S05E092, BETA Mode, Andy B 2 Minute Video
Beta mode. It’s a term you might have spotted, but have little knowledge about. Essentially, when it comes to software, it speaks of the next generation of that software. It’s a way of testing new features – it’ll probably look similar to what you’re used to, but may do new things, in new ways. And Beta mode gives developers an opportunity to see where the problems are; it lets you test new versions of software.
Some people may well enjoy working software that is in beta mode. It gives them to see what will be coming to a wider audience and allows for them to find mistakes and problems. It also enables to try next generation software before others, and that can be exciting.
I think it is really easy for us to operate in beta mode in our churches – we discard the old and try new ways of doing things. But we should always be cautious to remember that those new things aren’t just new ideas. Those new ways of working, even if they are just a trial, can be very upsetting to the people who are being experimented on.
One specific encouragement on this idea is to ensure we care for the people in our church family who have been there longer than us and I’m not just talking about people who are older than us.
Those older family members are the ones most likely to hold up advances in change to the church. However, don’t immediately assume they’re out to spoil your creativity! Sometimes, wisdom has travelled the road that you think is new and exciting…and they know the pain that awaits the end of that particular path.
Just a thought...
Andy B
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Transcript
[00:00:00] So another Andy B Two Minute Video. Do you know what BETA mode is? If you're of a certain age, you might think of vh, VHS and Beta, beta max. It was a type of video cassette. Like a ribbon thing, you shove in a machine and it plays a film., Okay. Not a DVD. that's one thing that beta might be something you are aware of, but when it comes to software, beta is quite important.
[00:00:30] If you've ever been I don't know, Google Play Store, for example, you might have an app you've downloaded, and you might be invited to get the beta version of that app. What is it talking about?
[00:00:40] Recently we've been looking at some software for something we want to do, and I've tried a few different bits of software. Some of them so far have been either brilliant and not up to what we need, or utterly awful. I've just been trying one recently that is absolutely brilliant and keeps failing, which is very, very frustrating cuz I spent a week trying to work this thing out. Turns out, and I hadn't quite [00:01:00] clocked this, in the little corner, it says beta mode.
[00:01:02] What does that mean and how does that apply to our Christian life? It's really simple.
[00:01:06] Beta mode means it's in development, it's a test. It's not the thing that is stable, it's the next generation of something, basically, and it could have problems it could have all sorts of amazing things going there, and some people love to work in beta mode, test out things. I'm now sort of a bit of a beta test, beta mode tester for this company. Not on purpose or deliberately because I'm trying to use what I think could be good software, but they inform me it's in beta mode. Which means they're still testing it, which means it has some amazing potential. But it also has many, many bugs. and one of the bugs I've discovered is rather critical and they've gone, Ooh, that's serious. That basically means the software doesn't work. That's the potent point of beta mode. I didn't know we were actually having beta mode to trial.
[00:01:52] Now, are you in your beta mode with your Christian life? Are you so advanced to where you need to be? You're doing all these crazy things, but whilst that can [00:02:00] be good, actually the problem of going into beta mode as a Christian is you miss the core, the stuff that's stable.
[00:02:07] Quite often churches like to get rid of the old people and the young people, and they want the people in the middle who've got the money. That's quite common. Or we just wanna go for the families, forget the old people. You know, we forget the old people at our peril! Because what the older people in churches do, well, generally, they've been there for a longer time that's what we think of, they're wiser. They actually provide immense stability for a church family, for the foundations.
[00:02:30] Care for the folks in your church who've been there longer than you, not necessarily older, we think about them in those terms. But are you in beta mode? Are you so busy trying to deal with the next thing you've forgotten what you need to actually do the job, before you?
[00:02:43] Don't be so desperate to try new things that you forget and you miss out on what's already existing that's good.
[00:02:49] Just a thought.
Andy B, 28/06/2023