afford to be apathetic about the problem of racial justice. It is a problem that meets every man at his front door.” This is so very true. However, so very many of us in the world have become so very good at closing our front…
Read MoreRacist Like Me
I’m afraid it will never go away He walks into the coffee shop, by instinct I prepare myself for what he might do. I do not try and think this, It just happens. I’ve been taught this way of thinking since I was a child. It was rarely explicit, but constantly implicit. Black skinned men…
Read MorePastors and All. The. Drama. Or, Why Pastoral Care Must Be Communal
I wrote a bit yesterday about how I have discovered that I don’t love the church just because I was a pastor. That said, the last few months of not being a pastor, has brought some areas of great relief. Let’s be honest, pastoring is not easy and I’m actively trying to pay attention to how I can support…
Read More