April 5 Rally Day Themes & Ideas
‘Celebrating freedom, honoring service’
Pat Williams is the father of 19 children, the senior vice president of the Orlando Magic, former general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers and the author of a great new book.
“Coaching Your Kids to be Leaders: The Keys to Unlocking Their Potential” includes a foreword by John Wooden and a powerful introduction by Chuck Colson.
Colson writes of his own experience of leadership. He recounts his meteoric rise within the nation's most powerful circles.
“I got involved in politics and became the youngest administrative assistant in the U.S. Senate. When I was 39 years old, President Nixon asked me to serve in the White House.
“Every day, I worked with the most powerful leaders on the planet. Dr. Henry Kissinger began each of his national security briefings with the words, ‘The decisions we make today will change the course of human history.’ We believed those words. We were convinced that we were going to change the world.
“That, of course, was before Watergate.
“I believe that we in the Nixon White House failed in our mission because many of us — myself included — misunderstood the true nature and purpose of leadership. We thought that leadership was about power. In reality, leadership is about such issues as vision, servanthood, integrity and character — the very issues that Pat Williams has been exploring in this book.”
Chuck Colson continues, “As the Watergate scandal unfolded, I went to prison, where I received some startling and unexpected lessons in leadership…. Today, I thank God for that prison and for those fellow prisoners who led me into a deeper understanding of what it means to follow Jesus Christ. I thank God that I was humbled and stripped of power, so that I could learn lessons in leadership from the greatest Leader who ever led. Perhaps the most important leadership lesson I learned is that Jesus led by serving.
“There is no more effective leadership model than the model of a servant. There is no more rewarding way to live than to lead by serving others. When the end of life approaches, the most rewarding memories you will have are of those times when God has used you to touch the loves of others.“
He concludes, “This is the heart of authentic leadership. This is the message we must teach to those young people who will be tomorrow’s leaders: True meaning and joy in life are found through following in the footsteps of the Carpenter, through putting ourselves second and others first.
“A leader is, above all, a servant.”†
This is a long quote, but a powerful one. It embodies the theme of Rally Day 2005, that servant-leadership is true leadership; we hold that model up to ourselves and to our young people.
This year at Rally Day we want to focus on leaders among our young people, those who are living out this model of true servants among us. We want to encourage this proper, biblical ideal of leadership for our young people, for our families and ourselves.
We will do this in a number of ways.
- Our Outstanding Students have been servant leaders in their high school years. We will honor them.
- We will hear from guest speakers who live out this model in their lives and will encourage us to live this way.
- We will also celebrate our freedom to train and educate our children according to our deepest convictions. We will express our gratitude to those lawmakers who continue to preserve and protect this precious freedom; we will celebrate them and their courageous stand for our liberties.
- The beautiful student led Prelude music will begin at 9:15 a.m. in the War Memorial Auditorium on Capitol Hill. You won’t want miss any of it! This year the first annual THEA Home School Honors Band representing Bands from all across Tennessee will perform on the War Memorial Auditorium stage with Guest Master Conductor, Dr. Stephen Rhodes.Legislators will greet us, special speakers will inspire us, and our students will inspire and entertain us.
- The most important activity of the day is your scheduled visit with your legislators. Nothing planned on this day has more impact. It is crucial! Go as a family or join with another family from your area or with your support group. Call today and make Call today and make your appointment. your appointment. You can find out who your legislators are & their phone numbers on the Tennessee General Assembly website: www.legislature.state.tn.us.
- You and your family or group can sign up to deliver our 180 dozen signature red, white & blue gift bags of cookies to the legislator’s staff and the Outstanding Student Booklets to our legislators. This can be done in conjunction with your appointment with your legislator. This activity will be coordinated from the lobby of the War Memorial Auditorium.
Meal options
There will be no lunch served to home school families this year, so please plan accordingly. The facility we use for this lunch is being renovated and is unavailable to us. If the weather is good, you might plan to bring a cooler and eat outside, across the street from the Capitol Building on the Legislative Plaza. You can purchase lunch in the Legislative Plaza Cafeteria or the Chick-fil-A inside the BellSouth Tower at 4th Ave. & Commerce St. Within the Arcade between 4th & 5th Aves. and Church and Union streets, there are Chinese, Greek and Italian restaurants where many from Capitol Hill choose to lunch.
The best, most convenient and lowest priced parking in downtown Nashville is the Library Garage between Church & Commerce streets and 6th and 7th avenues. The large garage is accessed from either 6th or 7th. The maximum fee for all day parking is $5.
Lodging
We are currently working on special rates with a downtown hotel for Monday night April 4th. We’re very sorry this is not finalized by this time but, we will alert you of these details by e-mail and on the THEA web site at www.tnhea.org.
† Used by permission of Warner Faith Publishers of “Coaching Your Kids to be Leaders: The Keys to Unlocking Their Potentiall” by Pat Williams, ©2005. ISBN: 0-446-53349-1
