Keeping the Focus

August 2003

Greetings from Focus on the Family! Because Dr. Dobson has been out of the office working on a revised and updated edition of his classic book The Strong-Willed Child, we thought that this monthly letter would provide an appropriate forum in which to introduce myself in more detail. By now, most of you know that Dr. Dobson will continue to oversee the ministry as Chairman of the Board, while I will take on many of the managerial responsibilities as President and CEO. This arrangement will allow Dr. Dobson to devote more of his time and energy to writing and other creative endeavors. Dr. Dobson and I both want to emphasize that he is not retiring or "pulling back" from the ministry. He is as involved as ever, although his emphasis has shifted from administration and management to more creative and inspirational activities. It is a very logical redirection that we believe was designed by the One who ordained this ministry in the first place.

Although my new role has been public knowledge for a while now, many of you may still be wondering, "Who is Don Hodel?" I realize that many of you reading this letter have faithfully supported Focus on the Family over the years, both through prayer and through sacrificial financial gifts. Because you have made such a significant investment in the work of this ministry, and because Dr. Dobson and the staff consider good friends like you to be members of the extended "Focus family," you are entitled to know a bit about who I am and what I stand for.

Right up front, I want to acknowledge that I am a sinner, saved by the grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ. That may sound like the typical "Christian" answer, but it does describe me. I am passionate about the Gospel, and while I fully realize that my relationship with God is guaranteed through the shed blood of Jesus and not through any effort on my part, I have a strong desire to serve both the Lord and my fellow man. This motivation manifested itself, long before I had a personal relationship with my Savior, in a desire to become involved in government and politics. When I was about six years old, I announced to my mother that I wanted to be President. My childish aspirations were driven by a simple and earnest desire to "do good" for others.

That desire to serve stayed with me as I matured and entered adulthood. During this period of my life, I had a rather legalistic view of God, envisioning Him as a sort of distant Being who was too busy to know me personally. I had heard friends and associates speak of being "born again" from time to time, and although I may have wondered what they were talking about, I never felt compelled to find out.

My wife, Barbara, and I met and married while we were in college. At the time, her views on what it meant to be a "Christian" were as simplistic and uninformed as my own. We attended church because, in our minds, that was just what normal, "decent people" did. We took our older son, Philip, and his younger brother, David, to Sunday school fairly regularly.

We quit going to church, however, by the time Philip was 11 or 12 years old. His behavior became quite troublesome as he neared the teen years, and he strongly resisted going to church. For that, and other reasons that seemed sufficient at the time, we decided that it wasn't worth the struggle every week. Meanwhile, my career prospered. In 1972, I was appointed head of the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal electricity power-marketing agency in the Pacific Northwest.

The rosy picture of our lives changed dramatically in 1974, when, after years of abusing drugs and alcohol, Philip committed suicide on his 17th birthday. We were totally devastated. Anyone who has been associated with a child's suicide will testify to the overwhelming guilt that sets in as a result, and no one feels that guilt more than the parents. Barbara and I were no exceptions — we knew we were at fault. Even now, almost 30 years later, we still feel the loss of our son deeply.

In the midst of that tragedy, we looked for a good church that would host our son's memorial service. By God's grace, we found a godly congregation full of wonderful people who reached out to us in genuine love and compassion. To this day we say, "We met Jesus Christ in them first." Before long, we had both committed our lives to Him. We soon learned that not even a tragedy of the magnitude our family had experienced could separate us from His love.

My newfound Christian faith made my desire to "do good" through public service take on a whole new dimension, and the Lord blessed me with favor in the eyes of others. My term at the Bonneville Power Administration ended, and Barbara and I formed an energy consulting firm. In 1981, I terminated that firm when I was nominated by President Reagan and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to the positions, successively, of Under Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Energy, and during President Reagan's second term, Secretary of the Interior. I had the privilege of serving for more than six years in President Reagan's Cabinet. My time in Washington was very significant to the growth and refinement of my Christian faith, but I may share those details with you at another time.

At the end of Reagan's second term, in January 1989, Barbara and I left Washington, moved to the mountains of Colorado, and started a new energy consulting business. I joined the Focus on the Family Board of Directors in 1995, and in 1996 served as interim Executive Vice President and assisted with a period of management restructuring. I was enthusiastic about the tremendous impact for good that the ministry was having on people, but even in 1995, I could see that Dr. Dobson was terribly overworked. The demands of being both the creative "communicator" for the ministry and its President and CEO were clearly too heavy a burden for anyone. Obviously, Dr. Dobson has done a remarkable job of juggling both tasks — and I don't know another person who could have done what he has for all these years — but I'm thankful that this transition is allowing me to lift some of the administrative burdens off his shoulders. I certainly never had any expectations of doing this when I joined the Board in 1995, but I'm excited that God has opened this door. I'm doing this as a volunteer because of a commitment I made to the Lord years ago.

That's a brief summary of how I got here, but some of you may still be wondering why. That's a good question! Why, at this stage in my life, does a man turn his life on its head to take a challenging position at Focus on the Family? Why have Barbara and I agreed to live away from our home in the mountains? Because we believe Focus is enormously significant and has even greater potential to "do good."

Barbara and I originally came to Focus as a result of our deep respect and admiration for Dr. Dobson. But now we know that Focus on the Family is a remarkable service opportunity for us because of our mutual commitment to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible. We have long recognized that Dr. Dobson is a true visionary in his ability to see the relationship between healthy families and the spreading of the Gospel. He has said on many occasions that God designed the family as the primary and most effective means of propagating the Christian faith. He has repeatedly pointed out that, as the traditional family erodes, so too does our ability to disseminate the Good News effectively, especially to the next generation. God's primary instrument for passing along the "baton" of the Gospel to children is the family. Barbara and I agree wholeheartedly with this perspective.

Before proceeding any further, I want to interject a few words about Barbara, whose name I have already mentioned numerous times throughout this letter. As you may have surmised, Barbara and I are a "team" in every sense of the word. Her love and wholehearted support for me — not only during our transition to Focus, but throughout our years of marriage — have been unwavering. She has been a true partner and helpmate, accompanying me to meetings, discussing important decisions with me in private, offering unique insights that only she can, and encouraging and supporting me when I feel discouraged or distressed. She has made many sacrifices to support my public involvement and now this assignment, and I thank the Lord for gifting me with such a wonderful wife.

To this point, I have shared some of the broad, over-arching reasons why I feel the Lord led us, at this time and in this way, to Focus. But there are also a number of specific programs and outreach endeavors taking place at the ministry about which Barbara and I are truly excited. For example, we share Dr. Dobson's passion for defending helpless, innocent, preborn babies from abortion. Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family have been consistent and powerful voices on this front. Dr. Dobson has spoken in anguish about abortion while at the same time expressing his compassion and pointing to Christ's healing touch for those impacted by this national tragedy. As Christians boldly and rightly proclaim how wrong abortion is, we may unintentionally create an insurmountable barrier to our message about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. We need to make a more concerted effort to let those who may be experiencing deep remorse over an abortion know that forgiveness, healing, and restoration are found in Him. We also need to acknowledge that, whether someone is a pro-abortion politician or a "family planning clinic" worker on the one hand, or a committed pro-lifer on the other, we are all sinners in need of God's saving grace.

Another endeavor that excites us is the ministry's outreach to young families. The runaway success of Dr. Dobson's recent book, Bringing Up Boys, confirms what we have suspected: an entire new generation of parents is hungry for practical, biblically based advice on raising their kids in the fear and admonition of the Lord. In fact, when Focus on the Family first introduced its Young Families program last year — www.focusonyourchild.com — the response was so overwhelming that we had to curtail promotion of the service until we could catch up with the demand! Even in the early stages, we're finding that for every $60 contribution we receive for this purpose, we can reach a young family for an entire year, and we also know that as the program expands, we will be able to reduce that cost dramatically as more and more young families come on board. It seems to me that, while many of these young families are struggling financially, there must be many others like Barbara and me who want to reach out and help by enabling Focus, through our support, to reach them. Those of us who do so have an exciting opportunity to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Dr. Dobson and build on the solid foundation he has put down by offering family-strengthening, God-honoring and life-transforming assistance to a new generation of moms and dads and their children.

In a similar way, I continue to be amazed at the outreach we already have through the Internet. Focus on the Family has established itself as a significant presence on the World Wide Web. Still, continuing advancements in technology suggest that we have only scratched the surface in terms of our potential to affect lives in Jesus' name through this medium. Our Web site family.org continues to draw increasing numbers of visitors, and we are seeking ways to expand our initiative to share biblically based advice with non-Christian and unchurched families through our troubledwith.com Web site in the expectation that, ultimately, we can lead them to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

In his May letter, Dr. Dobson shared some of the dramatic developments happening through Focus on the Family's international efforts, so I will not repeat them here. Suffice it to say that I agree wholeheartedly with his suggestion that the challenges facing the family in the United States are much the same the world over. Our forays onto the international stage have demonstrated to a remarkable degree how an emphasis on universal family issues can open doors to sharing the Gospel. Who would have thought that by presenting the facts about abstinence in South America, or combating the divorce rate in Western Europe, or confronting the AIDS crisis in Africa, we would have had so many opportunities to introduce hurting individuals and families to Jesus Christ? And yet, that is exactly what is happening every day through the work of our International Associate Offices! Again, as a financial supporter of Focus, I am delighted to know that for every $50 I give to the ministry for this purpose, trained Christian facilitators will reach six teenagers in South Africa or Central America with the life-saving message that "abstinence works every time." Most of those students (85%) will make abstinence pledges, and what is even more exciting is that our experience in Central and Latin America shows that at least half of those teens will make decisions to invite Christ into their lives! The future impact on families in these countries can be phenomenal.

I could go on, but I trust you can sense my enthusiasm for the important evangelism that is being accomplished around the world through Focus on the Family. I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to join this great organization. Its level of sophistication and outreach is like none I have ever seen. Despite the amazing growth and influence Focus has enjoyed over the years, I believe we are only beginning to realize our potential. I look forward to working with Dr. Dobson, the rest of Focus' leaders, and our supporters as we seek the Lord's leading for the future. If we get it right, and if God allows, we may look back on this moment and realize that Focus on the Family's first 25 years were only the foundation for something much, much bigger in terms of reaching the world for Jesus Christ.

Even though my primary responsibility here at Focus is administrative, I hope it is clear that my heart truly resonates with the issues and vision that have driven Dr. Dobson. I'm committed to evangelizing the world through encouraging and supporting the traditional family with every resource the Lord provides. And I'm tremendously thankful for the help of my loving wife, the guidance of Dr. Dobson and the Focus Board, the team support of a talented ministry staff, and perhaps most notably, the input of those of you who have been friends and supporters of this ministry for many years. Dr. Dobson has always said that Focus on the Family thrives on two-way, interactive relationships with good people like you. He is right.

After all, this organization will continue to share the Gospel and strengthen the family only so long as the Lord allows and so long as friends like you tender your prayerful support. Our message is as timeless as the Word of God itself, and in the grand scheme of things, it is not tied to me or any other individual, including even Dr. Dobson. As he has often said, "Focus on the Family is not a monument to my name." We want to offer the hope of eternal life that is found only in Christ, through strengthening and defending the institution of the family. If you've been a friend of this organization over the years, I hope you'll stay with us as we enter this new phase of the journey. It is my intention, with the Lord's guidance, to manage Focus and continue supporting Dr. Dobson's outreach in a way that assures you that your financial contributions are spent wisely and well. That will also mean that new donors, catching our vision for changing lives through Christ, can join you and thousands of others as we embrace the tremendous opportunities ahead. I hope that you'll be encouraged, as I am, with the realization that with every donation we receive, we are able to reach people with practical assistance that could save a marriage, encourage a parent, preserve the life of a preborn child, or even introduce a hurting individual to Christ for the first time. To me, that's exciting!

Thanks for allowing me to introduce myself this month. We anticipate that Dr. Dobson will write you in September, and I will return to what I hope becomes my more traditional "behind the scenes" role. Even though we will not seek to be at "center stage," Barbara and I would covet your prayers for us as we come to your minds in the coming months. And as always, be sure to let the staff here at Focus know how we can minister to you.

Sincerely,

Donald Paul Hodel
President and CEO

P.S. Although he's away from the office at present, Dr. Dobson is in touch with the ministry on a daily basis. I know he and Shirley would be both appreciative and blessed by your prayers for them.