Author: Todd Engstrom

  • When Life Seems Strange

    Lately, I’ve found myself caught in a loop of thought: “Life shouldn’t feel this way.” But the truth is—it does. It feels uncertain. Disorienting. Foreign. And the more I sat with that, the more I began to realize: maybe that’s exactly the point. Scripture speaks of us as “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews…

  • Fluent in Feelings, Silent in the Spirit?

    Over the past several years, I’ve enjoyed the growing fluency in the language of emotion. Feelings wheels were used in a web design sprint I was involved in. Therapeutic language is more commonplace, for both good and bad. But this all is a vocabulary to help us name our experiences and emotion with nuance and…

  • Re-Formation: How is God Reshaping the Church Today?

    When we hear the word Reformation, our minds often go to the 16th century—Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and the dramatic upheaval of the Church. That moment in history was a turning point: The Reformation wasn’t just reform for reform’s sake—it was a Spirit-led recalibration around the authority of the Word and the centrality of the gospel.…

  • Jesus Has All Authority—Stop “Releasing” People to Do Ministry

    I was talking with two friends recently, and one of them was wrestling with something I’ve heard many times before: “I want to make disciples in my home… but I’m not sure if I have permission.” This kind of confusion is more common than we’d like to admit. In many churches, faithful believers are left…

  • Extra Ordinary Prayer

    “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face… then I will hear from heaven…” —2 Chronicles 7:14 In recent weeks, I’ve been praying with different groups across Austin—listening for hunger. Hunger for God. Hunger for His Spirit to move again. Hunger for awakening. And while I’ve…

  • Forerunning, Not Competing

    I recently got back from a spring break trip to Florida—family, friends, sunshine, the usual mix of chaos and rest that comes with traveling with kids. I left a day early, though. My oldest had a playoff soccer game, so I packed up and hit the road solo while everyone else stayed behind. That night,…

  • Lost and Led: Learning to Trust Jesus in the Unknown

    I hate feeling lost. I love leading. Recently, I found myself in an environment where I had zero familiarity—a dance competition for my daughter. Let’s just say I’m not exactly a seasoned “dance dad.” I showed up feeling like I had been dropped behind enemy lines with no map. The dance world has its own…

  • The Deadline Dilemma in Ministry

    I love deadlines. Others hate them. The word itself sounds ominous—essentially, cross this line, and you die. But where did it even come from? It turns out that deadline has a fascinating etymology. Originally, in the 19th century, a “deadline” referred to a literal boundary in prisons—if a prisoner crossed it, they could be shot.…

  • Thinking Out Loud: Groundbreaking

    I’ve always found ground breaking ceremonies a little funny. There’s a circle of people dressed in nice suits and fancy shoes, all wearing hard hats for a quick photo while they shovel a bit of dirt. It makes me scratch my head—why celebrate at the very start of a building project? And grand openings with…

  • One Body, Many Parts

    I am increasingly thankful for the way God has designed His Church. In recent weeks, as I’ve engaged in conversations and reconnected with old friends, I have been reminded of how much we need one another—not just on Sundays, but every day of the week. The body of Christ is not a theoretical concept; it…

  • Nostalgic Novelty

    I probably think too much, and my mind often takes the things in front of me and connects them to other ideas in really odd ways. And sometimes, I think I “discover” patterns. Lately, I’ve been pondering if this is a recurring theme in my own life and among friends. It seems like we’re drawn…

  • Hope that Does Not Put Us to Shame

    Early this week, I found myself staring at the daunting task ahead. A quarter of my time has already passed for support-raising, and as I evaluated the results so far, I felt the creeping weight of doubt. Will I reach the goal? Some days, it just seems insurmountable. To make matters harder, I was receiving…