Define Role Model_0001.wmv

Rich: If someone was to ask you to define the term role model, come up to you on the street and say, “Jose, please define for me a role model,” what would you say? Jose: Be like Jesus. Rich: Excellent. Zeke, I see you’re having some thoughts over there percolating through your head. Zeke: Yeah. As I think about this topic, you guys could probably add to or elaborate more on it, but in my mind, it’s always been a question as to what really defines a role model in our culture. We have these athletes who say they’re not role models and they don’t want to be role models, they shun that responsibility and then you have young people who are pursuing, trying to find someone who they can call a role model. I think it comes down to this. I think it’s not the athlete or the observer that is observing the athlete that decides who the role model is. I believe the culture makes that decision. Unfortunately, in our culture in America, we have taken money and the power and fame that comes from athletics rather than the morality -- you know, having excellent morality or having excellent social skills to define what a role model is in our culture. I think that really has left us in a place with a little bit of -- we’re squandering a little bit trying to figure out what's next. Rich: I would have to agree with you because what we’ve talked about this morning so far is “people relate to people that they feel they can relate to” and that’s who your role models become. If you feel like you have something in common with that person, you’re going to be drawn to that person because I can tell you a real quick personal story here. The first Bible verse that I ever read was written on an autographed picture from Jim Zorn, the first Seahawks quarterback. And if I haven’t been a Seahawks fan and gone to their very first preseason game, that picture and the fact that Bible verse was on there wouldn’t have mattered to me. But because of who Jim Zorn was and the feeling that I could relate to him and he was part of my life, I accepted what was possible, what possibly would be there. And I first read that verse when I was 11 and then it took eight long years of being hardheaded let’s say before I finally figured out what that was all about. I thank God everyday that Jim Zorn had the courage to put that Bible verse in there because that’s what it’s all about. We’ve got to step out and be uncommon people and make the uncommon common. Zeke: Uh-hmm. Jose: Uh-hmm.