This site is dedicated to developing and encouraging the kind of leadership God ordained and intended for use in both the Military and Law Enforcement professions. Those are the fields of missionary service upon which I simultaneously spent my last 40 + years. I spent those years actually working in those jobs and being impacted by them directly, and not, as some of you may be thinking as a by-standing Chaplain. Not until I had finished overlapping careers as a US Marine and a Deputy Sheriff and Police Officer and retired from both, did I see that God was calling me into service as a Police Chaplain with a secondary role of working with all first responders and especially those who respond to natural and man caused disasters. This includes our military responders as well. I realized when I tried to retire that we Christians have been instructed by Our Lord and Savior to make use of all the life experiences and accumulated knowledge with which He provided us, to make the path to "Salvation" more visible and readily accessible to others. We have also been directed to help others grow as Christians through "Discipleship". Sadly, while many congregations (there is but one church and Jesus Christ is its head) are doing an acceptable job of recruiting for God's army, all too few instill or even provide their members with true spiritual leadership and discipleship training. These "recruits" are often left trying to mature on their own. If this was such a great way to learn then we would let our children raise themselves and our cops, soldiers and the rest of the world train themselves as well. I would hate to think of the results of that course of action.
This section is where the books I have written will be highlighted. Any reviews of those publications will also be posted in this article whether from published sources or from reader feedback. When possible links to the publishers website will also be included. Other sources will be indicated for each book when available. Currently there are two books in print or eBook format. My second was released May of 2009.
Notice the title asks who DO you trust not who shouldyou trust.
As law enforcement officers we consciously strive to earn the trust of
two vastly different groups. Firstly we want the definitive and unquestioned trust of our comrades
in arms, those with whom we share so much of our working lives and secondly we seek the undisputeded trust
of those citizens whom we serve.
Like most of you, I have grown up
in a profession where there were roll calls or shift briefings before
we hit the streets every day, without fail. In fact never did I work
for a law enforcement agency that offered optional attendance at these
events.
In the last few years we have seen so many
examples of poor ethics displayed by almost every segment of our
society. Ethical battles are being fought daily and I am sad to say
that casualties are being taken on the political front, the religious
front, the corporate front, and the law enforcement front and now even
on the military front.
Now Before you answer too quickly, I don't mean to refer to your geographical jurisdiction.
No, I am talking about the state of your heart. You see I heard a
couple of Christians having quite a discussion the other day about
legalism and grace and as I listened to them, I began to think they
were arguing as though they were from different planets and yet from
the same universe.
Leadership is the greatest gift you can
pass along to another generation. So why then is it so rare to find
quality leaders in our current self-centered society? I have been around either the military or law enforcement my whole
life. I was born into a Marine Corps family and raised in JROTC and
Scouting, until I was old enought to enlist in the Marines myself in
1963 at 17 years of age.
I just returned from a 10-day deployment to a Midwestern
University that was the site of a recent campus tragedy. While I was “boots on
the ground” as a part of a faith-based response team, I took some time during
my daily assignments to just sit with God and observe and assess the impacted
students, staff, faculty, nearby residents and first responders from the public
safety sector.
It seems so rare to ever find out the impact God has on lives when we allow Him to work through us. Especially when, like I do , we allow him to dispatch us through the "known world". Many folks think that there is only a foreign mission field. I am learning and having reinforced daily that the good old USA has many folks that are in need of just plain Christian Compassion as well.
On the 18th of December at a meeting of our local detachment of the United States Marine Corps League I was suprised and inducted into the Legion Of Honor of The Chapel of the Four Chaplains. The Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation is a humanitarian foundation that exists to further the cause of “unity without uniformity” by encouraging goodwill and cooperation among all people.
