Podcasts about Assimilation

This class explores the Torah's caution in Parshas Re'ei against adopting the ways of other nations, using the immigrant experience in America as a case study. The Rebbe teaches about the spiritual cost of assimilation, the mitzvah of outreach, and the special opportunity for return during Elul. https://www.torahrecordings.com/classes/by_parsha/005_devarim/004_reay/016

What is racism, really?

)O(Livestreamed: 07/05/2026Witches Betwixt is a community of queer witches & allies representing a wide variety of occult practices and spiritual paths. On Sundays (2pm ET) we livestream a 60+ minute weekly episode on our YouTube channel in which we discuss various topics through the lens of a queer witch. If you can't catch the livestream, you can listen to us on most major podcast streaming services. //COMMUNITY//Official Discord: https://discord.gg/JBERBjYrnc//OFFICIAL SITE//http://witchesbetwixt.com//SOCIAL MEDIA//Facebook: http://facebook.com/witchesbetwixtInstagram: @witchesbetwixt//MUSIC//"Magick" by The Charging StationSupport the show

Send us Fan MailSpain's border didn't bend—it collapsed.In the first edition of Outside The Wire, Aaron, Trent, and Peaches step beyond the usual Air Force Special Warfare conversation to examine the surge of migrants entering Ceuta from Morocco. Aaron breaks down the reported crossings, the Spanish court ruling affecting immediate returns, and why border enforcement decisions carry real humanitarian, financial, and cultural consequences.This is a blunt conversation about illegal immigration, assimilation, national sovereignty, media framing, and what the United States should learn from Europe's mistakes. No sanitized talking points. No pretending borders are optional.Links: OnesReady.comChapters: 00:00 - Purpose Over Motivation 01:05 - Welcome Outside The Wire 01:58 - Spain's Border Surge 03:29 - The Human and Financial Cost 04:18 - What the Videos Show 05:44 - The Media Framing Playbook 07:06 - When the Border Collapses 08:07 - Legal Immigration and Assimilation 09:19 - Spain's Cautionary Tale 10:13 - The Cost of Suicidal Empathy 12:37 - What Happens Next 13:26 - The Lesson for America 14:17 - Going Outside The WireSupport the showJoin this channel to get access to perks: HEREBuzzsprout Subscription page:  HERERegister for our Operator Training Summit:  OperatorTrainingSummit.comFind an Air Force Recruiter: AirForce.comCollabs:Ones Ready - OnesReady.com 18A Fitness - Promo Code:  ONESREADY ATACLete - Follow the URL (no promo code):  ATACLeteDanger Close Apparel - Promo Code:  ONESREADYDFND Apparel...

⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold Open: "No Justice, No Peace" 0:28 Welcome to Wake Up America — Five Years After "Trust the Science" 2:25 Today's Rundown: Ed Sheeran, the Fauci Files & Flock Cameras 4:55 Ed Sheeran Tells America to Relax About Six Pints 9:19 What the WHO Numbers Actually Say About Drinking 11:55 Industry Pamphlet vs. Government Chart — Who Do You Trust? 15:55 Whiskey, Cruise Ships & a Bottle Through Customs 17:55 Top Shelf vs. Bottom Shelf: Who's Still Buying Booze 21:55 Break — Coming Up: The Trial of Anthony Fauci 29:25 Rand Paul's Opening Statement: The Fauci Files 33:55 1,100 Pages: Private Doubt, Public Certainty 35:55 The DEFUSE Proposal & the Furin Cleavage Site 37:55 Did NIH Supervise the Research? "The Answer Is No" 39:55 "The Refusal to Admit Error Destroys Trust" 41:55 Austin Reacts: The "Fauci 5" & Fauci on Trump 43:55 Gain-of-Function & Wuhan: Where the Evidence Stands 49:55 Fauci's Own Statement: 38 Years Running NIAID 51:55 Fauci Invokes the Fifth Amendment 53:55 Section 192: The Contempt of Congress Warning 59:02 GUEST: Judge Andrew Napolitano, Judging Freedom 59:55 Can You Reject a Pardon? Pardons vs. the Fifth 1:01:55 Presidents Telling the DOJ Who to Prosecute 1:11:55 Todd Blanche's Confirmation & Prosecutorial Independence 1:13:55 "Take a Chainsaw to It" — The Flock Camera Clip 1:15:55 Congress, the Strikes & Who Owes Accountability 1:19:55 VAERS: 1.7 Million Adverse Events on the Record 1:21:46 Mini-Documentary: Nathan Hale 1:29:02 GUEST: Jack Codiga, Congressional Candidate From Charlotte 1:30:59 North Carolina Made Flock Get a License — Why That Matters 1:33:58 Guns, Principle & Filming the Camera on His Own Street 1:35:55 Charlotte Housing Prices & What Broke for Young Americans 1:42:36 Assimilation, Inherent Value & Closing Questions 1:47:59 Wrap-Up & New Sponsor Disclosure 1:52:11 Mini-Documentary: Nathan Hale (Full) THE FAUCI FILES JUST DROPPED Rand Paul just released more than 1,100 pages of Anthony Fauci's pandemic diary—and the man who told America to trust the science apparently spent plenty of time documenting his own fame. We break down the “Fauci 5,” the celebrity encounters, the private warnings about a possible engineered virus, and the questions Fauci now faces under subpoena. Then we get into Ed Sheeran's viral defense of British drinking culture, the federal government quietly abandoning its old drink limits, and why the real difference between a Friday night and a drinking problem cannot be calculated on a government chart. Judge Andrew Napolitano joins us to explain why Donald Trump's former personal attorney should not be placed in charge of the entire Justice Department. And congressional candidate Jack Codiga exposes the Flock cameras quietly recording where innocent Americans drive.

When the 7.8 magnitude earthquake tore through southeastern Turkey in 2023, the government posted that it would provide translation support in seven languages: Turkish, Arabic, Persian, English, Russian, German, and Pashto. Kurdish, spoken by fifteen million people in the affected region, was not on the list. Elderly Kurdish speakers cried out for help in their mother tongue and could not be understood. Women were afraid to speak Kurdish for fear of not being rescued. Two days later, the government shut down Twitter entirely. A Kurdish educator named Zara Mohammadi had already been jailed for ten years in Iran for the crime of teaching Kurdish to village children for free. Turkey had banned the letters q, w, and x for eighty-five years because they appeared in the Kurdish alphabet and not in Turkish. Today's guest is Sophia Smith Galer, author of *How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words*. We discuss how up to half of the world's 7,000 languages will disappear within the next century, and why this isn't natural attrition but the result of ten distinct weapons of linguicide that Smith Galer traces across the globe. We look at how the United States spent $180 million on revitalization since 2005, and how Ladino songs written inside Auschwitz document a language shift happening in real time, and why Smith Galer describes her own journey with her grandmother's dying language from the Italian Apennines as "palliative care."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can't stop comparing yourself to others, and treating it like a bad habit you should be able to quit only adds shame to the pile. Comparison is built into how humans figure out where they stand — it's the ruler your mind reaches for whenever a question has no objective measure. This episode reframes the whole problem: the goal isn't to silence comparison but to read it. The sting you feel is information, pointing at either a value that's genuinely yours or a borrowed metric you never actually chose — and learning to tell the two apart is the real work. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why comparing yourself is evidence you're a person, not evidence something is wrong with you Why the reflex is strongest on the parts of life that have no scoreboard — marriage, parenting, whether your work adds up How social media rigged an ancient instinct by pitting your whole life against everyone else's highlight reel What a 2014 study found about social media, upward comparison, and self-esteem — and why the evidence deserves honesty, not overclaiming The assimilation–contrast distinction: why the same success can inspire one person and flatten another A three-question framework — whose scoreboard, what's it pointing at, what's the smallest honest move — you can run in 90 seconds How realizing you don't want something can be one of the most freeing outcomes available Episode Timestamps [00:00] The four-second collapse: happy until you see someone else's life [01:15] Why you're wired to compare — and why willpower won't switch it off [02:30] Festinger's social comparison theory and the missing ruler [03:15] A story from the soccer field: feeling great until you get to know the other dads [05:00] Why it's worse now: a few hundred neighbors vs. thousands of highlight reels [06:30] The invisible price tag — debt, help, and unhappiness you never see [07:45] What the research actually says (and where it's honest to hedge) [08:45] Inspired or crushed? Assimilation, contrast, and the film Amadeus [10:40] Why "just stop comparing yourself" is useless and a little harmful [12:30] The three questions: scoreboard, signal, smallest honest move [14:30] Running the framework on career, marriage, and fitness [16:30] Three cautions so you don't misuse it [18:20] The 90-second practice for the week [19:40] Whose scoreboard are you playing on? — closing Episode Summary We tend to treat comparison as a personal weakness — something disciplined, well-adjusted people have supposedly grown out of. This episode starts by taking that weight off your shoulders. Comparing yourself to other people isn't a character flaw; it's evidence that you're human. Back in 1954, psychologist Leon Festinger laid out what he called social comparison theory: when there's no objective ruler for something, we reach for the nearest available one, which is other people. That's why comparison bites hardest exactly where it matters most and can least be measured — whether you're a good parent, whether your career adds up, whether your life means anything. Nobody agonizes over comparing their shoe size. They agonize over the things with no scoreboard. So if the reflex is this normal, why does it feel so much worse than it used to? Because the environment changed while the wiring didn't. For almost all of human history you compared yourself to a few hundred people whose whole lives you actually saw — the good mornings and the bad ones, the arguments, the ordinary Tuesdays. Now the comparison set is thousands of strangers, and you're not seeing their lives. You're seeing their highlight reels: the launch, not the eighteen months of doubt before it; the vacation, not the credit card statement after it. You're pitting your entire unedited life against the single best moment other people chose to publish. It was never a fair fight. Brett illustrates it with a moment from his own life — feeling genuinely good about working from home and being present for his kids, right up until a conversation with other dads at soccer practice made him wonder if he'd made the wrong call entirely. Nothing about his life had changed. Only the ruler had. There's real research here, handled with care. A 2014 study by Erin Vogel and colleagues, Social Comparison, Social Media, and Self-Esteem, found that heavier Facebook users tended to have lower self-esteem, with the link running specifically through upward comparison. The honest caveat: it's correlational, the effect runs both ways, and no single study settles it — but it lines up with what we already sense, that a steady diet of context-free upward comparison wears people down. The more interesting finding is that looking "up" doesn't automatically hurt. Psychologists distinguish assimilation ("that's possible, that could be me") from contrast ("that just proves how far behind I am"). Same person, same achievement, opposite effects. As the episode puts it, the sting isn't fixed — it has a dial, and the dial is your relationship with the comparison, not the comparison itself. That's why "just stop comparing yourself" is such bad advice. You can't — it's like telling someone to stop feeling hungry — and even if you could, you'd be throwing away real information. Envy is one of the most honest signals you have precisely because it slips past your rehearsed answers about what you're supposed to want and points at what you actually want and don't have. The move is to calibrate the instrument, not smash it. This is where the episode connects to building a clearer relationship with your own mind: instead of killing the signal, you read it with three questions. Whose scoreboard is this — did I ever choose this measure? What is the sting pointing at — a genuine value, or a borrowed metric? And what's the smallest honest move — one step toward it this week, or the quiet, freeing decision to stop keeping score? You can run it standing in your kitchen in about ninety seconds. The point isn't to feel less. It's to understand more — and to finally answer, for yourself, whose scoreboard you're actually playing on. Resources Mentioned Leon Festinger, "A Theory of Social Comparison Processes" (1954) — the foundational paper establishing that we evaluate ourselves against others when objective measures are missing. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. Vogel, Rose, Roberts & Eckles, "Social Comparison, Social Media, and Self-Esteem" (2014) — linked heavier Facebook use with lower self-esteem via upward comparison. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206–222. Amadeus (1984) — used as an illustration of contrast comparison, with Salieri undone by proximity to Mozart's genius. Mind & Inner Life pillar page — https://www.optyoumize.com/mind-inner-life?hsLang=en Frequently Asked Questions Why can't I stop comparing myself to others? Because comparison isn't a habit — it's a built-in way of measuring yourself when no objective ruler exists. Festinger's social comparison theory showed we use other people as a yardstick precisely for the questions that can't be measured directly, which is why it's strongest on the things we care about most. Is comparing yourself to others normal? Yes. It's standard human wiring, not a sign of insecurity or weakness. The episode's phrase is that you're "running standard human software." What varies isn't whether you compare, but whether you let an unexamined comparison run your mood and your decisions. Why does social media make comparison worse? It distorts the inputs. You're comparing your whole, unedited life — including everything nobody else can see — against other people's curated highlight reels. Research associates heavy upward comparison online with lower self-esteem, and you can never see the invisible debt, help, or unhappiness behind someone's polished image. What's the difference between healthy and unhealthy comparison? It's the difference between assimilation and contrast. Assimilation turns someone else's success into proof that something is possible for you and pulls you forward. Contrast turns the same success into evidence of how far behind you are and pushes you down. The comparison itself is neutral; your relationship to it decides the effect. How do I deal with envy of someone's success? Treat the envy as data, not shame. Ask whose scoreboard you're using, whether it points to a value that's genuinely yours or a borrowed metric, and what the smallest honest move is. If it's real, take one small step toward it. If it's borrowed, consciously stop keeping score on it. How do I know if a goal is actually mine or something I absorbed? Look underneath the sting. If it points to something you genuinely care about and have been neglecting, it's a real value worth one honest step. If you realize you don't actually want the thing — you just don't want to look behind — it's a borrowed metric, and putting it down is a relief, not a failure. Keep Exploring If this episode resonated, these are worth your time: Mind & Inner Life (pillar page) — The home base for building a steadier relationship with your own thoughts and self-evaluation → https://www.optyoumize.com/mind-inner-life?hsLang=en Money & Financial Wellbeing (pillar page) — Because so much comparison is really about borrowed scoreboards of money and status → https://www.optyoumize.com/money-financial-wellbeing?hsLang=en Life Architecture — How the seven pillars fit together into a whole, intentional life → https://www.optyoumize.com/life-architecture?hsLang=en Enjoyed This Episode? The best way to support optYOUmize is to subscribe and leave a review — it takes about two minutes and makes a real difference in helping more people find the show. Apple Podcasts · Spotify · Amazon Music · YouTube Leave a Review →

Nicholas Lemann is the Pulitzer-Moore Professor of Journalism at Columbia University and a staff writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of several books, including Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing, Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream, and most recently, Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries. Greg speaks with Nicholas about Returning, his memoir tracing five generations of his German Jewish family in New Orleans. Nicholas reflects on how the pursuit of acceptance led many German Jews to downplay their Jewish identity, distance themselves from Eastern European Jewish immigrants, and oppose Zionism, before describing his own gradual return to Jewish tradition and community later in life. From there, the conversation broadens into a discussion about the changing role of identity and institutions in American life. Greg and Nicholas explore the decline of religious and ethnic identity, the growing secularization of academia and journalism, and how changing ideas of merit, belonging, and fairness have shaped debates over standardized testing, affirmative action, and elite college admissions. Finally, they discuss Transaction Man, examining the rise and fall of the “company man,” the shift from stakeholder-oriented corporations to shareholder primacy, and Nicholas's argument that today's more individualistic, network-driven society has transformed how people find purpose, stability, and community. unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM. Episode Quotes: The hidden cost assimilation 13:35: Jewish assimilation, like my family's story, tends to involve offloading many parts of traditional Jewish observance. Ethnic and religious culture can be a very beautiful and enriching community to live in. And it is for me today. But if you start watering it down, after a certain point, it kind of loses...It doesn't have that much left, and it doesn't fulfill the needs that it used to. It doesn't have the sense of community that it used to. It doesn't have the hold between generations that it used to. A culture doesn't need an enemy to disappear 14:21: We all know why there's almost no German Jews in Germany. That's one story. But there's really almost no coherent German Jewish culture in America, and that's for a whole different set of reasons, which is just lightening what it meant to be Jewish and live as a Jew to the point that it just didn't hold people anymore. The tradeoff between acceptance and identity 11:08: Eastern European Jews made us very uncomfortable. And so we felt that if they came to America in very large numbers, it would kind of make things worse for us 'cause it would unleash prejudice. And with Zionism, Zionism can be defined in a lot of different ways. But if you define it as a sense of peoplehood, you know, we are a people, we are a tribe, even if we don't have a nation state, we are a de facto nation, and we're all in it together in common cause and have a primary loyalty to each other. What I just said, that's exactly what the German Jews didn't think. That's... I was raised not to think. So, we were supposed to be Americans with a light ethno-religious identity, but we were Americans. We didn't have dual loyalty. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Moses Mendelssohn Pittsburgh Platform Lillian Hellman Zionism Antisemitism Felix Frankfurter James Tobin SAT Jack Welch Adolf A. Berle Louis Brandeis Peter Drucker Michael C. Jensen Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure Werner Erhard Reid Hoffman Guest Profile: Faculty Profile at Columbia Journalism School Profile at Tulane University LinkedIn Profile Wikipedia Page Guest Work: Amazon Author Page Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing Transaction Man: Traders, Disrupters, and the Dismantling of Middle-Class America American Democracy: 21 Historic Answers to 5 Urgent Questions The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America By Nicholas Lemann - Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War The New Yorker Articles Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Democratic socialism is gaining influence across America, but how did it move from the political fringe into the mainstream? Professor Jeffrey Lax joins The P.A.S. Report to expose the forces driving the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), anti-Americanism, and the growing battle over America's future. As the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) expand their influence and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani reshapes the political conversation, many Americans are asking how these ideas gained so much traction. CUNY Professor Jeffrey Lax joins Professor Nick Giordano for an in-depth discussion on the transformation of higher education, immigration, assimilation, constitutional government, and why many political leaders continue to underestimate this growing movement. From the collapse of economic literacy in the education system and the debate over capitalism versus socialism to the spread of anti-American ideology, this episode examines the cultural, political, and institutional changes fueling one of the most consequential political shifts affecting America's future. The conversation also explores the growing influence of the DSA, the constitutional challenges facing the United States, and why civic education remains essential to preserving a free society. What You'll Learn In This Episode: The Progressive Mainstream: How democratic socialism moved from a fringe movement into America's political institutions. The DSA's Growing Influence: Why the Democratic Socialists of America continue expanding their footprint in major American cities. The Failure of Education: How higher education, faculty unions, and declining civic education shape modern political ideology and weaken economic literacy. Immigration, Assimilation & National Identity: Why immigration policy, cultural assimilation, and national identity remain central to America's future. Defending the Constitution: Why capitalism, constitutional government, and civic education remain essential to preserving American liberty. Topics Covered: Democratic Socialism, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Zohran Mamdani, Jeffrey Lax, CUNY Professor, Socialism vs Capitalism, Higher Education, Civic Education, US Constitution, Anti-Americanism, Immigration, Assimilation, Ro Khanna, Israel, Iron Dome, Economic Literacy, Faculty Unions

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 4 The Afterlife and Rebirth, pg. 128This episode is also available as a blog post at https://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com/2026/07/20/the-psychic-being-has-periods-of-assimilation-between-successive-incarnations/Video presentations, interviews and podcast episodes are allavailable on the YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@santoshkrinsky871More information about Sri Aurobindo can be found at www.aurobindo.net  The US editions and links to e-book editions of SriAurobindo's writings can be found at Lotus Press www.lotuspress.com#Sri Aurobindo #The Mother #yoga #integral yoga #spirituality #soul #psychic being #reincarnation #rebirth #psychic world

In der letzten Folge vor der Sommerpause ist Taha von Kenitra ist zu Gast bei Musik ist Trumpf. Kenitra, benannt nach Tahas Heimatstadt in Marokko, ist eine Band aus Münster deren neue Single „Go home“ es Till & Henning sehr angetan hat. Mit Taha reden sie über Musik, Heimat, Integration und Assimilation…und die Musik, die Taha geprägt hat. Die Songs zur Folge: 1) Amsterdam / Jaques Brel2) I think of you / Rodriguez3) Hold on / Angus & Julia Stone4) I / Kendrick Lamar5) Ya Rayah / Rachid Taha Sponsor:Der Guitar Summit 2026 findet auch dieses Jahr in Mannheim statt vom 25.9.-27.9!Workshops, Masterclasses, Konzerte und eine groß Auswahl von Ausstellern warten auf Euch! Auf der Rockantenne Stage gibt es viele Interviews mit Stars & Menschen aus der Gitarrenwelt. Natürlich ist Till auch wieder am Start mit Till & Tone und Musik ist Trumpf! Sichert euch jetzt das 3 Tagesticket mit 10% Rabatt: geht einfach zu www.guitarsummit.de (http://www.guitarsummit.de/) und bucht dort das 3 Tages-Ticket. Dann den Code TRUMPF10 eingeben und 10% mit Musik ist Trumpf sparen! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How should the church engage with culture? Assimilation? Isolation? No, I think a third way is best, and I talk about it in this episode.

How should the church engage with culture? Assimilation? Isolation? No, I think a third way is best, and I talk about it in this episode.

"The Settlement Cook Book" was published in 1901 and quickly became a kind of guidebook for Jews who had come to America. In her new book, "Recipes for the Melting Pot: The Lives of The Settlement Cook Book," author Nora Rubel delivers a story of immigration, culture, and assimilation — all themes deeply relevant today. She tells stories of food, noting that foods tied to Jewish culture (bagels, pickles) were not necessarily Jewish foods in other parts of the world. We discuss the lessons that come from a cookbook that is now 125 years old. In studio:Nora L. Rubel, Ph.D., author of "Recipes for the Melting Pot: The Lives of The Settlement Cook Book," and Elizabeth Denio Professor in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester---Connections is supported by listeners like you. Head to our donation page to become a WXXI member today, support the show, and help us close the gap created by the rescission of federal funding.---Connections airs every weekday from noon-2 p.m. Join the conversation with questions or comments by phone at 1-844-295-TALK (8255) or 585-263-9994, email, Facebook or Twitter. Connections is also livestreamed on the WXXI News YouTube channel each day. You can watch live or access previous episodes here.---Do you have a story that needs to be shared? Pitch your story to Connections.

You can be successful on paper and still feel unfulfilled in your leadership. Many high-capacity women leaders are thriving in environments that reward performance while quietly suppressing perspective, intuition, and authentic influence.  Dr. Natalie Pickering is a psychologist, TEDx speaker, and executive coach who helps women in leadership move from autopilot to agency and from performing to becoming. She has worked with hundreds of leaders, teams, and organizations around the world committed to flourishing workplaces and leadership.  Her new book, Leading Becomes You: A Real-World Framework for Leading from the Inside Out, guides leaders into the deeper, human work beneath strategy-- helping them shed the stories that drain them, reclaim the values that anchor them, and inhabit leadership in a sustainable, soulful way that is unmistakably their own.    In this conversation, she shares why many women leaders find themselves adapting to systems that can't keep pace with their growth, and how reclaiming identity clarity can transform the way they lead.   What you will learn from this episode: Why many women leaders feel stuck despite being highly capable and successful. How organizational systems can contribute to burnout, disengagement, and self-silencing. The role identity clarity plays in sustainable leadership and long-term fulfillment.   "Many women are carrying this unprocessed debris from their history, whether that's toxic leadership, relational pressure, chronic stress." – Natalie Pickering   Topics Covered: 01:35 – Why high-capacity women leaders often outpace the emotional maturity of the systems around them 04:15 – How women gradually adapt to unsupportive workplaces without realizing it 05:12 – Reframing burnout: What organizations may be doing to create it 06:08 – Natalie's definition of burnout and the three signs leaders should watch for 08:35 – The inspiration behind Leading Becomes You and Natalie's research-driven framework 09:45 – Understanding the Identity Clarity and Connection Matrix 11:05 – The Four A's: Awareness, Acceptance, Assimilation, and Authentic Activation 14:05 – The balance sheet leaders must use to separate personal challenges from organizational dysfunction 17:40 – What to examine when you feel stuck in your role or career 18:55 – The connection between values misalignment and leadership fulfillment 20:05 – Natalie's Identity-First Leadership Assessment and how it helps leaders gain clarity bit.ly/IFLSelfAssessment    21:00 – The hidden cost of leading without identity clarity—and why self-erosion matters   Key Takeaways: "You can't burn out if you weren't on fire." — Natalie Pickering "I want every leader to have their own approach, their own identity, instead of borrowing someone else's leadership story." — Natalie Pickering "The hidden cost of leading without identity clarity is self-erosion." — Natalie Pickering   Ways to Connect with Natalie Pickering: Assessment: bit.ly/IFLSelfAssessment Book: Leading Becomes You: A Real-World Framework for Leading from the Inside Out Website: https://www.becominginstitute.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnataliepickering/    Ways to Connect with Sarah E. Brown: Website: https://www.sarahebrown.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrSarahEBrown LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahebrownphd To speak with her: bookachatwithsarahebrown.com  

China's new ethnic unity law has come into effect. Rights groups and activists overseas say it will further shrink the rights of minorities. Will the law help forge a shared national identity, as Beijing says? Or is it a step towards forced assimilation? In this episode: Einar Tangen, Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation Zumretay Arkin, Vice President, World Uyghur Congress William Yang, Senior Analyst for Northeast Asia, International Crisis Group Host: Mohammed Jamjoom Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

What if the biggest political threat facing the church is not opposition, but formation? Brian Drinkwine returns to The Bad Roman Podcast to discuss his new book, Kingdom Over Empire: Recovering the Gospel from Political Captivity. Drawing from his own journey through conservative evangelical politics, Brian explains how empire shapes what Christians fear, whom they treat as enemies, and where they place their hope. This is not a call to switch parties. It is a call to recover undivided allegiance to Jesus. They dig into: The six ways empire disciples us Why enemy-love leaves no room for political loopholes The social cost of leaving partisan identity Constantine and the transformation of the cross into a symbol of conquest Seven Mountains teaching, the Cyrus narrative, and the slow assimilation of the church into political power Can Christians defend cruelty because their side gets results? Can the Kingdom of a crucified King be advanced through domination, fear, and coercion? Let's talk about it.  

Jason talks about Congressman Emmer's comments at a Town Hal where he suggested immigrants should assimilate or "go the hell back where they came from." Is that a dog whistle? Or is there a fair point in there somewhere?

Friday 3pm Hour: Jason talks about a lawsuit against Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over inadequate MPD staffing. Is that the best way to fix the problem? Then he shares some audio from Congressman Tom Emmer where he says that immigrants who don't assimilate need to "go the hell back where they came from." How should we define assimilation? Is this just a dog whistle, or is there a point in there?

What happened to Tom Emmer? Chad plays audio from a speech from Emmer yesterday and reacts.

Welcome to The Divinity Plague, our brand-new Silt Verses RPG mini-campaign with a whole new world and cast of characters to meet. Join Drew, Miah, Lauren, and Emma as they create a team of Custodians working for B.I.A.S.E.D. (the Bureau for the Investigation and Assimilation of Stray Deities), tasked with tracking down rogue gods and cleaning up the devastation they leave behind… for a god must feed. Meet Pearl, a feral devotee of the mercurial river god known as the Trawler Man. Gary, a kind and self-sacrificing monk of the Pox Martyr. Sisna, a bloodthirsty hunter and harbinger of the Beast That Stalks in the Tall Grass. And Lune, a whimsical woman and worshipper of her childhood guardian, Mr. Howl. Plus, David shares a bit about The Silt Verses RPG and what listeners can expect from this strange world of folk horror, faith, and monstrous divinity. Let's dive in.-------If you liked this episode, please leave a rating and review to help us spread the word and don't forget to share with your friends. We love friends!Subscribe to our Patreon: Head to our Patreon for bonus content you won't want to miss out on. Support the Show: Follow us on social media, buy some merch, support us on Twitch, and check out our Wiki by heading to our DirectMe Profile. Join us on Discord! Come hang out with the cast on The Monster's Playbook Discord server where we can discuss the latest episodes, trade theories, answer questions, and get to know you, our listeners, a little better. -------Cast:David as the Master of CeremoniesLauren as Lune Ward (Mr. Howl)Drew as Gary Fletcher (Pox Martyr)Emma as Pearl Frogsong (Trawler Man)Miah as Sisna Liora (The Beast That Stalks in the Tall Grass)This episode was edited by Miah and Lauren.Cover art by DavidTheme song and incidental music from Epidemic Sound.

Eric Metaxas is an author, speaker, and host of The Eric Metaxas Show. He believes America cannot move forward unless we remember where we came from.In this episode of The Resilient Show, Chad sits down with Eric to talk about the American Revolution, the Christian foundation of our country, the courage of our Founding Fathers, and why the story of America is not just for history books, it's vital knowledge for every American.So why does it seem the core of our history has been rewritten?Eric breaks down why the views of the current political landscape are not what this country was founded on, why virtue and faith were essential to the founding, and why this moment in America requires courage, conviction, and a willingness to fight for what is true.Links discussed in todays episode:Revolution: https://ericmetaxas.com/books/revolution/Socrates In The City: https://socratesinthecity.com/Eric Metaxas Show: https://ericmetaxas.com/Follow Eric on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/ericmetaxas00:56 Welcome Eric Metaxas02:13 Eric's New Book: Revolution03:14 Why Americans Must Know Their Story08:34 The Clash of Worldviews Behind the Revolution13:02 America Has Forgotten Who We Are17:01 The Christian Foundation of America's Founding24:24 The Founders Signed a Death Sentence32:34 George Washington, Prayer, and Providence37:32 Faith Must Be Lived Out43:57 Freedom Is Not Normal47:42 A Republic, If You Can Keep It53:57 Immigration, Assimilation, and America's Future01:01:04 Eric's Biggest Takeaway From Writing Revolution01:11:30 Closing Thoughts and Where to Find Eric——Stay up-to-date with all things Resilient by subscribing to our Resilient Times Newsletter: https://resilienttimes.substack.comRESILIENT:Follow Us On Patreon: ⁠https://patreon.com/theresilientshowFollow Us On Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/resilientshowFollow Us On Twitter:⁠ ⁠https://twitter.com/resilientshowFollow Us On TikTok:⁠ ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@resilientshowLIVE RESILIENT STORE:https://shop.theresilientshow.comFollow Chad: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/chadrobo_officialhttps://x.com/ChadRoboSPONSORS:Smith & Wesson: ⁠⁠https://www.smith-wesson.com⁠⁠Vortex Optics: ⁠https://vortexoptics.com⁠Gatorz Eyewear: ⁠⁠https://www.gatorz.com⁠⁠Allied Wealth: ⁠https://alliedwealth.com⁠BioPro+: ⁠⁠https://www.bioproteintech.com/CHAD30⁠⁠BioXCellerator: ⁠https://www.bioxcellerator.com⁠Core Medical: https://coremedicalgrp.com/chadpodcastcmg------The Resilient Show is a proud supporter of military and first responder communities in partnership with ⁠Mighty Oaks Foundation⁠.

Today's Christians need a reminder that America's culture is not morally neutral. It's working against God and His truth. And nowhere is that influence more evident than with our children and young people. Today's culture wants to strip away their biblical values, reprogram them with worldly beliefs, and then assimilate them into the secular machine.  Looking back into history, Daniel and his three friends were put in a similar situation, but they were able to resist assimilation. What are the powerful influences pushing against our young people today, and how can we help them stay devoted to God?

The Rebbe addresses concerns about using the local language in publications, explaining that reaching Jews in their spoken language is necessary to draw them closer to Torah and mitzvos. He clarifies that language use does not inherently lead to assimilation, especially in America. https://www.torahrecordings.com/rebbe/igroskodesh/008/001/2249

Equity work in nonprofits requires more than diversifying leadership pipelines—it calls for organizations to examine how workplace culture, decision-making structures, hiring practices, and everyday interactions continue to reflect broader systems of inequity. Despite our current environment of backlash, these are issues that nonprofits need to continue to grapple with. This episode of the podcast Nonprofit Mission: Impact revisits conversations about equity, inclusion, and power in the nonprofit sector, exploring how broader societal systems show up inside nonprofit organizations. Through reflections from a variety of guests, Carol Hamilton and her guests: ·      Examine the emotional toll of assimilation and code-switching, ·      Explore the ways organizational culture often undermines equity efforts even when intentions are good. ·      Highlight practical pathways forward. These practical pathways include: ·      deep listening to communities, ·      rethinking hiring and leadership pipelines, ·      embedding equity into organizational strategy rather than treating it as separate work, and ·      cultivating cultures where people can show up more authentically. Throughout the episode, Carol Hamilton and her guests emphasize that change requires both systemic attention and everyday interpersonal choices that help people feel seen, heard, and valued. Episode Highlights Time-Stamped Highlights 00:00 — Why Equity Work Still Matters 02:17— Nonprofits Reflect the Larger Culture 05:00— Understanding the Systems We Inherit 07:30— Representation, Power, and Listening to Communities 13:00— The Emotional Toll of Assimilation and Code Switching 17:00— Why Diversity Without Cultural Change Fails 21:18— The Hidden Cost of Equity Work 24:00— Reimagining Executive Search and Leadership Pipelines 26:24— Embedding Equity Into Strategy and Leadership 30:29— Building Communities of Support 31:46— Creating the Future Through Everyday Actions About your podcast host: Carol Hamilton, principal of Grace Social Sector Consulting, helps nonprofits become more strategic and effective through inclusive strategic planning, evaluation design, and organizational assessment. With over 30 years of experience, she brings a practical, human-centered approach that helps organizations align around clear priorities and take meaningful action toward their mission. When she is not working with nonprofits to improve their strategy and alignment, you can find her reading a good book, making diary comics, having a dance party in the kitchen, swimming, biking or kayaking on the Anacostia River.   Be in Touch: ✉️ Subscribe to Carol's newsletter at Grace Social Sector Consulting and receive the Common Mistakes Nonprofits Make In Strategic Planning And How To Avoid Them

Europe's Migration Crisis has reached a breaking point, and the Belfast riots exposed a reality that political leaders can no longer ignore. As governments blame social media, misinformation, and public frustration, millions of citizens across Europe are asking a different question: What happens when governments stop listening to their own people? The attempted decapitation attack in Belfast serves as the catalyst for a much larger conversation about mass migration, immigration policy, assimilation, national identity, censorship, and the growing divide between European governments and the people they govern. This episode examines why trust in institutions continues to collapse, why anti-establishment parties continue to surge, and why many citizens believe political leaders spent years ignoring obvious warning signs while dismissing legitimate concerns as racism, extremism, or misinformation. What You'll Learn In This Episode: Why the Belfast riots represent a broader European backlash against mass migration policies How assimilation failures and parallel societies fuel growing social and political tensions Why many Europeans believe governments police speech more aggressively than they protect public safety How political elites use misinformation narratives, censorship, and social pressure to control public debate Why the crisis unfolding across Europe serves as a warning for the United States and other Western nations From the Henry Nowak case to the response of Northern Ireland's political leadership, this episode connects the dots between immigration policy, cultural cohesion, government legitimacy, and the dangerous consequences that emerge when leaders stop listening to the people they represent. Topics covered: Europe's Migration Crisis, Belfast Riots, Michelle O'Neill, Henry Nowak, Northern Ireland, Mass Migration, Immigration Policy, Assimilation Failures, No-Go Zones, Parallel Societies, Free Speech Censorship, Social Media, Administrative State, Government Legitimacy, Western Civilization.

Why are people across the Western world increasingly rejecting official explanations?This week's Sequel Sunday follows three very different stories that may actually be connected:• The Belfast riots and growing immigration backlash across Europe• California election rules that continue to raise confidence questions• The growing cracks in the Housing First narrative as cities report empty housing units while homelessness continues to riseThe question isn't whether every official explanation is wrong.The question is what happens when ordinary people stop believing explanations that don't match what they think they can see.From immigration and public services, to election confidence, to homelessness policy, Chad examines why public trust breaks down and what happens when people begin looking elsewhere for answers.Call or Text:252-CHAD-LAWChapters:00:00 Cold Open02:12 Show Intro03:15 Belfast Riots & The Question Underneath07:48 The Race Trap12:43 Crime, Assimilation & Public Burden18:27 The UK Commentator Mistake23:31 Who Can Successfully Live With Us?26:04 California's Election Rules29:52 Signature Matching Explained34:18 The X Signature Problem37:22 Election Confidence vs Election Fraud40:51 Housing First Cracks44:12 Empty Apartments, Full Sidewalks48:26 Oregon's Housing Experiment53:31 You Cannot Apartment Your Way Out Of Fentanyl57:18 When The Official Story Stops Working01:01:20 Reagan Reminder01:04:14 Sign-Off#CommonSenseWithChadLaw #ChadLaw #SequelSunday #Immigration #CaliforniaPolitics #ElectionIntegrity #Homelessness #HousingFirst #Politics #CurrentEvents

In this episode of The Right Side: As America approaches her 250th birthday, Doug Billings explores a question that goes far beyond citizenship and paperwork: What does it truly mean to become an American?Doug examines assimilation, American identity, civic responsibility, constitutional principles, and the values that have united generations of Americans. Is America simply a place to live, or is it a shared commitment to liberty, faith, self-government, and personal responsibility?A thoughtful conversation about citizenship, culture, national identity, and the future of the American experiment.Subscribe to Doug's YouTube Channel: @TheRightSideDougBillingsContribute to his show at: www.DougBillings.us #AmericanIdentity #Citizenship #Assimilation #America250 #Patriotism #Constitution #AmericanValues #Immigration #CivicResponsibility #Liberty #Freedom #SelfGovernment #DougBillings #TheRightSide #Podcast #fypSupport the show

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What if the silence in your meetings has nothing to do with confidence and everything to do with culture? Organizational psychologist Neelu Kaur joins Lori Adams-Brown to decode the invisible operating systems shaping how professionals communicate, advocate for themselves, and lead across cultures and organizational hierarchies. IN THIS EPISODE:   - What the "self-trust recession" is and why it matters for global leaders right now   - The paradox at the heart of corporate America: individualistic society, yet over-indexed workplaces   - Why "just speak up" is incomplete advice when power dynamics are involved   - The Abilene Paradox: how teams end up agreeing to decisions nobody actually wants   - The difference between assimilation and adaptability at work and why organizations are getting it wrong ABOUT NEELU KAUR: Neelu Kaur is a global keynote speaker, organizational psychologist, and author of Be Your Own Cheerleader: An Asian and South Asian Woman's Cultural, Psychological, and Spiritual Guide to Self-Promote at Work. She partners with Fortune 500 companies to build transformative leadership cultures, holds a Master's in Social and Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, and is a certified NLP master practitioner. TIMESTAMPS:   00:00 - Introduction and Neelu's cross-cultural background (India to the US)   04:00 - The self-trust recession: outsourcing inner authority in the age of AI   08:00 - The I vs. We paradox in corporate America   12:00 - Assimilation vs. adaptability in hiring and onboarding   18:00 - Psychological safety and cultural assessments in executive teams   22:00 - Inclusion at work events: safety, restraint, and belonging   26:00 - Speed culture vs. strategic depth: the cost of always being on autopilot   36:00 - The Abilene Paradox and how groupthink silences the room Join us for the exclusive bonus episode on Patreon with Neelu. FIND NEELU KAUR AT:   Website: https://www.neelukaur.com   Book: Be Your Own Cheerleader (available where books are sold) Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode. Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it actually feel like to walk into your church for the very first time? In this episode of the Timothy Project Podcast, Chad Hunsberger sits down with Liz Cuenin, Minister of Membership and Assimilation at Dawson Baptist Church, to talk about creating a church culture where guests feel seen, welcomed, and connected. From parking lot signage and greeter teams to membership classes and one-on-one pastoral conversations, Liz shares practical wisdom on helping people move from first-time visitor to fully engaged church member. The conversation explores why hospitality matters deeply in ministry, how churches of any size can improve guest assimilation, and why a clear membership process strengthens the health and unity of the local church. Whether you serve on staff at a large church or pastor a small congregation with limited resources, this episode offers thoughtful, actionable encouragement for building a church where people truly feel known.

Tom Bilyeu joins James Smith to discuss how broken the modern economy really is. The host of Impact Theory and co-founder of Quest Nutrition argues that inflation is theft, that you cannot save your way to success anymore, and that elites are quietly funneling wealth from the working class. He explains: ◼️ Why a balanced budget changes every policy argument ◼️ How property markets get fixed by deregulation, not taxes ◼️ Why men should be encouraged to go hard in the paint ◼️ How AI is shrinking headcount while multiplying output ◼️ Why paying down debt can quietly beat the stock market

On this milestone 100th episode of The Alan Sanders Show, we break down the shocking White House gunfire incident, rising tensions with Iran and the future of the Abraham Accords, explosive Minnesota election fraud allegations and why assimilation remains critical to fixing America's immigration crisis. We also honor our fallen heroes this Memorial Day with reflections on service, sacrifice, preserving the nation they defended and the backstory of play Taps. From national security threats to cultural division and election integrity, Alan delivers straight talk on the biggest stories shaping our Republic. Tune in for unfiltered analysis, personal insight, and a powerful call to remember what truly makes America exceptional. Please take a moment to rate and review the show and then share the episode on social media. You can find me on Facebook, X, Instagram, GETTR, TRUTH Social, TikTok, YouTube and Rumble by searching for The Alan Sanders Show. And, consider becoming a sponsor of the show by visiting my Patreon page!

Aaron Renn sits down with Seth Barron, Associate Editorial Page Editor at the New York Post and author of Weaponized: The Left's Capture and Destruction of America's Sacred Institutions. They discuss how cherished American myths have been twisted to weaponize key institutions — policing, borders, public safety, housing, education, and civic life itself.From “defund the police” and anarcho-tyranny in New York City to open borders, the erosion of assimilation, and the battle over American identity, this conversation reveals how the left uses institutions as tools of political power.CHAPTERS:(00:00 - Introduction)(01:36 - What "Weaponized" Really Means) (03:45 - The Left's War on Policing & Public Safety)  (09:20 - Anarcho-Tyranny in NYC Under Mamdani) (15:10 - Police Brutality Myths vs Reality) (18:40 - Why the Right Lacks a Competing Moral Vision) (22:15 - Think Globally vs Think Locally) (28:50 - Immigration, Borders & the Attack on Citizenship) (36:55 - American Identity & the End of Assimilation) (43:20 - Israel, Palestine & the Left's Broader Agenda) GUEST LINKS:

Immigrants or Invaders? Deportation or Citizenship?Traitors to the country or caring socialists?Assimilation or Culture bearers?You might be surprised what the Bible says about immigration. This episode started out as just a reading of the book of Numbers, but something told me that I needed to talk about these verses a little more. I hope this makes you re-evaluate your stance on politics and immigration and I hope you know that God wants you to help protect your country, your freedom, and the future for your children.#immigration #massmigration #islam #culturalJihad #invasion #numbers #moses #sojourner #strangerintheLand

In this episode of That's So Hindu, Mat McDermott speaks with Neha Suratran and Saahas Kaul about their experiences addressing anti-Indian sentiment in their community of Frisco, Texas. They discuss the rise of misinformation on social media, the role of political rhetoric, and the importance of community advocacy. The conversation also touches on the complexities of assimilation and cultural identity for immigrants in the US, emphasizing the need for understanding and positive interactions among diverse communities.TakeawaysNeha and Saahas felt compelled to speak out against misinformation.The demographic shift in Frisco has led to misconceptions about the Indian community.Misinformation is often perpetuated through social media and political agendas.Community support was evident during the council meeting where Neha and Saahas spoke.Many individuals making anti-Indian videos are not from the local community.The rise in anti-Indian sentiment is linked to broader political trends.Assimilation should not mean losing one's cultural identity.The Indian community is gaining confidence in advocating for themselves.Positive community interactions can help dismantle biases.Bigotry is taught, and exposure to diversity can help unlearn it.Chapters00:00 Introduction to the Conversation02:59 Community Response to Anti-Indian Sentiment10:11 The Role of Social Media in Misinformation17:04 Political Influences and Rhetoric22:39 Assimilation and Cultural Identity27:32 Empowering the Community through AdvocacyKeywordsanti-Indian sentiment, misinformation, social media, community advocacy, assimilation, cultural identity, political rhetoric, H1B visas, demographic shifts, youth activism Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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In Episode 477 of The Andrew Parker Show, Andrew Parker tackles one of today's most controversial debates: when does calling out extremism become “bigotry” — and when is it simply telling the truth?Andrew discusses radical Islamism, terrorism, immigration policy, assimilation into American culture, fraud concerns in Minnesota, and the importance of defending Western democratic values. He examines the difference between factual criticism and harmful stereotypes while arguing for accountability, civic responsibility, and preservation of the American constitutional system.This episode explores difficult but timely questions surrounding national identity, immigration, public policy, and cultural cohesion in modern America.Support the showThe Andrew Parker Show - Politics, Israel & The Law.  Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and X. Subscribe to our email list at www.theandrewparkershow.comCopyright © 2026 The Andrew Parker Show - All Rights Reserved. 

The return of "What About?" Wednesdays! Text us your questions for apologist and pastor Robby Lashua!As we approach the month of May, a momentous shift is about to take place for students moving from high school and towards college and career.  Students will graduate from high school and, for many, from the direct oversight of Dad and Mom on a daily basis as they head to university, the military, trade school, or a job.So, how can we know that Christian high school students will remain engaged within the spiritual disciplines that will keep them walking a healthy course in pursuit of Christ.We can't.But, what we can do is work to be certain that students are involved, and truly invested, in a youth ministry -- from middle school, high school, and college -- that will incite a true love of discipleship in their lives.Today, we spend time talking with two student ministries pastors from Palmcroft Church -- George Brown, the pastor of College and Assimilation, and Jacob Van Gysel, the pastor of High School ministry -- as they discuss moving young people away from entertainment in youth ministry and towards genuine, heartfelt engagement.The Rooted article that serves as the jumping off point for our conversation, "Don't Entertain Teenagers, Disciple Them", can be found here.To learn about Palmcroft Church, please follow this link.To learn specifically about Palmcroft High School Ministry, click here.To find out about Palmcroft College Ministry, please click on this link. "Kingdom Culture Conversations" is a podcast created by Northwest Christian School in Phoenix, Arizona.For more information on Northwest Christian School, visit:  https://www.ncsaz.org/To reach out to Geoff Brown, please email gbrown@ncsaz.org or you can reach him by cell phone:  (623)225-5573.

This week, we discuss agents taking over at Google Cloud Next, Apple's new CEO, and Cursor getting acquired (sort of). Plus, Coté's e-waste has no exit strategy. Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 569 Runner-up Titles I love throwing stuff in the trash. Dillo dirt's a thing. BurgerOps. Thomas opens for Richard. Department of “No” people Starfish Stomach Model Enterprise — come into me The Organization will Assimilate it Gold plaques all around He can let his freak flag fly Take the first billion dollar offer Rundown Google Next Welcome to Google Cloud Next26 Google's AI adoption — Steve Yegge X Post Tanzu Platform 10.4: a private cloud platform for AI harnesses (or, "agentic AI") Apple becomes a $4 Trillion under Tim Cook Cursor Watch Cursor in talks to raise $2B+ at $50B valuation as enterprise growth surges There's No Time for SpaceX to Buy Cursor SpaceX says it can buy Cursor later this year for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for 'our work together' Relevant to your Interests Poland street sees humanoid robot chasing boars in unusual AI showcase Someone planted backdoors in dozens of WordPress plug-ins used in thousands of websites Snapchat owner cuts 16% of global staff in latest round of job cuts Email for agents - Cloudflare Email Service now in public beta DeployBar — Free CI monitoring. Unsolicited platypus included. Let them tinker - hacking developer resistance to sound enterprise architecture and platforms China's DeepSeek is raising funds at $10 billion valuation, The Information reports Sources: Cursor in talks to raise $2B+ at $50B valuation as enterprise growth surges AI chipmaker Cerebras files to go public after scrapping IPO plans last year Amazon to invest up to $25B in Anthropic as part of expanded cloud partnership - SiliconANGLE Amazon to invest up to $25 billion more in Anthropic; Claude developer to spend more than $100 billion on AWS AI technology Amazon and Anthropic expand strategic collaboration Anthropic CPO leaves Figma's board after reports he will offer a competing product OpenAI loses multiple executives in latest leadership shakeup Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite Defense Department blacklist The scientific case for being nice to your chatbot Anthropic's redesigned Claude Code desktop app lets you burn through tokens even faster OpenAI's Codex Mac app adds three key features that go beyond agentic coding Introducing Claude Opus 4.7 Anthropic Sponsors WebRTC.ventures – Real-time communication & Voice AI integration WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America Sept 23–25, San José, CA Use Code DEVPOD26 — 15% off, stacks with group rates for 4+ Listener Feedback Subscribe to Failover New Nonsense Struggling shoe retailer Allbirds makes bizarre pivot from shoes to AI, stock explodes more than 700% Allbirds Stock Now Crashing as Reality Sets in About Its Delusional AI Pivot Conferences DevOpsDays Austin, May 5-6, 2026 DevOpsDays + AI Nashville, May 14-15, 2026 KCD Texas, May 15, 2026, use code MEDIA_THANK_YOU for free pass WeAreDevelopers Europe, July 8-10, 2026 Berlin, Coté speaking. DevOpsDays Graz, Sept 4-5, 2026 DevOpsDays Dallas, Sept 28-29, 2026 DevOpsDays Rockies, Sept. 22 – 23, 2026, Discount Code: 26DODSWEDEFTALK WeAreDevelopers NA, Sept 23-25, 2026, Discount Code: DEVPOD26 DevOpsDays Vilnius, Sep 30 - Oct 1. 2006 DevOpsDays Istanbul, October 24th, 2026 - Coté keynoting. VMware User Groups (VMUGs): Toronto (May 12-14, 2026) Dallas (June 9-11, 2026) Orlando (October 20-22, 2026) SDT News & Community Join our Slack community Email the show: questions@softwaredefinedtalk.com Free stickers: Email your address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com Follow us on social media: Twitter, Threads, Mastodon, LinkedIn, BlueSky Watch us on: Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok Book offer: Use code SDT for $20 off "Digital WTF" by Coté Sponsor the show Sponsor more podcasts with Failover Media Recommendations Brandon: Claude /team-onboarding The Junior Dev Crisis: Who Inherits the Code When AI Does the Work Matt: Resident Alien Coté: and

The year was 1956. My family made a decision that would change everything. Hungary was in the middle of a revolution, and for many families, staying was no longer an option. Welcome to Story Time Part 2. If you didn't get a chance to listen to Part 1 of my family's immigration story, you can certainly go back and listen to that episode before you begin this one. CONNECT with the PodcastWebsite: www.myhungarianheritage.comEmail: Christine@myhungarianheritage.comInstagram: @hungarianheritagepodcastFacebook: Hungarian Heritage Podcast  CONNECT with Hungarian Roots and American DreamsInstagram: @hungarianroots_americandreamsFacebook : Hungarian Roots and American DreamsEmail : reka.bakos@rootstories.huPurchase a copy of Hungarian Roots and American Dreams through this email: hungarianrootsamericandreams@rootstories.hu

David Harsanyi, senior writer at The Washington Examiner and co-host of the You’re Wrong podcast with Mollie Hemingway, joins Seth to discuss his recent columns on immigration and assimilation. They dive into the importance of assimilation, the difference between various types of immigrants, and the challenges of integrating into American culture. David shares his thoughts on the dangers of relativistic ideas and the need for a core set of neutral principles that allow people to live together peacefully. They also discuss the role of speechwriters and ghostwriters, and how they impact the way we consume information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if the most radical thing you could do is invite someone to sit at a table with no queue, no power dynamic, and a really good meal? In this episode, Tristan and Rashid introduce two unlikely friends: Charlton Alexander, a tour guide and facilitator who invites people to connect with the city and its stories, and Barry Lewis, an architect from the UK who has spent decades building sandbag homes alongside communities in Cape Town's townships.Through a clip from the original Liminal Space episode, Charlie and Barry speak about a community dinner in Muizenberg where there is no queue, where people keep coming back not for the food but for the contact time, and where the questions being asked go far beyond “how do we feed hungry people?” Barry challenges us to throw out the lazy questions that aren't generating anything new, and Charlie reframes homelessness by pointing out that people living on the streets do have a home, they just don't have a house. Tristan and Rashid then reflect on what it means to create spaces of belonging and how that might change a neighborhood, a city, and eventually a world.THEMESCommunity dinners. No queue, no power dynamic. Belonging through a meal. Lazy questions. Houselessness vs homelessness. Contact time. Friendship across difference. Creating spaces of belonging.LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODEThis episode features clips from The Liminal Space Season 1, Episode 5: Kinship, Assimilation and Making Home in the Colonial City with Charlton Alexander and Barry Lewis. The full conversation is available on all podcast platforms.Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyWatch on YouTubeFEATURED VOICESCharlton Alexander is a tour guide and facilitator based in Cape Town. He invites guests to the city to connect with the people and land in experiences that are life altering.Barry Lewis is the director of UBU (Ubuhle Bakha Ubuhle / Beauty Builds Beauty), a company focused on developing the technology of sandbag housing in low-income communities in South Africa.Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town.Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and ethnomusicologist based in Cape Town.CREDITS| Produced by | Rashid Epstein Adams| Music by | Rashid Epstein Adams (AKA Arkenstone) and Pursuit| A collaboration between | The Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space PodcastLINKS| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod | Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com | Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

Atze und Leon melden sich aus Kopenhagen und Tokio mit dieser Folge ausm Archiv! Wir Menschen vergleichen uns permanent mit anderen. Macht die Kollegin den Job besser? Bin ich als Vater gut genug? Wer hat den schönsten Körper, das dickste Auto, die schlausten Kinder. Warum können wir einfach nicht aufhören, uns mit anderen zu vergleichen? Was macht das mit uns, immer auf andere zu gucken anstatt auf uns selbst. Atze und Leon klären die Psychologie dahinter. Wer besser versteht, warum und wie wir uns vergleichen, kann sich selbst Druck nehmen. Fühlt euch gut betreut Leon & Atze Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leonwindscheid/ https://www.instagram.com/atzeschroeder_offiziell/ Mehr zu unseren Werbepartnern findet ihr hier: https://linktr.ee/betreutesfuehlen Tickets: Atze: https://www.atzeschroeder.de/#termine Leon: https://leonwindscheid.de/tour/ VVK Münster 2025: https://betreutes-fuehlen.ticket.io/ Quellen: Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human relations. Wood, J. V., Taylor, S. E., & Lichtman, R. R. (1985). Social comparison in adjustment to breast cancer. Journal of personality and social psychology. Wills, T. A. (1981). Downward comparison principles in social psychology. Psychological bulletin. Chansiri, K., & Wongphothiphan, T. (2023). The indirect effects of Instagram images on women's self-esteem: The moderating roles of BMI and perceived weight. New Media & Society. McComb, C. A., Vanman, E. J., & Tobin, S. J. (2023). A meta-analysis of the effects of social media exposure to upward comparison targets on self-evaluations and emotions. Media Psychology. Gerber, J. P., Wheeler, L., & Suls, J. (2018). A social comparison theory meta-analysis 60+ years on. Psychological Bulletin. Mussweiler, T. (2001). Focus of comparison as a determinant of assimilation versus contrast in social comparison. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(1), 38-47. Morse, S., & Gergen, K. J. (1970). Social comparison, self-consistency, and the concept of self. Journal of personality and social psychology. Suls, J., Martin, R., & Wheeler, L. (2002). Social comparison: Why, with whom, and with what effect?. Current directions in psychological science Wheeler, L., & Suls, J. (2007). Assimilation in social comparison: Can we agree on what it is?. Revue internationale de psychologie sociale Redaktion: Dr. Jan Rudloff Produktion: Murmel Productions

Learn more about Rodney at: https://www.rodneyericlopez.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodney-eric-lopez/ https://www.instagram.com/rodneyericlopez/ Show Notes 

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras from Climbing the Assimilayas, an organization dedicated to helping churches build systems that move people from first-time guests to engaged disciples. With years of experience working inside and alongside growing churches, Greg and Tommy bring practical insight into one of the most overlooked—and most critical—areas of church health: assimilation. Are people showing up at your church but not sticking? Do you feel like guests are slipping through the cracks despite your best efforts? In this conversation, Greg and Tommy unpack what's changing about how people engage with church today and how leaders can respond. A seismic shift in why people are coming. // One of the biggest changes in churches is a shift in motivation: people are no longer primarily coming to church for community or life improvement—they're coming to find God. Where previous generations often needed to be convinced of the benefits of church, many new guests today are already spiritually curious or even actively seeking Jesus before they arrive. Greg shares stories of individuals with no church background who are reading Scripture, watching content like The Chosen, and showing up ready to take decisive steps like baptism. This means churches must recalibrate their approach—not just creating welcoming environments, but facilitating genuine encounters with God. You're missing more people than you think. // Tommy identifies a foundational issue: most churches are only tracking a fraction of the people actually engaging. Many leaders celebrate the number of new guests they can count, but in reality, they're missing a significant percentage—especially families checking in children or people who never stop at a guest table. Churches often aren't lacking opportunity—they're overlooking it. Recognizing and responding to all entry points into the church is critical if leaders want to move more people toward connection and growth. Stop telling your story—start naming theirs. // A common mistake churches make is focusing on communicating their own story—how the church started, what it believes, and why it exists—rather than connecting with the story of the guest. Guests aren't primarily interested in your church's narrative; they're asking what God might be doing in their life and how your church fits into that. Instead of offering multiple vague next steps, churches should provide clear, guided invitations that help people take one meaningful step forward. When churches shift from “Here's who we are” to “Here's how we can help you,” engagement increases dramatically. The first questions every guest is asking. // Every new person is subconsciously asking, “Is there anyone here like me?” That question shapes their experience from the parking lot to the worship service. But today, a second question is emerging: “Is there someone worth imitating?” Guests are looking for more than information—they're looking for transformation. This has led many churches to create space for prayer, reflection, and personal ministry during or after services. These moments often become powerful connection points where guests experience both God and meaningful relationships with others. People are looking for people—not programs. // Both Greg and Tommy emphasize that guests aren't primarily searching for better programming—they're searching for meaningful relationships. That means churches must prioritize relational connection over information delivery. Simple actions—like learning someone's name, asking thoughtful questions, and creating environments where people feel seen—can have a greater impact than any polished program. Designing clear pathways for connection. // Greg outlines three key journeys every church should consider: from the “screen to the seat” (first-time attendance), from the “seat to the circle” (relational connection through groups, teams, etc.), and from the “circle to the street” (living out faith in everyday life). Each stage requires intentional environments and clear next steps. Without these pathways, guests may attend once or twice but never fully engage. Every response is a sacred opportunity. // Tommy closes with a powerful reminder: every form submission, every piece of contact information, every small step a guest takes is a miracle. People don't casually give their information—they do so because something significant is happening in their life. When churches fail to follow up or steward those moments well, they're not just missing a system—they're missing a person God is drawing. Leaders must treat every interaction as sacred and respond with urgency, care, and intentionality. To learn more about Climbing the Assimilayas, access their free assimilation audit, or explore their Sherpa Tribe coaching community, visit assimilayas.com. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: SermonDone Hey friends, Sunday is coming… is your Sermon Done?Pastor, you don't need more pressure—you need support. That's why you need to check out SermonDone—the premium AI assistant built exclusivelyfor pastors. SermonDone helps you handle the heavy lifting: deep sermon research, series planning, and even a theologically aligned first draft—in your voice—because it actually trains on up to 15 of your past sermons. But it doesn't stop there. With just a click, you can instantly turn your message into small group guides, discussion questions, and even kids curriculum. It's like adding a research assistant, a writing partner, and a discipleship team—all in one. Try it free for 5 days. Head over to www.SermonDone.com and use promo code Rich20 for 20% off today! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We have got repeat guests on the call, which you know what that means. These are people I love dearly and who I know have so much that they can help you with. You’re going want to stay plugged in. In fact, this is one of those areas that I think many of our churches are stumbling on and are not doing a good job. We’re not doing what we should be doing. And that doesn’t just come from like, it’s a hunch. I’ve literally been in dozens of conversations where what these guys have shared literally illuminates our thinking and helps us take steps towards being a more effective church. So you’re going to want to stay tuned stay tuned for the entire conversation. Rich Birch — Super excited to have Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras with us. They’re with an organization called Climbing the Assimilayas. Greg is the director of First Steps and Content Development Eastside Christian Church, a fantastic church. Been on the podcast a number of of times. They’re a multi-site church with six locations in all the places that make sense, California, Nevada, and Minnesota. Of course, those fit together.Rich Birch — And then Tommy is is the head sherpa at Climbing the Assimilayas. Super excited to have both of you guys on. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Greg Curtis — Yeah. It’s awesome to be with you, man. Always.Rich Birch — Always fun to connect. Why don’t actually, before we jump in, Tommy, why don’t you tell us about Climbing the Assimilayas? How do you guys help churches? What do you do to come alongside us and help us get better at what what we do?Tommy Carreras — Yeah, I’d love to. Climbing the Assimilayas was started by Greg back when I was brand new in ministry. I was a groups pastor who had just taken over sort of the rest of the pipeline of getting people into groups because I realized I couldn’t get anybody into groups because I wasn’t in charge of anything that was happening before that.Tommy Carreras — So I met Greg in like 2013, 2014. He had just taken over the role of assimilation at Eastside. He kind of designed the role himself when his lead pastor—I’m telling your story now, Greg. Usually you get to tell it.—But his lead pastor, Gene Appel, said, hey, what what do you want to do in this next season? And Greg kind of designed the role based on what he saw was super necessary in the church and also what he was really well designed for.Tommy Carreras — And he was right. Because it was exactly what I needed at the time. It was just trying to figure out what a replicable and scalable system looked like for making things more personal and more effective at getting people to take real next steps. And it sounded really simple, but it was so unbelievably challenging because I just kept getting it wrong myself. And I had no idea where to actually go for advice on any of this. And he started figuring it out, started universalizing some of the principles that were working for him at Eastside and testing those with other churches.Tommy Carreras — I was at his first ever base camp training at Eastside. And so a long friendship began there. And then I just believed everything he said at that point and customized it, contextualized it for ministry and in also Southern California, but a different part. And, you know, it’s California is like five states total. Rich Birch — Right. Sure.Tommy Carreras — So it was much different than Eastside, but also all the principles held up. And so that’s what he’s been doing ever since. I came alongside him a few years ago to sort of throw gas on the fire. I had transitioned out of my role in ministry and started doing a few things with multiple churches. And this was one of them. And it has been a blast to help build these systems in churches that are super hungry for helping people connect, but can’t quite build the systems or just don’t have the models out there that are able to adapt and flex with the changing culture and the changing needs. Because those needs of guests have changed a lot over 12, 13 years.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fantastic. And friends that are listening in, both Greg and Tommy are the kind of leaders that I just say, you should just do what they say. Like, just listen to what they’re doing and do it. And you’d be amazed at the results that we’ve seen at churches all across the country. And so you’re in for a treat of a conversation today. Rich Birch — Greg, since we last talked, so I think that was maybe a year ago, maybe 18 months ago, what have you continued to notice that’s maybe different around how people are engaging, connecting? We’re talking about getting first time guests, the kind of people that are arriving, trying to help those people get assimilated, get connected. What what have you noticed maybe something that’s that’s maybe different in the way people are engaging right now that’s different than maybe even a year or two ago?Greg Curtis — Yeah, over a crescendo over the last two years has been remarkable in its shift towards—this is going to sound crazy because we’re talking to churches—they’re wanting God now. And what I what I mean by that is prior, we were having to sell the benefits of following Jesus, most growing churches, which there are, and I think it was a compelling thing to share with the culture.Greg Curtis — And so people were coming to church to find community, to find help with parenting, to find support in marriage or to, you know, a variety of different things. And so the draw and and what was causing people to engage with church was really what can, what help in my life? How can I increase the quality of my life? Maybe even get some pretty powerful pain points addressed.Greg Curtis — This has shifted. I’ll put it in the terms of our um our young adult pastor. His name is Charles. He came to me. He said, Greg, prior to a few two, three years ago, maybe not even that long. He said, young adults were coming, 80% of them to find friends and community, and about 20% to find God. He goes, it’s flipped. It’s flipped. Now it’s 80% God and 20% community.Greg Curtis —  And that has expressed itself in some remarkable ways. I’ll just throw two out. At the end of last year, i was covering somebody, ah a pastor who was gonna baptize somebody after the service. He had to be gone, so I said, yeah, I’ll cover it. So in our context, I’ll meet that person ahead of time and kind of show him where to sit in the service, when to come out, where the baptistry is, et cetera.Greg Curtis — And I met her, she was 28 years old, named Connie. And I said, as we’re walking through the baptistry, so, you know, I asked these typical questions, how how long have you been coming to Eastside, which is my church? And ah she says, oh, I’ve I’ve never been to Eastside.Greg Curtis — And was like, oh, so you’re from our online campus? And she goes, no, I’ve never really heard of Eastside. And I said, well, what’s led you to be baptized today?Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And this was her story. She goes, I grew up in a very non-religious home and I’ve I’ve never been to church. And I have, I vowed I’d never even date a religious person, but I had some friends three months ago that invited me to watch The Chosen with them.Greg Curtis — I didn’t want to. I got I was mad at myself for getting engaged after the first episode. Kept watching. Decided to buy myself a Bible two months ago. I started reading the Old Testament and New Testament concurrently and decided, I love Jesus and I want to follow him. And I could tell what I needed to do was get baptized. But get this. I’m the game day operations coordinator for the NFL. So I work on Sundays. And I just Googled who would baptize me on a Saturday. And your form came up and I filled it out. So here I am.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.Greg Curtis — Yeah. And and I’ll tell you what. She didn’t know, Rich, that this baptism was going to be in front of other people until we were in the water and the whole church was looking at her.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible.Greg Curtis — Okay. The questions she had, we’ve we’ve remained in touch. The questions she asks are so precious. I mean…Rich Birch — So good.Greg Curtis — …but I’m telling you, I met with somebody, I’ve had a few of those that are similar. That one’s pretty dramatic, but are very similar. No background at all. They’re coming because they’re having a God moment before they get to us.Rich Birch — Yeah. Greg Curtis — And that’s a big shift because God is doing something literally worldwide and in our culture right now that they’re coming to us to find God and and they’re already they’re already encountering him in some way and they need help with that and want it. And that’s a huge shift.Rich Birch — Yeah, I would agree. I’ve seen that in our context, in our church, so my specific home church that I’m a part of, Connexus. I’ve seen that at our church. We’ve seen it in the churches we work with. There is a um a measurable change in the way, kind of the state that people are at when they arrive. You know, that the way I’ve said, echoed similar to what you’re saying there, Greg, is like, There used to be, you know, you and I are of a certain age. I can remember a time when, you know, people would kind of stumble into church and they, you know, they were there for all different kinds of reasons. And, you know, we had to hold their hand for a long time. Rich Birch — But it seems like now people are arriving and they have ah It’s like a God question on their heart that they’re looking for an answer for. It’s they’re, they’re arriving already asking something significant. And, you know, we’ve got to meet them there. We can’t, we can’t just leave that.Greg Curtis — So get get this. I’ve often, I think I’ve probably said this on your podcast before, but for for our church, Christmas is our Super Bowl. It’s our number one outreach event for the year. Traditionally, we’ve gotten 18% of our guest leads from Christmas for for the year.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.Greg Curtis — Okay. But yeah, but we tried something in light of this. Because we’re we’re we’re looking at this and trying to meet God in in this. And we did something we have never done at Christmas services. And that’s, we it’s so counterintuitive. We invited people, we just shared the gospel. If you want to be baptized right now, We’ll do it.Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.Greg Curtis — And we have never done that because, and and you’ve heard me say i Christmas guests are different than other guests of the year. They’re not there to find God. They’re there because Aunt Sally invited them to a Christmas service before the dinner and gift exchange. So they’re on their way someplace. They’re not going to do anything. And we just thought, let’s just try it. Rich Birch — RightGreg Curtis — And it probably, we we were we were prepared for, we thought maybe, you know, we’re a church of, I don’t know, 12-, 15,000 today. We thought maybe we’d get 120 people to respond, but we prepared for 200 just in case. We had 399 people… Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. That’s incredible. On Christmas Eve. Greg Curtis — …get baptized by coming to a Christmas service, not knowing that they were going to do that.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible.Greg Curtis — So that just that that just illustrates there’s a seismic spiritual shift going on. And I think meeting guests there is going to be very smart for us in this hour.Rich Birch — Yeah, and I want to, that’s a great place to start. I think sets up, tees up the conversation we will be having today, which is, friends, I think a lot of our churches could be missing some of these folks as they’re as they’re connecting. And I want to really mine from you guys. You guys are the experts on this. You interact with a lot of churches. I want to mine for our our listeners some help for them. So Tommy, from your vantage point, you work with churches across the country where we’re asking questions like this.Rich Birch — How do we get these people plugged in? How can we help these first time guests take steps towards ultimately groups, teams, get plugged into whatever it is that we’re trying to get them plugged in. Where do you see that leaders keep getting stuck when it comes to helping people take their next steps beyond this kind of first weekend? Where do we keep stumbling? What do you see consistently bubbling up in the churches that you’re working with?Tommy Carreras — Yeah. Yeah, there’s a few really specific things. And the first one is, first of all, we always have to move as far left or as far up, however you’d like to think, left to right, top to bottom. We have to move all the way to the left or all the way to the top. And the problem is there aren’t enough people in your funnel in the first place.Tommy Carreras — We’ve talked about this before, but a really, really popular church that I’ve been talking to a lot recently, and working with—by “popular”, I mean it’s growing, it’s a few thousand, so it’s there’s something there, obviously, and really popular online pastor. Not not super duper 2 million followers, but like quarter of a million. That’s a lot. Right. And just a wonderful guy. Right. Tommy Carreras — They announced really proudly recently that they had 1300 new people in the last year and their church of 25 to 2800. And I, looked him and said, guys, guys, that’s not even half of how many new people walked in the door. And they just looked so con confused.Tommy Carreras — They’re like, that’s a great number. I’m like, that’s a that’s a great number. It’s a really bad percentage, though. And it’s just wrong. Doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, ugly.Rich Birch — Right.Tommy Carreras — It’s just wrong. The idea is most often we’re trying to help people take next steps, but we’re just looking at half or less than half of the actual people that are there. And so if we can’t get the top of the funnel right and recognize who’s there, and some of that is just missing the data that we do have. You can give this one away… If you’re not treating your new families like new guests, you’re ignoring them. You’re not missing them. You’re ignoring them because they’re giving you all the info. They’re giving you all the info besides their social security number, right? We need all their info for having their children. And we’re just missing that opportunity usually because we don’t treat them like, well, they didn’t go to the new guest table. But well, who cares? Bring the new guest table to them, right? Just bring it over there and treat them as such. And so that’s a huge one. That’s 30 to 40% of your new guest leads are actually coming in through kids. And so we have to stop ignoring those people.Tommy Carreras — But also it’s all about that invitation. If we can’t get that invitation right originally, then we’re always going to be looking at less than the actual amount. And then fewer people are going to take next steps because fewer people are being invited to take next steps. And so the top of the funnel is the first problem. We’re just not dealing with all the information. Tommy Carreras — The bigger sort of meta problem that I think has has been really interesting to watch is that most churches end up trying to tell their story instead of name their guest’s story.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And so if you want to go like the StoryBrand route, and if you’re a Donald Miller fan, which I think, Rich, you are a Donald Miller fan, like it, how could you not be, right?Rich Birch — Sure, sure.Tommy Carreras — Like, “Blue Like Jazz” and “StoryBrand”, where does this guy stop? But the idea is we try and play the hero so that they’ll choose us. We’re trying to make sure all our theological ducks are in a row. We need to tell them the story about the incredible call that that God had on this this church planter’s life 23 years ago and that incredible first moment. And and they’re just sitting there going, Okay, that’s really cool…Rich Birch — That’s interesting to you.Tommy Carreras — …but it has nothing to do with them. Yeah, that’s super interesting. And that sounds like a great documentary that I would watch the trailer for. But that’s it. And what we’re not trying to do, though, is name their story, how they might be feeling right now, and how we might play a part in their story.Tommy Carreras — So instead of trying to say, here’s the story of our church, do you want to get on board? Those assimilation environments, whether it’s your “one program”, which is our language for, you know, the the program that you invite somebody to to help them take a next step into belonging and purpose. Instead of trying to name our story as an organization and say, here’s where you can fit into it. We’re trying to say, here’s the story we believe that God is writing in your life. And we might be able to play a part of it. It’s way bigger than us as a church, but we would love to play a part in it. And here’s the specific next thing that we would like to try and do for you because God’s writing your story and it’s a really good one. And we think we can plug in right here, right now.Tommy Carreras — And that’s the other thing. It’s a lot of times we’re just trying to go and here’s all the ways you could connect. And Greg’s been saying this since 2013 when I met him. But, you know, if you give if you give somebody A, B, C and D, they’ll choose E, none of the above. We’re just we’re giving them options and really they want guidance. And so if we can say, hey, here’s the thing that we have found is the best step for most people like you right now. Then they can just say yes or no.Tommy Carreras — And yes or no is great because if they say no, we just downsell and say, well, what do you want? What are you looking for? What what can we help you accomplish in your story and in your life right now? Not what environment do you want to be in? Because they don’t know. They don’t know what the deliverable of a group is. They don’t know why they would do it. We just have to say, what what do you want then?Tommy Carreras — And they say, oh I’m kind of looking for this, this, this. And you go, oh well, this is an environment that might be built just for you. And so we’re just trying to come alongside their story. But most often we’re trying to convince them that our story is really compelling. And that’s just falling way too flat.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So much there. Unpack. Friends, rewind. Listen to that. There’s good stuff packed in there. Greg, sticking with this idea of options versus guidance, you know, when we’re thinking about a new person that walks into our church this weekend, this season, what do you think they’re actually trying to figure out in those first few weeks? What are the kind of questions that are on their minds that we’ve got to try to guide them towards? What are you seeing in the churches you’re working with? How should we be trying to guide those people?Greg Curtis — Multiple thoughts come to mind with that one. I’ve always said, and I do think that it’s still true, that the number one question when any of us are in a new environment is, and we’re not conscious of it really, but we look around and is there anyone here like me? And that’s that’s the inner question everybody is asking whenever they go to someplace that’s foreign or new to them. And that, you know, in a church context, that starts in the parking lot.Greg Curtis — And that sounds unusual. But if you’ve if you’ve driven in in on your motorcycle and every other car is a Mercedes and a Beamer, when you pull up, you know, you start to feel other than. And it’s people just look around, is is there somebody here like me? Greg Curtis — And I do think, like I had mentioned before, they are trying to figure out if this is a place where I can encounter God. So I do think we need to calibrate our services in such a way that they do encounter God. And I think that there’s a shift and I can’t wait to see how it gets ferreted out. But the shift in worship that needs to be happening is not just singing great praise songs and, having compelling announcements and and great teaching that is given to you, but having moments where they they actually feel like they’re encountering God, you know what I mean, in some way. And not that he’s not encountered, you know, through his word and and and and in worship. But um you know, ah creating a little bit of space ah for that, I think, going to actually speak to what they’re trying to figure out, which is, okay can I figure out God here? I have so many questions.Greg Curtis — And when they encounter God, that covers a multitude of sins, so to speak. Like, they may have three burning questions, but when if they actually encounter God, the questions almost go into the backseat because, oh my gosh, I just I sense God here. And when I say this, I’m not being theoretical. I just met with a gal, another 28-year-old, yesterday. And again, no church back when whatsoever.Greg Curtis — Her father was Jewish. She passed away a year ago. And she just feels orphaned and started looking for God and started watching us online for two weeks and then came and got baptized her first week she came because we happen to be doing one of those baptism things that we do maybe five times a year.Greg Curtis — And so we sat down, she had her little Bible that we print. It’s one of these few dads that we make. We call it a Bible, but we just print out text for the Bible because we’re doing an Old Testament survey kind of thing called the Old Testament Junk. But she’s she’s like, I think I should get it. Like she just figured out that’s not actually a Bible. And she what what Bible should I get was her first question.Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Right.Greg Curtis — Her other second question. because I said, you got a real pastor of front of you. Where do where do you which what kind of Bible should I get? The second one was, how do you pray?Rich Birch — Love it.Greg Curtis — This is the kind of stuff that as we were growing up, you said we were men of a certain age, that we used to anticipate and dream that people would ask us these incredible discipleship questions, like the disciples asked Jesus, Lord, how do we pray? And he gives them Lord’s Prayer. And we were prepared for those questions, but we were unprepared for a culture that was pretty disinterested. And so we’ve gone to the other paths I mentioned before. But now they’re asking the questions that we we are very prepared to answer, but I think we’re just got a little unused to it. And we need to put those things right in our pocket again because they’re asking. Greg Curtis — And so those are the kinds of of things that that they’re looking for in their first few weeks. And I think they’ll gauge and they are gauging our church by different things than they were a couple of years ago. You know, yeah, sure we have our kids program needs to be good and safe. You know, and and and we can’t do a sloppy job, you know, as we worship God corporately. But they’re gauging it by is God here? Am I meeting him? How can I connect with him? And that is just a very beautiful thing to see happen. That’s a great shift.Rich Birch — You know, I kind of sticking with that. One of the things I’ve been doting as I’ve been interacting with churches across the country is something that a friend of mine, Jeff Brody, lead pastor at Connexus has said. He talked, he’s talked about how we’re trying to offer what we’ve been calling accessible encounter, that it’s like we are trying to, so he wouldn’t say this next part, I’m saying this, so I don’t want to put words in his mouth.Rich Birch — But, um you know, i come from I come from the attractional church movement. That would be my background. Happy to say that that is my background. I know you’re not supposed to admit that, but that’s where that’s my background. It’s like you’re not supposed to say or that’s who it is.Rich Birch — And you know, what we were trying to do there was trying to connect with people who don’t normally attend church. And that’s still our heart. That’s still what we’re trying to do. But what we’ve realized is people are looking for an encounter with God that is that does go beyond. It transcends like, here’s three great ideas for this week at work or whatever. It’s it’s like, hey, I’m coming with real questions.Rich Birch — And so people are looking for something in the service that does have a transformational experience or an encounter to it. Sticking with you for a second, Greg, do you see that trend? So we’re doing more, I’m seeing more churches doing more kind of prayer stuff at the altar, end of the service experience, light these candles if you’re praying for that, fill out this card and post it on the cross. More of those kinds of experiences than I’ve seen before. What do you think about that, Greg?Greg Curtis — No, I feel that too. But that do you know what that does, is it shifts me into one thing I didn’t say is, I also think they’re looking for a person, a resource that they can talk to also. Tommy Carreras — Yeah.Greg Curtis — And I think that when we have those after church like prayer moments, like what what how that’ll look at our church is, and we’ve we’ve decided for this very reason to increase the frequency of them because we didn’t do them often. Now we’re doing them a little bit more regularly, more cyclically. But we we’ll have a prayer team, and I love being on the prayer team that’s at front afterwards because of the content that we were talking about.Greg Curtis — And lines will form of people, and we just pray for them and and talk to them and look in their eyes and sometimes connect them to resources if you know, that’s appropriate. But we just watch the people just line up for that, you know. And I just think people are looking for also a person or a guide, you know, that they could ask some questions of. Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And so I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who’s, I think he’s 31. And um his name is Kellen. Love this guy. He’s a leader on staff at a church in Georgia. And his thing, and I’m not saying this is the answer, but because I don’t think anybody knows the answer right now, because all of this, there’s not, and it’s really multiple answers, right? It’s just a bunch of things. But I’ll throw this in as an ingredient in the thought soup, you know, that’s percolating right now on all this. He was saying, especially with all the younger people returning to church, he that he sees a shift in the attractional church model maybe that may be happening over the next five years, where instead of the worship service being the attractional event, and then we get them assimilation-wise into small groups and ministry teams, that it it may be the reverse of that.Greg Curtis — Where because they’re looking for God in a person, they end up in somebody’s home at, at a, something that may look like a small group, as we think of them, and conversations over coffee. And they get so enraptured in it that it starts there. And then it ends kind of like my friend, Connie, who, who came the NFL gal, it ends at your church. It doesn’t start there. That’s the shift. It starts to end there. And that may mean in the future, our attractional church model and worship may shift to something that’s unapologetically for those who are following and seeking Jesus, not trying to get them to. And that’s a big shift. So so the the the river flow may be shifting. And I just think that’s an interesting thought. It’s been in my head for a while.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Tommy Carreras — I think it’s so funny that you mentioned that people are looking for a person, because I was hoping to jump in and say, I think that all of this is like they’re looking for people, not experiences. Rich Birch — Right.Tommy Carreras — And so thank you for for going there. The question that came to mind, because I’ve always loved your question to to remind us how simple and basic the initial need of a guest is. Anybody in any new scenario, is anybody here like me? I think the question that they’re asking next, is anyone here worth imitating? Because also imitation, imitation is the way we learn. It’s the way we grow. It’s why Jesus is a, is a person we follow, not a doctrinal set of beliefs that we adhere to. Tommy Carreras — That’s not the point. The point is the person we follow and the people we’re becoming and everybody wants to become someone better. And that’s not actually a legalistic gross, like, Oh, you’re just prideful. No, no, no. We’re designed to be phenomenally wonderful people that look like Jesus. That’s what our, our actual heart’s desire is. Tommy Carreras — And so if God’s leaning into that desire in people, then their first question is going to naturally be, is anybody here worth imitating? And we can’t tell people that we’re worth imitating. We can only show them that we’re worth imitating. And how do we show them? We walk up to people we don’t know and say, Hey, I don’t think I know you yet. And you deserve to be known. I’m Tommy. What’s your name? And just take it from there. Tommy Carreras — That’s somebody that’s worth imitating. That is somebody that’s confident and inviting and welcoming and kind and compassionate and interested and curious. That’s who I want to be. And so I’m going to naturally say, oh, if that’s the first person I met here, what are all these other people like? This could be wonderful.Rich Birch — Right. Greg Curtis — Yeah.Tommy Carreras — And so I think those two questions really build the the exact desire set, or at least the first initial desires of somebody who’s who’s coming to church, especially somebody who’s explicitly coming to get to know God and to be the best version of themselves. And they’re they’re actually saying, and I think God defines what that best version looks like. That’s like the best news ever for churches. But we tend to miss it because we design for information transfer and not relationship building. And that’s just not what they’re looking for.Greg Curtis — Yes.Rich Birch — So sticking with that, Tommy, I’d love to, I’d love you to unpack that a little bit. Think of maybe I’m a church of a thousand. So it’s, you know, this thing’s got some energy behind it. And I want to design this, these kind of initial first steps. I want to design our weekend experience and then whatever I’m asking for people to make, to try to get them towards some relationship and get them towards some people. What are some of those initial things that we should be thinking about to try to help them take those first couple steps? What are some of the, these initial steps. Again, picture a church of maybe a thousand. What’s that look like? So it’s gotta be done at scale.Rich Birch — I love the idea of like, you know, I could note people in the room who I don’t know, but like, we all know you get up over a couple hundred and it’s like, I don’t know. By the time you get to a thousand, you look around your lobby and you’re like, I don’t know any of these people. Like I don’t know who any of these people are.Tommy Carreras — I don't know any of these people. Yeah.Rich Birch — So how do we, how do we build a system for lack of a better word that helps us move people towards that?Tommy Carreras — Yeah, I think that first we have to get clear on our goals as a team and we have to get clear on every environment’s goal and make sure there is an environment for every step of the journey. Nobody’s just going to take a big swing. Right. And also we, I would love to live in a place and and be in a church where this is just like, I don’t have to design any systems because all the people just naturally do it. Tommy Carreras — And I would say that often, like I want to, I want to, I want our church to be a church where we don’t even need a group connection event because everybody gets invited to a group personally. And that wasn’t because I was actually hoping that would be a realistic thing. I was trying to set such a clear picture of my actual goal that we could just move 5% in that direction. We could get 20% of our people invited instead of going through a connection event. That would be awesome. Even 5% is better than zero. Tommy Carreras — And so I tried to set ah a visionary goal just for the sake of the culture building. But we have to build the systems and and be really obvious about it because people are also walking in with baggage and they’re walking in with a clear picture and they’re they’re asking to be proved wrong in most cases. Well, i don’t know about in most cases, but in plenty cases, they’re they’re hoping they’re proved wrong. Tommy Carreras — Well, church people just like each other. Well, church people are going to judge the places that don’t have it together yet. Lightning is going to strike when I walk in the door. I’m not actually going to be useful here. I’m going to be a burden. All of those things, that’s the baggage they’re walking in with, not just because of church hurt, because of life hurt. And that is exactly why we’re here, to meet that and say, that’s actually a lie. That’s actually a lie from the father of lies. And you’re here to meet the good father that has only truth for you. And I’m going to show it to you. Tommy Carreras — But we need the systems and the environments that build it correctly and that that lean toward those and produce those kinds of relationships or relational touch points. We need to set clear goals and we need to be relentless in our invitation into those environments. So just having a new here sign on a booth is not an invitation. It’s information. But when my favorite way to announce, for example, which should be an announcement, every single service, hopefully twice in the service. Hey, if you’re new here or you consider yourself new here, and if if you haven’t done this yet, we’d love you to go have a conversation at this place. We want to put this gift in your hands or this something and, and, and here’s what I would always say. And if you’re thinking that the free mug is a bribe to get to know you, you are exactly right. The mug is great, but what’s better is that we think you’re worth knowing and we want to make sure that you have every opportunity to have a familiar face next time you walk in the door.Tommy Carreras — Not, we want to meet you because it’s part of our organizational goal to identify this many guests so that hopefully you give at some point. That’s not a great message. The great message is you’re worth knowing. We think you deserve a familiar face who calls you by name next time you walk in the door. And hopefully also there’s going to be a next time. And we’d like to ensure that there’s a next time. So yes, it’s a bribe. All we want to do is get to know you. We stop by the place. Tommy Carreras — And that, that really worked because also we’re not being slick. We’re being honest. We’re being vulnerable. We’re being transparent. We’re saying we’re just here to do this and whatever it takes to get you there. That’s great. You can leave the mug. The point is we would love to get to know you because you’re worth knowing. And so we’re trying to make sure those environments exist. And then we also have to follow it up. Tommy Carreras — And that means training people training. empowering volunteers to actually accomplish the goal as opposed to accomplish what they think is the goal, but never really was. And so if they’re like, I got to sell the church. Nope. No, no, no. You got to remember their name and ask three personal questions about them. That’s my, that’s my goal for you. Just do that. Tommy Carreras — And if they come to the next thing, like we’ll, we’ll get them to the next thing. You got to mention the program that we want them to come to. That’s fine. They’re not going to come next week anyway. They’re not ready for that. Just get to know them. Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And so we’re setting real goals and making them very attainable for those volunteers. And then we’re also doing it ourselves in staff and we’re not hiding in the green room, just a little note. But you know, if you’re on staff and you’re hiding in the green room, you know, would fix that. Just fix it.Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly. Stop doing that. I love that. So super tactically, Greg, because we’re talking, we talked, you brought up the ethical bribe. I like to call it the like, Hey, we’ve got a great coffee mug or a water bottle. And you know, it’s one of those things. I love how you framed that, Tommy. Cause I like, think that’s a, that’s a great way even just to like unpack this exactly what we’re trying to do. I think that’s fantastic.Rich Birch — Greg, you’ve helped us think, you’ve helped me think so clearly around um how are we collecting people’s contact information, which is just the start of the of the relationship. Like we’re I think sometimes we can get that turned upside down. It’s like we’re trying to hit the metric because for some metric reason. No, no, it’s ultimately about trying to start a relationship. What are you learning about the timing, the context of all of that, of that kind of part of the service that we’re asking when we’re giving them? You know, what is the ethical bribe, all of that?Rich Birch — What are you learning these days for this very tippy top part of the transaction we’re talking about, the very first step? Is there anything that you’re learning there that we should be thinking differently about?Greg Curtis — I don’t I don’t know. I’m always cautious about saying what I’m learning as if it’s been learned. Rich Birch — Right. Greg Curtis — I think that we are experimenting with some new things in light of this. And I would say that one of the big shifts is it’s look, how do I say it? In light of everything we’ve said already about them looking for God, right? And not just life help. They, I think looking at their discipleship, there’s an old word, you know, but they’re they’re learning to follow Jesus, right? Their discipleship, becoming a follower of Jesus. We have always looked at that through just a biblical theological doctrinal lens. Like, do they know this? Have they done that kind of thing? Greg Curtis — And I think it’s an interesting thing to look at it through the journeys that they experience at at when they come into a new church from their angle. So I call them, I’ve said this before, I think to your crowd, but I call those three journeys the journey from the street to the seat, which really became from the screen to the seat after COVID.Greg Curtis — Right. Like I mentioned, the gal I met with ah on Sunday, she had already attended our church twice online before she had come. And many churches I have talked to, their average is about four times that they’ve attended your church online. But that journey from, say, the screen to the seat where they’re ah they’re seeing you on their television. But then it’s the parking lot, the greeters, the info counter, kids checked in, ushers, whatever. Right. That journey is is so important. Greg Curtis — And that journey is about but ah belonging. But then you get the journey from, ah that’s really the growing journey, which is what they’re there for. And that’s a journey from the seat to a circle. And that’s because the circle is the environment we know works best for somebody to grow, where they’re just kind of FaceTime with people, you know, that in Tommy’s words, they might want to imitate, right? And learn from.Greg Curtis — But it’s so important to get that information. We’re making a big shift where instead of like we’re actually experimenting and saying this for the last few weeks at our church where we’re not collecting their information at all at the at that stage. What we’re doing is saying just come get a free get come get…in our case, we have like a grill where they could get a free meal. Come get a free coffee drink or meal or whatever on us. And we’re we’re not asking them for anything. We’re just creating engagement.Greg Curtis — But we’re starting to shift because we are baptizing, like in our in our case, over the last 15 months, we’ve baptized over 1800 people. And that’s a big that’s a big shift from targeting what I call cold leads to warm leads. You know, you want to get engagement, start collecting stuff and engaging with people when they’ve been willing to get wet in front of people they don’t know, because they made a decision to follow Jesus. That’s a warm lead.Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — Somebody, you know what I’m saying? And in the, in the spirit of the parable of the talents investing where the, you’re starting to see results, you know, in the fruit and just being strategic about that.Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — That’s where we’re pouring in some of our, of our best stuff. We’re experimenting with that. I’m not telling people to do that yet because we don’t know how that’s going to work for us.Rich Birch — Yes.Greg Curtis — So let me just say that in the… Rich Birch — Yes. That’s good. Yeah.Greg Curtis — But moving them from the seat to the circle through that kind of engagement, you know through whatever one program you have, inviting them into a ministry team, a small group. And then that third journey is the journey, you know once it’s belongings established, growing established, then it’s it’s going, the journey about going.Greg Curtis — That’s the journey from the circle back out to the street. And it’s really just equipping people to to not just know Jesus, but to be more like him and to imitate him ultimately, even through their other people examples. And ad I just think that there’s some great environments that we can talk about later that really equip them to do that. Because we may look at the Bible and see, here’s discipleship steps. But from the guest vantage point, it’s their journey from the screen to the seat, the seat to the circle, and the circle back out to the street. And so what environments are we creating?Greg Curtis — And like you said, how are we engaging with them? When do we get their contact info, right? When do we invest in in the engagement? And for us, it it seems a worthy experiment to shift to, because we are seeing so many baptisms in light of the the huge God interest, is to start it’s like a it’s a it’s a discipleship moment to let the discipleship issues drive when we do what. And look at it through the lens of these journeys that guests experience our church with. Right. So that’s a little bit about, you know, what we’re looking at in there and on the front end.Rich Birch — Love it. Well, I friends who are listening in, I was really hoping that you’ll take steps to get connected with Greg and Tommy. We’ve talked about a bunch of stuff. The problem with these things is, man, we can just keep going. And like, there’s so much in this that I find fascinating and, you know, I’ve always loved when people connect. Rich Birch — I do want to kind of pivot and talk a little bit about how you guys help churches. So first, maybe Tommy, talk to us about, you’ve got this incredible free audit that you’ve made available for folks. Talk to us about the audit. How will it help us? We’ll put a link to in the show notes about it. But I really think 100% of the people that are listening today should take this. This would be a great next step for folks coming out of today. Talk us through this a little bit.Tommy Carreras — Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite things about the audit, because it’s it’s a brand new tool that we just rolled out. Because we had a 63-point checklist before, and it was phenomenal. I worked through every item on that checklist…Rich Birch — Yes.Tommy Carreras — …when Greg initially rolled it out a long time ago. And what we did was we took our own medicine and said, how do we reorganize this instead of around an organizational checklist of do we have the features that we think are valuable? Instead, we said, well, what what milestones are going to help a guest on their journey. And so we, we organize the assimilation audit around the three journeys of the guest, not the environments of the church. Tommy Carreras — Now the audit does say, well, this is an environment that meets them in this thing that they’re looking for on their journey, but, do you have the environment? Is it working? Is the main question usually is, is it actually working? And we give you some actual markers around whether or not it’s working. Because the the reality is you have the programs, you have the ingredients, you have the volunteers, you probably have a great Sunday experience. And yet all the people are still disappearing or at least most of them. And they’re, the problem is they do it quietly. They don’t write in and tell you… Rich Birch — Right. Tommy Carreras — …by the way, I left because I didn’t find somebody that I could imitate quickly enough because what I really had was all this baggage from this… They don’t tell you any of that. You just never knew they were even there. Rich Birch — So true. Tommy Carreras — And so what we’re trying to do is look at the experience and go based on all the churches that we’ve worked with, Greg, for over 12 years and seeing this happen over and over and over and seeing the remarkable consistency in the issues and the challenges. We said, here are the leakage points in the system. And some of them are pretty surprising. Some of them are super obvious. But what this will do is actually help you audit the effectiveness of those experiences, organized by what the guests are hoping they experience. They’re desperately hoping you can provide for them on their journey.Tommy Carreras — And the best part about it, honestly, like it’s a Google doc right now. That is, I’m just giving you that admission because also it’s not a fancy tool that I vibe coded like Rich recently vibe coded one of his really cool assessment tools. I haven’t done that yet. And the the reality is though, it’s a Google doc because also you should write some notes on this thing and you should sit around it as a staff and share it and have real conversations.Tommy Carreras — Cause the, the, the gold of this audit is going to be in the conversation and the arguments: No, I think it’s red. No, it’s yellow. It’s doing okay. But what about this person? What about this person?Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — Will somebody go pull up the numbers? Because the numbers… That’s where the gold is in the audit. And it’s, I mean, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of stuff to dig through in your system because it’s 49 points. It’s 49 stops along the way on those three journeys. But you’re going uncover so much. And then I think that it’ll give you a really clear pathway toward, okay, well, here’s what we should do first. Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And that might be the most important thing about it.Greg Curtis — I would just say, too, on that point that for your listeners, if you’re at a point where you are either feeling alone in in wanting to see a breakthrough in engagement or you have a team and you guys are just kind of spinning your wheels and you have the same results all the time and wanting to see them increase and they really don’t that much, this thing is do it for a few weeks together in meetings. It will invigorate. And you’ll do it do it with a team, even if if ah ah but ah a team of key volunteers yeah in a smaller context.Greg Curtis — But make a day retreat or something out of it and really go through it. And you will find that you, oh my gosh, you can shake out all of the obstacles, all the pain points and weaknesses. It will be very, very helpful and rejuvenating. And it’s free. So there’s that.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. I really do think this would be a great next step for everybody who’s listening in. Super helpful. Great. It’s crazy that it’s free to me. You know, don’t don’t trash talk that it’s just a Google Doc. Like, man, a lot of intelligence built into that that, you know, we want people to take.Rich Birch — And then the second thing, Greg, could you tell us about the Sherpa tribe? Because I think there are people, well, I know there are churches that are listening in that, you know, you talked about earlier, there was this, you know, hey, there’s 1300 guests or or, you know, sorry, Tommy was talking about the fact there’s 1300 guests at this church, and they should have had a lot more. That has been my experience with 100% of the churches that I’ve talked to around these issues, we’re missing people. So how does the Sherpa tribe help with that? How does that actually help us find those guests, get them to stay, get them to serve and to start growing? What does that look like?Greg Curtis — Well, alongside of looking at the guest journeys in these three ways that I earlier described, we we find that each church, once they do the audit, has a different weakness. You know what I mean? Some of them are common, right? But they ah they’re at their own place and shoring up and strengthening different aspects of that journey. Greg Curtis — And so what we did is we took our video course, which was one of our mainstays, and we started breaking it up and creating a ton more videos that breaking up around 10 minutes and then creating action points for each one and allowing ah people who become part of our Sherpa tribe—which you can go to assimilayas.com and click on Sherpa Tribe, find out more—to to to go right where they need it and study the things and action points that they need. Go deep in that. And then weekly meet with Tommy or I, with other people just like them from around the country and beyond that in these Zoom sessions where there’s no agenda but you. Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And you bring your questions and what you’re struggling through in this. And we have the most dynamic and fun conversations that create breakthroughs for teams through those through those Zoom moments. Tommy, would you add anything to that?Tommy Carreras — No, I think the the other the other piece of the puzzle that’s so powerful is we’ve seen the we’ve seen the best results from the folks who haven’t just jumped in to go like, I got to shore up a thing and get some information and and then get out and then you know milk it for all it’s worth and just get in.Tommy Carreras — What they’re really, that the churches who are getting the most out of it are the ones who say, this is the year where we fix this. Greg Curtis — Yeah, yeah.Tommy Carreras — This is the year where we look different at the end of it. This is the year that our staff gets it. There are no more people just sitting around in workflows or process queues 29, 42, 83 days overdue. That is the biggest crisis that we could have now because we all get it. We’re speaking the same language and we’re serving each other and we’re doing all these things to shore up all of these systems because it’s not just one person. And most likely it’s most people’s second or third job on their actual plate. Tommy Carreras — And so we’re trying to skip them up to third base on all of these different kind of sections of their assimilation system. And we’re trying to give them the people and the contextualization that’s going to make it come to life for their entire team. But it’s it’s the churches that go, we’re going to make it this year is going to be the one where things change.Tommy Carreras — And they they dive in and they go, I’m going to commit to this thing because they believe that it’s a keystone. It’s almost like a keystone habit. We fix this. Everything else is going to make more sense in our church. And that’s assimilation is a mindset and ah a sort of almost a belief system, not just a couple different environments in our church or a couple different process cues. And so those are the churches that are really crushing it inside the tribe.Rich Birch — Yeah, that that’s fantastic. And friends, again, we’ll link to that. It’s assimilayas.com where you can you know connect more with Tommy, with Greg, with everything that they’re they’re doing. And you know super hearty endorsement from me. You guys do great work and I think it’s super helpful for many churches. This is one of these areas that if we don’t keep an eye on over time, we’re just missing people. We’re missing people taking steps closer to Jesus.Rich Birch — Tommy, why don’t I give you the last word here? Any kind of last encouragement as we wrap up today’s episode that you’d like to share with listeners who are you know thinking about these issues? Obviously, these people are the better part of an hour in. What would you say to them as we wrap up today’s call?Tommy Carreras — Yeah. I was at a church recently and they I was working on mostly data with them. Okay. And they said, hey do you want to talk to the staff for 20 minutes? And I said, okay, sure. Random. I’m going to try and convince them that data matters. And that they okay, they should love their church management software at the end of this 20 minute talk.Tommy Carreras — And by the end of it, they did actually. They believed me. But the whole idea was I led with there’s a whole bunch that got to it, but the the crux at the end was every form response. Every time somebody gives us their information is a miracle. God has moved heaven and earth since before time began to get them to put their name, email, and phone number on that stupid Planning Center form. And it’s a dang miracle.Tommy Carreras — And if that’s true, then every single person in a queue or a workflow or a form, you know, submission, whatever you call in your church management software, that is a sacred opportunity and a massive burden of leadership on our shoulders.Greg Curtis — Yeah.Tommy Carreras — And every red light overdue, 23 days not started, all of those are massive warning signals in our ministry. All because it’s a miracle that anybody would say yes to anything. And how could we not do everything in our power to lean in meet them there and steward their next step and get them across the gap that they are not going to and may not be able to cross on their own.Tommy Carreras — That’s the opportunity ahead of us. And it’s just sacred. And I hope that we don’t miss it.Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, thank you so much, guys. really appreciate you being on the show. Again, that’s assimilayas.com. We’ll link to all of that, but appreciate you being here today. We’ll have to have you on again in the future because this is such an important area, but appreciate you being here today. Thank you. Tommy Carreras — Thanks, Rich.

Pastor Jack gives his opinion on Islamic terrorists, their worldview, their connection to religion, and how it all relates spiritually. What exactly are the "deceiving spirits" and the "doctrines of demons" that the Bible warns us would prevail in the last days? This is a time when we need to be vigilant and have our spiritual armor on to withstand what's upon us now and what is approaching in the future.(00:00) Opening on Violence, Islam, and Spiritual Deception(01:16) 1 Timothy 4 and the Meaning of the Last Days(03:18) Cultural Change as Evidence of Deceiving Spirits(07:13) Terrorism, Islam, and Current Events(10:08) Deuteronomy 28 and National Judgment(11:34) Quran Passages and Hibbs’ Comparison to the Bible(16:14) How the Bible and Quran Differ in Origin and Message(19:20) Islam, America, and the Question of Assimilation(25:25) The Antichrist, Prophecy, and the Future of Islam(26:47) Final Warning About Modern Doctrines of DemonsCONNECT WITH PASTOR JACK:Get Updates via Text:  https://text.whisp.io/jack-hibbs-podcast Website: https://jackhibbs.com/Instagram: http://bit.ly/2FCyXpOFacebook: https://bit.ly/2WZBWV0 YouTube: https://bit.ly/437xMHnTwitter/X: https://x.com/RealJackHibbs CALLED TO TAKE A BOLD STAND:https://boldstand.org/ DAZE OF DECEPTION:https://jackhibbs.com/daze-of-deception/ Did you know we have a Real Life Network? Sign up for free today for more exclusive content:https://www.reallifenetwork.com//  

Paul Chowdhry is a stand-up comedian, actor, and writer known for his dark, deadpan style and boundary-pushing comedy. A regular on British television and radio, he has appeared on shows including Taskmaster, Live at the Apollo, and Stand Up Central, and has released multiple stand-up specials. His American tour is called “Artificial Indian.” Chowdhry also hosts the podcast The Paul Chowdhry PudCast. Follow him on Instagram @paulchowdhry and X @paulchowdhry.FOR MORE WITH PAUL CHOWDHRY:STAND UP TOUR: ‘ARTIFICIAL INDIAN' TOURING THE US NOW Jan 16 - NEW YORK CITY - GRAMERCY THEATER Jan 20 - PHILADELPHIA PA - KIMMEL CULTURAL CAMPUS WEBSITE: paulchowdhry.comINSTAGRAM & X: @paulchowdhryFOR MORE WITH RUDY PAVICH: INSTAGRAM: @rudy_pavichWEBSITE: www.rudypavichcomedy.comLIVE SHOWS: January 16 - Grants Pass, ORJanuary 17 - Bend, ORJanuary 29 - New York, NY (2 shows)January 30 - Chester, NYJanuary 31 - Washington, DCThank you for supporting our sponsors:BetOnlinehomes.comoreillyauto.com/adamPluto.tvsimplisafe.com/ADAMSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.