Steve Heyduck

A Dream I couldn’t shake

I am sharing this because I had a dream last night I couldn’t shake. It wasn’t a particularly weird dream. No flying, no falling, no sense of hurry but my legs are trapped in slo-mo.

Nope. The dream I couldn’t shake was simply pulling into a parking lot, turning left to back into a parking place. There was one other car on the small lot, and I was backing in to park next to it.

I hit that car as…

Who Is My Neighbor

Here are the images that may help make sense of the audio message from last Sunday’s sermon:

Am I a Racist?

I would like to tell you the answer to that question is “NO!”  But that might be a bit hasty.

I recently took the IAT (Implicit Attitude Test) for racial bias.  I did not do as well as I wish I had.

The IAT offers a variety of tests, all designed to identify the relative strength of a person’s positive or negative associations of a variety of issues.

I first learned of the IAT earlier this year…

I had the great joy the other day of witnessing a good thing happening: a child gave his mother a dandelion.

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Then, this even better thing happened. He realized what a good idea it was, and picked a second flower to give her.

Then, the bestthing happened: the mother received the flowers exactly the way they were offered – as a gift of love from her son. She…

Why can’t I get this door open?

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I have used this language before myself, but, when I recently heard someone say “God has closed a door…,” the metaphor generator that is my mind sprung into action.

The next thing I thought was, “I realized I couldn’t open that door because my foot was in the way.”

When you get to a closed door, or a door has been closed on your path, how do you know it was God…

Here is a story Andrew Root shares in his Faith Formation in a Secular Age: Responding to the Church’s Obsession with Youthfulness.

A bible scholar meets a young man who claims to have a deep love for Jesus. They talked for some time about his commitment, about matters of faith, and the Bible. When Sunday worship came up, though, the young man explained he rarely went to worship. Compared to the…

An Argument I Cannot Win

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As many as three times a week, I am tempted to argue with my kids. But in that particular setting, I know it won’t do any good. It would be to start an argument I cannot win.

We try always to eat dinner together as a family, even if I have an evening meeting. Then, when I do have a meeting, and I get ready to leave, nobody is happy. I would rather stay home; they…

“It’s not you; it’s me” is not all bad

I remember saying this at least once: “It’s not you; it’s me.” Like you might expect, I said this, at least in part, with the intent that the person with whom I was breaking up not to take it personally.

Like every relationship, though, the actual truth would probably have been more “it’s some you, and some me.

I thought of this about a week ago, as reactions and reverberations to The United…

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A funny thing happened on the way to a memorial service. I don’t even remember what we were talking about, but a granddaughter of the deceased said, “well, it’s not written in stone….” In that moment, I made a connection that seemed so obvious I was at once wanting to think more about it and also wondering how I hadn’t thought of it before.

The idiom “written in…

Time to let go?

There’s not much future for CRT televisions, as evidenced by this sight on the curb this morning as I drove by. And it’s not even so much that the television was put on the curb. What really struck me is that I doubt anyone will want it enough to pick it up.

Which was clearly the owner’s intention. They left the remote on top of the tv!

Since I welcome insight from just about anywhere, and since…

Good Decision, Poor Timing?

I just did something I need to do more often, but I’m not sure I picked the best time to start.

I was told a caller wanted to talk to me as Senior Pastor. This person had called for financial assistance and not gotten the answer they wanted.

Our church receives multiple calls everyday for financial assistance. We do not offer financial assistance, but do help people find other sources.

The caller…

“Does the Bible say rain used to come up from the ground instead of down from the clouds?” I was asked this morning. The idea rang a bell in my memory, so I did a bit of searching to corroborate the pieces of memory I felt forming.

A subset of Christians, and I think it is a small subset, holds the view that there was no rain before the flood, the preparation for which we find beginning in Genesi…

One of my favorite verses

Youversion sends me a verse every day. Sometimes I read it more carefully and thoughtfully than others. This morning’s caught me off guard a little.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

Maybe I should explain how it caught me off guard. After all, this is one that I’ve had committed to memory for almost 40 years. Why would it jump out at me today?

Because for…