Open Tabs [4/28/14]: Liberal Catholics; Build a Baseball Team; Sainthood

Catholics are a lot more liberal than Evangelicals
[Brandon Ambrosino]

Fascinating piece from Ambrosino.

Here are a few surprising comparisons from the survey:

• Two-thirds of Evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage compared with only 37 percent of Catholics.
• Almost 4 out of 5 Evangelicals think sex between two adults of the same gender is morally wrong, while just under half of Catholics think it’s wrong.
• About twenty percent more Evangelicals than Catholics think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
• More Catholics (78 percent) than Evangelicals (61 percent) support raising the minimum wage to $10/hr
• Almost twice as many Catholics (62 percent to 34 percent) believe the government should guarantee health care to every citizen — even if it means increasing taxes

The percent gap between Evangelicals and Catholics varied by question. Both groups, however, were most closely aligned in their beliefs about equal opportunity. Less than half of all Catholics (47 percent) and Evangelicals (42 percent) think it’s “not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others.”

What’s The Best Way To Build a Major League Baseball Team?
[FiveThirtyEight]

If you love Moneyball, you’ll love this article.

“Moneyball” told the story of a plucky Oakland A’s team that exploited market inefficiencies, overcame the loss of several excellent players and went on to have one of the best seven-year runs in franchise history. Today’s A’s have won two straight AL West titles and are in the hunt for a third. They also have fewer elite homegrown players than their predecessors did a decade ago — even the most hardcore baseball fans would have a tough time naming a single A’s superstar. Given their lack of top talent, and theextremely subtle methods they’ve used to build a winner, you could argue that today’s A’s are even more “Moneyball” than their forebears were.

The A’s lack of reliance on star players, combined with their recent success, has engendered numerous articles singing their praises and extolling the virtue of a team that uses balance, depth and versatility (and not star power) to win games. Hell, even the defending champion Boston Red Sox — a big-revenue ballclub with a $155 million Opening Day payroll — embraced the power of roster balance and depth to win it all.

How the Catholic Church makes saints
[CNN Belief Blog]

I learned a lot in this article. Perhaps you will too.

(CNN) – On Sunday, for the first time in history, the Catholic Church will canonize two popes on the same day.

Pope Francis will preside over a special ceremony that is expected to draw upwards of a million pilgrims, who will gather in St. Peter’s Square to witness Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII enter the celestial community of Catholic saints.

Here’s a bit about the Catholic Church’s canonization process.

What is a saint, and how many are there?

Catholics believe a saint is someone who lived a holy life and who’s already in heaven. Saints are considered role models for people still on Earth, and are capable of interceding with God on someone’s behalf when a request for help is made in prayer.

The actual number of saints is impossible to calculate. One well-known work called “Lives of the Saints” lists 2,565 Catholic saints, but that doesn’t count thousands of others celebrated in local regions all over the world. The Catholic Church has a feast, All Saints’ Day, on November 1 to honor the countless saints who aren’t formally canonized.

Open Tabs [4/25/14]: 10 Things I Wish I’d Known About Planning a Wedding; Eternity Amnesia; Autism-Friendly Church

10 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Was Planning My Wedding
[Melanie Pinola]

Amen, amen, and amen. If you’re getting engaged anytime soon, you NEED to read this.

Between the life-changing proposal and the tear-jerking “I do’s,” there’s the unique stress known as wedding planning. Even if your big day is a year or more out, many things might will trip you up. As someone who’s been there and lived to tell the tale, these are the things I wish I had known in advance before my wedding day.

Hindsight is the best teacher. Even though I enjoyed my wedding, I definitely would’ve done a few things differently if I could do it over again (and, oh man, I don’t ever want to have to do it over again).

1. You’re Going to Offend, Disagree with, and Feel Guilty About at Least Someone During This Time

Having a wedding is like throwing a big party (which is normally stressful), except the party is really a huge fancy ball that everyone has expectations and opinions about. Some people will inevitably want to be in the spotlight or take over the planning. You might discover your fiancé/fiancée has absurd taste in napkin colors and is willing to fight you to the death about it—or worse, he/she doesn’t care about the napkin color. You might feel evil as you cut people from your guest list or make your wedding party spend more money on formal clothing.

Try to strike that delicate balance between knowing the wedding isn’t just about you and knowing that it is, in the end, your day. I worried too much about what people thought of my wedding decisions and tried too much, I think, to make everyone who cared about it happy. Short of eloping, I think you have to consider other people’s opinions—especially close family members with whom you’re sharing this incredible event—but at the same time realize that feelings are probably going to get hurt. Looking back, that one day meant more to me and my husband (rightfully so) than to anyone else, and for that reason I would’ve liked to stress less about what everyone else wanted.

7 Symptoms of Eternity Amnesia
[Paul Tripp]

I am all about having an eternal perspective. Good thoughts from Tripp here.

Perhaps our ministry struggles are not primarily about lack of hunger for the gospel, the desire for people to have their own way, the lack of willing leaders, unrealistic demands, or constant financial pressures.

Could it be there’s something we bring to each of these struggles that makes them harder to bear?

There is something often overlooked that has the power to alter the way you experience your ministry. If you are going to stay sane, thankful, motivated, and hopeful, you must minister with eternity in view. Only here will we be protected by the right values, balanced by proper expectations, and motivated by sturdy hope.

Consider with me the effect on ministry of functional eternity amnesia.

1. LIVING WITH UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

Why are our expectations unrealistic? Because we often suffer from an eternity amnesia that causes us to ask this present world to be what it simply will never be.

Ten Ways to Make Your Church Autism-Friendly
[Ann Memmott]

I hope whatever church I work for some day deeply cares about matters such as these.

With 1 in 68 people on the autism spectrum, most churches will encounter a number of people of various ages and backgrounds who are autistic. I am autistic and a Christian, and my faith is a very important part of my life. As a child, I had little use of language and was very “typically autistic.” But as an adult, I learned to use language, and now I teach churches worldwide about autism.

I work with leaders from the Church of England, and I wrote their national autism guidelines at the request of the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend John Pritchard, who realized what gifts autistic people bring to God and community. Sometimes, complex gifts. Sometimes, simple ones. But the things that help autistic people in churches also help many others. Our research has found that in England congregation numbers rise four times faster when a church becomes autism friendly.

Here are 10 low-cost, easy steps your church can take to become more autism friendly:

1. Check the lights in each room, especially fluorescent ones. Are any of them flickering? Please replace them, or switch them off if you can. The world inside buildings is often exhausting for us. Our heightened senses mean that the world is often beautiful, amazing, fascinating — but we may need some time out to recover from sensory overload. Seeing people clearly in that kind of environment is really difficult, too.

Open Tabs [4/24/14]: Wrigley’s 100th; 5 Things You Must Give Employees; Skipping College

Wrigley at 100: Still waiting for a title [Jesse Rogers]

Yesterday was Wrigley Field’s 100th birthday. This sanctuary of sport has yet to see a World Series win on its grounds. My prediction is 2017.

CHICAGO — As baseball and Chicago dignitaries line up for Wrigley Field’s 100th anniversary celebration on Wednesday, there’s one undeniable aspect that can’t be avoided: One of the most iconic stadiums in sports has never housed a championship. The Cubs last won one 105 years ago at West Side Park, before Wrigley Field was built. 

“That’s not what I’m thinking when I think about [Wednesday],” Cubs president Theo Epstein said. “When it comes to the 100th anniversary, I think of Wrigley as the epicenter of fans’ connections to the Cubs.” 

And he’s right. It’s where many a generation of fans have connected with family and friends, but a 100-year-old building without even one title is hard to swallow. The Cubs say they are committed to changing that. 

“That’s the whole purpose for going out and playing,” said Rick Renteria, the 53rd manager in Cubs history. “The organization has had playoff-contending teams, just haven’t been able to get it to its finality.

“They’ve had winning clubs and winning players, just haven’t finished it. I hope I’m a part of that.”

How many managers before him have said something similar? Everyone wants to be a part of breaking the longest drought in American professional sports history, but the Cubs haven’t even come close since 1945, their last appearance in the World Series. At least that one was at Wrigley Field.

More High School Grads Decide College Isn’t Worth It
[Ben Casselman]

Fascinating story from FiveThirtyEight, my favorite stats blog on the Internet. Follow this site if you don’t already.

As the U.S. economy improves, more high school graduates are choosing work over college.

Just under 66 percent of the class of 2013 was enrolled in college last fall, the lowest share of new graduates since 2006 and the third decline in the past four years, according to data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among all 16- to 24-year-olds, school enrollment experienced its biggest decline in at least two decades. The report echoes other recent evidence that college enrollment has begun to ebb after surging during the recession.

Many analysts have attributed the slowdown in college attendance to the rapidly rising cost of a higher education. But while mounting concern over costs does appear to be putting downward pressure on tuitions, the evidence suggests that the drop in enrollment is being driven by a different factor: the improving job market.

The drop in college attendance among recent high school graduates appears concentrated among groups most likely to be deciding between going to school and joining the labor force: Part-time and community college enrollments saw the sharpest decline. Meanwhile, the enrollment rate increased for four-year colleges, where costs have been rising the fastest.¹ (For-profit colleges, which have been subject to mounting criticism over their high costs and inconsistent educational value, have also seen enrollment decline.)

The 5 Things You Must Give Employees [Peter Economy]

Always good stuff from Inc. Helpful piece.

According to research conducted by the Gallup Organization, only 30 percent of U.S. workers are engaged in their jobs–that is, they are “involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and contribute to their organization in a positive manner.” That leaves 70 percent of workers either not engaged or actively (you might even say disastrously) disengaged. According to Gallup, companies pay a heavy price for all this disengagement, to the tune of about $500 billion in lost productivity.

But all is not lost. As a leader, some of the most effective things you can do to develop and sustain motivated, energized employees cost little or nothing at all. Forget the employee-of-the-month award or the big holiday bonus; they have little lasting effect on positively motivating employees. Instead, focus on daily interactions. And be sure that you provide your employees with these five things:

1. Interesting Work

No one wants to do the same boring job over and over, day after day. Though a certain amount of routine and repetition is part of almost every job, make sure each employee finds at least part of his or her job highly interesting. As management theorist Frederick Herzberg put it, “If you want someone to do a good job, give them a good job to do.” Find out which tasks your employees most enjoy and use that information when you make future assignments.