Merging Tables in Excel

If you're like me, you regularly come across complicated tasks in Excel that are not easily automated. I'm slowly learning more and more about the more powerful functions available in Excel, and usually with a little bit of researching and work, you can figure out most challenges.

My most recent one was merging two tables, where the column identifying the same person in each table wasn't identical. Each had people that weren't listed on the other. Searching online turned up no walkthroughs, only third-party plugins to Excel that cost in excess of $40. Not wanting to cost my employer money to perform this task, I kept working on it. Finally found a similar solution on this page (credit where credit is due) from an "Anne Troy":

http://forums.techguy.org/business-applications/139190-merging-tables-access.html

Here is the walkthrough, in my own words. Hopefully this is useful to somebody out there - I'm hoping Google picks it up in its search results to help others out there with this same challenge.

Make sure both tables are in the same Workbook in different Sheets.

Step One: Add rows from new sheet that don’t already exist in the Master

1. Sort the Master sheet in ascending order by the identifying column
2. Sort the new sheet in ascending order by the identifying column
3. Define a name for the identifying column in the Master sheet – call it “Master”
4. Add a column to the right of the new sheet
5. Enter this formula, and copy down:
   =VLOOKUP(A2,Master,1,FALSE)
   Where A is the column that contains the identifying value and the first column in the Master area is the column with the same identifying value
6. Sort by the new column so that all #N/A values come together
7. Copy all the #N/A rows with only the identifying value into the Master sheet
8. Delete the new column with the formula result

Step Two: Merge data into Master

1. Re-sort the Master sheet in ascending order by the identifying column
2. Re-sort the new sheet in ascending order by the identifying column
3. Create a new column in the Master for the new data
4. Define a name for the table to be merged into the Master – call it “MyData”
5. Enter this formula in the new column in the Master and copy down:
   =IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(A2,MyData,2,FALSE)),"",VLOOKUP(A2,MyData,2,FALSE))
   Where A is the column that contains the identifying value in the Master and the second column in the new data sheet contains the data that needs to be merged in
6. Copy all cells, then paste over them using the Paste Special -> Values

Mission is the Essence of the Church

So many ecclesiologists (theologians who study the church) consider mission to be central to the identity of the church. Some go beyond centrality to say that it forms the very essence of the church, and that the church is nothing without mission. And yet, so many pastors read this, acknowledge it, and respond by making mission one of the programs of their church. They put somebody over the "Missions Department" and extol the virtues of the program that they've created. Missions IS the very identity of the church, not a program added to the identity of a church! In order to be missional in the way that ecclesiologists consider that it should be, a church must be completely transformed from the inside out and every pattern and form of the church re-evaluated in light of a missional calling.

Deeper Communication

I occasionally stop to think about communication more deeply, and I'm always blessed when I do. My life would by a lot different if I considered my own communication more deeply before I acted, but alas, that's rare. I'm much more apt to speak or act about a nanosecond after my mind comes up with a thought. The human mind can process and analyze quickly, but not that quickly.

I was just thinking about how what we do and say often communicates more than we intend. For example, what does it communicate when an athlete proudly gives thanks to God after a big sports win? Most Christians get really excited when they see this, as if it's "another win for the good guys in the world!" I fear, however, that what is really being communicated is "God was clearly on our side, and He gave us this win." What would we do if one day we heard an athlete say, "This was all fun, thanks so much for watching. But it was just a game, and I hope that today God gets the glory for the skills and abilities He's given everyone on both teams!"

We could carry this much further. What does it communicate when a big church builds a Christian school? That the church is trying to protect its children from the world? What if the church trained its families and then encouraged the children to go into public schools? Or, what are we really communicating when we talk in public using words like "ministry," "the lost," "unchurched," or "target groups"?

I'm curious about whether we're missing the point. Maybe we could learn a lot from a seminar that I heard somebody teach back in college entitled, "How to share the Gospel without being weird."

Changing Views of Community Development

As people began to take more of an interest in reducing and eliminating poverty around the globe, community developers initially used a very predictable method of planning their work. They would enter a community, look for what seemed broken or missing, and work to fix the problem or meet the need. Development workers created a variety of programs designed to meet various needs. A needs-based approach to learning about a community immediately leads to a programs-based plan for development. Many of the best-known community development organizations originated under this strategy, and they are still around because their approaches are easily recognizable.

After a while of doing these programs for the poor people in their communities, community development workers began to realize that their efforts did not seem to be helping people as much as they expected them to. Poor people still stayed poor, and it seemed like the same people came through their programs over and over again with little change. Moreover, they began to realize that the poor viewed their own situation of poverty in different terms than they did. The poor themselves seemed to define their own situations in terms of psychological and social brokenness, often referring to their own sense of brokenness on a deeper level than simply lacking some necessary thing. Critics of community development and of their “liberal” values showed evidence that the poor were simply becoming dependent on the handouts they were receiving. Community development workers could not argue with this evidence. What was occurring was a collision of two very different perspectives: the materially-rich had a “god-complex” while the materially-poor felt shame, and when the two came together, the perspectives of both sides were exacerbated. A new perspective on community development would be necessary to avoid this problem.

As community development workers began to see that their attempts at helping were really hurting, they came to realize that their very approach to the communities was causing the shame. When viewed from the perspective of the poor, handouts and programs designed to help became demeaning and embarrassing. A prideful father could not bear to watch a well-meaning and nicely-dressed church worker deliver a meal that he could not provide himself, so he would withdraw, further weakening the family. The community development workers had emphasized the family’s needs, increasing their shame. If they could find a way to reduce this sense of shame, they could work more closely with the family.

As this realization became more apparent, people began to look for the assets in a community. They realized that all communities had something of value to offer, and that sometimes it only took a little encouragement to bring it out. As community developers began to hunt for the assets in a community, they realized that it took much more work to discover them and then required a great deal of personalized attention to bring them out. For example, a single mom might struggle to provide for her kids, but after some conversations, a community worker realizes that she secretly loves baking and decorating desserts of all kinds and frequently scrapes together change to bake for her kids. The worker offers to pay her to provide desserts for a community meeting, where other community members watch in amazement as a lady they have known surprises them with a hidden talent. It isn’t long before an unemployed businessman decides that he can become an entrepreneur, and with some startup capital that the community worker helps him secure, he hires the single mom and a community bakery opens. In this scenario, two jobs have been created along with a new business that will both benefit the community and keep money in the community (a cake bought from Walmart will send money to Arkansas). This work, however, could not have been done with a program – it required a great deal of individual attention from a development worker.

Development and the Missional Church Convergence

Community development and missional church are both buzzwords today, although they are usually found in separate spheres of work. Even Christian community development workers rarely talk about missional church concepts or new models of church ministry, and even missional church workers rarely engage modern understandings of community development. In the early 20th century, Christians divorced spiritual ministry and so-called “social” ministry. The two spheres developed independently, but today they are beginning to listen and speak to each other, and there is a great opportunity for collaboration. After the split happened, community development began to grow and change as a field of work, continually incorporating new concepts and theories. The field of community development began to undergo some radical changes in basic perspective as secular development workers practiced and learned. Today, there is some interest in reconnecting the church with the field of community development, but in many situations, the church is attempting to reconcile with the old model of community development. My thesis is that as the understanding of community development changes from a needs- and program-based approach to an asset- and relationship-based approach, the church must also adapt its approach, for the missional church movement and the new views of community development fit together well.

As churches cultivate a developmental and Kingdom view of communities, they will realize their missional goals. There are three applications that come out of this type of view that should influence the missional church. First, God is already working in the community. He has been there since the beginning, and will be there long after we are gone. Therefore, the missional church must be humble about its presence in a community. Second, God is in the process of transforming all communities, including our own. We are just as much in need of community development as the people with whom we are trying to work, it’s just different types of development. Therefore, the missional church must be humble about asking God to transform it as well. Finally, it’s the Kingdom of God that brings transformation, not us. The Kingdom of God is defeating all of God’s enemies, and it is already present in part. Therefore, the missional church must be humble about its role in the work. In short, the missional church is called to do precisely as Micah 6:8 instructs: find the balance between justice and mercy while walking humbly with God.

Relationship-Based Development and the Missional Church

The new view of community development emphasizes that the proper response to poverty is not programs, but that it is relationships. Relationships provide the development worker with the proper posture from which to do his or her work, and for the missional church, relationships serve the same function. They provide the church worker or member with the basis for evangelism or holistic ministry. Missional churches recognize that holistic disciple-making is a relational process. It is only through relationships that truly holistic ministry can happen, because without relationships with individuals, many of the root issues cannot be addressed. For community development workers, while the old view of development would suggest that providing material goods is the solution to material poverty, the new view shows that it is often deeper issues that cause the material poverty. On the surface, an individual who can’t pay an electricity bill may be seen as someone with a problem of lacking money. Without a relationship, the solution would likely be seen as paying the bill. However, a relationship might reveal that the individual has never kept a job for more than a month because he compulsively steals from his employer at every opportunity. The answer to this is challenging and multi-faceted and does not involve paying the bill. Helping him walk through these issues can only be described as discipleship – the ultimate goal of missional churches.

Holistic disciple-making involves dealing with development on all fronts: across all domains of community development, up all levels of social justice, and in all areas of identity. A professional counselor once told me that her work had to involve all areas of my self: the spiritual, intellectual, emotional, physical, and social natures of my being were all interrelated. All of these fronts cannot be touched by large programs and large-group gatherings. As missional churches avoid programs and go for smaller-group and individually-tailored ministry opportunities, they have the ability to join the new views on community development and realize a holistic ministry that stretches across all fronts of poverty alleviation and spiritual nourishment at once.

Asset-Based Development and the Missional Church

The old view of community development begins with seeing a need and ends with creating a program that meets that need. This model builds something that people must come to in order to have their need met. This is strikingly similar to the attractional church model that the missional church movement seeks to move away from. On the contrary, the new view of community development encourages seeing the assets in a community and building relationships to encourage them and holistically meet them. This is very similar to the missional church model of going to meet people where they are. In most churches, people are asked to become members and then serve the church in various roles. The missional church model encourages people to remain where they are and use their skills and passions to serve outside the church. Therefore, the new view of community development and the new missional church model go hand in hand in terms of focusing on assets. The missional church can quickly adapt their model of ministry to a model of community development.

As the missional church goes to people where they are, bringing the Gospel, it can also go to people in poverty, meeting them where they are. Church members can seek to build relationships with people, knowing and understanding them better. As they begin to understand the assets that they have, they can do two things: first, they can encourage those assets and practice community development. Second, they can utilize those assets as a basis for the person’s new ministry in their own context.

Additionally, an assets-based view of development encourages going to the people rather than expecting them to come to us. Rather than seeking to invite people to church, an assets-based view would encourage the people to start a church right in their own apartment complex. It would recognize that they have assets that would be diluted or even discouraged if they joined the large church. A needs-based approach supports a basic modernist church viewpoint that the church has a cherished role in society as a provider of many services and functions, because it views the church as the fulfiller of many needs. That view would expect people to come to the church. However, recent experience has shown that they do not come – the church no longer is viewed in that role. If the church has the view that the community has assets to be utilized, however, the church would instead go to them. This is the heart of the missional shift.