No Gripping

To me, “gripping” is not a misspelling of “griping” but a term used to express worry. Either way, Christians aren’t supposed to do it.

I am constantly amazed when I am around Christians who complain, whether it’s about their families, their jobs, or their churches. When you put God in front of you in your life, those concerns about all those worldly things go away.

We need to show the world their need for a Savior and our appeal for Jesus by being different. That is, not griping, not gossiping, not nagging, not acting “holier than thou”. If people wonder why we’re griping all the time and know we follow Jesus, they will wonder why we would follow someone who isn’t satisfying whatever desire we are complaining about in that moment.

If people wonder why we’re joyful all the time and know we follow Jesus, they won’t care about whether or not our personal desires are being satisfied… they’ll just want to know how they can get some of that joy too.

How Hackers Steal Your Credit Cards From Retailers

After reading this article, it amazes me how stupidly most people implemented wi-fi when it first came out. When we bought our first laptop in 2004, we were able to view networks that our neighbors set up, and none of them were secured. Now, everybody has a security key that is generally set up by the equipment manufacturer.

So, if you jump in the Wayback Machine for a moment, you can see why the famous hacks mentioned in the media recently (TJ Maxx, Barnes and Noble, DSW Shoes) could have taken place out in the parking lot without anyone in the store knowing, while the hackers drove from location to location trying to pick up something:

[Brian] Salcedo, 25, is serving a record-breaking nine-year prison term for a 2003 intrusion into Lowe’s corporate network. Salcedo and another hacker had parked outside a Lowe’s in Southfield, Michigan and tapped into the store’s unsecured WiFi network. Over the course of weeks, they used their foothold to penetrate Lowe’s servers at stores across the country, where they eventually planted software that would sniff and store customer credit card numbers as they flew from cash registers to a processing server in North Carolina.

…

[Albert] Gonzalez is the alleged mastermind of a series of WiFi based intrusions into U.S. retailers, including TJ Maxx, OfficeMax and DSW. Perfecting the attack pioneered by Salcedo, Gonzalez allegedly stole at least 40 million credit and debit card numbers worth millions of dollars on the black market. Gonzalez was arrested in a Miami hotel room last week, in possession of more than $20,000 in cash and a Glock 27 firearm with ammunition.

For Those of You…

…who keep forgetting how to operate your IWU email account, I thank you. This blog has gotten 500 hits on that topic alone.

Always happy to be of service, even in the most mundane of activities.

Always Take the High Road

It is difficult for me to play the following three roles at once: a former student who had a great and life-changing experience with Indiana Wesleyan, an adjunct faculty member who can share that excitement and passion for this school and God’s ministry with other adult learners who are coming along, and husband to another Indiana Wesleyan student whose classroom experience has been the exact opposite of mine.

So often, I hear all the horror stories of classroom behavior from my wife’s core group: classmates bickering at each other through email, students demeaning instructors and each other with no thought of grace or mercy, and instructors demeaning students with no thought of modelling a Christ-like attitude. I often use my wife’s history with her core groups and project teams as cautionary tales of how not to treat your team and how not to act in class. If there’s any good that can come from her experience, it’s from me being able to assist teams with their interpersonal issues and break the cycles of groupthink, stubbornness, and unhealthy rivalries.

My wife’s experience is nothing that’s the school’s fault. Their studies have shown that the majority of students have a more positive view of Christianity after leaving Indiana Wesleyan than before. Still, it really makes me wonder what people think of me after I leave a class. Do I make a more positive impact for God through what He has provided me to deliver? Do students become more like Christ after seeing and hearing me? Do I model Christ in an appropriate and real way to them? The times that I have had poor classroom experiences, I generally chalk it up to the hand that was dealt to me, and I hope that they will see God’s plan for them and their class as a whole in the end.

I have really struggled in dealing with my wife’s class, though. Last night, they argued for an hour about a particular classroom protocol, and the instructor actually had to make them all hold hands in a circle and pray to get their hearts and minds back into focus. They are three (now two) workshops away from not having to see each other again until graduation this winter. When my core group ended, it was bittersweet not being able to see people again that you shared all these wonderful experiences with for more than a year.

I have a feeling that when my wife’s core group ends, there will likely be battered and bruised egos walking out the door. It will be less of a celebration and more like the end of a prison sentence.

I’m not perfect. I honestly want to go in there and ask these people what they’re thinking. I want to be the “heavy” that lays the hammer down on all these people and try to get them to see reason. I want to use what little authority I have as an instructor to try and get a favorable resolution for my wife, because I see how hard she is working and how her sanity is being tested by all of these classroom distractions and her courseload. At times, I even want to blow my cool and just tell all the miscreants exactly what I think of them.

And yet, I can’t. I’m not a representative of the school, and if I tried to be, the actions I want to take would not be dictated by the school. All I can do is continue to pray for her to make it through the next 7 days with her sanity intact. The best option is to take the high road: “Bless what you can bless. Thank everyone you can thank. Cheer on what is appropriate to cheer on. And be done with it.”

Record Your Presentation? The Audacity!

If you’ve seen the classroom video Speaking Effectively to One or One Thousand, then you might remember towards the end of the video that the participants videotaped themselves so they could critique their performance. More Than Powerpoint has an article about the benefits of doing this, even if you only record the audio portion of your presentation:

It’s not because I adore the sound of my voice. Like most people, I don’t care for the way my recorded voice sounds. I prefer the familiar, idealized way my voice sounds in my head. After all, I’m more accustomed to hearing my voice through the thick layer of my skull.

But my recorded voice? To me, it sounds repugnant. Like I’m on the verge of hysteria.

Mercifully, my audience hears my voice differently than I do. Ergo, I frequently record my voice to gain audience empathy… but for two other key reasons, as well.

Yahoo to Allow Users to Skip Targeted Ads

Wired has been tracking stories over the past month about targeted advertising. When you’re on the internet, cookies (packets of data saved to your computer by web sites) keep track of the kinds of searches you make. In turn, that data gets reported back to search engines such as Google or Yahoo, and they are supposed provide advertising to you that’s supposed to be more relevant to your interests based on that search data.

Of course, why I still continue to get banner ads for singles and women in bathing suits on my Yahoo email account is beyond me. I didn’t realize that a search for “smallest town in Indiana” would net me that kind of marketing. Even complaining to them about their near-pornographic banners doesn’t seem to help or bother them–the guy from support asked me if I was seeing a banner with a picture of a “sexy woman” on it. (I told him, no, I don’t see a picture of my wife there, but I digress.)

The DefCon 16 Mystery Challenge

If you’ve ever wondered what kind of people hackers are, this is the article that will open your eyes. Sure, they may have electric blue hair, wear lots of black, and wear goggles indoors, but they are incredibly intelligent and incredibly able to steal anything they want online.

It’s All About Presentation: Eight Lessons from Japan

From Ellen Finkelstein’s blog:

In Japan, there is a sense of simplicity and beauty that is expressed visually. This beauty and simplicity also follows through in the politeness and graciousness of the people. There is an overall helpfulness to strangers and foreigners. As a tourist, if you stand around looking confused (maybe holding a map), in a short while someone will come up to you and ask you if you need help.

I suggest that as presenters we take a few lessons from Japanese culture.

For Those Who Serve

I think we live in an age where it’s easier than ever to be critical of others. The internet has made people less accountable for their words and actions because of the anonymity of acting out behind a computer screen. How many times have you said something in an e-mail that you immediately regretted after sending it? The instantaneous nature of this communication has placed my foot in my mouth more than once in front of more than one person.

At my church, we have little postcards that you can put in the offering that are primarily used to count attendance, but you can also leave comments on the back for the staff. I have heard many stories of people complaining on these cards about various people in the church leadership, but then they are left unsigned, making it difficult to track down the accuser, yet leaving the accusation on the table.

These are the people that we need to be supporting in our churches the most. They are the ones who are getting the brunt of Satan’s attacks. They are the ones who are bearing the burdens of responsibility. Instead of discouraging, attacking, and downright hating on our leaders, we need to come alongside them, ask them if their needs are being met, ask them if they need prayer, encourage them in their work, and thank them for their ministry. Would you want anything else for yourself?

The Challenge of Forgiveness

This story seems to highlight why forgiveness is so difficult.

In the heat of an argument, my wife came up with an acute theological insight. We were discussing my shortcomings in a rather spirited way when she said, “I think it’s pretty amazing that I forgive you for some of the dastardly things you’ve done!”

What struck me about her comment was its sharp perception into the nature of forgiveness. It is not a sweet platonic ideal to be dispersed in the world like air-freshener sprayed from a can. Forgiveness is achingly difficult, and long after you’ve forgiven, the wound lives on in memory. Forgiveness is an unnatural act, and my wife was protesting its blatant unfairness.

God doesn’t allow us to pick and choose whom we should forgive, nor does He even allow us to pick and choose what particular incidents we should forgive. I’ve been struggling with this recently because of a person I know urging me to drop a class where she was going to be a student. She told me that she would be fine with me being her teacher, but then later went back on her decision and asked me to drop the class.

Well, in the end, I ended up losing that class, a paycheck that was going to help pay for our first Disney trip with the kids, and about three more months without a class because my schedule was messed up. I was, needless to say, very bitter and unhappy with this person.

But, as I’ve mentioned previously, I was looking at the situation from a narrower frame of reference and not a God-sized frame of reference. If we believe that He is greater than any trial or enemy we could face on Earth, then we also have to believe that His perception of the same is greater than ours. It wasn’t until I saw the bigger picture of what God is doing that I saw I had to forgive her. Sure, it was tough, but I saw God’s plan was greater than my own, and that made it so much simpler.

In the bigger picture, you expend less energy by forgiving someone than by not forgiving someone.