Personal Version

What: An unfathomable tragedy. 

On the evening of April 16th, 2007 my wife and I lay in bed restless, unable to sleep. Like everyone else in Blacksburg, our lives had changed that day and sleep seemed impossible. Earlier that day our campus, Virginia Tech, had been rocked by the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in US history. What were we to do in response to an event that left so many in pain? We knew we wanted to help but we knew we were limited in what we could offer others.

Dr. Zacharias spoke at
Burress Hall on 10/9/07.

As we lay there, we had an odd moment of clarity in how we thought we could help. We were deeply involved with college students through a few campus ministries. We knew all our friends would have deep, philosophical questions that needed practical answers. We knew, through our own studies, that Dr. Ravi Zacharias is perhaps the most gifted Christian apologist alive today. We thought if we could get him to visit Virginia Tech, he could at least help address the pain left in our community with a loving hand. With a flooded mind, full of a million "What next?" questions, Meredith and I knew this is the one way we could tangibly help. It was our "What next?" And so that night, we emailed Dr. Zacharias and invited him to address a shocked community that would soon be grieving.

So what: At the center of community change.

Me, my wife Meredith, Dr. Zacharias,
his son Nathan, and Sandy Young, a
local church pastor. 

Dr. Zacharias quickly answered our invitation and agreed to come speak at Virginia Tech. We organized a 2-day, 4-event speaking engagement in which both Dr. Zacharias and his colleague, Joe Boot addressed students, faculty, community members and had an intimate meeting with a widowed wife who lost her husband in the shootings. We found ourselves leading the organization of an event that turned out to be the largest collaboration of churches in the NRV community to date. We had at least 20 pages of detailed planning logistics, with over 100 active planning volunteers, all lead by a small steering committee that included the two of us and four others.

Over 8,000 individuals attended the planned events. We received financial donations from churches in Tennessee and had a bus full of people from Pennsylvania come as well. Both the Collegiate Times and the Roanoke Times did brief stories covering the event.

Now what: How our experience relates to leadership literature.

Certainly values played a major role in the cohesion of the community and the efforts of local churches. Hickman (pg 135) clearly communicates this notion in his text when he wrote "...something needs to trigger [the sense of community] so that people mobilize resources. Most often this trigger takes the form of a clear threat to the community..." It goes without saying that the Virginia Tech community felt threatened to an extent that no university in our nation had ever experienced. The shared values of our community made our responsive cohesion effective, swift and efficient.

Cassell Coliseum event on 10/10/07. 

We also felt that we experienced shared leadership. Hundreds of individuals volunteered and many churches financially supported our efforts. Although we were a part of a small, strategic steering committee, we also found ourselves blending in to a community effort that had many active members.

We experienced at least two of Gaventa's different levels for power and participation - local and national (Hickman 134). Certainly the majority of change was felt at the local level, which was our primary aim. However, given the notoriety of Dr. Zacharias, we received feedback from his organization that others too were encouraged by the messages shared during the event.

Given my brief experience as a community leader, I found community values at the center of our efforts. Those values gave us cohesion and clear purpose - they also allowed for a synergy that felt somewhat supernatural. While I hope to never be so close to such a tragic event again, I do hope to always help those in deep pain - and it is values that will drive those types of efforts.