The importance of the church

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Why is the church important?

    Psalms 65:4
    Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.

The key phrase is “goodness of thy house”. A house is not made out of an individual but of a congregation. The temple too, isn’t for a single person. It is in the congregation that we shall be satisfied with his goodness.

    Ephesians 1:22-23
    22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

God places all things under Jesus’ feet. Yes, he gave authority to Jesus but the main thing is that by doing that, his body, the church benefit. His fullness fills all.

Pastor Prince said that whatever we do is spiritual. The church is not surrounding the world, it is not peripheral to the world although it may look and seem so. In fact, the world surrounds the church. So we shall do everything for the benefit of the church.

    Matthew 18:19-20
    19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

What constitute a church? How many shall there be? The smallest church is made up of 2 people. The fullness of Christ is found in the church. Pray and agree together and it shall be done. Supplies flow when believers gather, and especially so when we talk and think about Jesus.

If God’s eye is on the church, then it make sense that when I serve the church, I amd flowing and in harmony with God and his plans and purposes. When I serve for the benefit of the Lord and the church, my eyes are unto the Lord. Whatever I lose for the sake of the church, He shall restore. For He promised:

    Matthew 28:20
    Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

See how God supply the needs of the Israelites in the wilderness.

    Deuteronomy 8:4
    4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.

    Ezekiel 16:10
    10 I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.

Their clothes didn’t worn out. Their feet never swell from all the walking. When God built the tabernacle, the people gave from their belongings. Pastor Prince surmised that the Israelites gave their shoes made of badgers’ skins for the outer covering of the Tent of the Tabernacle and God made sure that their feet never hurt. The bronze of the laver which holds the water that worshippers use to cleanse themselves, came from the bronze mirrors of the women. The mirrors are the women’s tools of making themselves attractive. These are items close to their hearts. Yet, without them, their population still increased ;) .

    Deuteronomy 2:7
    7 For the Lord thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand: he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the LORD thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing.

Finally, God is now here. That’s the answer to our needs. Don’t see the church the way the world sees it. They don’t see the gold and splendor inside the Tabernacle. The 12 loaves on the Table of Showbread was in the presence of the Lord in the Tabernacle for a week. Eaten by the priests and one small piece is sufficient. There is no source of nourishment in the world. Jesus is our true nourishment.

Look at Jesus and Jesus will face off the enemies.

Jesus in the midst of the church is powerful.

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Reading “Information Management Possible? Why is information management so difficult?”

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Flett, A. (2011). Information Management Possible? Business Information Review, 28(2), 92-100.
Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/10.1177/0266382111411066 on 2 September 2011

    Author provided abstract
    Information Management often goes awry in organizations due to a lack of basic planning and respect for the complexity of the job at hand. A key discipline that often gets overlooked in that planning is that of Information Architecture. This article contends that Information Architecture is a strategic and holistic information discipline that should be central to any Information Management project or programme, both in its planning and execution. Instead, organizations often follow a variety of poor Information Management strategies where the common factor is their ignorance of Information Architecture’s importance; Information Architecture allows for the rational and optimizing systematization of information. Such tenets will only become more important in the future as information moves towards semantic richness.

I enjoyed reading this article perhaps because it was timely and relevant for a project that I have been agonizing over how to start. I seldom feel helpless but this one is like “where do I even begin?”.

Let me just list my learning points here:

Information Management (IM) Subjective Goals
Flett listed a number of subjective goals of IM and I find the ones below to be most pertinent to my organization. I mean, I know the problems vaguely and it was great that Flett fleshed them out in words.

  1. Information/Systems Usability – IM systems should be highly usable, even enjoyable and provide all the functionality a user need.

  2. Information Access and Collaboration – IM systems should enable information to be open and accessible to all users that require them.

  3. Information Lifecycle – IM systems should manage the lifecycle of information from creation, disposal or archival.

  4. Information skills and practices – IM systems should require as little training as possible.

What is an information management review and an information audit
An information management review is a thorough investigation of the current IM systems, culture, policies and environment of an organization. Flett said that this often entails talking to cross-section of stakeholders abou the nature and scope of information and how it is used in business processes and in daily work. An information audit is seen as a part of a IM review which entials the use of e-audit tools.

Wikipedia’s definition of Information Architecture

    “Information Architecture (IA) is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems… Most definitions have common qualities: a structural design of shared environments, methods of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, and online communities, and ways of bringing the principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.”

Richard Saul Wurman (;-P)
Time to get to know this man and his ideas.

Value-based Framework for understanding the value that is added to information as it flows through the IM systems and where IA facilitates the value-add.

  1. Source – Information sources need to be scoped.

  2. Assimilate – Information scoped needs to be assimiliated by identifying the structural/management metadata.

  3. Interpret – Information scope and with metadata assigned need to be assigned some meaning, like asking “what is this information about?”. Controlled vocabulary, ontologies, thesauri and etc comes into play here.

  4. Configure – Information here are build up into collections of information such as document libraries, teamsites, websites and etc.

  5. Present – Information here are presented to the user, for example, a user interacting with a website, a document library.

  6. Use – Ideally the IM systems contain information user want, is displayed in a way that make sense to them and that maximizes the value inherent in the information.

Now to find out more about Information Architecture.

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Knitted Japanese Kimono, a child cardigan

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I wanted to knit a child cardigan for my god daughter. I found a knitted Japanese kimono pattern at Lion Brand and decided to try it.

The pattern is known as the Jasmine Kimono. It seems easy and do-able within a month for my god-daughter who will be visiting with her mum. I wanted to use this bamboo cotton blend yarn that I bought in China.

The picture here shows the yarn in a cheery orange colour but I thought a pleasant yellow is nicer for a young girl.

I couldn’t get the specified gauge though. I swatched with different needles but couldn’t even come close. Fortunately, the pattern came with the diagram and dimensions. I decided to use the gauge I can achieved with my yarn and needles, re-calculate the stitches and rows needed to cast on and knit to achieve the size I want.

My gauge using 3.5mm needles is 26 stitches x 32 rows to 4 inches.

BACK

I cast on 79 stitches for the back and started the stockinette stitch. (For beginners: stockinette is achieved when you knit 1 row and purl 1 row. Keep knitting 1 row and purling the next row until the desired length is achieved.)

Back of the kimono

INCREASING FOR THE SLEEVES

I knitted a total of 56 rows to reach the length I wanted for the armpits. With the right side facing (i.e. the knit row), I cast on 23 stitches on both ends to create the sleeves. A total of 125 stitches on the needles.

Starting on the sleeves

After the cast on, I continue to knit the stockinette until I reach the point where I need to shape the neck which is about 40 rows.

SHAPING THE NECK

Shaping the neck

With the right side facing, place 46 stitches on a stitch-holder. Bind off the next 33 stitches. Knit across the last 46 stitches. With the 46 stitches left on the needles, continue the stockinette for 8 rows.

Increasing for the right front

STARTING THE LEFT FRONT
With right side facing, start the increase for the left front as follows:

Row 1 – Knit 2, Make 1, Knit all (To make 1, simply add make a loop)
Row 2 – Purl to last 2 sts, Make 1, Knit all.

Repeat these 2 rows 40 times including the first 2 rows. A total of 86 stitches

THE LEFT SLEEVE

With wrong side facing, bind off 23 stitches to create the left sleeve. Continue with the increase even at the row that you bind off. Continue with the increase until there is a total of 79 stitches on the needles.

Continue the stockinette without any more increase for another 56 rows. Bind off.

STARTING THE RIGHT FRONT

Pick up the 46 stitches on the stitch holder and start the increase for the right front as follows:

Row 1 – Knit to last 2 stitches, Make 1, Knit 2
Row 2 – Purl 2, Make 1, Knit all.

Repeat these 2 rows 40 times including the first 2 rows. A total of 86 stitches.

THE RIGHT SLEEVE

With the right side facing, bind off 23 stitches to create the right sleeve. Continue with the increase even at the row that you bind off. Continue with the increase until there is a total of 79 stitches on the needles.

Continue the stockinette without any more increase for another 56 rows. Bind off.

WASHING & BLOCKING
Before sewing the seams, wash and block the kimono. After blocking, I seamed up the sides.

MAKING THE TIES

I modified the pattern again when I was knitting up the ties. Instead of knitting 2 long ties and leaving a hole in the right seam for the tie to go through, I decided to knit 4 ties. 2 ties for the inner right side and 2 for the outside left side. I think it would be easier for mummies to secure the cardigan one side at a time.

Ties were made by picking up 5 stitches at the selected positions using a crochet hook and making a single crochet before placing it on the knitting needle. I used a single ribbing pattern to create a thick flat tie of about 8 inches.

Single ribbing pattern

Row 1 – Knit 1, Purl 1, Knit 1, Purl 1, Knit 1
Row 2 – Purl 1, Knit 1, Purl 1, Knit 1, Purl 1

Continue the single ribbing until each tie measures 8 inches. Bind off.

Weave in all the loose ends and you are done. Ready for a photo shoot to celebrate.

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