My Friend Zig

God has blessed me greatly throughout the years. He has placed tremendous people in my path to learn and glean from. No one has had more of an impact than Zig Ziglar. As a junior high student, I took a leadership class based upon his book See You at the Top. During that class I had heard he taught a Sunday School class at FBC Dallas and wanted to visit it, but never did. As a first year seminary student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I became frustrated just going to school after a week or two and applied for a job at Prestonwood Baptist as an intern for the Open Division. I had no clue what that even meant, but ended up getting the job after connecting with the minister of that adult division, David Goza.

Unbeknownst to me, the Open Division was an adult department centered around big personalities that drew more than a age range by appealing to people of all ages and life-stages. The true center of this division was one teacher who drew over 500 people each week, Zig Ziglar! After 18 months of working in this division, my boss David Goza left to go pastor a church. Soon thereafter I received a promotion to become the Pastor of the Encouragers Class (Zig’s class) and the Open Division minister. A fellow adult division minister later told me that I only got the job because Zig had lobbied for me to have that job to Pastor Dr. Jack Graham, saying “I was his guy” (the other guy meant that as an insult, but I still think that is one of the coolest compliments I have ever received!).

For the next three years I got to work for and with Mr. Ziglar. Soon after my promotion, Zig asked me to teach his home Bible study. I vividly remember the first Bible study. We sat down, I had prepared, but honestly thought it was going to be him teaching and me listening. As I stared waiting on him to talk, he said, “Well young man, let’s hear what God has placed upon your heart for us.” From that point on, he sat and listened as I taught in his home over the next few years. He never dominated the conversation, never corrected me, he just listened and encouraged me, offering communication advice every so often.

Every Saturday morning during my time at Prestonwood he would call and ask me some sort of Bible question as he was preparing. Yes, he would ask me a Bible question! Yes, he studied for his lesson every week. Zig was the real deal and never took his role of teaching for granted. He was diligent to prepare, even if he had taught that lesson or a similar one before.

Zig also had a distinct desire to leverage his fame for the glory of God. He would talk about how he wanted to use his speaking platform to share Jesus with others. Marketplace Christianity became his theme and emphasis during my days with him. If he had a conference in Dallas, he would invite people to his Encouragers Bible Fellowship class that and every Sunday morning at Prestonwood. He was faithful in church, rarely missing and always sitting front and center in the worship center. He loved the Bible, loved to learn, loved to share, loved to teach. He made the most of his days.

More than any of that, I know Zig & Jean loved me. While at Prestonwood, Zig had a severe case of diverticulitis. He had three code blues, reviving each time and spent several weeks in the hospital. During those weeks, his whole family made me feel like I was one of them. Zig & Jean always had kind things to say to me, encouraging me in all walks of life. They would make it a point to take me out to lunch, give me a hug, and even call just to check in on me. One of my last dinners with Zig & Jean was in Tulsa at his hotel when he came to speak. They listened about our life, and Zig kept telling me I ought to write a book about what God had and was doing in my life.

Over the past few weeks there have been reports on his life and the impact he made on so many. A common theme has been that he was the same man in private as he was from the stage, which is totally true. Just as his impact reached around the globe, his impact also reached people around their hearts. A man in my church told me that he had the opportunity to meet Zig once and visit with him for about ten minutes. He said that ever since that time he felt like Zig truly was one of his friends. For me, that speaks to the legacy of a man that was my friend too. A man that loved His Savior, loved his wife, loved his children, loved his church, loved his friends, and loved me too. May we all be encouraged by the encourager!

MENTORING MINISTRY STRATEGY

1. Define success by relational connection

2. Help older believers embrace their responsibility

3. Invest in families (partner with entire families)

4. Value differences in a healthy way

5. Allow younger people to have a voice (we have to listen to what they are saying)

8 THINGS A MENOTR SHOULD DO

1. Start with someone you know (if you are not approached by someone and you desire to mentor)

2. The mentor should be further along in life and the Christian walk

3. Ask Questions

4. Share experience

5. Learn Together (books, resources, Bible study)

6. Look for “real life issue” to capitalize on

7. Keep Growing

8. Connect the mentoree with your family

6 ROLES OF A MENTOR

1. Treat the mentoree like a person, not a project
• Projects, not people, require agendas
• God is working in that person, our job is not to force them in a direction we think we should go
• Think relationship, not and end goal

2. Ask, “What is God already doing here?”

3. Understand the difference between beliefs (biblical) and opinions (personal)

4. Understand the difference between spiritual maturity and maturing
• A person is moving closer to God or further away – relationship with God

5. Trust God to carry the mentoree to completion

6. Participate in experiences together (with your mentoree)

WHY MENTOR?

Starting next Tuesday, I will have 3 posts concentrating on mentoring. My ideas have been generated and/or taken from The Slow Fade by Joiner, Bomar & Smith. For today, the focus will be on getting you to think about the topic and why you should be mentored and/or mentor someone else.

WHY MENTOR?

• To join God in the work He is already doing in someone’s life.
• When we discover who we are in God, we discover our purpose and find meaning.
• Teach them they can never outrun the arm of grace!
• Mutual transformation; God transforms you, not just the mentoree!

Book Review: The Slow Fade by Joiner, Bomar & Smith

This is another book I picked up at Drive Conference 2010. My initial thought was that The Slow Fade by Joiner, Bomar & Smith would serve as a good resource in connecting with college students for our Ignite Worship Service geared at reaching young adults. Instead, I discovered that I picked up a guide to mentoring. Although not explicitly stated, this book provided all the resources necessary to starting a mentoring ministry.

Chapter 4, “Mentoring Redefined,” presented a detailed description of the role of a mentor – again there is no list, but I did come up with 6 key roles from this chapter. Chapter 5, “A New Bread of Leader,” described 8 things a mentor should be intentional about doing. Appendix A “A Note To Ministry Leaders,” gave Chuck Bomar’s mentoring ministry strategy.

Overall, this is by far the best book I have read on “How To” mentor. While the premise for this book deals with this subject, the title and subtitle do not, which is the only knock on it. If you work with college students (the intended target of this book) or young adults, you really need to read through this book. I am already excited to equip some of our mentors with the tools learned from reading this book… and not being able to sleep (tonight) finally paid dividends!

Matt Chandler - Enduring faith

Enduring faith
The Associated Press

DALLAS -- Matt Chandler doesn't feel anything when the radiation penetrates his brain. It could start to burn later in treatment. But it hasn't been bad, this time lying on the slab. Not yet, anyway.

Chandler's lanky 6-foot-5-inch frame rests on a table at Baylor University Medical Center. He wears the same kind of jeans he wears preaching to 6,000 people at The Village Church in suburban Flower Mound, where the 35-year-old pastor is a rising star of evangelical Christianity.

Another cancer patient Chandler has gotten to know spends his time in radiation imagining that he's playing a round of golf at his favorite course. Chandler on this first Monday in January is reflecting on Colossians 1:15-23, about the pre-eminence of Christ and making peace through the blood of his cross.

Chandler's hands are crossed over his chest. He wears a mask with white webbing that keeps his head still when metal fingers slide into place on the radiation machine, delivering the highest possible dose to what is considered to be fatal and incurable brain cancer.

This is Matt Chandler's new normal. Each weekday, he spends two hours in the car -- driven from his suburban home to downtown Dallas -- for eight minutes of radiation and Scripture.

At the hospital, Chandler sees other patients in gowns who get chemotherapy through catheters in their chests and is thankful he gets his in pills before going to sleep at home next to his wife.

Chandler is trying to suffer well. He would never ask for such a trial, but in some ways he welcomes this cancer. He says he feels grateful that God has counted him worthy to endure it. He has always preached that God will bring both joy and suffering but is only recently learning to experience the latter.

Since all this began on Thanksgiving morning, Chandler says he has asked "why me?" just once, in a moment of weakness.

He is praying that God will heal him. He wants to grow old, to walk his two daughters down the aisle and see his son become a better athlete than he ever was.

Whatever happens, he says, is God's will, and God has his reasons. For Chandler, that does not mean waiting for his fate. It means fighting for his life.

The beginning
Thanksgiving morning, a normal morning at the Chandler home.

The coffee brews itself. Matt wakes up, pours himself a cup, black and strong like always, and sits on the couch. He feeds 6-month-old Norah from a bottle. Burps her. Puts her in her bouncy seat.

The next thing Chandler knows, he is lying in a hospital bed.

What Chandler does not remember is that he suffered a seizure and collapsed in front of the fireplace, rattling the pokers. He does not remember biting through his tongue.

He does not remember his wife, Lauren, shielding the kids as he shook on the floor. Or, later, ripping the IV out of his arm and punching a medic in the face.

During the ambulance ride, Lauren, 29, looks back from the passenger seat at her husband in restraints.

He is looking at her but through her.

She texts the women in her Bible study and asks them to pray.

At the hospital, Matt comes to.

"Honey, what happened?"

"You had a seizure."

He realizes that their two older children -- Audrey, 7, and Reid, 4 -- had seen it.

"Are the kids OK?"

Tears well up in his eyes.

"They're fine. They're fine."

He dozes off, wakes up and asks about the kids again. The same exchange repeats itself five times, always ending the same way, with Matt tearing up.

In short order, Chandler is wheeled back for a CT scan, followed by an MRI.

Not long afterward, the ER doctor walks in and sits next to him.

"You have a small mass on your frontal lobe. You need to see a specialist."

It was Thanksgiving. Chandler had not seen his kids for hours. He had collapsed in front of them. For whatever reason, those grim words from a doctor he'd never met did not cause his heart to drop. What Chandler thought was, "OK, we'll deal with that." Getting the news meant he could go home.

The man
Chandler can be sober and silly, charming and tough. He'll call men "bro" and women "mama." He drives a 2001 Chevy Impala with 144,000 miles and a broken radio. He calls it the "Gimpala"

One of Chandler's sayings is, "It's OK to not be OK -- just don't stay there." In other words, your doubts and questions are welcome at The Village Church, but eventually you need to pull it together.

He's also been known to begin sermons with the warning, "I'm going to yell at you from the Bible."

Chandler's long, meaty messages untangle large chunks of Scripture, a stark contrast to the "Eight Ways to Overcome Fear" sermons common to evangelical megachurches that took off in the 1980s. His approach appeals, he believes, to a generation looking for transcendence and power.

His theology teaches that all men are wicked, that human beings have offended a loving and sovereign God, and that God saves through Jesus' death, burial and resurrection -- not because people do good deeds. In short, Chandler is a Calvinist, holding to a belief system growing more popular with young evangelicals.

"Matt goes right at Bible Belt Christianity and exposes the problems with it," says Collin Hansen, author of "Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists." "He says, 'Enough of this playing around and trying to be relevant and using cultural touch points. Let's talk God's words.'"

Chandler's background does not suggest someone suited to the role. He grew up a military kid, drifting from Olympia, Wash., to Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Alameda, Calif., and Galveston, Texas.

Chandler was taught that Christianity meant not listening to secular music or seeing R-rated movies. He developed what he calls a small and "man-centered" view of God -- that God will bless people who are good. That began to change when a high school football teammate started talking about the Gospel.

After graduating from a small Baptist college, Chandler became a fiery evangelist who led a popular college Bible study and traveled the Christian speaking circuit.

He was hired from another church in 2002 at age 28 to lead what is now The Village Church, a Southern Baptist congregation that claimed 160 members at the time.

The church now meets in a newly renovated former Albertson's grocery store with a 1,430-seat auditorium; two satellite campuses are flourishing in Denton and Dallas. Chandler has a podcast following in the thousands and speaks at large conferences.

"What Matt does works because it resonates with the deep longing of the soul the average person can't even identify," said Anne Lincoln Holibaugh, the church's children's ministry director.

The surgery

Tuesday after Thanksgiving. The Chandlers meet with Dr. David Barnett, chief of neurosurgery at Baylor University Medical Center.

The weekend had brought hope: A well-meaning church member who is a radiologist looked at Matt's MRI and concluded the mass was encapsulated, or contained to a specific area.

But Barnett delivers very different news. He saw what appeared to be a primary brain tumor -- meaning a tumor that had formed in the brain -- that was not contained. It had branches.

"Matt, I think you're dealing with something serious," Barnett says. "We need to do something about it quickly. Go home. Talk it over with your wife. Pray about it."

Chandler is facing brain surgery. He schedules it for that Friday, Dec. 4.

He is scared.

Questions start to haunt him. Am I going to wake up and be me? Am I going to wake up and remember Lauren?

The surgery begins around 2 p.m. A biopsy determines that it is, indeed, a primary brain tumor.

Additional Facts
On the Net:
Matt Chandler's blog

Lauren Chandler's blog

This was taken directly from here.