Lessons from Church (AKA how to get along)

[Berin Loritsch <bl...@apache.org>]

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.

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