Matt’s Blog

Every week (mostly) I spend a good deal of time preparing to present some aspect of the message from Mars Hill Church to the community group that I lead. After I complete the discussion I thought it might be personally profitable for me to write out what I came up with, incorporating anything pertinent from the group discussion. This is the material from March 8, 2010.

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Luke 5:27-32

This week we continue the study of the life of Jesus examining his interaction with the tax collector named Levi, and in his calling we find some great examples of what it means to practice good community. In this narrative from Luke we see three steps in the process (to borrow some phrases from Driscoll):

• Follow Jesus
• Start a Community Group
• Repent, Repent, Repent

Personally, I find the order of the activities particularly interesting. Of course the command to follow Jesus precedes all, for that is where the motivation comes for all that will happen later. But one might expect that the next step will be the revelation of sin in the life of Levi, and the inevitable priod of conviction and repentance that lead to a changed life. Instead we see that after meeting Jesus at the tax booth Levi’s immediate reaction is to call together all his friends and fellow sinners so that they too may come to know Jesus. The life-analysis and study that leads to the revelation of sin, conviction, and ultimately repentance follows, rather than precedes, the starting of this new “community group.”

Instead of having to “get oneself right” in order to participate in relationships with others (both Christian and non-Christian), we see that good community helps “get ourselves right” for relationship with God through conviction of sin and accountability. Thus the importance of involvement in community is stressed as an immediate reaction of the newly-called disciple of Christ.

But what makes good community and, considering many of us are already practicing good community of one sort or another, what are the risks to good community once established? Let’s limit the discussion for the time being to that of Christian community since, after all, this is a blog about Christian community groups.

There are two primary dangers that I see to the practice of healthy community. The first is that the success of our community group would lead to pride that is not focused on Christ. This can either happen in a religious or worldly sense. The second is that in reaching out to sinners we would become so blind to sin that we ourselves fall into temptation.

We find an example of the first risk in Galatians 2:11-14. Here we see that Paul opposing Peter who has refused to eat with Gentile Christian.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, l live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Galatians 2:11-14

In this case Peter had previously eating with the Gentiles exercising a freedom that he was granted in Christ to ignore the previously strict dietary guidelines that governed what Jews could and could not eat. But, upon the arrival of some Christians of Jewish heritage, Peter pulled back and excluded Gentile Christians from his fellowship. This rejection comes despite Peter’s previous affirmation of Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles expressed in the preceding passage: Galatians 2:7-10. Here we see the risk of allowing pride in our community to color our interactions with others. For me, this risk takes the form of wanting to get everything in my life “just so.” I can sympathize with Peter who in his refusal to eat with the Gentiles was reacting to the deep-seated beliefs that have their origin in the strongly-stated Levitical laws regarding what was permissible to eat. Although the laws from the Old Testament regarding food had been made obsolete by the redemption of Christ, there was still an uneasiness that came with the new dietary freedom that undoubtedly created significant discomfort for Christian Jews, Peter in particular. Although selfish and wrong, his decision was at least based on a desire rooted in the commands of the Lord. I’m convicted when I consider how many times I avoid dealing with certain people or situations to avoid discomfort not because of a misunderstood command of the Lord, but purely based on my own selfish desire to have things the way that I want them to be.

Such an attitude is toxic to good community. This not only expresses great selfishness, but it puts us in a position where we are completely ineffective for the spread of the gospel. By ensuring that we allow our “boat to be rocked” in this regard we ensure that the following positive benefits will come out of our community groups:

• Selfishness will be eliminated as we are forced out of our comfort zone.
• We will be constantly aware of the sinfulness and brokenness of ourselves and of the world.

The second danger to good community is found in 1 Corinthians 5 where we see the unwillingness of the Corinthian church to deal with the explicit sin found among Christian brothers:

It is actually reported that there is w sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

1 Corinthians 5:1-5

The second risk touches on the need for good community to help us realize our own sinfulness and urge us to repentance. If the first risk of community is being too judgmental, then this second risk is that of refusing to engage in accountability with our fellow Christians. This is important because we are all called to live above reproach, this is how the glory of God is demonstrated in the redeemed and changed lives of Christians. This means that, as good community members, we must be willing to put aside our comfort and have those difficult conversations and interactions in which sin can be exposed and put to death.

In concluding, it’s important to note here that the judgment in this case is not directed to those outside the community, or to non-Christians, but rather to those members of the group who profess to follow Christ and yet still live in sin. In the passage from Luke, and all thought the ministry of Jesus we see his desire to reach out to the “unclean” and help heal them of their sin them as a spiritual physician. So like him, we must be constantly reaching out to the world around us maintaining the delicate balance between internal moral consistency and external unconditional love.

Two days ago my family lost a four-legged friend. For nearly the past 11 years the Roe family dog was a Welsh Corgi named Ginger. This week we decided, based on several medical conditions she was suffering, to put her to sleep.

Those who know me know that I’m not really what you would call an “animal person.” But I’ll admit, Ginger grew on me. 11 years is a long time, and not just in dog-years, and as I considered that “Ginger-dog” will no longer be there to greet me when I visit my parents it seemed a bit like her passing is the close of the childhood chapter of life for both my sister and I.

Ginger was a great dog. I’ll always remember how we had to dig pathways in the snow in the backyard for Ginger because she was too short to get through it on her own. Or how whenever you went to get ice out of the freezer Ginger would bound into to kitchen to demand the ice-cube tax. And how, when you gave her that ice cube, she would spend 3 minutes chasing it around the kitchen because it was too slippery for her mouth.

So, goodbye Ginger, I hope wherever you are you have some warm sun to nap in and a good human to give you love!

Poor Indy, sometimes it just seems that nothing can go your way. Not only do you have to deal with the bone-chilling cold of the midwestern winter, but now you have to endure the embarrassment of having your formerly-favored Colts shamed on national television. Couldn’t get any worse right? Just get back to work and look forward to next year? Well, that’s great unless your work happens to be making athletic and fan apparel for the Saints. Yes it’s irony at its finest, something you would normally expect to see on The Onion. Except in this case it’s even funnier; because it’s real. Perhaps the tireless efforts of Indiana workers to turn out Saints gear also explains why only 11 of them showed up for the Colt’s return to their home city.

It just seems so unfair that New Orleans, already in the throes of Marti Gras, gets a big ol’ second serving of partying courtesy of their Super Bowl victory. Didn’t their parents teach them to share? But don’t despair Indy fans, eventually those partiers down south will be just as hungover as you are right now.

Source: http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/charity-who-cares/

One of the more interesting things I’ve seen recently.

This Thanksgiving I traveled all the way from Seattle to Atlanta (again) to, among other things, attend the best college football rivalry game in the country; the Georgia Tech vs. U(sic)GA game. This year the game was the first and only GT game that I attended at Bobby Dodd stadium (readers will recall that I also saw the team play in person at Vanderbilt) and unless you have had your head under a rock for the past few days you probably also know that the game did not go well for us.

Now I don’t really know what qualifies a game as “rough” but here’s what made the game last Saturday rough for the GT faithful. First, we hate UGA. Good, clean hate mind you but hate none the less. Perhaps it’s because most of their fans didn’t even go to the school, and cheer for them because they win a lot and make an easy team to root for. Perhaps it’s because they usually beat us in football. Perhaps it’s because their football players and mascot tear up our field in front of our fans when they win. Whatever. We just don’t like them at all and losing to them only makes that worse. Second, we were actually good this year. Although I’ll admit that I thought the ranking in the top 10 was a bit optimistic, I really do think that we’ve done a good job this year. And in years past when the roles were reversed and U(sic)GA was on top we got trounced. Any of those years we would have loved to play the spoiler to U(sic)GA’s otherwise great season. Why then on the one rare occasion where the roles are reversed are we the ones who provide redemption for our rival’s otherwise mediocre season? Third, the game was so close. Although we were trailing pretty much the entire time, we were always within striking distance. And except for a brief period in the second quarter we had plenty of offensive momentum. This means that for pretty much the entire game we were all on the edge of our seats screaming our heads off hoping that we would take the lead. Right up to the very end. Let me tell you how much fun it was to wake up the next day, unable to speak in anything above a raspy whisper and remember: “oh yeah, we lost to Georgia last night, sweet.” And finally, on the topic of that period in the second quarter, it wouldn’t be a game against the dawgs without a little “coincidence.” How fortuitous that the first play immediately following our recovery of a U(sic)GA fumble for the go-ahead touchdown our star quarterback goes down with a twisted ankle…

Phew, now that’s out of my system.

The rest of the trip was great. I had a great time with friends and like every time I go back I left wondering why I moved so far away. Also, this might sound dumb, but this was the first trip where I realized that I’m really not in college anymore. For the game I was standing with my fraternity just like the old days, except that it wasn’t. Most of my close friends have graduated and in their places are all these new guys who I don’t know. Even those guys that I do know are getting ready to move on to grad school and other things. So the limited connection that I do have there will soon be gone. Even just being around the house or on campus was interesting. For the first time ever I felt more at home at the alumni tailgate then I did anywhere else.

But then, what are my alternatives? I don’t really feel old enough to move to the alumni sections for the games. I mean who really wants to sit through a football game? If I wanted to sit then I’d just stay home where I can camp out on the couch and drink beer that didn’t cost eight dollars a bottle. This might not have been all that bad of an idea given the outcome of the game… Anyways the trip was great and the times were good. So I can’t really complain all that much, even if I’m becoming one of the “old guys.” I’m just not there yet.

This upcoming weekend is the Georgia Tech vs. U(sic)GA game in Atlanta. Personally this puts me in [1,1] on the chart below but that’s not what’s important right now. What is important is that our main man, Josh Nesbitt, has his game face on. And apparently he does:

So I was browsing the site for another project management tool the other day and I came across something that I frequently see on competitor’s websites yet I’ve never understood. In the copy on the page describing the product I saw the following phrase:

We give control back to the project manager.

I must admit, I was alarmed. Have we here at The Empire© stolen away the control, the very freedom of project managers everywhere? Surely not! I mean, maybe those jerks over at Oracle with their mighty all-knowing Primavera solution, or those IBMers with their Rational portfolio management platform. I could see them snatching away control from project managers quicker than you can say “Gantt Chart.” But not us.

Boy was I wrong. I started asking around about the missing control and found out that even here at the newer, more compassionate Empire© we too frequently strip control away from helpless project managers. And not only that, but we even have a special room in which we hold hostage the control along with the tears of 1 million Vista users. I took a picture of it, but I must warn you I’m risking my job by posting it online:

And yes, if you’ve read this far and haven’t realized this is a joke then you might want to ask a friend about sarcasm, or about Front Page. The extensive use of either will likely ensure that you end up in hell.

So, it occurred to me that recently there’s been a pretty high word-to-picture ratio going on around here. That’s fine, words are good and quite entertaining when properly applied; however, preliminary research suggests that there is a strong correlation between the word-picture ratio and the douchey-funny ratio. I’ve dubbed this concept the “Butters principle.” Now, clearly, we can’t have the D-F ratio rising too high around here which means: It’s time for some images! Fortunately I did some image-worthy things last weekend.

Most anyone who’s known me for a while can tell you: I love GT football. This is why last weekend I flew all the way from Seattle to Nashville to watch Georgia Tech play Vanderbilt. Well, that and to spend time with some of my closest friends from college… but mostly to watch football. Um…. let’s call it a 55/45 football/friends split. Anyways, here are some of the reasons I love going to GT football games:

The Stadium Atmosphere

This season I’ve mostly been watching our games on ESPN 360 which is neat, but not the same experience as actually being at a game. There’s just not that excitement/energy level. Of course you might argue that going to a live game at Vanderbilt is pretty much the same thing as watching it on TV, but whatever.

Friends

I have some of the best friends in the world. Many of whom also cheer for Georgia Tech, which is actually a pretty important requirement for friendship with me. Just kidding, but no… really. Of course some of my friends look better than others. No offense Dustin

Paul Johnson

I’ve previously written about why I love our coach. But this season in particular I’ve gained new respect because a 4-quarter application of PJ usually results in…

Winning

I’ve already booked my tickets for the GT/UGA game and I cannot wait. Go Jackets, Fight, Win!

When I started working at The Empire© I learned that we, like most major tech companies, have people called “Evangelists” whose sole purpose is to get other people (read: potential customers) excited about our products. I must admit, as someone who comes from a Christian background, the idea of that particular term applied to business was a bit unsettling. But come to find, it’s a pretty common practice across the industry and after all, it is a pretty good description of what they do.

But it did cast an interesting light on a debate that the technology world been involved in for a long, long time. A debate that, at times, has taken on the ferocity of a religious jihad. A debate with the power to take normally rational, even-tempered people and make them so angry they are red in the face, and makes normally cordial people behave like complete asses. A debate that has weakened many friendships, and even destroyed some. Yes, the never-ending debate: Microsoft vs. Apple/Google/Linux/salesforce.com/Open Source…

I’ve usually tried to stay away from this debate when it came up. Typically in my fraternity someone would spark it every few semesters via our e-mail list, and I would do my best to ignore it. But now that I work for one side of the issue I’ve become a magnet of sorts for this kind of thing. It’s as if someone taped a sign to me that says: “Hey, please be a complete ass to Matt about the company he works for, I’m sure he’ll think your little joke/barb is soooo clever.” Recently I feel that additional signage has been added that reads: “Please also be sure to mention any of the Apple commercials created to compete with Windows 7 as I’m sure he has not heard of them and will appreciate you bringing their insults about his employer to his attention. Their logic is so sound he will have no choice but to abandon his beliefs and his paycheck and go out, buy a black mock-turtleneck sweater, and become a devoted worshiper of Steve Jobs.”

Allow me to clue you into something. I work for Microsoft. I like Microsoft products, I get a lot of work done with them and I like using them. I’m highly unlikely to agree with you when you make baseless claims about the lack of quality in of our products or the deficient intelligence of our employees. This goes double if what you are saying is straight from a competitor’s advertising campaign.

Some might argue, “Well Matt, you brought it up. What did you expect me to say when you expressed excitement about Windows 7/Office2010…?” Which makes me wonder what in the hell is wrong with being excited about the products made by your company, products that you often have invested much of your time and energy into? What, have I somehow insulted you with my excitement or do you just like arguing?

Apparently yes. How many times have I heard this:

“Oh but Matt, you don’t understand. Macs are just so much better than PCs. They just work! I was so frustrated with my old PC, and now that I’ve switched I’m so much more productive and so much less frustrated.”

Now I don’t know about those productivity claims, my opinion is that the most productive machine would be one on which facebook.com is inaccessible regardless of underlying operating system. But seriously, professional productivity is very difficult to measure quantitatively and personal productivity is even more difficult to qualify. Sure you can come up with some task that used to take you hours to complete on one OS that only takes you 15 seconds on another, but I’m sure there are other areas you aren’t keeping track of (or, in your love of the machine, intentionally overlooking) where you are spending a lot of extra time/money. And as for frustration, let’s be honest; computers are frustrating no matter what’s running on them. I used to have a Windows Mobile phone and I swore at the thing regularly for all its flaws. It was slow, it didn’t browse the web very well, there were no apps for it, it crashed, it hung and it did a lot of other infuriating things. So I switched to an iPhone looking forward to enjoying the “never-ending bliss of Apple Computer’s flawless design” and lo and behold it was awesome. Until it dropped a call. And then another, and another, and… Now my iPhone regularly drops calls at such a prolific rate that I joke that I have yet to complete a conversation longer than 30 seconds without experiencing the “iPhone Tax”. And that’s not the only problem with the device. Applications crash, the web browser is slow and auto-refreshes pages when there is no need to, some basic things take forever to load, and it’s even crashed itself a time or two. Now I’m not hating on Apple. I’ll freely admit that with all its flaws, the iPhone is still a great product (still better than WinMo), but it’s not a perfect product and I’d never be willing to destroy a friendship over it. It’s a tool, used to conduct tasks.

Which leaves the question: Why are people so devoted to products that are basically a heap of sand and plastic?

And then it occurred to me, this isn’t a debate about technology, it’s a debate about theology. All these snarky and emotional comments from consumers aren’t about technical issues; they are the religious arguments of the disciples of Macintosh, the followers of Linux, and yes even the devotees of Microsoft. Although, I must admit, I see far more dogmatic arguments out of the Mac and Linux camps than that of The Empire©. I don’t understand the complete devotion that people are willing to express to what is basically an appliance. For the most part the selection of computer systems has little effect of the lives of most people. My choice of personal computing device does not greatly affect your life. If anyone should be upset it’s the person who’s livelihood is most likely to be directly affected by the choice between Microsoft vs. others; in short, me. Regardless it seems that most users are not going to rest until the entire world has been converted to their way of computing.

And the worst thing is that this technological idolatry has all the negative traits of religious devotion with none of the positives. Namely, it makes you kind of a self-righteous jerk. I can only assume that one or more of the following is true of people who completely devote themselves to a particular technological cause:

1. You are incredibly arrogant and assume that you can know everything about everyone’s job and how technology is employed in it. You know the best solution for everyone’s job, and you view others with the smug self-satisfaction that comes from knowing what solution they should have selected.
2. You are incredibly ignorant and can’t imagine anyone else having a different experience than you. You view others with the smug self-satisfaction that comes from knowing that you have such high requirements that what is good for you is good enough for everyone else.
3. You think yourself more intelligent than everyone else because you have made the “right” selection of device for personal/professional productivity and everyone who disagrees with you is too dumb to realize their error. You want everyone to know how smart and clever you are, and you view others with the smug self-satisfaction that comes with being so much smarter than them.
4. You were much luckier than everyone else in that you chose the “right” device even though you didn’t know it was the right device at the time you chose it. Everyone else was either too dumb, or just unlucky to have not made the right choice and you view them with the smug self-satisfaction that comes with being right.

Of particular interest to me is the religious-ness of the debate which is essentially about which productivity tools are best. Now, I’ll be frank: The only reason I don’t have a Mac right now is that I can’t afford one yet. There are a lot of things that are easier on Macs and I hope to get one soon. I don’t hate Macs, I don’t love PC’s. They are TOOLS that are useful for conducting various tasks. Granted, there are some things that a Mac is better for than a PC like video editing, graphic design, audio editing, and other creative tasks. And there are things that I know PCs are better for office productivity, CAD design, data analysis (Excel), and simulation (Arena, VISSIM). And of course there are things that you can easily do on both. Now I work at Microsoft which means that the vast majority of my tasks are conducted using the Microsoft stack: Windows/Office/Visual Studio/MS SQL/SharePoint bla bla bla. I like my job, and I like our tools. I think that, for the most part, we create pretty neat tools for productivity in the enterprise. Are they always the best? No. Are they even good? Not all the time. But I am excited about our products, I try to work them into everyday tasks and I will always advocate for the use and improvement of them wherever possible. And all for good reason: they pay me.

But I’ll tell you what I won’t do, get mired down in debates about technology that ruin relationships. I think the whole argument is about as rational as trading verbal jabs with your friends over Craftsman vs. DeWalt.

Now all that said, I must say that I’m willing to accept a fair amount of teasing about my employer. After all, I work for “The Empire©” and it comes with the territory. Just consider this some friendly advice from someone who actually has a reason to be religiously devoted to a particular technology stack, but (mostly) chooses to put his relationships first.

Note: This was written last Friday, when I was traveling to Nashville. But since I didn’t have internet then, and had better things to do when I got to Nashville, I haven’t gotten around to posting it until today. Therefore: “today” = “last Friday”.

Today has not been the best day. It started out very early (3:30 am) getting up to get ready for a very early flight out of Seattle. Or, I should say, what was supposed to be a very early flight out of Seattle but ended up being a somewhat early flight out of Seattle due to mechanical problems. This of course meant that my rather loose connection in Minneapolis ended up being a very tight connection, actually too tight as I hustled up to the gate for my Nashville flight right as the door was closing.

Now those of you who have gotten up at such an early hour know how tolerant you are of even the smallest of problems. Yeah, so my limited patience was not really all that thrilled to have to deal with the missed flight. Add to that a headache from lack of sleep and I was not feeling particularly plesant, but the day was not done. Thankfully I was booked on another flight in the mid afternoon. Never mind that this flight was leaving Minneapolis when I was supposed to be arriving in Nashville, at least I had a flight out, right?

Well sort of. As the weather got worse my mid-afternoon flight quickly became a late afternoon flight, and then an early evening flight. The bottom line is that I’ll now be landing in Nashville 4 hours later than I had planned. And I’m certainly not any less tired.

Now you might argue, 4 hours? That’s nothing! And that’s kind of the point. In the wide world of things that could have gone wrong this is a relative non-issue. And that got me thinking. It’s very tempting to rant about all the incompetence of Delta Airlines maintenance or gate agents or whatever, or make baseless claims like, “that’s the last time I ever fly such-and-such airline.” But honestly, I don’t really feel any better afterwards, and it’s not likely anyone’s fault that the plane had mechanical problems, and it’s definitely no one’s fault that the weather wouldn’t cooperate. But that doesn’t mean that it’s any less frustrating to me, particularly when I’m tired and have a headache and don’t want to spend my day off in a weird airport instead of with my friends I only get to see every so often.

One reason this situation was so frustrating was that I had virtually no control and no options. I felt trapped. And as I thought about it (there was plenty of time for sitting and thinking) I realized that I, like the Delta employees, work for a company where our users are in mostly the same position. Many of our products are given to the employees of large companies where there is no option for other solutions, and by virtue of our market dominance in many segments users are forced to use our products, for better or worse, in their personal and professional lives.

We catch a lot of flak at The Empire© about our products, and most all of it is filled with frustration-infused vitriol. The internet is the great equalizer, only there can a trained journalist have the same exposure as the Apple fanboi (or, as I recently heard: ifanboi) commenting on the particle. But prodding aside, many of the complaints I read about The Empire© are strikingly similar to my, and my co-travelers, complaints about the airline industry today. Here are some examples I’ve heard recently where you could easily exchange “Microsoft” for “any particular airline”: “Microsoft employees are rigid, greedy, automatons working for a dying company that can’t innovate and just steals ideas from Apple and Google” or: “I’ve had enough of M$ and I’m switching to Linux/Apple/whatever…” or my personal favorite: “Windows 7 is just re-branded Vista.”

Now I would hope that most rational people would realize that these statements aren’t true. Creating software on any scale is an incredibly complex process, and there’s bound to be compromises that are going to leave people wanting something more, even at Apple (see: iPhone). But none of that really matters to the end users when they are forced to use something that’s frustrating and when they really don’t have any other options. So, while I can’t promise that the products produced at The Empire© will always satisfy, or even placate, our end users I can promise to understand that behind every vicious comment is a user who’s likely tired, with a headache, who just feels trapped in a system that seems illogical and very frustrating. And I promise that I, along with many of my co-workers, will be committed to doing everything that we can to make the experience a little better. If anything, today has taught me a great deal about what it means to be completely pissed at a major corporation.