We started thinking yesterday about how we sometimes measure the wrong thing. Today we continue: if what we measure becomes what we value, and if we’re measuring the wrong thing, we’ll value the wrong thing. It turns out that Facebook is apparently a textbook example. The Denver Post reported Sunday night about a 60-Minutes interview with Frances Haugen, a data scientist who worked at Facebook and has filed complaints about the company. Here’s a snippet of the Post’s report:

A data scientist who was revealed Sunday as the Facebook whistleblower says that whenever there was a conflict between the public good and what benefited the company, the social media giant would choose its own interests…

“Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety,” she said. Haugen, who will testify before Congress this week, said she hopes that by coming forward the government will put regulations in place to govern the company’s activities.

She said Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to thwart misinformation and rabble-rousing after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump last year, alleging that contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol.

Post-election, the company dissolved a unit on civic integrity where she had been working, which Haugen said was the moment she realized “I don’t trust that they’re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.”…

“No one at Facebook is malevolent,” Haugen said during the interview. “But the incentives are misaligned, right? Like, Facebook makes more money when you consume more content. people enjoy engaging with things that elicit an emotional reaction. And the more anger that they get exposed to, the more they interact and the more they consume.“ Denver Post, posted online October 3, 2021

“The incentives are misaligned.”

If the church youth minister is rewarded only for bringing lots of kids into the building, he’ll spend less time investing in kids to help them grow and more time planning big events. If a pastor is pressured to keep “big givers” on board, he may be less inclined to preach sermons that challenge people to “take up their cross and follow Jesus.”

We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow.

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6.66, ESV)

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1.10, ESV)

Seth Godin got me thinking about measurement with his recent blog “Messing with Strathern’s Law.” Here’s the main idea:

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Marilyn Strathern expanded on Charles Goodhart’s comment about monetary policy and turned it into a useful law of the universe. As soon as we try to manipulate behaviors to alter a measure, it’s no longer useful. – Seth Godin, September 21, 2021

The simple point is that when people know what and how you’re measuring something, they can alter their behavior without necessarily achieving the measurement’s goal. One of the many references in the articles I read about Strathern’s law was a new book by Jerry Z. Muller, The Tyranny of Metrics. He tells terrifying stories about how surgeons refuse to operate on really sick people because if they die, it degrades their success rates, for example. I’ll write more on this tomorrow.

The larger question becomes, do we measure what matters? Here’s a fascinating paragraph buried in a story about this year’s New York Yankees, who, as I write, have squeaked into the Major League Baseball playoffs. The wild card playoff is tonight. But here’s the paragraph:

[After a disastrous half-inning on defense] the Yankees stepped up to the plate. First baseman Anthony Rizzo ripped a double that left his bat at 115.2 mph. Outfielder Aaron Judge followed it with a double measured at 118.4 mph. Outfielder Giancarlo Stanton delivered the final blow, blasting a 448-foot home run that soared over the Green Monster and out of the ballpark. There are seven major-league teams that haven’t hit a ball this season with an exit velocity of 115 mph or greater, including the 100-win San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. Rizzo, Judge and Stanton all hit balls that hard in consecutive plate appearances. – Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2021. 

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: in this year’s regular season, the Giants and the Dodgers won 15 and 14 more games than the Yankees, respectively, and they have no batters that have hit the ball more than 115 mph this year. So what difference does it make that the Yankees have a couple of guys who have hit it that hard? It’s an example of measuring something that we now have the technology to measure but that apparently doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t seem to add to the bottom line of actually winning games.

Jesus told us to make disciples at a time when there were no organized churches that met in buildings. Now we have huge buildings (in some cases), and therefore we count:

• The size of our buildings
• The number of people who come to these buildings
• How much these people give

Buildings, bodies, bucks. But have we made any disciples? And how would we count them or measure their quality? Questions worth thinking about. Let’s continue the discussion tomorrow.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.18 – 20, ESV)

64 years ago today, October 4, 1957, the Russians launched the first earth satellite. I was in the 6th grade, and I remember it well. In 1970 – 1971, I was in the Air Force tracking Sputnik’s successors with long-range radar.

Today, unfortunately, the challenge is to get people to accept the vaccine. Today is an age of people making up their own version of events. There are people who don’t believe Sputnik happened nor that the United States put men on the moon. But Sputnik and its successors are real – I’ve tracked them myself. I once was an official eye-witness to a Soviet reconnaissance satellite re-entering earth’s atmosphere. I’ve talked with many of the astronauts who walked on the moon, including Buzz Aldrin, whom I’ve written about before.

There are also people who don’t accept the results of the last presidential election. Tom Brady in the same Wall Street Journal interview I mentioned Saturday, having a little fun with President Biden, said about Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl victory, “Not a lot of people, you know, think we could have won. About 40 percent of the people still don’t think we won. You understand that, Mr. President?”

Anyway, today is Sputnik Day, a fact of history, an accomplishment of science.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43.19, ESV)

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15.12 – 20, ESV, emphasis mine)

I saw something new in this well-known passage in Isaiah, quoted in part by Jesus in Luke 4.18, 19:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. (Isaiah 61.1 – 4, ESV)

Jesus took this as his personal commission, and if we are followers of Jesus, it would be ours, too: (“As the Father has sent me, even so send I you.” – John 20.21) What are we to do?

• Bring good news to the poor
• Bind up the brokenhearted
• Proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound
• Proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
• Comfort all who mourn

Why are we to do these things? Here’s where I saw something new. We are not the heroes serving these needy people. We are participating with God so that “they“…

• May be called oaks of righteousness
• Shall build up the ancient ruins
• Shall raise up the former devastations
• Shall repair the runined cities

In other words, there is not a permanent “helper” class and a permanent “oppressed” class that needs help. The oppressed become the next wave of difference-makers. I think that’s exciting.

Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. The least one shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty nation; I am the LORD; in its time I will hasten it. (Isaiah 60.21, 22, ESV)

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.1, 2, NIV)

I read the same message twice a few days ago from completely different sources, so maybe it’s worth thinking about.

• Dilbert says to Dogbert: “What can I do to fix my social anxiety?” Dogbert replies:
  • Try keeping in mind that no one cares about you whatsoever. – Dilbert, September 28, 2021
• Tom Brady, ageless quarter back of the New England Patriots and last year’s Superbowl winner while playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in a conversation with Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal:
  • You think peo­ple care what you think, and then you care less what peo­ple think, and then you re­al­ize no one cared, any­way.
• Both of these remind me of something I say often to whomever will listen:
  • You’d worry less about what people thought of you if you remembered that people aren’t thinking about you at all. They’re thinking about themselves.

Look to the right and see: there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul. (Psalm 142.4, ESV)

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. – Jesus (Matthew 6.1 – 6, ESV)

Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant. –The Apostle Paul (Galatians 1.10, NLT)

On January 6, 2019, I committed to publishing a daily blog. Today, October 1, 2021, is Day 1000!

(Actually, on September 28, three days ago, I published my 1000th blog because on three different days I published two blogs. I had to decide which milestone to recognize, and June suggested 1000 days, so here we are!)

What does it mean? In the grand scheme of things, probably not much. But I have learned and grown from the discipline of it. And, as Cal Ripkin, holder of Major League Baseball’s record for consecutive games – 2,632 – has written, streaks are important. He writes in his book Just Show Up:

Everyone has a streak of their own – just showing up. We each have personal streaks as a parent, as a friend, in business. Our job is to be there…Billy Joel signed on to play Madison Square Garden once a month or as long as his shows sold out. As of January 2019, he’s played to almost sixty consecutive full houses. When he was asked why he does it, Joel said, “I’m not doing it to break records. I’m doing it because that’s what I do.”…All you can do is show up and try your best…You do it because it’s what you do. It’s your job. – Cal Ripkin, Just Show Up, excerpts from Chapter 1.

I just noticed that the first blog in the streak indirectly references Simeon’s streak – the importance of daily obedience.

I consider the daily blog part of my job. I don’t pretend that I’m changing the world, but maybe on some days, someone is encouraged or motivated to take an action that, in turn, ripples out. And in that sense, WE are changing the world. If you’re a regular reader, you know that I have a few topics I return to again and again:

• Full participation: Everyone on the Wall!
• The church’s job to equip people for full participation: What’s the Goal?
• Spiritual disciplines: Choices
• Race relations: True Colors
• The importance of work: Motorboats!

As I wrote yesterday about Clemson football, we do the work even when we can’t always see the results.

If you’re a regular or occasional reader, especially if you don’t comment, I have no way of knowing who you are! If you don’t want to comment here, you can write me a note by email, bob@ewell.com. It would be fun to know how the Ewellogy is helping you. (But even if you don’t write, I will! I’ll see you right here tomorrow.)

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks [or writes!], as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4.10, 11, ESV)

This is the post to which I’ve been assigned—keeping you alert with frequent reminders—and I’m sticking to it as long as I live. (2 Peter 1.13, MSG)

Yesterday I mentioned that I went to Clemson University, and I related an inspiring story about one of our alumni. If you’ve followed the Ewellogy long enough, you know that I write about Clemson football from time to time and their coach Dabo Swinney, a strong believer. It was especially fun when we were winning.

But this year Clemson is not winning. In short, we have no offense. As I write this, Clemson is 2 wins, 2 losses, and ranked 25th (I don’t know why), down from #3 at the beginning of the season. Last Saturday, Clemson lost to NC State. I’ve been looking for Dabo’s response, and I finally found it. Here’s some of what he said as reported by ESPN:

“We have to keep working…It’s easy to be all in when everything’s great, but we’ve got to persevere through all this.” “ALL IN” is one of Dabo’s mantras. “If we’re all “all in,” we can compete for the national championship. What if we can’t? Dozens of college football teams play week after week knowing that they won’t win every game and that they have no chance at a championship.

As believers, we know Jesus wins in the end (read Revelation!), but in the meantime, life can be tough. Churches can be small and struggling. Missionaries can go for years with little apparent fruit. Individuals have major health issues. Have you read Paul’s summary of his ministry?

…with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Corinthians 11.23 – 27, ESV)

Paul was ALL IN, but it didn’t look like one exciting victory after another. I think Paul would have agreed with Isaac Watt’s 1721 hymn “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?”

[Jesus] was sheer weakness and humiliation when he was killed on the Cross, but oh, he’s alive now—in the mighty power of God! 2 Corinthians 13.4, MSG)

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16.33, ESV)

It’s amazing how we miss clear Biblical teaching:

Never oppress the poor or pass laws with the motive of crushing the weak. (Proverbs 22.22, TPT)

Yet our country has a sordid history of such laws, many of them passed by people who were in church on Sunday.

I just read the inspiring story of Harvey Gantt, the first black student at Clemson University, my alma mater. Harvey transferred from Iowa State University as an architecture major, starting in January 1963. Why? He was from South Carolina and didn’t like the Iowa cold! Harvey was admitted only after a lawsuit.

I began my freshman year in September 1964. I didn’t need a lawsuit. My application was accepted immediately. So was Harvey’s…until they found out he was black. Because of Harvey’s trail-blazing efforts, my class contained the first black freshman. And the University President told us all on day 1, “There will be no problems at Clemson University.” And there weren’t. But there were difficulties Harvey had to overcome after graduation:

After college, no architectural firms in South Carolina would even interview Gantt, but he had several interviews with Atlanta and Charlotte companies. Charlotte seemed like a good place to settle his growing family. So, the Gantts spent three years in Charlotte while he honed his craft and obtained his license as a professional architect. He then accepted a fellowship to study city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1970 after graduating from MIT, Gantt moved back south and began teaching part-time at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while also working with civil rights leader Floyd McKissick on an aspirational program called Soul City, a planned community designed in rural North Carolina (primarily by Black architects and planners). The community focused on attracting residents, businesses, and people of all races and economic levels.

The project was supported by President Richard Nixon at the time but didn’t get the support of North Carolina senators, and McKissick struggled to get funding. On the upside, Gantt says, “It helped me to see what it might take to design the ideal environment.”Great minds often think alike. In 1971, Gantt and Jeffrey Huberman founded Charlotte’s first racially integrated architecture firm — Gantt Huberman Architects. – From A Better Day by Sandra Parker in The Clemson World, September 2021

Harvey ended up in government, serving two terms as mayor of Charlotte, NC. He ran unsuccessfully for Senate against long-time incumbent Jesse Helms.

“I got in the race as an underdog,” Gantt says. “Most people thought it was impossible for me to win against someone as popular as incumbent Jesse Helms because I was a Clemson alumnus, an African American, and a person who was not originally from North Carolina. We took on the challenge.”

Although he lost, the Senate race heightened Gantt’s visibility nationwide, and he was subsequently asked to chair the National Capitol Planning Commission under President Bill Clinton’s administration. The commission provides planning guidance for federal land and buildings in the District of Columbia and surrounding regions where government facilities are located.“

It was quite an honor to be a part of that,” says Gantt, “and do some of the planning necessary for a number of facilities, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and the Washington Convention Center.” – Sandra Parker

Harvey and I have a lot in common. We’ve been married over 50 years, and we each have four children. The Gantts have nine grandchildren to our eight. We share the same faith:

“Optimism isn’t something you can buy or cash in at the lottery counter,” Gantt explains. “I have been blessed to have had a good life. I have been blessed with a soulmate who has been with me for almost 57 years. I have four great children and nine wonderful grandchildren. What you see from me is an inner glow because I’ve tried to do right. This optimism is not exclusively mine. People find this by a belief in something bigger than themselves. In my case, that would be God and Jesus Christ.” – Sandra Parker

What we don’t have in common is that he has accomplished way more than I have, and he did it against formidable odds. As has been said, “Many white people were born on third base, and we think we’ve hit a triple.” I like that while Harvey was certainly an advocate for civil rights, he worked hard in a challenging profession. The skyline of Charlotte bears witness to his many successful projects. There are buildings named for him at Clemson, the school he had to file a lawsuit to get into.

If you are uniquely gifted in your work, you will rise and be promoted. You won’t be held back—you’ll stand before kings! (Proverbs 22.29, TPT)

We’ve been talking about new versus old, and here’s an example where the old is fine.

It’s a small thing, but I have cable television, and one of the features is voice control. I can hold down a button on the remote and say something like, “Rockies Baseball,” and it will bring up the appropriate channel for me to select.

However, sometimes I know what channel I want. I just punched in “733” to go to ESPN to watch a particular game. What’s somewhere between funny and irritating is that when I do that, a message comes on the screen saying, “To change the channel faster, say ‘ESPN'”

How is that faster or better than punching in a known channel number? And what difference does it make to the cable company whether or not I use their voice remote feature?

Bob, is there a point? I think so…

When something new comes along, are we obligated to use it? Sometimes the old is fine, and sometimes the old is right, and it’s the new that’s wrong. The Apostle Paul certainly experienced this with his churches.

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Corinthians 11.1 – 4, ESV)

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1.6 – 9, ESV)

Yesterday we talked about our tendency to evaluate new approaches by the “standard” of the status quo. It’s worth continuing that discussion for at least one more day, especially with respect to how we do church.

We’ve come to understand “church” as coming together on Sunday morning in a large group to sing (“worship”), hear a sermon, and share communion (or the Eucharist with the frequency depending on your tradition). Anything different from that is met with “That’s not church!”

A frequently quoted scripture purporting to mandate weekly church attendance is in Hebrews 10:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is… (Hebrews 10.25, KJV)

But we get a completely different take if we read that whole verse in context:

Discover creative ways to encourage others and to motivate them toward acts of compassion, doing beautiful works as expressions of love. This is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting together, as some have formed the habit of doing, because we need each other! In fact, we should come together even more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate that day dawning. (Hebrews 10.24, 25, TPT)

We are supposed to come together “even more frequently” to “encourage and urge each other onward” – something we’re not allowed to do in the traditional Sunday morning church format.

Jesus and his ministry were judged and rejected by the establishment because it was different from their status quo. Yet Jesus ushered in a whole new (and way better!) era of how we relate to God:

The old system of living under the law presented us with only a faint shadow, a crude outline of the reality of the wonderful blessings to come. Even with its steady stream of sacrifices offered year after year, there still was nothing that could make our hearts perfect before God. (Hebrews 10.1, TPT)

Back to Seth Godin’s original blog, new is not automatically better. The challenge is to evaluate new versus old fairly.

Every scholar of the Scriptures, who is instructed in the ways of heaven’s kingdom realm, is like a wealthy homeowner with his house filled with treasures both new and old. And he knows how and when to bring them out to show others. (Matthew 13.52, TPT)