eXchange

Last Sunday, Nate Youngblood brought some great teaching on living a social life as a follower of Christ.   A special thanks to the musicians from Nashville and Salt of the Earth.  If you missed it, you missed a smokin’ good time. 

I am pretty excited about our 3 week series titled “From the Hill.”  We will look at some of the teachings of Jesus recorded in Matthew chapter 5,6, and 7, historically called the sermon on the mount.

 I’ll see you Sunday!

— Scot   

You can now get the daily life journaling scripture in podcast format. Think of it as your life journaling being delivered to you in audiobook format, daily.

The podcast links are tailored for iTunes, which is a free audio management and listening program that can be downloaded from http://www.itunes.com.

Head on over to the official Daily Devotions Podcast page by clicking here.

A couple weeks ago I shared some of the vision of exchange.  Here is a piece of that:

The vision for exchange is that we would be holy and pure – so that we represent God with clarity.

My vision is not that she will not be big and flashy – full of programs and empty of content, but rather exchange will be a place where God is so lived out in the lives of people that encountering him is a given. A place where you know that if you get your friends or family to be part of the community of exchange, it is just a matter of time before they become a follower.

I envision a movement of invisible people who love each other and love their neighbors to such a degree that God gets a better reputation.

I see a church who is know for what she is FOR, rather than what she is AGAINST.

We will be a church that is not known for the size of it’s building, but the scope of it’s love.

I see a church that is not program driven or purpose driven or music driven or teaching driven, but God driven. People ask “are you a teaching church?” “Worshipping church?” No, we are a group of people who passionately follow Jesus and serve his cause of loving people to himself.

I see a movement that captures the hearts of artists, designers, poets, sculptures, actors, and musicians. I see the church shaping culture through those artists.

To those who call themselves part of exchange, we have a responsibility to judge each other. For those outside of the church, we don’t have the right to judge you. We have the responsibility to love you.

I see a powerful movement that releases truth and fames God.

Will you be part of it?

– Scot

The flight from Guatemala City to Dallas was full.  I (Scot) volunteered off the flight in exchange for a travel voucher.  The team loaded on the plane.  I will follow them by six hours.  Before they left I collected all their digital pictures.  For the last hour I have been re-living the last week through hundreds of pictures.  A bald man crying in a foreign airport is not a pretty thing.

At one picture, I heard myself say out loud, “There you are.”  It was Juan Pablo.  He has been on my mind since I first met him.  Juan is around 3-4 years old and is a true orphan (his parents are legally out of the picture).  He resides at the Buckner Orphanage in Guatemala City where they take excellent care of him until someone adopts him. 

We stopped by and saw him on Thursday.  Juan was badly burned in an accident involving  propane gas.  He carries severe scars on his body, including most of his face.  The story is that his mother saw him in the hospital after the accident and decided that she couldn’t deal with him, so she left the country without him and never returned.  Juan Pablo was left with severe burns, several surgeries ahead of him, and no parents.

He had a small ball that he rolled back and forth to all of us.  He begged us to throw him in the air.  His laugh was infectious.  His smile, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

As I sit in an empty foreign airport, Juan keeps coming to mind.  I’m trying not to cry.  It isn’t working.

I stare at his pictures.  As hard as I try, I cannot see scars.  I see beauty.  — Scot