ChMS - Charging all of those iPads

If you are using iPads for check-in or in other manners in your church, there is a good chance you have lots of them that you need to keep charged. This device can make that job a lot simpler.

In our case, one of our staff members maintains our iPads every week, cleaning them and plugging them in to be sure they are fully charged. We rarely sync them because they only use safari, but occasionally we need to do that as well.

Griffin Technology announced a product that looks like it will be perfect for churches looking to maintain large numbers of ipads: the MultiDock.

The photo above shows each mac syncing to ten ipads, but you can link multidocs to sync up to 30 ipads to a single machine. This vastly improves the central deployment practices for a large organization, and makes keeping all of your check-in stations charged very simple.

By the looks of it you need to contact Griffin directly to purchase.

Joel

Love Wins & Erasing Hell

Even before the book was released (?) people were asking me what I thought about Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. There was a lot of controversy about this book, and people who know I like Rob continually tried to engage me in conversation about the book. I declined to engage until I'd actually read it. Weirdly, after the book was released, people had moved on to other issues and the questions stopped. It's amazing how fickle the world is. A month or two ago I got around to reading it, but I didn't post about it at the time. My impression after I finished it was that it was an important book, but it was only the opening statement in a long conversation about hell.

When I saw that Francis Chan was releasing a book called Erasing Hell: What God said about eternity, and the things we made up I realized that Francis was the perfect guy to respond to Bell's book. If you've ever heard Francis speak, he is emotional and deeply in love with our savior, and he's also very intelligent and a good writer.

Since Rob's book raises a lot of questions, and Erasing Hell seeks to answer some of those questions, I decided to review these books as a pair.

Love Wins is a typical Rob Bell book, and I mean that in a good way. It is written to engage your mind, and if you don't stop and reflect it's a pretty quick read. I didn't read it quickly, because I found myself stopping and reflecting a bit. Completely lost in the controversy over this book are some excellent thoughts on the nature of salvation in the first few chapters. After sharing the scriptures that talk about how to be saved Rob asks the question about how you are saved:
"Is it what you say,
or who you are,
or what you do,
or what you say you're going to do,
or who your friends are,
or who you're married to,
or whether you give birth to children?
Or is it what questions you're asked?
Or is it what questions you ask in return?
Or is it whether you do what you're told and go into the city?"

Thought provoking stuff.

Another one of the really strong points of this book is a focus on the very real "hell on earth" we have created in a world steeped in sin. This focus on the here and now challenges the reader to recognize that the gospel isn't just about "where we go when we die" but what we will do here, now, for the people around us. "It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'"

In the chapter on hell, Rob makes a very big point that Gehenna, the greek word translated "hell" was, in fact, a city dump during the time of Christ. Unfortunately for Rob and the reader, this is simply not true. In Erasing Hell, Francis Chan writes "In fact, there is no evidence for hundreds and hundreds of years after Jesus that there was a garbage dump in the Hinnom Valley in the first century. Nor is there any archaeological evidence that this valley was ever a dump...In fact, the first reference we have to the Hinnom Valley, or gehenna, as a town dump is made by a rabbi named David Kimhi in a commentary, which was written in AD 1200."

This is not 100% of Rob's argument, but it is a pretty big error. But then as we get back to the text, it's important once again to read what Rob says, not what other people say he says: "There is hell now, and there is hell later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously."

The part of this book that causes such heartburn is that Rob appears to be embracing a form of biblical universalism. Rob asks the question if it is possible to repent and be saved after death. He seems to believe it is, but admits there is no way to be certain. "Will everybody be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices? These are questions, or more accurately, those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact. We don't need to resolve them or answer them because we can't, and so we simply respect them, creating space for the freedom love requires."

You aren't going to learn everything you need to know about Love Wins from this blog, you really need to read it and interact with it on your own. But lets move on to erasing hell.

Francis Chan is the perfect guy to write a response to Rob Bell's Love Wins. He is gracious, humble, loving, and someone who I don't believe would ever be drawn into a war of words with another individual. One of the reasons I was eager to buy this book was a photograph that someone took this spring and posted on facebook of Rob Bell and Francis Chan together at an airport, smiling. As I looked at that photograph I thought that it was a perfect example of how we are called to righteous disagreement with one another. They both love Jesus and can love each other, even if they have disagreements over theology.

Another reason I think Francis was the perfect guy to write this book is that he gets the importance of this discussion. "I'm scared because so much is at stake. Think about it. If I say there is no hell, and it turns out that there is a hell, I may lead people into the very place I convinced them did not exist! If I say there is a hell, and I'm wrong, I may persuade people to spend their lives frantically warning loved ones about a terrifying place that is not real! When it comes to hell, we cannot afford to be wrong."

Francis does an excellent job of presenting the "other side of the story" from Rob's book, clearly illustrated with scriptures and well reasoned. Although not written only to respond to Rob's book, Francis answers many of Rob's more controversial points. One of the things I really like about Chan's approach is he makes no attempt to demonize Rob or "call him out" for where they differ. At one point he writes "To be fair, he is not explicitly arguing for this position but listing it as a valid view that would help explain a lot of the tension that we feel when thinking about the hard realities of hell. But he presents this position in such favorable terms that it would be hard to say that he is not advocating it." This kind of careful discussion is what we need more of in this world.

I don't really need to go point by point through Chan's book to tell you that it is an excellent and worthy read. It's not just about hell, but also about the nature of God. Chan (along with his co-author Preston Sprinkle who did most of the research) does an excellent job of detailing what the bible teaches about hell.

I think both books are valuable to read and understand. I would start with Love Wins, and then read erasing hell. I believe that both books are edifying and will draw you closer to God if you let them. On the theological end of things, I find myself landing with Chan most of the time where these books differ, but it's not about being "of Francis or of Rob" but being of Christ in the end.

God is good!

Joel

Ministry comes in all shapes and sizes

last night it was green and chunky!

Our youth team put on a fantastic yearly kickoff last night. Hundreds of kids were there to see the show, participate in worship, and hear a challenge from a great speaker. The night began with a video created by the youth team that kicked of the live event. In the video the team is riding horses, and to tie it all together we had a horse on stage.

While not officially part of the event, I was here because my daughter was in the audience, and my friend asked me to be in charge of "horse safety" meaning that if the horse got too nervous I was to help get it out of the building. Part of that was moving curtains etc. Not a big deal. I wasn't really dressed for the occasion, but my son showed up with a cowboy hat for me, and grabbing my trench coat from my office meant I fit right in (I'm always wearing boots, that wasn't an issue).

We quickly learned why you don't generally see live animals on stage. Lets just say that they have an amazing sense of timing on when they should "let loose the almighty thunder" from the hindquarters. The horse was on stage for maybe 15 minutes, but I found myself cleaning up the "output" twice in those fifteen minutes. I'm sure the kids loved it, and for me it was a pleasure to be part of the event, even if it wasn't exactly a glamorous role...

You never know what shape ministry will take. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter as long as God is glorified and lives are changed. I was happy to be part of it, even if it didn't smell all that great!

Joel

Education - It's about what you put into it

A friend and I were discussing our educational experiences today. We were discussing the general lackadaisical nature of elementary and secondary school, vs. the much better experience we had in college.

It got me thinking about how much of the benefit we gain from education is determined by our own motivation and attitude. Until you've graduated from high school you are pretty much forced to be there. As a result, you find yourself surrounded by a lot of people who adamantly don't want to be there in the first place. The end result of this is a lot of wasted class time and a lot of nonsense rules.

When you get to college things improve, because although your parents may be pushing you to be there, if you drop out the sheriff isn't going to show up at their door... The end result is more people who want to be there, but still there are plenty of people who would rather be somewhere else. In college I found that I could learn almost as little or as much as I wanted in any given class. A perfect example is Art Appreciation. We were required to take either Music Appreciation or Art Appreciation. As a musician, the "easy class" was the music one, but I decided to take art because I knew nothing about art. From day one my attitude and enthusiasm in the class was vastly different than almost all of the other students. Everyone was taking it because it was a requirement, but I had decided to use it to learn as much as possible about art, rather than just checking off the box on my schedule. As a result, I absolutely loved the class, and I learned a bit about a subject that I otherwise was clueless about.

With seminary there was a significant change from undergraduate work. Very few people go to seminary out of obligation, they go because they want to. This makes things like group projects far more interesting because everyone is (generally) engaged in the material. At the same time there are classes that people are only taking because they have to. Still, post-graduate was my favorite level of education for both the challenge and the overall academic environment.

I agreed to teach several of our staff members Hebrew this year. We started about three weeks ago, and the difference between students who are taking a requirement and pastors who want to learn something is incredible. I have never seen a more engaged group of students than this one. Everyone is eager to learn the material and is quick with questions. It's like having a classroom full of star students. Not only is it an honor to teach them the language of the old testament, it's a blast at the same time. I am fully confident that when we are done every one of these guys could test out of Hebrew at any seminary in the country.

My point? The reason this class is full of super stars isn't because they all have a natural affinity for semitic languages. The reason is because they all want to be here, and they all want to learn the material. Treat every class, even art appreciation, like it matters and you will be astonished how much more you get out of your education.

Joel

So incredibly awesome

This is one of the greatest videos I have ever seen. Elevation church baptized 1426 people this past weekend. It's always good to step back from our roles from time to time and remember why we do what we do. This video expresses it in a nutshell: changed lives.

Follow from Elevation Church on Vimeo.

Cloud Computing - Where is the revenue?

In this excellent article John Foley asked the question about cloud computing: Where is the revenue? There are some pretty big surprises when you look at the real reported numbers. Amazon bundles AWS revenue into a category they call "other" and it is nothing like the $25 billion number that gets bandied about.

The same is true for all of the big players. If this is the "next big thing" then why aren't we hearing anything about revenue? My question is this: When was the last time you heard of a company hiding success? Cloud computing revenue numbers are like real sales figures for every table not named iPad: dirty little secrets that are kept quiet. This can't be good.

There are so many IT buzzwords that have come and gone, and I fear that this is another one. Remember push? That was the next big thing. How about thin clients? Time and time again the buzzwords get all the press, but what keeps selling is desktop pc's, servers, and software...

Joel

Lion - Server Dataloss Explained

I have had some questions about how exactly this works and what the ramifications are. I've put together a little screen capture that demonstrates the problem in detail. We have tested this with both Snow Leopard Server and Lion Server. Watch this video and you will see exactly what the problem is:

Lion Dataloss on Servers

What needs to happen is that Apple needs to change the API for versions to disable the functionality entirely on shared volumes. With it disabled the app would have to revert back to the "you have unsaved changes, save or quit" behavior of all prior versions of MacOS.

I recognize that Apple is trying to make things easier for the novice, but at the same time the ability to do non-destructive edits is something that people use on the mac all the time. It is a fundamental feature of a computer. What versions is doing is removing the ability for the user to control when they write changes to a document. With a personal system this isn't the end of the world because versions allows you to "revert to save" but with networked volumes this will only end in tears.

If you require that the user first duplicate the document, there will quickly be thousands of duplicate documents on the server that users did not throw away. This is also a big problem.

There has to be an answer to this, and it's going to have to come from Apple.

Joel