As far as I’m aware there is no “official” (i.e. documented) policy or guideline on drinking here at WPA. However, unofficially the general position is that consuming alcoholic beverages (especially among church leadership) is not a good thing. The reasoning behind this is because of so much negative practice and outcomes associated with alcohol and its abuse. A quick search on google will reveal much of these in terms of statistics etc. We recognize that the abuse of alcohol is a tool the enemy uses to destroy lives. Scripture has much to say against the abuse of alcohol and as an example you can see 1 Timothy 3:1:3, 1 Timothy 3:8 which gives the instructions against leaders being given to “drunkenness” or heavy drinkers.

Then there is also the point some will point to regarding the issue of “causing someone to stumble” by their drinking. Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 8 when talking about the question whether its okay for Christians to eat food that had been offered to idols. He says in particular in vs 9-13 that although there is a freedom to eat any food that for some with a weak conscience it may cause them to stumble (i.e. either miss the message of the gospel, or turn away from Christ) if they see another follower of Christ eating that food. Paul says specifically, in vs 13, “Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall”. I believe this is a principle that is transferable to the subject of drinking alcohol. There is no scripture in the Bible that condemns drinking alcohol (but plenty of scripture against drunkenness or the abuse of alcohol) so really for there to be a doctrinal statement against drinking alcohol is unnecessary. Really, I believe the choice of drinking alcohol is an individual one. HOWEVER, for Christians, the principle of 1 Corinthians 8:13 holds true: “If my drinking alcohol will cause another to sin then I will abstain from it.”

Personally, I have chosen to abstain from alcohol because of a verse that I’ve internalized that’s found in 2 Timothy 2:19-21 (NIV),

19 But God’s truth stands firm like a foundation stone with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and “All who belong to the Lord must turn away from evil.”s/p>

20 In a wealthy home some utensils are made of gold and silver, and some are made of wood and clay. The expensive utensils are used for special occasions, and the cheap ones are for everyday use.21 If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work.

Alcohol itself isn’t evil but in our society in particular, alcohol has been instrumental in so much evil that has taken place that to me drinking it could make me a “cheap utensil”. I want to be ready for my Master to use me for every good work so in good conscience I have made the choice to abstain from it.  Would I apply this verse to everyone who chooses to drink alcohol?  Not necessarily, but it is an application I will readily make to myself.

What’s your take?

[ photo credit: Cayusa]

[photo from slworking2]

Do you ever want to get the last word in?  Come on now, be honest!  You’re on your way out the door and you quickly say “good bye” or “see ya later” as you close the door.  Or if you’re on the other side you’ll shout out “yeah, see ya!” as the door closes.

Or how about that uncomfortable silence when you know a conversation is drawing to a close and both of you can’t quite decide how to end it.  Finally one of you blurts out, “well, I guess I should get going now” and the conversation quickens to a series of monosyllables as you “close off” the conversation- each of you trying to squeeze in that final parting word.

Maybe this urge to have the last word comes from a compulsion to have the last say in the topic.  As if in some way, by speaking last you leave the greatest impression.  Or maybe it is simply a secret claim to superiority – the triumph of getting that final word in demonstrates that whatever has been discussed, argued, communicated or bartered has been mastered by your verbal “cap” at the end.

Watching this take place in blog comments or forums is kind of funny sometimes.  No matter what the topic, if it’s controversial enough, you might just get lucky to witness the battle of the last word between the commenteers* (*yes a new word) – and are probably joining in yourself.

Here’s a thought.  Is the battle really worth it?  Does getting that last good bye, or “see ya later”, or some other semi-thought out last response to the response of a response related to the response to what that other person said or wrote – matter?  Maybe, sometimes.  But then, sometimes we just want to get in the last word because we want to appear more wise, or be right, or just be noticed.

This then is a clue to what may be more important – not that you have the last word but that you have a lasting word.  You won’t be known as much for the last words you leave as you are for the lasting words you make:  critique or encouragement, helpful advice or damaging folly, directing questions or confusing accusations.  So what are you known for?  Having the last word, or leaving a word that lasts?

[image from macten]

Knowing how to find things is a good skill to have in this information based society.  Knowing how to find things fast is even better.  There is a world of information at our fingertips but knowing how to access it quickly is a valuable skill.  Why?  Because there’s so MUCH information that you can easily waste hours of time looking for something.

Occasionally, not always, but every now and then someone will email me or ask me a question that they’ve been trying to find the answer to and I’ll flip open my laptop, fire off a few keywords to Google and come back with the answer.  Nifty.  But what BLOWS ME AWAY is how often I’ll get, “WOW, that was fast!” Ummm…yeah, how slow were you expecting it to be?  Which makes me wonder, does this person know how fast finding out stuff can be? Or are they still stuck in analog?

So I decided I’d write a quick article with a list of a few tips I’ve picked up a long the way for using our favorite neighborhood information finder to get what you’re looking for without wasting a lot of time.

1. Try the dump first, then refine.

Whenever I’m looking for something I always put as many words to describe it in the search box as possible.  Why?  Because I don’t have time to read through billions of pages!  Always remember that the more keywords you enter in that search box, the fewer results you’ll get – and the more likely the result you are looking for will show up.

Now, sometimes I’ll have too many words in my initial query and I’ll get too few results returned.  That’s okay, then it’s time to start refining by removing the less important words from my initial dump.  Keep doing this until you find what you need.

Nine times out of ten I’ll find what I’m looking for using this simple method.  Far too often, people start with fewer words and then work up to more.  Don’t do it.  Finding results that way will nearly always take longer than doing it the other way around.  Dump, then refine.

2. “Quotes” are your friend.

Whenever you put quotes around a phrase in the search box you are telling Google to only look for results with that exact phrase.  This is an incredible time saver when you are looking for quotes from a particular author or information on a specific item.  Google has gotten smarter at figuring out phrases from word dumps but I find that putting those phrases in quotes nearly always speeds up your finding the results you need in your search session.

3. Get to know the special sauce

One of the ways of refining search is by using various search operators (the “special sauce”).  To be honest I use these rarely because Google’s search engine is so good at finding what I want.  But on the times that I do use the special sauce its just another way narrowing down the results.  Wanna know what the special sauce is?  Check out the Google Cheat Sheet and the “Advanced Operators Reference”

4. Dress appropriately when needed

I’m still surprised that some people don’t know the unique things you can do with the Google search bar that, although isn’t readily apparent, is a great way of getting specialized information.  Depending on how you “dress up” your query you can discover everything from the current weather in a city to answering math problems, getting sports scores, doing unit conversion, and all sorts of stuff.  And the best thing?  What you need will be right there with the results list, you won’t have to click through to another site.  For more on how to dress up, see “Explore Google Search”

5. Put up a “do not cross” sign.

Oh and this is such an important thing to remember. Set a limit on how many pages of results you’ll check.  As a rule of thumb, for hard to find/rare types of queries I will maybe look through 5 pages of results before refining my query and that’s ONLY if the first page turns up at least one helpful result.  For “should be easy to find” types of queries I will only look on the first page of results – any more pages and my query probably isn’t specific enough.

Why do this?  If you don’t, you’ll always go to the next page believing that there will be a nugget buried there that you’ll miss if you don’t check.  Listen to me.  It’s NEVER there!  Don’t waste time – put up a “do not cross” sign and if you come to it, then it’s time for a new query.

Hopefully these tips help improve the quality of your searches and decrease the time it takes you to find what you are looking for!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• New Feature: A bundled plugin called “Organize Series Publisher”.  You don’t have to activate it if you don’t want but it’s there if you want to try it out!  This new add-on for Organize Series is a take-off of the Issues-Manager plugin created by Jonathan Brinley and was sponsored by Amanda Giles who hired me to port Issues-Manager so it works with Organize Series.  Amanda graciously agreed to have this released to all users of Organize Series!  Basically, this add-on allows you to set a series so any posts assigned to it won’t publish until you explicitly publish the whole series.  Read more about it on the Organize Series Plugin Page
• New Feature: custom base for series permalinks.  Yeah, now you can change ’series’ to something like ‘myawesomesequenceofposts’…well, you can..
• New Feature: Added a new function for you power users who want to be able to fully control the output of series data.  get_series_ordered() has joined the party and you can thank Amanda for it too!  With this function you can get series data from the database and manipulate it however you want when it’s returned.  Do the tango with it if you want! Uh…yeah…
• MAJOR fixes:  As always, the users of Organize Series have been doing a great job of reporting bugs and stuff that doesn’t work and its kept me hopping spraying the raid code.  I managed to knock off some major roaches in the process and I think some of you will be happy with that (I know I am!).  Wanna know what I fixed?  Head on over to the changelog and you can catch up on it.

There’s some other typos and minor stuff that I managed to polish up for this release as well.  As always, I’ve tested things as much as I can but there may have been some nasties that slipped through.  If you spot any, head on over to the support forums and let me know.

Oh, and one more thing.  I’ve partnered with a company called wphelpcenter.com which is billed as “Your On-Call WordPress experts”.  It’s a great newish service that has a team of cool folks who can help you with all your WordPress needs.  If you have something that you need done with Organize Series “right away!” you can contact wphelpcenter.com (email: help@wphelpcenter.com or phone: 512-788-9236).  If you give them my affiliate code: 14322, I’ll get commission on the help you buy for Organize Series.  It’s a great way to help support the development of Organize Series and get help when I’m not available.   However, I’ll still entertain any custom work you may have, just get in touch with me.

Well, what are you waiting for?  Go try out the new version of Organize Series already!

Next, I started keeping only articles I thought were worth keeping and keeping a database/spreadsheet of the articles on my old Palm IIIe.  It was a system that worked quite good for about two years.  I would file the articles in a binder alphabetically and by number (using stick on tabs) and then in the database I’d include keywords and short blurbs from the articles with the article information.  To find articles around a subject I just had to do a search and then I could locate the article in my “article binder”.

Then disaster struck when my Palm PDA died and the backups I had made were all corrupt.  So… I lost my index and the value of my article file plunged.  By then I had discovered WordPress and thought I’d try to keep a private repository of articles online.  Here’s where things got really ridiculous time-wise because I decided that I’d type in (yes, manually type) the articles that I thought were worth keeping.  Needless to say, the backlog of articles I had to enter piled up fairly quickly.  This was mitigated a little bit when I discovered that in many cases I could find the articles online and just copy and paste but there were still a lot of steps involved.  The advantage of this route, of course, is that finding information greatly improved.  This disadvantage was the incredible time investment involved in keeping up with my reading.

Let me just take an aside for a moment.  Why was/am I doing all this?  The main reason is I wanted a way to find and access things I’m reading when I remember them and also be able to properly attribute what I remember.  There have been many times over the years I’ve been in ministry where I’ve been doing some leadership teaching, or preparing a message, or writing an article and I remember something I read in a magazine that would apply and I’ve been able to locate that and use it.  Sure, as the years went by, the internet became a VERY valuable resource for illustrations, quotes, and ideas but to this day, nothing beats  a cultivated, filtered stash of personally reviewed material.

About a year ago I discovered Evernote and all I can say is it is a gift from heaven.  Evernote, has made keeping track of the articles I read (especially print articles) SOOO easy and way less time consuming than any of the other systems I’ve used in the past.  Here’s the new steps for filing articles:

1. Mark articles/quotes I want to keep in things I read using post-it tabs
2. Scan and email articles to my custom Evernote email address (I get my Admin Assistant to do that now but even when I did it, it didn’t take long).  I’m fortunate that I can email right from the photocopier at work.  If I didn’t have that ability I would just scan into a folder that you can setup Evernote to automatically read from whenever something is saved to it.
3. That’s It!

Here’s why it works so well.  Evernote is a note capturing utility that you can use to keep track of material from all kinds of resources.  You can manually type notes in, drop files into it, add pictures, drop in screenshots, clip whole websites etc.  One of the cool ways of getting stuff into Evernote is via a custom email address linked to your Evernote account.  Anything you send to that email address gets added to a note.  Now, you can title and tag each note but it’s not even necessary because here’s where the power of Evernote kicks in – text recognition in images.  Yes, that’s right!  When you add pictures/images to your Evernote database all the text is recognized and indexed.  When you do a search for a term or phrase, all the images/text matching the search criteria will be returned!  My only criticism?  I WISH Evernote was around years ago!  Oh, and one more thing – everything you add to your Evernote account can be accessed either on your local machine or via the internet because all your notes are synced to the “cloud”.  So now, even if I don’t have my own computer I can look up the articles I’ve saved AND I can also rest easy knowing there is a built-in backup of all my notes.

{disclaimer: I was NOT paid anything to write about Evernote.  Yes, they are that good.}

Some time ago I wrote a post highlighting an article I had read titled, “Five Non-Religious Arguments for Marriage over Living Together“.  I found it an interesting article because it so often the whole argument for not living together tends to be focused more on a religious or moral basis and the author posted some more practical reasons as well.

This week I received an email from an individual who contacted me after reading this article with a question of their own and I asked and obtained her permission to post her question here.  I’ll post my response later this week but thought I’d check out how some of my readers might respond.  So where would you draw the line?  What’s your response?

I am not asking you to approve of my situation but I wanted to ask you a question as a religious leader out of curiosity. I was wondering if the biblical stance on living together is primarily based on the fear of a sexual relationship out of wedlock or if living with someone and not having sex was also violating religious text?

My fiance and I have been a couple for 9 years and we are waiting to have sex until marriage. We were not planning to live together before marriage but I was abroad for a year as part of my job and had to return suddenly when the friend I was with fell seriously ill in a different country…. she almost died. When she was well enough to travel we returned home. Physically she made a complete recovery but we were both emotionally drained. I had to leave my job abroad and had no income, my fiance and I knew we were going to get married within the year, we had a date set. It didn’t make a lot of sense economically for me to have my own place and living with my parents again wasn’t an option.

Since living together we have maintained our promise to wait for sex. I am not saying our lifestyle is right. It wouldn’t work for everyone but I felt it was the best option for us. We were not putting off marrage, our long relationship is due to the fact that we got together when we were only 16 and wanted to finish school, travel some and develop the maturity to enter into marriage fully aware of the commitment we were making. As I said I am not defending my lifestyle, just trying to explain where I am coming from. So again is there any biblical passage that goes against living together before marriage without sex being the concern?

[Photo from 10ch]