Pat Dryburgh

Have you ever found yourself in a time crunch while working on a web design, and wished there was some way to short cut some of the hassle? Have you found a new found love for designing blogs, but wish you could spend more time designing and less time fudging with the code?

Well, there is a solution and that solution is a WordPress Theme Framework. From WPCandy.com:

For those of you that have never heard of a framework, it’s a piece of software - or in this case, a WordPress theme - that includes many extra functions that you can use when developing a theme. Every day, designers use different pieces of software and frameworks to help with the web design process. Most use Photoshop and Fireworks, a lot use the 960 grid system. The power of a theme framework is in its ability to simply be the wind behind the sails. It doesn’t impose itself on your design, but rather gives your design power without the need to personally code that power in yourself.

Theme frameworks are the engine that drives, while your design is the curves that provide aerodynamics, the interior that provides comfort, and the dashboard that communicates information.

If you could save yourself an extra 4-6 hours every project without hindering your options in terms of the design would you not take take them? If you would, then check out a theme framework. You’ll be happy you did.

Additional Resources

Thematic - WordPress Theme Framework (my theme is built on Thematic)
Sandbox - Thematic was started based on Sandbox
Frameworks, Child Themes, Filters and Hooks? - WPCandy.com article
How To Make a Child Theme for WordPress - op111.com article
Junction - My Thematic Child Theme (Shameless plug? Yes.)

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I’m a funny guy, and you like to laugh.
I’m sensitive, and you appreciate that.
I pretty much twitter all day, thanks to Twitterrific. I like that it doesn’t distract me from work. I’m generally thinking about stupid stuff while I’m working, playing, or doing nothing, so why not instantly share that with everyone?
I follow (almost) everyone that follows me—just don’t be spam (no, I don’t think that twittering will make me millions of dollars).
You follow (almost) everyone who follows you. But, it’s way easier for me if you push that follow button first.
I don’t spam (I don’t know how anyone could make millions off twitter… including twitter).
My mom reads my tweets. So, if I say something to you, you’ll know I won’t be mean because I don’t want to get in trouble from my mom.
I took the time to come up with 10 reasons for you to follow me on twitter. This is #8hellip; and I’m running out of ideas.
Because if you follow me, I can tweet you asking for ideas for things like blog posts and top 10 lists.
Because maybe I was lying in #4 and do know how to make millions off twitter…

So, how about it?

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When I was developing Junction, I was finally able to get sIFR and WordPress to play nicely, including having functioning title links.

The hardest part was getting sIFR to work on whatever installation of WordPress other users had. My site uses the root folder as the WordPress installation folder, however others use “/blog/”, “/wordpress/”, etc.

Below is how I made it all work (with thanks to J. Bradford Dillon).

Download sIFR 3 from the nightly builds.
Follow the instructions at Design Intellection for exporting sIFR files (UPDATE: sIFRGenerator.com has just been updated to support sIFR 3 font files! Simply upload your TTF file, and let sIFRGenerator.com do the rest!).

In the js/sifr-config.js file, remove or comment out the first three lines of code.

//var MYSIFRFONT = {
//      src: 'wp-content/themes/THEMENAME/sifr/flash/MYSIFRFONT.swf'
//};

Upload sIFR folder to your theme’s directory (ie. ”/themename/sifr/”).

Copy the following code and add it to your theme’s functions.php file, replacing “MYSIFRFONT” with the name of your font file (ie. rockwell.swf) and “THEMENAME” with your theme’s folder name.

// sIFR
function sifr_scripts() {
global $siteurl;
if (empty($siteurl)) $siteurl = get_settings('siteurl');
$sifrurl = $siteurl.'/'.'wp-content/themes/THEMENAME/sifr/';

/* The xhtml header code needed for sIFR to work: */
/* Added inline JS for mod_rewrite concerns - http://jbradforddillon.com */
echo '<!-- start sifr scripts -->

<link rel="stylesheet" href="'.$sifrurl.'css/sIFR-screen.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="'.$sifrurl.'css/sIFR-print.css" type="text/css" media="print" />

<script src="'.$sifrurl.'js/sifr.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var MYSIFRFONT = { src: "'.$sifrurl.'flash/MYSIFRFONT.swf" };
</script>
<script src="'.$sifrurl.'js/sifr-config.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<!-- sifr scripts -->

' ;

}

add_action('wp_head', 'sifr_scripts');

Continue setting sIFR up using the instructions at Design Intellection.
Smile as you enjoy fantastic web typography (for titles, at least).

If you have any questions, please let me know!

(As a side note, if anyone knows a good plugin for adding code to a wordpress post, I’d love to know if it! Thanks - PD)

※

This past weekend I put a lot of thought into something I hadn’t thought about in several months. Ever since I left Connexus, I’ve felt like something was missing. There are obvious things I miss, things like doing music week to week, being in a community with people I love, seeing and experiencing new things all the time. While I do miss all of these and more, there’s something else; something a little less tangible.

I miss the feeling of striving to be great.

I am not arrogant enough to think that I was great at what I did at Connexus/Trinity. I think I was good, and that I was (hopefully) getting better as time went on. But there was a constant week-in, week-out desire to do something incredible, to be great. This was as much a personal thing as it was a corporate thing. While I wanted to see Connexus do great and amazing things, I also wanted to develop into as strong of a leader as I possibly could.

I struggled a lot, trying to organize 5 weekend services every single week, trying to keep on top of 2 locations every Sunday morning, as well as a youth program every Sunday night. Every Wednesday and Thursday night, I showed up at rehearsal as early as I could to get every piece of equipment set up so that my teams wouldn’t have to (they had put in amazing commitment as it was, they didn’t need to lug gear as well!). I even drove 20 minutes out of town quite a few times just to borrow drums so we could have rehearsals. Through the worst winter I had ever personally experienced, I worked hard to hopefully enable my team to really do great things every week. I won’t say I was perfect, because I wasn’t, but I honestly tried.

And I miss that. I miss the struggle and the challenge. I miss the problem solving, trying to figure out how we’re going to make this crazy thing work. I miss learning, reading, thinking critically about what I am doing and trying to improve on the systems and workflow.

So, this weekend I put a lot of thought into my direction in life. Am I in a place now where I am using the potential I know I have in me? I know I love to learn, I know I love to think. Am I growing at the same rate I was 6 months ago?

In the next few weeks and months, I’m going to be doing a lot of hard thinking about this. I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts, worries, fears, challenges, and dreams of where I want to be. Hopefully along the journey, you too will be challeneged to think critically about where you are, where you are going, and where you hope to be.

※

I’m kind of in this zone right now where I just feel like my time at Trinity/Connexus didn’t even happen. I’m not sure why it is. I had a lot of great times, and learned a lot. But, it seems like none of it made a difference, you know?

I was reading Casey Ross’ blog earlier today. Casey was the lead pastor of Catalyst Church for 2 years. During his time he saw a lot of exciting things happen, and yet struggled with a lot as well, especially with finances (which eventually led to the end of Catalyst).

Over the last couple of months I’ve been home, I’ve been very happy to have stayed in contact with some of the people I worked with during my time up there. Some I talk to occasionally, others I talk to almost every day. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, or selfish, but I am somewhat surprised that there are a larger number of people who haven’t attempted to make contact with me since I’ve left. Even for the month I was still in Barrie after my time was up at Connexus, I had a few people contact me, and really enjoyed getting to chat and share with those people. However, out of a music team of 45 people, and a church of over 900 that I served for a year, I guess I’m just a bit surprised how unappreciated I feel.

So, I just want to let those who I have been able to keep in contact with how grateful and thankful I am that you are my friends. For those who I know I still need to contact but haven’t had the opportunity to after you’ve reached out to me, I apologize, and I promise that in the next week or two I will. For those who may happen to read this who haven’t made contact yet, please don’t feel like the door is closed.

I’m craving reconciliation right now. I guess I just don’t know where to begin.

※

I had lunch today with Bob Cottrill, Pastor of Worship at North Park Community Church. This is the second lunch I’ve had with him (even if he doesn’t quite remember the first one!), and I had a great time. Bob is a very intelligent person, has a lot of vision and great ideas that I feel I can latch onto. However, what impressed me even more in our conversation was a bit of the story of North Park, where they’ve come from, where they’re at, and where they may be going. To better understand the past and the future, let’s look at the present first:

North Park currently has 4 weekend services. One on Saturday night and three on Sunday morning, one of which is a more “traditional” service.
Approximately 2500 people come to North Park every week. Each service can hold 700 people. For those who may be mathematically challenged, that’s a maximum capacity of 2800. They are at 89% of their maximum capacity.
North Park does not take an offering. They set up a few boxes at the back of the auditorium for people to give, and have automatic giving through the bank. Even with this method, they consistently have a surplus in their budget from year to year.

Now, a lot of church leaders have asked how they got to that point. They ask about their strategies, their targets, their goals and visions. Here is how they did it:

North Park started out of the Brethren church, a very anti-institutional group. They were very grassroots, and very independent. Their two church plants, Byron Community Church and Community Bible Church, were launched and continue independent of North Park.
North Park has never set growth targets. They have not put together strategies to grow their congregation. They do not advertise through local media, and very seldom will they create promotional materials. Their focus has been great teaching and great music. North Park has never had a “target demographic.” They have been open to those outside the church, inviting them into the North Park community.
They have on several occasions expanded their facilities to accommodate the people that come. The most recent in 2004 cost approximately $2.23 million. Today they are virtually debt free.

While it’s cool to see where they have come from and see their grassroots beginnings, it’s even more intriguing where they are going:

North Park has made the decision not to expand their auditorium. This could mean that in the next year, they will reach and/or exceed their current maximum capacity. They currently do not have plans on how to deal with this.
They are planning on integrating more with the community around them. If someone is doing something in the community that is compelling, whether Christian or not, they want to partner with them. They have already done so with the London Food Bank, and plan to continue with more groups.
They want to learn from the community, whether Christian or not. They want facilitate a conversation where they are able to learn from other religions, rather than only preach at people.
They want to get out of the way. Today, church is not relevant to people. Rather than put a band-aid on the situation, they want to get out of the way. They do not see the institutional church as the only gateway to God. They would like to simply be a place where people can be energized to live their own lives, rather than try to program the lives of the congregation.

I may have some of this wrong, and if so I apologize. However, with as big of a church as North Park is, this is exciting to me. There are going to be some huge changes coming soon, that could rock the foundations of their community. The reckless side of me cannot wait to see it. The leader side of me can’t wait to be a part of it. Maybe I will end up sticking around.

I mean, they do let me play guitar.

※

So, it seems that the new direction my blog has been taking has caused me to lose a few readers along the way. Since I’ve started blogging about some of the questions I have about church and religion and God, my readership has gone down 27%. However, the average amount of time spent on the site has increased quite significantly (an increase of approximately 250%).

I just want to say that I am on a journey. I’m trying to work through in my head and my heart a lot of issues I’ve been trying to struggle through for several months now, and am inviting you to join in. If I learned nothing else during my time at Connexus, it’s that this life journey is best walked side by side with friends, and this is why I’ve made the decision to publicly blog about my ideas and questions. I do not expect everyone to agree, but hopefully we can have some meaningful discussion. I’ve already seen some amazing comments and emails come in from these recent posts, and look forward to seeing more discussion happen in the future.

So, for those who are sticking around, thanks so much for being a part of this journey with me. I don’t know where the road leads (if it even is a road we’re walking). But for me, personally, the destination matters much less than the company.

※

So I agreed to play at North Park this weekend, even though I generally like a lot more notice than I was given. They were in a bind so I agreed to help out.

They sent the list of songs and mp3’s for a couple of them. However, one of the songs really caught me off guard. It’s a song called “We Are Hungry.” I sat listening to this song, thinking about how I had just eaten two slices of pizza and a bowl of frozen yogourt (it’s my free day today!). I also thought about how I can prepare food days in advance, thanks to the technology we in North America have. I then thought about the billions of people who do not have the luxuries that we in North America have, and wondered what they would think if they saw us driving in our SUV’s to a multi-million dollar building, singing along to amplified rock music “We Are Hungry!”

And materialism aside, the rest of the song makes me question something else even more. “Lord I want more of you / Living water rain down on me / Lord I need more of you / Living breath of life come fill me up.” Again, really? We feel like we need more of God? Don’t we already pretty much have a monopoly on him? We claim that our way is the right way, and that he is our God. Evangelicals are even worse, claiming that even those within our own camp don’t have it right. And all while we hold tight to this “commodiety,” (Trademark!), we still claim we want more? How is it that we’ve turned spirituality into a corporate takeover? We’re like big oil wrapped in scarlet.

When does this hostile takeover of God end? When do Christians begin to “give freely”?

※

I’ve had a lot of thoughts run through my head over the last few weeks. I’ve shared them with a few close friends, but for the most part have kept them to myself.

However, there are a few things that have changed in the way I think now, and I’d like to share them for the sake of sharing and possibly starting a discussion. So, here goes:

I have no plans on going to church. I’ve been burned too many times, and while I’m not saying I’ll never go back ever, I know that for right now, I won’t be. Also, I have no plans to work at or in a church. I don’t see that changing.
I’m pretty fed up with the North American Jesus. I’m tired of Corporate Jesus, and Institutional Jesus. I don’t know what I believe about him right now, but I have some ideas. I think Christianity, and by that I mean North American Christianity, is very far off the mark. I think there’s more of a reason that 9/10ths of people in Canada don’t go to an Evangelical church than “they don’t think it can do anything for them.” I think it’s more along the lines of “I don’t want it to do that to me.”
I’m tired of believing that 5/6ths of the world is wrong.
I’m tired of believing that I’m somehow loved by God more than the majority of the world. And, no matter how much we say “God loves everyone,” we don’t believe it.
I do know that I’m on a journey, and that the journey is going to mean some major life changes. I’ve decided to actually walk this path I’m on, rather than simply chart it out like I’ve done in the past. Christians are great cartographers, but lousy navigators.

I don’t want to offend anyone, but I am going to ask tough questions. I’m hoping to meet new people, have conversations, and try to discover how God is revealing himself to the world, and not just to the one’s who call themselves His (or, call him Theirs).

I know this may come as a surprise to many of you, but a some of these are thoughts I’ve been having for months now, even as far back as November of last year. I’m just trying to be honest, and hope that those who read this will know that I’m simply trying to navigate through life and truth and everything else.

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So a couple of weeks ago, after playing at North Park, one of the other musicians and his fiancé gave me a pet mouse. The mouse is really small, and really cute. He runs on his wheel really well, and generally just hangs out.

I have had friends in the past who have owned rodents, and my sister used to own a hamster. From those experiences, I had a preconceived notion of what owning a mouse would be like. For the most part, it’s been very similar, except for one thing. To me, one very important thing.

My mouse does not like to be held. I will try to put my hand in to put him in my palm, and he will run frantically around the cage to get away. I had a trick where I would get him to start running up the cage walls, which made it easier for me to grab him, but he’s figured that trick out. I’ll even put treats on my hand for him - cheese, cheereos, sunflower seeds - and still he won’t come. The odd time when I can manage to “catch” him, he runs all over my hands and arms, in an attempt to escape. He won’t eat the snacks even when he is on my arm. I usually have to place them in his wheel for him to eat.

Anyway, it’s been a fairly disappointing experience. Maybe next time I’ll stick with fish (who, surprisingly, also don’t like being held).

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WordPress Theme Frameworks: A Designer’s Dream

Additional Resources

10 Reasons You Should Follow Me On Twitter

sIFR and WordPress Themes

I Want to be Great

Like It Never Even Happened

A Church I Could Be a Part Of?

Losing Readers

We Are Hungry? Really?

Lots of Thoughts

My Pet Mouse