John Miller, in his book, QBQ, the Question Behind the Question, tells the following story:
When Stacey was 12 years old, she and her father, a pilot, took off on a Sunday afternoon joyride in their single engine Cessna. Not long into the flight, and about a mile up over Lake Michigan, the joy of their father-daughter adventure came to an abrupt halt. Stacey’s father turned to her and in a calm, reassuring tone he said, “Honey, the engine has quit. I’m going to need to fly the plane differently.” Interesting phrase: “Fly the plane differently.”
Her father understood that new challenges and changing conditions often require different strategies. Conditions change, markets change, people change. What works one day in a given situation does not necessarily work the next. We need to develop a repertoire of responses so were prepared when our engine unexpectedly quits.
Like John, I absolutely love the phrase, “Fly the plane differently.”
All four of us are in seasons where new challenges and changing conditions may require different strategies. So let’s talk about change.
Here are a couple of other great thoughts: Penelope Trunk says, “We don’t owe it to the last generation to keep fighting their fights. We owe it to the last generation to thank them, and then move on.”
And check out this link about four types of spiritual change.
Speaking of change, imagine being a pastor receiving one of these two letters:
“I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it. Last Sunday’s new hymn - if you can call it that - sounded like a sentimental love ballad one would expect to hear crooned in a saloon. If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this - in God’s house! - don’t be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship. The hymns we grew up with are all we need.”
This letter was written in 1863 and the song they were concerned about was the hymn “Just As I Am”.
Another letter said:
“What is wrong with the inspiring hymns with which we grew up? When I go to church, it is to worship God, not to be distracted with learning a new hymn. Last Sunday’s was particularly unnerving. The tune was un-singable and the new harmonies were quite distorting.”
This letter was written in 1890 and about the hymn “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”. (Read even more about the controversial organ here.)
I look forward to your ideas, as well as the wonderful changes sure to come from everybody’s freinds, the politicians.
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So being the newly married guy out of us four I have to be the sappy, “I’m in love,” ‘my heart beats for her’ type of guy. And for this week I want us to remember the greatest of times. I was speaking with a close friend a while back about marriage and the sacredness of it and it got me thinking about my marriage and the pathway that lays ahead.
