Quick Note – As I recently posted, I am switching roles and beginning work for a consulting company. Part of that role will include my time blogging and sharing some of those posts on a blog site they host or linking back to their company. One of my first orders of business will be the “standard blogger disclaimer” that on this particular site (www.straightpathsql.com) not all of my thoughts are work related, reflect that of my employer or are encouraged/discouraged by my employer. This is one of those posts that is quite personal and unrelated to the day job 🙂 I also have warned folks before that there are sometimes posts here tagged/categorized with Bible. I know I risk losing one of my 3 readers when I post these but I think most reasonable folks would make this agreement with me –

I am not ashamed of who I am in Christ and what He has done for my life. I sometimes talk about it as it is a part of what makes me me. I won’t ever beat you over the head with it, I won’t typically bring it up while working with you unless you ask me a question about it or the topic is opened. I’ll shut up about it the second you want. At the same time, I respect you and your ability to make a choice in your own life with regards to faith. We can agree to disagree on those matters, I am even open for a healthy, non-confrontational in person chat about our belief systems but I will treat you with the respect you deserve as a human being. I ask for the same and encourage you to enjoy the technical posts you may have come to my blog for.

Some History

Alright, enough with the disclaimers. So are you going to the SQL PASS Summit? Are you a Christian? Well last year, I felt led to find some other techies who shared a common faith and offered to meet with you each morning at the lobby of the Sheraton to chat, share some time in prayer and perhaps talk about a recent conviction in personal study of the Bible or a favorite verse. I blogged about it here. Last year, I also met up with some other highly respected technical leaders in the SQL Community who also happened to be Christians to discuss the start up of a group where we could share in our two passions (Jesus and Technology… Of course the word Passion sounds silly to use on the latter topic in light of the first, I see that 🙂 ). I blogged about that here.

This Year

The same two paths will be taken this year along side all of the Summit fun, sessions, networking, and eating at my favorite sushi restaurant.ever – Shiro’s). These “events” are:

Morning Prayer/Devotional Time

Like I said, I blogged about the details in a post last year – This will be a quick time each morning prior to the Summit breakfast and keynote. We’ll meet in a corner of the lobby at the Sheraton hotel (right near the convention center) and share in a time of prayer, conversation and perhaps some Bible study. A brief summary from the details in last year’s post on my thought process here:

• Away From Home <> Away From God –> The hustle of a conference sometimes means we get caught up in all the activity and running around. Always good to recharge your batteries and gather with 2 or more in His name to offer prayer for each other, folks we’ve run into or our families.
• >= Bible and Solitary Prayer –> Having your own private prayer and Bible study time is important. It is also great to meet up with others who share a faith and share a geekiness bond to lift up prayer burdens and encourage each other in our faith walk.

All you have to do is wake up a bit earlier (easy for me, I never get over the East Coast time zone in the mornings and get up on my own), grab your coffee or tea and head over to the lobby at the Sheraton. I’ll be tucked away on some couches in a corner with some others. We’ll sit around, chat and pray for as long as we all want to (last year it seemed to range from 15-30 minutes depending on how early we got there) and then off to the Summit. Want to join us? Drop me an e-mail or leave a comment below.

Last year I sent a few tweets out with the hashtag #passprayers to coordinate the morning meetups and I’ll probably do the same this year so feel free to use that hash tag. It will be plugged into my searches.

“Techies for Jesus”

That group that Brian Moran had the idea for and I discussed in this post last year will be meeting for one of the breakfasts at the Summit and discuss some logistics and specifics of getting this group going and what it means. To summarize as best as I can – It is a group of Christians who are also passionate leaders in technology in some form (not sure we can say leaders if I am in the membership!) and want to be more open about who we are in Christ and have more impact for Him in the world through this “ministry” that is perhaps shaping up.

I was surprised at some of the names that have joined the group at first (but then when I think back to interactions with them, presentations from them or just “the little things”, it made a lot of sense) and most of the group already are giants for SQL Server and giants for Christ in their own ways and I have a lot of ways to grow from interactions with them.

If you are a Christian and are interested in joining the group, don’t let the “technical leaders” part scare you off. If I am fine, you are also, I guarantee you. Drop me an e-mail or leave a comment below and we’ll include you in the meeting invite for the breakfast (likely will be on Tuesday or Wednesday at the Summit) and any other gatherings we have at this year’s Summit.

Carry On!

That is it! I am looking forward to seeing you at the Summit, whether this e-mail interested you or not. I am involved with some other fun things at this year’s summit (Helping organize the Birds of a Feather lunch again, Volunteering on the Orientation Committee and I believe I’ll be blogging the keynotes also) and I am really looking forward to meeting the people I have befriended on Twitter and any readers of this blog (No, mom, you can’t come with me to Seattle! So I guess that just leaves the spammers 😉 ).

See you in Seattle!