Biography
Reprinted From Metro Christian Living
Accidental author Scot Thigpen’s Chasing Solomon began as a personal journal…It’s now a whole lot more than one man’s quest for truth!
A Certified Financial Planner, as well as a Certified Public Accountant, Scot Thigpen did not set out to write a book or begin a ministry. He was just a guy on the threshold of the big “4-0” who hit a bump or two in the road of life and began to ask some soul searching questions.
As he began to write, almost in journal form, his intention was to find answers and to be certain that his life and his goals were on track—on God’s track. He planned to search, research, organize his thoughts on paper, and then put his epistle in the drawer forever. How like God to have other plans.
His personal quest immediately captured the attention of seminary professors, Dr. Bill Ury and Dr. Steve Blakemore of Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson. Over coffee, lunches, and many e-mails, Scot probed the uncomfortable terrain of examining the “normal” Christian life in our culture against the backdrop of God’s words on the “normal” Christian life.
Scot’s sincerity was apparent from the start. Blakemore says, “I thought to myself. Here is a guy who really gets it. He realizes that Christian faith is not just a nice religious impulse that can make us nicer or happier people. He realizes that discipleship to Jesus Christ is a radical call to orient all of one’s life around His Way and His Lordship. I was also struck by how deep and thorough Scot wanted to think about how our lives in this affluent nation could be changed if Christ were really to be in control of our lives.”
Scot’s Background
As a native of Jackson, Scot was well churched! In fact, church is the backdrop that frames nearly every childhood memory. Although his parents were both involved in youth ministry in the Methodist Church, it was his grandmother, Bess Hart—affectionately nicknamed “Dee” by her grandchildren—whose authentic life and consistent Christian testimony constantly challenged him to seek God’s truth and to live it. Chasing Solomon began in journal form because Scot intended to tell his grandmother before she died exactly what her example, prayers, and loving encouragement had meant in his life. It carries a touch of sentimental and significant irony that it was Dee’s small monetary legacy to her grandson that provided the funds for the book’s first printing!
But it was his loving wife and high school heartthrob, Kimberly, who saw the potential in what he had written. With her friend, Sherry Harfst, former Director of Children’s Ministries at Christ United Methodist Church, Scot was persuaded not to put this in a drawer.
Instead of the Drawer…
There were too many lives that had been broken by missing the answers to the very questions Scot had posed. Steve Blakemore agreed with Kimberly and Sherry. They asked Scot to take the principles and weave them into a story with characters who stumbled over the same questions. Their consensus was “Everyone would want to read it.” So Scot, who jokes that his high school English teachers are probably cringing, was suddenly an author and the founder of a new ministry.
When the book appeared in 2005, Scot immediately received phone calls, letters, e-mails, and requests for more books. Parents wanted them for their children. Grandparents wanted them for their grandchildren. The most frequently heard remarks were, “I wish I had known these things when I was thirty…If only I had known these things in my twenties…” and so it continues today.
With the encouragement and persistence of Blakemore and others who passionately believe in the message of Scot’s book, the first annual Chasing Solomon conference took place in Jackson in early February. The two-day conference was attended by more than 250 people hungry to catch the concept of “re-envisioning the good life.” Speakers, small group discussions, testimonies from those who had lived life their own way, and from those who had found meaning in life lived God’s way—all were on hand. Many left with renewed faith experiencing the same thing Scot Thigpen experienced several years ago. Steve Blakemore describes it as “Biblical theology that initially grabbed Scot’s attention and then his heart.”
Chris Snopek, owner of Performance Sports Academy, was among the organizers and speakers at the conference. His enthusiasm is evident in his comments. “There were people there from all over the state and from all walks of life—men, women, young, old, rich, and those who were not…it was great to see how God’s people could come together and talk to each other about their accountabilities. God’s word cuts across all our differences. It was a mountain top experience. It reinforced that we can experience and should experience God in every detail of our every day. The whole Chasing Solomon message reshapes your perspective and helps you do that.”
Seeking Answers to Life’s Meaning
If you have already read Chasing Solomon, you know that the grandmother character in the book, “Dee,” gives a threadcount sampler to her very young grandson, Buck. It reads “Be careful what you set your heart on, for you will surely get it.”
The words are before him all of his growing up years, and when he leaves home, they follow him down every path he travels. Over and over the Buck character discovers the truth of those words. And so it has been with Scot Thigpen as well.
Scot explains, “Ever since I had been in business, I had had some restlessness with all of the questions about money, possessions…and materialism, balance, Christian walk and all that stuff.” It seems there was just no way to ignore the glaring contrast he had witnessed between the Bible’s instruction on the blessed life, the reality of his influential grandmother’s faith journey and the sociology of “normal” and “successful” in the everyday world.
The first of many mission trips to Jamaica in 1993 intensified everything. It was time to put thoughts on paper and to chronicle this quest for the real “purpose filled life.” Scot was a member of the church missions committee that particular year. Martha Walton, Director of Missions at CUMC, nudged him and prodded him and finally persuaded Scot that he should make the trip. Call it a God thing, but Scot has never been the same.
At the time, Kimberly was a stay-at-home mom with a new baby and a toddler. Considering that Scot’s salary was straight commission, taking a week off for mission work in Jamaica obviously required a large measure of support from Kimberly. She encouraged her husband to go admitting that she may have had a fleeting thought or two about “What if.” But like Scot, Kimberly’s faith in God’s ability to supply was greater than her fear over the next months’ finances.
What a shock, however, when he returned with fresh insights on every aspect of the “good life.”
Dealing with the Answers in Real Life
Scot says, “The mission trip was a big factor in making me deal with my attitude about money. Since then, I have been on other mission trips, and I always learn something else about life, but it all began with my attitude about money. Like most people, I was ambitious in my career. I was listening, observing, and watching the people in my business. I worked daily with people who, by the American standard of success, they had it all, but I was around them enough to see that something was missing. At the same time, I couldn’t get over the way the people in Jamaica related to one another. Here they were, with none of the trappings of success as we define it, and they were happy, giving, and joyful. Not a one of them seemed to think life was all about them. And they were also deeply committed to their families and to each other. I came back realizing I did not have life figured out at all.”
“It was culture shock for him,” Kimberly says. “It was so life changing—a real point of crisis, I guess. Everything from the noise in the house to the fact that our children had every kind of plastic toy known to man at the time. It all really bothered him. He kept saying, ‘we don’t need all this stuff.’”
One conflict Scot did not have was with Kimberly’s perception of his struggle. “It was amazing to see God at work because of Scot’s obedience. I had never been on a mission trip at that point. When Scot came back and began to tell me, I knew everything he was saying was true. It wasn’t hard to buy into the things he was saying.”
And the thing Scot was saying the loudest was that the Christian life is about more than just the forgiveness of sins. What does it really mean to be transformed into the likeness of Christ? The Bible indicates that such a thing is a “normal” progression of the Christian life, but as Scot looked around at the world of material abundance and middle class privilege, it appeared that transformation was in short supply.
He and Kimberly had always been intentional with their family goals, but they became even more deliberate as husband and wife and as parents. Scot believes, “You have to do more than just have the idea in your head. You need to write it down. We’ve found that writing our goals works for our family.”
At the end of each year, the four Thigpens sit down and write out their goals for the coming year. They include every compartment of life—including vacations, recreation, giving, health, spiritual growth and more. Everybody contributes his ideas. When the year ends and it is time to set new goals, Scot says it is always a joy for the four of them to see just how many of their goals they really experienced.
Kimberly says that after that first mission trip in 1993, mission trips became a “pattern” in Scot’s life. To this day, there is an annual mission trip in the Thigpen’s lives. Often they have gone as a family. “We knew we wanted our children to be exposed to the same things Scot had discovered on that first trip to Jamaica. We didn’t want them to be thirty years old before they realize there was a whole different way of seeing life than what our culture tells us is ‘normal,’” says Kimberly.
Scot says, “Our kids—all kids in this area, really—can spend their whole lives not really ‘getting it’ if we’re not careful.” Without even a hint of cynicism or judgemental condescension, Scot refers to the “Ghetto of Affluence,” where many of us really live and move and have our being these days. “For us, it is so important to get our kids out of that so they can see that all of our material stuff is not the ‘norm’ for planet earth and that life is not all about them either. We want them to know how blessed they are and to know that they have a responsibility as a Christian to recognize their blessings and to do something about it.” [i.e. give back to others] It would seem the Thigpens’ are on track with that goal.
Peyton and Bowen Thigpen are as down to earth as their parents. Students at Jackson Academy, they play sports, study hard, and love life. Their dad’s revelation and chasing after Jesus has not restricted their enjoyment of life—both agree the pursuit has enriched their growing up in significant ways. Bowen declares that “Helping others will always be a part of my life.”
Peyton’s opinion of the present is that he is quite blessed. His vision for the future is, “I have made a goal in my life to never take anything God has given me for granted.”
To watch the Thigpens in action is to realize how well Steve Blakemore expressed it in saying, “Here is a guy who really gets it.” No matter what Scot says about his accidental journey into writing, speaking, and ministry, it looks like God had a plan from the start as so many other searching hearts are “getting it” as well—and all because one regular guy asked some hard questions and was courageous enough to share the answers.
