Ecclesiastes 12:10

   A chain is a handy device. You use it to pull a car out of the ditch. You can hoist a heavy item. You can use one to anchor a boat or secure a gate.  But you can’t push with a chain. It will pull or hold but try to push and it’s pretty much useless.  People are a lot like a chain. When linked together they can be powerful, if you pull them and don’t try to push. You start pushing them and the links go every which way.   Too many times we try to lead folks by just pushing them. We’re in the back trying to get things moving and it rarely works well. All that shouting and cajoling and needling might move things an inch or two, but the bang for the buck is underwhelming.    If we stand at the front and start pulling, however, things change. Things snap into place. The effort is multiplied. The strength of the whole is unified.   In any role, parent teacher mentor boss, that we want to help lead others, we would be a lot better off if...

     American Airlines was looking for some ways to save money. So, they asked their employees for some ideas. Over many years of collecting meal trays in aircraft cabins, flight attendants had come to know that most passengers did not eat the olives in their salads. Could getting rid of the olives save money?   Sure, enough it could. Removing that one item from the salads would save the company roughly $500,000 per year. But would it upset the passengers? Research said no. The study showed that 72 percent of customers were not, in fact, eating their olives.   So, everyone would be happy right?   No, not really.   The Association of Olive Growers wasn’t happy at all. They contacted the airline and threaten a boycott if they didn’t bring back the olive. American Airline was able to settle them down but making sure that the airline would have olives for any passenger that wanted them, they would just have to ask.     In reality, the...

   On October 8 th, 1871, the deadliest fire in U.S History occurred. If you were to google the date you see results about the Great Chicago Fire. For 31 hours the flames burned killing 250 people destroying 18,000 buildings and leaving a 100,000 homeless.     But that fire wasn’t it.     Just over 250 miles away in the northern Wisconsin lumber town of Peshtigo fire burned the entire city to ashes killing somewhere between 1,200 to 2,500 people. In fact, that day there were 5 major fires in the region, fueled by unusually high winds and drought conditions. However since Chicago was a major city and it started first, it is the one most people know about.     That happens a lot. One danger gets overshadowed by another, an easily perceived problem receives attention over a more reclusive one, a promoted issue takes precedence over a less talked about one.   What might be a much bigger threat is set on the backburner because everyone is t...

  I was recently watching a show that gave the chilling scene. It was dashcam footage of a police officer making a seemingly routine traffic stop.   The officer, after asking to man to step outside the vehicle and go to the safer side of the highway, begins to ask some routine questions. The man’s response is odd given the situation so the officer asks if he can search him. He agrees but right as the officer looks down, the man draws a firearm and unload several rounds point-blank in the officer chest.    Because of the position of the camera, you gracefully don’t see the aftermath, yet you hear the cries of the officer for help. It was an unnerving series of events.   However, the officer did have a great advantage. He had backup. As soon as he goes down other a dispatcher on his radio hears his cry. Other officers in the area are alerted. Quickly one arrives and starts immediate aid. More arrive and secure the area. Others search for the suspect. The ...

  Maya Lin wanted to build a wall. Her wall was not practical but a monument. She created it as part of a college architecture class that challenged students to make an entry for the national design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Her professor only gave her a B-. The politicians didn’t care much for it. They claimed it was too simple and an affront to the soldiers. Yet it stands today as one of the most powerful memorials. It’s not just the wall, it’s what is on it. Names. 58,000 half-inch-high names of the dead in chronological order.  Lin wanted people to know the names of those that never came back.   Nehemiah wanted to build a wall. It wasn’t a monument but a practical necessity. Not only to protect his hometown but to unify the people in it. The politicians didn’t care much for his efforts. They undermined and intimidated the effort. But Nehemiah didn’t stop till the work was done even after the wall was built. The book of the Bible that bear...

  Why would the British Government in 1941 purchase hundreds of dead rats?  To defeat the Nazi’s of course.   You see, rats were a problem for Germans and British alike.  Rats had a habit of getting onto trains, and at times, they’d make their way to the boiler room of a steam engine.  Firemen, whose job it was to keep tossing coal into the furnace to keep the steam coming, would habitually toss any dead rats into the furnace.  The plan was to smuggle the dead rats, laced with a tiny amount of plastic explosives, into Germany and onto trains. When the dead rats were thrown into the furnace they would explode enough to sabotage the train and its delivery but not so much as to cause a major disaster. [1]   It might have worked too if the shipment had not been intercepted on route.  Then again maybe it worked out for the better.  What sounds like a failure turned out to be a success.  The Nazis had stopped the first and only ...

   The Houston Airport had a problem.  Over and over, a major complaint from its customers was that they had to wait too long for their bags after the flight.  So the executives worked to address the issue.  They added new staff, streamlined the process and were able cut wait time from as long as 30 minutes in some cases to an average of only 8 minutes.  Still complaint kept pouring in.  They did everything they could to shrink the time, but 8 minutes was about as fast as they were going to get.  Yet irate customers still bemoaned the delay.    It was odd because the 8 minutes was the well within the standard for most airports but other locations didn’t face the onslaught of complaints.  That's when the administrators realized the real problem.  The walk from the disembarking gate to baggage claim at Houston was a short 1 minute walk.  Most other airport the journey was 5 to 10 minutes.  It wasn’t the 8 minute d...

Micromanage ˈmīkrōmanij / verb : control every part, however small, of (an enterprise or activity). control of a person or a situation by paying extreme attention to small details in a way that is usually not wanted or that causes problems   This is a word I hadn’t heard of until a few years ago but when I look back to my past it always been there.  Many folks have found themselves either at work or an organization where you been micromanaged.  It is when someone hands you control and then does everything to take it away.  It comes from a leader that must control every detail in order for them to feel in charge.  Under that form of management you are not really a person, just a part.  There is no room for your own thinking, your own judgment, your own voice. It’s generally considered a bad way to do things.   Then why is it so common?   I think it is a reaction to responsibility.  The pressure of being in charge cause one t...

   After the State of the Union address earlier this year, I ran across this photo that showed the difference of President Obama from his 1 st address to his last.  I guess it really is the toughest job in the world.  It isn’t just this president however. Look at the last one.  Or one from 150  years ago.     It seems the massive responsibility of being the commander in Chief takes a very physical toil.  No matter your party affiliation or your view on the person, we all must recognize the demand leadership takes on those in charge.  That amount of stress and responsibility comes with a weight, a burden that can wear down a man.   That weight and burden is just reserved for those that carry the weight of the free world on their shoulders, but is also felt by those men that carry the responsible of the souls of the flock, the elders.  Being an elder is one of the weightiest position...

  In 1867, Russia was desperate to unload its territory in the New World.  They feared that if any conflict with Britain broke out they would lose what now is known as Alaska anyhow, so why not try to sell it? So a deal was struck with U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward for the purchase of Alaska for $7 million.     Now despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press.  Some referred to it as "Seward's folly," and "Seward's icebox".  President Andrew Johnson's called the area a "polar bear garden".  Many questioned the logic of buying a territory with no population to fill it. Why would anyone want to go to Alaska?  What use could it be?  The criticism continued until 1896 when the Klondike gold strike was discovered.  Then Alaska came to be seen generally as a valuable addition to American territory.  Seward's Folly became one of the greatest deal...

   There are some people we want to see punished. The arrogant, the rude, the mean, the cruel.  A part of us longs to see folks like that get their comeuppance.  It doesn't take much for us to roundly condemn people we don’t like. When the time comes to put them in their place, people will line up around the block to deliver punishment. But I have noticed something about us humans, as much as we like to punish those we don’t like; we struggle to do so when the person to be punished is likeable.    I think I first realized this when I was doing my student teaching. There happened to be two students in our 6 th grade pod that both had gotten well behind on their school work. Both had had ample time to complete their makeup work but because of their own laziness had not done so.  So when grades were about to come out both students came begging for more time. They were both class clowns and cut ups, but one of them w...

  Carl Magee had a way of getting under people’s skin.  The newspaperman was known for his blistering editorials that help expose numerous scandals such as the famous Teapot Dome Scandal.  Those people he raked over often fought back against him with libel suit and sometimes with their fists.  Once an angry judge attacked Magee on the street over something he had done.  The scuffle resulted in Magee pulling a gun, winging the judge and killing a bystander.  Carl Magee wasn’t afraid to say what he thought was right and do what he thought should be done, even if it meant upsetting everything and everyone around him.  Probably even you!  What you say you never even heard of him, how could you already dislike him?   Well chances are you been upset by his famous invention.  You see when Magee was working as the editor of the Oklahoma News, he was on a committee that was trying to solve the problem parking problems in Oklahoma City. ...

    A preacher took a job at a congregation that was known for firing preachers.  He didn't expect to be there for six months, so it came as a shock when after a year he was still in the pulpit.  After another year on the job he figured he must be doing something right since only one other man had made it this long.  As he approached the end his third anniversary and was about to be the longest tenured preacher this church had ever had, he went to the elders to hear what they had to say about his achievement.  The oldest elder spoke up, “Well as you know we have gone through  quite a few preachers over the years, so after we let the last guy go, we took a long look at what the congregation wanted in a preacher”.  “The membership couldn't agree on anyone, and the only time they were happy was when we didn't have a preacher."  We knew we had to have a preacher and then we found you and it seems  y...

  Swiss researchers arrived at a fascinating conclusion about the impact of mothers' vs . fathers' church attendance on the future religious observance of their children .  The detailed survey indicated that if the father attended church regularly, and the mother was non-practicing, then 44% of their children became regular church-goers .   But if the mother attended regularly, and the father was non-practicing, then only 2% of their children became regular church attenders .   Even when the father was an irregular attender and the mother non-practicing, a full 25% of their children became regular attenders, while if a mother was a regular attender and the father irregular, only 3% of the children became regular attenders .     In short, if a father does not attend church, it won't matter how dedicated the mother is in her observance, only one child in 50 will become a regular attender .  But if a father is even somewhat observant, th...

What does every Elder & Deacon have to have that Jesus and Paul didn’t? Give up? The answer is a wife. The scriptural qualifications for both offices require “ the husband of one wife ”. Ever wonder why that is? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:32-33 that the unmarried are free from concern and can serve the Lord without any divided interest but a married man must think about the concerns of his wife. So why would God make the overseers and servants in the church be married? If you want a practical answer, just ask a man that serves in one of these roles. Every deacon and elder has at times needed the support and love of a godly woman in their efforts. She has to be a patient, loving, understanding woman of not only her husband but of the church as well. The wife of a deacon or elder is a unique position for which we often forget to show our support and appreciation. We should never forget the special women and the important role they in which they serve.