SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2007

THE TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

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Dear Friends in Our Lord Jesus:

You may not have heard of Samuel Truett Cathy. But this 86-year-old man is one of the most influential people in our world today. And it’s primarily due to his faith in the Lord.

Cathy was born in Eaton, Georgia, in 1921. He was the sixth of seven children, and as a child he helped his mother run a boarding house. He also delivered newspapers and sold soft drinks -- starting his first business before he was a teenager. Here is how he described his pre-teen years during the Great Depression: “Knocking on people’s doors and asking them to buy a Coke from me demanded an awful lot of courage. As a little boy I had a speech impediment so severe I could not pronounce my own name. My mother wrote my name on a card so that if I had to introduce myself to strangers I could let them read it. I remained tongue-tied for years and as a consequence was quite shy.”

After high school, he served in the U.S. Army and afterward opened a small restaurant (called the Dwarf Grill) with one of his brothers. In 1967, he opened his first fast-food restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. He decided at the beginning that he would operate on Christian standards -- helping others every day of the week and doing everything he could to support families and children. He also decided at the beginning to close his restaurant on Sundays, to honor the Lord’s Day.

Today, his chain of 1,200 restaurants does an annual business of more than $1 billion. He employs more than 40,000 people. He also started 11 nonprofit foundations to help children, including 11 foster homes and a home for orphans. He has also provided $15 million in scholarships to his employees since 1973. His motto is: “It’s easier to build boys and girls than it is to mend men and women.”

Woody Faulk, one of his vice presidents, was an orphan when Mr. Cathy put him to work two decades ago. Today, Faulk proudly says that Mr. Cathy is a living example of James 1:22 -- “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says!”

Mr. Cathy’s restaurants go by the name of Chick-fil-A.

-- The Very Rev. Dr. Steve Sellers +