Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Watch the Posting Times

I explained a few posts ago why the posting times of my entries are usually the same time each day. Though the date of the next game night is still in negotiations, the opposing team of the ultra-competitive gaming group is using the post as bulletin board fodder. Their rebuttal goes something like, "Andrew, rest up because you'll have to get up extra early to post your future blogs at 5:30!"

I hereby accept the challenge.

If our team wins the night, then I'll continue to post at 11:49 (or later if we set a new high score). If our team loses the night, I'll post the game low score. Watch the posting times!

p.s. I won't be using 38 anymore since Elliot Sadler announced he won't be driving the #38 Ford Fusion after this season.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Larger Message Files

Since publishing our message audio files to the web, we've worked hard to keep the files small for the segment of our audience without broadband. But in exchange for small file sizes we compromised audio quality.

As an aside, you may have noticed that Podzinger ceased to catalog our messages; after some digging I discovered this was directly linked to the quality of our audio files.

My IT Assistant for the summer, Phil, pointed out the difference in audio quality a few weeks back and I decided to upgrade. It may not be all that noticeable, but our messages are now being produced at a higher quality. Podzinger recognizes them now and should be fully functional.

The downside is it will take a bit longer to download or stream.
Check out our latest message series on the Book of James.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Planning ahead

After completing a course in college late in my Sophomore year, I turned into a planning nut - I wanted to have a clear sense of direction with every detail and every minute of my life channeled to help me reach my final destination. Several years later, with graduation on the horizon, I quickly realized that for all my planning and direction, I had no idea what the future held in store, no leads other than directly to unemployment. And out of the blue, God orchestrated a phone call that lead to a job offer that I hadn't seriously considered. That experience altered my view of planning.

I was involved in a ministry that after years of dreaming of facility expansion, made plans to put shovels in the ground. I've seen ministries with long-range projections which years later (with the benefit of hind-sight) look far-fetched and unrealistic. Those observations again altered my view of planning.

Today, planning to me is focused on trying to discern God's plan. Pastor Scott's blogged about some of the planning process we've been taking in recent weeks and there are several questions I've been asking myself and the staff throughout the process:

Where do we see evidence of God's work?
What ways is God opening up for us to join what He's already doing?

Our purpose, our vision of where we want to be in 10, 20, 30 years, our strategic objectives of how we'll get there and the specific goals all need to be centered on where God's working and the role we can play in His work.

I'm excited because it's a process I've been taught, one I've employed in specific areas under my leadership, but I've never seen it thoroughly put into practice for an entire ministry. Even more, recognizing that it's a real-time, ever-changing process, we plan to get together quarterly to discuss, evaluate, reassess where we see God working and how He wants to utilize us in those areas.

We've come up with our answers to these questions, but we're taking time to pray about them and make sure it's where we think God's at work. After that we'll be reviewing it in a couple of weeks before we start to move forward. Stay tuned.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

More facility projects

Recognizing that we don't always look like we're one organization (instead appearing to be separate entities: daycare, school and a church), we're taking steps to create more unity in the building. In addition to the parking lot paving and carpeting I mentioned earlier this week, we hope to commence work on moving from two separate resource/break rooms for our daycare and school ministries into a single, shared resource/break room. We also hope to work out how it can be accessed and used by church ministries on Sunday mornings and possibly Wednesday nights as well.

The plan, approved by the Board of Education and the Elder Board is to remove the wall between rooms 401 and 402 - commonly known as the Home Ec. room and the Teacher's lounge. They're the rooms located across from the Fellowship Hall. We'll remove the wall between the two rooms to create a large room with enough space to store office supplies, an have office work area and a place for employees to take their lunch breaks.

UPDATE (7/21/2006): the wall is down; why didn't we do this several years ago?

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

It's audit time :)

Every year we have independent accountants come to conduct a financial audit of our financial operations. The accountants will be on site for the next 3-4 days, randomly reviewing our work over the past 12 months to verify that we've accounted for everything appropriately and done everything above board. I view this process as a learning experience as each year I come away with a little more knowledge of how to better lead the finance and accounting aspects of our ministry. It's an intense several days, but the results are worth it!

Monday, July 17, 2006

Upcoming facility projects

Work will be commencing on several facility projects by the end of July...

1. Parking Lot Paving
What is now considered a small soccer field, located on the western side of the 501 W Lincoln property, will be converted into 122 parking spaces. This project was presented to and approved by the congregation in June. The additional spaces will meet our current demand, but still leave little room for growth. Anybody want to car pool?

2. Carpeting
With about half of our building reaching the 15+ year mark, we've been attempting to keep up with key maintenance items. For example, we'll be replacing a lot of the hallway carpets in the next month as they're original to the 1990 addition (making them 16 years old). We'll be doing everything we can to minimize the impact on Sunday morning and Wednesday night ministries.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

A Safe Assumption

Assumptions can be dangerous, but there's one assumption I rely upon almost daily... always assume there's something you don't know. I find that making that one assumption helps me keep a balanced approach to the issues I face daily; particularly when it comes to making judgment decisions.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I found a clear example of this while I watched the World Cup Final on Sunday. When I saw Zidane head-butt Materazzi, I quickly went to my assumption, there's something we don't know about the situation. Yes, the head-butt was a deplorable act, but we don't know what traspired to lead up to that point. ESPN2 re-aired the final match on Monday night and I caught parts of the game; it was interesting to watch it through a Zidane-focused lens. The Italians game plan was clear, whenever Zidane touched the ball he was hounded, not just defended, by two, sometimes three players, each harrassing him extra-physically. He was given no space on the pitch. He was roughed up from start to finish, even sustaining some type of shoulder injury late in the second half. In addition to the physical abuse, he was likely getting thrashed verbally as well, though it wasn't as evident from the camera angles. All that to say that in re-watching parts of the game, it was clear there were things we as a world audience didn't know or had forgotten once we saw the head-butt. Does that excuse him? No, but it does give a broader perspective on what happened.

Though in very different contexts, assuming that there's always something I don't know makes me dig deeper into the situations that come my way, to seek additional information before making a decision.

Monday, July 10, 2006

European Football

I'm not sure I've documented my enjoyment of European Football, but for the past month, the majority of the world has been fixated on the matches unfolding in Germany - aka the World Cup. And today, much of the world is focused on the final moments of the career of one Zinedine Zidane who in one moment was being referred to in the circles of John Elway and Bill Russell, sportsmen who ended at the top of their sports in the US and mentioning him in the same sentence as world-football greats, Pele and Maradona. And then in an instant, Zidane is relegated to the realms of Mike Tyson (who bit off part of the ear of Evander Holyfield) and other disgraced athletes. Of all the commentary I've seen, I've found the following article the most insightful.

As I told someone several years ago, but for the grace of God I am just as capable of such horrific and destructive acts, for I too am a sinner.

All said, it was indeed a shame.