MID WEEK MOTIVATION - September 24, 2025 (Marc Lewis & Cory DuBois)

You're listening to the Midweek Motivation Podcast from DeSoto Hills Baptist Church in South Haven Mississippi.

Here's your hosts Mark Lewis, david Burgess, laura Ulrich and Pastor Grant Stegall.

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast for September the 24th, here at DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.

I'm Mark Lewis, joined today with FedEx pilot and deacon chair at DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.

I'm Mark Lewis joined today with FedEx pilot and deacon chair at DeSoto Hills, Corey DuBois.

How are you doing?

I'm doing good.

How are you?

I'm doing great man.

We hope this programming can encourage folks throughout DeSoto County and beyond.

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Wanted to ask you how your summer went with the family, the summer was good.

We started out with late vacation to Pickwick.

We usually go to JB Coleman State Park, spend a week there boating skiing.

Now that I'm older, I don't participate in those sports too much Because you can get hurt.

You can get hurt or maybe not roll out of the bed as you're used to.

As your dad would say, you're not a spring chicken anymore, Absolutely, absolutely.

But yeah, that, and Maverick keeps us busy with baseball, maddie keeps us extremely busy with cheer and dance, and then poor Maxon, he's just alone for the ride.

But yeah, summer was good.

We took a vacation to Atlanta, caught an Atlanta Braves game playing the Yankees oh that's fun.

So that was neat.

Yeah, I sat out in right field and Maverick got to watch Aaron Judge play for the Yankees, and then, of course, his team is the Braves, so yeah, he got to watch it too.

But yeah, battery Park is a fascinating, beautiful spot it's amazing.

It's a city it.

Restaurants, hotels, movie theater it's all right there.

Insanity.

Did y'all do anything else while you were in Atlanta?

Atlanta's got a lot of tourist stuff to do.

We did, so we did the Georgia Aquarium, that's usually a hot spot for us, which is maybe the most amazing aquarium I've ever been in.

It is yeah, and then we took Maverick to the world's largest baseball store there.

So let him get to pick out some bats and gloves and they let you use stuff and, uh, you get to hit with the bats in their cages to see stuff.

So even I got in there with the bat and take a few swings and I love it you get to set up at the battery at the park.

So right, he was hitting in the infield, hits outfield and I was hitting home runs and I was thinking, man, I still got it, yeah.

And at the end of it I looked back at the guy that was helping us with the stuff and I said, hey, how many home runs did I get?

He was like he didn't get any and I'm like I got like 12 and he was like it was set up for your nine-year-old son.

I was like, oh okay, I'm like don't tell him please I love it.

I've always wanted to go to the sec museum there.

Um, my wife has not wanted to venture into that museum with me, so that one's still on the list.

But yeah, Atlanta, man, it's a great city to visit.

Are y'all not beach people?

We are beach people.

I feel like I've seen beach pictures before.

Yeah well, you have seen beach pictures.

Usually we like to go New Year's Eve where it's not that crowded.

So after Christmas break we'll go down there for a week, and then spring break, when it doesn't get too hot, we'll usually go then.

I'm assuming the Emerald Coast is where y'all hit.

Where do y'all hit on the Emerald Coast?

So there's quite a few places.

I got a best friend that owns a condo at Top Cell in Destin, so we usually stay there sometimes, If not that we usually venture out towards.

Seagrove Seaside area and stay down there.

Yeah, it's great, great vacation spot and we are lucky to be down here in the South because it's not too terribly far for all of us.

All right, got some questions for you.

I sent a few of these to you and a few of them I did not send to you that time.

Tell us one of the most memorable flights?

Maybe a challenging approach or strange weather or in-flight malfunction, if you fly long enough, I'm assuming you're going to run into something that is a little bit nerve-wracking.

So you do and I do have a lot and I would say just to keep fleet and companies out of the way.

They're probably not necessarily anything that happens particularly at any company.

probably not necessarily anything that happens, you know, particularly at any company, but, um, I've been flying professionally since 2007 I have had, uh, engine failure in flight, right down in flight from a, a cannon plug that wasn't tight, tightened correctly and the oil drop gone and yeah, and and, and there's lots of engineers that that try to look y'all's planes to make sure that kind of thing doesn't happen Exactly.

There are many people that touch that airplane before the flight, during maintenance inspections and all that.

So it just happened to be a little fluke incident on that one.

I've had a windshield shatter on me up at altitude.

Luckily there are three panes followed by plastic in the middle, so it's like glass plastic, glass, plastic glass.

On that one, the heat element failed and it shot, cooled and cracked the middle panes.

I see, luckily it was on the other side and I wasn't flying at the time, but he immediately put on his shoulder straps and he was like, hey, I'm going to give this back to you, let you fly the rest of this.

So that was pretty neat as far as in-flight emergencies really hadn't had an emergency, there is one that come to mind when he sent me back in probably 2020, I want to say December 2020.

I got dispatched to Spokane, washington, and when I was in the AOC, which we call Air Operations Center, reviewing the flight plan release, the thoughts going through my head the whole time was they're really not going to send us in a blizzard, like we cannot go.

They're reporting like quarter mile visibility, heavy blowing, snow, blizzard warnings up there, and I'm like there's no way that we're going well we went right.

I've heard and I've heard from other pilots before and I'm not gonna mention companies, but I've heard from that even crazy rain, storms, thunder, like a lot of times those planes will go.

Oh yeah, they're gonna go especially cargo right.

Cargo will go because cargo's got to get there.

Um, when we started getting down pretty much into the approach and the arrival section of the spokane leg, uh, I could just remember the visibility and the weather just getting worse and worse and worse and worse and we hit a certain threshold where a manual landing is not an option right.

You've got to trust the computer.

We've got to defer to an automatic landing, and that's kind of what happened here.

It just ended up like kept dropping, dropping, dropping and eventually got us down into what we call a Cat 3C approach which is pretty much zero-zero visibility.

We just let the autopilot system auto-land and after it lands you do have to disconnect everything and eventually get to the gate, but you'll have some follow me trucks and that bad weather condition that kept coming out.

But when we started to get configured, getting flaps and gear out, when we were slow into our ref speed, which is our approach speed for landing, the airplane started buffeting.

Oh my goodness.

And I remember looking over to the other guy in there with me and saying I think we got a lot of ice built up on this airplane just from the weather conditions and I said I'm going to speed up just a little bit to keep it from buffeting and he was like, yeah, that's probably a good idea.

Well, we landed completely white out conditions, had to have a follow-me truck to get to the, to the ramp.

And I remember waiting at the ramp for them to completely like shovel and just get all the snow and stuff, de-ice that way because it wasn't slick and for us to get in there and get in the chalks.

But after we shut down and did all of our debrief stuff and got out of the airplane, I remember turning around and looking back at the airplane and it looked like a popsicle, right.

I mean, it had ice hanging all over and we have ice detection I was going to ask and prevention on the airplane, right, so we had all that going.

But on the airplane that I particularly fly.

There's only a couple of sections.

Three outboard leading sections of the wings is heated.

The inboards are not heated Right and the engine cows are heated.

So none of that had ice on it Right, but the areas of the airplane that were not heated it was bad.

More blocks of ice.

Yeah, it was a popsicle.

So that's probably one of the main things memorable approaches that I can remember recently.

Do the runways have ice detection?

I know they de-ice them, I know they work hard in those areas, but do they have sensors that say this part is?

no, they don't have sensors.

They.

They'll have what they call uh, brake friction.

So mu reports is what we call it, and I always thought that would be the coolest job, because a guy from the airport gets to go out there in a truck or a car with these and test these computers.

And he's literally just flying down and slamming on the brakes and then he writes out the friction reports and then he relays that to the airplane.

And that's kind of how we know as far as performance and landing distances are set up, that what we can do or not do.

But I was like that's the job.

Career tech career tech kids.

That's the one to be asking about next, exactly, um, what career milestone do you are you most proud of at FedEx?

So I would say that is upgrading the captain.

So there's, there's only a few, probably, pinnacles that you can hit during your aviation career.

One of them would be your ATP license or certificate, which we call airline transport pilot.

That's probably your doctoral level of aviation.

You can't get any higher than that.

And then, of course, upgrading to captain.

Always joke around, because when you're an FO you can look to your left at the captain and say hey, what do you want to do when you move seats?

When you look to the left all you see is the reflection of yourself.

You're the dude.

You can't ask that anymore.

So that's probably the most memorable career milestone that I have at FedEx that's awesome.

Probably career milestone that I have at FedEx that's awesome.

How do you feel like your faith has impacted this job, because this is a pretty high-pressure?

job.

It is right and it comes with risk that is associated.

I treat every flight as something will happen, just to kind of have a plan of action if something does.

If you're kind of laissez-faire, you can't be complacent in this job.

This job will eat your lunch.

Yeah, complacent Again.

When I started looking at this stuff, I remember your dad.

Your dad used to always walk up to me and say, well, you been flying?

And I'm like, no, not lately.

And he said, well, I think that's a good thing.

And I'm like why is that?

And he said, because they don't pay you for what you are doing.

They pay you for what you can do, and that's the contingencies.

Part of that is every six to nine months we're always training and preparing for in-flight emergencies, whether it be system failures or in-flight emergencies.

Cargo fire is probably the biggest one that will get you, and you've mentioned that one to me before.

And you should have said like on the news not too long ago, like two months, at FedEx there was a container that caught on fire and they caught it, I think they said 15 minutes before it was loaded on the airplane.

It actually caught fire and it was because the undeclared has those lithium ion batteries that got bumped around too much.

Those batteries man.

Yeah, 15 minutes.

It would have been on the airplane and they would have probably lost you know a whole loss on that.

They would have probably lost the airplane.

That's yeah.

Yeah, but faith is a huge part, right, right, and there's three Bible verses that come to mind Deuteronomy 31, 8.

You know, I think that's a source of courage and assurance for pilots facing long journeys, right, and the difficulty conditions Psalms 91, 11 through 12.

I think that's a powerful promise of the divine protection, fitting for the challenges and the risk of fun.

And then, of course, proverbs 3, 5 through 6, that everybody's familiar with.

This verse encourages pilots to trust in God's wisdoms for decisions as they make in the flight deck and beyond.

So be still and know that I'm God.

If.

I'm facing weather or facing some kind of tough fuel situation or something like that.

I'm facing weather or facing some kind of tough fuel situation or something like that.

I just kind of just sit quiet in the moment, reflect, just knowing that God's already gone before me and prepared a way for that flight.

It's just reassuring for me and comforting to know before I take flight.

Yeah, well, I love that.

Well, that leads us right into the portion of the podcast that we call the midweek moment.

All right.

So you ask what is your vision as chairman for DeSoto Hills in the upcoming year?

That was one of the things I asked you to mention, Boy.

What a tough question it is.

It's a loaded question Very tough.

I went to work out this morning again at the local gym that we talked about last time and he said, well, what do you got for the rest of the day?

And I said, well, I'm supposed to go do another podcast.

He's like, well, what is it going to be on?

What is it going to be on?

And I said Mark asked me to do what I would see as the vision of the church in the next 12 months and he was like whoa?

He was like that's a good question.

So I was like, yeah, it is First and foremost.

I want to start off by saying it's been a profound honor and privilege to serve as chair.

I really didn't know what I was stepping into.

It's a big responsibility.

It is big responsibility and I talked to our previous chair, gary Beasley.

I told him I said I'm going to have big shoes to fill.

I understand that.

Will you help me and kind of guide me through that change in arms or whatever you want to call it?

And he said yeah, of course, and Grant has made it very easy on me.

I have taken some questions like man.

It must be hard to direct and guide your pastor and I'm like y'all don't get my heart.

My heart is I support my pastor Right.

He gets the guidance and direction from the Lord.

My job is is to support him in that walk.

So I'm not here to direct and guide Grant by any means.

My heart is my.

My main job and the job that I see for the deacons is is that we help and support our pastors in that path.

Right, yes.

So it is an honor, like I said, supporting Pastor Grant and the entire congregation as we seek to build our lives and ministry on the unshakable foundation of Jesus Christ.

So if you look at it from a broader view of values such as worship, study and service, you could go on to say my vision would be DeSoto Hills needs to deepen our discipleship, expand gospel outreach and support community healing, all while building on the Christ Foundation.

So if you want to talk about deepening discipleship and we've talked about this before discipline begins with a personal commitment to knowing and following Christ through consistent spiritual practices.

So you're like, okay, well, how do I go about doing that?

Well, first and foremost, the daily Bible.

I cannot stress that enough.

You got to be reading your Bible daily, whether it's you're choosing a verse to get into God's Word, you're using the daily Bible that we have provided for our members A thousand percent, or you're taking the little handout sheet at the Welcome Center that tells you what verses to read and, kind of, stay with the daily Bible.

Let's be honest here.

I struggle, everybody does.

Our lives are busy and it seems like that's one of, so let's be honest, here I struggle.

Everybody does Right, our lives are busy, and it seems like that's one of the things that will always just fall by the wayside.

Right, right, but I can promise you, and you can attest to this, the days that you can wake up and get into that personal relationship, the intimate setting of reading your Bible.

What you're doing is you're actually allowing God to get in your head first before you get in your head.

Correct, the days that I let God get in my head first.

It seems like the day is just more.

Smoother.

Smoother.

Exactly.

Flowing easy.

Nothing really surprises me.

It's the days that I get into my head first that the high blood pressure happens.

It does the cookie crumbles, brother.

That's right.

In all different directions, right, and nothing really kind of just flows after that.

So that's one right.

I would like to see a goal or a vision per se is and this may already happen right, I don't know.

I don't know what the stats are, but I would like to know that at least let's call it 50% of our active members are reading the Bible daily.

Right, that's a huge portion.

So that is one that meets the discipline part.

So, foster prayer as a discipline, so as a church, we do an outstanding job with this.

We have the push team pray until something happens that meet weekly.

We also have prayer teams that meet every Sunday to pray over the worship services, sunday school classes and support ministries.

However, I think we could do more here, especially on the personal side of that.

Just thinking about a goal here, I would say you know, I would like to see increased participation in prayer-focused events that foster a deeper intimacy with God, and again, you can find it at our church now, with many different things that I just shared, or in that Sunday school setting where you can narrow it down into again a more intimate setting.

And we say it all the time If you are not plugged in with that Sunday school class, that's where you're going to find your people.

Oh yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent, that's where you're going to find your people.

Quote, unquote people.

Oh yeah, 100%, 100% and that's my next thing I'm going to say is strengthening that small group discipleship.

So small groups are vital for relational accountability and applying biblical truth.

So again, I'll echo the statement from the last podcast we did together Small groups are where your authentic friendships are made, and they will walk through mud with you it doesn't matter what you're going through.

Do you have accountability there with people that would carry you through those things?

So, um, my vision for small groups would be to train more small group leaders or to have more volunteers help out with classes.

And I'm going to just bring up my class.

My class is a great example of this, because our kids can pull us in many different directions over the weekends, and there's some weekends that I'm not here, but my class is always taken care of.

I never have to worry about an individual volunteering to teach a class.

All I have to do is say I'm not going to be here and somebody will volunteer to teach that class.

So that's humbling, right.

But at the same time, they may not know it, they could be tired of hearing me or they could be tired of seeing me.

That's probably why they're doing it.

I hope they're not.

While they're listening to this, I hope they're laughing and they're listening to this, I hope they're laughing and they're like no, we want you to teach, but I see it as a commitment from them to getting into the word, to be preparing to teach the word, going out and sharing the gospel.

So that's a big thing, and statistically, it is a very small percentage of the church that is actually volunteering.

And we hope to change that.

It's one of the reasons we're doing our impact week or a month right now at DeSoto Hills, because we're wanting to introduce people to various ways.

They can plug in at the church and it's not necessarily teaching a Sunday school.

That's right, it could be anything.

It can just be sitting down and assisting in one of the children's classes, going up to the treehouse with the children being a part of the youth, and there's a lot of young adults that are up on Wednesday nights with the youth and they'll tell you they're not doing much other than sitting up there and helping to build relationships and sitting in those small groups and just listening to some of the things the students are going through.

That's right.

So there's a million different ways you can run slides on our computer on Sunday mornings.

You can aim a camera at the stage.

We put the headset on you and tell you everything to do.

Let's not forget choir, either Choir absolutely, and come on up and sing and join with the choir.

There's a zillion different ways you can plug in, so anyway, continue.

Absolutely All right.

So another point here is expand gospel and outreach.

So every member of DeSoto Hills can share the gospel Darrell Bock, yes, darrell Bock All right, whether it's at work, school or in the community.

So this is our call as fellow believers, right?

So, matthew 28, 19.

So go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you, always to the end of age.

So that is our call.

So my thing is here is the early church's bold witness and act shows ordinary believers and I'm ordinary, right, there is nothing special about Corey, all right, I am a sinner.

I am just a humble sinner that is walking with God daily.

There is your story.

Whoever's listening there is your story.

Whoever's listening is neither too big or too small to share, and that's what you got to get out of your head is people want to hear from you, people want to hear about Jesus.

Right, Grant a huge initiative.

That he's doing now is go, you make disciples, go, tell them.

And the biggest part I get back to that is well, I don't feel like I'm worthy enough to do it or I don't know how to do that.

That's why god sent the holy spirit.

Right, because none of us are.

That's right.

I'm definitely not right.

When grant come to me and said, hey, you're going to be a sunday school teacher, I like raised my hand and it was like the red flag.

Hey, hey, I don't think I can do this.

He was like, oh, you can do it, I promise you you can do it.

That again, we do an outstanding job with our outreach programs, but my goal here would be more active members that are ecstatically and boldly sharing the great news of Christ.

And then three, or lastly, is support the community healing.

So DeSoto Hills is uniquely positioned to foster community healing, specifically addressing emotional, spiritual, physical and relational wounds through compassionate, christ-centered ministries.

And we do this now with divorce care and then we do grief sharing with that.

As a church, we should be willing to bear one another's burdens and rejoicing in trials, all while building on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

So again, for our listeners out there, it doesn't matter what you have done or what you're currently doing now.

We just want you to know that we are here for you and we want to share the great news of Jesus Christ with you, and we would love for you to join us at DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.

Thanks so much for listening.

If you don't have a church home, like Corey just said, we'd love to see you here on Sunday mornings.

You can catch our services online at desotahillscom, our YouTube channel at Desoto Hills Baptist Church.

For all of our church family, we love you.

We'll see you back here next week.

Have a fantastic day.

This has been your Midweek Motivation.

We'd love to have you join us in person on Sunday mornings.

Our services are at 9 and 10.30 am.