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Archives for 2014

Food for the Hungry's Gift Catalog

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So today is Giving Tuesday, a much more important day than Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

One of the most fun and innovative ways to give is through a gift catalog.

This is what Food for the Hungry has been doing for a few years now, and it’s pretty cool. They have a catalog of items, except the items are not consumer goods that you buy for yourself or those on your Christmas lists. Rather, the catalog consists of items that you buy for the poor and which they can use to meet their needs and sustain themselves.

You can buy seed, cows, goats, wells, water purification facilities, and much more — all for the poor. This is pretty cool. It’s a whole other dimension than simply giving a gift of money, because you are able to purchase specific things that are needed.

Food for the Hungry’s efforts here represent a great way to bring innovation and creativity to the fight against global poverty. Their efforts show that innovation and creativity shouldn’t just apply to the for-profit sector — they are just as important in the cause of social good as well.

Their gift catalog is online and is well worth looking through. Plus, as I mentioned above, it’s a lot of fun!

Come to Technology and the Glory of God This Saturday in Ames

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If you are in or around central Iowa, it would be great to see you at the Technology and the Glory of God conference this Saturday, hosted by Stonebrook church in Ames.

Tim Challies and I will be speaking on, you guessed it, technology and the glory of God.

One of my sessions will be a Q&A, and I especially love hard questions. So feel free bring your most difficult and challenging questions. (Or just ordinary ones are fine too, of course!)

Doors open at 12:30 and the conference goes from 1:00 to 7:00.

You can register and see more details at the Eventbrite page.

StrengthsFinder App Now Available

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You can get it for your iPhone.

Here’s their description:

Download it now and study your personal strengths wherever you go.

  • If you already have your top five strengths, you can reveal all 34 of your strengths at a discounted price
  • Take the Clifton StrengthsFinder, view your strengths, and read your insight statements.
  • Use your app credentials to access Gallup Strengths Center. And vice versa.
  • The Android version is currently available in English, with the iOS version available in Chinese, German, and Spanish. We will be launching more languages for both platforms in 2015.

Reconciling the Call to be Productive with the Messiness of Life

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One of the difficulties in affirming that God calls us to be productive is that this can sometimes be mistaken to mean that there is always an easy solution to our productivity challenges. We can think that there is no place for messiness, difficulty, and even falling behind in the life of truly productive, God-honoring people.

For example, if your car has a problem, you take it to the mechanic and he ought to be able to fix it. That’s what they are trained to do, and most automobile problems are well understood. If your mechanic can’t fix diagnose and fix a broken fuel pump or heater core, there is indeed something wrong with that shop.

Lots of things in life are like this, so it can be easy to think that productivity is supposed to be like that as well. We can easily reduce our thinking to something like this: “You feel like you are always rushing and are pulled in a thousand directions? Well, just do these three things, and it will be all fixed by tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, how did you not know that? [Implication: Something is wrong with you, and look at how great I am for being able to easily “fix” your problem!]”

But managing our tasks, workflow, and lives is not like that. It is not like getting the oil changed or fixing the radiator in your car. The reason is that we are often dealing with the unknown and with ambiguity.

Hence, there are two errors we can fall into. The first is, as I mentioned, to think that there is always an easy solution and that if you are having a tough time keeping up with things, then the problem is always you. That’s simply not true.

The other error, though, would be to conclude from this that there is not any way at all to actually get on top of your work. That would be a very depressing, discouraging reality.

Fortunately, it’s not true. It is possible to be on top of things.

Yet, at the same time, there will be seasons where you aren’t — and perhaps can’t be. 

How do we reconcile these two realities?

By recognizing that productivity is a learning process. Further, by recognizing that it is sometimes a tough learning process. You can grow and get better — but that doesn’t mean it will always be a smooth ride.

It is like learning calculus. You can learn calculus. But it can also be a big challenge.

The challenges along the way don’t mean something is wrong with you. Rather, they are part of the learning process. Further, as we achieve certain levels of effectiveness in managing our work, we graduate to new challenges — which require a new level of learning. So sometimes it can even feel like two steps forward and one step back.

I remember when I was learning Spanish in high school. We reached a point where, when some certain advanced material was introduced, we actually fell backwards in our abilities. It was strange. But our teacher said this was perfectly normal. It’s what happens. It’s part of the learning process as you graduate to new levels of difficulty.

And, it’s temporary. If you keep at it, you make it through these periods and emerge with entirely new, amazing abilities.

If the calculus analogy seems a bit off-putting (since calculus is so hard!), maybe think in terms of learning a foreign language, or even learning algebra. Most productivity stuff is not calculus level. The point is simply that in learning anything, there will be ups and downs.

I think this allows us to account for the biblical teaching that things will not always be going perfectly for us (including our productivity abilities) while also affirming the equally true other biblical reality that we can indeed make a difference in our lives for the better.

It helps us avoid a prosperity gospel-like view of productivity, thinking that everything is always supposed to be perfect if you are just doing the right things, without falling into a defeatism that says we are somehow supposed to be always stuck.

We aren’t supposed to be stuck, and there is hope. It just takes a learning process and persistence, not a magic wand.

How Satan Can Set Himself Up as the Guide and Oracle of God's People

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Jonathan Edwards:

One erroneous principle, than which scarce any has proved more mischievous to the present glorious work of God, is a notion that it is God’s manner in these days, to guide his saints, at least some that are more eminent, by inspiration, or immediate revelation.

They suppose he makes known to them what shall come to pass hereafter, or what it is his will that they should do, by impressions made upon their minds, either with or without texts of Scripture; whereby something is made known to them, that is not taught in Scripture.

By such a notion the devil has a great door opened for him; and if once this opinion should come to be fully yielded to, and established in the church of God, Satan would have opportunity to set up himself as the guide and oracle of God’s people, and to have his word regarded as their infallible rule, and so to lead them where he would, and to introduce what he pleased, and soon to bring the Bible into neglect and contempt.

(From Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England, part 4, section 2, page 404 in volume 2 of the Banner edition of Edwards’ works.)

Why Did Jesus Let Judas Carry the Moneybag?

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Why did Jesus let Judas carry the money bag during his ministry, knowing in his omniscience that he was stealing from it (John 12:6)? One blogger humorously points out “one is tempted to offer the Lord some consulting on good stewardship.”

It’s a provocative question. I’ve seen a few posts on this over the last few years that make some good points. But they don’t always get at why Jesus had the right to do this, and we don’t — and what this implies for what it means to follow Christ’s example. In relation to this question, I think the best answer is from Jonathan Edwards:

[Judas] had been treated by Jesus himself, in all external things, as if he had truly been a disciple, even investing him with the character of apostle, sending him forth to preach the gospel, and enduing him with miraculous gifts of the Spirit.

For though Christ knew him [that is, knew that he was a fraud], yet he did not then clothe himself with the character of omniscient Judge, and searcher of hearts, but acted the part of a minister of the visible church; (for he was his Father’s minister;) and therefore rejected him not, till he had discovered himself by his scandalous practice; thereby giving an example to guides and rulers of the visible church, not to take it upon them to act the part of searcher of hearts, but to be influenced in their administrations by what is visible and open.

Here are a few additional thoughts to flesh this out.

First, if it’s surprising that Jesus would have let Judas carry the money bag, it should be even more shocking that he let Judas be an apostle at all. For the task of going out and preaching the gospel, which Judas participated in, is even more significant than carrying the moneybag.

Second, Edwards’ point here is right on: Jesus was acting according to what would have been evident in his human nature, not what he knew from his omniscient divine nature, as it was not yet time for him to exercise the role of judge.

Thus, if Jesus had, in his human nature, actually seen Judas stealing from the money bag, I think he would have taken it away. Jesus was not intending to set an example for us here that we should knowingly appoint dishonest people to important positions. He was acting in accord with the knowledge he had not as omniscient judge, but according to the ordinary operations of his human nature. And on that basis there were likely no concerns with Judas yet.

In acting according to what was evident according to his role as minister of the visible church, Jesus was seeking to show, as Edwards points out, that we aren’t to act as though we know a person’s heart unless there are clear and obvious outward signs that reveal otherwise. In that sense, then, Jesus is modeling something for us here.

Third, obviously Jesus did have reasons in his sovereign will for appointing this task to Jesus. Perhaps it was to show all the more fully Judas’ sin and apostasy over the long-term (or, as Jon Bloom argues, to give an acted parable warning us against the love of money). However, Jesus’ sovereign will is never something we are to model. He has rights that we don’t. As the best Calvinists have always pointed out, we are to make the moral will of Christ our guide — not his sovereign will.

Fourth, it is a sobering thing that there are some people seeming to follow Christ that are not truly following him. That is a scary, shocking thing! It should lead us all to be all the more diligent to “make your calling and election sure” by constantly growing in grace (2 Peter 1:10).

Tim Challies on Taming the Email Beast

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Tim Challies’ series on productivity has him talking about email today. This part towards the beginning is hilarious, and does a good job of showing just how bad some of our email practices are by drawing a comparison with the physical mail:

DOING EMAIL BADLY

To better understand why so many of us do email so badly, let’s draw a comparison to a real-world object: your mailbox. Imagine if you treated your actual, physical mailbox like you treat your email. Here’s how it would go:

You walk outside to check your mail and reach into your mailbox. Sure enough, you’ve got some new mail. You take out one of your letters, open it up and begin to read it. You get about halfway through, realize it is not that interesting, stuff it back inside the envelope, and put it back in the mailbox. “I’ll deal with this one later.” You open the next letter and find that it is a little bit more interesting, but you do the same thing—stuff it back into the envelope and put it back inside the mailbox. Other mail you pull out and don’t even bother reading—it just goes straight back inside the mailbox. And sure enough, your mailbox is soon crammed full of a combination of hundreds of unopened and unread letters plus hundreds of opened and read or partially-read letters.

But it gets worse. You don’t just use your mailbox to receive and hold letters, but also to track your calendar items. You reach in deep and pull out a handful of papers with important dates and events written on them, including a few that have come and gone without you even noticing or remembering. And, of course, you also use your mailbox as a task list, so you’ve got all kinds of post-it notes in there with your to-do items scrawled all over them.

But we aren’t done yet. Even though you feel guilty and kind of sick every time you open your mailbox, you still find yourself checking your mail constantly. Fifty or sixty times a day you stop whatever else you are doing, you venture down the driveway, and reach your hand inside to see if there is anything new.

It is absurd, right? Your life would be total chaos. And yet that is exactly how most people treat their email. It is chaotic with no rules or procedures to control it. What do you need? You need a system.

He then goes on to give a simple but highly effective system for managing your email. He nails all of the core principles, such as the fact that an inbox is only for receiving email — not storing it –, the basic email workflow, and more.

Read the whole thing.

Practical Usability: Why Most Websites Frustrate Their Users and How to Make Your Site Enjoyable

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This is my message from the Biola Digital Ministry Conference 2012.

First I discuss why usability matters (giving both the practical case and the biblical case, which is very interesting). Then I go into the nuts and bolts of how to make your website usable, focusing especially on how to create good information architecture (the key to usability).

And here are my slides for the message (which you can use to follow along on the message, or just click through all on their own):

The Meaning of Usability for Ministry Websites – Why It Matters and How to Do It

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Note: Building on Matt Heerema’s post on the importance of usability for good websites, I’m posting this document, which was originally created to outline the usability strategy my team and I developed at Desiring God. My aim was essentially to give a clinic on the most important aspects of usability and information architecture in about 8 pages. I believe I wrote this in 2009.

Though it applies these principles specifically to DG, the broader principles that are applicable to any website should remain clear. Hopefully seeing their specific application to the DG website will help reinforce and illustrate them.

It would be great if every ministry began to make usability and good information architecture a top priority — and therefore learned the principles to effectively implement these priorities. It would make an absolutely huge difference. 

For more on usability and how I see it as not only central to website effectiveness, but also grounded in the Christian command to love our neighbor, see my messages from the Biola Digital Ministry Conference How the Gospel Should Shape Your Web Strategy and Practical Usability.

 

History of the Site Development

At the very start, we identified that usability would be our governing principle in the site redesign. The goal of the site redesign was: “To redesign the Desiring God website in accord with sound principles of usability and design.”

So we researched in detail what made for good usability. This involved not only studying the best books on the subject, but also user testing on our current site to determine what worked and what didn’t, and user testing on some other sites.

It also involved detailed analysis of the best sites out there (almost all of which were secular). We analyzed in detail how sites like Amazon and others organized their content and created an optimal user experience.

Last of all, we researched the principles of sound classification and categorization. This is because the site not only required that we create a good macro organizational structure, but also required the effective grouping of 2,000 plus resources into several different types of categories, including resource type, topic, and more. We wanted to know the principles of how to effectively categorize things so that we weren’t just making decisions on the basis of what we thought would be right. We wanted to know what we were doing.

To synthesize all of this information, we created several documents: “Usability & Design Principles for Desiring God,” “Usability, Our Basic Philosophy of Web Design,” “DesiringGod.org Classification Principles,” “DesiringGod.org Category Schemes,” and “The Vision for Our Website.”

 

The Importance of Usability

Its Priority

As mentioned above, usability is the central principle of our site design and presentation. This means that:

  1. We prioritize it above looks.
  2. We prioritize it above cool functionality.

We want a good graphic look for the site, but when we have to make a call between what looks better and what is more usable, usability wins. Likewise, we don’t have a problem with cool functionality, but if it creates an interesting experience at the cost of making the site harder to use, we are not interested.

Tie to Mission

The centrality of usability to the site flows from our mission. Our mission is to spread. But a hard to use site creates friction, which thus reduces spreading. An easy-to-use site reduces friction, thus serving the cause of spreading.

Good Usability Makes Everything Seem Better

Good usability makes everything about a site more effective. “Making pages self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: It just makes everything seem better. Using a site that doesn’t make us think about unimportant things feels effortless, whereas puzzling over things that don’t matter to us tends to sap our energy and enthusiasm—and time” (Krug, 19).

The importance of usability will be discussed in more detail below, when we discuss the need to be content-centered behind being user-centered.

[Read more…]

Why Most Websites Are Hard to Use — And What to Do About It

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This is an excellent post at Challies.com by my friend Matt Heerema.

Most websites are hard to use because the designers paid insufficient attention to information architecture. Information architecture has to do with how the site is structured and organized.

So, how do you fix this? By giving usability the priority it deserves and learning principles of sound information architecture.

You can do this by reading a book like Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think — still the best book out there on web usability.

Or, if you are engaged in a web redesign or soon to start one, I would highly suggest contacting Matt and his company, Mere Agency, to see what they might be able to do for you.

You would find it to be well worth your time and investment. The impact of good usability is huge. When we first redesigned the Desiring God website on the basis of sound usability principles back in 2006, within four months page views increased 356%, audio listens increased 359%, and visits increased 99%.

Matt’s company understands and specializes in those same information architecture principles that we developed at Desiring God. In fact, before starting his current company, Matt came and worked with us at Desiring God and led subsequent redesigns of the site. If you work with Matt, you will be putting your website in great hands.