It is hard to believe that we are in December of 2020.  This year has been one for the history books and with 31 days till 2021 the finish of 2020 should be interesting to say the least.  With Covid-19 still causing churches alarm and the political battle still going on, I fear for our country and our churches.  If we could just take a chapter out of history of a story from World War I about the famous Christmas Truce of 1914. British and German soldiers held an unofficial ceasefire starting on Christmas Eve and continuing till Christmas Day.  Singing Christmas carols, the soldiers on both sides joined in and in the morning continued the armistice by climbing out of their trenches and greeted each other with “Merry Christmas”.  They exchanged gifts of cigarettes and food.  There is a story of a friendly soccer game among the warriors.  German Lieutenant Kurt Zehmisch recalled: “How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was.  The English officers felt the same way about it.  Thus Christmas, the celebration of love managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.”
 
Wouldn’t it be great if we could call a truce during this Christmas season to all the craziness that is happening around this country?  Unfortunately, I feel this is not going to happen this year.  If anything, it may get worse.  This is one of those times that I would love to be wrong but if you have been paying attention to what has been happening around the country, there is a war against the church, and I don’t see the Christmas Truce of 2020 happening.
 
We started a series on our Thursday night webinars called “Getting Ready for Christmas”.  We pointed out the attacks we had seen on churches this year.  States like California closed churches because of the pandemic.  When churches started to fight back, they found themselves being fined and the pastors threatened of being arrested.  A pastor in Hillsborough County was put in jail because he defied county orders of churches not being an essential business and held services.  Other churches that had outside services, police departments wrote down license tags of those attending for possible future charges of violating public health guidelines.  We saw churches where Black Life Matter (BLM) protesters showed up and blocked the entrances from attendees being able to attend services without being harassed and physically assaulted.  We witnessed a church who lost a lease on two of their campuses that were being held in two different school buildings. A non-church goer who was following the lead pastor on Twitter felt because he liked a Trump tweet that he was racist. The school board agreed and canceled the church’s lease at the two schools.  And this was just the beginning.
 
We saw two churches in Florida where each suspect poured flammable liquids in their worship centers and set them on fire.  In one of those incidents the suspect drove his van through the front doors of the church before pouring 10 gallons of gasoline on the floor and igniting it while members were in the service.  Fortunately, no one was hurt but these are the attacks we are seeing more and more of.
 
Then a BLM activist tweeted that all art of a white European reference to Jesus, Mary and the Disciples should be taken down because they are a form of white supremacy.  After that we saw an uptick of attacks on statues of Jesus and Mary across the United States.  In one arrest in Texas the suspect said he vandalized the statue of Mary because she was the wrong color.  We talked about this before, race is the only way that Satan can drive this country apart and believe me, Satan is alive and well.
 
But just when I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe we could have a truce during Christmas and put away all of the negative things that have happened to us during this year and maybe, just maybe we could hold onto that Christmas tradition of “… and on earth peace and good will toward men.” (Luke 2:14), things continued to escalate. No matter what your political views are or even if you don’t believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, could we put our differences aside and remember the meaning of the season?
 
Yet while reading a news article on Thanksgiving Day I realized that there is not going to be truce in fact we are in a spiritual war that appears to have no end.  The article from the Fulton Sun talked about a historic church in Holts Summit, MO that was vandalized.  The title read “Vandals wreck historic Holts Summit Church”.  It also when on to say the church’s congregation was reeling after the attack.  This was not just a few holes in windows or some graffiti on the walls, this was massive damage to the church.  Windows smashed, gaping holes torn in the walls, pews tipped over, toilets shattered, furniture smashed and even blades on ceiling fans were broken.  There were gun shots to doors in the building and even scorch marks where they lit fireworks in the church. Another article “Vandals destroy historic Holts Summit church and its new location on Thanksgiving eve” show over 33 pictures of the damage to this church that was originally built over two centuries ago.  This attack is nothing more than hate and we need to be prepared for this type of assault against any house of worship.
 
There are people out here that would like to take Christ out of Christmas, remember they tried it before.  They even came out and said that it was politically incorrect to say “Merry Christmas” because it insulted those who did not believe in Christ.  What did we do? We took a stance and we found that there were more people that liked the words “Merry Christmas” than those that felt offended. We did not take this stand to cause a war, we just didn’t like being told we could not enjoy the birthday of Christ. 
 
So, for this Christmas I want to reach out to those that probably will not read this blog and offer an olive branch.  Instead of fighting over our differences until the end of time, whether if I believe, Christ coming home or as you believe a comet destroys the earth or aliens from outer space comes down and takes you home, let’s agree for a brief afternoon that we are stuck together on this planet.  We have not colonized Mars or the Moon yet so unless we move to different countries we will be here for a while. Why can’t we sit down and have a conversation and respect each other in our differences?  Let’s promise not to talk about politics or religion but to ask each other how our families are doing.  Let’s promise to not yell at each other but give each other a voice and listen to each other.  At the end of having a moment together I will tell you that I am going to pray for you and you can tell me to have a nice day but we will have a moment where we talk about what is going on in our lives and treat each other civil before we go back to our battles over who is right and who is wrong.  We both know that we probably will not change each other’s minds or agendas; but I would like to think maybe we could have the Christmas Truce of 2020. Care to join me?
   

Over the last month there have been two vicious attacks in France where knives were used to kill innocent people.  One was against a teacher the other was against three people inside a church.  Authorities have said that the killing of the teacher was because he was discussing caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad with his students.  The teacher had received death threats and the police had been contacted by a parent for the teacher’s actions.  An interesting statement in the article was made by French President Emmanuel Macron.  Marcon said “One of our compatriots was murdered today because he taught ... the freedom of expression, the freedom to believe or not believe.”
 
In the other attack three people were brutally murdered on Thursday while visiting a church to worship and had no ties to any outside organization that promoted hate against the Muslim religion.  A French Prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said, “The three were killed “only because they were in the church at that moment.”  France’s President promised to immediately increase the number of soldiers deployed to protect schools and religious sites from around 3,000 to 7,000.
 
But in your mind, you are saying this can never happen over here. This happened in France and they have let things get out of hand where they are having terrorist attacks all the time.  We don’t have situations like that over here in the United States.  Really? Have you been watching the news lately?  We have cities that are burning in our country and as we get closer to this election people are preparing for the worst.  Business are boarding up, police departments are starting to plan for mass riots, and we sit here and say what is happening in other countries cannot happen here. 
 
Of course, it really depends on what news source you may be watching.  There are a few out there that will tell you all that is happening in the cities are peaceful protests.  When you set a building, car or any police station on fire that is not peaceful protesting.  When you loot a family run business like the one in this article this is nothing but an attack against a family that has worked hard in their neighborhoods to better their community.  The owner, a former school crossing guard and her brother, a former police officer quit their jobs to start their salon.  The owner told reporters she “emptied my savings and checking account,” maxed out her credit cards and even sold her house to open the business.” When you watch the video, you see that in less than a minute, looters ransacked and destroyed their boutique, their livelihood only because they were in the area of the riots.  So, whatever news source you are watching, do your own investigation.  I just did a search on looting in Philadelphia and if this is the “City of Brotherly Love” we are starting to look a lot worse than France.
 
Once again you scoff at my concern.  Let me remind you of two things that were said in the beginning of this document. In the first incident French President Emmanuel Macron said, “One of our compatriots was murdered today because he taught ... the freedom of expression, the freedom to believe or not believe.”  Isn’t that what our churches are doing; teaching the freedom to believe in Christ or not believe?  What happens when those that are causing all the hate and discontent in our streets finally get shut down by law enforcement?  Do you think they are going to stop their attacks?  No; they will just start looking for softer targets to hit.  If your church is not preaching their views, you could be the next target.  Once again say it can’t happen here.  In our area we have had two attacks on churches that say it can.  Back in July of 2020 we had a van drive through the front doors of a church in Ocala and the driver get out and poured 10 gallons of gasoline on the floor only to light it and drive away. Fortunately, those inside the building were not hurt but this could have been a massacre.  Then in September 2020 a man went into a Tampa church and poured flammable material in the worship center and set it on fire.  First responders got to the fire before it caused too much damage.  In our research we are seeing more and more churches vandalized across the country but unless you are out there daily looking for it you don’t see it.
 
The second thing that caused me concern was that in the mass murder at the church, French Prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said, “The three were killed “only because they were in the church at that moment.”  This speaks volumes.  “Only because they were in the church at that moment”.  Is the prosecutor saying that maybe they shouldn’t have been in church? Is this a pandemic plug; don’t go to church during the pandemic or you could get killed? What does that have to do with the attack?  People were killed inside a church; it doesn’t matter what day of the week it is. Churches should be a safe place, period.    I really don’t think he meant it that way, I am sure he meant it that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  That doesn’t even sound right.  Shouldn’t we feel safe when we are in a house of worship?  But during these times, do we feel safe?
 
Since we have come back together inside the church, we have had two disruptive people inside our church.  One wanted to argue over theology and the other wanted to argue over everything.  Is this a sign of what we are going to see in the future? I don’t know but we need to be ready for what may be coming our way.  I keep saying this over and over, it is only a matter of time, those that hate the current environment in our country are going to start taking out their frustrations on the church and from what I have seen, that concerns me.
 
But I am going to end on a more positive note.  There still is good in this world.  Remember the Philadelphia boutique that was destroyed? The owner of the shop, Jameelah Scurry, who co-owns the business with her brother Jamil, put out a Go-Fund-Me page to see if she could raise some money to help her and her brother rebuild their shop.  She was hoping to raise around $15,000 yet as of Thursday they had received more than $27,600 from hundreds of strangers who posted outpourings of support on the site.
 
She went on to say, “It’s what I was telling people, like we, as a community, and people can come together, but we don’t have to just come together when there’s trauma or something bad.” “We should always stick together and help each other, not when just something bad is happening. It’s a blessing.”
 
In Mark 12:28-31 Jesus is in the temple and a teacher of the law comes to him and asked him “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”  Here lies the answer to our problems. The question is, can we commit to both?  One is hard enough for some of us and the second one seems impossible at this time in our country.  But maybe if the Christian men and women would join me in a Christian Revolution, we wouldn’t have to worry about it happening here like it is in France.  In fact, with the Christian Revolution I talked about we wouldn’t have to worry about it anywhere.

Back in July Wendy, the girls and I took a trip to Texas.  This was a two-fold trip, one was to go to a fundraiser for one of the survivors of the Sutherland Springs Shooting, Kris Workman and the other was to travel back up to Glen Rose.  We realized right before the trip that this September 20, 2020 was the 50th anniversary of my dad walking out of a church service and killing Doctor English.  We had gotten in touch with two of the daughters of Doctor English, Jean and Jane and we wanted to sit down and talk to them about the incident.  We also wanted to take a walk around the town and reminisce.
 
After our stop in Sutherland Springs we headed up to Glen Rose.  On the drive north I started thinking about the 50 years between the shooting and today.  In 1970 there was no internet.  Three days after the shooting my mom fled Texas taking us four boys and everything we could fit in a U-Haul trailer to Pensacola, Florida.  I think the first time I went back to Glen Rose was around 1978 when I had visited my dad after he got out of prison.  I walked around downtown hoping I might run into somebody I would recognize, or they would recognize me.  A homecoming of some sort but it never happened.  I think I visited Glen Rose a couple more times before I gave up hope of seeing someone I knew.  I had made up my mind that the day we left Texas to go to Pensacola everyone in Glen Rose said good riddance, the troublemakers are gone and forgot about us.  I felt that we were shunned because of the sins of our parents and lived with that guilt for years.
 
In January of 2005, before Facebook, I received a Yahoo message from Cindy Lewis from Glen Rose that said she knew my brothers and me.  She went on to say that she had lived down the road and rode the school bus with us.  Cindy also said something that stopped me in my tracks.  She wrote “You know, I'll never forget the day you guys left..we really missed you and things were never the same for any of us.” They missed us; it was never the same for any of us.  Another high school classmate, Shirley Gray messaged and said the same thing and I realized we were not forgotten so Wendy, Jessica (then 4) and I planned a trip to Glen Rose to seek that homecoming.
 
Several weeks before our planned trip I got a frantic call from Shirley that Cindy had passed away.    Cindy was a horse trainer and one of the horses she was training stepped on her foot and took off her big toe.  She immediately went to the doctors but several days later she developed a staph infection and before they could get her to a hospital she passed away.  The expected trip to Glen Rose had already taken a turn for the worse.  Airline tickets had already been purchased, vacation planned so in August of 2005 we went to Glen Rose, Texas on a fact-finding mission.
 
When we left Glen Rose the population was 1,554 and in 2005 it was estimated a whopping 2,283.  I found out the rise in the population was because Glen Rose had become the suburbs of Fort Worth.  Driving through town I felt like I had gone back in time.  The courthouse was the same with the gazebo to the right of it still had the town’s claim to fame dinosaur track in it.  Downtown looked like it did when we left except for a few businesses that I remembered were closed.  The downtown movie theater was gone and a restaurant that I would always have dinner before a football game had shut down but most of it was just the way I remember it.
 
Shirley took us on a fact-finding mission.  We looked for court documents, newspapers about the incident.  I took a day and found some old friends from high school.  We even ran into one of my aunts that still lived in town.  She was married to my dad’s brother.  My uncle was killed several years after we had moved from Texas.  He had stopped to help a lady that had a flat tire.  While changing the tire, the lady’s boyfriend came out from behind a tree and shot and killed him.  I remember wondering if maybe God had made a mistake and had taken the wrong Howard.
 
Shirley told us that she had contacted one of Doctor English’s daughters Jane.  She wanted to have lunch with Wendy and me.  Jane was two years older than me and had a twin sister that we couldn’t tell apart.  I was a little apprehensive about the meeting.  Here I was meeting with one of the daughters of the man my father had killed.  Remember I was still carrying around the sins of my father.  The lunch started off with the uncomfortable greetings, then we opened up to each other.  She said that her mother and the family would every once in a while, ask “I wonder how the Howard boys are doing?”  They always felt sorry for what had happened and always prayed for the best for us.  We both talked about our hard times after the incident and how returning to God had saved us.
 
Jane worked in real estate and tried to sell us some property.  Everyone we came across asked me when I was going to move back to Texas.  Before Cindy passed away, she and Shirley asked me if I would be interested to coming back to Glen Rose and run for sheriff.  We weren’t forgotten and not one person blamed me for my father’s sin.  Even though there was a lot of closure that trip I left with more questions than I got answers.  It was the same as it was in 1970, just rumors and no facts.  Jane told me to go and talk to her mother, Carla English but I didn’t, maybe I was afraid of what I would find out.
 
So back to our recent July trip.  Town still looked the same.  This time I had the opportunity to go to and visit our old church.  It is no longer the First Baptist Church of Glen Rose.  It was purchased by the Methodist church and is now a multicenter for the town.  When I explained to the ladies at the center what I was doing there, one of them remembered the story about the shooting.  The inside of the church had changed but there were still a flood of memories.  It was where I was baptized, where I sang my first solo and where on Wednesday night after youth group we would run around like crazy playing all sorts of games.  I remember where Doctor English was parked the night of the shooting. 
 
This trip Jane told me that her twin sister Jean wanted to see me.  As we were going over to Jane’s house Jaycee asked who we were going to visit.  Wendy told her two of the daughters of the man that my dad had killed.  Jaycee asked if this was a good idea.  During the reunion of Jean and Jane English I heard joy, peace and content with their lives.  Sure, it had affected them, and they went through bad times, but they found that Christ was the answer.  Jean asked me how I got over the pain and I concurred with her, coming back to Jesus Christ gave me the peace, comfort and strength to move past the sins of my father.
 
On the long drive home I thought about what had happened 50 years ago and was amazed at how all of us had survived.  A lot of Jean and Jane’s family had got through really hard times after the incident.  Some have never recovered.  Recently talking to my brother Joel about the incident, I told him how blessed we all were to have ended up like we did.  Three brothers with outstanding careers with the Norfolk Police Department and one brother that is a minister.  It was the first time that he and I talked about the incident.  For the first time I heard about some of his pains and realized I have never been alone in the journey.  We all were wounded but we have all found our way back to the one thing that gives us all hope, peace and joy, Jesus Christ.
 
 
David cries out in Psalms 13:1-2 “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” But in verses 5 and 6 David comes back and says it all “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me”.  Sometimes we just don’t see God’s unseen plan, we just need to trust in His unfailing love and sing His praises.  He will take care of the rest.

On our August 30th, 2020 Facebook live we had two questions that came from Marshall Horwitz that are the topic of this month’s blog.  The first question was “Up till now, church attacks have been done by individuals. Do you fear attacks by gangs on churches? Could that be next?” My initial  response to that Marshall was go out and listen to the webinar we did on July 30, 2020 called “Tale of Two Churches”.  But to be fair to Marshall, a recent listener, the answer to the question is yes, I do feel that protesters or gangs could descend on churches like they did on the two churches I talked about in our webinar. 
 
In this discussion we saw Antifa and BLM show up on church campuses and basically attack the church and members of the church.  Of course, the protesters said it was a peaceful demonstration. I have a different opinion of what the definition of what is considered a peaceful protest.  If you want to walk down the street and carry signs for your cause and after you are finished you go home, that is peaceful and a right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. Yet neither protest against the churches we discussed were peaceful; in fact, the protests that happened in Troy, New York we saw members of the church assaulted when church members went to escort other members into the church through the “peaceful protesters”.  This was an attack.  The other church in San Antonio saw protesters walking around the building with signs and yelling profanities at church members and their children because they disagreed on their view of sexuality.  The church had stated on their web page that they believed what the Bible said about marriage being between a man and a woman.
 
So, what do we do about it?  Train.  Assess your strength and weaknesses.  Next step is to sit down with your team and create a plan.  Approach the leaders of your church and get approval for it, then practice your plan.  Another church once asked me to come and critique their training.  One of their scenarios was that of angry protesters showing up at their campus.  Except for a few suggestions I had, it was good training because they thought of it and worked out a “what if”.  This is something we are going to be looking to do at our church. If I can be of any assistance with your church, please give us a call.
 
Marshall’s second question “Hello from Sarasota. Can you comment on the incident in Tallahassee when the innocent bystander was attacked by the mob and thwarted the assault but pulling his weapon? Thankfully, the attackers dispersed, and he faces no charges.”  When I first saw this question once again my initial response was “no, I am not going to comment”.  I have my reasons and I will give them later.  After calming down I went out and looked for the video, because you know there is video on everything these days.  The first video was just as I thought.  From the film it looks like “innocent bystander (IB)” provoked the peaceful protesters and the protesters had to defend themselves.  This is from the angle that the mainstream media wants you to see.  The next video titled “Video from Historic Capitol shows the moment a man pulled a gun on protesters Saturday”. This video shows a different angle which also paints a different picture.  The Capital camera shows the IB being viciously attacked by the mob and beaten to the ground.  If he had not pulled his weapon he might have been seriously injured.
 
But here is the reason that I wasn’t going to comment but since you asked here goes.  Why would anyone of sound mind go to a protest?  Can you please explain that?  Unless you are a camera crew; a reporter from a news agency who is getting paid big bucks, a police officer who has been ordered to protect the streets or you work in the area and your boss says you’ve got to be there then what is your reason for being at a protest?  Right now, if you are not one of those I listed, stay home or you might have a bad day like the poor guy in Portland or this guy almost did.  The second thing that bothers me is that from all reports I have read he was down there to document the protest (once again for what news organization) and was caught taking pictures of protesters' vehicles.  I am just as frustrated as everyone else about the violence going on around this country but I will say this once again; if you do not have one of the  reasons I listed for being there, why are you there?  Then you show up armed.  I have a real problem with that and am really surprised it went as well as it did. 
 
That IB is lucky he didn’t get shot.  I am still sitting here in shocked that he didn’t get shot.  I hate to say this, but I really am glad I wasn’t there.  Understand a white guy standing in the middle of a BLM protest waving a gun around is perceived as a threat, period.  Maybe the officer who confronted him knew more about what was going on, but I am still (I will be saying this all day long) shocked he didn’t get shot.  I am so happy that he didn’t shoot anyone because the outcome of this story would be completely different.  Sorry folks from all initial indications I believe this IB went there to cause trouble.  Remember the things that I said would be the only excuse I would accept; from what I am reading his job description wasn’t one of them.
 
Now as I write this blog, I just had another thought cross my mind about the Tallahassee incident.  Maybe that IB was on the job.  Having worked situations like the protest at Florida’s state capital the police department would send us into the crowd; in plain clothes so we would blend in, to get pictures of those in the crowd and their vehicles so we could identify them later.  If this is the case, then yes, he had a reason to be there. However, he is still lucky he didn’t get shot.  But maybe the other officer knew him and had to place him under arrest to protect his identity, I had that happen to me once and I can tell you I was also lucky I didn’t get killed by friendly fire that night. 
 
The paper is saying he didn’t get charged.  If they find out that he is with another group that was in the protest to cause trouble this might not be over.  Remember the shooting at the convenience store where the shooter confronted the woman over parking in the handicap spot and her boyfriend came out of the store and assaulted the shooter?  The Pinellas County Sheriff at first called it self-defense until they looked at the shooter and found out that he was a troublemaker and had threatened to shoot people in many incidents around the county.  He ended up being charged and is now serving 20 years for manslaughter.  Heck remember the couple that was protecting their house when “peaceful protesters” showed up on their block.  At first it looked like they were not going to be charged but guess what?   They got charged.
 
So, what did we learn here today?  One stay away from places that are holding a “peaceful protest”. Two which I didn’t bring up; if you do find yourself in a situation like the IB, armed and in a hostile environment, this is wrong time to be thinking I wish I had listened to Jim and had joined USCCA.  In today’s scary times when so many of us are now thinking of carrying concealed you need that extra protection USCCA offers.  If things would not had gone right for this IB, remember the first video we saw?  The IB could have really used the help from USCCA.  For more information on USCCA go to our website and click on the link Concealed Carry Legal Protection.  Sorry Wendy made me do the plug for USCCA who is going to speak be at our Church Safety Conference on October 17th.  For more information on the conference go here.
 
I once heard the most important part of the body in carrying concealed was the brain matter between the ears.  Proverbs 14:16 says “The wise are cautious and avoid danger; fools plunge ahead with reckless confidence”, and Proverbs 22:3 says, “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty”. I think we can all agree God is warning us to be smart about our actions.  Thank you, Marshall, for the questions.  Be safe and be blessed.