I feel like I’m staying out of the way. I’m not going to meetings. But we had our first conflict about two or three weeks ago. Dave and Kyle thought our Easter services should be at 9:00, 11:30, and a 2:00. And I said, “2:00?” I’m preaching that weekend, and I said, “Who’s going to come at 2:00?” And I mumbled and grumbled. And they said, “Well, we’re really going to try to persuade people who have been here a long time to come to the 2:00 service to give room for a seeker to come the other two times.” I just shook my head and walked away. Then Sunday morning, one of the ushers came to me and said, “Bob, I’m in charge of getting ushers for 2:00. Nobody’s going to come at 2:00. What am I supposed to do?” And I said, “I didn’t choose it, that wasn’t my idea. That was Dave Stone — you go to him.”
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And then I immediately said, “What’d I do?!” That’s the very thing I tell staff people: “Be a team player,” but I was on the other end of that. I had to call Dave that afternoon and apologize. And I went to the usher and apologized to him, too. After you’ve done something, you’ve been the leader 40 years, and all of a sudden you’re supposed to be a team player, that’s easy in theory, but not always easy in practice.
Stone: The bad thing is I told my wife about the times and she said she agreed with Bob! We’re telling people this will be Bob Russell’s last Easter sermon. I said this is really his last Easter sermon, the last hour, the fifth of five, his last one. In addition to that we’re taking bets because He takes his afternoon nap at 2:00 on Sundays and we’ll have dandelions popping up on the screen!
Preaching: Personally, I think I’d be more of a 2:00 pm than a 7:00 pm person.
Russell: You could drive up here from Nashville!
Preaching: Dave, you’ve been on staff, partnering with one of the best Christian communicators in the country. How has that influenced and shaped your own preaching?
Stone: Well, you have to have some heroes to look up to in preaching. And you have to be yourself. After I’d been here a few months and my cadence and some of my preaching was starting to model his, he sat me down and said, “Hey, we already have a Bob Russell on staff. We hired you because you are Dave Stone and you have some gifts that I don’t have.” And that was the most freeing thing for a 27 year old kid to hear — that I could just be myself.
There’s no question he’s the best. I said that before I came to Southeast. I’ve never seen a person week in and week out hit triples and home-runs as often as he does. You don’t hear a bad Bob Russell sermon.