WW2

Today in 1939 Germany faked a Polish attack on one of its radio stations. This scam provided the supposed justification for Hitler's decision to attack Poland the next day, thereby beginning World War II. The battle would rage relentlessly for another 2 years and three months before Pearl Harbor brought the USA into the war.

My Grandpa Hill was already 45 years old when Pearl Harbor happened. He immediately volunteered to be a chaplain, but was told he was far too old. He kept pestering them, and finally they took him in the army. He was soon on his way to France, where he had served in World War I as a soldier boy under John Pershing.

My Grandpa always said his years as a chaplain were the best years of his ministry. He felt maybe the most fulfilling part of it was writing dictated letters from wounded soldiers that they wanted sent to their family members.

After the war, Grandpa was briefly assigned to the VA hospital in Memphis. When he mustered out of the service, he took a Pastorate and moved his family to nearby Luxora, Arkansas, which is where my dad lived. The rest is history.

Twitter & FB john316marshall

Back-to-School Week

This was a great week at Second. let me recap some of the highlights.

Last Sunday 201 youth attended Second U (our three Sunday School hours). This was the third highest attendance since Cory West arrived.

Sunday night 79 high school students attended Connexxus (small groups).

Wednesday night, 111 Middle Schoolers and their leaders attended SYNC. This exceeds the previous small group attendance record by nearly 30. Congratulations to Cory and his awesome leaders.

Our new Men's Ministry Bible Study group met for the first time Wednesday night. 85 attended. Come join us next Wednesday night at 6pm. We are proud of Shane Segars and Jay Hughes for leading this.

The MSU Vine met Wednesday night for the first time this semester. Several hundred students attended. We had 200 students gather Tuesday night for our first meeting of The Drury Vine. To put it in perspective, that's 10% of their student population. Congratulations to our College Minister, Daniel Hood, to his interns, and to his leaders at the Drury Vine, Clayton and Katie Havelka.

Our Preschool and Children's Ministries filled all volunteer positions. Thank you, Leah Capps and Denise Schriver.

Thanks goes to Kevin Hawkins and our church choir for their singing the National Anthem at the Cardinals game last night.

Blackwood Brothers Plane Crash

In my growing-up days, the Blackwood Brothers, a Southern Gospel group, were by far my favorite singers.  On my recent vacation, I had a chance to re-visit a painful memory that happened to them before I can remember.

Through the years I have often heard about the tragedy, a plane crash in Clanton AL that took the lives of two of the group. On vacation this summer we drove through Clanton. I happened to remember that a monument at one time had been placed at the site. With help from Google and a few locals, Ruth and I found it. Isn't it interesting how something like that from the past can suddenly take on deeper meaning?

On June 14, 1954, the Quartet won the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts national competition (similar to today's American Idol). Sixteen days later two of the group were killed in a small plane crash. One of them, R. W. Blackwood, was the singer that young Elvis Presley modeled much of his own performing after. Elvis wept when he heard the news. He auditioned to take R. W.'s place, but was turned down because he was "too animated". How's that for an understatement?

Few people remember or care about the events of June 1954, but for me they still hold value. I love history.

Twitter and FB john316marshall

Orphaned Churches

According to Aaron Coe, a VP at our North American Mission Board, over half of new church plants are orphans. They have no sponsoring church.

This statistic stunned me. Something is wrong here. This problem is fixable. Every church should be working with at least one church plant.

Few churches can take full responsibility for a young church, but consortiums of churches could totally fill the bill. Few congregations can help a lot, but all can help some. Let's all find an orphan church to adopt.

Twitter @john316marshall
www.facebook.com/john316marshall