musings on life and leadership by randy and joleen willis.

It has been fun to watch (or hear) Ethan’s repertoire of worship songs develop over the last 13 months.

At Annual Conference in 2009, I happened to be holding (then two-year-old) Ethan at the beginning of an evening service (giving him break from all-day childcare) as the band opened with “Trading My Sorrows,” a modern worship song. The song stuck and has been a staple in Ethan’s repertoire ever since! Ethan can often be heard singing, “Yes, Lord, yes Lord, yes, yes, Lord! / Yes, Lord, yes Lord, yes, yes, Lord! / Yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord, Amen!”

Funny thing, though, it’s only been very recently that he’s gotten one of the verses right. Instead of “I’m trading my sorrows / I’m trading my shame / I’m laying them down for the joy of the Lord,” he’d sing, “I’m trading for our sorrows” (not quite the message we were going for!).

A few months later, Ethan said in a somewhat panicked voice, “Oh no!” So I taught him the chorus of Matt Redman’s worship song, “You Never Let Go” …

Oh no, you never let go / through the calm and through the storm / oh no, you never let go / in every high and every low / oh no, you never let go / Lord, you never let go of me!

And again, ever since, he’s been singing the chorus of this song (it was the song we used in the music video we made for Ethan when we went to Korea to get Sarah last October). In the last few months, Ethan has started singing other parts of the song. Once during a meal recently, Ethan surprised me with a line from the song: “I can see a light / that is coming / for the heart that holds on!”

One other time (nearly a year ago?), Ethan sang part of another song that we’re not sure where he heard it (we didn’t have the song and hardly knew it ourselves). I finally tracked down the song a few months ago and it’s now one of Ethan’s favorites: “My Savior Lives” (the video of the song, recorded live, that we downloaded can be viewed here on YouTube).

When Ethan came home from Sunday school a couple weeks ago, he had a sticker on his shirt that said, “I know I can say kind things” (or something like that). I asked him what it said and he said, “I know … that my Redeemer lives” (words from “My Savior Lives”).

A couple days ago, while on vacation in West Virginia, we were in a playroom at the hotel. At first it was just the four of us. But soon another group of adults and children entered the room. Moments later, Ethan, who was working on a puzzle, started singing, “I know that my Redeemer lives / now I can stand on what he did / my Savior, my Savior lives!” and “Jesus, you are the only way!”

While traveling on vacation, Ethan has asked several times, “Can you get ‘My Savior Lives’?” Yesterday, while on the road, we went through the Ethan’s songs (a playlist on my iPod), which now includes eight songs, twice (apparently, it wasn’t good napping music, though).

Since Ethan seems to be good at learning song lyrics, we’re starting to memorize scriptures, verses from My First Read And Learn Favorite Bible Verses, which we’ve been reading with Ethan (and now Sarah) for almost as long as we’ve had Ethan.

We believe that we are formed by our practices and we hope that learning worship songs and Bible verses, as well as devotional practices, will shape both Ethan and Sarah (and us, too) into the people God desires us to be!

This is something we’re fairly intentional about. But it’s not something we *always* do well and I’m sure we could do better.

What practices are forming you? If you have children, what practices are forming your kids?

It’s Sunday and we’re on vacation so we needed to find a place to worship. It was an interesting process!

First, visiting churches has multiple purposes for us. With both of us being pastors, it’s a rare opportunity for the four of us to attend worship together as a family.

Because we are pastors, we do more than worship when we attend other churches — we also reflect and evaluate (it’s the way we’re wired)! Sometimes we’re thinking, “Uh oh, we do that, too — we need change that!” and other times, “That’s something we could try (or an adjustment we could make).”

To find a church today, I searched online (can’t remember the last time I used a telephone book) at 10thousanddoors.org, the UMC’s Find-A-Church service. I searched for churches near our location. Amazingly, there are 147 United Methodist churches within 25 miles of the local zip code.

I breezed through at least 50 church pages. It was a fairly quick process because the vast majority did not personalize their pages (every United Methodist church is encouraged to update/maintain their church’s info page), which means there was no information on most of the churches.

Most churches had average attendance numbers, which appears to be included for most/all churches by default. Because so few were personalized, I only came across a few churches that had websites or photos posted. In the end, after weeding out small churches, churches with no info, photos, or service times, we settled on a church located 24.5 miles away, Chapel Hill UMC in Buckhannon, West Virginia (by the way, we weeded out small churches only because we didn’t want to stick out too much while on vacation).

I’ll share more detailed reflection and evaluation on today’s worship experience with leaders at Centre Grove, but here, I’ll simply say it was a learning experience, including a couple adjustments I want to make in our worship service. I also want to review Centre Grove’s Find-A-Church page. We’ve personalized it and I think it’s okay, but I want to take another look at it fresh from this experience (and keep it updated).

What experiences have you had finding churches to visit on vacation?

Ethan was the first to spot a deer during a picnic lunch today. It stuck around long enough for a few photos, including this one …

The internet went down here sometime yesterday, so we’re posting our favorite photo from day 3 (our second full day here) a little late.

Unfortunately, we didn’t take the camera on the hike in the morning due to the heavy fog / light drizzle. I carried Sarah on my back for the 2-mile hike and Ethan hiked the entire distance on foot. The trail was listed as an “easy/moderate” trail but I’d say the only reason the word easy was used is because of the fairly short distance (1 mile out, 1 mile back). For a 3-year-old, I’d think it was “strenuous” (and the wet conditions only made it more challenging; we didn’t really get wet because of the thick tree coverage, but the ground was a little wet/muddy). It took us about an hour and a half.

This photo was taken from the upper deck during an evening boat ride on the lake.

Ikeep thinking I’ve written my last post in this series, but here’s yet another one. Maybe it’ll be my last (for a while).

I’m posting another update mainly because the week after the last post, I made significant changes to it — more in structure/grammar than in content. I think it feels more natural this way. I’ll be on vacation the next two Sundays, so it should be safe for a while!

I haven’t really defined yet what I mean by “desperate preachers.” They’re simply people who realize their desperate need for God in the preparation for and the preaching of God’s Word.

So, here’s the latest version of the …

Desperate Preacher’s Prayer Guide
Lord, may the preaching of your Word make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!

I …
Surrender. Yield. Humble myself. Am available. Am desperate. Give you my all.

Give me …
Clean hands. Pure heart. Power. Passion. Urgency. Courage. Compassion. Your armor.

Help me to be …
Useful. A conduit. A connector. A prophet (speak for God). A Truth-teller. Biblically-grounded. Spirit-filled. Clear. Focused. Concise.

Transform lives …
Saturate us. Penetrate hearts. Plant seeds. Stir up. Break apart. Tear down. Build up. Draw out. Produce fruit. Awaken. Revive. Renew. Transform.

To review earlier versions, see 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.

If you’re preacher, what do you pray before you preach? If you’re a listener, what do you pray leading up to or during the preaching of the message?

Yesterday, we went to Carlisle for a 3:00 p.m. hearing where Sarah’s adoption was finalized at the Cumberland County Courthouse. With Carlisle nearly three hours away, it was an all-day event!

Yesterday’s finalization was the final step in the legal process. It not only marks the end of Sarah’s adoption process, it also marks the end of a chapter in our lives that began four years ago. In the summer of 2006, we attended an informational meeting by Adoption Horizons in Carlisle, followed by the submission of a formal application to pursue international adoption six months later. Thirteen months after that, we flew to Korea to get Ethan (February 2008).

Toward the end of 2008, we started making plans for a second adoption, and in October 2009, we flew to Korea to get Sarah, whose adoption was finalized yesterday.

The hearing was short and sweet. It involved answering a series of questions after which the judge signed the order formalizing our adoption of Sarah. The final questions essentially asked if we knew what we were getting ourselves into and if we still wanted to move forward (although it was asked with a bit more elegance, I suppose). Among other things, the action changes Sarah’s name from her Korean name to Sarah. She also becomes an American citizen.

Judges tend to enjoy adoption hearings because there’s no opposing party and nobody walks away unhappy. It’s also a photo opportunity. We posed for a photo with Judge Masland (a United Methodist, we were told) after the hearing.

One of our favorite moments was when Ethan, just before the photo was taken, leaned over and tapped on the judge with his fist and said, “Knock, knock!” It’s generally not a good idea to hit a judge, but in this case, the judge didn’t seem to mind!

As we did for Ethan’s finalization, we went to Spring Garden Restaurant to celebrate afterward. Every time we go to Korean restaurants, we seem to get extra attention (as well as unsolicited parenting advice ).

Well, this final legal step is the end of a chapter. But the journey certainly continues. As does our gratitude to God!