La Noel Therrien

We went to Welland to visit my mom's family yesterday to celebrate Christmas together. The afternoon involved a lot more English than I'm used to when I visit them but it was a lot of fun, despite the smaller group this year. I missed it last year because I was in Florida visiting my dad's parents so it was nice to see them all again now.

As expected, here are some of my preferred pictures from our time there. Ceci, c'est moi avec mes grandparents. (Me and my grandparents, natch.)

Moi, mon frere et mon grandpapa. (Me, my brother and my grandfather.)

These two were having too much fun giggling amongst themselves...

Les belles filles...

Et les...garcons.

By the way, I took my sister to see The Pursuit of Happyness tonight (link). I loved it. It was nice to see a picture of some of the ideas that I've had in my head regarding homelessness. I bought the original book two weeks ago as well so I'm looking forward to reading that.

Happy birthday, Ashleigh! I wish you happiness and blessing for all of 2007.

And now, I'm off to pack for my three day New Year's trip to Montreal. On y va!

The View From Here

Inscrutable. It's a word that I would use for the fact that some people find me hard to read. I don't usually wear my emotions on my sleeve and my facial expressions can be, um, inexpressive.

Granted, this trait can be annoying. I've had enough people comment on this and I have put some effort into modifying this behaviour. Back at AV-Base, Susan used to mock me whenever she saw me in a meeting, crossing her arms and furrowing her brow mightily behind my back. I tend to stare into space while I'm thinking, chomping on a pen and then jotting notes on my clipboard. It can be a little "intense," as people have said. Lindsay got a kick out of comparing me to Christopher Walken.

The positive side is that there are many times when it serves me very well to not express an instant opinion with my body language. During emotional and angry confrontations, I am very likely to remain calm and try to work through the issues. During emergency situations, like getting cut off while driving, it allows me to deal with the situation at hand. During the work day when someone challenges one of my cherished ideas, it allows me to consider the pros and cons before responding. And when I'm hanging out with someone that likes to sing off-key for hours at a time, I don't get easily frustrated.

That's the outer side of me. Inside my head, I act like a big data collector. I just suck in all of the information that I can get. I let it wander through this software matrix in my head and I eventually provide my response. I weigh the positives and negatives, I consider the source of the information, I let the emotional factors mix things up, I parse it all and I came out with a result.

Not that everyone likes the result, as we saw with this post. I can seem to be a little too formulaic, a little too controlling, a little too calculated. (I prefer the terms "self controlled" and "teachable.") I mean, how can I so callously break all of my friends up into little groups with nice labels and then somehow decide who gets to use up most of my spare time?

Allow me to shed some light on that. As I have mentioned here recently, I have done a few personality tests on this blog before. I did the Jung typology test and came out as an ISTJ, as described here in detail (or maybe on INTJ).

To quote the above description, "ISTJs often give the initial impression of being aloof and perhaps somewhat cold." We just want the facts, ma'am. The world is logical and there are patterns everywhere. Everything should fit into some big picture.

So my "circles of friends" post was an excellent glimpse into how I process life. To go back further, I had this post in which I dissected my top priorities in life. The way I do this and the reasons that I work this way are all related to my personality type. This permits me to excel in my chosen career and design great software. It's one of the main reasons that I have been able write so many blog posts over the past few years.

Even so, many other people do not think about life in the same way. They do not share my value system or my personality traits, nor should they since we are all different. The danger is that we then declare someone else's personality type as "wrong" and ours as "right." We judge the way that other people judge and we ironically make a judgment against ourselves in the process. The key is that we need to learn how to understand and even appreciate the way that other people approach life.

(Heh. You could say that I have judged the ones that judge the other judges. Oy vey. That's definitely not where I was heading with that.)

My point is this: I look at the world through my own unique eyes. My perspective is different from yours and everything looks a little different to me. That's the view from here.

Worship Anywhere

This past week, I've had the opportunity to participate in worship in a number of different settings. To take my cue from my Christmas solo, I wanted to review the different ways that I worship the King of Kings, especially since it's Christmas day today.

Christmas Choir
I was able to worship as a member of the choir in the tenor section and as the lead soloist for the song "Majesty." This can be a little tricky since the choir has to be expressive without being distracting and we need to focus on the choir director, but it has the benefits of including a very high level of technical skill. As the soloist, I had more freedom to act out my love for God. I think that we were successfully able to get past the restrictions of a "performance" and get to the heart of worship for some of our songs.

Recording a CD
I've done this in two ways. Most recently during the summer, I played percussion and sang backup vocals for the latest CD from my church. We did most of these songs in small pieces according to a regimented plan. I think that the final CD came out well but the process doesn't lend itself easily to passionate worship. Before that, I have recorded two personal worship CDs. In those cases, I purposely did both instruments and vocals all together. This lent itself to more spontaneous worship at the cost of some technical skill.

Worship Team at GTA
This is where I most frequently get to lead worship as part of a team. I play percussion most frequently and I sing backup tenor vocals a little less often. Generally speaking, we only do three or four songs in any given service, which contrasts greatly with a church like Open Door that can easily spend forty-five minutes in worship. I've done both of those styles for years at different times in my life. Despite the more limited time, I still put my whole self into the worship. I almost always dance around as I'm playing the congas and I sometimes even play congas with one hand while lifting my other hand up to God.

Worship with the Young Adults
Because this is a much smaller group, playing percussion and singing in this setting tends to be more intimate. Fortunately, our group is particularly active during worship and people will frequently stand up or dance or whatever without specific instructions to do so. Playing worship at camp site during the summer is always memorable. One time, I was even able to lead an "experimental" worship set with everyone using percussion only.

Leading Worship
I do not get to lead worship very often anymore as the primary leader. I did get the chance to do so last month for Young Adults and I relished the chance to dust off my piano and play by myself. I usually like to prepare a set of potential songs and then I'm flexible during the worship time to discard songs as I prefer. I like the chance to lead because it allows me more freedom to do some free-flow spontaneous stuff, though this is sometimes restricted depending on the band that I have with me. My absolute favourite time to lead worship is after a service when people are praying. At times like that, I get the chance to minister to people in song without the focus being on me or the music.

Teaching Worship
Back at FCCC, I led and taught the youth worship team for about two years. In this setting, I intentionally pushed people on the technical side and on the spiritual side. Learning the listen to musical cues was important but so was listening to spiritual cues from the Holy Spirit. I used a variety of different methods as experiments, tests and training, with the goal of allowing them to eventually lead worship without me helping in any way.

During this time, I also gave little two-minute talks showing some of the principles of worship from the Bible. Back at LGT when I was twenty years old, I was involved in the Discipleship Training School (DTS) as a leader. During this time, I led the preliminary worship with CD music and then I had a five minute teaching session about worship. Unfortunately, I lost most of my notes from that era but some people have come up to me years later and told me about certain parts of those lessons that they still use to this day.

Member of Congregation
Funny enough, I probably do this less often than any other form of worship. I'm usually participating in a worship team so it's a rare thing when I can just sit with the crowd. When I do get the chance to do this, I sometimes prefer to sit and worship without singing, just as a different way to express my love for God.

In My Van
Since I live in Dorchester, it generally takes me twenty minutes or more to get to most locations in town. I have plenty of time to listen to praise and worship music. This past week, I have been listening to Kirk Franklin's "Hero." There's one part in which he tells the listener to keep one hand on the steering wheel and raise the other hand up. You can often find me doing just that, or sometimes I'll use my steering wheel for percussion and sing rather loudly. People driving beside me probably think I'm a little weird.

In My Bed
Once in a while, I finish dreaming and I wake up with a new worship song in my head. Due to my sleepful state, I don't always manage to get up and record the new song on my tape recorder but I try to do that. Beyond that, I will sometimes raise my hands to God while lying in bed. A little one-on-one can be pretty powerful.

Intentional Friendships

Back in February 2005, I wrote this post in which I describe "Three Crucial People." To recap, every Christian needs three kinds of Godly relationships:

1. A spiritual parent, someone who mentors us.
2. A spiritual friend, someone who walks beside us.
3. A spiritual child, someone that we mentor.

The concept of a mentor and the concept of discipling someone is somewhat foreign in our North American church these days. To go even further, many people find the idea to be subtly offensive. If we desire to be a mentor, we seem to be placing ourselves on some pedestal. If we want to mentor someone else, that seems to be a judgment against them about their spiritual maturity. Either way, people don't really want any part of it even if we agree that it's a good Biblical principle (as I wrote about here).

And so we default to some other vague plan. We wait for God to work things out and bring someone into our lives. We wait for someone to come to us and ask for us to become their mentors. We wait for someone to come along and offer to become our mentors. And you know what? These kinds of relationships very rarely "just happen."

In my opinion, I think that we need to be very intentional regarding the friendships and relationships that we develop. We need to look for the lonely person and offer them a ride to church. We need to purposely talk about serious issues with our closest friends. We have to choose to open up some private areas of our lives to our close friends. We need to specifically create an environment to let our friends open up about their lives and trust us.

I, for one, have not functioned well as a pinball in the game of life. Simply bouncing from friendship to friendship and from paddle to paddle left me feeling empty. It left me doubtful about what the purpose of my friendships was. I found that I sometimes learned major things about my friends years later to which I was oblivious - so how well did I know my own friends after all?

As Christians, we often give lip service to the concept of small groups and discipleship, to the call of the Great Commission. We say that young Christians should have someone to help them along but then we send them to Bible Study and Sunday services and think that they will be fine. We appreciate the wisdom of older people but then relegate them to groups of people their own age.

These things to do not just happen. We need to create opportunities by inviting people into our homes. We need to devote our personal time to certain people. We need to ask someone to challenge us about our own lives.

Intentional friendships.

Circles of Friends

Back when I was twenty-one years old, I came to the realisation that my friendships were too superficial and that I needed to develop deeper relationships. I needed to actually talk about meaningful issues with my friends and we needed to help each other grow in real and practical ways. So around that time, I started a small group for a few guys that I knew.

This "cell group" was focused on two aspects: Our spiritual growth and our friendship. We would have Bible studies and prayer and discussion, and then we would balance that by simply hanging out, eating snacks and playing video games or pool.

I quickly learned one thing, though: I couldn't be close friends with everyone. Despite my intentions, it became clear that I simply didn't have enough time to hang out with each guy individually on a consistant basis and build one-on-one friendships with everyone. I tried to do that at first but I just didn't have enough time every week to do that.

In my search for balance in terms of the number of friends, I came back to Jesus' example with his disciples. He had twelve disciples that he had around him regularly. However, there were three disciples that he singled out as close friends: Peter, James and John. (For example, they stayed close to him when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane in Mark 14.)

The Inner Circle of Friends
So over the past few years since that time, I have tried to acknowledge that I am limited in terms of how much time I can devote to my closest friends. While I hang out with a lot of people and have many friends, I recognize that I can only have a few really close friends. Over the years, the list of my closest friends has changed a bit but right now, I would say that I have three very close friends.

I don't necessarily get to hang out with each of these friends regularly but there's enough of a bond there so that when we do get together, we can talk about almost anything. I can openly tell them about the things that I'm struggling with and they can freely challenge me about issues or plans in my life. I love this "inner circle" of friends.

The Outer Circle of Friends
I also have a larger circle of friends with whom I have a long history. I hang out with these friends less frequently but we often have certain key things that we can talk about in depth. I can chat with former co-workers about the rigours of professional life. I can chat with old friends about their future plans and goals in life. We're not completely open about everything but there are certain areas that are important to us.

This circle is the trickiest one. I don't think that everyone necessarily uses my perception of the levels of friendship. Some people would like to hang out constantly with a wide circle of friends. I frequently get requests to spend time with people from this group. This is fine because I want to spent time with them as well. In fact, I currently have a pending list of five people that I have vague plans to see in January.

The issue is that I will not allow this outer circle to take more time from me than my inner circle. That makes sense, right? I should spend more time with my closest friends. However, there are a lot more friends in this larger circle. If I devote only a small percentage of my time to each of them, I will quickly run out of all of my free time. So mathematically speaking, I have to intentionally say no to some requests from this circle. I like these friends and it would be very nice to hang out with them more frequently, it's just not feasible on a regular basis and that's an annoying lesson that I had to learn.

I (used to?) try and facilitate social events so that other Christian guys from this circle could develop some friendships between each other. I figured that since I don't have time for everyone but everyone still needs some close friends, I would create opportunities for others to develop those friendships. Funny enough, I didn't see this approach actually work much for whatever unknown reasons.

The Circle of Acquaintances
Beyond that, I have a very wide circle of more casual acquaintances. This includes co-workers, people on the worship team at church, friends-of-friends, etc. Most often, I only see these friends during my regular weekly activities. There isn't much motivation to spend personal time together beyond that.

I assume that people have other views and approaches regarding the friendships in their lives. I would be interested in hearing other ideas about all of this, but at least I can explain where I'm coming from.

King of Heaven

For your viewing pleasure, I have a few pictures that I have selected from the "King of Heaven" Christmas performances these past two weekends. There are a few more pictures on facebook.com, if you're on there. At the wrap party yesterday, we got to see the DVD from the performance on Monday December 11th. I do have a copies of the two DVDs, if anyone wants an unofficial personal copy later.

Links & Blinks

Bwahaha! We have sucked another person into our blog circle. Welcome, Cam!

For the record, I have several goals in writing this blog. My main purpose is that I want to have a record of my own personal and spiritual growth. Granted, that can be a bit tricky with really personal issues but many of my life lessons are free for the taking. My secondary purpose is to keep my friends updated with my latest news. My final purpose is to entertain my audience, which is why I like to flip between serious blog posts and posts like this one.

Speaking of entertainment, did you see this article from last week? Recently in China, they had two dolphins in an aquarium that had swallowed some plastic and were quite sick. They were unable to use their medical instruments to extract the plastic because of the dolphins' gagging action. They decided to think outside of the box and called in the world's tallest man - a guy that is 7 foot eight inches in height and also lived nearby. With his Plastic Man capabilities, he reached right into their stomaches through their mouths and took out the pieces. Problem solved! And we all wondered what the guy's porpoise in life was...

As for the latest news, we'll have our final Christmas performances this Saturday-Sunday-Monday. We're expecting standing room only for the final two shows so get there early for a good seat.

This past Friday night, AV-Base hosted our Christmas party at a restaurant downtown that had a Murder Mystery dinner. Even though I'm not working at AV-Base anymore, I still had the privilege of joining them. It was a fun evening even if the actors interrupted our dinner a little too frequently. Kudos to Tara, who stole the show a few times, both on purpose and by accident. Does anyone have pics that they can e-mail to me from the evening?

Actively Patient

Yesterday I had the chance to get together with my new co-workers to chat, do a little Bible study and pray. It's a pleasure to be able to do that as part of my professional duties.

As a startup company, we still have a variety of things that we need to complete and this process has taken a fair bit of time. I've been involved since the idea was first suggested to me in July 2006. Steve, as one of the major partners, has been heavily involved for around a year now (or more), helping developing the Business Plan and all of that. Rick, as the original founder, has been developing ideas for the company since 2003, and before that when he first hurt in 1996.

In short, patience has been very important.

From Psalm 40, we were reminded that patience is more than just waiting. It involves prayer and crying out to God. It means that we need to place our full trust in God even when plans aren't working out as well as we had hoped. And oftentimes, we need to work hard while we're waiting, to prepare for the eventual goal.

This lesson applies to several other key areas of my life. Patience is not the expectation that everything will work out by itself. It doesn't mean that we have no part to play in planning and preparation. We just need to make sure that we aren't putting our own plans ahead of God's. We need to make sure that our goals are a reflection of God's ideals and not just our personal dreams. We need to make sure that we let God accomplish things in his own way without us getting in the way.

Patience is the pursuit of God's will and God's timing. We need to be actively patient.

Worship: Friend of God

Yesterday with the Young Adults group at nine20, I led the worship set by myself. I brought along my piano keyboard and we managed to figure out the sound system by ourselves with our usual techies. It's been a long time since I have played the piano and it's been a long time since I led worship by myself. I'm sure I was pretty rusty but I got through it fairly well and I think that God used the music to touch people that were there. Wow, have I ever missed doing this kind of thing.

Since my new job allows me to work from home for the next month or two, I have been using a bit of time in the afternoons to start using my piano again. I usually can't practice at home because I don't want to wake anyone up in the morning and people are always around in the evening, but now I have an empty house in the middle of the day so I've picked it up again. That's one thing that I have been anticipating since I resigned from my previous job.

The focus of our worship time was on two songs that talk about how we can be friends with God. Jesus isn't a mythical figure, he's a real person that we can talk to and that talks to us. Granted, it's a little odd to speak into the air, as it were, but once you really know God personally it's amazing to see how much he loves us. We can be a real friend of God.

As for other music, if anyone is planning to come to any of the six upcoming Christmas performances at my church (as I mentioned here), I recommend that you sit on the right hand side. From your vantage point, I will be on the left side of the stage ("stage right") and you won't be able to see me if you're sitting on the left side because of the set. Also, the performance is about two hours long.

A Life: Chaplin, Lindbergh and Christ

Yesterday with the Young Adults at nine20, we had a guest speaker named Maurice (or "Fernie" as his nickname). The guy is 86 years old and he was born in Trinidad. He related stories of seeing Charles Lindbergh's plane flying overhead when he was a young boy (as mentioned here), which is just amazing.

He talked about seeing some of the original Charlie Chaplin silent movies. After one show, Maurice's brother asked him if he wanted to play Charlie Chaplin. Maurice joined in, at which point his brother took out a hammer and BAM! He hit him square in the head with it. Of course, it wasn't like the movies where you stumble around. Maurice just ended up in bloody pain and he still has that dent to this day. As he said, take this as a lesson: the media does effect kids.

Maurice related other stories from his life. He eventually become the CEO of Johnson & Johnson in the Caribbean. At the age of 56, he had a heart attack and that's when the company moved him to North America, to look over his health and to give him a different job here. At the age of 62, he faced mandatory retirement but he still wanted to be useful and do something. So with his golden parachute he decided to open a chain of five women's clothing boutiques with his wife.

Unfortunately, they lost everything when the stores eventually failed. His wife was forced to go back to college to try to begin a new career but that didn't work out, either. Eventually, his wife ended up finding a job with Harvey & Howard and through this, Maurice and his wife started to go to the weekly Alpha dinner/seminar. As he said, if the boss invites you to dinner than it's a command performance and you darn well better go.

The Alpha course involves a friendly meal followed by a short video and discussion about what the Bible says about Jesus and God. It does a wonderful job of allowing people to openly ask the tough questions about Christianity and other religions and deal with their own lives. And so, at the ripe old age of 75, Maurice and his wife eventually gave their hearts to God and put their faith in Jesus Christ. Maurice was still plagued with doubts about his usefulness at such an old age but over the past seven years, God has been using him to reach out to young and old people alike and really show them what life is all about. It took him a while to get here but this is a man with a purpose now! He's a fascinating guy.

Three Hundred

I have been writing this blog since April 6, 2004. I wrote 70 posts in 2004, 147 posts in 2005 and I'm up to 83 posts in 2006. To celebrate my three hundredth post, I have updated my blog template. The Archive section in the right-hand menu is now grouped by year and I have new Blog Labels that I have started to implement. (I made no colour changes, I like to keep the visuals simple and clean.)

As a summary of my blog life, I want to highlight the Top 10 posts that I have written about lessons that I have learned. These are not necessarily my favourite posts and I've certainly learned some crucial things about which I have never written. Still, one of my main purposes for this blog is to use it as an online journal of my personal and spiritual growth and that's why this list is so important to me.

10. Personality Traits
I periodically do some self-analysis just to learn more about myself. In this post, I dissected the fact that many personality traits have both a good side and a bad side and maturity means accentuating the beneficial parts while softening the hard edge. In this post, I reviewed my own personality traits to see how each was useful and harmful. I've also done some Jung Tests, analyzed my conversation skills (and here), talked about my introversion and how I came to be the strong and silent type. As I said before, I think that Christians are naturally trained to analyze themselves regularly.

9. Big Brothers
In September 2005, I found that I had a deep desire for mentoring but no outlet. I was done leading my own cell group, the youth worship team at FCCC was over and my youngest friends had all grown up. That's when I accidentally bumped into the idea of becoming a Big Brother. In January 2006, I finally got around to attending some meetings and I did an interview with them. This is the post in which I announced that I was now a Big. I've been hanging out with my Little once a week ever since then (more than a year and a half now) and I love him.

8. Swim Deeper
In this post, I interpreted a dream that I had as a message from God. We need to explore our lives until we have found our calling and purpose. Once we have it, we need to get deeper into it and we can't remain superficial, floating around on the surface. As I look at this, I recognize that this is a post that I should review more regularly since I needed this reminder today. In this case, though, the message wasn't as important to me as the method. I frequently have dreams that I do not understand and some of these dreams actually end up happening later, which is just weird. This is the first time that I am certain that God spoke to me through a dream, though.

7. Spiritual Power
Over the last year, I have been randomly asking people these questions: As a Christian, have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit? Do you speak in tongues? Do you speak in tongues regularly? I followed that up with some analysis (here and here), though not everyone agreed with my conclusions given the various types of theologies amongst my readers. Where is the power in our Christian lives? Are we just nice people doing good deeds or does God really show up in our lives? We need more of the Holy Spirit and my challenge to myself and others is to not accept a mediocre faith in God.

6. Change For The Sake Of Others
In this post, I talk about the Biblical mandate to change aspects about ourselves, to develop new skills or interests and to let go of some of our minor rules. We do this so that we can communicate and relate to others better. If we insist on doing things our own way all the time and refuse to change, it can be very tough to develop relationships with people. We need to compromise ourselves.

5. On The Margins
As a member of Abe's small group for two years or so, he impressed upon me the importance of reaching out to people on the margins of our society. I followed up on that idea by talking about how spending time with people is more important giving money.

4. Leadership Growth Spurt
This post talks about how leaders will naturally grow and learn through their roles as leaders. More than that, I suggested that everyone needs to be become a leader at some point, because it's our responsibility and because there is only so much personal growth we can acheive as followers. I described one aspect of my own growth as a leader in terms of realizing that encouragement from a leader is crucial.

3. Lessons of Discipleship
I told my story about how I came to realize, at the age of twenty-one, that I needed to develop more meaningful friendships and that I remain so superficial. I gradually saw the need for mentors and I decided to jump into the pool and become one myself rather than wait for one to come to me. This two part series (Part I and Part II) summarizes some of the lessons I learned over the years while trying to be a mentor to others.

2. Lessons From The Office
During 2005, I started to make the link between lessons that I had learned in my professional life with lessons that applied to my spiritual life. I started to see how alike churches and businesses can be. I began this series to get some of those lessons down as text and I have now grouped all of those posts into my new "Professional Life" blog label. I would highlight this post about the fact that everyone has an emotional bank account and we need to be aware of how our actions effect the morale of others.

1. Character & Hope
In this post, I talk about the biggest lesson that I ever learned from my professional career. Character is what you develop in the tough times. By my estimation, this was one of the darkest and most frustrating times of my life. On an emotional basis, this was the hardest thing that I ever had to learn and it took an awfully long time for me to learn it. I can only thank God that he led me through that period and made something good come of it.

How Did I Get Here?

Throughout my grade school and high school years, I thought that God was calling me into full-time Christian ministry. Missionary work, worshiop ministry, pastoral work, something like that. In my late teenage years, I was quite surprised when God told me not to go to Bible College, as I had expected and planned. So instead, I decided to go to Fanshawe College and become a computer programmer for a few years just to earn a buck. Since I had only taken one programming course during high school, it wasn't exactly a sure-fire idea. It just seemed like a satisfactory interim plan.

So I worked at AV-Base Systems for almost eight years. That was much longer than I expected and many times, I felt like I was treading water. Why wasn't I moving forward? What was the point of being a computer programmer? What was God's calling for me? I didn't let those questions stop me entirely since I continued to be involved in discipleship, church leadership, worship ministry and Big Brothers throughout that period. Even so, my plan of making some money and then moving on certainly wasn't working out.

It seems that God's plans were - and are - much bigger than my own. It's only within this past year that I have started to realize how well my professional skills can translate to my spiritual ministry. It's only within the past year that I have started to see the parallels between a company and a church. God has been preparing me all along and I'm just now starting to see part of the plans that he has for me.

Most obviously, my professional skills will be useful in terms of developing my new company as we help severely disabled people deal with denied insurance claims. I did not imagine that my professional skills would be part of my spiritual ministry and it's amazing that this opportunity was handed to me. I've always been a little jealous of people like Abe or Richard that can work as nurses or social workers and can minister to people as part of their jobs, but I didn't realize that this could be available to me in my chosen career as well.

Beyond that, my philosophies as a Project Manager and supervisor can be quite useful within a church. My abilities to logically evaluate a situation and look for the best solutions can be useful within a church. My experience with the headaches of helping a new company grow can be directly applied to helping a church grow. And I'm not just limited to functioning inside one church or just within one company, I can see other opportunities outside of those boxes as well.

It's mind blowing, I tells ya. God's an ever-lovin' genius who had all of this plotted out before I was even born. So how did I get here? It's all God. It's all because of God.

P.S. By coincidence, here is one of the passages that I was reading during my morning Bible study today: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith...For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:8-10

Christmas Presentation

To make the official anouncement, everyone is invited to come to my church this Christmas season to see this year's Christmas presentation. The dramatic portion is narrated by the Little Drummer Boy and it centres around King Herod, the Wise Men and baby Jesus. And yes, Tara has a small role in this play. I've seen an early preview and it has some pretty funny bits. I mean, how often do you reference the Three Stooges at Christmas time?

We also have a full choir with music that comes in between scenes. I'm in the tenor section and I also have a solo during one of the climatic songs.

Here are the details. It runs on the evenings of December 9 - 11 and 16 - 18 for around an hour and a half. I recommend arriving about one hour early because every performance is usually full. Admission is free, natch.

Best Parting Gift Ever

This afternoon at lunchtime, I received the most amazing goodbye gift from my co-workers. It's a giant scrapbook photo album reflecting on my time at AV-Base. It's so thoughtful. It's definitely the best parting gift ever.

Cam Tran spent a whole bunch of time putting it together over the past three weeks. A lot of people pitched in to contribute on various pieces. It includes farewell comments and letters, pictures from the past year, comics, mementos - like my ever-present Pizza Pocket boxes - and a whole bunch more besides. A ton of thought went into it from everybody. It even comes with a CD with digital copies of most of the contents.

There were numerous photos included, so I'll show a few group shots here. In this first one, I'm towering over (from left to right) Cam Tran, Michelle Pedden and Lori Worthington.


Here's a nice friendly shot of Scott Murphy and Lindsay Laforge. Scott's the only employee that's been at AV-Base longer than me, and Lindsay's been with me since the good ol' days as well.

And finally, here's a picture of the four regular chess players. That's Peter in the bottom left corner, Jeff just above him and Andrew is in the bottom right corner. Invariably, I sat in that exact corner every single lunch time and the other three guys rotated each day. Yeah, the anchor is gone...

The scrapbook also had printed copies of a bunch of my blog posts. I was surprised to see how much I have written about my experiences at work. As you've been reading lately, I've learned a lot of lessons throughout my years at AV-Base, both professionally and spiritually. However, this post from back in January 2006 sort of sums up the biggest lesson that I learned during all of that time. The biggest thing that has changed is me, and I thank God for that.

Love Is All You Need

This morning at church, the theme for the service was love. (Here are the sermon notes, and an MP3 file will be posted there soon.) Several times during the service, we split ourselves into small groups of 2 - 4 people. We discussed the opening questions, related our own stories, read passages from the Bible, shared communion and prayed together.

There are three types of love that are usually described: agape, phileo and eros. Agape is usually described as unconditional love with no expectations of anything in return. Phileo is brotherly love, like the city of Philadelphia, and this is a mutual thing. Eros is the root word for erotica and represents romantic love.

This past week, I was talking with my dad about the word agape. Even in this google link, it's usually described as the kind of love that Christians are supposed to have for all humanity. My dad was making the point, and it was reiterated during the Sunday service, that love is a verb. Love is an action. We have to do something about it.

We don't actually have agape love for Joe Schmo from Idaho if we have never met them. We may have warm and friendly feelings towards strangers in general but we can only say that we love them when we do something for/with them. In fact, the only person that can love everyone in the world is God since he sent his son Jesus to die for each of us. God also demonstrates his love for everyone of us regularly in tangible ways every day, which then leaves the question of how we respond.

That's the setup and explanation. The most important part of this service, for me, was the first discussion that we had together in our groups. One girl related that she has always fought with her parents and she moved out of her home in her mid-teens. Even phone calls that she made after that point would quickly devolve into arguments and hurt feelings, and something as simple as saying "I love you" was incredibly difficult for either her or her parents. She said that she has been praying about it for the past six years and it's only recently that they have been able to have normal phone calls and express those three little words to each other.

Another girl in our group talked in vague terms about an experience that she had three months ago when a close friend of hers betrayed her trust in a severe way. She said that while this wasn't a "forgive and forget" type of thing, she at least has worked through what it means to truly forgive her friend. She said that forgiveness is easy for minor things like arguments or rude behaviour from your friends. It's when you face something serious, something that you don't want to forgive, that you really test what the term means and then you get a better understanding of what God has done for us.

In response to the first girl, I related my experience with my brother. We had a lot of animosity between us throughout our teenage years. I was the goody-two-shoes elder son and during that time, I continually snubbed my brother and placed myself on a pedestal. It took ten years for us to work through it and it was only in our mid-twenties that we really dealt with those feelings and that history and became friends. I expressed this story to the girl to show her that it is possible to restore family relationships and things can work out in her life.

In response to the second girl, I swallowed hard and told her about how I was the one that had broken the trust of my own friends. One act of indiscretion on my part and I blew apart years of friendship. I explained that I had been on the other side of her kind of story and it took me and my friend about a year to deal with it and restore that bond. Forgiveness was one issue but rebuilding trust was another thing altogether.

Our group discussion was only about five minutes long and we each related only the barest of details. Even so, they said that they saw God working in their own lives in each of these situations, working out what love really means. I also feel like sharing my own experiences allowed them to see the big picture and have some hope about where their relationships were going. For such a brief discussion, we each seem to have gotten something meaningful out of it.

To quote the Beatles: "Love is all you need." Is that true? Maybe, but it depends on what you mean by the word "love."

Lessons From The Office: Part III

Lesson #3

Good managers make others better.

I only have seven more days left at work before I leave to help start my new company, Justice Financial Group. During my last month at AV-Base Systems, I'm gradually providing training and documentation for various people so that they can take over my duties. The staff that I have supervised will be overseen by other managers. The procedures that I have developed will now be used by others.

During this process, the fruit of my work as project manager and superviser become quite apparent. Did I try to make myself indispensible by hoarding knowledge and controlling too many things? Did I break down by employees or encourage them and build them up? Did I micro-manage my people or did I empower them? These are important questions for me as I evaluate my career at AV-Base and as I prepare to take on even more responsibility and authority at my new company.

Over the last year, I have overseen the Quality Assurance Team. The two girls, Cam Tran and Michelle Pedden, handle the majority of our software beta-test cycle. This past week, there were two major opportunities for them to prove themselves as the superb QA team that I know they are. I couldn't help them in these tests, it was all up to them.

In the first case, they needed to provide printed evidence that the month-long testing project that we're currently doing is going well. They pulled out their test document (22 pages) and their test results document (18 pages). Perfect. They came out of that meeting having proven that they have a good process, that they are highly knowledgeable about the software and that they are good at what they do. I couldn't have asked for a better presentation. I saw this as a make-or-break meeting: Can we trust the QA team to function on their own without me? And the answer was a resounding yes!

In the second case, Michelle had to provide software training for this same project to our owners and a few others. Generally speaking, Michelle has not led many meetings at AV-Base and this presentation was highly technical. She and Cam worked together to prepare and then, at the last minute, Michelle was told that she had to do the presentation on her own. This time, she was so impressive that my boss went out of her way to tell me about it later and to congratulate Michelle personally afterwards. Home run, out of the park.

I tell you, there's almost no greater satisfaction for me than to see my QA team do well, on their own terms and without me as their safety net. I see my small role in what they have done and it's a wonderful thing to see them flying on their own. I almost can't describe this feeling, but maybe it's what a parent feels like when they see their kids succeed. (I look forward to that day, too.)

Back about a year ago, I used to give them a fairly constant stream of feedback. I used to jump in to help with QA and to review our progress and specific results. As time went on, I gave them some minor suggestions about how to implement some of their ideas. I gave them the chance to lead certain meetings and training sessions, to work on new documentation that we needed. I gradually gave them more and more autonomy and instructed them to use their own judgment. Eventually, I got to the point that I could merely give them a gigantic one-month project with little to no instructions otherwise and I was confidant that they could organize and complete the work effectively and efficiently. And here we are, ready for me to step out and I know that they will be fine without me. More than fine, they will great.

I relate it to the years when I led and taught the youth worship team at my old church, FCCC. I always had a very specific goal in mind: I wanted them to be able to prepare and lead a worship service by themselves from beginning to end without me helping in any way. I wanted the youth to fully use their gifts and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. I wanted them to minister in a meaningful way to the congregation. I did indeed achieve that goal - or rather, they achieved that goal. By the end, they were capably leading monthly Sunday worship and I was able to hide in the the congregation and just worship God. It was the same feeling for me then.

Give people the instructions and tools that they need. Give them the encouragement and training that they need. Allow them to stretch their skills and gain new experience. Walk beside them as they take some of those first few dangerous steps on their own. Give them the best opportunity to succeed.

And then get out of the way!

Introverts Unite!

"Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

If so, do you tell this person he is "too serious," or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?"

That's a quote from this article. That pretty much sounds like me and to this I say: Introverts of the world unite!

Yesterday, I wrote this post in which I described how bad I am at chit chat and small talk. I thought that I was making a minor observation for amusement's sake only. What do you know, more people responded to that post in a single day then have responded to my posts in the last month. (Some responded by e-mail.) Many of the responses agreed that I need to do better with casual conversations and that I should get over myself 'cause it's rude.

I agree but only to a point. That is, after all, why I wrote my post in the first place. However, I would like to note that most people are extroverts and social conversations are therefore important to them. I am not an extrovert and it's somewhat chaffing to be squeezed into that box of social norms. Extroverts may take lack of small talk as a sign that introverts do not care about them, but introverts may take the judgment that we're rude as a rejection of who we are.

So I tell you what. When I have conversations, either in person or on the phone, I'll keep in mind that others value some unrelated pleasantries about life in general. In return y'all can recognize that it requires extra work for me to do so and you can either lead the conversation or allow me my space after a while. Heh. Good compromise?

Chit Chat

One of the few skills that I never really learned during my years at AV-Base is phone manners. Not to say that I'm not polite, it's just that friendly chit-chat on the phone has never been my forte. It seems that a lot of people spend at least a little time discussing the weather, or how tough work was in the past week, or some major event in their families' lives.

Me, I'm much more to the point. I regularly need to call our clients to ask them design questions or to answer a particularly difficult question about our software. I usually open with an introduction, ask if they have five minutes to talk and boom, I'm into the main subject. Once it's over, I offer my thanks and that's the end of the call. It's efficient but it's all business, no fun.

I find that I act that way during my personal phone calls as well. My main motivation is that I don't want to suck up too much time from someone. (That's right, I don't want to suck.) I have no idea what the other person was doing when I called them or when they called me. Perhaps they have someone standing there waiting for them, so who am I to take up ten minutes?

Of course, most people probably would like to chat for a while. Even if I allowed for this, I'm still not good at it. I don't know what to do with meaningless chit chat. I don't really care to discuss the weather. I don't know why anyone would care basketball was cancelled at the church yesterday because no-one showed up.

Granted, I have quite often taken the lead in opening up conversations with new people. Throw me into a group with one new person and I can easily strike up a funny "get to know you" conversation for fifteen minutes. I would say that this is a learned behaviour, though, so that the group doesn't sit there silently for a long time. I haven't really learned how to do this effectively with people I know casually.

However, once in a while I do have a friend like Richard or Joel Terry that calls for the sole purpose of catching up on things. These conversations easily stretch towards one hour and they're a pleasure for me. The difference, though, is that the intention is clear and these are my close friends. I still find it difficult to chat with an acquaintance for five minutes or more on the phone.

Funny enough, I can sit down and type up a blog post for more than a half hour. It's just these real-life conversations that are tricky. Heh.

Facebook & Failing

The count down has begun. Only three more weeks until I leave AV-BASE, the only company I've worked for in this chosen career of mine.

I got sucked into facebook.com a few weeks ago, quite by accident. I have a blog, a photo website, a mySpace site and a few other miscallaneous "social" sites. I like to set them all up just to make it easier to find me on the internet.

I'm impressed with facebook so far, though the interface is a mess. It's the new mySpace. I was already aware that university students tended to use facebook but high schoolers still prefer to use mySpace, from what I can tell. MySpace is better in that it offers your own URL and you can music samples and videos. Facebook is handy because it shows you all of the latest changes from your friends so it's easy to keep up to date.

Shout out to Ashleigh and her blog. She recently joined my cell group and is in the Christmas choir at church with me. Nice girl, she fits in well with our weekly group.

More Beef For Your Buck: Steve relates his experiences with the double-beef Big Mac - that's right, it had a total of 8 patties. He compares it to the triple-pattie bascon cheeseburger from Harvey's. He has a lot of nice stomache-churning details.

Congrats to all of my various licence-toting friends. Alma got her G2 licence last week and Joel Terry got his G1 licence last week. Catharina Terry got her G1 last month as well. Joel was always a little freaked out when I allowed Tara or Catharina to drive my van when we were all packed in there. Now the gas pedal's on the other foot and we'll see how he does.

Point of triva: I actually failed my first G test back in the day. I was still in Wawa at the time, one month before I moved down to London. In Wawa, the testers have to come in from Sault Ste. Marie so they only come once a month for a single day. There were no street lights in Wawa and there were no four-lane roads. It was the easiest test ever, and I didn't even do highway driving because the only two-lane highway out of town was under construction. And the main reason that I failed the first time? I didn't turn my head to look both ways while driving through intersections, though I did move my eyes to look both ways. Thankfully, I took my test again one week before I came to London and I passed.

My Life at AV-BASE: Part I

It has been more than seven years since I first joined AV-BASE Systems and now it's time for me to go. I have submitted my resignation and I will be leaving near the end of November to help found a new company. I wanted to give all of you a letter explaining how much I have loved being with this company all these years, and explaining why I am leaving. You can feel free to talk to me about all of this as well.

My Life at AV-BASE: The Beginning

Back in May 1999, I had just finished my first year at Fanshawe College in the computer programming course. I was looking for a placement with the co-operative education program and I had not succeeded in my initial interviews. The school term had ended and my interview with AV-BASE was actually scheduled for the next day. If I didn't land this co-op position, there was nothing else available. Not only that, but I was competing against one of the top students in my class at the time.

I had my interview with Bert and Helen at their office in Lambeth. After the usual series of questions (there were no interview tests back in those days), we began discussing my experience of creating a Room Booking program for my church. We discussed the fun and the problems of designing software and then having the user add a dozen new requests afterwards.
We really connected based on my real-life experience and a few days later I was informed that I had the job!

I complete my first co-op position over the course of that summer in 1999. Bert and Helen then allowed me to work one day a week while I completed my third term and then I returned for my second co-op term on December 20th, 1999. I then completed my fourth term at school and immediately started working for AV-BASE full time.

When I first started, AV-BASE was about six months into creating the new Windows-based version, which they called WinAir. We were rebuilding the AV-BASE DOS product from scratch, maintaining only parts of the original dBase DOS database. It took us about one year to create this new WinAir Professional version and we have been developing it ever since.

Visual dBase 7.01 was entirely different from dBase for DOS and it took a lot of learning on everyone's parts. Those were the early days when almost every co-op student tried to persuade Bert and Helen to switch to Visual Basic or Visual C++ with MFC or some other language. Despite the whining, no-one ever cared enough to prepare a business case proving that other languages would be more effective. Bert and Helen were the ones forking out the cash for one year of development without a sale for WinAir so they needed serious reasons to make such a drastic change.

For my part, I immediately loved dBase and I'm sure you all know that I love it to this day. The native integration for database support was phenomenal and it was so easy to use. Rapid Application Development (RAD) indeed. Within three months, I had ripped apart my existing Room Booking program. I converted it from a Visual Basic program using an Microsoft access database to a Visual dBase program with a BDE-driven dBase database. I even stole the treeview-style menu that we use in WinAir because I liked it so much.

So I came in with little experience but I had crazy ideas about Object Oriented Development and Relational Databases. One of my first projects was to design the databases and algorithms for the Template MCN Links system, which actually worked out very well and we use almost exactly the same system to this day in WinAir.

Back then, I didn't know much about anything. The "Reliability" screen that still exists in WinAirSQL was my design and I can't help but laugh at myself when I look at that screen. I had a long way to go in terms of my visual design, in terms of understanding true OO development and figuring out what a multi-tiered system actually looked like.

My Life at AV-BASE: Part II
My Life at AV-BASE: Part III

My Life at AV-BASE: Part II

It has been more than seven years since I first joined AV-BASE Systems and now it's time for me to go. I have submitted my resignation and I will be leaving near the end of November to help found a new company. I wanted to give all of you a letter explaining how much I have loved being with this company all these years, and explaining why I am leaving. You can feel free to talk to me about all of this as well.

My Life at AV-BASE: Professional Growth

I started as a student programmer and I've come a long way from there. I eventually took on various roles that included: junior programmer, senior programmer, design team, project manager, director, QA Team lead, with plenty of Tech Support and Training thrown in.
I have been Project Manager at least four times. That shows both the growing process for AV-BASE as a company and the growing process for myself. If there's anyone that is an example of what not to do, it's me. I used to come into work at 6:00 am and leave at 2:00 pm. I used to come to work in jeans and a t-shirt and put my feet up on my desk. I used to have really smelly pizza pockets that stunk up the whole office and I used to whip Skittles out the window in Lambeth. Heh.

The key that allowed me and AV-BASE to succeed in this growth process is that we did try to grow together. There were no problems so large that we couldn't deal with them. As long as I listened to my bosses and their advice, I would be fine. As long as I realized that there were better ways to do things and I improved, we were able to move on from there. My technical skills improved, my professional skills improved, my logical thinking improved, my interpersonal skills improved, my management skills improved...well, I doubt that there is any part of my professional life that has not improved since I joined.

I am eternally grateful to Bert and Helen for the opportunities that they have given me all of these years. I am the man that I today because of their generousity, because of their support, because of their corrections and because of their leadership.

I love this company and I love the people at AV-BASE. I joined the company when there were only five people. Within a year we had doubled in size and we had to start renting a second office in Lambeth. After a few more years we doubled in size again and we decided to move to Unit 10 in London. Then we had to expand and take over Unit 21 and now we're expanding again to take over Unit 13 as well.

Scott is the only one that has been at AV-BASE longer than me and he joined back in 1996 when Bert and Helen were still working out of the airplane hangar at their house. Soon after I joined, Dejan came in 2000 and Lindsay joined later in 2001. I've had numerous close friends come and go during that time. We have even seen babies born to many of our staff over the years. The growth of our company just hasn't stopped and I expect AV-BASE to keep going strong for many more years to come.

My Life at AV-BASE: Part I
My Life at AV-BASE: Part III

My Life at AV-BASE: Part III

It has been more than seven years since I first joined AV-BASE Systems and now it's time for me to go. I have submitted my resignation and I will be leaving near the end of November to help found a new company. I wanted to give all of you a letter explaining how much I have loved being with this company all these years, and explaining why I am leaving. You can feel free to talk to me about all of this as well.

My Life at AV-BASE: Time To Go

I am helping to found a new company that will help disabled people, a company named the Justice Financial Group (JFG). In brief, we provide all kinds of help and support, both financial and personal, to people that seriously injured in accidents. We want to step in if these people or their families are unjustly denied their rightful insurance benefits after they experience a disabilitating accident or death.

It's amazing how often this situation happens to people and we want to be there to do what we can. You can feel free to ask me for more details personally but suffice it to say we hope to have a major impact in people's lives.

I am helping found JFG with a few other people that I know from church. One of these people is actually in this type of situation right now and through his experiences this new company was born. I will be joining as Director of Application Development, which is a lot like my current role at AV-BASE. I will be responsible for creating the software infrastructure to support all of this. Our eventual goal is to help hundreds of people across North America get what they are rightfully owed and let them and their families lead fulfilling lives in spite of the disabilities.

As a note, my exact date of departure is still unclear. Due to the vagaries of starting a new company, I will probably be leaving sometime between November 20th and December 1st. AV-Base management has been kind enough to permit me some flexibility regarding my final date.

Thanks for reading my retrospective of my life and my years at AV-BASE. I will always look back fondly on my time at AV-BASE and I wish the company and everyone the best. I hope that AV-BASE continues to grow in every way and that WinAir continues to be effective all around the world.

So long and thanks for all the fish!*

My Life at AV-BASE: Part I
My Life at AV-BASE: Part II

*Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Lessons From The Office: Part II

Lesson #2

We're all different. Use that to our advantage.

Did you ever hear this old children's song?

Hello, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory.

I have a house, and a dog, and a family.

One day, my boss said to me, "Hey Joe, are you busy?"

I said, "No."

He said "Turn the button with your left hand."

(Repeat and add a new action each time.)

Sometimes, it's very easy to treat all employees as if they are identical. We're all just named Joe and we're all doing the same job in the button factory. Oh sure, Joe #1 uses his left hand and Joe #2 uses his right foot but we can train them on how to do each other's job. After all, neither job is too difficult and the most important thing is that we treat everyone equally, right?

That standard and those asumptions do not hold true for parents raising their kids. It's doesn't hold true for teachers with a classroom of students. And it should not hold true for employers with their employees.

Each employee has their own unique abilities and personality. Each employee has something that they bring to the table that no one else has. Our job is not to fit the person to the job, it's to fit the job to the person. Don't devote too much time to trying to fix the weaknesses, put the effort into accentuating the strengths.

There are some people that are good at implementation, there are others that are good with the big ideas. Great. Put those people together, work out the plan and let each person do what they do best. That's the whole point of the HOTS personality tests that we do at work. Each personality has its own advantages and none of the personalities can do the complete job on their own. It's when we combine our efforts and those advantages that the best results are achieved.

The common joke is that managers are always promoted one level above the level they're actually good at. We take a computer programmer and try to make them into a software designer. We take a software designer and try to make them into a manager. Sometimes these changes are necessary. Often times the person makes the best out of it and learns the necessary skills to get by. The difference is that the talented designer will never be as great a talented manager, yet too often we put them in that straight jacket anyway and then we're displeased when they don't measure up to expectations.

We need to learn about our own strengths, our own personality and our own preferences. That will allow us to excel in the things that we're best qualified. Apply that analysis to others and communicate it properly and we can empower all of the best parts of our team. The whole becomes more than the sum of its parts.

It's like our button factory. Hey, some people are good at the repetitive button pushing. Some people are good at multi-tasking and changing buttons all the time. Some people are good at being the boss. And some people are good at chanting the song with the kids.

Previous: Intro & Part I

More Blinks

So let's see, what is in the news today?

For six years now, Forbes magazine has been calculating the top money-earners amongst dead celebrities. In each of the first five years, Elvis ruled the chart with yearly earnings around $45 million. This past year, Kurt Cobain toppled The King as his estate made a total of $50 million. Much of that is attributed to Courtney Love selling off a quarter of Nirvana's library. Bing Crosby must be rolling in his grave.

iTunes and iPod music have copy-protection codes to combat piracy. This protection scheme is actually quite good - or it was until now. This article explains that an infamous hacker named Jon Lech Johansen or "DVD Jon" has cracked the code. Previously, this guy made a name (or a nickname) for himself at the age of fifteen by cracking the copyright codes for DVD movies and giving it away for free. This time, at the age of 22, he's trying to sell the hack and make some money off of it. It actually might be legal because reverse engineering, a la Paycheck, isn't technically stealing, it's just being extra smart.

Speaking of iPods, did you hear the one about Apple shipping a virus with them last month? Their Video iPods included the RavMonE virus. In Apple's official press release on their website, they said, "As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it." That's right, the blamed Microsoft for being allowing viruses. Silly monkeys. That's like blaming your parents for allowing you to break a window.

And finally, here's an odd story about a woman who decided to run for mayor for Oakville because the city allowed her house to become completely inaccessible from the roads. Over the years, new houses were built around her house until they finally closed her in completely. She has been fighting a battle of principle for a few decades now. The Old Lady and The Sea, as it were.

Blinks & Links

Joe Gibbs is the head coach of the Washington Redskins in the NFL. He has won three Superbowls and is in the Hall of Fame. Here's his bio and his Wikipedia log. After retiring in 1992, he came back as head coach of the Redskins in 2004 and unfortunately for him, they're an awful team this year (2 wins, 5 losses).

I was reading this article on a sports blog that I visit. The author was initially writing about Joe Gibbs personal website and wanted to make a few jabs at him. However, Gibbs has an ongoing series of videos (vlogs?) in which he explains his "spiritual game plan." He talks about various principles and messages from the Bible and he tends to relate them directly to his current experiences with the Redskins.

That blog article gives a nice summary of each week so far. If you're into sports or the NFL, it may be worth a gander.

Power of the Holy Spirit

What does the power of God's Holy Spirit look like today in my life?

This is the question that was posed for Open Discussion during the services at my church this past weekend. The sermon notes, and hopefully an MP3 link, are available here. The point is, how is God's power demonstrated in our lives? More than that, how is the power of the Holy Spirit demonstrated in our lives? It's a question of apathy and it's a question of accepting less than what God has for us.

In Acts 1:8, it says that "you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

So what's my answer to the first question? I would say that I do have boldness in terms of proclaiming my faith in God that does not seem to be very common among other Christians at work or elsewhere, and that's despite the fact that I'm an introvert. That would match the above verse, I think. More concretely, I do pray in tongues fairly often. While that's the most clear demonstration of the Holy Spirit, it's also private since I rarely pray in tongues while praying for other people.

Beyond that, which gifts of the Spirit are in my life, as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1? I can't say that I see any of those miraculous gifts regularly in my life, though I have had some of them once in a while.

So I don't see much of the Holy Spirit's power demonstrated in my life directly and obviously. That's not an eye opener for me since I am passionate about my faith and I do want more of God's power, so I am aware and I am dissatisfied. Apathy is not such a big factor for me even though that was the main challenge of the sermon this past weekend.

The part that hit me is this: If the power of God is not demonstrated in my life, why would anyone else believe me when I say that we all need it? In the past, I have tried to speak, study and pray with friends about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and about spiritual gifts. I've usually been met with a great degree of skepticism, doubts and criticism. That, or a polite refusal and a preference to live and let live, so to speak. (This point is addressed in the "Struggles" section of those sermon notes: Historically, people will idolize, analyze, criticize or ostracize the power of the Spirit.)

And why wouldn't people respond that way? If I'm the one encouraging people to pursue baptism of the Holy Spirit but I don't seem much different from my other Christian friends, what's the point? What does it matter? It can't be very powerful if it's not evident, right?

Ouch, the question broke me down a bit. I guess it's like telling people about Jesus' love and sacrifice for us and the forgiveness of our sins. Why would non-Christians be attracted to God if our lives seem about the same as theirs? If we're not truly happier, if we're not free from hurts of the past, if we're not filled with passion and purpose?

I need to see more of God's power in my life. I need more of the Holy Spirit to be shown through me. Not for my sake, but for the sake of my friends. For the sake of both my Christian friends and my other friends. It's God that breaks through into people's live, not my nice words and not a merely adequate but well-meaning life.

I need more of you, God. I need more of you, Holy Spirit. More of you in my life.

Exodus Exits

This past Friday night, I took my Little and three other people to the Exodus in Peril concert at my church. It was the second "Metal for Missions" concert that they have held, raising money for our upcoming missions trip to Honduras for the kids there with Compassion Canada. There were five opening bands and then the night was capped up with the headline band, Exodus.

Calvin, the lead singer, came up to me when I first arrived while I was standing alone. He told me that this was Exodus' final show and that they were disbanding. Crazy! I had to keep that minor bit of news to myself until they announced in partway through their set at the end of the night.

When they did make the announcement, the crowd was in disbelief. Up to that point, the crowd seemed somewhat lazy to me. The energy was lacking and the moshpit wasn't nearly as active as past shows. After the announcement, the entire crowd became this spastic monster. Everyone realized that this was their last chance to rock out with Exodus. The mosh pit went into high gear, people started crowd surfing all over the place and towards the end, the crowd almost overran the stage. Some people were jumping on the band members themselves and at one point I saw Calvin walk around with a guy clinging to his back while he kept singing. Much better!

Terribly sad to see them go. They have really developed a young fan base here in London. My Little and his brother both became fans and every kid that I brought to a show walked away amazed to learn how cool Christians can be. Nothing like a little heavy metal to bring out the love, eh?

Exodus' official MySpace site has a ton of comments from fans. Amy, Calvin's girlfriend, has a bunch of photos up from the evening, and even a video. We'll miss you guys!

Superstar

I took my mom to see the musical Jesus Christ Superstar last night. As we did last year, my family bought her a package of theatre tickets for her birthday this year. Each member of my family takes my mom out for a date once a month, going for dinner and then watching the show. Yesterday was the first show of the season and it was my turn.

I vaguely knew that it was a rock opera version of Jesus' life in the Bible and apparently it was pretty faithful. My knowledge of such trivia proved accurate and it was well written, pulling entire sets of lyrics almost directly from the Bible. The lead singer playing Jesus was actually the original actor from the movie, which was cool and somewhat pitiful to see him stuck in the role he originated more than thirty years ago. His crazy rock-falsetto was amazing.

The other lead singer that played Judas was my favourite performer, some grammy-winning guy with a very different style of singing. I once heard that certain instruments, like the old Hamond B3 organ, are ever-so-slightly off key in terms of their supporting tones and this minor distinction gives it much more character than an organ with only perfect pitch in all respects. In the same way, this Judas had some fantastic vocal inflections that he used repeatedly that were like that and it was quite the pleasure to hear. I love listening to black voices.

Overall, this musical was much more tame than I expected. Everything was properly set in the Biblical period, particularly the costumes. There was only one part that really jumped out as modern and it was a playful comedy relief segment in the second half. I was expecting much more contemporary twists, not just modern song styles. (And by modern, I mean mid-70s.) The songs were impressive at times, though the repetition of some tunes got a tad annoying since certain characters only spoke with those tunes. Still, any time you get a chance to see Jesus fly into the sky, I recommend it.

And to follow that up, I'm taking my Little and a group of younger kids to a heavy metal ("screamo") concert by Exodus In Peril tonight at my church. That's my friend Calvin's Christian band and it's always a powerful show with a ton of youth packing the place out. Considering that the musical and this concert are both technically "rock," it will be quite the contrast.

Lessons From The Office: Part I

Lesson #1
Meaningful change is hard, meaningless change is easy.
Meaningful change isn't cheap, it isn't simple and it takes time. Meaningless change, on the other hand, can be accomplished almost immediately. Unfortunately, it can also be undone just as easily.

Great goals are not accomplished by issuing edicts and setting arbitrary deadlines. They're not accomplished by initiating a new weekly meeting or creating a new policy. They're not accomplished by single person with no support. They're not accomplished without defining that goal properly and then planning out how to get there. They're not accomplished by wishful thinking and thinking wishes.

Great goals are accomplished by thoroughly analyzing where we are. They're accomplished as a group, as a group that belives in the final goal. They're accomplished by testing the new ideas, revising them and testing them again. They're accomplished by not giving up on the change, even if it takes a long time.

That's not to say that small changes are always useless, nor that big changes are always useful. Everyone can use a nice haircut once in a while but too much plastic surgery doesn't always create a Picasso. (Or maybe it does?) The point is that slapping a new title on someone at work is probably a meaningless change but splitting one job into two separate roles can be of great benefit.

Real Examples
I've seen a lot of new policies over the years. Hey, I've been the cause of many of these new policies - just last week I trigerred a new one regarding the central thermostat. Heh. I was once introduced to a new policy that was comprised of two documents that came to a total of 6 pages, complete with flow charts. I saw that same policy summarized into one paragraph two weeks later. Meaningless change, though I'm sure that the goal was a nobel one.

On the other hand, I recently created yet another version of the programming standards for our dBase developers. It was about three pages long with a ton of very technical detail. It took us two 2-hour meetings with all of the programming staff to sketch out the contents and provide training. It took us several more hours and several more revisions to create the final document. That document will now provide the training outline for our new programmers and it helped our newest programmers improve immediately. Hey, another giant document can be meaningless but in this case we took the steps beyond just writing the document to make sure it worked. (I hope it worked, anyway.)

Some time ago, we decided to change the name of our software testing phase to "Quality Assurance" instead of "Beta Testing." This change was decided and done within two days, including related changes for our internal support software. This change was reversed within a few weeks, and just as quickly. As a result of this confusion, we started to refer to this phase by both terms interchangeably. If the terms are interchangeable then I'll give you one guess about what type of change this was.

Much later, we started to hire full time staff for the QA roles. Previously, this was accomplished by our Tech Support team also being responsible for beta testing. With the most recent re-organization, we formalized Tech Support and QA departments, the official team leads and we defined the job descriptions and daily responsibilities. In fact, the Tech Support staff still provide plenty of assistance but now they help the QA staff and they can focus on their primary roles when they need to do so. In this case, making a distinction about the QA department required much more work but it was also much more useful.

There are some procedures that we discussed as good ideas back in March or April. Some of these procedures are only being finalized now, and I had to consistantly work my butt off just to make them happen by this time.

As one example, we needed a formalized process for reviewing all incoming development requests and suggestions from clients. Previously, it was somewhat random as to who approved new ideas for coding and many requests became lost in the sands of time, so to speak. At best, I would create an ad-hoc list and steal fifteen minutes of my boss' time to review them quickly.

Early on, we created a new weekly meeting to handle this. It took us a while to finalize who should and should not be in this meeting. We changed the person that was designated to lead this meeting and this process, since it used to be me and then it was the Tech Support Team Lead. We created and revised several report formats for this meeting. We changed the process for submitting client suggestions to this meeting several times. In fact, I did a ton of coding over the past month on the weekends to revamp and simplify this process yet again.

It's not that we didn't know what we wanted to do. Our bosses had a fairly clear idea of that from the beginning. The process and mindset, though, took a lot of time to figure out. As it stands now, we have the benefit of getting expert opinions from our staff without killing ourselves with administration overhead to make it happen. It's worked out very well for everyone and it can probably survive on its own now without any cheerleading.

That's an example of meaningful change. And as it happens, this particular BAM! process (Business Analysis Meeting) would have been awfully useful several years ago during one of my early phases as Project Manager but we didn't figure it out until our recent re-organization. Meaningful change is hard, eh?

Lessons From The Office: Intro

As I mentioned before, this past year my company has undergone a major re-organization. During the six months that Trevor was with us, we gradually reviewed our management structure and internal processes and made improvements across the board. There were a variety of lessons that I learned during this time, lessons that were sometimes learned the hard way.

As a manager with various responsibilities over the years, my principles and my approach have certainly evolved. I compare it to my early days as a professional programmer. I still have a few screens in our flagship software that I designed and I shudder to look at them, knowing the visual flaws and the fact that these screens are almost completely useless.

In the same way, I can look back at my early management style and I can only be grateful to have had so many chances to learn and develop at my company. Heck, I currently handle a lot of the project management duties in my role as Director of Implementations but this is actually the fourth (!) time that I have been in this position.

Just for fun, let me assess the four times that I have been Project Manager.
1) The first time, it was sometime in my second year with the company. We didn't know what we wanted from the role except for a nice Gantt chart, which I never did. There were no goals, no specific responsibilities and no tangible results. I didn't have a clue about what to do. In fact, the only thing that actually happened during this time was that I gained an interest in software project management. I started to read various industry websites and blogs, so I gradually developed a theoretical philosophy about the role and about software designs in general.

2) The second time, we made Project Management into a formal job. This was about a year and a half after I was officially designated as PM, as I vaguely recall. I had to evaluate competing priorities, get input from my bosses, organize work for the programmers and report on our progress. We made a lot of progress during this time regarding this role. After about a year, though, I resigned those duties for two reasons. First, I was given certain responsibilities without the authority to accomplish them. Second, I needed to figure out how to standardize our processes for getting input and for reporting the results and, try as I might, I never did figure that out. In fact, we're still trying to work that out but thanks to Trevor's recent help we've come a long with that recently. When I resigned, those duties were promptly assigned to someone else.

3) I stepped back into the role soon afterwards for a third time for less than a month. That was a silly mistake on my part since it was mostly a response to an urgent need that we had. As I saw it, I still had the problem of not having enough authority so I only requested the right to do one thing, which was review and organize any incident that we assigned to coding. Not that I would decide what went into coding, I just needed to get the related paperwork done to keep things flowing. That sole new process fell apart with the next urgent thing that we had to do and I once again stepped out of the role and went back to full time programming.

In retrospect, I was an idiot in my approach. I framed the problem as a matter of trust and authority, when it could have been framed as a minor procedural aid. I saw greater underlying issues than the superficial problem and I tried to wrestle with those rather than fulfilling the immediate needs. Good times for me, those were. Even if I was justified in my observations, which is questionable, I still had a long way to go in learning how to create healthy change.

4) The fourth time, I stepped back into the role after Steve and Rebecca left our company. The duties for Project Management at that time had grown until it required two full time staff that devoted a majority of their time to these duties. Steve, in particular, worked lengthy hours and even worked from home just to deal with the high volume of incoming development requests and administration work. With their help, we made great strides in the technical requirements of our support software.

Once they left, I simply stepped into their shoes and did the minimum work required to keep the ship moving. While Steve and Rebecca had a very thorough knowledge of everything that was happening, I knew that I could not replace two full time staff by myself so I did what we needed to get by and, not surpisingly, we had plenty of items that went into never-never land.

It was only with the recent re-organization and the new procceses and meetings that we have really made this feasible in a practical way. Our weekly BAM! process now provides the chance to get expert input on all incoming requests. Our versioning system and Product Roadmap meetings provide the means of regular progress updates. We're actually accomplishing more with less work, which is amazing to me. And while I believe that Project Management is a skill just like programming is a skill, and I know that it isn't just a cog in the machine that anyone can fill, we have standardized the role fairly well and it is much easier to accomplish now.

So on that note, I'm going to begin a series of posts that I'll complete gradually, highlighting the principles that I have learned over the years. There are an awful lot of them so rather than try to design an entire essay series, I'll just shoot from the hip a bit more than I usually do. Sometimes they are based on observations of others, more often they're based on my own flawed experiences. And yes, I have given my blog link to all of my co-workers and directly to my bosses so I'm not trying to hide this, as tempting as that might be.

(And ten bucks says that these lessons can be applied equally to churches as well...)