From the Mind of Bob
You can’t always plan Halftime, but you can get ready for life’s pivotal events and transitions. That was Peter Drucker’s insight for me while I was working on Finishing Well. “In many cases,” he explained, “you will find that people are not planning on how to do Halftime — that comes in over the transom. But they have a pretty good idea what to do and what not to do.
Halftime often comes unexpectedly. You get fired. You sell a business. You get a divorce. Stuff happens. You can’t even plan your age for Halftime’s arrival. Linda and I saw a stunning example last week. Tired from a long day, we had settled in to watch CNN’s Aaron Brown wrap up the day’s news. The program turned out to be a full hour’s recap of the prior week’s startling events in Atlanta. There, a 26-year-old mother, waitress and student had been held hostage at gunpoint in her apartment by a desperate Brian Nichols, who was on the run after killing four people in and around an Atlanta courthouse. It was clear to me that hostage Ashley Smith’s entire upbringing had prepared her for the situation. For her, Halftime came at age 26. Her life will never be the same.
Ashley Smith, like the fugitive who held her life in his hands, had had a difficult life. As a teen, she was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting and was given a year’s probation. Later came arrests on charges of drunken driving, speeding and battery. Her husband was stabbed to death in her presence and died in her arms. Yet this young mother, waitress and student drew upon an inner calm and her spiritual upbringing to survive the seven-hour hostage ordeal.
The Associated Press capsulized the story in its headline, “Ordeal Brought Out Hostage’s Strengths.” That reminds me of another lesson that Peter Drucker repeatedly has taught me: You spend the early part of your life developing strengths for an unexpected opportunity. A Dallas Morning News editorial described the hostage situation as follows:
“Desperate and on the run, Atlanta courthouse gunman, Brian Nichols, stood before a trembling Ashley Smith. It was the sort of confrontation that often ends in violent tragedy. Ms. Smith, however, supplanted fear of dying with uncommon grace toward Georgia’s most wanted fugitive, not grace as the synonym for poise under pressure, but grace as a spiritual connection to another’s humanity. She shared family pictures and according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, read him passages from The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren’s best selling book of Christian guidance.
“She told him he had a purpose in life.
“He told her he deserved to die.
“She told him that he must pay for his crimes, but that by ministering to other inmates ‘you can go to jail and save many more people than you killed.’ She calmly restored humanity to a person who had lost faith in his own worth.”
Rick Warren certainly didn’t write his Purpose Driven Life for this set of circumstances, but his doing so prepared both of these young people for the watershed event of their lives. Somehow, I believe that God will use both of these people for His purposes. Brian Nichols will have his chance in prison. Just recall the tremendous amount of good that resulted from Chuck Colson’s imprisonment. According to the Associated Press, Ashley Smith already has received offers for four book deals and a film project. Let’s all pray that this “over the transom” opportunity is aligned with God’s destiny for her. It seemed that way to Linda and me as we watched this astounding saga unfold on television. You can’t plan for this stuff, but you can be prepared like Ashley Smith. Even difficult things, perhaps especially the difficult things, had equipped her for the unexpected. An amazing story and it is not done yet!
So What About You?
This newsletter has little value to anyone if it doesn’t actively impact your life—if it doesn’t help you create active energy with a significant purpose. I hope you will take these questions seriously as you work to apply what you find out about yourself. Personally, I will be keeping a spiritual and intellectual journal where I answer these questions for myself.
- As you look back on your life, can you identify three markers events in your life? To what degree were each of these planned or did they come in “over the transom?”
- What is your reaction to the Ashley Smith story – providence or coincidence?
- What do I need to learn, or do, or experience to get ready for opportunities that come in over the transom?
- What is the number one way you prepare yourself for “over the transom” experiences? Share with everyone on the ACTIVEenergy.net discussion board.
What is God Doing Now? An Interview with Robert Lewis
I was fortunate to have spent the better part of a day last year with one of the most influential figures in American Christianity, Henry Blackaby. In his widely read work Experiencing God, Blackaby advises us that the way to find our Halftime and Life II significance career is to “find out what God is doing and join him.” Blackaby says that’s the place to start. With this in mind, I have undertaken a series of interviews with people who have a unique perspective on what God is doing now. In this section of ActiveEnergy, I’m doing a version of the “Let’s Do Lunch” approach I used in Finishing Well, inviting you to listen in and to respond. Join the conversation by emailing your reaction.
Robert Lewis has served as teaching pastor and Senior Directional Leader of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, AR for more than 20 years. He has authored a number of books (I wrote the Foreword for one) and is a leader in the externally focused church movement.
Here’s what Robert told me: “I would answer that question this way, I think God is going small. I think the future of the church in the 21st century is answering this question, how can the church be much smaller and more intimate with hands on ownership with the lay person in a way that a small community can have the intimacy that I think it desperately wants, and yet still have the quality of the large mega church that right now the large mega church is providing? I think all large, aggressive, successful churches are feeling the pressure of small.
“Today’s person doesn’t want to just go and listen, be passive, and be entertained anymore. With today’s layperson, I think God is stirring them up. They want ownership, they want direct participation, and they want to be known, and have a sense of a much more intimate community. I think that is impacting the large church, where people are now flooding out the back door looking for this sense of intimacy, and this sense of ownership that the large church is not able to provide as it drew so many people in the last generation through its quality teaching, quality programming, so on and so forth.
I think we’re beginning to see the front end of that movement to “small” through churches that have multiple sites, where churches are now beginning to break themselves down into smaller components through the use of satellite downlinks or broadcasts where congregations can experience a sense of decentralization. I know we’re doing that at our church, where we have different venues but I think the venue is just one itch that the people are feeling because what we found out in the venues was not just that they could do different styles of music but they could be connecting with great preaching. They can get the quality, but also be in a smaller size where people could participate, be known, and have ownership of that site. I think that’s going to lead. I think what God is doing is pushing the church out to do more connections through great teaching, through great quality but great quality distributed in smaller components where the people who are receiving that great quality can have the quality but also have the ownership in the community. Those are the things that I believe that God is doing. So I think the movement is toward small in some way. The church is going to have to answer the size issue. How can we be bigger and smaller at the same time? How can people have quality and yet have ownership and community at the same time? That’s the movement that I think God is doing.” (To learn more about what Leadership Network is learning about multi-site churches, see www.leadnet.org.)
Insights from the Classics
Over the past four years I have been “coached” in classical literature by the director of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. The instruction I gain and my own love of learning has developed a love of the classics—I hope you can gain some insights from these brief but powerful thoughts.
“Readiness is all.” Shakespeare
“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.” Goethe
Recommended Resources
I believe the resources found in this section are worthy of further exploration. I will work to maximize your time and give you the best tools to enhance your experience.
The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren has been called “the most successful nonfiction book release in history.” This book by Rick is a must have. Purchase The Purpose Driven Life. Find other Purpose Driven Life resources at www.purposedrivenlife.com
Find out more about Robert Lewis: www.mensfraternity.co
Learn about Robert Lewis’ books. The Church of Irresistible Influence is the book for which I wrote the Foreword. Robert Lewis
Finishing Well is full of role models who have repositioned themselves for both success and significance: Purchase Finishing Well
There is a brand new case study of Lewis’ Fellowship Bible Church prepared by the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations Harvard University. It really gets you inside their world. Read more about the case at the Hauser Center’s web site.
