Comment: On Changing Churches

I wrote a long comment in response to Andrew Conard at the Rez on line blog when he wrote about changing churches. Not that I haven't written about that before, but his entry and the other comments gave me some new vocabulary to use that I liked and ran with:

How can I answer this and keep it short? I think I wrote at least 2 blog/journal entries on this while considering changing my membership to CoR! I agree with Amy above that church membership is more than gym membership. I did stick it out with my former church even when things were not comfortable. However, if the relationship is not nourishing, in the end it will die, as my relationship with that institutional church (though not with the people of that church) eventually did. Now that death was both our faults (to use divorce language) but dead was dead. When the Holy Spirit convicted me of my lack of attendance in a Christian community, I did not look to returning to that church (even though there had been a pastoral change in the interim) as one of my realistic options. Further proof of how seriously I take church membership is the fact that I attended CoR for 16 months before moving my membership from my former church. (You all stuck with me now, hehe.) One bit of counsel I would offer those considering changing churches--don't make your decisions in high emotional states, either good or bad. When I started at CoR, it was a spiritual high for me to just be back in Christian community. It was good for me to wait a little before actually moving my "paper" to CoR. I would not make a decision to leave a fellowship while angry, miffed or whatever either. Just a few cents worth from an (over)educated layperson.

Errors and Failure, Again

I've thought a lot about failure lately, since I am very good(bad) at it. This article about a nurse in Seattle committing suicide after she made a med error got my attention. Not just that she's 50, or had been in trouble with the powers that be at her institution (who sacked her after the mistake, which she self reported) but just the whole idea that she was at a loss as to what to do, that so much of her identity had been tied up in being a nurse.

Most health care professionals will take themselves apart after making a mistake--they'll go over it over and over, and change the way they do things. Institutions rarely have to punish one mistake--it's only patterns attached to one person that they have to pay attention to--but they often do.

Intimidating Dr. R. helped me with mistakes. I gave one of his patients one of the older oral antidiabetics at 2100 one evening--I just misread the MAR--my eyes skipped over a line. I called him with much fear and trepidation--OMG he is going to rip me--but he was relaxed--just asked that I be sure to write out an incident report and do an extra blood sugar check during the night. The patient didn't turn a hair during my shift and I never heard another thing about it. Meantime, I changed the way I read and handled the MAR and never made a similar mistake again. In fact the only other med error that comes to my mind is one time I gave a one time dose on the wrong day--thus causing me to make a new routine of writing the date on my "notes/brain" for both the evening and night of a 12 hour shift (19-07 or 20-08). Because of my earlier experience I had no trouble reporting the error--thankfully, it was a fairly benign drug--and there were no further problems.

Some drugs just require more vigilance. Ca++ and K+ because you can kill someone with them straight up. Heparin--because of bleeding going out of control. Insulin--because you can kill someone with it. This mistake was a decimal error--a power of 10. Pediatrics is full of this stuff. As time consuming as it is, you must double check your work. If an answer makes no sense, stop and do it again. That goes for letting a machine do your math. Rough out the equation for the x/kg/hour drugs--make sure the machine makes sense. Tables help with this--just recently I ran across my tables for NTG and such from HMW. Keepin' em. They are useful even if they are old as long as the concentrations match. And even if they don't completely, they help with that "sense" thing.

I feel this lady's sense of displacement--what are you when you are a health care professional in disgrace? You have all this good stuff in your head, and all the caring, and all the wanting the challenges, etc. etc. but no place to put it.

(Had to stop there...that's close to the bone.)

The Seattle nurse's mom, also a nurse (retired): "She ran out of coping skills."

Heartbreaking...and preciously close to the bone. Not being perfect should not run an otherwise competent person out of their chosen profession...

12 (or so) Questions

The Star printed an article that basically outlined the questions you might hear in a job interview; I thought they were pretty challenging. I've answered some of these, and have no answers for others.

Why should we give this job to you rather than another who is equally qualified?

Why do you want to work for our company?

What do you think determines a person’s progress within a company?

Would these questions rattle you if they were thrown at you in a job interview? If so, you need to think beyond preparing your 30-second — or two-minute — summary about your skills and interests.

Being able to concisely and clearly cite your credentials is exceedingly important in formal job interviews, in professional association meetings and in social situations where you’re doing some networking.

But a recent “speed interviewing” event sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management of Johnson County showed that many job interviewers would press you for far more than your qualifications.

What are your feelings about working overtime?

What interests you about our products (or services)?

How would you describe your ideal job?

It’s pretty easy to see that your answers to those questions could open the trap door beneath your feet.

Skilled interviewers will ask such open-ended questions to get at what makes you tick, to probe your personality, your work ethic and other hard-to-quantify traits.

What two accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction?

Have you ever had troubles with other people on the job?

Do you feel you did the best work at school that you were capable of doing?

Job hunters and applicants for promotions need to be prepared for those landmine questions. Think ahead of time about how you’d answer them.

Hirers look for workers who seem to be both self-starters and good team players. They want to see a strong work ethic. They want adaptable, flexible folk. They want to see confidence, not boasting.

And they want a good answer to the key question:

What can you do for us?

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/25/2973188/applicants-must-be-ready-for-questions.html#ixzz1QWTkvjOW

I might work my way through this list, trying to answer each one. Shoot, if they read it here, they won't be so shocked when I say it at the interview!

What Can I Do?

This is a very simple song, but it asks a very profound question. What is my response to Jesus Christ?

Did I mention it was a tad bit dangerous too?

Pentecost: The Holy Spirit Comes

²⁸ “And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
²⁹ Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
³⁰ I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
³¹ The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
³² And everyone who calls
on the name of the LORD will be saved;
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be deliverance,
as the LORD has said,
even among the survivors
whom the LORD calls.

Joel 2:28-32 NIV

And so the blog turns red, in honor of the tongues that came to rest on the disciples' heads. (See Acts 2)

I Not Only Believe It, I'd Stake My Life On It

That's a "Hamilton-ism"--he says it with regard to the Resurrection. I applied it last night to the idea of the Holy Spirit changing us to our inner core--yes, HOLINESS.

Scratch this newly minted United Methodist too hard and you find a Nazarene, a person committed to the idea that the Full Gospel includes the idea that the Holy Spirit works in the yielded heart to make a person look and act more and more like Christ.

It's funny, but since starting to attend a United Methodist church, I have come to appreciate this core doctrine of the Church of the Nazarene even more, as well as the wesleyan way of thinking and dealing with information. I am frequently thankful that I did not get saved in a Baptist church--I think the many places where Baptists are inflexible, and the rule against women in ministry would have annoyed me enough that I would have stepped on toes and it would have gotten unpleasant.

Joel 2 comes to mind especially this part--God is speaking through the prophet:
And afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit on those days. (vv. 28-9 NIV)

Listen to the Sound

This is a pretty cool tune by Building 429: