I am very fond of studying and reading about the Wright Brothers. My wife thinks it’s because they were sons of a Protestant minister and I’m always looking for examples of successful Protestant ministers’ sons, because I am a preacher’s kid.
Although all their siblings went on to get advanced degrees and their mother and father had advanced degrees, Orville and Wilbur did not pursue a formal education past high school. They worked out of a workshop, their bicycle shop, on a passion for controlled-powered heavier-than-air flight. This was at a time when, I’m sure, most of our nation thought, “If God had wanted you to fly, he’d have given you wings.”
There’s really no reason they should have been successful. Success should have come to Samuel Pierpont Langley. He was everything the Wright Brothers were not. He was well educated, well connected and well funded. He taught at the nation’s most prestigious universities and at the height of his career was appointed Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1901, he was given $50,000 to develop a plane that could carry a soldier. The Smithsonian matched that with an additional $50,000. Through the Smithsonian, he had contact with the brightest minds in the world. However, on December 17, 1903, the two preacher boys were successfully able to record first hand flight. In fact, they did four of them before the plane was destroyed.
Why is it that the Wright Brothers succeeded where Langley failed? I think it had to do with three things:
Passion or zeal. The Wright Brothers believed that controlled-powered heavier-than-air flight was possible and that’s what they wanted to achieve. Samuel Langley was gifted, he was a scientist, and had worked with hot air balloons. But he became passionate about it only when he realized the fame and fortune he could attain.
Proper perspective. Samuel Langley thought the key to flight was to take off and land. The Wright Brothers understood at the outset that the success of the whole thing depended on holding the aircraft in the air.
Perseverance or determination. Langley attempted flight twice and when both times failed, he quit-- eight days before the Wright Brothers were successful. The Wright Brothers spent four years just studying kites and gliders to understand how to control a flight, then essentially 18 months building a plane, crashing a plane and learning from mistakes and starting over. On two occasions, Wilbur Wright put in his journal that manned flight would not be achieved in his lifetime and yet they continued to pursue the dream.
As we look toward a successful 2011, the Foundation is committed to maintaining a passion, proper perspective and a spirit of perseverance. Rather than focus on the takeoff or landing, we will focus on the mission that helps further Kingdom work—promoting charitable planned giving and providing financial management for the gifts that strengthen Southern Baptist ministries today and tomorrow. Our time and resources are committed to this mission and we will demonstrate perseverance in all of our tasks.
Happy New Year.
Robert K. Kellogg
President & CEO
The Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma
We are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of God but also in the eyes of man.
II Corinthians 8:21