Monthy Archive: November 2007
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November 06, 2007

Faith : Three tales of "freedoms"

This is not the first post I had intended to make; but current events have intruded on my plans.

When I was in High School, I was one of a group of students that fought our school district for the right to voluntarily get together to pray before school. All we wanted was an established time and place so that any students that wanted to pray together could do so. The district originally said that we would have to meet off of school property as the use of school facilities would be a violation of the separation of church and state. Fortunately, we eventually were able to work out a compromise and the unsupervised "student prayer club" was allowed to meet every morning on school grounds.

The experience has had a significant effect on my views on "freedom of religion". Too often principles like "religious freedom" and "separation of church and state" have been used to remove religion from public discourse; but "freedom of religion" need not be the same thing as "freedom from religion" where we all must be careful to not expose our religious faith to others. A true multi-cultural society is not one in which everyone keeps their own beliefs out of sight lest they offend someone else; but rather one in which everyone is free to express their own faith publicly as long as it does not impinge on other people's ability to practice what they believe.

That line can however get rather hard to draw at times.

Consider cases in Sweden and Canada which have passed strong hate crime law meant to stop people advocating attacks based on the target's race, nationality, religion and sexual identity. Now on principle, I support such laws. No one should be allowed to stir up hatred for groups and be immune from prosecution when those who listen to such rants take violent action. However, in both Sweden and Canada, those laws have been used to prosecute pastors who simply said from the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin. The pastors did not advocate hatred (I'll get to those kinds of preachers in a moment), and in one case clearly talked about how God loves all sinners, regardless of what sins they committed. Yet they spent up to 30 months in jail for expressing their opinions.

We must, in a multi-cultural society, find ways to allow people to hold and express their own opinions, even when those opinions are not popular. True freedom allows one person to say "I believe you are wrong" while allowing you to say "I believe I am right" as long as no harm is encouraged. Society should be careful to only step in when such a conversation crosses the line into "I believe you are wrong and someone should do something about it". Freedom of speech is so necessary to a free society that we should declare talk a "hate crime" only when it is clear that criminal actions are being advocated.

Which bring me to the recent 2.9 million dollar court settlement against Westboro Baptist Church. The pastor of this church believes that the death of so many US soldiers in Iraq is a judgment from God on the USA for our acceptance of homosexuality. To express that opinion his church hold protests against homosexuality at the funerals of soldiers, complete with signs that read "God hates fags" and "Thank God for dead soldiers".

Personally, I am offended by what this church is doing – it is groups like this that tempt me to join some of my friends who have stopped calling themselves "Christians" and instead refer to themselves as "Jesus followers" so as to distance themselves from what the modern Christian church has become. I am offended that they would talk about God hating anyone. I am offended by their willingness to intrude on the grief of people to make their point. I am offended by the hatred they stir up against fellow human beings.

Now some people are saying that this is an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of religion in America. I disagree. Neither of those freedoms are intended to be a license to be obnoxious. Furthermore, once you start to say "God hates those people", you are only a small step away from someone thinking that if God doesn't like them, then perhaps it is OK to attack them. In my understanding, while true Christianity does establish a clear moral code for those who choose to be Christians, it never advocates hatred of people. Instead we are encouraged to love all people, regardless of their faults. Supporting groups like Westboro Baptist Church only confuses that message.

Posted by Steven at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

November 12, 2007

Life : A Quick 6 Month Summary

Been off the blog for six-ish months, so I should probably fill in a few blanks before moving on, although there really isn't much to report.

Anne and I had a nice vacation at the end of September. Saw my dad in Florida and spent time in Miami and at Disneyworld. The theme of the trip seems to have been safari animals as we visited both the Miami-Dade Metrozoo (which has a very nice collection of African animals that like the warm weather there), and then stayed at the Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge – Disney's new hotel associated with their safari-style theme park. While Disney's Animal Kingdom itself was nice, Disneyworld as a whole seems to have swung back toward being kid-centric (for a while they seemed to be trying to find a better balance between keeping kids and adults entertained; but apparently that didn't work and they have abandoned it).

Just this week Anne and I went to see Billy Joel in concert. That was a real treat for me as Joel is one of my favorite songwriters and performers. The concert was great – he played for over two hours straight, giving a good survey of his work without becoming a "greatest hits" collection. Joel is a great showman and doesn't take himself too seriously, so it was a very fun evening.

As to TV, the only two keepers from the fall season are "Pushing Daisies", which is probably the most original TV show in a very long time; and "Journeyman" which while not original in concept is executing the vision quite well. "Chuck" is an also-ran that I kind of wish I could justify the time spent watching it, but it just doesn't have enough to say.

Oh, and Anne and I finally broke down and bought ourselves a Wii game console – and quickly had to clean up the living room to make room so we could play.

Other than that, life goes on. I've been thinking a lot over the summer – some of that will probably be reflected in later posts - and there are hints that things may become "interesting" for Anne and I soon; but I am going to pull a "Melissa" here (some of you know what I am talking about) and not say what I mean by that quite yet.

Posted by Steven at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 17, 2007

Faith : Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

There is a revolution underway win the Christian church. Some have been so bold as to call it a "second reformation", although that may be a mischaracterization – this revolution may be even more significant. It has been growing for a many years; but has reached the point that even the Barna Research Group (the premier Christian polling organization) has recognized and written about it.

For the last two years, I have been doing my own research into what is going on, and have started to come to my own conclusion. One of several factors in my relative silence on this blog was that I have been busy trying to come to my own conclusions on what is really happening (and most important, what parts of this are God's doing and what parts are man's), and didn't have much to say until I started to come to some conclusions.

While the various groups involved in this revolution have their own ways to describe what is going on (restoration, postmodernism, simplification, etc.), here is my take on the nature of the revolution. But first a couple definitions: Orthodoxy literally means "right teaching", and within Christianity it has come to mean having the right doctrines and beliefs. Orthopraxy is "right practice", having the right actions, doing the right things.

The Protestant Reformation was all about right doctrine. In fact the earliest protestant churches initially had only cosmetic changes in how church was conducted – the major changes were in what was taught within the church and what people were expected to believe. What’s more, because orthodoxy was paramount, the sermon/teaching/lesson quickly became the centerpiece of the church meetings – the important thing was to teach everyone what they should believe.

The problem was that while orthodoxy reigned supreme, orthopraxy played the junior role. In fact, Christian orthopraxy became reduced in most cases to a synonym for holiness – living without sin. A Christian was considered to have "right practice" if they avoided sin. The problem is, that is a negative definition. It limits orthopraxy to what people shouldn’t do; but says nothing about what they should do.

The result is that most Christian churches (in at least the English-speaking world - I can't say much myself about what is happening elsewhere) are full of people who have a meticulous understanding of Christian Doctrine (or at least think they do); but have very little understanding of what it means to follow Jesus on a day to day basis. They know that what they believe is right (and often "know" that what everyone else believes is wrong); but beyond not acting like "those sinners", Christianity has very little impact on their daily lives.

The conclusion I have come to is that the essence of the revolution that is underway in the church is a new focus on orthopraxy. Just as the protestant reformation brought about a correction in Christian doctrine, this new revolution is focused on bringing about a correction in Christian practice. Those who are caught up in this revolution are coming to understand not just what a Christian believes; but also what a Christian does – what it means to be a Christian.

Now in every revolution, there are those who allow the pendulum to swing too far the other way. In this case, there are also groups who have begun to deemphasize sound doctrine in the same way that sound practice has been deemphasize in the past. That is a dangerous road. If God exists (and I assume all Christians will agree on that point), then there is some absolute truth which is God’s own understanding of things.

What is needed is a middle way – one that involves both sound doctrine and sound practice, while providing room for everyone to grow into each. We need to strive to understand what God already knows as the truth; but we need to maintain some humility that our understanding (and everyone else’s) may be incomplete – remembering that God can (and wants to) use us and everyone else wherever we are in our understanding of Him. Likewise we need to strive to live our lives in ways that demonstrate Jesus to the world. Not just His sinlessness; but also His compassion, His power, His unity. We are called to be the Body of Christ; but that requires a degree of integration and interdependence rarely found in traditional churches – but not in the churches of the new revolution.

As should be evident, I have started to come to some conclusion about what is happening within Christianity; and my intent is to start writing on these things in the coming months. There are also other things related to this going on in the background that I hope to write about soon.

Posted by Steven at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 21, 2007

Faith : I was a teen-age heretic

My journey of following Jesus started when I was ten years old. In that first year of faith I devoured every source I had to understand the gospel. I read the Bible through in under a year; I listened to audio tapes of sermons; I went to every church service I could get to (thanks, mom). By the end of the year, I had a fairly clear understanding of what Christianity was all about.

Only, a lot of that understanding has later proved to be incorrect or at least incomplete.

As an example, later in my life I discovered that a key part of my understanding of the Trinity was incorrect. There were in fact passages in the Bible that didn’t quite make sense if my understanding of God’s nature was accurate, but I had always glossed over those inconsistencies. When I realized my error, I did some research and corrected my thinking. In the process, I discovered that my error was declared a heresy by the church in the 3rd century. What’s more, the chief proponent of the view was kicked out of the church for his teaching.

I’m not going to go into detail on the doctrine of the trinity here or the nature of my error – that’s not the point I want to make. Quite the opposite – the observation I want to focus on is that for several years of my walk with Christ, I believed a heresy. What’s more, I almost certainly talked to other people about what I believed, so I event taught a heresy. Yet, I am hard pressed to find any way in which my relationship with God or His ability to work in and through me was affected by this error.

During that time I was a “heretic”, I still had a close relationship with God. He was active in my life, performing His slow work of transformation. He was able to guide me and use me to minister to others. That’s not to say there were no benefits to correcting my understanding. There are things I never quite understood that suddenly became clearer once I corrected my misunderstanding; but the quality and effectiveness of my walk was never affected as far as I can recall.

I have spoken before how God’s work of transforming us into His image is a gradual one, and that the course of that transformation follows His path, not one of our choosing. I said this in reference to our faults and sin, and how God deals with the issues in our lives according to His schedule, not ours nor the schedule dictated by others in the Church. I believe the same applies to points of doctrine.

Just as we have many ways in which we do not act as God desires, so we also have many misunderstandings about Him and the nature of the world around us. Just as God has a plan to work with each of us to correct our actions according to His own priorities, I believe He also has a plan to work with each of us to correct our doctrines according to those same priorities. Just as holiness is an absolute standard which can never be compromised, yet we must all find a way to be compassionate and patient with those who have not achieved it, understanding that we ourselves have not reached that goal yet. In the same way, orthodoxy is an absolute standard which can never be compromised, yet we must find a way to be compassionate and patient with those with whom we disagree, understanding that our own doctrines may too have some errors remaining.

Good doctrine remains a goal; but the path to reach it must be paved with humility.

Posted by Steven at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 22, 2007

Life : Beware the ellipsis

A few people have had difficulty posting comments lately (they have been moderated, so they don’t show up until I approve them). I have trace the problem to the comments containing ellipsis – well actually 3 consecutive periods (“...”), which seems to annoy my filtering software for some reason. I hope to track this down and fix it; but until then, beware the ellipsis.

Posted by Steven at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 24, 2007

Faith : A lesson in translation

In the ancient Greek states (particularly Athens; but other city-states as well), there existed the concept of a “Summoned Assembly” where all citizens were called together to conduct the city’s business. Key issues were debated, magistrates and other officials were elected, laws were approved. While many aspects of Greek society were limited to land owners, the Summoned Assembly was open to all citizens of all classes. Everyone had an equal voice within the Summoned Assembly. As such, within the Greek world, the Summoned Assembly was considered the ultimate expression of the community. It was the one place where everyone came together, regardless of class and wealth, to support and define what their community meant. Perhaps the closest modern equivalents are those few small New England towns that are still governed by Town Hall Meetings.

The Greeks had a word for these assemblies which in the first century carried with it that strong sense of both community and egalitarianism. The problem is that the word has become co-opted and come to mean something quite different today. The Greek word for these Summoned Assemblies is “ecclesia”, from which we get works like “ecclesiastical”. When “ecclesia” appears in the original (Greek) text of the New Testament, it is most commonly translated into English as “church”. Yet when we read the Bible and see the word “church” we get none of the emotional impact, none of the sense of community or egalitarianism that the original readers would have had when they saw the word “ecclesia”.

For us, “church” is a religious institution – one in which few have the right to speak, and the rest of us listen. While there remain a few places where “the church” is the center of the community, the sense that the church is a community in its own right has nearly disappeared. And with those changes, we have nearly lost the original meaning of “the ecclesia” as the authors and original readers of the New Testament would have understood it.

I believe the idea that collection of believers in a given area would constitute an egalitarian community, “summoned” by God to “assemble” is central to understanding what Christianity was meant to be. That’s why the other metaphors that the New Testament writers used for the church are so often hard to embrace. It is hard to think of a congregation as a body with every part working together for the whole if you don’t even understand it as a community to begin with. It is hard to think of a congregation as collection of living stones being built together into a single building without believing it is an “ecclesia” first.

Posted by Steven at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 26, 2007

Faith : On Clergy

I have written here before on my concern about the Christian churches focus on Orthodoxy at the expense of Orthopraxy. Another consequence of that imbalance is the creation of a distinct clergy class within the church. In my study of the Bible and Church History, I believe God intended a different pattern.

My understanding is that The Church was meant to be a community of believers, all of whom were expected to contribute equally to each other given the skills and gifts God has given them. Those who can sing should sing. Those who can teach should teach. Those who can heal should heal. Within that community then, there will be those who are recognized as having greater experience and maturity in the things of God. These individuals will be expected to mentor those with less maturity, teaching and counseling them as God leads. These individuals assume this greater degree of responsibility simply because it is what God calls them to do. Because of the trust being placed in them to train others, they are held to a higher standard within the community; but they remain part of the community and are understood to still be growing in their own relationship with God while at the same time helping others.

Unfortunately, sometime in the second century of Christianity, the desire to enforce correct teaching brought about the need to have individuals trained in the minutia of Christian doctrine. As the hairs of doctrine began to be split ever more finely, the time and effort it took to train someone to teach in the church grew, as did the gulf between those who were trained and those who were not. Those who had not received extensive training were less and less welcome to contribute within the church. Given the scarcity of trained people, it became important to maximize the benefit of those who were trained, so they assumed full-time positions, paid by the church. Now most other religions of the time had full time priests in the employ of the church, so people naturally started to think of these Christian leaders in the same terms as the priests of other religions. They were raised on metaphorical pedestals and transformed in people’s minds into something different from the rest of the congregation.

I want to be clear her: I am not opposed to supporting individuals who are so busy with their ministries that they have no time to work - providing support for those who travel for their faith, or for a small number of individuals whose contributions are time consuming. I also believe in sharing “all good things” (Galatians 6:6) with anyone from whose ministry I benefit – whether they are in the employ of the church or not. I take people out to dinner, buy them gifts, and otherwise find ways to show my appreciation.

What I am concerned about is two things.

First, I believe that serving God is a key means of Christian growth. One does not really learn how to trust God until you are ministering to others under His command. My concern is that too many “clergy” fill up their full-time status by doing the work that God intended the rest of the congregation to do, and as such they are actually blocking their flock from achieving maturity. The usual counter to this is that people claim if the clergy don’t do it, no one will. However, Ephesians 4:11-12 clearly says that the role of pastors, teachers, etc. is to prepare the rest of the church to do the work of the ministry. When they start to do the work themselves, they are acting contrary to God’s intent; and if there is no one willing to do the work, then the likely cause is that the pastors, teachers, etc. haven’t been doing their job of preparing everyone else.

Second, I believe the establishment of separation between laity and clergy makes it difficult for church leaders to get the help they need for their own issues. I think the scriptures are clear that no one has “made it”. Even Paul, who God used to write most of the New Testament, did not consider himself to have “arrived”. The problem is, if someone’s income is dependent on their role as a church leader, how comfortable will they be to admit they are struggling with something in their lives? If instead, they were just “elders” whose income came from normal jobs, then it would be easier to step aside from their role as mentor for a time to work on personal issues, while staying part of the congregation and getting support from those that they had supported in the past. I have to wonder if we would have such a steady stream of high profile church scandals if the leaders in the church were not treated as clergy; but instead were just experienced/mature members of the laity.

Posted by Steven at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

November 27, 2007

Faith : Being Church 24/7

I am not in the habit of reposting other people's work and I always try to keep my posts to around a page; but there is an essay by Molong Nacua from the Philipines that is making the rounds on the net that says so many of the things I believe so eloquently that I am compelled to pass it on. The whole essay can be found here; but the following are some excerpts:

Jesus never intended for Christianity to become a religious sect. He did however want His followers to follow His footsteps in how He lived life, as designed by God, on this earth. Watching what His Father does and hearing what His Father says is what He does. That's how He's obedient to His Father's will. It's not a matter of rules or of even choosing between right and wrong but of just being obedient to His Father. In like manner, the same Father calls us. He wants us, as His children, to each become an obey-er, just like Jesus.

Being church is living Christianity 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And every child of God can do just that because the Holy Spirit is not just here to stay in a believer's life on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings but every minute of the day, even if one is just sitting down or lying in bed. We are the temple of God, and wherever we go, we stay the same the church of Jesus Christ.

Being church is neither going to church nor doing church activities. It is not a full time or part time Christian, and most of all; it is not a Sunday going believer. It is not defining worship as attending worship services in church buildings. Also, it is not having a specialized ministry
…

Wherever I go, I meet tens if not hundreds of Christians who don't care about going to church anymore. It's not that they have lost their faith, but rather that they have kept it until now. And they're afraid of losing it if they were to join a church! Most of these folks are not just pew sitters but have ministries in their local churches. Amazingly, I've also learned some have backslidden not because they were made to stumble by someone outside church, but by someone inside it!
…

Are these people looking for a different kind of Christianity? Are they tired of being religious? Could it be attending church Sunday after Sunday, week after week, month after month, and year after year, both now and forever, amen doesn't make you a good Christian?
…

Jesus' life was never structured; He simply obeyed His Father. Singing for 30 minutes may not be worship at all. Worship is obedience to what He called us to be. That is the highest form of worship. It is the expression of our redeemed lives, our way of life. We cannot just put our Lord or His ways into a system.

Churches today are like spiritual machines. Programs are their survival kits. People love to pour their money into the machine to keep it running. But in reality, church life is like a wind: you don't know where it goes. It is a journey, a daily journey. It cannot be sewn up in the intellect; it must be uncovered during the journey.
…

Have you wondered why we are to be led by and walk in the Spirit? Because a disciple is a follower, a follower of Jesus' footsteps, we are on a journey. No wonder the measurement of our maturity is to be like Christ and the end of it is when we see Him face to face (1 John 3:2). So it's not joining Discipleship Class 101 or working our way through a curriculum but it is a lifelong day to day commitment. A "take up your cross daily and follow Me" subject. The fruit of the Spirit are not there as proof of maturity but is part of the progress of your journey toward Christ. It is not the sign of your qualification as a mature person but a quality of the life you live before everybody. It is not the end of your journey; it is your endless journey until you meet met Him.
…

You are religious, not spiritual - making Sunday a holy day just because you've gone to church, then considering Monday through Saturday unholy because you go to work. You are separating the sacred from the secular. You are not righteous, you are religious! And the danger of being religious is that it prevents you from obtaining the real thing.

The best word we have for this is "hypocrite." One man entered a church on Sunday morning and wondered why the people there ignored and avoided him. "Ah, I see," he realized. "They don't like smoking. Church people don't like smoking." So he threw away his cigarette butts. People started to welcome him, believing he was touched by God's presence in church. After church he went home, opened the cabinet and lit a piece of cigar. Next Sunday members thought he stopped smoking because of a touch from God's presence. No. It was their legalism and their religiosity. What did this man learn? He learned to play the game of hypocrisy. Where? In the church. And often pastors are the biggest hypocrites there.
…

Posted by Steven at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

November 28, 2007

Observations : The Seven Deadly Holidays

One of the recent comments on a previous post reminded me of a discussion I got into with some friends a while back. The essence was that while the various holidays we celebrate in the USA are supposed to be about various honorable things, in practice they seem to be celebrations of the seven deadly sins:

- Valentines Day: Lust ('nuff said)
- Thanksgiving: Gluttony (likewise)
- Christmas: Greed (I want this, I want that)
- Sloth: Presidents Day (just an excuse for a day off work)
- Wrath: ??? – we never got one for this
- Envy: New Year's Eve (who has the best party and who gets to go to it)
- Pride: Fourth of July (US is number one!)

Any suggestions for when we might be celebrating Wrath?

Anyway – when I thought about this seriously, I found it rather depressing because there does seem to be some truth to it.

Posted by Steven at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Life : Definitely Blogging Again

Yup – my blogging engine has definitely revved up to speed. I have 8 posts already composed and entered into the system, just waiting for me to hit “publish”; and I am really enjoying the comment discussions. Woo Hoo!

Posted by Steven at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 29, 2007

Faith : How to get more than a few involved

In response my post "On Clergy", the question was asked – "So how do we get more people to take up the reins?" Frankly, we are so far from doing the right things in most churches today that even secular sociology has answers that will improve things without having to resort to the deeper spiritual issues.

As an example – think of the seating arrangement that most people experience when they go to a church meeting: You have a very small number of people (sometimes only one) on an elevated platform facing one direction and everyone else on a lower level facing the few on the platform. What does that seating arrangement communicate? What expectations does that set up without any words being spoken? You can say what you want from that pulpit about the "priesthood of every believer"; but if the room contradicts what you are saying, you are fighting an uphill battle. Now consider instead what would be communicated if your experience of church meetings was everyone sitting in a circle (I'll address the size issue in a moment)? It doesn't take deep theology to make improvements from what exists today in most places.

The bottom line for me is that whenever Christians meet, there are three things that they need to be focused on:
• drawing people into the group
• drawing people closer to God
• drawing people closer to each other

Everything in how we "do church" should be understood and evaluated in the context of those goals. I expect I'll have a lot to say on each of these over the next few weeks; but I'll focus on "drawing people closer to each other" for the moment as a response to "So how do we get more people to take up the reins?"

I have said it several ways since I started this blog; I believe that community is a key characteristic of what God intended for His church. In the New Testament there are dozens of "one another" commands: "love one another", "submit to one another", "encourage one another", etc. In addition God has promised that he has given specifics gifts to individuals within the church so that together (with mutual interdependence on each other) they form the "Body of Christ". There simply can be no doubt that Christianity is something that is meant to be experienced mutually as part of a group.

Now something I learned from a management theory book is that sociologists have done studies and determined that there is a limit on the number of people an individual can feel responsible towards. You can build a small group and have them all work hard because they don't want to let the others in the group down. There is a sense of responsibility that can develop towards the other members of the group. However, as the group grows, there is a point at which a person stops feeling responsible towards the other individuals in the group and instead switches to feeling responsible to the group as a whole as an abstract entity. And here's the key – that sense of responsibility towards the group as an abstract entity is significantly weaker than the sense they have when they feel responsibility towards each individual. Multiple studies have been done on this, and while the transition point varies from individual to individual, it is generally between 30 and 50. Military organizations understand this principle too - there are things that people will do for the eleven other people in their squad (which they have only spent six weeks with) that they will not do for “their brigade” or “their division”.

So applying that to church - if we are serious about the church being a community, then we need to keep individual churches smaller than 30 people (I can hear it now: How un-American! Isn't having the largest church the ultimate sign of success? No!). With small churches we at least have a chance for people to bind together in a way that they will feel responsible for pitching in and "doing the work of the ministry". This also makes my earlier suggestion of "seat everyone in a circle" practical.

So there are two concrete suggestions for getting more people involved in actually doing church (as opposed to just going to it) driven only from sociology. I have a lot more to come.

Posted by Steven at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 30, 2007

Faith : Learning by Watching and Listening

I earn my living as a Software Architect (the high end of working as a Software Engineer), so I spend a lot of my time doing the complex, big-picture design of computer software, and then working with a team of other Software Engineers to implement and test that design.

In my 27 years in the industry I have grown to appreciate how little gets taught in universities about how to actually do software. Sure, the typical college grad comes out of school knowing a lot about the theory of Computer Science – data structures, algorithms, programming languages – but there’s a lot more that you need to know to apply that theory to real-world problems. Lectures can never give you what you need.

That is even more true when you get to doing what I do. A lot of Software Architecture is knowing what questions to ask. Knowing what is important in a design and what isn’t. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that the only real way to learn how to become a good software architect is to watch it being done.

Now that’s a problem because most companies want to do Software Architecture by sticking 1-2 really smart people in a room to do the design and when it is done, having them then present the competed design to the rest of the team. The problem I have with that is that the rest of the team learns nothing about how to do Software Architecture.

Instead, what I always fight for is to get all of the team in the room and do to the Software Architecture as a group. Now it tends to be the case that the same 1-2 people end up doing most of the hard work on the design (although everyone tends to get a few points in, and the more senior engineers on the team tend have some significant contributions). The difference however is that everyone gets to see how Software Architecture gets done and they all tend to learn something in the process.

Software is not unique in this characteristic. There are lots of trades and professions that are best learned by looking over the shoulder of someone else who already knows it.

I have already learned is that Christianity also falls into this group.

I have come to the conclusion that the best way to learn how to be a Christian is not to listen to sermons on the theory of Christianity; but to spend time talking with people who are actually doing it. Sermons have some value – just as university lectures on Computer Science do – but they can only take you so far. Once you have the fundamentals of the theory, the best way to learn “nuts and bolts”, “rubber meats the road” aspects of the Christian life is to get deeply involved we people who are living it and to learn from them.

Early in my Christian walk I went to churches that were long on theory; but very short on relationships and practical advice. Things were happening to me that I just didn’t understand because I didn’t know how God worked within individual lives. Much later I got involved in a group where everyone talked about what was happening in their lives as they tried to follow Jesus and suddenly think started to make sense. I didn’t feel so lost, so alone, so unusual. Other people were having the same experience, the same challenges, the same questions, the same doubts. Having that visibility into other Christians' lives made such a difference in my growth and maturity as a Christian.

So another thing I have come to believe about church is that when it gathers, there needs to be time for people to just talk to each other about what God is doing in their lives. Not just “testimonies” and “praise reports”; but also about failures and struggles. Whenever I am together with other Christians I try to model this by talking about what is happening in my life; and it seems to make a difference.

Posted by Steven at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)