Category Archives: Discipleship

Hauerwas – Beyond “Friendly” Church

Posted on August 6, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

We continued working through Stanley Hauerwas’s essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as Disciplined Community.” (Link to audio) We began with a quick return to the second paragraph which we’d started on last week: That the church has difficulty being … Continue reading →

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Hauerwas on the Church “Standing against the powers we confront”

Posted on July 30, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

We continued working through Stanley Hauerwas’s essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community.” You can listen to the audio HERE. Hauerwas is talking about the church of our age (he’s writing in 1991, but it seems still … Continue reading →

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Three Simple Rules?

Posted on July 29, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

Since I’m working on a piece on Wesley’s General Rules I reread Rueben Job’s book Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living yesterday afternoon. It’s a tiny book –  fewer than 70 pages. It’s easy to read in a … Continue reading →

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Discussion on Hauerwas on Church & Discipleship

Posted on July 23, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

Tomorrow is Stanley Hauerwas’s birthday. Coincidently, we began reading his 1991 essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as Disciplined Community” today. This essay from The Christian Century can still be found online HERE. We got through most of page 1 … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Discipleship, Doctrine, Stanley Hauerwas, Theology, United Methodism | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lockean Self-Ownership

Posted on July 7, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

Do you think many Americans today agree with this claim of John Locke? “Every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of … Continue reading →

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Can We Argue with God?

Posted on July 1, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

How would Jonah’s story have been different if he’d taken time to engage with God, to ask questions and even to argue? Could he have come out the other side in a better relationship with God and with a better … Continue reading →

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You Gotta Have a Door! But…

Posted on June 2, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

The main text for this message is John 10:7-18 7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; … Continue reading →

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AI & Pastoral Education?

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

I ran across this piece at Mere Orthodoxy today. As far as “AI Coming” for transmission of information, I’m sure he’s right. He’s also right that there needs to be more to pastoral education than transmission of information. But our … Continue reading →

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The Gospel of John – Chapter 2

Posted on April 16, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

We continue our work in the Gospel of John. Here are links for our discussions in chapter 2: April 6 April 13 April 27

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Coming to Our Senses

Posted on April 7, 2025 by Richard Heyduck

In Luke 5:1-11 we see a story of Simon coming to his senses. By acting on Jesus’s word (against his inclination) and experiencing the work of Jesus in his life, Simon came to see himself as a sinner. Up to … Continue reading →

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