DIY Help - Floor joists in the loft.

It still seems a common but sad fact that most UK houses are built with a mostly useless space in the loft. If you want to use it then you will often have to carry out some often extensive remedial work to either strengthen it for use as a room and/or making space in the roof woodwork for what you want. Ironically, newer houses are worse than older houses in this respect since the newer cheaper to build trussed roofs often leave little or no room to use without major alteration. When you alter these roofs, you end up having to revert the structure back to an 'old fashioned' style with purlins (the lateral large joists that stop the vertical joists from sagging).
Anyway, lots of people ask about strengthening floors in the loft and when this is requried/what size timber etc. The science is quite straight-forward. The joist performs 1 or two functions (usually) the first is to support the imposed load of the room: dead weight is the joists, floorboards, fixings etc and the imposed load is the stuff we have in our rooms, whether people, baths etc. The second function that joists often perform, especially in the loft, is to act as a tie beam for the roof or walls so that the weight of the roof does not cause the bottom of the pitch to spread out (imagine folding a piece of paper in half and putting it on the desk like a tent, what happens when you press down on the top of it?). In downstairs rooms the joists will also stop walls from collapsing inwards which might happen if you took out all your floors without supporting the walls first.
Your first question therefore is what weight or force do the joists have to take in order that they don't sag excessively causing ceilings to crack. This is largely dependent on whether the loft will be used as a room (in which case it is the same as all other rooms) or just for some light storage (in which case if you keep the storage above about 3 feet of the supporting wall in the centre then you would probably get away with the existing joists - the sagging after all is largest in the centre of the joist span.
An Architect or Structural Engineer will be able to tell you what the recommended joist sizes are and these are related to the quality of wood (commonly called C16 - weaker or C24 - stronger) and also to the span that the wood has to bridge. If the walls are 2 metres apart then the wood will sag less than if they are 4 metres apart. Unfortunately now these tables are not publically available and are held by an organisation called TRADA (of which architects etc are members). You might be able to get a friend to look for you or ask at your library. These tables might say for instance that a piece of 50 x 220 timber in C16 quality can span a distance of 4.64 metres (or more likely you will have measured 4.5 metres and found the cheapest and smallest size of timber that meets this span as 50 x 220mm). Nobody is checking mm but don't take any big risks because the few more pounds of larger wood will be less than repairing your plastered ceilings when they crack or fall.
If you are planning to fit the joists yourself then you need to be comfortable working out the loadings of the roof (unless you are simply adding in the joists without touching the existing structure). In most cases, in a purlin'd roof, you will need to move purlin supports to fit in your larger joists and if you are making a room, you will also need to remove the tie bars, remembering that the roof can spread or collapse (very quickly) if it is not supported properly! Often you will need to do a bit at a time, taking out a single support and building underneath, adding a new support before removing any more. Depending on how well the roof is currently supported (i.e. it might be bordering on the dangerous) you might have to put in several temporary supports before you remove anything. The roof is heavier than you might think!!!
The Building Control department in your local council can advise on all these matters and they will take you to court if your roof alterations hurt anybody!

Are you really a Christian?

I was listening to come guy preach about being a Christian and it made me think that there is a large gap between the non-Christian and the people we all know are fairly serious about their Christian life and ministry (not perfect people, just people who have God as number 1 priority most of the time!). These people are the middle ground, they are most probably going to heaven when they die, they have hopefully made some sort of commitment to God but their church participation is maybe limited, they have no spiritual ministry to speak of and their lifestyle is not a lot different from people who don't even know Jesus. I then wondered about these people and what the Bible would say about them and I got to the point of the cross and what it is supposed to do in the Christian.
I think there are probably loads of good books about it but I guess we have to be clear on a few definitions before we start. SALVATION is new life in Christ, experienced now, being saved from the world with its temptations. ETERNAL LIFE starts now and is related to the fact that we will not experience the second death. MINISTRY is what we do in God's work and can consist of various elements of the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:27-29 and perhaps other related things.
I have come to the opinion that baptism is required for salvation, since Jesus said that unless somebody was born of the water and the spirit, they cannot enter the kingdom of God - what is the kingdom? Jesus said it was near and 'at hand' meaning the kingdom is for now. We would presumably enter the kingdom of God after we die regardless but to enter it now requires baptism of water and the spirit. In Acts we read that some followers were baptised in water but had not received the spirit so really we need to assume that we need to be prayed for to receive the spirit after we believe and are baptised.
Does that mean that people who are not baptised cannot have a spiritual ministry? I can only say generally yes that is true from the scriptures although my experience is that possibly some people are given spiritual ministries without baptism. Of course, that is subjective and I don't know how spiritual these people actually are. I don't even know how spiritual I am!! These people, assuming they had made a decision to accept Jesus, would have eternal life since this is God's gift rather than something we earn but it does seem dangerous to separate eternal life from salvation.
It seems in the Bible that baptism was not an issue for people like it seems to be today so maybe there was not a lot of teaching on it for that reason but I think as churches we should be putting baptism as an essential stepping stone to salvation - the people of Israel did not enter the promised land until after they passed through the waters of the Red Sea. I think a lot of these people in the middle are not baptised but what if they are? Some people are simply resistant to the Spirit of God for a prolonged period and I think that God does not contend with them forever and people can get to a point where they lack spirituality until such a time that they might beg God for forgiveness!
So how do we measure our Christian life as being somewhere in the meaningful band rather than the rubbish band? Well we can ask a results-based question - "How many people have you led to the Lord recently?", or maybe, "How many have to talked to about the person of Jesus?" and we can ask a comparative question - "what in your life is different from a non-Christian?" or perhaps, "In what way does the cross and the putting to death of self affect you?". For many people the answer is "None" and "Nothing". If we do not suffer for Christ and if the cross makes no impact on us then I would suggest we need to sort our life out - Oh and get baptised first!!!

Securing Data

I was just reading AGAIN about the loss of personal data by a government contractor who copied the data to a USB stick and then lost it. What I don't understand is the amount of lethargy the government and others have had when it comes to understanding 2 things: 1) Security sensitive data is NOT the same as data in normal unimportant documents like many email etc and should not be treated thus and 2) It will NEVER be enough to rely on people following procedures to ensure safety or security in ANY scenario, let alone one that involves people's actual identity.
Security sensitive data (SSD) is treated like most data. It is stored in a database, many of which can't distinguish between someones bank details and their favourite colour. It is then possible to back it up to file, move it between computers, send it to external drives and in some cases read it physically from the disk with no encryption to break. What is needed is simply a linking up of various software vendors to agree on a new type of data in software systems and databases. This data will always be encrypted and can be forceably restricted to, for instance, only be allowed to live on a nominated server(s) and not be allowed to be copied onto an external drive. This would be defined by the person who creates the data so that even if it is sent to an external contractor, the safeguards would not be able to be removed (although presumably if the contractor wanted to copy the data off the screen somehow into another document that would be possible). Sure it would be quite a bit of work but with the amount of investment in these large systems and the potential cost of information loss, you would think that the powers that be would have finished this by now. This also mitigates the second point which is for one reason or another, people don't always follow a process, either at all, or 100% correctly. Somebody is covering for someone else's job, a new starter doesn't understand the ropes, communication is misunderstood, costs are cut etc, etc. By securing the data itself in a way that is coherent across platforms, peope don't have to remember not to write it to CD because the data will not let them do it. With basic tools like mandatory encryption and password protection, even if the data is mislaid, the chances of it being useful are very slim.
Come on everyone - sort it out!!

Are you hungry for God?

We have these evenings at church called "Hungry for God". They are quite simple really, they are free-format, sometimes having longish times of prayer, often music and perhaps an impromptu talk or other. Ironically, these midweek meetings are probably much more like Sundays should be!! Maybe in a few years they will be.
I am really impressed by the way in which the leadership have broken the mold a bit and although not revolutionary, have displayed a willingness to think bigger than Sunday + Home Group which is the staple of many a church. I was however struck by the fact that I was going to a meeting because I was "hungry for God" and I wanted Him to do something to me or for me. Talk about warped. Surely, if I understand things, life should be God centric, not Me centric. He does what He wants to to whomever He wants to whenever He wants to - period. Even in the well-meaning I had missed the point. Part of the problem with these sorts of meetings is that we expect or want God to do something when we go there. Really, God wants us to be hungry for Him all the time and maybe or maybe not, one day God will do something for us, to us or with us. I, however, am not the person who decides that. I will not decide whether I want to be a missionary or a vicar or anything else because God has ordained a path for me for a short or long period.
They are talking about doing them on the same evening every week next term which I think is a shame because it makes things more formal and becomes another meeting for the people who are 'good' and go to all the meetings!

Church or Show Business?

I started thinking the other day about the way in which the church nowadays has become very music oriented with all the good and bad things that are related to it. I assume it mostly started with John Wimber in the 60s who as a professional musician wanted to write good songs and play good music in a church context and that seems to be a good aim.
This led me to thinking, how far have we taken this? Can we no longer have any church meeting without music? Do we do it because it is an easy low cost way to make people feel comfortable or happy or worshipful in meetings? If we subtract the music and an obligatory sermon we are left with roughly nothing. What about all the other parts of church life? Prophecy, encouragement, charity, evangelism? Spiritually speaking, music and teaching are easy to do. They have little real cost and can be faked easily enough if we are not actually annointed to do them. Other gifts that we conveniently push to the sidelines require us to engage with God or other people and these are much harder to do. In evangelism, although we can pretend to be annointed, if we are not then it won't take many rejections or lack of 'results' to provide an excuse to jack it in. Prophecy won't last long if we get it wrong. Even general charity and encouragement require a spritual energy that is not easy to fake over time.
I was also thinking about the big events that we like to do with churches in the West. Some of these attract thousands of people and often they cost large amounts of money which without being too killjoy could be funnelled into more deserving projects. I understand the logic of "people are encouraged by these events", which seems to be the most common justification of the events but the implication of that comment is that if people are encouraged (because it is big and fun and there are lots of people etc), they will always be encouraged and therefore we should always run the events - there is no real space for God's opinion.
A few years back I heard that New Frontiers had stopped running the Stoneleigh Bible Week despite massive support and popularity. It was refreshing that people had put their faith before the 'logic'. I'm not sure how many of us would have done the same.
I am often troubled by the egos that get polished at these events. It is often about a few very highly regarded speakers or 'worship leaders' teaching to several thousand listeners which doesn't seem very much like Church. What about everybody being able to exercise gifts? What about the fact that just because somebody has been annointed to teach in the past doesn't mean God won't decide to use somebody else in the future. The marketing is full of 'Speakers include John Smith and Charlie Brown' as if these names are selling the event! Shouldn't it say something like 'We believe God wants to use this event to encourage and teach you' and not bother with the 'names'?
The other flaw in the encouragement logic is that the big events can have the opposite effect. They feel so great when you are there that normal church life seems tedious or lacking even if it isn't. You can't have the buzz permanently so won't it make you feel like you are missing out for 51 weeks per year? I'm not even convinced that much equipping takes place because equipping is about a person engaging with God and if they can't do that away from the big events then nothing much will come of it. Sure there are life-changing events but these happen in many contexts outside of these big events.
I'm not sure. I keep wondering, is this Church or Show Business?