I help make games at Alamofire (the people behind PackRat) and wrote a book on blogging. I write here about politics, the web and other things as time allows. I love new ideas and finding common ground with interesting people. I hope you’re one of them.Launched April 2004
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The free .NET web tool Community Server has now been officially released. The 1.0 version was announced on Rob Howard's blog. The source code is also available.
Community Server includes tools for hosting multiple blogs (formerly .Text), forums, and photo galleries. We hope to experiment with this release over the next two weeks for a number of different purposes, including possible volunteer communities. [via Erik Lane]
On Valentine's Day weekend, Lori and I spent a lot of time talking about schedules, priorities, and the dreaded word, busy. We are both so obsessive about getting things done that we can struggle with pausing and relaxing. We decided we needed to make some changes in our weekend priorities. Sometimes it is easier to prioritize your professional life than your personal life.
The next day, we sat down to watch Rob Bell's session at C3. In his conversation with Ed, he talked about how his family uses Saturday as their sabbath. This is his family's time to truly relax; a time to play Lego's with his kids until they just don't want to play anymore. A time when the cell phone is off and he is as unreachable as a senior pastor can be. Then he brought it all home: "You know, my kids don't care how big my church is, they just want to know when their dad is going to be home."
Wow.
The next morning, we visited our new Plano campus and sat down to hear an entire message focused on, what else, the sabbath! As if God was unsure whether we had heard His message yet, we listened to Ed talk about the rhythm of life; six and one, six and one, six one. He spoke about how critical a true day of rest is to each of us personally and as a family - no errands, no work, disconnected from technology, and just enjoying family and friends and His wonderful creation.
So, we have decided to make Sunday a true sabbath. We are going to attend church in the morning and serve during the second service (we were previously Saturday night attendees, which was wonderful, but complicates the sabbath idea as Saturdays are filled with scheduled activities and the momentum of the week just passed).
When we get home on Sunday, we are focusing entirely on our family and relaxation. I know this seems impossible, but our Sundays will actually have no computers, no television, and no cell phones. Last weekend was our first experiment and it was heavenly. We read, played games, went for a walk, and did fun family projects. Ben loved having our undivided attention. When the day ended, we were refreshed and ready for a new week.
I have no illusions of how challenging this will be, but I can't wait to see what God is going to do.
Today was Ben's first official soccer match! The experience was Premier League all the way - 50 degrees and raining. Lori and I found ourselves missing the joys of Little League, where the games are canceled if the dew is too heavy that morning. Not soccer. Send those 9-year olds out in the cool rain for an hour in shorts and t-shirts...what's the worst that can happen?
Ben did great, specifically by doing everything that I wouldn't have done. I would never have left my comfort zone as a kid. Once I found a sport, a team, and a routine, you would have to pry me away by force. Out of nowhere, Ben decided to change sports, landing in the middle of a team and coach that has been together for years, and learn a new game from scratch.
He has worked extremely hard under difficult circumstances. His teammates have literally years of year-round experience and it shows. But Ben is completely fine with that. He is so comfortable with who he is that he just tries his best and doesn't worry about how he compares to the rest of the players. I would love to know how to do that - my life would be so much better!
His coaches and teammates have been great, welcoming him and doing extra things to help him along. This picture is in the back of the Element after his victorious hour of soccer. He was happy, soaking wet (love those waterproof seats), and looking forward to his next game. Very cool!
To celebrate his first match and great report card, we watched Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
Apple's iWork arrived today and it is fantastic. Within one hour, my son Ben took a GarageBand song he made, ran it through iTunes and dropped it into Keynote to play during a presentation. Then, he created a newsletter for his bi-weekly writing club, printed four copies and put them in the mail!
Ben's immediate verdict on Keynote? "This is so much better than PowerPoint!"
Good enough for me.
Debates are good, but I'll take life change every time.
In the end, it all comes down to this: a person is lost, invited to church by a friend, spoken to by the Holy Spirit through the message and the music, bows the knee to Christ, and is never, ever the same.
There have been literally thousands of these stories at Fellowship Church over the past 15 years. Praise be to God for the miracle of salvation through his Son.
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things (U2 > Grace)
Thank you, Lord, for the incredible opportunity to serve you in the local church.
Almost a year ago, I took three days off of work, sat down at my dining table with my laptop, and worked my way through a terrific book, Agile and Iterative Development. My goal was to find a better way to manage the software development process. The book led me to scrum, a relatively recent addition to the list of agile methods, such as extreme programming.
The scrum approach captivated me and for the first time I could see the entire development process clearly. Within two weeks, my web team was off and running with scrum (it is fairly easy to implement new processes when old processes didn't exist). We still use bits and pieces of scrum, and the parts we've implement have been very helpful (particularly the daily scrum), but I'm afraid our current version would be frowned upon by any self-respecting ScrumMaster.
My goal is to fully implement scrum within our team as I find it to be an extremely effective methodology for allowing small teams to accomplish great things. As such, I've been exploring some new scrum resources, all of which have a lot to offer the aspiring ScrumMaster. Check these out, and feel free to share any related information or experiences.
First, Chris Flaat covers his use of scrum with his team at Microsoft (quick overview of posts). Second, Darrell Norton gathers a number of excellent scrum posts from Conchango.
Phil Crissman offered some much needed perspective in his recent comment on this site, which, as is so often the case, led me to visit his. Phil writes mostly about technology and his interesting writing and cool looking site have led me to subscribe.
The best post I've come across offers a fantastic perspective on the latest industry buzzwords, and how they demean the role of actual human beings: Scalable Enterprise Solutions.
People - at least, the ones you want - are "scalable". They can grow, they can learn, they change, they innovate. Enterprise? People are your enterprise. Solutions? I can't think of a problem you can have that won't ultimately take a person to solve it; not a box or a piece of software -- both of which will need to be invented, created, evaluated, and installed by people.
Peggy Noonan is always worth reading, but when she writes a fantastic essay on the world of blogs, think of it as a must-read.
One particularly helpful reminder (and great turn of phrase):
I've been attacked. Too bad. If you can't take it, you shouldn't be thinking aloud for a living.
Some terrific, talented people are writing books on blogging, especially the use of blogs in the corporate world - Robert Scoble together with Shel Israel and Jeremy Wright, to name a few. As I mentioned previously, the Christian blogosphere has already created private-label blogrolls and even conferences. So, I am confident that before you know it, there will be Christian blogging books!
Before the first contract is signed, let's go ahead and document the best possible titles.
Top 10 Titles for a Christian Blogging Book
10. Come, I Will Make You Bloggers of Men
9. The Emergent Blog
8. The Blog Testament
7. The 10 Commandments of Blogging
6. Onward Christian Bloggers
5. Sunday Blogging Sunday
4. Mathew, Mark, Luke . . . Scoble? Finding your next evangelist online!
3. The Purpose Driven Blog
2. I Could Blog of Your Love Forever
And the #1 Christian Blogging Book Title
1. What Would Jesus Blog?
There is a great conversation taking place on TerryStorch.com. Terry wrote about Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and how it relates to Fellowship Church, and churches in general. This provoked some critical comments and some interesting responses which are worth reading.
Or are they?
In all honesty, I don't know if they are. I would love to read a
serious, honest, heartfelt conversation between those who believe and
those who do not. Struggles, hurts, questions, frustrations, and
disappointments matched with love, hope, and grace. That is a truly
worthwhile conversation.
This is most assuredly not that conversation. This is simply the criticisms of believers by believers. Obviously there is a healthy place for debate, but the people who provoked this intense conversation are not friendly, curious, questioning or open-minded. They have come for one purpose, to judge and criticize what by nearly every measure has been an incredible move of God. The fact that fellow Christians would so freely attack other churches without humility is an unfortunate example to the many readers who are outside of the faith.
As I wrote a few months ago:
I think most outsiders would be surprised to discover how much fun churches have criticizing other churches. I've found over my brief four years in ministry that every church must battle against one thing constantly - arrogance. Most churches are clear on two things: the inerrant truth of scripture and, a close second, the inerrant method of presenting it.
There is only one Way, one Truth, and one Life. There are many ways to do church.
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