CBMC Winter 2022 Connector

CONNECTOR THE

WINTER NEWSLETTER

CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MEN’S CONNECTION

IN THIS ISSUE:

WINTER 2022

• OPERATION TIMOTHY 50 YEAR ANNIVERSARY • PHIL STONE ON RELATIONSHIPS • AN EVENT 40 YEARS IN THE MAKING

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FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT Dear Friends, Paul David Tripp’s devotional, New Morning Mercies, begins day one of the year with this profound statement. “Here’s the bottom line. The Christian life, the church, our faith are not about us, they’re about Him – His plan, His kingdom, His Glory.” Drop the microphone, Tripp.

This is easy to say, much harder to live. The head gets it, but the heart doesn’t always follow.

God created everything, including you and me, for Himself.

This is a powerful and wonderful truth that will, more often than not, derail our plans and desires. If we are honest, we all struggle with the truth that it’s not about us.

Tripp goes on to say that when we finally acknowledge this central truth to the Christian faith, it should lead us not to despair but to hope.

“God knew that in your sin you would never live this way, so he sent his Son to live the life you couldn’t, to die on your behalf, and to rise again, conquering sin and death. He did this so that you would not only be forgiven for your allegiance to your own glory, but have every grace you need to live for his.”

Hallelujah that God makes a way.

In this new year, I’m not interested in resolutions but a renewal of mind, body, and spirit. This isn’t an outward change that is celebrated by friends and family, but a quiet, inward, slow, purposeful shift in my heart that God celebrates.

2022 BOARD MEMBERS Dirk Block (Chairman)

David Meyers

Roger Emerson

Gary Kirschman*

Jeff Goldfarb

Todd Schimmelpfennig (Co-Vice Chairman)

Steve Goss (Secretary) Don Hargadon (Treasurer)

Mike Winter*

Todd Hopkins Dave Melin

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*Staff Advisory Member

I hope you will be encouraged to take your own steps toward a deeper understanding of our Heavenly Father. You can trust Him! One practical way to do this is to disciple others using Operation Timothy (OT). For 50 years, CBMC has used OT to help men understand the truths of the Bible and to deepen their faith. If you have never had the opportunity to walk through OT, I encourage you to talk with your local CBMC team leader and get started today.

And for men who have experienced OT, I ask you… who are you discipling? As we begin a new year, think about where God is calling you. Is your plan aligned with God’s? Is God calling you to do something for the kingdom in 2022?

Remember, He will make a way. We just have to be obedient.

To God be the Glory alone.

Soli Deo Gloria,

David Meyers CBMC President P.S. Operation Timothy is celebrating 50 years this year! More than just a Bible study, OT has been used by God to transform lives. Today, you can access OT in print form or through the online version, which offers many new features including multiple languages. Find out more here connect.cbmc.com/ot50.

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ifty years ago, CBMC began to undergo what would amount to a seismic shift in its focus and strategies for taking the Good News of Jesus Christ to the marketplace.

Over its first 40 years of ministry, CBMC had concentrated almost exclusively on evangelism, presenting the Gospel message to masses in some of the nation’s largest cities, before narrowing its scope to business and professional men. However, a key element of Jesus’ Great Commission – making disciples – was not being addressed, at least not in a formal way.

Before ascending to Heaven, Jesus had instructed His disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…” (Matthew 28:19-20). CBMC was finding success in seeing people become converts to faith in Christ, but lacked a plan for assisting them in becoming fruitful disciples – true followers of Jesus.

That changed when Joe Coggeshall joined CBMC’s fulltime staff early in the 1970s. While serving in the U.S. Navy, he had been trained by The Navigators not only in how to tell others about Christ but also in helping new believers grow in their faith. He brought this expertise to CBMC, sharing his vision for making disciples as he traveled across the country as a field staff director.

Joined by Pete George, who had discipled him, together they drew from the “Design for Discipleship” resources The Navigators had developed and began creating new content they called “Operation Timothy.”

The title was inspired by 2 Timothy 2:2, in which the apostle Paul exhorted Timothy, “And the things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” This single verse, Coggeshall explained, described a model for spiritual reproduction, showing four generations of believers – Paul, Timothy, “faithful men” and “others.”

Determined to show the effectiveness of Operation Timothy for helping men mature into fruitful followers of Christ, Coggeshall sought out men with a hunger for growing spiritually. One of the men whom he led to Christ through the discipling process in Atlanta, Dave Rathkamp, recalled Coggeshall’s no-nonsense approach.

“Joe would not just meet with any man. He met with men he felt had huge potential for the Gospel. He referred to FAT men – Faithful, Available and Teachable. And when he spoke, his messages were always based on the Word, teaching from what he had hidden in his heart, as Psalm 119:11 teaches. Many men’s lives were greatly changed through Joe’s ministry of discipling and disciplemaking.”

One important ingredient for the success of Operation Timothy was its transferability, ensuring that once a man was moving toward spiritual maturity, he could begin using it to disciple other men, inspired by the vision presented in Isaiah 60:22, “A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation.”

At a CBMC conference in the early 1990s, Coggeshall presented a powerful visual example of multi-generational discipling. He and seven other men stood to show a “discipling tree.” They included Rathkamp and George Sanchez, who had been discipled by Navigators’ founder Dawson Trotman and then had discipled Pete George.

In 1981, Rathkamp had become a full-time CBMC staff member, accepting the role of Metro Director in Houston, Texas during a major expansion effort into U.S. cities called Metro 80/80. Through his leadership, Operation Timothy became an important tool for the growth of the CBMC ministry in Houston, as well as many other metropolitan areas.

With the addition of Operation Timothy as a key resource for CBMC, a new mission statement was formulated that embraced both evangelism and discipleship: “To present Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to business and professional men, and to develop Christian business and professional men to carry out the Great Commission.” continued 3

One of the central biblical concepts behind the use of Operation Timothy has been the analogy of a loving parent. Writing to believers in Thessalonica, the apostle Paul reminded, “we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God but also our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).

A few verses later Paul added, “For you know that we dealt with you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12). Elsewhere the apostle referred to men like Timothy and Silas as his sons in the faith.

As Coggeshall and many others demonstrated, relationships built through Operation Timothy often were lifelong, with the “Paul” regarded as a spiritual father to the “Timothy,” who in turn would one day start investing in his own spiritual son.

Over the years, Operation Timothy has not remained static. It has continued to undergo revision, both in content and design, reflecting and responding to the changing business environment, without diverting from underlying biblical truths about evangelism and discipleship.

The original Operation Timothy materials consisted of a red leader’s guide, along with study booklets with orange and yellow covers. Those were updated in 1995 into a series now known as Operation Timothy Classic.

Another updated and redesigned edition, Operation Timothy Signature, was introduced in 2008, followed by two newer versions. Those have been adapted digitally for CBMC’s website, as well as made available for purchase through Amazon.com.

In addition, CBMC’s Marketplace Ambassador Advancement System (MAAS) has become an important online resource for training in the use of Operation Timothy and disciplemaking strategies, along with a related, newly released interactive study, “Becoming a Spiritual Reproducer.”

Through CBMC International, Operation Timothy also has been translated from English into more than a dozen other languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Swahili, Korean and Arabic.

As Jesus was preparing to conclude His earthly ministry, He explained to His closest followers, “He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit…. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples” (John 15:5-8). For the past 50 years, Operation Timothy has been an important tool for helping people in CBMC to do just that. Happy golden anniversary!

You can get access to Operation Timothy and all the resources on MAAS by visiting this link. connect.cbmc.com/ot50 HAVE A STORY TO SHARE? WE’D LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT WHAT GOD IS DOING IN YOUR AREA. EMAIL HMCAFEE@CBMC.COM.

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PHIL STONE: EVERYTHING IS ANCHORED IN RELATIONSHIPS

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t’s all about relationships, according to Phil Stone. He says relationships, even more than natural ability and acquired skills, have paved the way for his successful professional career, including 29 years as a sports broadcaster and since 2008, as CBMC’s Director of Broadcast Media and Donor Development Officer.

As a teenager Stone became fascinated with the broadcasting industry, but it was a high school teacher who encouraged him to pursue that path. “She said, ‘Phil, with your voice and love for sports, you ought to consider going into sports broadcasting,’” he recalls.

Following three years in the U.S. Army after high school, including work with Armed Forces Radio, he with his resonant voice enrolled at Ohio University, majoring in radio and TV broadcasting and earning a master’s degree in sports management. Then came the inevitable question of how to get launched in the business.

keep you out. They’re there to judge how badly you want in. When other people walk away, you figure out a way to get over the wall.”

“That was such good advice for me, especially as I look at the trajectory of my life,” Stone says. “It instilled in me a sense of tenacity – if you want it bad enough, go for it. But go for it with everything you’ve got.”

His resolve led to a job with a Jacksonville, Fla. TV station, then with an NBC affiliate in San Diego, Calif. This resulted in Stone’s first NFL broadcasting assignment, doing play-byplay for a San Diego Chargers-Cincinnati Bengals game in 1979.

Within five years he was working full-time with NBC Sports and ESPN, then as the play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants and the primary announcer for Pac-12 football games, before retiring from broadcasting in 1998.

Key words of advice came from Bob Coe, who spoke to one of his graduate level classes. Coe was vice president of sales for ABC Sports, so afterward Stone introduced himself, explaining he kept hitting a “brick wall” when he applied for jobs at various TV stations.

For most of that time, faith and spirituality were not even a consideration. However, God was still using relationships to sow seeds of the Gospel message in his heart.

Colleagues like Dave Rowe and Willie Buchanan, who had enjoyed successful NFL careers before getting into broadcasting, would talk with him about Jesus Christ, although he admits, “At the time it was like a foreign language to me.”

Coe’s counsel was priceless. He said, “Those brick walls are not there to

Through other relationships, Stone finally started to understand that

Phil Stone

“foreign language.” In 1993, he had met Dick Bridgman, a CBMC leader in San Diego, who persistently invited him to outreach meetings.

“I kept turning him down until one day Dick caught me off guard and I said, ‘Okay, I’ll go.’ He even came and picked me up, to make sure I wouldn’t back out.”

To Stone’s surprise, “I knew as many guys there as Dick did. I went to the next luncheon, then the next, and really enjoyed them. Men there had something I didn’t have. That was the real beginning of my spiritual journey. It was like drinking from a fire hose that I really enjoyed drinking from.”

About the same time, three friends told him about a new church nearby.

As a single father raising two children, Brent and Lindsay, Stone found needed help at church. Timely aid also came through a highly recommended book.

much more holy than me.

But looking at the job description, I thought, ‘I’ve done all those things,’ so I submitted my resume.”

“One of my friends, Paul Lewis, asked if he gave me a book, would I read it. I told him I didn’t have time, with all my responsibilities. I said, ‘I feel like I’m at halftime of a football game and don’t know if I have what it takes to come out and win the second half.’

“Then Paul handed me the book.

Ironically, it was Halftime, by Bob Buford, about how men should refocus their lives after achieving success. It was one of those ‘Godwinks’ people talk about. As I read the book, I became a changed man. It helped me to understand I was pursuing the wrong goals.

“Six months later, I invited Christ into my life. I felt like I had a lifeline, able to take a deep breath and get involved in something worthwhile,” he says. “Not long afterward I was asked to take over the church’s men’s ministry. I didn’t know much about the Bible then, but the associate pastor said it would help me grow.

We started with 35 men, but within a couple of years it had expanded to well over 100. I discovered I had a real love for men’s ministry.”

In 2007, a friend in CBMC, Bob Davie, told him the ministry was looking for a national Director of Communications and Marketing. “I read the job posting but thought surely CBMC was looking for somebody 6

A few weeks later Pat O’Neal, then President of CBMC, called Stone, asking him to fly to Raleigh, N.C. for a week to get to know the ministry and meet with the national leadership team. That was the start of a prayerful several-month process that ultimately resulted in his acceptance of the media role.

“Actually, when Pat first offered me the job, I turned it down,” he says.

“I told him that I didn’t feel that I was enough. He surprised me when he responded, ‘You’re absolutely right. But with Jesus Christ, we are enough – we’re complete in Christ.’”

After praying about it, Stone finally agreed to accept the new role with CBMC. Those doubts are now in the past as he reflects on his time with CBMC since 2008. “It’s such a fun ride with the ministry,” he states.

Even while applying his expertise to the development of cutting-edge videos and media, associations have meant the most to Stone. “I could name hundreds and hundreds of people, hearing and putting on video their stories of how Christ transformed their lives. Those opportunities never get old.

“I think of men like Cecil Little and Rod Middlebook, who became lifelong friends after meeting many years ago at a Billy Graham crusade, where Cecil gave his heart to Christ.

“One major difference from my sports broadcasting career, however, is that I’m not trying to appeal to millions of people anymore. I’m appealing to an audience of one – the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Stone didn’t disagree, but still declined to accept the role because he felt spiritually unqualified. O’Neal persisted, however, and two months later they met again.

“He inquired about my broadcasting career. ‘Where do you think those skills came from?’ Pat asked. ‘Probably God,’ I replied. Then he asked, ‘The job you’re in right now – are you utilizing those skills?’ I had to admit I wasn’t using my broadcasting skills or experience one bit. Then he posed a clinching question, ‘Do you think it’s God-honoring to be in a job not using those skills?’”

I captured their stories on video. In 2016, Cecil called to tell me Rod had gone home to be with the Lord, and his widow wanted to know if we could show that video at the funeral.

I produced 25 DVD copies of it for her to give to family and friends.

“Stories like that, those associations, have been priceless. I never dreamed I would have the opportunity to meet and interact with so many people deeply anchored in Christ. When you can create a relational bridge anchored in something you both have a passion for, there’s nothing like it.”

A HIGH-POWERED EVENT

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NEARLY 40 YEARS IN THE MAKING

hen a capacity crowd of 400 men and women gather for the 3rd annual Williamson County Leadership Prayer Breakfast in Georgetown, TX on March 29, it will represent fruit from spiritual seeds planted nearly 40 years ago.

The speaker, Mark Whitacre, and the event’s founder, Jerry Geiger, both came to know Jesus Christ and were discipled by men in CBMC and share a passion for pointing others to the Lord.

Geiger was introduced to CBMC in 1978 in Oklahoma City by Andy Cornelius, a volunteer leader working with Dr. Herman Reece, an oral surgeon, to get the ministry established in their area. Geiger attended numerous CBMC outreach events before committing his life to Christ at a luncheon in 1980 where Ted DeMoss, then President of CBMC, was the speaker.

Soon after, he began meeting with Reece, going through Operation Timothy one early morning a week before going to work. In 1983, Geiger helped Reece in planning Oklahoma City’s first mayor’s prayer breakfast. Charles Duke, a former astronaut with NASA who had driven the Rover lunar module on the Apollo 16 mission, was the speaker.

In 1989, Geiger moved to Atlanta, GA, but he never forgot how God had used CBMC in his life. The demands of work, family and other ministry commitments reduced his involvement in CBMC, but in 2015

he moved to Georgetown, 25 miles north of Austin, the state capital.

There he reconnected with CBMC through Audie Brower, an area leader who had been discipled by Tom Sawyer, a Metro Director in Houston.

Jerry Geiger

Remembering the impact of the Oklahoma City prayer breakfast, which continues to attract more than 1,000 people annually, Geiger determined to explore starting an event like it for Williamson County, following the same format. The first was held in 2018, where retired Lt. Col. Allen West, a former U.S. congressman in Florida, was the speaker.

The COVID-19 pandemic shelved the community prayer breakfast in 2020, but the second was held in 2021, with Duke serving as the speaker and 300 people attending.

“Everyone thought Charlie Duke did such a great job, and several people wanted to know how I was going to follow it up in 2022,” Geiger said.

His next step was to call the now-retired Reece for suggestions. He referred him to Oklahoma City Metro Director Harold Armstrong. Without hesitation, Armstrong recommended Mark Whitacre, who had served as COO for CBMC and headed up the Marketplace Ambassador Initiative before becoming executive director of t-factor, a non-profit that serves top-level corporate executives.

Mark Whitacre

When Geiger contacted Whitacre, they immediately formed a strong bond as they exchanged stories about how God had changed their lives through CBMC. Ian Howes had reached out to Whitacre in Chapel Hill, NC in 1997, after reading newspaper accounts about serious legal challenges Whitacre was facing and emotional despair he was experiencing.

As Reece had done with Geiger, Howes became like a spiritual father for Whitacre, using Operation Timothy to help him to grow in his faith after he had committed his life to Christ in 1998.

So, when Geiger introduces Whitacre on March 29, they will be appearing as fellow beneficiaries of “men who show the way,” as a CBMC motto stated in days gone by. Then, working with Chris Logue, who is serving as Chairman of the Georgetown prayer breakfast, Brower and other CBMC volunteers, Geiger plans to follow up on guests who respond to Whitacre’s message. They are praying the seeds sown that morning will bear similar spiritual fruit over the months and years to come.

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2022 UPCOMING CBMC EVENTS CHECK CBMC.COM/EVENTS FOR REGISTRATION DETAILS Mentor Link Up

February 3rd Newport Beach, CA Share Jesus Without Fear Training Conference

February 5th Bluffton, SC YP Dinner

February 10th Omaha, NE CBMC Chattanooga Luncheon

March 2nd Chattanooga, TN YP Dinner

March 10th Omaha, NE

Leadership Coach Training Course

2022 Greater Omaha Leadership Prayer Breakfast

March 12th Hockessin, DE

April 15th La Vista, NE

Central Midwest Leadership Coach Training

Mentor Recognition

March 25th Overland Park, KS (Virtual) Lunch and Learn – CBMC Peer Advisory Groups

April 5th Omaha, NE

April 26th Atlanta, GA 2022 Cleveland Leadership Prayer Breakfast

May 4th Cleveland, OH

CBMC Chattanooga Luncheon

2022 Akron Leadership Prayer Luncheon

April 6th Chattanooga, TN

May 4th Akron, OH

Mentor Link Up

April 7th Newport Beach, CA