Viewing Party

We moved our viewing party to the church last night and over 100 people showed up! It was a pretty cool night rooting our boy Chris Sligh on. Everyone there thought he killed on his version of "Trouble". It was very nice that he got to dedicate it to his lovely wife Sarah, and she was there to experience it with him. Fox Greenville and Fox Atlanta were both in the house to cover the mania. You can check out the stories here and here. They also did a nice story on HPF and Seacoast guitarist, Adam Fisher. Here are some pictures of the fun after the show. Enjoy!

Tuesday

Fox Morning Show

I will be on the Fox Tennessee (Nashville) morning show tomorrow, so if you live in Titan's country, make sure you tune in and let me know what you think. By the way - I'm a HUGE Titan's/Jeff Fisher fan! :)

UPDATE:
I had a blast on the show this morning! Charlie Chase and Kellie Sutton at Fox 17 were very nice and asked great questions. I checked their website for the video to link to, but it looks like they do not post them. Sorry - you'll just have to imagine how great it is to talk to me. :)

FINAL UPDATE:
Imagine no longer, kids - Curt Miller from Tennessee Mornings was kind enough to post it on YouTube. Click here to see it.

The Big Idea

I am almost finished reading The Big Idea by my friends at Community Christian Church in Naperville, Ill. I will post a full review in the next couple of days, but I wouldn't wait for that - go buy it TODAY. It is that good. These guys are setting the bar for multiplying churches, ministries and systems. If you are a church planter, stop reading this blog and click this link right now.

What are you doing?!? Do you think that I can't see you're still here? GO!!!

Craziness

Oh my, will I have some fun stuff to write about the next few days! I have this feeling that it is just beginning...

Pics From This Week

TV truck in front of our house

Me being interviewed

Sarah getting interviewed

Idol night 1

Idol night 2

Here We Go...

What can I say - another night, another Idol party, another tv news truck in front of our house. I can't imagine what our neighbors are thinking about us. We'll see how many "For Sale" sign pop up tomorrow... :)

This time, they did a live remote from our living room for the 10:00 news. They interviewed Sarah, Chris' wife (and my assistant!), to lead off the story. She did an awesome job. For some reason, they put my face on there again. That can't help ratings. I will post the link to the video here tomorrow - along with some pics of the chaos that has become the Surratt house.

Oh yeah...Chris Sligh is in the top 24!!! How unbelievably cool is that?!? My friend, Chris, who two weeks ago was hanging out in our office every day because he didn't have internet at his house, is going to be famous now. I always knew that it was just a matter of time before he was "discovered", but this is freakin' ridiculous! I'm just giddy to be watching it all happen. On to the semifinals!

UPDATE: Here is the link to the news story. Click on the video "Local singer advances to Idol's top 24".

Top 40!

Well, our boy, Chris Sligh, is through to the top 40 on American Idol. I have to say that I think his group song was the best group performance of any season. I never thought that the BeeGee's could rock!

We watched it tonight at our house with most of the worship team from Seacoast, and a few other friends. The local Fox affiliate came out to film us and interviewed me about Chris for the 10:00 news tonight. I tried to not sound too stupid - it was really hard! :) We had a blast, and I will post the pics tomorrow.

I talked to Chris on the phone after the show, and it was fun to get his perspective on what they showed. I can not WAIT for tomorrow night!!!

UPDATE:
To see the Fox news story about the party - click here and choose the video "Chris Sligh fans throw Idol party"

What A Week

Wow - the last 8 days are just kind of a blur right now. It has been amazing and exhausting at the same time!

Last Sunday - I promised a big surprise for Seacoast Greenville, and I think I delivered! We hid Greg in the green room until it was time for the message - and when he stepped on the stage -the place went nuts! It was very cool to have him come up and be with us. He even tagged team with me for our Newcomer's Reception. Kinda cool to have the guy who started it all - tell the story of Seacoast. Oh yeah - we also had the most people ever on a Sunday!

After Newcomers, Greg and I got on plane and flew out to San Diego for the 3rd Coast-to-Coast Multi-Site Conference. Yes, I missed the Super Bowl. :( The things you do for ministry... There were over 700 leaders from 200+ churches exploring this new thing called multi-site. I was lucky enough to teach at 2 breakouts with Jason and Shawn. The coolest part, however, was seeing Mark Driscoll in person. The guy is a gifted communicator. A lot shorter than I imagined though. :)

Tuesday night - I caught the red-eye back to Greenville so I could be back in time for our First Wednesday service. There's nothing like getting up to teach on 2 hours of sleep! I hope it made sense to somebody... The biggest reason I wanted to be back though, was the chance to baptize 4 people during the service. That is definitely worth anything else I have to do!

Sunday - Had an awesome day all day yesterday. Worship was amazing at all 3 services, and there were as many people there as last Sunday! God is definitely doing something in our church right now. I'm just holding on loosely!

Tonight - had a great small group at our house, and 24 was 2 hours - woo hoo!!!

Now you can see why it's been blur. Also, this week could be more interesting than last. Keep your eyes on the paper and the tv. That's all I'm going to say about that!

It's Too Good

I heard a new one this week:

"The music at Seacoast is so good that it distracts me from being able to worship. I just listen to the music."

Ok...we'll start hitting some bad notes so you can worship...