Living Among the Lions features men and women who have embodied role-model leadership providing stability, direction, and motivation, both to the "masses" and to individuals. They have sacrificed their very lives on the altars of human need. Not because they have read it in a book, but because they have been incarcerated by a cause beyond themselves! Enraptured by the burning bush, given the burden by God, they have servants’ hearts, and because of this have laid down their lives for the lonely and rejected! Functioning as role-models in a society fueled by selfishness and narcissism, role-models have dared to be different because they care!

Living Among the Lions addresses the present "crisis of character" and "season of discontent" in America. This crisis of leadership has affected all age groups and people have turned their lonely eyes searching for an answer exposing the loneliness and rejection haunting Westerners in this maximum stress age. Enter the role-models! Parents, teachers, neighbors, employers, friends. This book is a penetrating, challenging glimpse into the chemistry and dynamics of role-modeling relationships.

Confrontational and challenging, this book propels people onto new heights, forever changing lives!

From 1965 to 1977, he owned a prosperous drugstore in Central Louisiana. On February 15, 1969, during a family illness, his life was tremendously changed in a dramatic conversion to Christianity. Ordained in pastoral ministry, he and his father founded a church in 1973. Four years later, he sold Baggett’s Pharmacy, going into full time ministry. In 1978, his marriage of twenty years ended as his beloved wife died, leaving four heartbroken children.

After a painful period of adjustment, God sent Ellan Kay Griffin, an attractive, intelligent schoolteacher into the Baggetts’ lives. This comely lady, a dynamic mix of beauty, brains, and forthrightness put "Humpty Dumpty back together again." Two years later, a Word would come from the Lord concerning relocation into the Lafayette area. Richard and Ellan Kay founded and pastored another church. A few years later, she was named principal at an elementary school. The children adjusted to change and performed as leaders in school and in different endeavors. During this time, Ellan Kay received her Masters in Administration and Supervision, and Richard received his Masters and Doctorate in Theology. He then resigned the ministry and went back to school completing graduate studies in Philosophy and Education. Today he is heading Impact Ministries, serving as a professor at ULL, and is employed as a pharmacist. In addition, he functions as a Bible teacher and inspirational speaker to different groups. This couple is involved giving leadership to many couples in various settings. The grateful parents of eight successful children and grandchildren, they are people who live on the cutting edge and believe they are called to impact society for the good, making a difference in people’s lives!

Exactly what is a role- model? Of what are they made? How is the word defined? It is interesting that dictionaries printed prior to the nineties do not acknowledge the word. Perhaps this "lack" of attention and space given the word elucidates our dilemma--Society doesn’t know enough about the word or the scenario of role-modeling to even address it!

How is this initiated? Usually a person sees another who is achieving or has accomplished worthwhile feats, one who has reached a pinnacle of success in one way or another. It extends beyond this, however. Role-models must have a certain accessibility, an openness that allows a "wanna-be" to get close enough to begin dialogue and request time with that person. Once this "introductory" gap is broached, then another crucial test for the fledgling relationship looms! Will there be a "chemistry" between the two? In successful role modeling, there has to be a flow, a current that permits communication and impartation; there must be an attraction of spirits, a communion of minds, a healthy exchange of ideas and beliefs.

What about role-model parenting? First, parents have been on a journey to "find themselves". For the past three decades, Westerners have been urged to "discover their inner selves". Scores of books have been written concerning self-contemplation and self-improvement. Introspection has been in "vogue" and a not-so-subtle "look out for number one" has been ingrained in the American psyche. While there is a healthy "looking inward" to one’s self, an inordinate amount of time spent dealing with this will lead to self-centeredness and neglect of other responsibilities, namely children! This baby-boomer generation, has both excused and "recused" itself from parental involvement, simply with the well worn adage, no, not an adage, because the term "adage" implies wisdom, and there is none here. Instead, it is a baby-boomer language of "I must find myself before I can help my children"! Please understand that the author is not against self-improvement helps and attempting to "get in touch with one’s mind and body", but what I am against is the relegating of parental responsibility to a second-hand role.

Chapter Eight examines the crucial, but sadly neglected, role of parents as role-models. The author candidly discusses the "R" word--the all but forgotten word of repentance. In today’s society, everyone blames everyone else for his/her problems; it is never "my fault"--it is my parents, my teacher, my coach, my doctor, my wife, my minister, etc. Also in this chapter, the subject of "tough love" is brought out with its one indispensable quality--LOVE MUST BE UNCONDITIONAL! The absolute necessity of parents and children spending quality time together is emphasized.

Chapter Twenty-Eight vividly addresses the roadblocks to effective role-modeling. With a trenchant, nitty-gritty look into the resistance factors, the author "lays out" an on-target hit list of villains which attack parents in their efforts to communicate with children. Emphasizing the "disappearance of the family", this book lucidly "tells it like it is", pointedly leveling the finger of blame at the appropriate source. No one is exculpated in this eye-opening expose!

This present crisis of character in America has been labeled by journalists, ministers, social workers, and teachers as America’s season of discontent.

Why are we in such a season as a nation? Because we have exchanged ideals and ethics for 30 pieces of silver! Our attitude over the past 10 years, including the past two presidential elections, has been a Philistine, cavalier one in which we superimposed money for character. We have, in the words of the prophet Hosea, "sown to the wind and have reaped a whirlwind!"

The writer of Ecclesiastes puts it so fittingly into perspective: "Woe to that person who is alone when he falls, and there is no one to pick him up."

We have become the "lonely generation" and the nation has turned its "lonely eyes" toward heroes. The answer is in finding role-models of integrity, compassion, and class to show us the way out of our quagmire of isolation, lethargy, and hopelessness. These LIONS are our golden ropes, which will pull and propel this society into new perspectives.

This book will challenge the reader, for it is an expose of the loneliness and rejection haunting Americans in this high stress age. This narrative diagnoses the disease, but it also provides the cure! Living Among the Lions addresses role-modeling in its fullness--the building blocks, the effects on people lacking role-model leadership, and the spectacular results achieved by those in such relationships.

Living Among the Lions will propel you into the previously uncharted waters of life-changing relationships--wrought amidst the tumultuous waves of a storm tossed sea of life. It takes the reader into new depths!