Reality check. Last night. 9:00 PM.
Scot: How long is the flight from New York to Moscow?
Steph: 12 1/2 hours.
Scot: Excuse me?
That’s longer than any flight we had last Summer. Dang. Time to grab a book and download some video to the iPod.
One week from today Steph and I will be in Moscow. Just typing that blows my mind. We will be visiting Pat and Kathy Black and family. While there I will be doing music and teaching at a school and a University. Does that make me a professor? Heck yeah.
Want to come along? You know you do. If you can’t swing the last minute flight, check back here every day. I will do my best to take you along for the ride thru the blogsphere. The internet connection is said to be slow, but I’ll give you what I can. We set out on Feb 28.
We would appreciate your prayers.
He was coming off of a heavy kool-aid buzz. I don’t remember his name, but I remember he was about 6 years old and hyper. Hyper is a mellow term. He was jacked up. Like a squirrel on meth. I was sitting next to him as the teacher talked about being well-behaved. This kid was squirming. Being his chaperone for the day, I had been talking to him the entire time, trying to turn down his energy. "Relax." I would say. "Listen to what the teacher is saying." With each instruction I would get closer to his face. "The teacher is talking about important things. You have to calm down and listen." I must have told him this at least ten times. Maybe a hundred.
He finally started to calm. The teacher continued to talk about how we need to tell people that we are sorry when we do wrong things.
A few minutes went by. I looked at the squirrel. He seemed to be listening. The teacher keep saying that we need to apologize when we have been rude.
He leaned over to me and whispered. "I need to tell you something. Then I need to say I am sorry."
Wow. The Squirrel was listening. It is possible that the speaker was getting through to him? I chuckled to myself. I knew what was coming. Squirrel-boy would say that he was wrong for being all wound up and crazy. Then he would apologize.
I bent down close so no one would hear his confession, it was just him and me. "Go ahead," I said, "What is on your mind?"
A pause. The Squirrel moved his face close to mine. I put my ear close to him. It was confession time. He opened his mouth and whispered in my ear.
"Your breath stinks. I’m sorry."
photo by mandj98
Above: A Spoof on The Office.
Above: Scot and Jack: Episode 1
Above: Scot and Jack: Episode 2
Above: Scot and Jack: Episode 3 (you don’t want to miss the ending).
Carlos at Ragamuffin Soul (one of the best blogs on the dub-ya), has a great post here, where he summarizes a recent talk by Jon Tyson. Given the current happenings at Willow, it leaves many of us scratching our heads (again). An excerpt:
The church with an Alpha male leading it is setting itself up for failure because the only person that can replace that leader when it is time is someone with equal qualities. A 10 replacing a 10. Therefore we need not build churches around great communicators but around 5 different pastoral leaders with different gifting. He named them.
Willow Creek is a prime example.
Bill Hybels steps down as Alpha male leader.
Hires 3 AMAZING communicators.
All resign after a while because they are only great. Not Hybels.
Bill Hybels now resumes Alpha male role.
So the main point is that there MUST be a rethinking of the current church model that is sweeping evangelical America.
Much to chew on.
Photo by Ruxor
You can tell much about a person in a simple conversation. Today I called my insurance agent for quotes on car insurance. Here is how it went down.
Scot: Hi Lois, I’m thinking about getting another car and I need some quotes on coverage.
Lois: Sure, what cars do you need quotes on?
Scot: ‘03 Honda accord
‘00 Lincoln
‘01 Buick Century
Lois: Buick? Oh no, you can’t do that.
Scot: Yeah, um. OK. Also, add an ‘05 Mustang to that list
Lois: Pause. Are you sure this list is right? You are all over the map here. Pause. Are you having an identity crisis?
If she only knew.
I’ll be in Indy this weekend, leading worship for Intervaristy and their Summit conference. This will be my second year at Summit and I’m looking forward to a great time once again. IV is known for exceptional content and a solid Biblical foundation in all of their stuff. If you are in the circle city this weekend, look me up!
I had a flashback last week. We are going paperless and are converting all our songs to Planning Center Online. In an effort to do so, I was going through several years of songs in my files to import them into PCO. On several occasions, I would pull chord charts from my hard file and say "We seriously sang this?" I’m not even going to mention some of the songs we used to do. The memories are just too brutal. I even found a song that I wrote and had forgotten about. Judging from the lyrics, it was just as well :>
Even worse, I have to wonder if I will be going through my files in 10 years and thinking he same thing of the songs today.
Shawn has been working like a dog to get everything converted to Planning Center Online. Once we are up and running (soon), I will post a review here.
Photo by spierzchala
Welcome to resonate!
My name is Scot Longyear and I'm the Lead Pastor of eXchange, a community of people following Christ and serving in His cause. We are a part of Maryland Community Church where I serve as the Sr Associate Pastor, a fancy title which, when translated, means “he who goes to many meetings.”
