Last month I started attending Connections Community Church in London, Ontario. Starting in September, I made a decision to simply go and absorb for 3 full months. I missed one week where things were going rough in life, but otherwise I’ve been able to keep up with my decision, and even had my girlfriend attend with me the past two weeks.

I am the type of person who likes to dive right in. I love to get involved, to see whatever organization I am involved with flourish, grow, and thrive. I want the chance to innovate, to lead a group or groups of people to think strategically and creatively about how we do church, both on Sunday mornings and through the week.

As I’ve had the chance to see how things are going at Connections, I have seen several places where the talents and gifts that I have would truly fit well with their mission. I would love to get involved with their service programming, helping to develop services that drive their bottom line. I would love to get involved in the music, which so far has been fairly consistent and has been quite well done. I would love to push boundaries and innovate, to create space where people can ask tough questions and get real, authentic responses, to give them a chance to encounter God in a real way.

Alas, it has only been a month. My commitment to myself and to God was to simply absorb for 3 full months, which will take me to December 3. On December 4, watch out.

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There’s a lot of talk about child themes these days. As the designer of two child themes for the Thematic theme framework, I have fallen in love with the power and simplicity of using child themes to create something fresh and new. As a young designer and programmer, sometimes developing a WordPress theme from scratch can be a daunting task. If I’m interested in experimenting with design while not having to worry too much about code, a child theme is the perfect option. 

However, there are some drawbacks to child themes which hinder public acceptance and experimentation. I want to outline a few drawbacks I’ve experienced working with Thematic.

Read More →

Day two into my “comeback” with God, and already I’m having ideas float into my head. Some of them are small, such as how I can get more involved at Connections, how to start serving those in need, etc. Others are much more complex, daring, scary. One involves an idea I’ve never really had before, and scares the crap out of me.

This idea is to plant a church.

In a fleeting moment yesterday, I had an enormous amount of ideas flow through my mind. Dreams, visions, ideas. One of the ideas was to one day plant a church. I don’t know where this idea came from, as last week I wasn’t even talking to God. And yet, here was this idea, burned on my mind. Now, the idea came with a bit of wisdom; I know that I am not yet in a place in my relationship with God, nor am I of the leadership capacity yet to even embark on something as crazy as this idea. However, it seemed like God was saying “look, just get in with me, get into what I’m doing in the world, and this is where I’m taking you.” I’ve honestly never had an experience like it before.

Again, obviously I am not ready to even begin that journey yet. I still want to get into community at Connections, to grow in my faith again, to develop as a leader and communicator. I don’t dare to suggest that I’m in any way ready to take on such a responsibility yet. And, for all I know this is just a stupid, crazy idea I came up with on my own. I honestly don’t know. I just thought I’d share this crazy idea that I have and possibly gather some feedback. What do you think?

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For anyone who hasn’t been following along, I just want to give a quick recap to hopefully explain what my last few posts about going to church have been about. 

I became a Christian back in the summer of 2000. It was at a camp. After I made the decision to give my life to Christ (at 15 years old) I started getting involved at a church that friends of mine attended. Most of them attended with their families and had done so their entire lives. As I joined the party late I believed I had a lot of catching up to do. So, I read, studied, and absorbed as much as possible. A lot of what I learned was good, wholesome stuff. However, I also found myself slipping into what I’ll call the holy sub-culture. You know them as the “Bible-thumpers,” the Religious Right, or the Conservative Evangelicals. It is this sub-culture that was so cleverly portrayed by the movie Saved. 

I really grew to love the church, not just for the community that it brought and the growth that it caused in me, but also because of its mission: to be a representation of Jesus to the world. I loved the church, collectively, was the vehicle that God chose to show the world he loved it. 

Fast-forward a few years and I found myself working at a church, whose mission aligned so perfectly with what I saw as the vision of the global or Catholic Church (Catholic in this sense is defined as Universal, and encompasses the entire church, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Invisible, etc). While working there, I got to work with incredible leaders here, learn from incredible leaders abroad, and really feel a part of a true “Catholic” Church.

As I left the church I was working and shortly afterwards the church in general, I began a weaning process. In the process of following the mission and vision of the church, I had also become addicted to the sub-culture. I had become comfortable with the language, with the expectations, with the traditions (yes, even “non-traditional” churches have their traditions), with the safety that the church brings.

In my mind, these comforts are not what Jesus had in mind when he instructed the disciples. He didn’t imagine multi-million dollar buildings. He didn’t envision celebrity pastors and rockstar worship leaders. He didn’t see Christian bookstores and a Christian music industry. He didn’t see Christian conferences, Christian retreats, Christian cruise ships. These weren’t part of his vision of the church. They are part of our vision for the church. 

I’m not necessarily saying that our vision of the church is wrong. I’m not even trying to say we missed the point. Jesus gave us the authority to be the church, to really take ownership of it, to make of it what we wanted. He didn’t give us the floor plans, he just gave us a seed. What I am saying is that unfortunately, many people have fallen in love with our vision of church, with its grandeur and comfortability. I’m one of those people. 

That is why I hesitate about tomorrow. I fear that my love will be with my/our vision of the church, rather than for Jesus’ vision of the church. I worry that my passion will be for the comfort, the flashiness, the grandeur rather than for the vision of serving the poor, for housing the homeless, for being a light. I guess I fear that I’ll just fall back into old, comfortable patterns.

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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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1. I’m a funny guy, and you like to laugh.
2. I’m sensitive, and you appreciate that.
3. 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?
4. 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).
5. You follow (almost) everyone who follows you. But, it’s way easier for me if you push that follow button first.
6. I don’t spam (I don’t know how anyone could make millions off twitter… including twitter).
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Because if you follow me, I can tweet you asking for ideas for things like blog posts and top 10 lists.
10. 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).

1. Download sIFR 3 from the nightly builds.
2. 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!).
3. 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'
   //};

4. Upload sIFR folder to your theme’s directory (ie. ”/themename/sifr/”).
5. 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');

6. Continue setting sIFR up using the instructions at Design Intellection.
7. 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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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