When crime increases, so do victim counts. When we are talking deadly force incidents, every one of those numbers is a life. Every life affects an entire family and circle of friends. We are seeing an increase of violent deadly force crime in the whole United States of America. The specific demographic I will refer to here is faith-based organizations. I have been watching the most violent crimes associated with faith-based properties for over 20 years, cataloguing them into useful statistics to help organizations develop intentional readiness. Many trends have been identified, but here is a recent one. If March 15th was the start of the nationwide shutdown, consider the 30 days following that shutdown. Starting March 15th, and ending April 15th, there were 11 deadly force incidents associated with faith-based properties in the U.S. Of those 11 incidents, there was only one victim who died. Others were seriously hurt, but…
2020 July
I first wrote of 2020 being a great year in 1997. I’ve looked forward to it for a long time. It hasn’t turned out as I had hoped. Songs came out during my youth that are now records of the turmoil of the turbulent 60’s and 70’s. I’ve thought of one of them a lot lately. Every time directional arrows in a store tell me how to move down an aisle I hear; Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind. Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign I am angry and so are a lot of people in this country. I believe COVID is dangerous. I think it has killed more than its fair share and isn’t done yet. I see people so bent on each side of the debate however, that they aren’t communicating with any reason. If I have a…
INTRO: Our friend Jimmy Meeks wrote this week’s TAI for us… No one needs to be told about the chaos that has hit our country. Between the pandemic and the protesting, blood pressures are soaring. Unfortunately, instead of offering viable solutions that could help, too many are prone to gripe, murmur, and point fingers. I have no interest in that. I want to know what I can DO that will help bring some healing and peace. And I think I know. Let me make four suggestions as to what we, as disciples of Jesus, can DO RIGHT NOW… PENITENT. To be penitent is to be repentant, contrite, sorry for our sin. And this can only happen when we are willing to allow God to search our hearts and reveal what WE are doing wrong — not what everyone else is doing wrong. The pandemic shut down my seminars, but it…