How God Used Ordinary People to Do Extraordinary Things Dan Scott, with Austin & Tiffany Cagle This book is lovingly dedicated to the first generation of Christ Church, who, under the leadership of L.H. and Montelle Hardwick, took the time to build a life-giving community that has changed the world. Their vision lives. © All contents of this manuscript are protected by copyrights owned by Epiclesis, Inc., 1717 Park Terrace Lane, Nolensville, TN 37135 and may not be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher 3 Table of Contents .............................................................. 4 Introduction ...................................................................... 5 A Visitor Blows Up Our Dam ........................................... 9 The River Starts Flowing ............................................... 26 Telling Money Where to Flow ........................................ 33 Currency Really Is a Current ......................................... 43 A Russian River Flows Through .................................... 57 Going With the Flow ....................................................... 74 A River Has Banks ........................................................ 87 Dancing with the River ................................................ 104 Keepers of the Spring ................................................... 117 Finding the Source ....................................................... 125 Three Streams Converge .............................................. 133 The River Keeps Flowing ............................................. 148 4 “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.” When Saint Luke told the story of Christ and the early days of the Church, he invited his readers to confirm the stories with those who had actually experienced them. The apostle Peter did the same, reminding his readers that there were many yet alive who had personally known Jesus. “We did not follow cleverly devised fables,” Peter said. “We were eyewitnesses.” Whenever possible, it is important to meet those who have molded history. A book may introduce a reader to a great idea, but it should also connect the reader to someone who has actually applied that idea to everyday life. World- changing ideas are better caught than taught. A living succession, a chain of human beings who intentionally pass wisdom from one generation to the next, is as powerful as it is rare. It is a river that connects the people of the past, present, and future into a single community. To discover that river is to escape the limitations of one‟s own era. Few people find it. Fewer still plunge in to become a living part of its flow. Abraham Lincoln found it, which is the reason he could present our country‟s core ideas with such authority. From his speeches and writings, we might easily believe that 5 he once had lunch with Washington or was a pallbearer at Franklin‟s funeral. Of course, he did no such thing. The founding fathers were all dead by the time he was born. However, he had a living link with those who birthed our country. In his term as a United States congressman, Lincoln became an apprentice of John Quincy Adams, who was our fifth president, as well as the son of our second president. As if that were not enough, Adam‟s mother, ●●● Abigail, could easily be called the Lincoln’s words mother of our country and he was did not come mentored in political life by Thomas across as Jefferson. Because of this intimate something he had personally contact with those who founded our created but as country, John Quincy Adams embodied something the very essence of American authentically democracy. The river of American life connected to the flowed from the founding fathers soul of national through him. Then, it flowed from him life. into Lincoln and from Lincoln into the ●●● nation‟s future. After leaving the White House, Adams had become a long-serving congressman. It was toward the end of his career that he took the time to mentor that one special young congressman and connect him to the living essence of American life Adams had known so intimately. Years later, as President Lincoln led the country through the fires of the Civil War he spoke with the authority of a founding father because John Quincy Adams had “anointed” him to do so. Lincoln‟s words did not come across as something he had personally created but as something authentically connected to the soul of national life. His words 6 were the founders‟ words adapted to a new generation. That‟s why they had that “certain sound” of authenticity. The stories told in this book are modest compared to these examples from the Bible and American history. However, the principles that make intergenerational cooperation possible are the same. Transmitting wisdom and experience across time always requires a person willing to transmit it and a person willing to receive it. Both must meet at the river of thought and experience that flow from the past and into the future. That meeting is what constitutes the mentor-apprentice relationship. Mentoring requires humility – of both mentor and apprentice. A mentor must not “hog the stage,” sucking up the time and space required for younger leaders to emerge and grow. He must offer his experience (and demonstrate why it remains relevant) to those whom he believes will likely gain influence and power. He must trust the current of history to do the rest. He must understand that younger leaders are never “ready” to lead, that people learn to lead by actually leading. He must also accept the painful reality that older leaders are never ready to quit but must “quit” anyway. Of course, a good mentor doesn‟t ever quit. He merely steps back, as an intentional strategy for producing young leaders. An apprentice must take the time to receive the wisdom that is offered. He or she must then apply that wisdom to the challenges and opportunities of his or her own era. Without a mentor, a young leader will spend his life learning lessons by experience that he might have mastered through instruction. He will spend too much time in the “school of hard knocks.” A self-made leader thus runs the risk of running out of the time required to develop those higher understandings about life that might have otherwise helped him make a notable contribution to the world. 7 Lincoln, like so many of history‟s greatest leaders, found a giant‟s shoulder on which to stand. He did that by submitting his life for a season to a great mentor. We offer the stories and lessons of this book to encourage older people to tell their stories. We offer them to help younger people grasp the principles that molded successful people a generation ago. Since most of these people are still living, and are accessible to those who want to learn, they can become an invaluable resource for those who wish to succeed in life. So plunge in, let go of fear, and “let the river run!” 8 In the spring of 1990, our church experienced an extraordinary season of grace. We often call such a season a “revival,” although that is an overused and ill-defined word. Revival usually implies a period of emotional unrest accompanied ●●● by unusual and perhaps supernatural Revival usually signs. In retrospect, that is exactly what implies a period occurred at Christ Church Nashville, of emotional although that is obvious only in unrest accompanied by retrospect. unusual and Many of us were Pentecostal. We perhaps had been taught to expect – perhaps supernatural even to demand – things like tongues of signs. fire and miraculous healing. What were ●●● we to say about the appearance of a sudden and unexpected new ability to manage ideas and finances? For years, our senior pastor, L.H. Hardwick, had encouraged us to develop our gifts for service outside the church. A number of other teachers added their voices to his call for a deeper understanding of Christian stewardship. David Anderson and Edsel Charles, to mention two of these teachers, constantly called us to a more serious encounter with scripture. These two men could have hardly been more different from one another! That was another feature of our unusual season of grace. Ours was a gathering of different gifts and dispositions – and even different opinions – around 9 the common goal of discovering and living out our purpose in God. Christ Church was not a cookie factory, a place where a well oiled belt moves lumpy pieces of dough toward the machine that presses them into pastries of identical shapes and sizes. The motley collection of artists, businesspersons and blue collar workers who gathered at Christ Church each week would have run for their lives from such a church. The only thing we had in common was a desire to live without wasting life. We wanted to make our lives count. We had talked about it for years and were hungry to actually do it! The tipping point came one special week during missions conference. We invited Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth with a Mission, to speak at the four day conference. Cunningham was scheduled to speak in the Sunday morning services and in special afternoon sessions the following three days. We knew that Loren Cunningham was a big deal. He had given birth to the largest Christian missionary agency outside the Roman Catholic Church. We were honored to have him, and so we encouraged the people of our congregation to attend all of his sessions. That‟s why I was so disappointed with the crowd that Monday. “Why are there just a handful of people here?!” I thought as I looked around our nearly empty dining hall. As starting time approached, I counted about thirty people. Embarrassed, I introduced Loren and sat down. Time has a funny way of editing memories but I recall Loren as very relaxed, as though grateful for an opportunity to just chat with friends instead of feeling pressured to preach.