The Land of Ozz

One of the teaching pastors (Geoff Surratt) at Seacoast Church was pictured on the cover of a recent issue of WORLD Magazine. I follow Geoff and other pastors on Twitter and saw a note from him alerting us twits of some reactions to his picture being on the cover of WORLD.

Before I go any further I would like to say that Geoff and I are not very close and this response should not be taken as me coming to his defense even though it will probably sound like it when I am done. I have not always agreed with everything Geoff has said and done, but then again I do not agree with everything I have said and done either. Geoff and his wife have been a blessing to our family in so many ways. Geoff and Sherry have been a huge support to the GrowingKids parenting ministry and have served as class leaders for Secoast. Seeing a teaching pastor working along side of you in ministering for families in a church as large as Seacoast is inspiring. Geoff’s wife Sherry (also a pastor at Seacoast) was at the hospital with our family the morning Caden was born. Do you know how many babies are born each year at Seacaost? I don’t either, but I don’t think there are enough pastors to go around to all the births. Okay, we all knew that Caden was going to face some fairly unique medical challenges when he was born and the Surratts recognized the need to be there that day. Geoff and Sherry have joined the rest of Seacoast in loving our family through some really tough times in recent years and I am very thankful for that.

Now as for this picture on the cover WORLD Magazine, Geoff doesn’t need anyone to defend him because his response on his own blog does a great job of answering his lameness. I heard about the magazine cover story about a month ago while serving breakfast at a local homeless shelter with some fellow Secoasters. I have been serving breakfast at this shelter monthly for about two years straight. This kind of service is a very small example of the fruits coming out of Seacoast as a result of the leadership of folks like Geoff Surratt. The pastors at Seacoast challenge members to serve and love people where they are at. So while Geoff may look lame to some, the results of how God is using him and the rest of Seacoast is showing up in our community and in our families. I think the picture of Geoff on the cover of the magazine is a fairly accurate representation of who he really is based on my personal interactions with him. In my (not always) humble opinion, you can not pretend to be something you are not if you are going to stand up in front of people and try to help them grow in their relationships with Jesus Christ. In addition to being Biblically accurate, you have to be real, and you have to be believable. Seacoast pastors are all of these and they don’t all dress as lame as Pastor Geoff.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 12:32 am and is filed under Faith, Local, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.