But before we let Bell and others write the present story, we must remember that there are also a “staggering number” of young people who want the straight up, unvarnished truth. They want doctrinal edges and traditional orthodoxy. They want no-holds-barred preaching. They don’t want to leave traditional Christianity. They are ready to go deeper into it.

I am one of these. Wanting to go deeper. Take me Lord.

Read the review of Rob Bell’s book. If you need to read the book. I have decided that at least right now I don’t need to. This and number of other reviews are enough for me to know what I may or may not be missing.

The Gospel is too precious and important to be commodified in this manner. The questions he asks are too important to leave so tantalizingly unanswered. Universalism is a heresy, not a lure to use in order to sell books. This much we know, almost a month before the book is to be released.

I read Albert Mohler whenever I get a chance. And I agree with the things he writes. I also find myself agreeing with Justin Taylor who has been so criticized over the last few days.

I am only quoting the last paragraph here but you feel free to follow the link to the website and the full piece.

I don’t believe that Justin Taylor and others jumped the gun in their assessment over the last few days. Nor I believe that this will be the end of the Church. In a strange way I actually think that this is good. The ‘unmasking’ of false teachers is always a good thing.

Now the question is … what will you do about it?

Yo supongo que la mayoría de las personas no van a poder hacer los 40 días por razones de trabajo o de salud. Yo por mi parte no podré ya que no ne va muy bien en presentaciones y trabajos a los clientes cuando estoy en un ayuno prolongado.

Vamos a ver que tiene El Señor para nosotros durante este tiempo. De mi parte yo necesito acercarme más a El y buscar Su dirección en muchas areas.

This series was originally posted in LEAN Thoughts (our old blog).  This is Part 1 of a 6 part series on the process and experience of setting up a LEAN Prototype (or Kaizen) in a very difficult environment: a 75 year old Tool & Die Shop.  Come back for the rest, leave comments and feel free to contact us with any questions.

The company was a medium-sized tool and die shop that manufactured stamping dies for the automotive industry. The basic process to build a die is as follows:

1. Engineer the part forming process (blank, blank, form, form, trim, trim, …etc.)
2. Design the die using 3D Computer Aided Design software (CAD)
3. Order the components from the Bill of Material (blocks of steel, cylinders, etc.)
4. Mill the blocks of steel so they are square on all sides
5. Drill bolt and dowel holes in the blocks of steel
6. Build sub-assemblies by bolting the blocks to steel plates
7. 3D machine sub-assemblies
8. Build the die by bolting sub-assemblies onto die-sets (Upper and Lower)
9. Try-out the tool in a press, adjust until it creates a “quality” part that fits the fixture

During a trade mission to Mexico I had the opportunity to visit several automotive plants where I saw first hand and for the first time just how powerful LEAN manufacturing could be. I am not talking about taking a few steps out of a process here and there. I am talking about entire organizations committed to continually driving waste out of their companies. In one case a seat manufacturer was using approximately a third of their one million square foot facility. And on the floor the proud general manager showed us the series of ever shrinking lines on the floor that marked the continuous reduction in used floor space.

At their customer’s plant I next watched in amazement as nine different vehicle models rolled past me in no particular order off the same assembly line. I thought to myself “if they can get thousands of parts to line up like that and turn them into so many variations of vehicle there has to be a way we could do the same thing back home.”

When I got back from that particular trip I knew I wanted to implement LEAN manufacturing into this 75 year old job shop but I did not know where to start. I decided to use an extended Shift Change meeting to bring everyone together. When they were all seated I enthusiastically explained that I was going to read a chapter out of a book that talked about the Porsche motor company. I told them to substitute the name of our company every time they heard the name “Porsche.” I figured this was high praise indeed for a tool and die shop. And sure to win my audience over.

The chapter I read talked about how Porsche had transformed itself from a grossly inefficient organization building one-off, hand-crafted cars, into a LEAN company producing a consistent product by taking variation out of their processes. Every example they cited, from parts that never fit properly, to a complete lack of flow on the shop floor exactly matched, in my opinion, the issues we faced.

When I finished reading I looked up expectantly and asked for people’s reactions. I could not have been more wrong about my audience’s reaction. Instead of general agreement and a unanimous desire to immediately embrace a new LEAN culture, I was faced with people yelling at me about how I “obviously did not understand our process.”

“Sure,” then cried “anyone can figure out how to make the same car over and over again. That’s easy! But here” they explained “we never make the same tool twice. Every tool is a unique work of art that has never before and will never again be created.” I’m paraphrasing of course. But in other words as far as they were concerned no two manufacturing processes were ever the same for us.

Stunned and disappointed at their reaction I humbly thanked everyone for their time and feedback and adjourned the meeting. “Well that didn’t go exactly as you planned” my executive assistant joked.

But just then a strange thing happened. Amid the continued grumbling from many of the employees as they walked out, I was privately approached by a couple of individuals who told me “you know, there is a lot about that story that makes sense here.”

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A few days ago we started reposting an old series on a LEAN Prototype. The entire story will be posted at MSA’s website over the next few days. It is a great little series we plan on turning into a one piece PDF for broader distribution. There are a lot of misconceptions on what LEAN actually is. Lots of buzz that ebbs and flows.

We approach it in a way that goes beyond lean and focuses on the sustainability and the management of the improvements. Here and elsewhere I will hopefully get a chance to describe what we do and how we do it in more detail.

Too often, and for too long, American “Christianity” has been a political agenda in search of a gospel useful enough to accommodate it. There is a liberation theology of the Left, and there is also a liberation theology of the Right, and both are at heart mammon worship. The liberation theology of the Left often wants a Barabbas, to fight off the oppressors as though our ultimate problem were the reign of Rome and not the reign of death. The liberation theology of the Right wants a golden calf, to represent religion and to remind us of all the economic security we had in Egypt. Both want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah.

I read this by Dr. Moore with tears in my eyes. So much of it rang true and so much of it made my heart ache (because it is true). But he finishes it with a bang when he says “It’s sad to see so many Christians confusing Mormon politics or American nationalism with the gospel of Jesus Christ. But, don’t get me wrong, I’m not pessimistic. Jesus will build his church, and he will build it on the gospel. He doesn’t need American Christianity to do it. Vibrant, loving, orthodox Christianity will flourish, perhaps among the poor of Haiti or the persecuted of Sudan or the outlawed of China, but it will flourish.”

Amen.

Amen!

Google Instant provides results as you type. This is bound to keep SEO experts and marketing wonks awake at night trying to figure out what new user behavior it might engender.

For one thing, there are now a small number of golden tickets: if a searcher hesitates for even the shortest time between typing letters, auto-suggestions and results show up… and presumably most searches start with a Latin character.

So I thought it would be interesting to find out what the first suggestions are for queries searching with each letter of the Latin alphabet. And here they are:

A	Amazon	N	NetFlix
B	Best Buy	O	Orbitz
C	Craigslist	P	Pandora
D	‘dictionary’	Q	‘quotes’
E	eBay	R	REI
F	Facebook	S	Sears
G	Gmail	T	Target
H	Hotmail	U	USPS
I	Ikea	V	Verizon
J	JetBlue	W	‘weather’
K	Kohl’s	X	XBox
L	Lowe’s	Y	Yahoo
M	MapQuest	Z	Zillow

Note that only D, Q and W bring up a generic word, rather than a brand name directly. This might seem slightly surprising (since appending ‘.com’ to all these brand names will get you straight to their web site), but entirely consistent with this sort of behavior.

Note that these are not the same as the results brought up if you simply enter a single letter in to the search box. If you simply search for ‘H’, you’ll be told about Planck’s Constant and hydrogen – but if you start to type a search with ‘H’, Google thinks you’re most likely to then type ‘otmail’, and the results show accordingly.

Because of that distinction, I’m sure that SEOing your web site for a targetted single letter won’t help – the suggestions are presumably based on vast statistics about which phrases users end up typing after initial stems.

I also tried the same test on Google’s mobile search, vainly hoping that there might be some sign that people might be looking for different things when they are mobile. Maybe ‘directions’ might beat ‘dictionary’ when on the move, eh? But no: they were all exactly the same – bar one. (Strangely YouTube beat Yahoo on the mobile auto-suggest.)

I am sure this list isn’t curated: one hopes that would have put paid to dusty old MapQuest… But there are a few interesting entries in the list. Do more people search for REI than ‘realty’? (Who are REI?) And is ‘Sears’ really the most popular search starting with ‘S’?

Desde ayer me repite en la cabeza la siguiente verdad…

Separados de mi no podeis hacer nada…

Una verdad tan simple … pero tan facil de olvidar.  Es algo se muy bien pero que no practico nada bien.

Those of you not based in Canada will not see today’s Google Doodle. I am sharing it here for you and to wish you all a Happy Canada Day!

Press on!