What You Might See When You......

Haven't been putting much on here lately, but here is what is upcoming:

Death in the Magic Kingdom
The story of the tree that fell on me and injured and killed others on my last visit to Disneyland.

Expelled
I am gonna check out that movie at the El Con

Planting Perils
Musings on Church Planting; the Churches I planted in the past and what the future may hold.

I just don't have time to write on them tonight. Stay tuned over the weekend.

The Atomic Cafe

My parents came to visit last week. Maybe I will put a picture or two of them on here so you can see them. We went to the San Javier Del Bac Mission, which they didn't like and the Titan Missile Museum, which they actually found interesting. We also go to hang out and spend some time together which was cool, because they live in Colorado and we don't get to see them enough.

They had some cool signs, memorabilia and movies about the Cold War, in addition to the huge missile and silo at the Titan Missile Museum. It is one of those places you only go to when you have visitors, but it was still fun. My Dad reminisced about being taught to duck under your desk in the event of a nuclear blast when we watched a Civil Defense movie. That way, when you are instantly vaporized, you will be under your desk.

So here's another idea I probably won't implement:
A nice little Coffee Shop called the Atomic Cafe. It would be decorated with all sorts of Cold War signs and gieger counters and things of that nature. Anyway, I thought it would be cool. Apparently there is a movie of this name that is a montage of Civil Defense films. And there is an Atomic Cafe in Maine. But, it doesn't have the cool decor.

The Leadership Moment

Just checked out my old book, the Leadership Moment. You can check it out here. The book highlights nine different episodes where Leadership made a difference in life threatening or significant events, then analyzes the leaedership lessons learned.

The two that are especially interesting to me are the stories of Colonel Joshua Lawrence, the Union Commander on Little Round Top at Gettysburg and the story of the Mann Gulch Fire.

Colonel Lawrence was the commander of a regiment of Union volunteers from Maine that held a crucial hill at Gettysburg. In a dramatic moment, when ammo was almost gone, the men of the 20th Maine fixed bayonets and charged down the hill, saving the Union line.

A remarkable addendum is that the 20th Maine was supplemented by a number of men from another Maine regiment that had refused to fight. Colonel Lawrence, through his leadership, was able to convince the men to join him and fight bravely.

The Mann Gulch fire, on the other hand, was the worst loss of life in a fire the forest service had experienced. It happened in 1949 and 16 fire jumpers, including their leader Wagner Dodge, jumped into this rugged area in Montana. Only 3 of them returned alive.

When the raging flames began to overtake the men, Dodge lit a backfire and burnt out a small area that he took refuge in. The other jumpers, not knowing Dodge or understanding what he was doing, rushed past him in a panic and were overcome by the blaze. Because the men did not really know Dodge and certainly did not trust him, his great ideas were of no help to them at all.

The takeaway: If your followers know and trust you, they will follow you into the teeth of a horde of charging Grey coats and they will win. If your followers don't know and trust you, they will run past you and ignore you in times of stress, even if your ideas will save their life.

Abigail's Birthday

Have Gun Will Travel...to Tucson

My friend David referred to Tucson as the land of broken dreams. Apparently, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek was not a big fan of the town either. Check out this article:
Why Gene Roddenberry Have a Grudge Against Tucson?

Coffee at The Mall

Went to the Coffee shop at Barnes and Noble today. I am sure you could care less about that, but we went with our friends Gannon and Rebekah. Frankly, you could probably care less about that as well, but here is something interesting:

Gannon has decided to begin to work towards full time ministry as a worship pastor, or whatever they are calling it these days. They currently are leading a contemporary service for a local Church, which I have done the message for a couple of times (another detail you probably are generally unconcerned about). They recently put together a worship concert that we went and checked out. Gannon did pretty good. He shared that he has only been singing for a few months, but he has made some great strides. The band was excellent, the songs were good and it was generally a great evening.

The highlight for me was when Gannon invited anyone that wanted to get closer to God to get a cd of the Bible Experience and listen to it. He bought it with his own money so he could share the experience he had with it. Anyways, Abigail was moved to grab it and we have listened to some of it since. Maybe I will do a plug for that some other time.

So, throw up some prayers for Gannon as he prays about and pursues the direction that God has called him to in his life.

Bad Church Signs

These things never communicate very well anyway, but even worse when you throw in some bad puns, misspellings and lack of thought.