Aborting Some States

Going off some numbers given here there have been fifty million abortions since 1973. It is hard to understand just how big that number is. So they give you another statistic. Fifty million is the population of these states combined:

• Kentucky
• Oregon
• Oklahoma
• Connecticut
• Iowa
• Mississippi
• Arkansas
• Kansas
• Utah
• Nevada
• New Mexico
• West Virginia
• Nebraska
• Idaho
• Maine
• New Hampshire
• Hawaii
• Rhode Island
• Montana
• Delaware
• South Dakota
• Alaska
• North Dakota
• Vermont
• Wyoming

I still can’t fathom how we’ve done this

How Do You Feel About Church?

There is a word that, when a Catholic hears it, kindles all his feeling of love and bliss; that stirs all the depths of his religious sensibilities, from dread and awe of the Last Judgment to the sweetness of God’s presence; and that certainly awakens in him the feeling of home; the feeling that only a child has in relation to its mother, made up of gratitude, reverence, and devoted love; the feeling that overcomes one when, after a long absence, one returns to one’s home, the home of one’s childhood.

And there is a word that to Protestants has the sound of something infinitely commonplace, more or less indifferent and superfluous, that does not make their heart beat faster; something with which a sense of boredom is so often associated, or which at any rate does not lend wings to our religious feelings – and yet our fate is sealed, if we are unable again to attach a new, or perhaps a very old, meaning to it. Woe to us if that word does not become important to us soon again, does not become important in our lives.

Yes, the word to which I am referring is ‘Church,’ …
– Bonhoeffer

I know this feeling. I’ve felt it before, and sometimes I still feel it. There is a reason they had Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. It created a massive feeling of involvement in God’s world on behalf of the people. And it certainly is not about the building. It is about what happens in the building, and who is in the building. The building gives meaning to that. I certainly do not mean to suggest that because, as Protestants, we don’t have famous painters decorating our ceilings we do not care about what goes on inside the walls. But in my own experience in different settings and different churches I’ve founded a marked difference. The Catholics and Anglicans treat church and Church as very serious (despite what we might think of strangeness and hypocritical eccentrices), whereas it does not seem that Protestants do. And that is just my thought and experience on the matter. We say that church and Church are very important, but our actions do not seem to match. And it makes me sad.

The Tyranny of Context

This is another cross-category post, but a very important one I find, you’ll notice the tag line on this site “‘Texts matter, but contexts matter even more’ – Apply liberally”. I do mean to apply this principle liberally, to everything I can find. To theology, to programming, to design, to life, to everything.

We are bound very tightly to the context in which we live. We are bound so tightly we do not realize it. This is why new experiences and new places are so formative for people. When you have no context for a new experience it is thrilling and exciting and you end up creating a context for it.

As this post talks about the context of technology in your life. Some people ridicule, from the objective perspective, technologies affect on people and society, but fail to recognize that in their own life – in its context.

Putting the context behind a historical figure (like Jesus for instance) illuminates his actions. You can do that with any historical figure, and it is necessary to do that when you study them. Without the context you are creating your own context based on yourself and your situation, rather than on the historical figure. No wonder it creates confusion and a lack of understanding.

Putting the context behind design matters as well. This post at 37signals just goes to show the unintended consequences of decoration. The decoration created a context that made things confusing.

Always pay attention to the context.

How to Grow

This comes from the perspective of business growth. However, I think it has wider applications, even to personal and spiritual growth. But, on with the show!

In order to grow, a business must have a systematic policy to get rid of the outgrown, the obsolete, the unproductive. – Drucker

Don’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me what you’ve stopped doing. – Drucker

I would also note this is a proactive “stopped doing”, not a “I didn’t have time to do” approach – the difference is immensely important.

In short, human beings do not scale. You cannot do everything you’ve been doing since you were a child. When you went to high school, you put your childhood toys away. You grew. You took what you knew and applied it to new situations and contexts. What you knew grew into what you know. Then you went to college, etc. When your business started you had certain needs. After a few years some of those needs went away. Did the positions that filled those needs go away or change? Sure they did. This is a natural growing process. So why must we constantly choose to keep the status quo in certain areas, both personally and in business? Is it fear? It is comfort? I wish I knew. Then I might be able to approach the problem.

PSO is the Penalty of Doing It Wrong

I was lamenting with a former co-worker and friend about Professional Services Organizations (PSO). If you’re unfamiliar with the term, you sure know the concept. A PSO is a company that makes money, gains clients, or keeps client, by supporting its flagship product with heavy customizations and installations. I am going to go out on a limb here, and say that for an internet company, operating on a “Software as a Service” business model, if you are a PSO you have failed your primary job.

For your failure you will suffer through pain. You will watch as your clients become your master. You will become beholden to their insane desires just to keep them as clients. You will have to hire dedicated people to support your customers and their customizations. This part of your company will run at a loss. It will chew up most of your time, and cause most of your headaches. Your client-facing people will do the least amount of work necessary to get the client off their phones. Your developers will go mad implementing customizations never dreamed up by the initial product creators. You will spend less and less time focusing on your product and your core code. This is the punishment for failure.

Now, let me explain how you have failed. You created a product. That product was liked. It solved a problem adequately. It filled a niche. People bought it. But you missed something. You missed the true need of your clients. You missed their expectation. You see, if you fulfilled their needs, they wouldn’t have these itches and pet projects to throw at you. Their itches are real. Their pet projects are wrong. You missed their itch. Their pet project is an attempt to design a software solution (which isn’t their job) to their itch. The second you give in to the pet project, instead of finding the itch, the game is over. The minute you do not incorporate the itch into your project pitch and vision, the game is over. You have to be willing to say ‘No’ to your client. If their itch does not fit into your product there are two possible reasons; one, you don’t understand the product domain, or two, you are not looking for that type of client. You cannot please everyone. Understand that.

I hope you have not yet found yourself in this kind of a situation. It is an uphill fight to recreate an environment in which your product matches the client need and expectation. It is an uphill fight to recreate an environment in which your clients will shut up and let you lead. Good luck.

Living Like Jesus

You could choose to live for Jesus. You will never live like Jesus.

There is something entirely unique about Jesus. It goes beyond the consequential facts about his life. Yes, he was crucified and endured it. Other people have suffered evils like this. Yes he forgave those who killed him. There are not many who have done this. Even Peter, as the article states, refused to be made an equal of Jesus though he matched the martyrdom and forgiveness. One could surmise that the big difference (and again the article says as much) is that Jesus paid for sin. But I think even that falls short.

Jesus is more. Jesus is the climax of Israel’s story, the peak, what it was all building towards. Jesus is what Israel was supposed to be.

From our position in the ongoing story of God and humanity, trying to answer the “What Would Jesus Do?” question is an exercise in missing the point.

It is missing the point because we live after Jesus. Jesus’ vocation was very specific. His specific actions make perfect sense within the story of Israel and what God wanted done within Israel. We live according to the ethic that Jesus put forward – how the true Israel is supposed to be. Jesus was the representative of Israel, the firstborn.

We have a different job that Jesus. We don’t have to start what he started. We have to spread what he started. We live for Jesus.

One Thing at a Time

Over at MPD they’re talking about doing one project at a time. Recently, I have been doing this at work as well. I schedule out which things I am working on each day, and I try to keep it to one large task, or two smalls tasks. This gives enough padding to achieve the 80% “committed” the article talks about. If you’re spread all over hell going 100% all the time, the very next interruption will ruin everything. You’re next three projects will all be late and poor quality.

This is exactly one of the things I went into our last meeting asking. “How can we not run the ship at 100%?” No one came up with a specific answer. However, the guy responsible for deadline scheduling responded perfectly. Deadlines got pushed out. It allowed for an 80% commitment, allowed for interruptions, allowed you to take your hour of lunch, and allowed you to punch out at five – like you should. Hopefully it can allow for innovation, solving problems the right way, and a boost to morale.

Jesus at the Center

Check out the next Glad Tidings article. Leave comments about it here.

A Consideration of Art

When I talk about Art I hope it has some meaning. Art is not decoration. Art is not superfluous. Art has meaning. Take for instance the Thorncrown Chapel in Arkansas. How you build your church says a lot about what you believe. Sure often times Churches do not have the money that it would take to do something like this (this discussion is had here). Again we are not talking about mere asthetics, but the functional way in which the building is built and laid out. The Thorncrown is made of supporting crossbeams. Clearly they believe, and believe it important, that the body of Christ should hold one another up. That is why they built their sanctuary in such a manner. It is also made of glass, nearly down to the floor. You can see God’s creation, and you are an active participant in it. You are not enclosed away from the world. You are directly in the world, not cloistered away.

Who would not be incredibly moved to worship in that building. There is something important and true about having a special place for God. God is not mundane, he is not common. He should not be approached commonly. Being in a church building is supposed to prepare us to encounter God. That is why we are there. There is no question that the church buildings of the Catholics, Anglicans, and Eastern Orthodox evoke a much stronger presence of image of the faith that they uphold. I hope one day to sit in the Sistine Chapel for a service and encounter God there.

Being Human to the ‘Other’

When we try to understand just who we are, we inevitably turn to our families and communities. Closely tied to our perception of ourselves is the perception of everyone else, specifically those not in our community. This is what ‘the other’ is. It is the group of people that you define yourself over and against. Generically, for the Christian ‘the other’ is the non-Christian. You could map out the groups along all sort of barriers and lines. The “haves” and the “have-nots”, the Catholic and the Protestants, African-Americans and Caucasians, are all good examples. The problem comes not with the intrinsic differences – but rather the perception of the ‘other’.

One of the unusual aspects of Jesus’ ministry was to the ‘other’. He went to the poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the outcasts, the sick to proclaim God’s Kingdom, and to these he invited and declared to be righteous, in-the-right. Meanwhile, any traditional route of the messiah-claimants of Jesus’ time were “fighting the good fight” hashing it out politically with Rome’s client-rulers, chief priests, Pharisees, and all the other rival Jewish groups. Jesus’ treatment of the other is incredibly radical.

Jesus recognizes the humanness of the other. He recognizes that they too are made in God’s image. Jesus enters into a relationship with the other. He recognizes their needs and fulfills it. Jesus, as the opening of Matthew and Luke tell us, is the new Adam, the new image of God. Because of sin, we are broken images of God. Jesus’ origins result in his perfect reflection of God. Jesus is the human being we are all meant to be.

One of the problems with denominations and sects is the demonization of the other. Each of the Jewish sects in the first century did this. The Muslims and Christians did it in the Crusades. The Catholics and Protestants are still doing in Ireland. The “haves” and “have-nots” have done it routinely in Europe in civil unrest and revolution. The African-Americans and Caucasians did it in South Africa during and after aparthied.

We have to recognize the humanness in everyone around us. In the prostitute. In the homeless man you pass on your way to work. In your dysfunctional family members. In your misunderstood co-workers. In your inappropriate friends. In the people that go to that other church on the other street. In the people that do not go to church at all. In the people in your church you think you know – but you don’t really know.

And then we have to be the human being that Jesus was. A real human being, not a broken imitation of the image of God. We have to enter a relationship with the other. That is the only way to be human. That is the only way to share the Gospel. That is the only way to show people Jesus.