In church, we have learned many simple lessons from the Bible. Regardless of your spiritual/scientific/humanistic beliefs, there is alot we can glean from the simple Sunday School lessons to help reboot our community.
Lesson 1: The Golden Rule ------------------------- In response to the questioning of the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus summed up the whole of all the law and the prophets in two sentences: "Love the Lord with all your might, soul, strength, and spirit." and the other "Love your neighbor as yourself." Another place, He stated the second sentence as (loosely paraphrased) "Treat others the way you wish to be treated". In our community, we need to realize that there is something more important than our individual contributions. That is the _mission_ of Avalon. We don't have to make it a god (so to speak), but we need to value it above our egos. The second point is that we need to treat each one of our fellow committers with equal respect. If you don't want someone to call you out on the carpet and yell obscenities at you, or act flipantly toward your proposal, then you sure better not do it to someone else. Lesson 2: Conflict Resolution ----------------------------- In Matthew 18, Jesus describes the method he wants his followers to use to resolve conflicts. Step 1: see if you can resolve it between you and your brother yourselves. If he doesn't hear you, then Step 2: get two or three neutral parties to judge between you. If you still cannot come to agreement, then it escalates to Step 3: it comes before the church. If the party deemed the guilty party still refuses to repent when the church is involved, then they are to be treated like a sinner and a publican (tax collector--the lowest of lows in that country). In our community things are a little different because all of our disagreements are public, and in front of the community. However, most disagreements can be fixed at the first step if both parties are willing to humble themselves and come to some sort of middle ground. If the problem cannot be resolved in the community at large, we need to take it to the PMC level. Hopefully it will never get there, but there are some prideful people who require the attention of a group of people who will be able to make the determination. The members that are part of the PMC should have a favorable reputation of being fair, just, and willing to listen to council. If something is too difficult for the members of the PMC, then the PMC needs to enlist the help of the board. The bottom line is that if we have no egos and are always seeking the common good of the community we will never have disagreements that tear the community apart. All human nature has an ego, and naturally wants to seek its own good. The equation that the purely self-seeking individual needs to learn is that "the good of the community == my better good". I recognize that we _all_ have pride, which is inate in who we are. If we are going to heal our community, we need to submit our own personal wills and own personal desires to what is the better good for the community as a whole. Lesson 3: Doctrine is King -------------------------- There are only two reasons that the Bible gives for removing someone from the local community or church: If they are causing division, and if they are spreading false doctrine. If you really want all the scriptures to back that up, contact me off list. For now, just take my word for it. The reason is that there must be one vision, one doctrine, and one goal for the Church to remain pleasing to God. All of those things are recorded in the Bible. In our community, I think we have lost the vision, doctrine and goal. We need to recapture it. In Avalon our doctrine is Component Based Design, Component Oriented Programming, Inversion of Control, and Separation of Concerns. Our vision is to provide the best dang component infrastructure out there. Our goal is to constantly pursue the "Holy Grail" of perfection in our vision and doctrine. We all are very good at "defending the doctrine", but we have become short- sighted for our vision. Let's see if we can regain that enthusiasm. Lesson 4: Be Willing to Suffer Wrongly -------------------------------------- We don't live in a perfect world. Sometimes we get hurt emotionally, financially, or physically. When these types of issues come up in the church, and there really is no clear way to judge who is right and who is wrong (yes, there are such matters), then the stronger believer needs to suffer wrong for the good of the community. Here is where I think we have the biggest problems. We have a couple of people who are quite vocal, and they refuse to suffer wrong. The problem is that because of the pride and self-righteous attitudes, they refuse to see wisdom in anything that may have caused them hurt. They refuse to see wisdom in anything that comes from a particular person because "they hurt me". The infraction would never have been so bad if either of them was willing to play nice. We cannot have our own agenda and try and force it on this community. We need to take the community's agenda and make it ours while we are involved in this community. If you have a pet project that you love, don't be hurt if someone offers a solution that fits the community better. Yes, present the strong points of what your project does/can do, BUT be willing to seriously consider other solutions that might be better for the community. I do my best to live with all of these principles in mind. Whether I am at church, home, at work, or interacting with you guys I am the same person. It takes alot to get me riled up, but it can be done. I am not perfect, but I am striving towards perfection. If you see value in the way I conduct myself, I suggest that you conduct yourself the same way--there is great benefit to yourself and those around you. I don't see myself as the leader of Avalon, and I am willing to follow someone else's lead. I try to be a peacemaker as much as possible, but the only way that you can have peace is if all parties involved in a dispute want peace. --------------------------------------------- Introducing NetZero Long Distance 1st month Free! Sign up today at: www.netzerolongdistance.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
