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Trials from the 2025 American College of Cardiology scientific sessions, including the WARRIOR, PROTECT TAVI, DAPATAVI, and SOUL are reviewed by John Mandrola, MD This podcast is intended for healthcare professionals only. To read a partial transcript or to comment, visit: https://www.medscape.com/twic I Thank you Comments II WARRIOR Women's IschemiA TRial to Reduce Events In Non-ObstRuctive CAD Keep Fighting INOCA After Neutral WARRIOR Trial https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/keep-fighting-inoca-after-neutral-warrior-trial-2025a10007uf III Cerebral Embolic Protection in TAVI PROTECT TAVI https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2415120 PROTECTED TAVR https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2204961 Instrumental Variables in Randomized Trials https://evidence.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/EVIDctw2400204 IV  DAPATAVI SGLT2 Inhibitors Progressing to New Standard After TAVI https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/sglt2-inhibitors-progressing-new-standard-after-tavi-2025a100081y Dapagliflozin in Patients Undergoing Transcatheter Aortic-Valve Implantation https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2500366 V SOUL Study of Oral Semaglutide and CV outcomes in Diabetes Oral GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Reduces CV Risk https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/oral-glp-1-receptor-antagonist-reduces-cv-risk-2025a10007kr Oral Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in High-Risk Type 2 Diabetes https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2501006 You may also like: The Bob Harrington Show with the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, Robert A. Harrington, MD. https://www.medscape.com/author/bob-harrington Questions or feedback, please contact news@medscape.net

➣ BOOKING @ PIK-FEIN@MAIL.DE - ♠︎ - www.linktr.ee/PIK_FEIN - ♠︎ - PIK-FEIN @ METRO UNDERGROUND {ESPAINIA} | PLAZA de TOROS - HUELVA (ESP) | 19.10.2024 -♠♤♠ ⎯⎯ ♠♤♠⎯⎯ ♠♤♠⎯⎯ ♠♤♠⎯⎯♠♤⎯⎯ ♠♤♠⎯- ♥️ !!! DANKE EUCH FÜR DIESE UNVERGESSLICHEN NÄCHTE !!! ♥️ mit euch meinen B DAY zu zelibrieren und das bei meinen ersten INTERNATIONALEN GIGs der absolute wahnsinn ich DANKE allen in HUELVA die so eine geile zeit ermöglicht haben und mit mir die nächte zum tag gemacht haben ABRISS PUUUUR.... UND ICH FREU MICH JETZT SCHON AUF DAS NÄCHSTE JAHR IN DER NEUEN SESSION MIT EUCH SPANIEN SO RICHTIG WACKELN UND BEBEN ZU LASSEN !!!! ♥️!!! THANK YOU FOR THESE UNFORGETTABLE NIGHTS!!! ♥️ Celebrating my B DAY with you and that at my first INTERNATIONAL GIGs was absolute madness I THANK everyone in HUELVA who made such a great time possible and turned the nights into days with me !!! ABRISS PUUUUR.... AND I'M ALREADY LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR IN THE NEW SESSION WITH YOU AND LETTING SPAIN REALLY WAKE AND SHAKE!!!! -♠♤♠ ⎯⎯ ♠♤♠⎯⎯ ♠♤♠⎯⎯ ♠♤♠⎯⎯♠♤⎯⎯ ♠♤♠⎯- ARTIST - ...INFOs... - @PIK-FEIN - DJ / PRODUCER FRANKFURT aM | GERMANY ARTIST - ...INFOs... - @PIK-FEIN - PIK-FEIN the Dirty Techno Frankfurt Am Main! Seit 1987 wandelt er auf unserem Planeten herum… Im Januar 2010 begann im U60311 mit seinem offiziell 1 Gig als PIK-FEIN seine Dj Laufbahn !!! Daraus wurde dann sehr schnell mehr... Seit dem heißt es jedes Weekend In den verschiedensten Techno Clubs - Open Airs - Festival´s - Bar´s - in ganz Deutschland DIRTY FRANKRURTER TECHNO mit SINN & SCHWUNG !!!. Mit Seiner ganz eigenen Art und Weise TECHNO-MUSIC zu Dirigieren & Zelebrieren, verzaubert, er bei jeder Gelegenheit an den Reglern mit wummernden Bässen das Publikum. ..mit den druckvollen Darken und verspulten Klängen geht es dan bis zum Morgengrauen und noch viel WEITER !!! Man hat es net leicht aber leicht hat's einen !!! !!! SUCHTGEFAHR GARANTIERT !!! - LASST ES EUCH.... GUUT GEHE & VIEL SPASS BEIM GENIEßEN !!! ...LET THE GEBALLER ENTERTAIN YOUUUUUUU !!! BOOKING & KONTACT Schaut doch auch mal bei PIK-FEIN FRANKFURT vorbei und wenn's euch gefällt BUCHT oder FOLGT ...UNS !!!! ♠️ www.twitch.tv/pik_fein_techno ♠️ www.facebook.com/Pikfein ♠️ www.instagram.com/pik_fein ♠️ www.youtube.com/user/PIKFEIN ♠️ www.twitter.com/PIK_FEIN_TECHNO PASST SITZT & QUIETSCHT genau das richtige auf der SONDERSPUR !!! LASST ES EUCH.... GUUT GEHE & VIEL SPASS BEIM GENIEßEN !!! ...LET THE GEBALLER ENTERTAIN YOUUUUUUU !!! present... .PIK-FEIN ...all LINKs @ one page... www.linktr.ee/PIK_FEIN

Welcome to The Singers Talk Podcast based on my book of the same name. This week you'll hear my conversation with the legendary Sam Moore.   Sam Moore and the late Dave Prater came together in 1961 and formed one of the greatest vocal duos of all time: Sam & Dave. “Soul man,” Hold On! I'm Comin',” Wrap it Up,” “I Thank you.” Just listen to their catalog and you'll know exactly why they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.   In this episode you're gonna hear us talk about how Sam and Dave became Sam and Dave, the nerves he struggles with before he goes onstage, the sage advice he received from Moms Mabley, the sneaky thing his manager wife started doing behind his back. You're gonna hear some stories about his various vocal collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, and something he does with a penny that I will never, ever get over… all that and so much Moore.   All my writer's royalties from sales of the book benefit the kids and families at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital through our Music Gives to St. Jude Kids campaign. So I'd love for you to grab yourself a copy. And be sure to check out every episode of the podcast, our livestreams, and more at Volume.com/thesingers talk. And if you like the show, please rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite streaming platforms to make sure you hear every new episode. Volume.com is the destination for live music fans, where you can watch live and on-demand performances, see exclusive artist content, listen to music podcasts, and check out live music streams from your favorite artists, venues, and hosts.   Get The Singers Talk book at: Thesingerstalk.com   Donate to St. Jude at: Musicgives.org   You can find JTG @Kingsizetheband Kingsizetheband.com Jason Thomas Gordon is the lead singer/drummer of the Los Angeles rock band Kingsize, a screenwriter, author, and creator of Music Gives to St. Jude Kids, a campaign that raises money and awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital through music-based initiatives. St. Jude was founded by Jason's grandfather, entertainer, Danny Thomas, in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1962. Jason also serves as a National Committee member of the hospital's board.              

In this episode, which I initially wrote as an open letter to my clients and friends, is actually a series of writings about workaholism, alcoholism, codependency, self-care, self-preservation, being of service to others and some of my history. It is split up in 6 parts. I hope it resonates. As mentioned, my book will open in a few weeks. You can subscribe to my newsletter for updates at http://themoonandstone.com or follow me on social media. I also mention some things. Last words are Those last four words are not mine. It is Ho'oponopono, the Hawaiian practice that combines love, forgiveness, repentance, and gratitude in four powerful phrases. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I Thank you. I love you.  Links I mention: https://reductress.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Laura-Dernoot-Lipsky-Trauma-Stewardship/dp/B07VPNP3XF/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/angie-yingst/message

This episode is dedicated to my Father Wound.  I SEE you, I LOVE you, I AM youAll the Love in the World - MC YOGIButterflies - Tom Odell & AuroraHoly Dust - Wildlight, The Polish Ambassador & Ayla NereoMy Beautiful Sister Aisha, I SEE you, I HONOR you, I THANK you, I LOVE you!Aisha EcasiaInsta Mystery School:Fae SprayRainbow SymphonySupport the showMyLeapOfFaith.com - Pearl Mysteries (Coming Soon)Gabrielle Ginter (LinkTree)If you Feel the Call for Free Community, Friendship & Collaboration.A place where we all can exist in a safe container of light.Join the Energy Tribe Community ENERGY TRIBE CHATS(we meet every 3rd Wednesday of the Month at 4:00pm PT / 7:00pm ET) Contact Info:IG: @gabrielle.ginterEmail: My.LeapOfFaith@icloud.comInsta LinkMusic:Ayla Nereo - Humwww.aylanereo.com

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. This is another one of those episodes where I'm mostly talking to me. I hope you enjoy it. 1 Peter 4:12 & 13, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exaltation.”    So I study and contemplate and think about joy. I enjoy the joy that God has given me as I've learned to integrate more of my life, my daily work life and my daily living with Jesus. I wish I had done a better job of that when I was younger and when my faith was newer, and that's part of the reason why I'm involved with Follower of One at all. I want to help us integrate our faith in our work so that we may rejoice with exaltation as he says here at the end of this verse. But he's giving us tips for dealing with difficulty.    Tip number one: do not be surprised at the difficulties that you face. He says “the fiery ordeal among you”, that difficulty comes upon you for your testing. God is using this to strengthen us. You know as well as I do that we get stronger at anything by lifting above our weight, by trying to do more than we are equipped to do, our muscles get torn down, and then they heal back stronger.    We're working out our faith in the same way by facing the fiery ordeals that come upon us for our testing. But when I look at it like it's some strange thing that was happening to me, my expectation is I'm living the good life. My expectation is this should be easy. It should take less time. I always seem to plan for the ideal situation, and then I'm surprised, as though some strange thing were happening to me, as he says in this verse.    And he's reminding us if we can create in ourselves this attitude that comes from Jesus, but if we can create it and say “This comes upon me for my testing, it's not a strange thing. It's part of God's plan”, then to the degree that I can share the sufferings of Jesus, I get to rejoice, so that I can see His glory through my life. When I see His glory through my life, I experience His joy.    I enjoy doing these daily devotionals. I don't do them as often as I'd like, but I just don't want you to go nuts listening to my voice all the time. I hope that these are helpful, because I struggle with this whole idea of following Jesus in the difficult times. I really want the easy job, I want the easy shift. But it's in the difficulty that I get to rejoice, because His glory is revealed.   When I do what Jesus would have me do in my workplace, in the difficulties of my daily life, Jesus is glorified. People go, “Well, why are you doing this?” And I get to tell them about my relationship with Jesus.   I get to glorify God, and then I can rejoice with exaltation. I can enjoy watching God work through me when I am not surprised by the difficulties that face me. I'm preaching to me again, please remember, but maybe this will help you too. Let's look at our circumstances today as the weight Jesus is loading on the bar for us, and it's ours to push. It's ours to lift.    Let's not look as though some strange thing were happening to us, but let's face our difficulties with joy and trust Jesus. Now, maybe you need some help with that. And you can reach out to me at followerofone.org, you can reach out to mike@followerofone.org. I'd be happy to help you to pray for you to do whatever we can. We probably need to create a page where we can share prayer requests.    But I want to encourage you if you need prayer, let me know. And people from our team will pray for you, And so will I. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for looking for ways to integrate your life and Jesus' in such a way that He becomes visible.   And any way you want to do that, we can help you. We're trying to help people do this better all the time at followerofone.org. You can check it out over there. Thanks very much for being a minister in your marketplace.

"For from his fullness, we have all received, grace upon grace." John 1:16 Divine Grace at Work is like a gentle rain falling on parched land, quenching the thirst of our souls and bringing new life to our spirits. It is a gift we humbly accept through prayer, allowing it to wash away our sins and renew our faith. Oh most gracious Lord, I raise my voice in humble prayer, I seek your choice. As Hebrews 4:16 remind us of the power and importance of approaching your throne with confidence; therefore, I come with my uncertainties and challenges, knowing that I will find solace in you as you invite us to come boldly before you. Hebrews 4:16 encourages believers to approach God's throne of grace confidently so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. These words remind us that no matter what trials or tribulations we face, we have a loving God who is ready to extend His mercy and provide comfort during our darkest hours. Through prayer, we can experience His divine guidance and wisdom because His loving grace is like a gentle breeze sweeping through my soul, soothing every ache and worry. It is a gift that surpasses all understanding and gives me unparalleled peace. Romans 5:2 says, "Through Jesus, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." When I feel overwhelmed by life's challenges, I turn to God and surrender myself to His infinite love. His goodness reminds me that I am not alone in this journey; He is always by my side, guiding me toward righteousness. With each passing day, I am reminded of the immense power of His grace as it sets my soul at ease. In God's eternal presence, my spirit finds rest. Through moments of prayer and contemplation, I have come to realize that God's loving grace is not only reserved for the chosen few but accessible to all who seek it earnestly. This revelation has brought me immense comfort and joy, knowing that no matter who we are or what we have done, God's love is unconditional and ever-present. From the depths of my heart, I am forever grateful for my salvation. Through God's boundless mercy and forgiveness, I am blessed with the opportunity to live a life filled with purpose and meaning. Reflecting on this incredible gift fills me with awe and humility as I recognize that it is not something I could ever earn or deserve. So, in moments of loneliness and reflection, I find comfort in knowing that God's grace through Christ always surrounds me. Amen. John 1:17 says, "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Amen. Let us pray, Heavenly Father, I Thank you for your love and support. Just as Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, may you find favor in God's eyes as you navigate the stormy waters of life, and may your faith be rewarded. May you experience the sweetest melody in life, all in the name of Jesus. Amen. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pastor-divineo/support

Join Lesley as she interviews renowned photographer James Patrick on the advantages of specializing in any field. Discover the importance of embracing imperfections and how failures and feedbacks can lead to professional success in this informative podcast episode.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co . And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:How James overcame imposter syndromeCareer benefits of leaning into your unique differentiatorBreaking down goals into smaller, manageable tasksThe importance of progress over perfectTaking action and audience feedbackEpisode References/Links:Follow James Patrick on IGJames Patrick's Legacy PlannerChef Robert Irvine's BookGuest Bio:James Patrick is an award winning photographer, best selling author, business coach and media specialist based in Phoenix, AZ. He's the founder of Get Published LIVE, an annual conference for entrepreneurs to earn media as well as the publisher of ICON REFINED, a media network celebrating the modern entrepreneur which includes a digital platform, multiple print publications and a top charting podcast. James' mission is to create both art and opportunities for those he connects with.  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.Be It Till You See It Podcast SurveyBe in the know with all the workshops at OPCBe a part of Lesley's Pilates MentorshipWaitlist for the flashcards deckUse this link to get your Toe Sox!ResourcesWatch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesSocial MediaInstagramFacebookLinkedInEpisode Transcript:James Patrick: [00:00:00] So when we start to break things into these manageable pieces, we actually start to get things done. And the more we start to get these little pieces done, the more confidence we are building in ourselves that, yeah, I can actually do this thing, that this, this idea, this can come into fruition. Like as I start to tick off these little boxes, I can start to move forward.And it, it then becomes this self-propelling momentum in how we get things done.Lesley Logan: Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear.Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, [00:01:00] intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Hey, loves, how are you? Okay. Today's guest is actually someone I really just enjoy having conversations with. Uh, I. I met him through Kareen Walsh, who you all remember from one of our earlier episodes, and she is just phenomenal. If you haven't listened to her, we'll put that link in the show notes because she's a badass and she loves to help you be a badass.Um, but she introduced me to James through an email and I was, and he asked me if I wanted do something and I said yes. And then, and then because I said yes, I did something. And like he's like, Hey, you wanna be on my show? And I was like, yes. And then we had them in the best conversations I've ever had in life.And so of course I was like, well, you know, if you ever wanna be on my show, I would love to have you cuz like we have way too much fun talking together. And y'all, he, uh, only is not going to disappoint you in his amazing, [00:02:00] inspiring, wonderful, honest answers about life and work and how you can Be It Till You See It, but we get into a goal setting, and it's one of my favorite goal setting conversations I've ever had. Um, if you are an agency, uh, you get to meet him in our group because he's speaking to our group. And if you're not an agency and you're like, wait, what's that? Well, that's where we coach people on how to do their business.Um, but, and anyway, this episode, I'm really, I really can't wait for you to listen to. I hope you can understand what he is doing; and, and you are going to want to go into the show notes. And if you don't know how to find them, you're gonna do this little swipey up thing. And you're gonna find the links in the show notes because he has an incredible physical thing that you can use to make your goals of reality.And I know if you are listening to this show, you're like me, you'll like a physical journal. I can't read my own handwriting, but I still love one and I still buy them. So at any rate, here's James Patrick. Oh, and stick around to the very end because we got some outtakes that's been happening. There's [00:03:00] always outtakes. Um, and the team does collect them for bloopers on the YouTube, but uh, we're adding them into the end of the pod because you know what you need to know that we are not perfect. You're not perfect, and we're enjoying the process and we are enjoying that.So have a good laugh on our behalf. Love you.Lesley Logan: All right, Be It babe. I'm super stoked for our guest today, James Patrick is one of the most favorite people I've actually ever been interviewed by. One of the most fun conversations I've ever had on his podcast. And he said this amazing thing that he's gonna share with all of us. And I was like, well that's absolutely necessary for our Be It pod listeners.Um, cuz we're all about goals here, all about taking action and also like actually trying to accomplish them at the same time. So James, will you tell everyone who you are and what you rock James Patrick: at these days? Well, thank you so much for having me on. I always get a little like overwhelmed with imposter syndrome whenever I have to describe myself.Um, and I think that goes back to when I was trying to build my career as a photographer, which spoiler alert, I'm a photographer [00:04:00] and I was working in marketing at the time trying to build this side hustle as, as a photographer. And whenever I'd be at networking events or, or socials or things like that, someone would say, well, what do you do for a living?And I would chicken out. And I would not say I'm working on being a photographer. I'd always go with the safe route. Say, well, I'm working in marketing. And it wasn't until I trusted someone enough not to judge me that I was comfortable saying, oh, by the way, I'm also trying to become a photographer. And at some point, uh, I, I think it was around 2006, 2007, uh, I was at a networking event.Same question was asked, and I said, I'm a photographer, and that right there was a light bulb moment for me that made me realize, oh, I need to quit my marketing job because I'm actually willing to own this posture of being a photographer. So I've been shooting now for 20 years. I, I've shot close to 700 magazine covers.Um, but I also tie in a lot of my background in marketing in press production, and helping my [00:05:00] clients leverage the power of earned media to amplify their brands, to generate new leads for their business, and then how they can, how they can build an entire ecosystem from there. Lesley Logan: Oh my goodness. I love how in your intro you somehow managed to make sure we heard how you were being it till you saw it.Like, like you, you struggled to say that you're a photographer, but when you said it, it was like, oh, well now I gotta let go of this thing. Mm-hmm. Like, and I actually can relate to that in a lot of ways, so I, and I'm sure some of our listeners can too, it, I remember when I became a pilates instructor, it felt really weird to say that because I had come from, Being this top manager in a, a very famous boutique, uh, from like that people around the world knew.And then I was gonna say, oh, I'm a Pilates instructor. And it felt really weird to say it, but then it's really interesting. And I don't know if you got the same thing once I said it just like, like there's this moment like, oh, I am this person. But people find it very intriguing when you get to be something that's like, not the typical route that someone could go, they're almost a little jealous.They're [00:06:00] like, wow, you, you, you're, you do that for a living. It's like, yeah, James Patrick: I do. Yeah, no one asked any follow up questions when I said I worked in marketing. Like, okay, that's great. Um, but when I said, oh, I'm a photographer, well, that peaks curiosity. You're absolutely right. I never thought about that, uh, until you mentioned it.Lesley Logan: Yeah, it takes a, a good kind of curiosity. I'm sure like lawyers and doctors always get those follow up questions, but the, being a retail manager, being in marketing, it's like, oh, okay. Like it doesn't, okay. James Patrick: Yeah. Okay. As if they look over your shoulder to see who else they can talk to in the Yeah. Lesley Logan: Yeah.Especially in LA uh, it's just why I had to like learn how to get seen in, in the world. So you, you said it like over 700 covers and you're doing all these things to help people build their brands. How did that come to be? Like, was that something that you kind of fell into just one step at a time?Was it something that you had a dream about doing? How did, how did this all kind of come together James Patrick: in regards to photography or shooting covers? Lesley Logan: [00:07:00] Uh, let's shooting covers. James Patrick: Um, it wasn't a plan until at some point I counted it and realized that it was pretty substantial. My, my first job as a photographer was working in media.Uh, I was working at a newspaper and prior to that I was a journalist. Um, and I don't know whether the newspaper I was working at, if the publisher hated my writing or loved my photography, but he, he said, I can't be a writer anymore. I needed to be a photographer. So he put me in the photo pool as opposed to the writer's pool and I started shooting, uh, for a few issues, and then there was an opening to be the photo editor of the, of that newspaper, which I, I landed. Now to be clear, photo air doesn't mean I edited photos. You don't really edit photos for newspapers. What it meant was I managed the photo department. I had to quickly learn what photos worked, what photos did not work, and where to place images within the print publication, uh, that led to me getting a job [00:08:00] as a photo editor at a startup magazine. Same thing. I have to manage a team of photographers. I have to assign out the, the, the projects and then I have to cull through all these images to determine which of these images are commercially viable that are gonna help sell this magazine.So when I launched out my freelance photography business, I stuck with what I knew, which was shooting for media production and it just made sense that I was shooting lots of magazine covers cuz I knew what images to take to make a magazine cover that moved units. And at some point, uh, someone asked me, well, how many of these have you done?It seems like a lot. I think at that point it was like 500 or something like that. I was like, oh, I should actually keep track of this at this point. Lesley Logan: Yeah, that's so, um, that's, I love that because I think sometimes people can forget the strengths that they learned along the way. Mm-hmm. And like having those opportunities just allow you to hone in your skills of photographer when you're taking pictures. It was like, well, this is something that's gonna actually sell the thing that it's on top of. Like, it really does matter. [00:09:00] I have, I, I have to do that sort of for myself with newsletters. I'm like, that picture, why would you choose a picture?Put that picture away and it's like, I clearly need a photo editor and that's fun cause I don't wanna be that person. But those, it matters for whether something, uh, fill, take, goes off the shelf or sells a book or sells a product versus it doesn't, you know, it doesn't really matter if the product's amazing, if no one will look at the picture James Patrick: that's on it.I think so often we're afraid to lean into these unique differentiators, uh, because it's like, well, I don't want to turn off some clients if I, if I only focus here then other people are not gonna be too interested. And my opinion is no. It's when I focus here on on, for example, media production for myself, it was really hard to compete with me on that when I said I don't just take photos.Anyone can take a great photo. I can make an image that I know is gonna work. I know is going to move more units. I know it's gonna sell more ads. I know whatever it is, I [00:10:00] know this is going to work. So while everyone else is taking photos, I'm gonna make an image that works now if the goal was not to sell magazines.If the goal was not to move magazine units, if the goal was not to get published, there's no reason to look at my work. There's no reason to hire me there. There are other photographers that that can do better in other areas, like for example, um, Events. I am atrocious at shooting events. I, I would be the worst person to hire for it.It, it causes me physical pain and anxiety to even think about shooting events. Um, food and beverage, I absolutely love shooting food and beverage. I would not consider myself even remotely, uh, commercially competent to shoot food and beverage. Um, whereas other people would absolutely decimate me should they bid against me on a food and beverage, uh, uh, campaign.So I, I've really tried to stay in what I believe I excel at and use that as my unique differentiator because there people cannot [00:11:00] compete with me. Lesley Logan: Yeah. When, well, and I, you know, what I love is like, the more you actually, as you say, lean into your unique differentiators, the better it is for you because you become the best at what you it is that you do.Mm-hmm. But so many people are, are so afraid. What a, what? I mean, you've probably seen it along the way with the people that you coach and the people that you work with. What is, what do you see as the fear that they're like, if I, if I put myself in this position, I like am alienating all of this. So like, I'm just gonna be for everybody, which we already know is not gonna work.But why? Why is that fear so great that it's keeping 'em in the place of thinking that it's going to work when it doesn't and we already know this? James Patrick: The assumption is, is that they're going to lose work and they're gonna lose opportunities that that opportunities within their specialty are too finite for them to build something substantial out of.And when I launched, my photo business was right around the recession in 2008, and I had the problem where I was quite, um, Ubiquitous in trying to do everything. You know, I could shoot [00:12:00] fashion, I can shoot editorial and I'll shoot, um, you know, events or whatever, whatever would pay, I would say yes to. But when budgets are very tight, which they were, uh, and by the way, budgets are always tight.There's no such thing as, as, uh, uh, like a big budget. I've never had a client, like, I always get the email. It's like, well, our budgets are really tight right now. I'm like, I'm just waiting for the email to say, Whatever you want. The, you know, throw, throw, throw the biggest, uh, number you can at us. But, um, budgets were tight.And so if, if you have a very, a very limited amount of money, and let's say you're shooting a fashion campaign, are you gonna shoot the person who is competent enough to shoot the fashion campaign or for the same budget are you gonna hire the person who specializes in fashion? Yeah. You don't have money to redo this.You can't mess this up. Who are you gonna hire? You're gonna hire the specialist, the person who you trust to do this project right the first time. Then it became, well, I just need to be a trusted resource for that. So when it comes to [00:13:00] being trusted for this style or this approach, or this, this vision, yeah, I'm gonna be hired for that.Now does that mean I lose out on some campaigns? Of course it does. Yeah, that's fine. But it doesn't mean I lose out on everything. Uh, last week I was shooting, uh, a product, uh, right across from me and my office. I, food and beverage. Actually, I have to shoot product labels for a food and beverage company.Now, why did I get that? Because I, I built a relationship with that person, not because I, I, I might be the best photographer to, to, to shoot this, uh, but because I have a great relationship with that client and that's why they hired me. So this idea that we're gonna lose out on everything is just not accurate, and it's never proven to be the case.But not specializing in something is almost a guaranteed way to lose out on opportunities that you are hardwired to, to, to be getting. Hmm. Lesley Logan: Oh, everyone. Rewind that. Listen that again. I love that so much because it's true. Like there are some things that you'll get by based on relationship that happened in my business as well.Mm-hmm. [00:14:00] And, but also, like even for me, I, I am a small business. We're trying to be a big business, but we still have budgets for things. I love my photographer that I work with, she's phenomenal. I, she does events really, really well. That's how I met her. But she's a personal branding, uh, photographer, but she does not do the photos.Even with the relationship I have with her for my flashcards, my exercise photos are a specialist. He specializes in shooting movement. He specialize in shooting, shooting athletes. So I can actually keep moving while he takes pictures. I don't have to hold every exercise as it's going. And it's just because you, you gotta, you have to make sure that you are hiring the best for, for something when, especially when budgets are right, but when you have a purpose for that product.And so the more we lean in, you're, you're, I. I love the way you actually said, it's like you're guaranteeing that you're gonna get the jobs that you're the best for instead of losing out on on the ones that you could have been the best for. Um, so you've been a photographer it sounds like, for, oh my gosh, you're almost at 20 [00:15:00] years in this business of solo doing photographer.Obviously your job has, your role has evolved and you're doing these other things. What are you most excited about doing right now? James Patrick: I, I don't know if I could distill that. It's kind of like asking what breath I'm excited to take next. Um, every ...(Lesley: Choose your favorite child.) Yeah. Every day I, I go to work. It's, it's different.Like today I get to spend time with you recording this podcast. And the only other thing on my agenda today is I get to post process, uh, a handful of, of projects I was working on. So photo editing, um, I'm excited about that. You know, I, I get, I get my cup of coffee. I, I, I get to put on some music in the background and I just get to kind of zone out in this meditative state while I just work on this.And then tomorrow I, I'm doing copywriting all day and, and I'll have fun doing that. And Monday I'm filming content, uh, where I have to be on camera cuz we're going into a launch. I have to film a bunch of, uh, sales videos and marketing videos and I'm gonna have a, a crap ton of [00:16:00] fun doing that too. I would rather just not do work that I don't really feel lights me up.Um, I choose to work, I choose the work I do. I choose to work very hard, and I also choose when I'm not working. Mm-hmm. Um, um, so, You know, that's not to say, and I don't want to sound like I'm on a soapbox where, you know, I just never, I never have a bad day and I don't, I don't find things that, that frustrate me and, and stress me out and cause me just massive amounts of, of paralysis and anxiety.Um, but that's not the goal. The goal is to, to love what I do. Um, I would say, One of the things I'm, that's been lighting me up a lot recently is I started, I started, uh, taking my podcast and incorporating a lot more video into it. Uh, and I started doing it at the start of the year, and that has been just such a joy to do every week to, to be able to go live, uh, and have people tune into my show, live and be a part, uh, an active participant in my show live.Um ...(Lesley: that's so cool.) [00:17:00] It's, I just, I had wanted to do it for years and I got tired of trying to make it perfect and I just did it and it's been great and I've had so much fun with it. So, and I think maybe that's the reason that comes to mind right now is just cuz it's the most new thing that I've been doing.So, Lesley Logan: yeah. So I, I agree. Like I, um, There are, there are days where like, even in my job, it's like, ugh, I just don't really wanna work today. Mm-hmm. But when I actually start working on the things I'm like, I really do, like, I do actually like writing my own newsletters. I, I love copyright, I love writing a sales email.I'm not the best person at it, but I like, have fun the way I write it, that it does really well. So I enjoy all the different parts that I do. However I can remember back to when I was like in 2015 trying to make the thing I'm doing now, the thing I was doing by myself, like making all the money and doing the job that like was the j o b just over budget, paid the bills, had the security of the healthcare and all that stuff, and trying to bridge the gap of like how taking that eventual leap while living in [00:18:00] LA and paying exorbitant rent and some parking tickets, um, because you just never got out to your meter in time. Um, so, you know, for me, making those goals, that was easier to break 'em down and, and, and, and finally get to this place where I, I get to do what I chose to do and I'm really excited about it. For those listening though, what are, what are like your, like what is you, how did you break your goals down?How did you make sure that like, that you could have this job or like you get to do everything you James Patrick: like to? So I was running into this problem a number of years ago where I would set goals every year because I knew. So every book I read said it was important to set goals. So I'd set goals for myself and then I'd forget about 'em or, or I'd, you know, file my goals into a, a folder that would go into a final en cabinet that I wouldn't look at until the next year.I'm like, oh, did I actually do that? No, I guess, I guess, guess not. Um, and even goals that I did [00:19:00] remember wanting to do, I never really conceptualized how I was going to do it or what that process would look like. So by the time I would come up to when I thought this would be done by the more insurmountable that goal became and, and the more stressful that goal became, it was just easier just not to do it.So what I decided to do was to create a living document that I looked at regular. That I would catalog my goals at, and I would check in with on a routine basis, because at least now I'm not leaving my goals, collecting dust in a drawer for, you know, 11 months. I'm looking at it monthly. Or, or every other month, or even weekly, you know, and I'm trying to see, okay, what do I need to do?So it, this was an Excel spreadsheet I started like a decade ago, a little over a decade ago. And then every year I would refine it a little bit and add a little more context to it and break the goals down a little bit more. So [00:20:00] that, let's, let's take, like I've been hosting events for 10 years. Let's take, I wanna host an event this year.Well, that is a really big idea. Yeah, and the closer you get to, well, I wanna host an event by July, and now all of a sudden it's May 31st, and you're like, I got a month to get this thing off the ground, and I've never hosted an event before. I don't even know what to do, so I'm just gonna cancel this, this, this goal is just, and that's, that's unfortunate because that could have been an amazing event and you are now robbing all those people who could have attended that event the absolutely phenomenal experience of being a part of seeing your idea come into reality. So I started to break these goals down into, well, what needs to happen this quarter? All right, what needs to happen this month? What needs to happen this week, or what needs to happen this day? And the more granular I made the goals, two things happen.Number one, it drastically reduced stress because now I'm not thinking about building an event. I'm thinking about [00:21:00] this month alone. I just gotta find a hotel to host the event. That's all I gotta do this month. And then next month, then I can figure out food and beverage, and then the month after that, then I can figure out speakers and sponsors.So I'm now segmenting my attention. I don't have to worry about speakers and sponsors right now. I just gotta find a great hotel and I can put my energy into that in this moment, and all of a sudden it allowed me to refine my focus and everything. And not just in business, but in, in, in my personal goals. Like, you know, I wanted to take two personal trips.Uh, you know, in, in a year, well, taking a personal trip you can break down as well. Well, what does that mean? Well, I need to research places to go. I need to book airfare and hotels. I need to book, uh, experiences on these trips, and I can now put this into different months or different weeks as I lead up to this trip.So that, oh, I said I was gonna go on vacation in August. I'm [00:22:00] now in July. I don't know where to go. You know what? I'll just cancel it. Now. I've robbed myself of a great vacation. So when we start to break things into these manageable pieces, we actually start to get things done, and the more we start to get these little pieces done.The more confidence we are building in ourselves that, yeah, I can actually do this thing. That this, this idea, this can come into fruition. Like as I start to tick off these little boxes, I can start to move forward and it, it then becomes this self-propelling momentum in how we get things done. I am Lesley Logan: so glad you brought up the confidence part of it.That is why so many people listen to this podcast. And then why I even created this podcast is most people are like, Lesley, you're so competent in everything you do. And I'm like, well, I actually have a lot of imposter syndrome. Most of the things I do, cuz most things I'm doing I've never done before. So I'm flying by the seat of my pants.But I am someone who loves to work backwards. I learned that many years ago and [00:23:00] I, and it is the most helpful way to take on a big project and also, You said confidence, but also it kind of guarantees you're gonna do the thing you're scared to do because you've already done all the work, you already booked the hotel, you've already reached out to the sponsors.You almost get yourself into a position where you can't back out. Cause it's harder to back out than it is to do the scary thing. And so, um, but when you said you're robbing people or you're robbing yourself of an experience, that to me is one of the most important things people can take away from this right now as you're listening, every time you are too scared to share who you are and what you do and how you rock at it, or every time you skip out on something that is gonna change people's lives or your own.You're, you're preventing the, everybody from having this experience, they could change their life, could absolutely, that vacation that you were gonna take could have been the thing that allowed you to end up meeting the person that was your best friend or meeting the meet, getting a different job or, or just maybe moving, like, I almost skipped out on not going to Cambodia cuz my husband wanted to go there [00:24:00] for our honeymoon. And I was like, really? That's where you wanna go on our honeymoon? Can we add an island in there? Can we just, but as soon as we landed I was like, oh my God, this is my favorite place in the whole world. Right? And if we, and we did the same thing planned the honeymoon cuz I had nine flights in 14 days cuz my husband's an ex, ex musician and he's like, oh, we'll just go on tour.You can see people see three countries in a week. No problem. And I was like, really? That's how you do this? But it's those little steps each time so that it builds up and becomes the goal that you had in the first place. I, um, you've said you've been doing this for 10 years. Have you been able to help other people see how to break these things down?What about the people who are like, they don't know the steps in between, you know, like that, breaking it down to small pieces, they're not sure the steps in between or the order of those. James Patrick: That's such an important question because this approach does not guarantee success and that, that I really want to, to be clear on, [00:25:00] but the goal is not success.The goal is progress. So when I first host an event, I had no idea host how to host an event. So of course I got things wrong. That didn't matter the event still happened. And every year, you know, we're going into our ninth year of this, of this conference, and every year it has improved. Um, even, even going into this year nine, there were things in year eight that we didn't do right. Right. Quote unquote. I, yeah. We didn't do as well as we could have. Every year we're learning. Uh, so, so this, this idea that I need to perfect something before, before I begin. Mm. No, that, that's another great way to always keep something as an idea. Uh, it, it is about testing. You won't know what works until you try something.Um, and, and I love how you said that. Even, even where we're at now. We're still not confident that things are gonna [00:26:00] work out. I, as long as I've been doing this, I, I, I still am terrified that something is going to go awry or something's not going to work, even if I've done it a hundred times before. I was launching a new brand couple years ago and I was feeling a little nervous, a lot nervous about it, and I, because of that, I was getting a little testy at home.My wife always says, why are you, what are you worried about? I'm. Well, I'm putting a lot of time and energy into this. I'm putting money into this and what if this doesn't work? And she just looked at me and she's like, well, then you'll do something else. Oh, okay. I guess you're right. And you know, spoiler, whatever I was launching did not work.I lost money on it. And, and, hey. Check my pulse. Yep. Still here and still doing okay. Um, so the goal is not perfection. The goal is progress. As we start to work incrementally towards this, there's no way for you to know how to do everything or how to perfectly reverse engineer, but that's not an excuse not to try.Yeah. [00:27:00] Um, Lesley Logan: Yeah, that's just, I Thank you. That's a really good point. Um, you know, we work with a lot of athletes, uh, not athletes, excuse me, um, uh, fitness instructors on their goals and their business, and they'll, I can, I can see when they've missed. They, first of all, too many times I see people, but too many goals on that are unachievable for one person in one month.So I'm just like, too many goals and it's like, I love all these, but we do, you have 40 hours a week to work on these, like these, you know? So giving yourself achievable goals is really great. But also when you set yourself up like that and you don't do them, or you don't get 'em all the way because a roadblock came up, I see people shut down.Oh, I missed the goal. I failed. And it's like, actually, how could you have known that your website would need all this copy? If you've never built a website before, how could you have known if you, uh, To put a scheduling tool together was gonna take you three weeks instead of two weeks. Like, you can't know these things.[00:28:00] So we put dates on things because it helps us get them done. Right. Prioritizes, yes, it puts in a priority, but getting it done, uh, perfectly is not the goal. It's the progress. It's like moving the ball forward, not kicking it down the road, but like actually moving it down, moving it forward with that, with that information that you learned.And so sometimes you have to reset the date. James Patrick: So, um, couple things I wanted to say on this because you brought up a few important points. One thing about setting goals, I would, I would encourage people to set goals that they themselves have control over and that are not required to have another party or another, uh, company be the decision maker.So, for example, it would be frustrating if I were to set a goal on. Oh, I don't know, uh, number of, uh, new stand covers I want to shoot in a year. Uh, cuz I don't actually control that. Mm-hmm. There's another company that chooses whether or not [00:29:00] my work gets put on that cover. So let's say I say, oh, I want five new stand covers this year and I only get three.I might feel bad about myself, but that didn't mean I didn't work my ass off to get these covers, so why should I feel bad about that? Instead, I could shift that to, I want to send off 10 pitches a month. I want to, uh, send off a hundred podcast submissions per quarter. I want to record 20 YouTube videos, uh, per year.Now these are things I control and I'm working towards goals like shooting new STEM magazine covers, but I'm not setting my, how I view success or fulfillment upon conditions that I don't have control over. And that's something that's helped me just reduce some of the, just stress I might feel if I'm not hitting something that I don't control.Um, like I wanna launch a website, okay? I can set a loose date of when I wanna launch a website, but if I'm not designing the website and someone else [00:30:00] is designing the website, I can only control my aspects of it, how fast I write the copy, how fast I turn around the edits, how fast I upload all the materials, how fast I purchase the domain.Those are the things I can control. I can't control when a designer says they're gonna get their work done. So that, that I think is important. And the other thing is, um, we have this, this way of the closer we get to finishing something, the more we find wrong with it. Um, when I worked in marketing, uh, I, I was doing professional service, uh, business development.So I, I pursued public sector work for, uh, architecture and engineering and in pursuing these projects, On the regular, were six to eight figures. Um, when did the project manager come into the room to assess their opinions on the pursuit? Did they come in at the beginning or did they come in at the end?They came in at the end like, well, I don't know if I like the team this way, or, I don't know if we're, we're highlighting the right past projects, or, you know what, maybe we need to bring into this [00:31:00] other subcontractor. And my response is, holy shit, are you way too late on this? Because we have to turn this submittal in tomorrow by five o'clock.Or we don't get this project. Now, if you would've come in at the beginning of this process, then all that stuff could have been factored in. This is why we're trying to reverse the engineer at the beginning. So guess what? All this stuff that you're gonna do is gonna do one to two things. One, it's either not gonna happen and we're gonna submit as is, and maybe we get it, maybe we don't.And number two, we're gonna try to squeeze all this in and we're gonna miss the deadline, and then we're not gonna get it. Okay, so coming up with these objections or these, these alternatives or these scenarios, worst case scenarios at the beginning can help create some, some ideas on how to work through if these things ever do surface or if these things ever do arise.It's like we have an event happening at my studio next week, and it would be [00:32:00] very counterproductive if my business partner came in and says, oh, we need to change the, the order of the speakers and we need to shift around, uh, you know, how we're doing registration, or, you know what, all these people who bought tickets, we need to adjust what, whatever this scenario is, that would be a bad time to do it.Okay. But if they were to do it at the beginning, Now we can work this through. It's, it's, it's just a way of, once again, allowing perfectionism to delay actually getting something out the door. Lesley Logan: Yeah. I, first of all, both points: love. And the second point, I really, um, can, from my own experience, it is really funny how the closer we get to like something seeing the light of day, we like start to nitpick noodle or like all of a sudden have this reason why, ugh, this actually shouldn't be like this.I remember when prior to this podcast launching, I had recorded, you know, you have to have like 11, whatever, who knows what it is today, but back then I could launch with 11 episodes, so. Mm-hmm. And I thought that was a lot. And, um, but I remember like doing them, um, I [00:33:00] didn't, I'd never interviewed people like for a podcast before.Really. I'd been on the other side. So I'm doing the best I can. And right before it was supposed to launch, I listened back to some of them and I was like, this microphone we have is terrible. Mm. Now wouldn't it have been a good idea, prior to actually interviewing all those people, to check to see if I like the sound of the microphone?I didn't, and I had sat there for like a week thinking about what am I gonna do cuz like, I don't wanna re-interview all these people, but I'm not really sure I love the sound and as I was about to just stop myself and like stop myself from moving the ball forward, from having the goal of launch of the podcast on time.Thankfully. Well, someone I look up to in this world, I'm sure you've actually shot her a cover several times. I listened to a podcast, she launched some friends, and their audio was so crappy. I thought, if these women can put that out, I'm gonna put mine out and I'm just go buy new microphone. So episodes 14 and on have a different sound and we're just gonna go with it.But I really did that perfectionist. [00:34:00] That's why I said I'm a recovering one. That perfectionist almost got me to stop and now if looking back I can see what we made a mistake on and now for other things I can, I love this idea of like, let's think about the things that we might wanna change. We might, that could go wrong at the beginning.So we actually put the lead time in to deal with that now we have the time before we don't have the time. Genius little addition in there. James Patrick: How many people, um, complained about your audio quality? ...(Lesley: No one has.) Okay. Just checking. Uh, people will overlook a lot or they won't notice things or they don't care as long as the content's good.Uh, you know, it's, people care about outcomes and results, uh, when they're investing even. Time and energy. If, if the content's good, if they are getting the outcome that they wanted out of it, they're gonna, they're gonna ignore so much. You, you're Lesley Logan: 100% correct there. Because even when, so now it's probably eight, nine years ago when I started on YouTube.This is like before, you know, before I could, before [00:35:00] getting access to like, you didn't have AirPods or wasn't there. And so like getting a a lapel mic was pretty difficult. And my husband's like, he's like, you have to be on YouTube and I was like, insert all the imposter syndrome of why I should be on YouTube over anyone else.But anyways, we did it and it was, you know, pre tripod. We hadn't even, like, we were like taking messy action, should we do this? And so he is like trying to hold the camera really still while I'm like filming an exercise. And of course it's LA So then an ambulance goes by. Mm-hmm. And you'd be like, stop, start again.Those videos though are still getting views today. No one's complained about the audio. No one's complained that there's not a tripod. We got better along the way. But when the content is, what is answering questions people have, they will, they are more forgiving. Um, you know, and then, and now today there's like so much access for so many affordable prices to noodle and, and, and do things better.So we can, but, um, you know what a great reminder that like, if that, it's okay if the, if what you're doing is actually great quality, in other [00:36:00] ways people will overlook some things. So give, give yourself some space James Patrick: and grace. I always get nervous when someone asks a question. Um, what's the best microphone to get?Um, what is the best recording platform to use? What's the best camera to purchase? And I'm just, I don't care. I, I don't know. Um, whatever you use, I, it doesn't matter. I, I, um, speaking about podcasts, you know, early on when I started podcasting, there weren't as you said, is accessible of gear or technology. I mean, we didn't have Zoom.We had to drive to people. So I would, from Arizona, I'd drive to LA to go interview people because I, I desperately wanted them on my show and I was using these old crappy microphones. I actually just found it. It might be behind me. Yeah, it is. Um, I found it in a, in a, in a case in my studio, uh, that's like 15 year old microphone.Um, It's a USB microphone, and I didn't know that [00:37:00] you couldn't plug more than one SB microphone into a laptop simultaneously because they record at different speeds. And thus you will have this terrible audio quality from one of your guests. And here I am in Los Angeles interviewing this, this big, you know, fitness celebrity, and you can't hear her through the microphone.So we have to pull her audio from my microphone, which is across this table. And by the way, we're recording in this giant auditorium. So there's this massive echo all around because we didn't know about soundproofing back then. And, and you know what? That episode did very well for us. It was fine. Yeah. It worked out.Um, yeah, so it's, once again, this is, We're, we're hitting upon this beat that the more we try to perfect something, the more we are delaying getting feedback on whatever it is we're trying to put out. Our audience will tell us that they want it different. Our audience will tell, you would never have known your audio didn't sound great until you listened to it.And, and ultimately you decided, okay, we're gonna put this out and then we're [00:38:00] gonna make a shift. Um, I would never know how to refine my events unless I launch my event. We, we learn in the process of, of releasing things to market and allowing, allowing feedback to enter into our ecosystem. Well, absolutely.Lesley Logan: Um, the co team membership we have now just turned, it's about five and a half years old at this point, but when. Seven years ago, I launched something very similar, but I perfected it. I made sure everything was ready to go. I went, I launched it, and guess what? No one actually bought it. No one did, because I didn't get feedback along the way.I actually wasn't talking. I wasn't even talking about it along the way. So no one even knew it was even coming because heaven forbid I tell anyone and then they ask me a question and I like start to doubt myself and my imposter comes in. So I protected this goal. All by myself, did it all myself. And then, and then guess what?I got to keep it all to myself. Cause no one wanted it. And so after six months of trying to make this thing work, uh, we took it all apart. We broke it [00:39:00] down to pieces and I did what I should have done, which is just put one piece of it out. See if people liked it, get feedback on it, put a different piece of it out, see what happened.And what ended up happening over the next year and a half is what we found people really liked. We put that together, made a membership out of it, and now we've coached over a thousand people with it. So, you know, like ...(Patrick: That's amazing.) It, it's amazing. And with the smaller version of, we've coached over 2000 businesses with it.So it's like, what is so cool is I definitely had to learn the hard way, but since learning that now, it's always like we put the thing, I'm thinking of doing this out there. What's the feedback gonna be? What are the questions people are gonna ask me? What weird stuff am I gonna see out there so that I can go, oh, okay.People either didn't understand what I was saying or they loved it, or I can do this. And it really helps you know where you should be spending your time so that you can take your amazing way of goal setting and work backwards before I spent another year on something that nobody knows they want. James Patrick: I think what's [00:40:00] important to take from this is this ability to launch and to put something out there.It is not a talent. We are not born with this. This is not innate to anyone. This is a skill. This has to be developed. Um, you, you developed this through podcasting. You developed this through, through trying to launch programs. You developed this by, by putting yourself out on YouTube, you had to learn and exercise this muscle that taught you to.Test things out and to put things out and to try things and to get feedback. I had to learn this as a journalist. Um, that's why, you know, I, I started, uh, my career in journalism as I mentioned, I didn't have the benefit of ever experiencing writer's block. Weren't allowed to have writer's block cuz you had deadlines.So writer's block was not a thing. You had to write, you had to turn in and you had to get it into, into print. You just wrote, you don't know what to write. Doesn't matter. You write, it's filled, theirs, doesn't matter. You gotta send it in. [00:41:00] And having that experience of it, it has to go in. You cannot, I worked in a newspaper.It's not like you can put out a blank page in a newspaper. You have to turn something in. Um, you get really used to this idea that it's okay, you can put it out. And then work on the next thing. Mm-hmm. Um, so I think this is, you know, for those listening, you're like, well, I just don't have that in me. Well, you don't because you haven't yet.Mm-hmm. Um, it's like when someone says, you know, well, I don't have a background or any experience in marketing. I says, no one does. No one has a background in marketing until they market. Like no one has a background in sales until they sell. No one has a background in anything until they do it. You don't have a background in shipping things out the door until you start doing Lesley Logan: it.Yeah. He made me like think of like, you know, Seth Godin? He talks about how like writer's block, he's like, do you have talkers Block? Have you ever had that? No. You, you don't have writer's block, you just have like an imposter. Like you just have this fear of being rejected and that's why you're not putting on the [00:42:00] page, but you.You hit the nail. It's like we have to be nice to ourselves and like it's like you're, the goals you have in this life you wanna (...) Be part of every single goal that you don't know how to do. Otherwise you wouldn't even have the goal cuz you could just freaking do it. And it's like learning a new skillset set at a gym.You have to learn the muscle on how to do it. You don't have that experience. And so of course you'll have imposter syndrome around it. Of course you're gonna have fear around it. You're new to it. Mm-hmm. And so having some grace for yourself to be new and to learn something and to make mistakes, that's how you learn.The best lessons I've ever learned in life is every failure I've ever had. And also, we are the worst people to judge the content we're putting out. Because some of this stuff. Some of the episodes that I was like, oh, I don't know how that's gonna land. People thought it was the most amazing episode.And I was like, oh, okay, well then who I, who am I to judge? Cuz clearly I am not the audience. So I think, you know, we get in our own way and we're, and, and to use your words again, we're robbing people [00:43:00] the experience of, of what we have to put out there, if we just pick it apart and make it so perfect before we put it out there.James Patrick: Yeah. I, I just think we have this disproportionate fear of a fallout that even when things don't work, and I've had plenty of things that, that did not work as, as I hope they would. It is not relative to what could actually happen. Mm-hmm. Or how bad things could actually be or really not be. Um, you know, I've, I've never had to go hungry.I've never had to sell my car. I've never had to live, you know, sell my house because, because something didn't work. I'm just fine. Like it's okay. There's enough things that do work. Lesley Logan: Yeah. And also like the reality is nothing has ever goes as bad as we think it's gonna go. Or as great as we think it's gonna go.Yes, yes. It's just like, it just you, it's okay to to have those both extremes and just know, okay, if I land somewhere in the middle, it's gonna be pretty darn good. I James Patrick: get so mad every time I [00:44:00] read a book where some, some jackass is like, you know. So I launched the website and the next day I woke up and I couldn't believe it.There was a hundred thousand dollars in my bank account. I'm like, screw you all that piss. Uh, the thing that I saw, I saw this last week and this really chat my ass where it was an online coach. I don't know why, for someone who works as a coach, why get so upset by other coaches. But they were like bragging about how much money they've made thus far in the year and like, here's how much money I've made thus far this year.And, and I apologize if you've done this. I, I, I don't know if you have, but, um, I was like, okay, why are you doing this? And then it was Carousel and they were talking about, okay, I've made this money this year, here's how I did it. But it was all a bunch of kind of bullshit advice. Like I showed up every day.Okay, and you're saying this to people who are working their asses off. This is so cruel and what you're doing is, one, you're creating this misperception that if you show up every day and these people are already working 12 to 14 hours a [00:45:00] day, they cannot work any harder than they're working. And that, number two, that you must know something that they don't, so they should be giving you their harder money.I'm like, what you're not talking about is the fact that the reason you're making this much money within the first two months of the years because you've put in 10 years of background work that allows you the relationships, it allows you the access, it allows you the opportunities. It allows you the insights and the perspective and the hindsight to know what works and what doesn't work.Like it is so inappropriate to, to cast that in front of someone else and, and, and use it in just such a braggadocious way. So why did I put on that tangent? Oh, oh, Lesley Logan: success. Yeah. Yeah. I, but thank you for sharing that. And I think everyone needs to listen like, You know, first of all, I've never posted like, this is not much money I made and just show up every day.Fuck that. Like, no, I use math. I use like, I also, I also think it's like, one of the things I think maybe is why people like me, um, and I'll just brag a little bit. It's like I'm very fucking [00:46:00] honest and very direct. Mm-hmm. Like the reason I'm really good on camera is cuz I took a commercial acting class.Okay. Like, that's why I can look at the dot as an elder millennial and think of it as a person. That's why I can picture the humans on the other side, cuz. Somebody somewhere said you should do commercial acting. And you guys, I was a, I landed all the jobs and then I took this class and I never landed a single one after that.However, I was so good before, however, It allowed me when I got the opportunity to be on camera for fitness to actually, like I have done many a live news show because I am not scared to look at that post-it that they said, this is your eye line and like picture the audience because I had this opportunity.That is not a natural strength that anyone has. You have to learn that and you're either gonna learn it the hard way or you're gonna learn it by taking a class and hiring someone but you, it's just not your like natural. To like do those things. And so I think just to your point, it's like anyone you're looking at who's saying all these things and you wanna have those things, you should know that [00:47:00] there was a million other things that got them there.Some things were by chance some things were relationship and thumbs thingss were skillsets that they might not even realize helped them get there, cuz maybe they haven't done that work. But every step along the way, along your journey, James, along mine, along those of you listening, is like, it all leads you to where you are so you don't have to discount anything you've ever been through.Like the jour, the, the left hand turn that was the wrong way or the goal that didn't go the way you wanted. Just like James said, you this, this process isn't a guarantee that you'll hit every single goal you've ever wanted, but it is going to progress you somewhere. James Patrick: Mm-hmm. I, I was, uh, recently reading Robert Irvine's new book, chef Irvine.He did that show Restaurant Impossible. Uh, I, I got a copy of his book cuz he was on my show and, um, no, he'll never listen to us. It was okay. Uh, but the thing that I appreciate the most about it was this one line that says [00:48:00] I make decisions on my business based on fact, not emotion. The balance sheet does not lie.Mm-hmm. I was like, oh shit. I am so guilty of letting my emotions decide how I feel and what decisions I need to do based on. Well, I'm feeling a little nervous about this, or, you know, uh, I'm just not sure, you know, maybe I need to pull back the reins or, or I'm ignoring my balance sheet.I'm like, oh, things are going great. You know, and, you know, may maybe things are, are are dumpster fire. Um, the balance sheet doesn't lie. And for so many years I was so afraid to look at my balance sheets because I didn't want to look at the truth of what I was doing. Once I started doing that, and it was very uncomfortable by the way, to look at my balance sheets versus how much time I was spending on my business, uh, how much we were taking in on the top [00:49:00] line, what we were taking in after expenses.Um, but once I started doing that, once again, this was a muscle, I started making such better decisions about the future and the direction of, of the work I was doing. But it required accepting, looking at hard data and fact. Um, so I I love that you brought up your, that, that, you know, your balance sheets, you know, you can look at the math and I was like, oh, I just read that.That was so good. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Lesley Logan: I, that's, that is such, that's a, a hard skill set for people to learn because they, they're so passionate about what they're doing. But, um, you know, my husband and I held some in-person events at our house. There were business retreats. Her fitness instructors and the first one was phenomenal.Sold out, no problems, no issues. The second one was like fucking pulling teeth. And we knew it was a great thing. Like I loved doing it. He loved doing it. The people who came, we had 24 testimonial videos that were 10 minutes long, like [00:50:00] so great, but for whatever reason, we couldn't get the second one to go.And so when you look at the balance, she's like, this is a great idea. That requires a bigger wait list than we have. And so to do it again, we need to build that wait list up and give ourselves another year before we do it again. Like just give ourselves a time because I do love doing it, but it also has to pay for itself and then some.So cuz otherwise the IRS is gonna call me a hobbyist and not gonna let me keep going.James Patrick: Yeah, I, I remember the first year I launched my conference. Anyone that's attend at my conference, I've told this story, uh, it didn't work the first time we tried to launch it. We tried to launch it in June of 2015, and about a week before the event I had sold two tickets. I had, uh, five times as many speakers as I had attendees.Um, I had a hotel reserved for this event. Uh, I had a deposit. I signed a deposit. [00:51:00] Um, obviously I cannot host an event for two people as I have 10 speakers. This is not going to work. So, um, you know, we, we ate a little bit of our investment on the hotel, and we bumped the event by three months. Uh, we sent a extremely, uh, like sorrowful mea culpa to all the speakers apologizing that we have to bump the event and, and please accept our sincerest, uh, you know, apologies for, for having to push this. And we hope that they'll join us when we redo this event in October. And then I did a massive, uh, overgiving of service to the two people who, um, you know, with the canceling event, obviously we refunded them. I did one-on-one coaching with them.We gave them free passes to the, to the event where we hosted it. But it required a re-approach. Like we needed to redo this, we needed to do this differently. We needed to shift how we were marketing. We were, we were very reactive in our marketing and very [00:52:00] reactive in our approach, thinking that our clout or our, our, our, our network or whatever it was, was just gonna be enough to move this, this along.And we realized, no, we have to really put forth some energy into, into moving these tickets. And three months later, the event was sold out. Hmm. Packed house. Not a single seat available, but it required that failing. Yeah. In order to realize, oh no, we need to shift our approach here. This needs to be done differently.But once again, we didn't know. Yeah. Not cuz we never host an event before. And Lesley Logan: also like you would not have learned those things if it had half sold out. If it had half sold out ...(Lesley: good point.) You would've probably gone through, you would not have known what worked or didn't work, and you might not have ever had another event again.She's like, well that. It was like, okay, it was okay. You know? Yeah. So I think like, um, I, I just to like bring this back to the goals, it's like, it is not about the perfection of achieving the goal, it's about the progress along the way, and it really does force you to change who you are [00:53:00] along the way to become the person who can do these goals.James, I could talk to you forever. I think this happened on your podcast as well. So you all, if you wanna just continue, you definitely have to go to Beyond the Image pod and listen to my episode on there. Before I let you go, we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll find out where people can find you, follow you, work with you, and your Be It action items.All right, James, where do you like to hang out on the socials? Where can people go to an event, maybe get this, uh, can you have a, a way for them to understand how you do the goals, the way you do them, anything like that? Yeah. James Patrick: So, um, I, I like to make things super easy for people. So, you know, Instagram's home for most people.So, @jpatrickphoto on Instagram, um, I did take this approach to goal setting and about a year ago, I decided I just wanted it in a P D F for myself because I got tired of working in an Excel document. And then a couple of my clients saw and they said, well, can we have that? I said, sure. So I, I packaged it and, and sent it out to about 50 of my [00:54:00] clients and said, well use it for a year and then let me know what you thought about it. Um, and they did, and then we, we packaged it into an actual planner. So it's called the Legacy Planner, and it's available on Amazon. Uh, you know, you can get a hard copy, you can get a Lesley Logan: paper back or Oh my gosh, my peeps are going to love that. They can buy a hard copy of a planner.James, do you know? Well, I'm, I'm all James Patrick: about tactile, like, I like writing things down. And the way it works is you build out your vision for the year. Then from your vision, you build out all your annual goals from your annual goals. You build out your quarterly plans. From your quarterly plans you build out your monthly actions. From your monthly actions you build out your weekly sprints, and from your weekly sprints, you build out what you do every day of the week. So it's a, it's an annual to daily planner. Um, and, uh, this is what moves us forward in our, in our, in our goals. So, yeah, you can get it on Amazon or, uh, if you just wanna try it out, go to jamespatrick.com/legacy.I just uploaded the PDF of it. [00:55:00] You can download the parts you want, print it out, try it out, and just see how it works, uh, because I'd rather you customize this and make this your own. Uh, as long as it means that, that you're moving forward and you're actually exercising this muscle. Lesley Logan: Oh, I, I'm not kidding.Like I can tell you right now just because at the end of every year inside my coaching community, like what are your favorite goal planners? I like this one. I like this one. And I was like, I can't, I can't read my own handwriting though. I don't have, but I want yours, so I'm gonna go to Amazon and get it.Um, Imma I'm gonna have it primed over tomorrow so I can take it to Mexico while I'm, while I'm on vacation thinking about things. James, um, before I let you go, You've given us so many amazing tips, but bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps people can take to be it till they see James Patrick: it. The first thing is not to rely on reactive approaches to, to anything.Don't rely on reactive marketing. Don't rely on reactive business development. Don't rely on reactive launch [00:56:00] strategies. You have to be proactive, and that's so much of what we talked about today is how to set a goal, how to reverse engineer that goal and how to put things into motion to test to see how things work in, in the refinement.And then that kind of leads into the second thing is a perfect idea will be infinitely less successful than an imperfect idea that was actually put out. When we put something out to market, we get feedback. When we get feedback on something, we know how to refine it, how to adjust it, how to make it better. We need to stop looking at things as static.Even this planner is not static. I can change this at any point and release a new edition. Even though this is a print thing, I can always revise this. Things are dynamic and we

Greg Thompson is a writer-producer known for Bob's Burgers, Glenn Martin D.D.S., and King of The Hill.Greg Thompson on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0860188/Greg Thompson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregthompMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptionsGreg Thompson:Try to pay attention to the voices of the show. Know the show. Watch, watch every episode. Um, you know, when we were hired on King of the Hill, I, I'd watched King of the Hill, but I hadn't seen everything. But, you know, I methodically started plowing through hundreds of episodes at that point. I think maybe 200 episodes had happened by the time we, we joined it. So, and that's just kind of an education and you internalize the voices of the characters and, and it, it helps you. It helps you know what to pitch. You'reMichael Jamin:Listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jen.Hey everyone. Welcome to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I'm Michael Jamin and I got another special guest today. This is my old friend. I'm gonna, this is my friend Greg Thompson, and I'm gonna give you a proper introduction, Greg. So sit down, just relax. Let me just talk to the people for a second. Um, so Greg is a very successful TV writer and he started on bunk, a show called Bunk Bread Brothers. We're gonna run through some of, through some of the credits. I'm heard of Bunk Bread Brothers, then fired up, which was interesting. This was the heyday of nbc. This was when, uh, the character she lived instead of a clock. She was, she was a church mouse, wasn't she? GregGreg Thompson:. Yeah, she was a church MassMichael Jamin:WhoGreg Thompson:Is second, second season. She moved into a shoe, uh,Michael Jamin:.Greg Thompson:It was Sharon Lawrence with, uh, Leah Remedy.Michael Jamin:Ah, Sharon Lawrence with Leah Remedy. This was back in the heyday of NBC shows like, uh, musty tv. And then a show called, I'm gonna run through some of your credits. Maggie, big Wolf on campus, then one of your bigger credits. 30, uh, third Rock from the Sun. Great show, then Grounded for Life. Another great show. Everyone hates Chris. Everybody hates Chris. Everybody hates Chris. Another great show. I'm in Hell. We're gonna talk about that. King of the Hill. You were there for many years. Glen Martin, dds. I never heard of that one, but I was involved in it. then Now, most recently you were writer, what are you executive, co-executive producer on Bob's Bergs.Greg Thompson:So I, I'm, I'm down to consulting producer. Technically I was we'll talk, I was co exec. I was actually executive, I was actually executive producer to be, to be most technical. Well, yeah, we all got promoted up to executive producer after aMichael Jamin:Certain And what happened? Why did you get bounced down to co exec? I mean, a consulting producer.Greg Thompson:I decided to rank fewer, fewer days a week. So I, I've, I've, am I, do you still want me on the show?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I'm, now I'm jealous of you. How many days a week are you working?Greg Thompson:I only work two days.Michael Jamin:Oh. And of those two days, how many days are you really working? ?Greg Thompson:I don't know. Probably four. Cuz it filters into other days andMichael Jamin:Yeah,Greg Thompson:It does over it also. Yeah.Michael Jamin:We're gonna talk about that. But I wanna get into the beginning, Greg. Cause I, I, I, so we met in the Warner Brothers Writers Program, writers workshop, or whatever it was called. Yeah, we did. And you were, were supposed to be you and your partner. Our Abrams were supposed to be the competition that me and Seavert were facing. And, but very quickly we realized we weren't, we weren't gonna, we weren't gonna make good enemies, friends and love.But, but I gotta say, Greg, you've always been, and I know I've never, probably never said this to you personally, but you were, it may seem odd since we don't talk that often, but you were definitely one of my closer friends, closest friends in the industry, because I always feel like I, I feel like we're not in competition. I can always be, I can confide in you to tell you what's going on with my career. I never feel like I'm gonna get stabbed in the back. You always got my back. I got your back. So you, you've always been a great friend. And that's why as I thank, thank you for doing the show and helping everyone Oh, tell your story.Greg Thompson:You're, you're very welcome. You, of course, it's of course it's mutual. Um, and I'll just say at the Radcliffe or at the, uh, pardon me, the Writer's Warner Brothers Writer's Workshop, um, I was, uh, so intimidated by you and Seavert. I, uh, you like you, we were kind of sited. We were seated in kind of a big o and you were, you guys were like across the room and you already, you already had credit. You had a credit on Lois and Clark, which was like, you know, incredibly impressive. We didn't have credits.Michael Jamin:That's what you were, that's what you're, because there was no other reason to be intimidated by us. So we never said anything like, IGreg Thompson:Think, I don't know, you just, you looked, you looked the right part. Sea had this kind of scowl on his face all the time, which, which was very untrue to his personality. But he just looked, uh, super serious. Like, like heMichael Jamin:WasGreg Thompson:Interesting figuring it all out.Michael Jamin:Turns out neither of us. It was a prestigious program. And, and it didn't help either of us. It didn't help. It definitely didn't help. But it didn't help you did itGreg Thompson:Other than Well, it, it did get us, it did lead us to an agent, which then, which then led us to our first job. So it actually did help us, even though the Warner Brothers, the studio was not interested in hiring us,Michael Jamin:Right? So after,Greg Thompson:After watching us work,Michael Jamin:As I tell our audience to catch 'em up, um, so yeah, we worked together. So we never worked together. We were just, we became friends on that. And then later, then later we shared a bungalow. We both had overall deals at CBS Radford. And so we shared a bungalow. We'd have lunch together. Remember we'd hang out in your office and just talk about ideas. Bounce Yeah. Each other that think an overall deal's great. That was fun. And then later was, no, king Hill was before that.Greg Thompson:King Hill was beforeMichael Jamin:That. Right? And then later Radford, our overall deal. Then later we hired you guys on, on Glen Martin. And you guys saved our butts. You and your partner Aaron, saved our butts. And then how did I Thank you. I almost, I almost thanked you by destroying your career. . I only remember you guys, you guys came in, was it, it was season two, right? Of Glen Martin.Greg Thompson:Yeah. Season two. Yeah.Michael Jamin:We, we brought you in. We had the money. We wanted very, we wanted season writers. And you guys came in, you always delivered great drafts, which is, is, I always say, this is all you want from a writer. Can you turn in a good draft? And you guys always did. And then there was talk of spinning off Glen Martin to a spinoff. And I remember we were like, Hey, we'll do this show. And then you could run the other show or which one, one or the other you guys could run. And you're like, eh, we got this other offer to go to this cartoon called Bob's Burgers. You don't wanna go to Bob's Burgers,Greg Thompson:,Michael Jamin:You wanna stay here? . And then, and thank God you took that offer, cuz I would've felt terrible like ruining your career. Cause that they spinoff never happened. . And then Glen Martin was canceled and it jumped off just in time to go to,Greg Thompson:There was an idea that Glen Martin was gonna jump to Fox or something, andMichael Jamin:There was a lot of lies floating .Greg Thompson:Yeah. It was probably Michael Eisner was planning these thoughts.Michael Jamin:Um, right. I forgot Fox. Fox didn't, Fox had no, had no knowledge of that. They weren't on Greg Thompson:. But, uh, yeah. But yeah, I think we all thought the puppet animation genre was gonna explode. And, and I have to say, it's really funny. It's still, when I look at, I've dug up some old Glen Martin's. It is really funny. I mean, it is, it was an underrated show under watched certainly, but also underrated.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. It was, we did some good stuff. You guys wrote some great episodes. But then, so you got the offer because Bob's Burgers co-create by Jim Dore. We both work with on King of the Hill. So he reached out to you guys. How did you have this Bob about, and why didn't he reach out to us? ?Greg Thompson:I didn't probably You were working. You, you're busy. Um, weMichael Jamin:Were busyGreg Thompson:Developed by Jim DotR. I should make sure I say that properly. Created by Lauren Bouchard, developed by Jim DotR. Um, yeah, he was just staffing up. And actually he, he had hired two other guys, uh, before us. And then there, um, and gosh, I'm blanking blanket on their names. Sorry. Um, but they had a pilot going, and their pilot got picked up to production. So they had to drop out of Bob's burger's mm-hmm. . And, and then that opened up a slot and Jim, Jim called us to, to come interview for it. And we saw the That's been, and, and you guys, you guys let us out of our Glen Martin deal early by the way. You, you did us a favor that not everybody would've done.Michael Jamin:That's that is true. Now some people wouldn't. But, but I think most,Greg Thompson:I most, I think most would good, good people would,Michael Jamin:Good people let you out. Our contract. Um, and so, and how many that was 2008, you've been on that? Oh, no,Greg Thompson:That was 2000, 2010. We went over there, 10, I think we, we went over to Glen Martin. We were there for actually second half of the first season through most of the second season.Michael Jamin:Oh, that's what it wasGreg Thompson:Like Glen Martin. Yeah. So I think we wrote It'sMichael Jamin:A amazing song. You've been on Bob's Burgers. It's crazy. Like that's, that's job security.Greg Thompson:Yeah, I was thinking, yeah, it's, it's 12 over 12 years now. And I, I'm wearing, um, I'm wearing the first piece of swag we ever got on Bob's. I don't know if it's visible on camera or not. This, this, uh, old hoodie, which is now just in taters. It's 12 years old. AndMichael Jamin:Do you, is it hard coming up with stories that at the, for 12 years?Greg Thompson:Yes. Yes. Very hard. Um, also because unlike The Simpsons, which is kind of branched off into the peripheral characters, they'll do a episode about APU or whatever they used to. Anyway. Um, Bob's stays with the, the family. Right. And, and doMichael Jamin:You, how, how does the musical numbers work? How do you guys produce, you know, how do you write and produce that?Greg Thompson:Uh, well, I, Lauren is extremely musical. Lauren Bouchard very musical. So he always had, you know, a big interest in that. And he can, he can write and play. And then there are, you know, there are, uh, musical people, you know, uh, uh, on the show.Michael Jamin:Who writing the lyrics for that? Do you write some script or what?Greg Thompson:Well, we do, yeah. Yeah. Most of the writers will write some lyrics. I've written. Yeah, I've written some lyrics. And that's, you know, don't write the music occasionally. You might like take a stab at a tune for something silly, but yeah. And that's, that's like, and that's, that's like funMichael Jamin:For the music as wellGreg Thompson:Then. Yeah. Yeah. You do like the, um, yeah, we're like members of ASCAP or BMI or something. Yeah. And, um, yeah, there's actually been, um, two Bobs Burgers record albums that have come out. Didn't that sub pop?Michael Jamin:Were you with the movie as well,Greg Thompson:Though? Yeah, I mean, to a limited degree. It was, the movie was, was really written by, by Lauren and Nora Smith, who's also the, you know, his number two, she's also Show Runner. Um, and then, but all the other writers pitched in on Story and, and jokes and, you know, we looked at lots of cuts. And so we, we were, we were part of it. Uh, we're, we have credit, but, um, but they did the, uh, heavy lifting for sure.Michael Jamin:And, you know, you're kind of like the last writer, Guild of America. Cartoon , one of the last, right. I mean, you're covered by the writer Guild, right? It's not ascap. I mean, notGreg Thompson:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's a, yeah, it's a, it's a writer's guilded show. Yeah. And I guess, like, I don't know, not to tell Tales Outta School. I think Disney is still trying to, you know, put shows on the air on, you know, Disney now owns 20th Century Fox Television. Um, still try to get, you know, II covered shows, which that's a, a guild with fewer, bene fewer benefits for your, your viewers.Michael Jamin:It's nonstarter now. It's like, it's, I, it's, it's the animation.Greg Thompson:Oh, is it really? Yeah. Okay. Things are tough. Okay. I didn't realize that.Michael Jamin:How did you, now you didn't start you, what was your career for the, for people who are listening, what was your career before you got into writing? I'll start from theGreg Thompson:Beginning. Um,Michael Jamin:Year was 1948.Greg Thompson:. I was, I was 12. The, uh, that wasThe, I I would just say in brief that like, I always loved television growing up. I loved movies and television. Uh, and I, I became a writing major in college, uh, creative writing major, which wasn't, wasn't a good idea. Uh, but at all that time, it never occurred to me that there were people that wrote television . I never looked at the credits. And so it never occurred to me that there would be a career doing screenwriting. Um, and so after I got outta college, I went into, I moved to New York and I got into, uh, book publishing and was a, worked in marketing for a few different publishers. Uh, book and magazine publishing. And that was go, that was my career. That was what I was doing. I was gonna be kind of a business person. And, you know, in, I wore a suit, uh, took the subway.Um, and then I went to business school to get an MBA thinking, well, that's the next step of my, my, uh, tremendous business career. And that brought me out to LA afterwards to work at the LA Times. Um, and, uh, uh, Aaron Abrams. So you bet you, before my friend, uh, had split up with his wife, he'd moved out to LA to be a screenwriter, and then his marriage had blown up. Um, so he had an empty bedroom. And I moved in with him to begin my job at the LA Times. And Aaron was trying to be a screenwriter. And so for the,Michael Jamin:From college,Greg Thompson:Uh, yeah, we kind of, we did an equivalent of the, uh, we, we did a little, uh, summer school publishing bootcamp kind of thing. Um, interesting. One summer after college, like a six week program, a little like the, the sitcom writing workshop in a way, but for people interested in publishing. Um, and so just like a summer school thing. So I met him doing that. We, we hit it off. We had, you know, kind of this instant, instant rapport. Um, and, uh, I thought he was hilarious and everything. And so I wasn't surprised when he eventually decided that he was gonna try to be a screenwriter. So then I move into the, I move into his, uh, terrible, messy apartment. Um, and, and I see like he is got a bunch of scripts. I'd never seen a script before. Uh, you know, it's kind of, it was pre-internet.You couldn't like, download scripts. It's like, oh, wow, this is weird. So that led me to reading scripts, talking to Aaron about what he was doing. Uh, you know, he very generously would ask me to read things he was working on and ask if I had any ideas or thoughts. Uh, and, and then, and then, and then Aaron suggested we were, we were having some conversation about the, uh, actually the NFL player's strike, uh, of the eighties. And he said, I always thought that would be an interesting movie. Um, so, uh, then he said, do you wanna try to write a movie about that with me? So together, we basically hammered out this, um, comedy that did not become the, was it a Keanu Reeves movie, but was The Replacements. Ours was called Substitute Heroes. And it was much like The Replacements. And, and that was the first thing we wrote together. And that ended up, um, we ended up selling that for a guild minimum to some place.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not gonna spam you, and it's absolutely free. Just go to michael jamin.com/watchlist.Greg Thompson:The substitution Heroes, where did you sell it? Football comedy. Yeah.Michael Jamin:AndGreg Thompson:Where did you want? And it ended up selling to like, uh, some producers for Guild minimum, um, low budget minimum, which was I think like $26,000 or something like that. Or maybe, maybe more. Uh, but that was, I, you know, obviously that would be thrilling even now to sell a movie for, you know, a little bit of money. So it was very thrilling to, to me and, um, and Aaron. And so, and then at the same time, like I'm working my LA Times job, and I wasn't enjoying that a ton. You know, I was in like this, I don't know, weird little group called Market Planning. And we'd do these like analyses of like Orange County advertising market and stuff that no one would ever look at. Um, and, uh, and the LA Times was a place, I always remember this. They would do casual Friday, one day a month.So you had to, you had to remember what Friday remember? Casual. Casual. That was before we were casual all the time. Yeah. Right. So you had to remember what Friday of the month was, casual Friday. So you could not wear your suit. Um, and then for our, uh, Christmas party, we had a, like an annual Christmas party. You'd have to come in an hour early that morning. And the, the Christmas party would be like, between the hours of 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM , or 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM I, I forget when work started , at least in my department, that's,Michael Jamin:You have to get up to your party. Some party.Greg Thompson:It wasn't . Yeah, no, it wasn't, it wasn't festiveMichael Jamin:.Greg Thompson:So it was that there was that kind of, it was that kind of play. So meanwhile, you know, then I'm like, you know, thinking, oh, well this, this screenwriting thing's working out great. I'll do that instead. Um, you know, and I think, you know, like, you know, we are getting a lot of meetings and I think, you know, in Hollywood, like a meeting sounds exciting. Yeah. It'll almost inevitably lead to nothing. But still for a moment you feel like, you know, you're driving on a lot, you have a pass, they're waiting for you, you sit down, someone brings you out water, you feel important. And, and it's, the people you're meeting with are almost always just filling their schedule to feel important. Yes. So you go in there and together, all of you feel important, and then you leave. ItMichael Jamin:Sounds like you're, you've listened to my podcast. Cause I've said these words many times.Greg Thompson:OhMichael Jamin:Yes, go important, but go on. Right. Then go. What happened?Greg Thompson:Uh, so then, um, I, I remember Aaron was like, he had this, um, he played like beach volleyball, uh, in this like league or something like that, even though he was terrible. ButMichael Jamin:I don't, I don't believe that part of his story,Greg Thompson:But, well, I'll say he was on a beach volleyball team. Whether you could describe it as playing, I don't know. But I think he was trying to beat girls. And so, but he, but there were a couple like TV writers in his, in the beach volleyball group, and he said, these guys are all doing great. They all have like, big houses. Uh, they're so successful. We should like, let's forget movies. Let's try to write television. So we started working on, uh, some spec scripts, as you know, I'm sure you've probably talked about that at different times. And, uh, you know, we wrote an Ellen, you know, and a spec is your sample to get hired onto a show. We wrote an Ellen that I thought was great, uh, that I still remember what it was about. It was about Ellen dates her assertiveness instructor and then can't break up with him because she's not assertive enough. Which,Michael Jamin:Funny.Greg Thompson:Well, well, for one thing, I, I don't know if there is such a thing as an assertive assertiveness instructor , I think it felt, it felt right to us in 1994 or so. Um, but, you know, but we thought, okay, we've nailed it. We've written one spec, now we're gonna, now our career will begin in television. And everybody hated it. And I mean, you've probably experienced this, or people experienced people who've felt this way. They fall in love with their spec. They think their spec is great. It's really the, the first spec they've written. And they become very, very attached to it. Not attached to every part of it. Every, every element. They're not receptive to notes. And I, I think I was certainly that way about this, this one, but the, uh, the feedback was so uniformly negative. It was like, okay, well let's , I think we have to write another one. So we wrote a Larry Sanders uhhuh, uh, a Larry Sanders spec, which went much better. It was just a much better show for us. It was more in our sensibility. It was. So, uh, that's the one that, uh, we ended up using to get into the, uh, Warner Brothers sitcom writing workshop.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And that, the rest, now Aaron, Aaron Abras was this, you know, we were both friends. One of the sweetest guys you ever met. And then he tragically died halfway through your career. And then I remember, I mean, it was just awful, but I remember either calling you or writing to you, and I was like, listen, cuz you had to reinvent your career at that point. You were, you had a writing partner that you relied on and you bounced things off. And then you had to become a solo writer. And I remember reaching out to you saying, listen, if, like, if you wanna, if you might need to write new samples, if you want help breaking a story or anything, like just call me receiver. Well, happy. But, but you never did. What wasGreg Thompson:That like? I re I re I I, I, I do remember that, and I still grateful for that. Uh, but you and Stever both reached out and were were terrific during that time. Um, it was, it was fortunate for me that I was on Bob's burgers. We had done, Aaron and I had done a season on Bob's, so, uh, it hadn't even aired yet. Um, but it was, I'm trying to think when it got it. Season two order, I guess it didn't get that until it had aired for a few, a few weeks. Um, once Bob's began airing and the show got picked up for another season, which was a little nip and tuck, cuz the ratings were a little, um, or touch and go rather, uh, uh, the Lauren and Jim offered me, you know, the opportunity to come back as a solo writer. Uh, so I, I did not have to produce those other specs. I did have to write a pilot that Aaron and I had been contracted to write. So I had to, I did have to finish the pilot. We'd outlined it, but we hadn't written it yet. And, um, I had to, I had to write it. But when you, that was, so that was the first thing I wrote.Michael Jamin:And was it like, even now, do you hear his voice? Like, do you think, what would Aaron do here? Or, or are you like, you know, now this is, are you, you know, areGreg Thompson:You Yeah, no, I I I, I still totally do. Uh, I mean, he was, he's such a funny guy and, you know, it was, you know, he used to say like, you know, the, unfortunately the funny person of the writing team died. So the, the, the guy who's like, does little, I don't even know what my specialty was, kind of doing things Aaron did, but a little less well founded. Uh, and, um, but yeah, no, I'll, I'll sometimes if I'm, if I'm writing and if a, a joke will occur to me, and I'll think that is an Aaron kind of joke, right. You know, that that's, that's his sensibility. So as much as I can cha uh, channel, uh, Aaron's voice, I, I I try to, um, he was, you know, just a unique voice.Michael Jamin:I imagine it would be honestly be a little paralyzing that first, at least the first couple of scripts you're like, I'm, I'm, I'm flying solo here.Greg Thompson:Yeah. Uh, and I, you know, I don't know how it is with you and Seaver, I think, you know, you, you do work separately at times. I know. Um, but, uh, every, everything Aaron and I had written, we'd written together in the same room. You know, we might go off and work on a scene by ourselves for a while and then share it, but mostly it was like kind of taking turns at a keyboard while the other guy was there in the room. Yeah. Uh, looking, you know, looking over the shoulder. So it was, uh, it was, you know, a pretty, um, uh, uh, close writing situation. So yeah, I just, um, I, I, I would do a couple tricks of, I would, I remember the, when I was writing the pilot, uh, it was like, okay, I'm gonna write the scenes that I think are easier to write first.Mm-hmm. . And so I wrote scenes out of order just to make progress. Right. Uh, and so then when you make a little progress, you begin to feel better, you begin to feel more confident. Um, right. And, and I also, and I still do this, I'll, I'll write a scene maybe with some, some of the dialogue at all caps, which is my way of saying this is not the dialogue. This is an approximation of what has to be said here in this moment. Uh, just to get through it, just to get through it so I don't get stuck. Um, yeah. Uh, because yeah, I mean, Erin and I would, we'd, we would try to do as little rewriting as possible, just maybe outta laziness. So we would kind of get a lot of consensus on everything before we wrote, uh, or as, you know, as we worked our way down the page. But as a, as a solo writer, I just couldn't do that. It was like, Nope, I'm, I'm gonna have to do more revisions, I'll have to do more passes. Um mm-hmm. . So that's what, that's what I started doing.Michael Jamin:And now does it just feel comfortable on your own or, you know, I, it's interesting,Greg Thompson:You know, I know it, it, it does and it doesn't, it always feels a little in like, you know, right now I'm, you know, trying to come up with story ideas to write one and looking at the calendar and looking at how much time I have, and I think, oh God, am I gonna have enough time to break it? And, uh, you know, holidays are coming up that's gonna cut into time. Uh, so I, I always have a little bit of panic, and I think I'm known for this on the show of being fairly neurotic about scripts, worried I won't put it together. Uh, cuz you know, there's so many, so many, Michael, you know, there's so many jokes in the script, it's like several hundred by the time you're done. And it's like, oh, how will I think of all those jokes?Michael Jamin:It's that, that's the part that's intimidating to me. It's the getting the story out. Well,Greg Thompson:Yeah, no, I mean, the story, you know, obviously the most important part. Um, but, you know, every element is hard. And so it's whatMichael Jamin:Now how mu like how is it run, how is it differently working on Bob's workers than it was either at Glen Martin or Kim King of the Hill for you? You know, the process.Greg Thompson:Uh, I'd say Bob's Berger's, it's much more, uh, you kind of become your own little executive producer of your episode all the way through production, you know, and basically, most of the times you will be coming up with the idea of your episode. You will be pitching it, you will be running the room, uh mm-hmm. as you, you know, put, uh, break the story. Uh, you know, then you're updating, you know, Lauren, the, and Laura, the showrunners. But you're, it's, it's kind of on you. It's, it's not, it's not like, and there will be people breaking stories simultaneously, which I guess was what we had at King of the Hill too. Yeah. Uh, a a few small rooms, um, but it isn't like probably most of television today still where it's everybody around a table, the whole staff breaking one story at a time. Right. With, you know, walking through the beats on a, on a board, kind of assembling it all, everybody, the staff, everybody together. It's, it's more individual. Uh, you, you, we kind of have more rope to, you know, make magic or get in trouble.Michael Jamin:And now you're doing, you're consulting, which is so interesting, just a couple days a week. Um, yeah. What, how's that for you working out? Everyone talks about what?Greg Thompson:It's,Michael Jamin:It'sGreg Thompson:Perfect. It's simultaneous with, it's simultaneous with C so it's, it's, it's hard to separate the two in a way. So it's, so far it's been people are beginning to come back to the office, but for the last two and a half years, it's been all Zoom.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Uh,Greg Thompson:And uh, I would say like, if I didn't have to like write scripts occasionally, it would be fent it would be so easy. I mean, not easy, but, but it's always like, you know, if you could sit back and give people pitches on their episode all day, and it's like, well, here's my idea. If it works, terrific. If it doesn't work, well , you know, it's not my problem. It it is. ButMichael Jamin:Do you think you'll stay there for, for a, for a while longer? What do you, what are your plans? Do you have any?Greg Thompson:I I, I, you know, I've just kind of taken it year by year. Uh, the, um, we'll see, um, I don't know. It's, it's still been a fun thing and, and most of the staff is the same staff as when we first grouped up 12 years ago.Michael Jamin:No one's, no one's leaving back, back when we started, um, uh, you know, we, you could jump shows, you might work on a show for a couple years, then jumped to another show. But now with the market, you'd be crazy to leave any show if you're on a show, you stay there and you hang on for dear life.Greg Thompson:I think so. I think so. I think that's been true of Bob's and, you know, uh, Wendy and Lizzie Molino, two of to have really, you know, very funny writers on, on Bob's. They did, they left only because they developed their own show, uh, the Great North. So, but despite that, they still have a hand in Bob's and write an episode a year. So nobody really wants to let go of Bob's.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And then, uh, yeah. Do you, are you developing at all? Have you tried to develop in recent years or,Greg Thompson:You know, I, past the first year, no, I haven't, I haven't tried to develop, and that's, you know, I have to say that's a little bit of laziness on my part. Like, you know, why do I wanna develop myself out of a job, this great job on Bob's? Uh, yeah. And, and also it was like, you know, we, Aaron and I, Aaron and I think did like eight or nine pilots, only one produced, but it was always really hard and, uh, a distressing experience. You'd, you'd, you know, we'd go in full of, full of ambition and hopes and dreams of how this next pilot was gonna be great. And then, and then you'd get so ground down by the process, we'd be miserable and hate, and hate our pilot by the end of it. Michael Jamin:People don't under no understanding, uh, of how the industry actually works. That's what I'm trying to educate them. But like we say the same things, like if we didn't have, if we were on full time staff, we, we wouldn't have to develop, we wouldn't run out to develop. It's only because staffs, the orders are so much shorter that you kind of have to, if you wanna make a living, you gotta sell what you gotta,Greg Thompson:Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, tell provision's changed, changed it that way. So so, you know, I'm a little embarrassed. I haven't, you know, tried to develop in the last decade, but I don't know, I'm just,Michael Jamin:So what, what advice do you have? Do you, I mean, are you bringing on any young writers or what advice do you have when you see a young writer join the show?Greg Thompson:Uh, well, boy, I don't know. I guess it would be the advice. Uh, I'd give any young writer, you know, just try to, try to pay attention to the voices of the show. Know the show, watch, watch every episode. You know, when we were hired on King of the Hill, I, I'd watched King of the Hill, but I hadn't seen everything. But, you know, I methodically started plowing through hundreds of episodes at that point. I think maybe 200 episodes had happened by the time we, we joined it. So, and that's just kind of an education and you internalize the voices of the characters and, and it, it helps you, it helps you know what to pitch. So, you know, we'll, we'll have, obviously, like a new writer will often like, pitch an episode idea that we've kind of already done. And, you know, it's hard to catch up with everything, but you have to try.Michael Jamin:Right.Greg Thompson:And just, I guess trust that you're, trust that you're there for a reason and that your ideas are good and, you know, do your best.Michael Jamin:Right. Right. But it's a pretty supportive environment there, it sounds like.Greg Thompson:Oh, it's great. Yeah. No, it's, it's really a nice group of people. Um, you know, you've been on many staffs and I was on many staffs, and I think my experience was almost always good. Uh, I hope yours was too. But you know, the, I think we probably all have both had the experience of being in a room where you're sitting in the same, you're around a table, same table every day. You're not only that, but you're seated in the same seat every day. Mm-hmm. , uh, same person to the left, same person to the right. And, and sometimes there will be people who will make a point of only laughing at, uh, somebody's, somebody several people's pitches, but never several other people's pitches.Interesting. Trying to, right. Yeah. I mean, uh, and, uh, it, it is a little bit of a, and this is, you know, it was rare to have this experience, but, you know, maybe did once or twice, um, pe writers are trying to get their jokes in. Uh, they would rather have their joke in than a funnier joke from somebody else. So there is that, there is that bit of competition. And I'm not saying I would have the funnier joke that no one would want in or anything like that, but, uh, uh, it's, it's this natural, um, selfishness, self-preservation, I guess. Yeah. Of like, right. I must, I must have a certain number of jokes in the, in the episode, or I'm not, I'm not earning my, my morsel of meat Yeah. Today. Yeah. So, um, so there, you know, there is a competitiveness. And I think, I think some shows, I think very could be bad miserable places. Um, Bob's was a fantastic place. Everybody was great. Right. Everybody was supportive. Uh, everybody was funny. Uh, everybody is funny. So many great writers. So it's been a, a fantastic situation.Michael Jamin:And how, and you say you were, you're involved heavily in the production. So you'll watch the animatics, you'll give notes on the air, or do you watch all the automatics or just the ones you, you produce?Greg Thompson:Uh, we watch all thematics and colors. Uh, but the animat, you know, for your own episode, you, you will be, you know, more involved in notes and revisionismMichael Jamin:Just forGreg Thompson:People. And the,Michael Jamin:The a animat are the rough, uh, before like crude sketches of the, uh, cartoon, the animation. And then you give notes on that. And then, then it's more like for blocking, which before the character should do and what kind of shot you have. And then later they color it in and, you know, that's, then you, you give notes on that as well. But you, are you also at the record? Are you, um, recording the actors?Greg Thompson:Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we've done that a few different ways. In the beginning of the show, it was the, uh, Bob's was unique in this, in that they, you'd have multiple actors in, you know, on, on Mike, uh, at the same time. And it would be a simultaneous recording, so you'd have overlap mm-hmm. , uh, and improv. And that was kind of a hallmark of Bob's. And then in, uh, as c happened, we had to kind of break that apart and actors were recording in their homes, and so we were getting them one at a time. Right. Um, and so now it's, it's kind of a little combination of,Michael Jamin:But are you direct in a way, the actress yourselves or someone else? One of the store runners directingGreg Thompson:Lauren, Lauren was the director for like the first 10 years mm-hmm. every episode. And then during Covid we began to direct our own episodes. Right. Uh, but now we're actually in the process of having one writer direct all the episodes, uh, uh, with the, uh, a writer producer will direct all of them. And just so there's kind of a, a unified voice coming from the directing booth. Right. Um, and then Theri, the writer is also there to give notes and suggestions.Michael Jamin:Roll their eyes. You're doing it wrong.Greg Thompson:Yeah. I'd say, no, that's not, that's not, it's goes. So, yeah. And uh, I'd say Lauren is kind of constantly tinkering with the process, trying to improve it, even after like 12 years you think it would, things would be, okay, this is how we do it, this is how we'll always do it. But no, it's still being, aspects of production are being reinvented and tinkered with all the time.Michael Jamin:It's a great show. Cause it has such a sweetness to it, such an earnestness to, uh, who knew, who knew it was gonna be sort of giant.Greg Thompson:It does. It does. Uh, and I know early on, like, um, you know, Aaron and I would pitch, uh, coming from a, well, I guess working on every other show, we pitched a lot of, like, stories that involved conflict between the family, you know, uh, that was a little maybe sharper than Lauren wanted to do. Yeah. He didn't want, you know, his thing is he doesn't ever want the characters being mean to each other. Right. Anything perceived as mean. And so, like, you know, like, oh, if you're watching most sitcoms, it's like, oh, I don't know, everybody's, everybody does this all the time. You know what, so, but he wanted something sweetie.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And it's a good instinct. When we, we, when we worked for, uh, Chris Lloyd who, you know, he ran Frazier for many years, and then later we worked for Man Practice. He used to say the same things. He, he would say Velvet Gloves. So when the characters slapped each other, they had to be wearing velvet gloves. So you never wanna hit too hard. Everyone saw too hard, you know, I was like, oh, that's, that's smart. I'll start using that wordGreg Thompson:. I won't do it, but I'll use the word. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, and, and certainly like, you know, one thing with the internet, now, you can see what everybody thinks of every episode and on Reddit. And do you guysMichael Jamin:Do that?Greg Thompson:Uh, Twitter? Do you go? Yeah. Yeah. DoesMichael Jamin:That change the way you write future episodes?Greg Thompson:I think a little, um, like we did an episode once where the family was on a game show, which is kind of an unusual episode for us. It was pretty early. And they end up kind of getting cheated out of their prize at the end of the game show. It's kind of a, they're kind of ripped off. Mm-hmm. and the ending, we thought, no, it's a great ending. It's, you know, it's, it's perfect. It's funny, it's, uh, it's television viewers hated the bels that that had happened to the Belchers that they'd been, it, it felt like an unsatisfying ending to many, many, many viewers. And they would keep bringing it up. In fact, they still bring it up, uh, online as, as a, an episode ending. They don't like, uh, and you know, I think maybe because it was an unearned, they hadn't really done anything wrong and they ended up being, you know, kind of robbed. So I think we, we avoid, we try to avoid lessons where they, or episodes where they just have complete egg on their face by the end. Right. There has to be some kind of little, little victory or something learned, something positive that comes outMichael Jamin:It. Yeah. That's interesting. It's interesting you take that few, cuz I never sire kind of does. I, I'm really kind, I stay away from, I don't want to hear about the reviews. I don't want to hear about what the viewers think, just wanna, you know, do my thing and cross my fingers. But it's, you know, different.Greg Thompson:I mean, that's probably healthier. But if it's an episode that I wrote that's airing, um, I just devour Twitter.Michael Jamin:Do you really?Greg Thompson:Trying to, trying to, uh, oh, yeah. No, I, I I definitely try to cherry pick , you know, any positive comments.Michael Jamin:We went on, geez, this is about a year ago, Sierra and I went on, I don't know when we went on YouTube to like, see what people were saying about Glen Martin. We hadn't watched the show in years. And, and then there's some guy from his basement, some young guy talking about the show and he nailed it. He, he was as if he was in the writer's room. Like he understood the show better, better than we did. And it was just hilarious to hear him take it apart. I was like, man, this guy,Greg Thompson:I think, did you send that around? Did you send that around to the writers? I kind of remember reading something that I thought, yeah, this guy's, this guy's good, thisMichael Jamin:Guy's, he was like a spy me. So much Funny .Greg Thompson:Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Wow.Greg Thompson:That, oh, it was a funny, it was a funny show. Does that air, I mean, does that, how does that, as a quick aside, is Glen Martin accessible on anyMichael Jamin:Platform? I think, yeah, I think it's on YouTube where you can watch it all for free. So we don't get any, I mean, we have some points and we don't get any of it. I don't think you make money by showing,Greg Thompson:But it'sMichael Jamin:For free.Greg Thompson:Did some, I mean, did some kid upload it or is it, is it like they're all this, whoever owns it, put it, putMichael Jamin:It on Michael Eisner there as a whole, like maybe we get enough used, like he can even sell it again somewhere. I'm like, you know, yeah. Sell it somewhere. Let's, let's bring it back. But I don't think we've pushed band to bring it back. I can't, we reboot Glen Martin. I don't think there's anything there. Oh, that's funny.Greg Thompson:Oh. Oh,Michael Jamin:Well,Greg Thompson:Uh,Michael Jamin:Greg, is there any place, is there anything you wanna plug? Do you wanna talk about your next season? Should people follow you anywhere? Is there anything you wanna get off your chest before eight?Greg Thompson:Oh, well, God, I'm not really on Twitter. No. I mean, I can't, it's, I'm unfollowable on social media cuz um, I don't know. Just, uh, I guess keep watching. Uh, uh, I kind of forget where we are production-wise. I never know what episodes about to air. Yeah. Cause as you know, the, the production schedule in in animation is very long. It's almost don'tMichael Jamin:Without nine months with you guys in almost a year.Greg Thompson:Well, it can be, you know, if, especially if you know, the order changes. Right. And, andMichael Jamin:How manyGreg Thompson:Episodes do you get, you know, after production. But it's a longMichael Jamin:Time. What, what is your order this year? Like 22?Greg Thompson:Uh, I think it's 22. I think it's, yeah, Bob's is one of the last, you know, shows that still gets a 22 order. Uh, and it does less so now, but it did, you know, repeat a lot too. So there was residuals involved. Um, so, but fortunateMichael Jamin:It worked out.Greg Thompson:Um,Michael Jamin:,Greg Thompson:No. Let's see what I, I, I, uh, I would merely plug, uh, your,Michael Jamin:My Plus this in my Pod . All right. Everyone that well,Greg Thompson:Are you still doing the videos as uh, what? Oh, I was just asking if you're doing the video, the video, uh, podcast things as well. Yeah.Michael Jamin:These will air, yeah, they air they'll be on YouTube as well, and we run clips across media. Okay. People can, you know, they can get it everywhere. They can. Yeah. Continue following.Greg Thompson:Okay. It'sMichael Jamin:All part of that. Yeah. It's all, but that's, yeah. I, I, I, this has been fascinating hearing your story as far as I'm concerned, but ,Greg Thompson:But Greg,Michael Jamin:Thank you forGreg Thompson:I, I, uh, well, thank you. I hopeMichael Jamin:You're a good dude.Greg Thompson:Uh, thank, thank you for having me, Michael. I, you know, I'm a, I'm a huge fan of yours, uh, and, uh, yeah, honored.Michael Jamin:Oh God, this is my honor. But alright, everybody, thank you so much to great comic comedian, writer Greg Thompson. And, uh, yeah. So what, let me tell you what else is going on over here. So keep, if you guys wanna sign up for my watch list, that's my free newsletter where I send out daily tips for screenwriters and creative types at Michael jam.com/watchlist and keep following us here. And, uh, yeah, we have different content on YouTube. Our YouTubes at Michael Jam, writer and, uh, Instagram. Keep follow My Instagram, the TikTok Act. Michael Jam writer. All right, everyone. Thank you so much, Greg. Thank you. Until next week for more people. All right. Be good.Phil Hudson:This has been an episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you'd like to support this podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving your review and sharing this podcast with someone who needs to hear today's subject. For free daily screenwriting tips, follow Michael on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @MichaelJaminWriter. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @PhilAHudson. This episode was produced by Phil Hudson and edited by Dallas Crane. Until next time, keep writing.

Joe Tilley's Great Canadian Sports Show | EP 103 | Justin Bourne | Author Son of an NHL great. Player, coach, writer, analyst cohost of Real Kipper and Bourne. And sober. Today's guest - Glenn Healy - in the house! Stanley Cup Winning Goaltender- Analyst, NHLPA Executive and head of The NHL Alumni. Exciting interviews with the game changers of the sports world. Tackling deep personal challenges and exciting career milestones. I Thank you to all our incredible sponsors for making this great Canadian sports show happen: #JustinBourne #author #analysis #analyst #real #sober #kipper #nhl #canada #vs #history #Toronto #mapleleafs #NHL #hockey #sports #stanleycup #playoffs #viral #tilley #interview #powerful #ontario

An excellent teaching by Dr. Stanley! Studio Line: 888-446-3111 Jaggy and I Thank you so much for tuning in. Please share the show.

Excellent but powerful short sermon by Pastor Steven Furtick. Jag and I are putting this out there because I am quite sure at least one of you needs to hear this. We have thousands of listeners every week, so I'm sure that most likely more than one person needs to hear this! Jaggy and I Thank you for tuning in.

Welcome back to another episode of “From the Mind of Mr. L” Celebrating the 1 year Podcastversary, Mr. L welcomes special guest Kaycee Polite a sex therapist! As they discuss multiple topics revolving around Pleasure. Make sure to Like, Subscribe and Share Kaycee Polite: Website: www.kayceepolite.com IG: @K_spot_therapy Mr. L IG: @FromtheMindofMrL / @3guys_and_agirl / @4playtonic Twitter: FrmTheMindofMrL / 4playtonic Email: FromtheMindofMrL@gmail.com Message of Thanks and : Thank you to all who have been a part of this journey over the past year.  To my guest..thank you for being willing and open to come and share your thoughts, ideas and experiences. To the listeners...thank you for allowing me to penetrate your ear canals and stimulate your brain over the past year.  To anyone who has continued to support me whether sharing the podcast, listening, emailing, messaging on social media etc...truly from the bottom of my heart I Thank you I am grateful for each and every one of you! I wouldnt have made it this 1 year without you all.  Much Love -Mr. L

Psalm 77:1 King James Version 77 I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me. You Hear me by Nicole-Tayan Lyrics: Thank you, Lord, you give life, unto thy bones I give you all the praise, yes I say, I praise you, yes I praise you all of my days Thank you, Lord, I Thank you God for you hear me when I pray I thank you, I thank you, Lord Chorus Alleluia Glory to our King You are mighty and worthy to be praised And When I call you are there There's no place that I go that you are not I thank you, I thank you, Lord Alleluia Glory to our King You were sent that we live It's by your stipes that our souls are saved So we praise you, Lord I thank you, Lord, I thank you, Lord, I thank you, Lord Thank you, Lord, you are the light into the world I sing you all the praise, yes i sing I praise you, I praise you all my days Thank you Lord, Thank you God for you hear me when I call I thank you, I thank you Lord God (X2) Alleluia Glory to our King You are mighty and worthy to be praised And When I call you are there There's no place that I go that you are not I thank you, I thank you, Lord All rights reserved.

Episode 68 Recorded on: 10/12/2021 Happy happy happy!!!! I'm so happy I get to do this and chat with you all the time. I see u taking my polls and i love you. We're in this tiny corner of the internet, Instagram, together. Just answering questions about ourselves and seeing what other people think! I feel close to you all and I THANK you for loving me and supporting me. I could (did) cry

It feels good to be healthy again. In this episode I talk about being sick for two weeks, I like to call it two weeks of hell. I'm not going to say it was that one thing but what I'm going to say is that it sucked, but God brought me and my wife through it and I Thank him for that. We need to take our health into our own hands and stop relying on others to heal us. Warriors Collection Network presents Warriors Vision Follow us on Social Media https://www.youtube.com/warriorscollectionnetwork https://www.facebook.com/warriorscollectionnetwork https://www.facebook.com/WarriorsCollectionBrand Follow me on IG @briansailes and follow my brand @warriors_collection_ Link to our store! www.warriorscollectionbrand.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/warriorsvision/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/warriorsvision/support

On this episode the host wants to use more we on the descriptions on his episodes than to use the I on it The host wants people to feel welcomed and be more involved and the host apologizes for not using we instead of I Thank you for listening, the host really appreciates it Please Like and Follow and tell a friend about the podcast!!!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/whatamipodcast/message

Everybody has a purpose, and I believe that God created each person for something specific. When you realize your gifts and purpose, and you walk in that, you live in that, and you do that. It just kind of comes naturally. God wants to say something. He wants me to relay knowledge to you differently today. So what you're going to hear is what I believe. God wanted you to say through me. Be blessed. I hope you receive it. You know, I want to talk about being blessed. I have come through so many things in my life. I've seen a lot of abuse. I've seen a lot of abundance, and no matter what, even when I didn't even know it, God was always with me. He's: Loved and protected me Provided for me Given me, everything that I could ever think of or ask for and a lot of stuff that I didn't even know was available to me. Understood me for who I am, accepting me for who I am and what I am. I love spending time with God. He's my best friend. I can go to him and talk to him about anything. I'm so blessed. It's not about the pursuit of things, the attainment of material possessions. It's not about being in a relationship with other people that are blessed. It comes from inside. It's how you feel is how you think. It's how you move in the world. I'm blessed; there's nothing that I can't have. There's nothing that I can't do. There's nowhere I can't go, there's nobody that I can't be, I can be whoever I want to be, I can do whatever I want to do. I can live where I want to live. I can have whatever I want to have. I am blessed. It's amazing how much: God loves me. He cares. He's provided for me. He's protected me. He has in store for me. He says I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, thoughts of good and not evil, of an expected end. He knew me before the foundation of the Earth, creating me knitting me together in my mother's womb. He formed me. He knows every molecule. He knows me. He created me. I have a purpose, and when I flow in that purpose when I live in that purpose when I do what He's called me to do, I am perfectly happy. I am content. PRAYER for God's Blessing. He's a glorious God, a merciful God - Hallelujah, an omniscient God. He knows everything. He's omnipotent - Hallelujah, He has all power. Hallelujah, Lord, I praise you for your Grace and your mercy and your kindness. I exalt you and reverence You for this opportunity to let people know that I am blessed and let them know that they're also blessed. That You love them, that You protect them, that You provide for them. Lord, I give you praise and glory and honor. Hallelujah, Lord, I thank you for the confidence that you placed in the people that hear my voice. Lord, I Thank and Praise You for their: Lives. Prosperity.  Health. Relationships. Careers and purposes. Hallelujah Lord, Gifts. Lord, I thank you and praise you in the name of Jesus. They have a sound mind, and Your peace surrounds them. Lord, I praise and glorify your holy name for you. Lord, you're worthy. You are magnificent. You, Lord, are glorious Hallelujah. I give you the praise, the glory, and honor. God, you're worthy. God, you're an amazing God. You're a miraculous God, and I thank you for your people. In Jesus' name, Amen. Get the Self Confidence Jumpstart Meditation  

Everybody has a purpose, and I believe that God created each person for something specific. When you realize your gifts and purpose, and you walk in that, you live in that, and you do that. It just kind of comes naturally. God wants to say something. He wants me to relay knowledge to you differently today. So what you're going to hear is what I believe. God wanted you to say through me. Be blessed. I hope you receive it. You know, I want to talk about being blessed. I have come through so many things in my life. I've seen a lot of abuse. I've seen a lot of abundance, and no matter what, even when I didn't even know it, God was always with me. He's: Loved and protected me Provided for me Given me, everything that I could ever think of or ask for and a lot of stuff that I didn't even know was available to me. Understood me for who I am, accepting me for who I am and what I am. I love spending time with God. He's my best friend. I can go to him and talk to him about anything. I'm so blessed. It's not about the pursuit of things, the attainment of material possessions. It's not about being in a relationship with other people that are blessed. It comes from inside. It's how you feel is how you think. It's how you move in the world. I'm blessed; there's nothing that I can't have. There's nothing that I can't do. There's nowhere I can't go, there's nobody that I can't be, I can be whoever I want to be, I can do whatever I want to do. I can live where I want to live. I can have whatever I want to have. I am blessed. It's amazing how much: God loves me. He cares. He's provided for me. He's protected me. He has in store for me. He says I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, thoughts of good and not evil, of an expected end. He knew me before the foundation of the Earth, creating me knitting me together in my mother's womb. He formed me. He knows every molecule. He knows me. He created me. I have a purpose, and when I flow in that purpose when I live in that purpose when I do what He's called me to do, I am perfectly happy. I am content. PRAYER for God's Blessing. He's a glorious God, a merciful God - Hallelujah, an omniscient God. He knows everything. He's omnipotent - Hallelujah, He has all power. Hallelujah, Lord, I praise you for your Grace and your mercy and your kindness. I exalt you and reverence You for this opportunity to let people know that I am blessed and let them know that they're also blessed. That You love them, that You protect them, that You provide for them. Lord, I give you praise and glory and honor. Hallelujah, Lord, I thank you for the confidence that you placed in the people that hear my voice. Lord, I Thank and Praise You for their: Lives. Prosperity.  Health. Relationships. Careers and purposes. Hallelujah Lord, Gifts. Lord, I thank you and praise you in the name of Jesus. They have a sound mind, and Your peace surrounds them. Lord, I praise and glorify your holy name for you. Lord, you're worthy. You are magnificent. You, Lord, are glorious Hallelujah. I give you the praise, the glory, and honor. God, you're worthy. God, you're an amazing God. You're a miraculous God, and I thank you for your people. In Jesus' name, Amen. Get the Self Confidence Jumpstart Meditation  

There are days when we need a visit from the Lord. When we are involved in a big problem, or a dangerous disease, or circumstances that we are unable to cope or live by. In such circumstances, come and cry to the Lord for his visitation, to take the revelation and enjoy the Lord's restoration of your life and the lives of others, and be the restorer of the breach, as it was said in Isaiah 58:12, “Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell InIn the beginning of the chapter The Lord speaks about the life of righteousness and consecration, and hearing his voice and then the Bible says “Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.' “If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday. Take a few minutes and read the entire chapter to enjoy the promises of this chapter, which ends in Isaiah 58:14. Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Pray with me these words, Lord Jesus, I need your visitation to me, I need your revelation to restore my life, and I Thank you Lord for hearing me and responding to my prayers in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen and Amen

353/404 New Spring time resolution for myself and thanking God Jehovah for my blessed abilities to do so.....the Divine Being always helps me in All my endeavors. I waited to fill in the episode title cause I was unsure what to title it. So as I finished this upper portion and went to type out, Spirit helps with word suggestions., therego helping with the speed of texting. It's All Divine to me. The Universe does provide what we need at the apportioned time, to battle what we need, joyously revel in, or easy flow go comfortable in. As the scriptures say, count it all good brothers when you meet with trials and adversities, our trials form us into who we are whether we fail or succeed. A man is measured by his faith. How could it be that you know how really strong you are lest you been tried and tested. I Thank you Father Jehovah that I've cycled thru yet another season. I asked to hybernate comfortably for the Winter season, and I did so very nicely. Now it's time to emerge from my cacoon a little more awakened and matured spiritual being. Ever cycling journey.

7 THOUGHTS OF TREASURE TO PONDER ON: 1. WHAT CAN YOU SEE? AS FAR AS YOUR EYES CAN SEE THAT HE HAS GIVEN TO YOU. Genesis 13:15) 2. REMEMBER NOT THE FORMER THINGS. SEE, GOD IS DOING A NEW THING IN YOUR LIFE. Isaiah 43:18-19). 3. USE YOUR EYE OF FAITH TO SEE WHAT THE LORD IS DOING. Deauteronomy 1:21, Isaiah 43:19). 4. ARISE, SHINE FOR YOUR LIGHT HAS COME AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD RISEN UPON YOU. Isaiah 60:1). 5. DO NOT DWELL ON THE PAST OR OBSERVE LYING VANITIES. Jonah2:8). 6. PRESS ON TOWARDS THE NEXT LEVEL OF SUCCESS. Philippians 3:14). 7.GOD HAS SOMETHING NEW FOR YOU AND THERE ARE NEW MERCIES FOR YOU EVERY DAY. Isaiah 43:19, lamentations 3:23). AFFIRMATION: The word of God is working for me and I am living daily by the principles of God’s word. Father, I Thank you for your infallible word. I commend myself to the word of your grace which is able to build me up. I receive your word In faith, in meekness and with gladness. I trust your word and I know that my help comes from you whom is the maker of heaven and earth. I worship you for great is your faithfulness towards me. Amen. FURTHER QUOTES. See, the LORD your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deuteronomy 1:21)

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sermon transcript So turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 16, as we go now to a new chapter in this marvelous Epistle. And as we do, I'm thinking about a couple of quotes from Scripture that just are powerful in my mind. 1 Timothy 6:7, the Apostle Paul said, "We brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out." We brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out. The Apostle Paul was just repeating the wisdom from the ancient patriarch, Job, who lost all of his possessions, his worldly possessions in a single day, dreadful day and all of those things taken from him. And Job said in Job 1:21, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart." So we need to meditate on these things. We need to realize how transitory are the material blessings of life. We need to think properly about money and possessions and eternity. John Piper gives us a powerful image, rather humorous actually, in Desiring God in his chapter on money. And the image was of a foolish man who was... You're walking with this individual and he's going through a museum and much to your shock and horror at some point, he starts picking artwork off the wall, paintings and putting them under his arm and he's… And you're stunned. And you're saying, "What are you doing?" And he says, "Well, I'm becoming an art collector." [chuckle] "I'm becoming an art... You can't take those things. And I tell you right now, they are never going to let you get out of here with those things under your arm." So I thought how ridiculous that image was. I thought about my time in Amsterdam, in the Rijksmuseum, and seeing those beautiful Vermeer paintings, four of them in there. Especially the Milkmaid and it's so beautiful, and it's a good size for being stolen. The night watch is 12 feet by 14 feet and there's like 500 people around it all the time, but maybe it'd be possible to get a Vermeer under your arm. They sold it at auction, one of them did for $40 million. But again, those words, they are not going to let you get out of here with those things, you're not becoming an art collector. Well, the image is one of a transitory passage through this world and a decisive end in which we are effectively stripped of everything that we have. So how should our knowledge of the world to come, our knowledge of the future world, affect the way we live? And it's really quite remarkable in this incredible Epistle here, 1 Corinthians, we're moving from the sublime to the practical. We're moving from a meditation on eternity and resurrection bodies to talking about money. We have just finished soaring into the realms of eternity as we consider the glories of the resurrection body. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, Paul says, "Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash in a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed." In Verse 54, "When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that has been written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory." These words should fill us with a radiant buoyant hope. A hope that transcends anything that we could ever face in this present world of sickness, sorrow, loss, and of death. We are to feed our souls continually. So that our hope will be shining brightly. We should fix our minds on things above and on things to come." Colossians Chapter 3 says. "Now the glorious world to come defies all description." Paul, when he was caught up to the third heaven, it says he heard inexpressable things, things that man is not permitted to talk about. So that's really quite remarkable. The world to come cannot be put in words and Paul at least, was forbidden even try. The Apostle John was translated up in the heaven, through a doorway in heaven and he saw amazing things and he was given the role of writing what that world would look like. Revelation 21:1-4, "Then I saw a new heaven, a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There'll be no more death, mourning, crying or pain, for the old order of things had passed away.'" So this heavenly perspective, as we meditate on what we do know about the world to come, should affect, should color, the way we live every day of our lives. Now, the last thing we were told in 1 Corinthians Verse 58, is that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. Because we will receive resurrection bodies, glorious, powerful, incorruptible, resurrection bodies. How then should we live? And Paul ends in Verse 58 says, "Therefore my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." So he wants the Corinthians based on 57 verses of solid, true doctrine about our future, the resurrection body that we're going to get. He wants them to live an energetic, fruitful Christian life. So the question then in front of us now, as we transition to the first four verses of Chapter 16. It seems to be not merely how should we live, but how should we spend. What should we do with our money? And that's the question that immediately comes to us. Just as we should be steadfast and immovable and always abounding fruitfully in the works of the Lord, we should do the same with our money and with our possessions. Now the world is gonna throw at us temptations to be worldly-minded all the time. Either by, on the one hand, temporary successes or on the other hand, temporary failures, financially. Temporary successes would be financial windfalls, raises, winning the lottery, getting an inheritance, accumulating wealth that you didn't imagine. These things, however, can deceive us into a carnal mindset, temporary successes. And so can temporary setbacks or failures, like sickness and surgery, and unemployment and financial reverses and economic reverses and losses and financial stock market crashes. These things can also make us very focused on worldly things and anxious and having that materialistic mindset. So Paul wants us to work hard for the kingdom, liberated from temporary concerns. Set free from idols, set free from the deception of wealth so that we can store up effectively treasure in heaven. So Paul's gonna move seamlessly from the resurrection body to money. He's gonna give us an eternal perspective on how we spend, how we save, how we give. And he's not gonna do all this in these four verses. But I'm taking an opportunity to walk through these four verses in which he's exhorting them to save up money for the relief of the poor among Jerusalem as a doorway into a deeper meditation on Christian spending. So that's what we're gonna do this morning. Now concerning the collection for the saints, Verse one. But there's no real division in Paul's mind in light of the fact that someday you will be raised out of these corruptible bodies and these temporary circumstances. How should you spend your money? Just like, how should you spend your time and your energy? How should you give to the poor and needy among the saints in Jerusalem? That's the way he thinks. Money really does have the power to reveal the state of the soul, money reveals the soul, reveals the health of the soul. Randy Alcorn in his great book on this topic, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, said, "Jesus spoke more about how we are to view and handle money and possessions than any other topic, including heaven or hell." He went again and again to materialistic concerns. He looks again and again at how you spend your money. And in doing this, he's just lifting up Jesus's theme in the Sermon on the Mount and many other places. But in Matthew 6:19-24, Jesus said in the Sermon on Mount, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal." "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?" Then Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." So Jesus says you have to make a choice when it comes to money and material possessions. Either they will rule you and dominate you or you will use them in your service to King Jesus, one or the other. It's a battle and if you are generous with your money here if you're generous with what you do with it, giving it away as the Lord leads by the Spirit, as the Scripture says, "You will be actually storing up treasure in heaven." You'll be rich for all eternity. Conversely, if you're not careful, if you're not on your guard about money, you could make a shipwreck of your faith, as Paul gives us that image. Think of a terrible shipwreck, a wooden sailing vessel getting closer and closer to the shore in a storm and then the rocks loom up and then you're dashed, and so there's that image of a shipwreck. And he specifically, Paul does, links it to concern about material things, about money. So we need to be very, very careful. The love of money is dangerous to our souls. The love of money is dangerous to our souls. It's the root of all kinds of evil, Paul says. And Jesus said in the parable of the seed in the soils, you remember the different seed was going in different outcomes. So the different soils and one of the soils that he describes is the seed sown among thorns. He said in Mark 4:18-19, "Still others, like seeds sown among the thorns, hear the Word but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the Word, making it unfruitful." That's a very powerful triad there of outcomes of thorns, weeds that come in and deprive the growing seed of nutrients. There's only so many nutrients in the soil and in come these weeds and crowd out the seeds so it can't bear fruit. The worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. Powerful phrase. How is wealth deceiving us? How is it lying to us? And then vaguely the desire for other things other than what, other than the Kingdom of God. Just other things have the power to choke out the Word. Covetousness, I find is a very sneaky sin, it's the kind of thing we don't tend to confess. There are other sins that we're very aware of and they're dangerous and they are dangerous. But greed, materialism, covetousness is something that we, Western Christians, American Christians, have a hard time facing up to, being honest about. And so I think Psalm 139 comes in as it always does, Verse 23 and 24, "Search me, O God and know my heart. Try me. Test me and know my anxious thoughts." We could say my materialistic thoughts. "See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Alright, so that's just setting up the topic, now let's talk about the context for the actual offering. Alright, the context for that offering. We need to understand Paul's ministry and Paul was commissioned by the Pillars, the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, he's called by God, he makes this plain in Galatians 1, "Nobody gave me my ministry, I got it directly from God, got it directly from Jesus Christ. But I went to the church at Jerusalem and those that were Pillars there, James, Peter, and John agreed that we should go to the Gentiles," this is Galatians 2:9-10, "and they to the Jews." So Paul's the Apostle to the Gentiles and Peter the Apostle to the Jews and his entourage, they were gonna focus on Jewish evangelism, but Paul was gonna be sent out to do Gentile evangelism. And then they say this, "All they asked is that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." In context, that's the poor among the Jewish Christians there in Jerusalem. "Don't forget them as you go out among the Gentiles," and so Paul's keeping that promise, that commission from them. Now, we need to understand what we're dealing with, with poverty, what it was like back then compared to the way we would tend to think of poverty here in America in our setting. Poverty then was pervasive and devastating. People were facing, in some cases, their own extinction, when they ran out of resources. For the most part, we, here in America, have never seen that kind, that level of poverty. Really have to go overseas, you have to go other places to see it. I was in my 20s before I saw that level of poverty and I had to go to Africa and then eventually to Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Some of these other places in India where I saw that level of life-threatening poverty. But poverty is an issue all over the world. And that's what Paul is addressing here. He's addressing poverty that is so deep and powerful and pervasive, it really threatens their lives. And he wants the Gentile Christians to be concerned about it, so he's dealing with the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Look at Verse 3, he talks about a gift, he's gonna send some men with a gift, men that they approve, with their gift, he says, to Jerusalem. So here we get to this issue of Jew-Gentile relationships and the Jew-Gentile unity in the Body of Christ and the need to look out for one another. The collection was being taken among Gentile converts to a Jewish Messiah. Gentile converts to a Jewish religion as it were. And as Jesus himself said, "Salvation is from the Jews." And so Jesus was a son of Abraham, a son of David. So these Gentiles had been grafted into a Jewish work, a Jewish olive tree, the image from Romans 11. So the material needs among the Jewish Christians was a prime opportunity to put the unity of the Gospel on display. Now, why were they poor? Why were Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, why were they poor? Well, it started even in Jesus's lifetime. Do you remember the account in John 9 of Jesus healing the man born blind? And so Jesus heals a man born blind and then he gets hauled up in front of the Jewish authorities, and it says very powerfully in John 9:22, "Already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue." So that's very significant. If you think Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, is the Messiah, you're out of the synagogue, kicked out of Jewish life. It was the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem that condemned Jesus and handed him over to be crucified. It was the unbelieving Jewish Sanhedrin that organized the first systematic persecution of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. The Book of Acts makes it clear that there was a relentless persecution of Christians by Jewish leaders again and again, in the Book of Acts. Confiscation of property, arrests, even death by the Jewish Sanhedrin. So Jerusalem was one of the worst places on earth to be a Jewish Christian. Now central to that eviction from the synagogue were economic effects. If you were a Jew, a Jewish person kicked out of the synagogue, that will have a devastating effect on your economic life. You could no longer make a living. If you were a carpenter, no one would hire you to do carpentry. No one would buy your furniture, if you're a furniture maker, they wouldn't buy it. If you're a potter, they wouldn't buy your pottery. If you're a farmer, they wouldn't buy your harvest. If you were poor, they wouldn't hire you. You're out, you're blackballed. And so that ends up being, creating severe economic difficulties for the Jews, the Jewish Christian, Jews among the saints in Jerusalem. Paul also argues in Romans 15 to the Gentile converts to this Jewish faith, that they have an obligation to take care of their Jewish brothers and sisters, financially. He's very clear about this. He says in Romans 15:25-27, he says, "I'm on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there, for Macedonia and Achaia to Greek churches, Gentile churches, were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem." "They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them." How do you think that, Paul? Well, if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings. So we are in obligation, Paul would've said if we lived back then. We are under obligation to Jewish Christians in Jerusalem to give because we have received such rich spiritual blessings from the Jewish people. It also, as I mentioned earlier, a great opportunity to show the new covenant unity that there is between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. And this whole thing is unfolded so beautifully for us in Ephesians 2, that through Christ, those who are at one time aliens and strangers have been brought near, that's Gentiles, have been brought near through the blood of Christ, and they're no longer aliens and strangers, they are now part of God's household, part of God's people. And the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, set up in the old covenant circumcision, the dietary regulations have been abolished, they're done. And now God is making in Christ one new man out of the two. Out of Jew and Gentile, one new man thus making peace. And in this one body, to reconcile both to God through the cross. By which he put to death their hostility. We can put that on display by just generously giving to our Christian brothers and sisters, that's the argument. So Paul's making his collection, it's progressing, he's going to various Gentile communities where he planted churches and he's collecting money from them. Verse 1, Now about the collection for God's people, do what I told the Galatians churches to do. Now, he's already talked about the Macedonians and he elaborates this at length in 2 Corinthians Chapter 8, and he goes on into Chapter 9. Now, 2 Corinthians 8:1-4, he says, Now brothers, I want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty weld up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability, entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. So here are some very poor Macedonian Christians. And they have given lavishly to their Jewish brothers and sisters in Jerusalem, they gave abundantly more than Paul ever imagined that they could give. They pleaded, they begged for the opportunity to do this. And they gave themselves first to God, and then they gave themselves to the Apostles as God led. And they were so generous, he talks about them. So he's already collected some money to the point now he's going back to the Corinthians, so what's going on with them? Well, he's collecting money from them, and he talks about the practicalities of it, Verse 3 and 4, Then when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. And if it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me. So I think you should read between the lines if it's wise for me to go then we'll go together. Well, Paul, why wouldn't it be wise to go? Not enough money yet. The offering isn't big enough yet. I've heard this one account of a church in which they were raising money, and this is in some literature, and they're raising money for a situation and they passed the hat and they got an amount and it wasn't enough yet. So he said, It's not enough, passing it again. And so they passed the hat again, and it's like, Aren't you glad we don't do that at FBC, alright lock the doors when we have enough, we'll let you go home. But that's an effective, effective strategy, but anyway, I'm gonna go to Jerusalem if there's enough money, if not, I'm gonna be here and persuade some more and pray and I'm gonna work. So now the Corinthians, we learned from 2 Corinthians 8 had made an earlier pledge on this, an earlier pledge. They gave some and they made pledge to give more. So 2 Corinthians 8:10-11, he said, "Last year, you Corinthians were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so, now finish the work," so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it according to your means. So thank you for the pledge. Now, give the money. [chuckle] So it's this matter of, good intentions are not enough. It's not gonna look good on judgment to say, "Well, Lord, I had already always intended to give to the poor and needy. I had always intended to give to missions. I always intended to support the church financially, I just didn't quite get to it the way I wanted to. It's not gonna look good on judgment day. So you've had a start, you've had some indications and some intentions, now do it. Now do it. As Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, but those who do the will of the Father, not those who say it but those who do," Matthew 7. So it's time for action. So let's derive from this text and some of the others I've alluded to some principles. I'm aware, and I sense that it could be that numbers among you haven't really been biblically trained on giving. There's aspects of it that are new to you, there are themes that you haven't heard before, so my desire is that you will not be able to say that after hearing this sermon, that you'll be able to dry out... And I'm not gonna, it's not comprehensive, there's a lot of other things I could say about giving. But this is a timeless opportunity and timeless because though the immediate circumstances of that offering are done now. The elders of this church are not taking up an offering for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Those times are done, but the Holy Spirit, in his wisdom, put this in the written Word of God, and he means for these principles to be standing over every generation of Christian. Not just these, but the other New Testament principles on giving over every generation of Christians. So that we can learn how to give financially. Now, we begin by saying that the priority that Paul has is for the saints, the giving is for the Saints. So we start almost in concentric circles. We learned from 1 Timothy, if any breadwinner doesn't provide for his own family, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So you need to work hard with your own hands, make money and provide for your own family so that you won't be dependent on the church. Or you just take care of your immediate family, so the church isn’t burdened with them. You start there, so it goes out in concentric circles, we got from there to talk about the family of God, verse 1. Now, concerning the collection for the saints, the church must take care of its own. We need to take care of Christian brothers and sisters. The same matter of Christian witness. The Church's reputation is on the line. Okay, Psalm 37, Verse 25, the psalmist says, I was young and now I'm old, and I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. Now, this does not mean Christians should never give to non-Christian needs, it doesn't mean that at all. Think about the teaching on the second great commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself, and Jesus tells a story about the Good Samaritan. And in that story, we've got a Samaritan, that's the hero of the story, he was a neighbor to the man that was lying bleeding by the side of the road, a different culture, different religion perhaps, different background, but he cared for him. And so when there are life and death issues, we don't ask, "Are you a Christian or not?" We do whatever we need to do to save people's lives. So if there are disasters, disaster relief, there are earthquakes, there are hurricanes or other things in this life and death issues, Christians have always stepped up and cared for those in disasters and in those situations. However, there is still a Biblical theme of a priority on the family of God, the priority. We see this in Galatians 6:10, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people. That's anybody, everybody but especially to those who belong to the family of believers. So do good to all people is uploaded in our minds, we are gonna be generous to everybody, but especially has the uploaded to. What do you mean by especially? Focus on the saints, on the people of God. So at FBC, we have a benevolence fund, the church has been generous to give. It's a good amount of money in there. As the elders disperse that fund, we are looking primarily first and foremost to our own local church and then to other Christian brothers and sisters for pressing needs, immediate kind of physical needs that there may be. And so that's what the benevolence is for. Now, also one theme here is the interconnectedness of the body of Christ, the church. So a local church in Corinth should care about a local church in Jerusalem. Because we're all part of the body of Christ. So he talks about, then verse 3, he's gonna send the gift with the men that they chose to Jerusalem. So this isn't just a Jew-Gentile issue, it's a our church, your church issue. So the word church is used in two marvelous different ways in the New Testament, you got the church universal, and you got the church local. So the church universal is a mystical communion of the body of Christ that we become a member of the moment we come to faith in Christ. So that's everyone who in history has ever crossed over from death to life and has become a Christian, living or dead, they're part of that mystical communion, the Body of Christ. And you can never go back the other way, you crossed over from death to life. You live forever and you're in that body, you're part of the mystically... But you can't see that, that... You can't see it with your eyes but you know it's true. We've got brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world, most of whom we've never met, but it's so sweet when you do mission work with them, you go to other countries and you can't even share a common language or culture, but you share a common faith, and so through a translator, you can find out, you believe the same things about Jesus and about the Bible, and about missions and all that, it's so beautiful. But when there's needs out there that should matter, and so a local church, the other way that the New Testament uses the word church is local church, and that's what we are, First Baptist Durham, it's a place you assembly where you can know and be known, you can be a covenant member of that local church, and that has value as well, use your spiritual gifts there, you develop, you come here and there's that connection. But we are part of a network of churches all around the world, and we should care about needs other people have. Now, obviously, the mystical body of Christ that's up in heaven doesn't need your money. Amen. Hallelujah. They are fine, there's no more death, mourning, crying, or pain for them, they don't need money. But there are brothers and sisters in other parts of the world who do, and so there's a sense of obligation that we have. We also have implied here and these are the role of ministry leaders like apostles and pastors to teach the people of God about money. So, I've preached on money many, many times, I've been here 22 years. Yes, I preach on money again and again, I'm kept safe by sequential exposition, I can say, "Not my fault. It's the next text." But why would I have such an attitude? Why would you, any of you complain about pastors preaching about money again. It's kind of an interesting dynamic there, all churches ever do is care about money, do you ever realize what a two-edged sword that is, how you're really looking in the mirror. Could be that you might have an unhealthy view of money yourself. If you don't want pastors going there and talking about money, the fact is we're gonna give it all up anyway. And for me, as a pastor as a shepherd of souls, Oh, how I yearn to set as many of you as I can free from idolatry, so that you can lead fruitful free lives and store up treasure in Heaven. I want you to be rich on judgment day and beyond. So I have no fear in this matter, we're not looking to press people or fleece people like we're some cult, we just wanna teach faithfully on what the Bible says. And so, as an apostle, the Apostle Paul had a role to teach about the doctrine of giving. Earlier he talked about money given to spiritual leaders to support them in their financial needs. 1 Corinthians 9:4, he said, "Don't we have the right to food and drink?" Food and drink. And so, key theme in this is, we're talking not about luxuries, but necessities. Food, clothing, shelter, those basic things are met, and so those who preach the Gospel should make their living from the Gospel. So he laid all that out, and I'm not going into that in detail, here, but money given to leaders is part of the theme. But then there's money given through leaders as well, money given through leaders. So the idea is that spiritual leaders are more aware of ministry opportunities and good ways to spend the Lord's money than the lay people are. And so we see this in Acts Chapter 4:34-35, it says, there were no needy persons among them for from time to time those who own lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the Apostles feet and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. So there's that image, I don't know if they literally put it at the Apostles’ feet, but it's like given to the apostles to disperse as they were aware of the needs. And so in our church, the plurality of elders is overseas, the money that's pulled and collected and spent wisely, and that's a very good system, very good situation where you have a group of interconnected men holding each other accountable, not fleecing the flock or taking the money wrongly, etcetera, but dispersing money wisely according to the church budget. And according to needs as they come up. So the money given to leaders and money given through leaders. Also ministries come up that the ministry leaders know about and they know they take money. We're gonna look at this a little bit next week, but verse 6, he's talking about his own... Paul's talking about his own plans. And he says, “Perhaps I will stay with you a while or even spend the winter so that you can help me on my journey wherever I go.” Now, what do you think he's talking about there? Help me on my journey. He does the same thing in Rome, he said, I'm going to Spain to preach where people have never heard the name of Jesus, and I want you to help me on my way, that's financial, that you would support my mission, that you would support my ministry. And so all of these things are principles as well. He also gives some practical insights on the first day of every week, look at verse two, "On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income." So this first day of the week was the Lord's day. It was the day of worship, so what that implies is that Christian giving is a part of worship. It's something that we do as an act of worship to the Lord. And so when the Church is assembled for worship, we would give on the first day of every week. Now, there are practicalities, if you get paid once a month, you could give your tithes and offerings once a month without sinning. But the idea is that Christian giving needs to come across your mind regularly and be something you choose to do as an active worship. Okay. You don't want a prayer app that does all your praying for you. You just hit go and get some extra sleep while your prayer app does your praying for you. No, it has to pass through your mind and heart and you have to care about it, so it is with Christian giving. I think there is some benefit to having money automatically taken out of your account and given to the church. The church, financial secretaries love that. It's very regular, but there's some danger to it too, I don't know the answer to it, but I just think it's good for you to think and pray and give regularly. It's an active Christian worship as well. And he says, saving it up. So this again is practical, don't go running around like a chicken with your head cut off when I get to town.You should have planned out, figured out and saved up what you wanna do for this. Because that kind of hurried approach to Christian giving is gonna reduce the amount and going to be less effective. So save it up, accumulate it, and then give when I come, that's what he's saying, and then he says, "Each of you." Oh yes, look at it. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money. This is something that we need to teach to our children. It's something that we need to talk about with each other, husband and wives need to discuss it together, this is something all of us are in on, we all get to give to the Lord's work, it's part of a healthy Christian life, just like all of us have spiritual gifts, and therefore should have a spiritual gift ministry. Every one of us should feel the weight of Christian giving and give. Every one of you, he says. And he says, The giving should be in proportion to your income, it's all a matter of what you have, not what you don't have. It's in proportion to how the Lord has blessed you. You remember the story of the widow that gave those two little copper coins, remember Jesus is watching the offering. And he does watch the offering, he sits there and watches the offering, and so the widow gave the two copper coins, and Jesus said this in Luke 21:3-4, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put in more than all the others, all these people gave their gifts out of their wealth but she gave out of her poverty everything she had to live on.” So the Lord will account or measure your giving based on sacrifice, how much it pinches you, how much it cost you to give. That's how he measures, proportion to what you have and your resources. Now, not mentioned here, I definitely wanna bring in 2 Corinthians 9:7, Cheerfulness, cheerfulness. Our giving should be cheerful not under compulsion, he says in 2 Corinthians 9:7, each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So just ask the Lord to set you free from invisible materialistic chains so that you have the joy and delight of blessing people here and now horizontally, 'cause that's all money can do. Money doesn't pay for spiritual things, it pays for physical things. You can enable missionaries to preach the word, you can enable pastors to preach the word, you can give to the poor and needy so they have something to eat, physical things, but there's a joy in giving. And then you know that you're storing up treasure in heaven, there should be a cheerfulness to it. You should not think God needs your money. Wow, God's constantly begging, he doesn't need anything from you. But you need to give. Alright, what applications can we take from this? Well, first of all, to all of you that are non-Christians, there were non-Christians when you came in this morning, I wanna tell you, I don't want you to give anything, I want you to receive something freely. I want you to receive the gift of full forgiveness of sins without money and without cost. It says in Isaiah 55, "Why spend your money on what doesn't satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest affair without money." The Lord didn't come from heaven to earth to get something from us. He says very plainly in Matthew 20:28, "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many." So what I want for you that are non-Christians, I want you to hear the Gospel. I prayed it at the beginning, I have referred to it throughout this message, that God sent his Son, Jesus, who was rich in Heaven, became poor for us, so that we through his poverty on the cross, his death on the cross, might become rich forever. Rich in forgiveness of sins. Rich in Heaven for all eternity. So trust in Christ. And THEN do your Christian giving after that. So for those of you that are members of our church, FBC members, I'm speaking to Covenant members, this sermon is a call to each of you to search your heart concerning your giving patterns. Is cheerful, faith-filled giving a regular part of your Christian life or not? Have you asked the Lord to search your heart and know your soul about covetousness? We live in a very materialistic culture in which we're lied to all the time. Jesus said, A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. The advertisers say, "Yes, it does." So we're being lied to about that. Have you given yourself in prayer to the pattern of giving to the budget of our church, specifically the FBC budget? Are you sacrificially giving to support the ministry here? It is part of our church covenant, we were talking about this earlier and it could be one person said it may be that people just don't know that that's part of what you promise to do as a covenant member of the church. To support the church financially, but it is part of our lives, and then beyond that, do you pray regularly about how you can use your money to the relief of poverty around the world, to the spread of the Gospel around the world, to various other Christian Ministries as the Lord leads you? This is the beautiful thing. René Alarcón said, "It stuck with me." The money, you can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead. Isn't that great? Wire it ahead by faith. By giving it away by faith. Now, one of the approaches that I tell young preachers as they're growing, it's like, how do you make very difficult squirmy kind of applications to people? How do you do that? It's like, Well, here's one approach I call it, If the shoe fits, wear it. I just describe a shoe, and then I just say, I don't know, but there may be somebody in our midst that this fits you. And now I'm gonna do that when it comes to giving. So the elders have general information about giving patterns of the members of this church. We do not have specific information about who gives what, I do not know, as I look at your faces, I do not know what any of you have done, or... I've been here 22 years, I've never known specifics, ever. But we are aware of trends and patterns, so according to our data, last year there were 315 giving units, at FBC, the membership of FBC 315 giving units, that's individuals or households. Of that 65% gave some money to FBC's budget at all. That roughly two-thirds of our members gave money. Turn it around, one-third, roughly one-third of our members gave not one single dollar to FBC last year. Of that, again, we don't know any names, we don't know that, but further categories, there are some people that just are not in a position, they're not situationally, able to give, we understand that, and then there's others that it seems they were in a transition going to another local church, perhaps were giving to other local church but that leaves effectively 20% of our regular attender type members that gave nothing to the church at all. So at that point then, I just wanna say, are you aware of the promises in the church covenant, that this is part of what it means to be a healthy member of this church? To support your own local church, the ministry here is a responsibility that the elders think is incumbent on all of us as members of the church, beyond that there are other patterns of giving, different steps of priority, it's not easy to compare this category of giving and this category of giving and which is more important. I'm not able to do that, but I've already listed them. We've got the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth, giving to missions, and you can give to various kinds of missions, I would advocate giving to unreached people group missions as a top priority, 'cause they get about 1 out of every 100 mission dollars worldwide so let's, as a church, expand and give more and more to unreached people group missions, especially through the IMB. We have members of our church that are in process with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist and will soon be on the field ministering the gospel, and we as a congregation are part of supporting their finances, we're helping them go. And so that's pretty exciting when you do that, so again, alleviation of the poor and needy, find out things, invest your time and your energy before you invest your money, find out ways you can help alleviate physical suffering in the world and just ask the Lord, search me, O God and know me. Are my giving patterns lined up with your purposes for my life? Am I giving as I should? By faith. Close with me, if you would in prayer. Father, thank you for the Word of God, we thank you for how it searches us, it knows us. Nothing in all creation, Lord, is hidden from your sight, everything's uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. So Lord, help us to be faithful. Help us to give, I Thank you, O Lord, for those in our church that are giving faithfully and sacrificial and grateful, there's so many. Lord, for all of us, help us to just come before you by faith and allow you to lead us to be generous, to change perhaps aspects of our lifestyle so that we can give as you wish, in Jesus name, Amen.

If you have an opinion that you think is right , DO IT ! A wise person shouldn’t rejoice in encouraging others and be saddened by blaming others and forget his /her purpose ! I Thank you for listening, and please also follow me in Insta : @ hafeziran59 , Youtube : Hafez shirazgirl --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/adam0154/message

This is very exciting. As I write these words, I can't thank enough Martin Hedley for being with me for the past few months. His contribution and encouragement have been a driver to continue giving. I thank Gregory Grammatopoulos, my beloved husband, for taking his love, support, and the time he spent listening and reading my ideas. My four sons Omar, Abdulbari, Abdubadi, and Abdulhameed, for being my sounding board and proofreaders at various times. I Thank my daughter Naziha for her patience as I was away working on this project. I thank my parents for their love and support, and my father who gave permission to publish part of his career stories as a leader who inspired me. I thank Sir Tim Wilson for the book review and contribution as an influential thought leader and Neocharismatic Leadership model. I thank my friend executive Coach Nancy Alexander who took the time to review the book. I thank Nitza Jones-Sepulveda from Springer Nature for her belief in my work and supporting me through the publishing process. Thank you my listeners for coming here and give your time and spreading the word. Ghadah Angawi Ph.D

If linking from the Twitter feed, click the little POD icon right below the date to listen Subscribe at iTunes, search Istrouma Istrouma Baptist Church Sep 13, 2020 ========== September 13 | First John (BR) Welcome Back! We're glad you've joined us today for our Sunday morning worship service! For more information about Istrouma, go to istrouma.org or contact us at info@istrouma.org.   We glorify God by making disciples of all nations. ========== Update Update: https://mailchi.mp/istrouma/istroumaupdate-577670?e=%5BUNIQID%5D Connection Card https://istrouma.org/myinfo September 13, 2020  | Jeff Williams "Fellowship" 1 John 1:1-10 Fellowship Is an intimate connection; a partnership Fellowship is the reason God created us 1 John 1:1-7 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. We cannot enjoy our faith if there is distance between us and God We hide in the darkness to avoid accountability and transparency. The Gospel is the vehicle to restore fellowship 1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Extra Notes: Pastor Updates For all pastor updates and information go to: https://istrouma.org/pastor Want to receive weekly announcements in your inbox each week? Click here to add your name to our mailing list: https://istrouma.org/email Give Online Text ISTROUMA IBC to 73256 or go to: https://istrouma.org/give Our Website https://istrouma.org John Istrouma Baptist Church – Jeff Williams, Interim Pastor  9:30 AM Sermon September 13, 2020 "Fellowship" 1 John 1:1-10   That just kind of makes it feel good. I don't know why it is just does. I mean, just makes me feel good, but if you have your Bibles to turn to First, John, First John is where we are going to be for the next several weeks. And a, before we jump into reading a chapter one, I want you to just know a little bit about a what's happening here is we study this book chronologically First John was the last book that was written a that we find in the new Testament. We know that revelation comes after that in terms of what we see in our Bible, but First John was actually the first, second and third John with actually the last books that were written.   Ah, and it was written by John who is described as the disciples that Jesus loved. And it’s interesting too, to think about it. I don’t know about you, but a growing up in church I've heard about John and he was obviously a close to Jesus. If you knew there was 12 disciples, but then there was three Peter James and John that were kind of like in the inner circle, they spent more time with Jesus. And I believe that Jesus knew just that the impact that they were going to have a in terms of just a, the early church, and so there was this extra time there was spent with them and John was one of those and he's often described as the disciple that Jesus loved.   And so from that, you get this impression of this really meek and this really just warmhearted and compassionate person, a but really when you look at all of the Gospel in history combined with that, that when John first comes onto the scene, him and his brother, James were known as the Sons of Thunder. All right. So, they were a little rough around the edges. They were fishermen. That's what they did for living. And so they, they weren't the polished a theologian that we all are often think about it.   When we think about John he was at a rough guy. And in fact, if you looked at parts of the Gospel, now there were times when things are going on a that James and John, they're answer to everything we'll say, well, let's just blow someone or something up. That's basically that was their mindset. And Jesus throughout his ministry to them. He taught them what it really meant to love God and to level one another. So we see it at the end of John's life. He was the last of disciples in terms of, he lived longer than the rest of them and when This book was written, John was probably about a hundred years old, a in history tells us that in his last days John died, that he would travel to the different cities where the churches had been planted and he would come there to speak. And a because of who he was, his relationship with Jesus, there would be large crowds that would gather in the John. He was so a week and feeble at that time moment. At that time of his life, a that they would actually have to carry him from city to city. You couldn't even walk. He wasn't even strong at the whole of himself up like riding an animal. So they would have to literally carry him from city to city. And they said that most of the time that his message, it was simply this, that when he would go into a church or he would go into an area where people would gather together to hear his message, that his message, which is just simply this, love one another. Now that wasn't a title of his message. No, that wasn't a theme of his message. And those three words were really all he would say. And then, you know, some of you are thinking, well, I wish your message is where that at short, but they're not. But anyway, that's, that's all he would say, and people would ask him, why is that all you say, isn't there more of that? He said, well, there's a lot more that I could say, but if people could just do that, it would literally change the world. You love one another, right? So it goes from the Son of Thunder that wants to destroy people and to blow things up to becoming someone who recognizes that the idea or the all that matters in life is loving one another. And the way that that happened was is that through his journey with Jesus, through the investment that Jesus made in his life, through seeing all the things that happened through the life of Jesus, the death and the resurrection, and then beyond that seen all that God did to the early church that when John came to realize if there was something that mattered much more than what his original mindset was about the way they should function, the way that they should act, God did a work in his heart. God did a work in his life, that literally transformed him. And so as we look at chapter one today, we are going to look at what I believe is the key component of what John understood. And then really, if we're going to enjoy our faith, we need to understand what it means to have fellowship with God.   Think about that word. Fellowship if you grew up Baptist, you associate that with fried chicken. I'm sure. Right. That's just what we eat. We all know we all are associated with food, right? A did. If we're going to have Fellowship, there has to be food involved. Well, and listen, there ain't nothing wrong with food ever being involved as far as I'm concerned. But that, that the key component of Fellowship is This, here's the definition of what Fellowship his Fellowship, Is an intimate connection. It's a partnership. it's being together. And I don't just mean physically, but in terms of your heart, your mind, your soul, there is a connection. And here's the next part of that, that you to understand? That's so crucial in terms of John got this.  this is what Fellowship is, but Fellowship is the reason that God created us. The reason that you were created is because God desired to have fellowship with you. He desired an intimate connection with you. He desired a partnership with you. He desired for his presence in your presence to be together. Now, oftentimes we don't think about our lives in that manner. We think about that. We're supposed to obey God, which you are. We were supposed to respect God that he is his, we just sang. He is Holy, Holy, Holy. And because of that, we often have, is this mindset of being fearful of God being scared, or even sometimes to get too close to him because he might see the junk, this in our life cannot tell you something that they can. I just to take the pressure off. He already knows all the junk and your life, or whether you are close to him or not. He knows everything about you, but because the, we see ourselves as sinners and we see him as Holy, there's this mindset of fear that we have towards God, but that's not what God's desire is. We should respect him. We should be in all of him, what we should obey him, who are what we should understand that he's riding. And we need to submit to him, but really at the end of the day, that what God desires is for us to do that in the context of, of true, genuine fellowship with him. So as we look at chapter one today, we're going to see what happens when Fellowship takes place. But we're also going to see the things that cause us to really not experience that, that joy, that God desires within our relationship with him. And so, as we do that, what I want you to see and to know and understand today is there is a way for you to enjoy your faith when John, this same, John, that wrote First John what he says. And John 10, 10, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But Jesus, he said this to John then and John understand it now. he says, I have come that you might have what life and have it abundantly or to the fullest. That's a much different than oftentimes what you. And I experience. And God wants us to see that. God wants us to understand what that looks like and what that means. So first John chapter one, and let's begin reading in verse one. All right. First John chapter one and beginning in verse one That, which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. Verse two the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and we testify to it and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the father. And it was made manifest to us. verse three, that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you that you may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things. Don't miss this. We are writing these things so that our joy may be what's the next word say complete. It means multiplying. It means to the fullest verse five. So this is the message we have heard from him. So he says the goal was for us, for our joy to be complete. So here's the message that we've heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. So if we say that we have fellowship with him, but yet we walk in darkness, we lie, and we do not practice the truth. That sounds so harsh, right? But if we walk into the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, it, it cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us., so within this section right here, he describes in verses one, through four of the fact, they have seen him in touch with the infinite, invisible, God, God, in the flesh has come to this earth. And because of that, we had the privilege to have a relationship with you. We had a fellowship with God. And because of that, we want to convey to you what we learned here is his message. And then he goes into a couple of things that are related to what Fellowship looks like and what breaks that Fellowship in our lives. So he describes that Jesus is light. There is no darkness in him at all, or is this idea a that everything is open, that everything is real, that everything is true, that everything is right. There's no darkness at all. And then he a contrast that oftentimes with those of us, that even though we say we are in the light, we say we have fellowship with him, but yet we are walking in darkness. Think for just a moment about what that means when you are walking in darkness, in essence, and in the context of this idea of Fellowship, what it literally means is that we cannot, we cannot enjoy the faith that we say we have If there is a distance between us and God, that's what it means to walk in darkness. We see that is something that is in terms of, in our minds, that is an evil a and all sin is evil. There is no question about that, but in essence, what it is just as separation and when There's a separation between you and God things just aren't right.   A couple of months ago, now we took, Hannah are a fourth child to, to college. Now that it's a different experience than anything I've had to this point, because our oldest to our boys and who cares when they leave the house, right? Get out, just go, make a living. Don't cost me any more money. That, that was the mindset. Right? And then Taylor, our oldest daughter, she still lives with us and she goes to, to BRCC. So she's with us every day. And so she's transitioning, but she still there or Hannah to decide for some God unknown reason to go to Arkansas to go to college. And that's like six hours away from me. And so that separation has been hard on dad, right? Because I've taken care of her. I've been able to protect her. I've known where she was at all times. I mean, all of those things. And so now my baby is gone in and it's been very, very difficult for me, even though I know she's okay. Even though that relationship is very, very important, obviously still, but that separation is just difficult. And in my world, there's just something this just not right. I mean, there's been a couple of times that Wendy had to talk with me off the ledge, coz I was going to get in the car and drive six hours just to have breakfast with her and turn around and come back. And she was like, you can't do that. Leave her alone. That's what she, and she's a lot smarter than I am. But anyway, that, is I want to just to be with her, that separation was difficult. And I think at times what happens is, is that there's distance between us and God and we don't really recognize it. And here's the reason why we may recognize that with other relationships in our life. But because we can't see God, because we can't physically sit down across the table and have coffee or have a meal with him. There's something about a, the distance that we see. They're there, there's already distance in our minds because we think of God is in Heaven and we’re here. But the reality is, is that what God desires is for us to understand that, that he wants to be with us. He wants to be a part of everything we do. There needs to be that closeness and that when we walk in darkness and when we walk into sin, in essence, what we are doing is we're putting separation between us and God. There's a distance that's there. And what happens is oftentimes because that distance is there we begin to, to lean more towards those mindsets and the reality of the fear and the insignificance you know, and we're not worthy of him. And we feel guilty and shame about our sin. And so what happens is his, as opposed to just being in the darkness, we start hiding in the darkness. You know what that looks like, right? That you hide in the dark to me, anyone that's ever played the game of hide and seek, you always know that the best blood places to do that is a place where its alone quiet and dark right? That's the way you play the game. So what happens is, is if we're not careful, we start playing that game with God and we hide in the darkness. But here's reason why we do that. We hide in the darkness to avoid two things, the accountability and transparency. within that passage that we just read. He talks about the fact that we, when we deceive ourselves into thinking that everything is okay, or maybe it's not that you think everything's okay, it's just that you want everyone else around you to think that everything's okay. And so we just begin to hide. And the idea of accountability is it, listen, if there are things in your life that are causing you to have distance between you and God, we don't want to hear about it, right? It may be things that are areas of comfort for you. It may be areas of instant gratification for you. It may be something that you just so we're saying, Hey, here is something that I want to pursue. And it may not be what God wants me to pursue, but it's what I want in this moment. And so I'm going to keep my distance from God and look at this. I'm going to keep my distance from other people that will make me feel convicted about that because I don't want the accountability in my life is the reason that we oftentimes drift from Church. It’s not because we don't love God. And it's not even because we don't love the church. It's just because there's things that are happening in us. Listen to those things that are happening in you should push you towards the people of God. It should push you towards her relationship with God and not away from him. But that's our tendency is we just begin to hide. We just don't want that accountability. And then alongside that, we also, we don't want that transparent. We don't want to be in the light because if we're in the lie, what is going to do is going to expose all the areas of darkness that we've been in. Right? And so what we do is we just, sometimes it's just easier to keep our distance.  but here's, what's so dangerous about that. You can be so close, but still be so far away. You see, I described to you that distance that we have with Hannah and that Fellowship has not there, but the way that, that he used to be, because there's that separation. But do you realize that you can be in the same room with someone and there are still be distance, right? Anybody that's married knows exactly what that feels. Right? Right. I mean, you could be in the same room with him and be completely just a year, your distance in terms of your emotions, your distance, in terms of maybe your perspective on whatever your fighting about. Don't look at me like that. I know Wendy and I are not the only ones that have discussions about things right.  that you find yourself. have you ever been in the same room with your spouse or someone that you love may be a parent or a child and you’re in the same place, but yet you are a million miles away? And what happens with God is that we can be in the same vicinity. We can be going through all the motions. We can be doing all the right things to make everyone else around us think that everything is good and that we love God and that we're following him. But we really want to just keep our distance emotionally. And we want to keep things on the surface because the reality is it's there are things in our lives that we are struggling with and we just don't want anyone to know. We just begin to deceive ourselves. We just begin to find that is easier for us to fake it than it is to actually deal with it in all along the way Here's what happens. There are things in our lives that we struggle with. There are things in our lives. And listen, I'm telling you this from my own experience, that there are things that we hold on to then at the end of the day, they still, or are they just leave us feeling empty. Then there are things that we are a pursuing that or outside of a will have a plan of God. And that at the end of the day, when we lay our head down and no matter how much we convince ourselves and deceive ourself, that is where we want to be is what we want to pursue. That when we lay our head down a night, there's just, something is just not right. There is something that is just empty. There is something that is just missing. It, it may be something that nobody else in your life knows about it, but you recognize that it cannot tell you exactly what that is. This missing its Jesus because God created us for fellowship with him. And because he created this that way, if there's ever a point in time, when that Fellowship is not what God desires for to be when we are not a sensing that that is the priority relationships, not only in what do we say, but in a way that we live and the terms, the a, the way we spend our time. then what happens is that, that means if there is separation and when there's separation between you and God, life is never going to be what you think it should be. You're not going to experience joy. You're not going to ever enjoy the faith that you say is so important to you because you are comfortable with keeping the distance, you’re comfortable with privately hiding in the dark.  Even if everyone else around you thinks that you are living in the light, you're keeping them at a distance. You're faking it and going through the motions. But inside there is something in you that is just simply dying. You know what the sad truth is, is I believe a lot of people live that way and feel that way, man. I've lived that way in the past and felt that way. And we're just not sure how to get out of it. We're not sure what to do it. If that's where you are today, some of you, you like you, are you still smiling on the outside or your, you’re thinking, I'm a getting that face like a, would you be quiet so I can go to lunch. I mean, I'll say something of that, but an inside of you, there was something in some of you, but it's just screaming out. Yes, that's me to, what do I do? Well, I love the way that John describes the answer to this. it’s the verse of scripture that if you've been here very many weeks, you've probably heard me quote this passage because I think this is the heart in the key of everything that we do. But before I read it, I want you to think about here is the answer for whatever it is that we're hiding as is keeping us. And that is the gospel. The gospel is the vehicle to restore that Fellowship for some of you that are here this morning, you may not have a relationship with Jesus. You have been trying to get to God on your own. You've been trying to do the right thing. So in fact, you're a here this morning because you think, or maybe that will make me feel better about my life If I attend church, maybe God, we'll be happy with me. If I show up today and listen, God's glad you're here. We are glad that you're here, but that's not the answer to what's happening in your life. The gospel is the only answer. The gospel is the reality that Jesus Christ did for you. What you could not do for yourself. You say, God knew long before you were ever born, that you are going to have a period of time or the year we're going to hide in darkness because you were born into sin. He knew that was going to be a separation between you and him because of that sin. And so he planned to send Jesus long before you were ever born long before you ever sinned, simply so that he could have that relationship with you restored. in verse nine, gives us the key of how we do that. And whether you're not a follower of Jesus or whether you'd been a follower of Jesus for years, this is still the answer for you. If we confess our sins, think about what the word confess means. It means to not hide it anymore. It means to be transparent. Now I don't mean standing up in a room. The size of tell everybody all your junk, right? Nobody needs to hear all your stuff, right? But it starts with if you come before God and say, God, man, I confess my sins to you. And don't just say, I confess my sin. Be specific about the things that you're being convicted about. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and he is just, I love those two words. He is faithful means that you can count on him. There's nothing that you've done. That God won't forgive of. There is nothing that you've done that’s caught God by surprise. There is nothing that you've done that’s a bigger than the power of God that overcome sin. He is faithful. And you can know for sure that listen. Even if there's things in your life that you've done, that nobody else will forgive you up. God promises. He is faithful. He will forgive. He is faithful. And he is just. That's crucial because not only is he faithful in that he will do that. He has the right to do it. And the reason he is just in forgiving of your sins is not because you are worthy of that is because Jesus took your place. When Jesus died on the cross, he died willingly for the sins of all mankind. That's all of us and anyone else who ever lived. So you don't have to feel like, well, I want to confess my sins, but then I have to earn God's approval. You don't need to earn God's approval, but if you will confess your sins, he is faithful. And he has just, the fact that he is just, means that when he sees you, he sees you through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And for many of us in this room, if we could just wrap our minds around that simple fact, we went to enjoy our faith the whole a lot more, because we would recognize there, the simple reality that when Jesus forgives us, we are truly forgiven. If you ever had someone tell you, they forgave you, but then every time they got upset with you, they bring it back up. You know what I think happens that oftentimes when we ask God to forgive us for the 475th time of the same thing, we see God through the eyes of that person that did that to us. But what I want you to see is we're not talking about a human being who is flawed and sinful and week and untrustworthy. We are talking about a Holy God who is faithful and just, we confess our sins. He is faithful. And he has just to forgive us, have our sins. And he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. We get a fresh start. We get a new beginning. The weight is lifted off. I joked earlier about Wendy and at times being in the same room but being a million miles away. And I'll just be honest with you. And outside of my relationship with Jesus, Wendy is the most important relationship that I have on the face of this earth. And when things aren't right between us, there is nothing else is right in my life. You know? I mean, work's not right kids, all right with it, not right. No, they do it anyway. Anyway, right? All the stuff is just not right. And you show your just not the same. We don't have that same life in you. but when we come to a place where whatever it is causing us to be divided. When we come back together, there is a weight that is lifted off of me. It's like new life. And even if the issue that we struggle with is still there because we are together is just as our life is unbelievable, just breath of fresh air that comes all over me. That's what God desires to do with us. And when he cleanses us from all unrighteousness, it is this idea of a fresh start. It's this idea of coming before him and saying, God, I surrender myself too. I humble myself before you. Here are the things of my life that I know or separating us. And God to the best. I know how I confess these sins. And God, I trust you. I believe what your word says. And because of that, I ask you to cleanse me of all the junk that's in my life. And here is the good news. If you will come to him in faith, he will do just that. And then it’s a process of moving your life in a way, in a direction where the goal every day is to maintain that Fellowship with you to walk in the light, to do the things that God calls us to do. And to recognize that because he created us for fellowship with him, that the things he calls us to do are the things that are the best for us. Not in terms of God just not being mad at us, but God knows your best. He knows what you need. He knows what will bring you joy. He knows what will bring you peace. He knows that what will make you come to a place where you can enjoy the faith that God has given you? Now let me just make sure you understand this. This is not pie in the sky, health and wealth. You know that, Hey, if you just, you know, if you just love Jesus, then you'll never have any problems in your life. The Bible says that, you know, calamities, the Bible says that bad things. They fall on the jest and the unjust. It was just a part of the living in a sinful world. Life's not going to be perfect. And God uses even those things as a way, a bolstering our faith and moving us closer to him. But the reality is that whether life is good, or life is bad in terms of the circumstances that if we are in fellowship with Jesus, life is still good. It's still good. And that's what he desires.   So if you're here today and you never into, in a relationship with Jesus, you have been trying to do it on your own. Cannot tell you something. You cannot do it on your own. Jesus already did all the work for you. What do you need to do? You need to believe that Jesus did that work for you and you need to come, and you need to confess your sins to him. And you need to allow him to do the work in you and through you that only he can do you didn't to give your life. You're in essence, you're saying, God, I put my life in your hands and listen. If that's where you are today, if you're in this room and you've never begun a relationship with Jesus, he will not reject you. He loves you with all of his heart and wants you to experience that today. If that's where you are, it's just simple. As you pray and say in God, I know I'm a sinner. I know I've made mistakes in my life. And because of that, I'm not as good as you are. And God the best. I know how I asked you to forgive me of my sins and God I give my life to, I place my life into your hands. If you will do that today, based on the truth of God's word, he will save you. He's faithful. And he, he is just, and if that's where you are today, I encourage you that as we pray in just a moment for you to just to pray that listen, God knows your heart is not a magic prayer. You just pour your heart out to him and then you let us know how we can help you. But for others of you in this room that you have a relationship with Jesus. But if you're to be honest, you’re just enduring it right now. I mean, life is hard. Maybe you've made some mistakes or maybe others are made mistakes around you. And it's just, it's just one of those things that you're just enduring it. Can I encourage you to pray that same prayer that God I come to you? Here's the things that are separating us. God, I declare that I need you and Bible says that whatever it is separating. Whatever is, is pulling away. Don't you? That God is faithful and just, he will forgive you. He'll give you that fresh start and listen that’s nothing to be ashamed of. As we all need a fresh start. Some of us, we need it every day, right? I mean maybe every hour. I mean then all of us and we need that. It ought to be a regular routine of our life is doing whatever it takes to maintain that fellowship with him. And then let's you and I, after we pray those prayers, let's stand out from this place. Let's leave this room and let's walk in the light. Let's walk in fellowship with him. Let's spend time with him and then do the things we know to do trusts God for the rest. That's a pretty much it, right? Spin time with him, do the things he asks us to do and to trust him for the rest. If you and I will do that, our faith will begin to be something that we are excited about. And we were passionate about not just something that we endure. Let’s pray together today. And before I pray for you, just with your heads bowed and your eyes closed, I want to give you just a moment. If you don't know Jesus man, just pour your heart out to him. Pray a prayer of faith, knowing he is faithful, and he is just, he will forgive you if you do know him, but do you feel separated from him, man? And just pour your heart out to him. Come back to him today.   Lord, you are a good God.  And God, sometimes I'm overwhelmed at how you can see me, see all the, the darkness, but yet you still love me. You never give up on me. God, I Thank you that there was joy in You. Thank you that there is joy that comes from a relationship with you and God. I pray right now for those within the sound of my voice, the God that they can experience what a real joy filled life looks like. Lord, I pray over the next several weeks as we study this book, that God that you will allow our joy to be complete. Thank you that you desire a relationship with us. Thank you for the Fellowship that we can experience with you. And I pray that this week we can walk and your light. Spend time with you.  Do the things you'd tell us to do, and then trust you for the rest. God thank you for never giving up on us, use us this week for your glory and this in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. Amen.

John Istrouma Baptist Church – Jeff Williams, Interim Pastor  9:30 AM Sermon September 13, 2020 "Fellowship" 1 John 1:1-10   That just kind of makes it feel good. I don't know why it is just does. I mean, just makes me feel good, but if you have your Bibles to turn to First, John, First John is where we are going to be for the next several weeks. And a, before we jump into reading a chapter one, I want you to just know a little bit about a what's happening here is we study this book chronologically First John was the last book that was written a that we find in the new Testament. We know that revelation comes after that in terms of what we see in our Bible, but First John was actually the first, second and third John with actually the last books that were written.   Ah, and it was written by John who is described as the disciples that Jesus loved. And it’s interesting too, to think about it. I don’t know about you, but a growing up in church I've heard about John and he was obviously a close to Jesus. If you knew there was 12 disciples, but then there was three Peter James and John that were kind of like in the inner circle, they spent more time with Jesus. And I believe that Jesus knew just that the impact that they were going to have a in terms of just a, the early church, and so there was this extra time there was spent with them and John was one of those and he's often described as the disciple that Jesus loved.   And so from that, you get this impression of this really meek and this really just warmhearted and compassionate person, a but really when you look at all of the Gospel in history combined with that, that when John first comes onto the scene, him and his brother, James were known as the Sons of Thunder. All right. So, they were a little rough around the edges. They were fishermen. That's what they did for living. And so they, they weren't the polished a theologian that we all are often think about it.   When we think about John he was at a rough guy. And in fact, if you looked at parts of the Gospel, now there were times when things are going on a that James and John, they're answer to everything we'll say, well, let's just blow someone or something up. That's basically that was their mindset. And Jesus throughout his ministry to them. He taught them what it really meant to love God and to level one another. So we see it at the end of John's life. He was the last of disciples in terms of, he lived longer than the rest of them and when This book was written, John was probably about a hundred years old, a in history tells us that in his last days John died, that he would travel to the different cities where the churches had been planted and he would come there to speak. And a because of who he was, his relationship with Jesus, there would be large crowds that would gather in the John. He was so a week and feeble at that time moment. At that time of his life, a that they would actually have to carry him from city to city. You couldn't even walk. He wasn't even strong at the whole of himself up like riding an animal. So they would have to literally carry him from city to city. And they said that most of the time that his message, it was simply this, that when he would go into a church or he would go into an area where people would gather together to hear his message, that his message, which is just simply this, love one another. Now that wasn't a title of his message. No, that wasn't a theme of his message. And those three words were really all he would say. And then, you know, some of you are thinking, well, I wish your message is where that at short, but they're not. But anyway, that's, that's all he would say, and people would ask him, why is that all you say, isn't there more of that? He said, well, there's a lot more that I could say, but if people could just do that, it would literally change the world. You love one another, right? So it goes from the Son of Thunder that wants to destroy people and to blow things up to becoming someone who recognizes that the idea or the all that matters in life is loving one another. And the way that that happened was is that through his journey with Jesus, through the investment that Jesus made in his life, through seeing all the things that happened through the life of Jesus, the death and the resurrection, and then beyond that seen all that God did to the early church that when John came to realize if there was something that mattered much more than what his original mindset was about the way they should function, the way that they should act, God did a work in his heart. God did a work in his life, that literally transformed him. And so as we look at chapter one today, we are going to look at what I believe is the key component of what John understood. And then really, if we're going to enjoy our faith, we need to understand what it means to have fellowship with God.   Think about that word. Fellowship if you grew up Baptist, you associate that with fried chicken. I'm sure. Right. That's just what we eat. We all know we all are associated with food, right? A did. If we're going to have Fellowship, there has to be food involved. Well, and listen, there ain't nothing wrong with food ever being involved as far as I'm concerned. But that, that the key component of Fellowship is This, here's the definition of what Fellowship his Fellowship, Is an intimate connection. It's a partnership. it's being together. And I don't just mean physically, but in terms of your heart, your mind, your soul, there is a connection. And here's the next part of that, that you to understand? That's so crucial in terms of John got this.  this is what Fellowship is, but Fellowship is the reason that God created us. The reason that you were created is because God desired to have fellowship with you. He desired an intimate connection with you. He desired a partnership with you. He desired for his presence in your presence to be together. Now, oftentimes we don't think about our lives in that manner. We think about that. We're supposed to obey God, which you are. We were supposed to respect God that he is his, we just sang. He is Holy, Holy, Holy. And because of that, we often have, is this mindset of being fearful of God being scared, or even sometimes to get too close to him because he might see the junk, this in our life cannot tell you something that they can. I just to take the pressure off. He already knows all the junk and your life, or whether you are close to him or not. He knows everything about you, but because the, we see ourselves as sinners and we see him as Holy, there's this mindset of fear that we have towards God, but that's not what God's desire is. We should respect him. We should be in all of him, what we should obey him, who are what we should understand that he's riding. And we need to submit to him, but really at the end of the day, that what God desires is for us to do that in the context of, of true, genuine fellowship with him. So as we look at chapter one today, we're going to see what happens when Fellowship takes place. But we're also going to see the things that cause us to really not experience that, that joy, that God desires within our relationship with him. And so, as we do that, what I want you to see and to know and understand today is there is a way for you to enjoy your faith when John, this same, John, that wrote First John what he says. And John 10, 10, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But Jesus, he said this to John then and John understand it now. he says, I have come that you might have what life and have it abundantly or to the fullest. That's a much different than oftentimes what you. And I experience. And God wants us to see that. God wants us to understand what that looks like and what that means. So first John chapter one, and let's begin reading in verse one. All right. First John chapter one and beginning in verse one That, which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. Verse two the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and we testify to it and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the father. And it was made manifest to us. verse three, that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you that you may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things. Don't miss this. We are writing these things so that our joy may be what's the next word say complete. It means multiplying. It means to the fullest verse five. So this is the message we have heard from him. So he says the goal was for us, for our joy to be complete. So here's the message that we've heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. So if we say that we have fellowship with him, but yet we walk in darkness, we lie, and we do not practice the truth. That sounds so harsh, right? But if we walk into the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, it, it cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us., so within this section right here, he describes in verses one, through four of the fact, they have seen him in touch with the infinite, invisible, God, God, in the flesh has come to this earth. And because of that, we had the privilege to have a relationship with you. We had a fellowship with God. And because of that, we want to convey to you what we learned here is his message. And then he goes into a couple of things that are related to what Fellowship looks like and what breaks that Fellowship in our lives. So he describes that Jesus is light. There is no darkness in him at all, or is this idea a that everything is open, that everything is real, that everything is true, that everything is right. There's no darkness at all. And then he a contrast that oftentimes with those of us, that even though we say we are in the light, we say we have fellowship with him, but yet we are walking in darkness. Think for just a moment about what that means when you are walking in darkness, in essence, and in the context of this idea of Fellowship, what it literally means is that we cannot, we cannot enjoy the faith that we say we have If there is a distance between us and God, that's what it means to walk in darkness. We see that is something that is in terms of, in our minds, that is an evil a and all sin is evil. There is no question about that, but in essence, what it is just as separation and when There's a separation between you and God things just aren't right.   A couple of months ago, now we took, Hannah are a fourth child to, to college. Now that it's a different experience than anything I've had to this point, because our oldest to our boys and who cares when they leave the house, right? Get out, just go, make a living. Don't cost me any more money. That, that was the mindset. Right? And then Taylor, our oldest daughter, she still lives with us and she goes to, to BRCC. So she's with us every day. And so she's transitioning, but she still there or Hannah to decide for some God unknown reason to go to Arkansas to go to college. And that's like six hours away from me. And so that separation has been hard on dad, right? Because I've taken care of her. I've been able to protect her. I've known where she was at all times. I mean, all of those things. And so now my baby is gone in and it's been very, very difficult for me, even though I know she's okay. Even though that relationship is very, very important, obviously still, but that separation is just difficult. And in my world, there's just something this just not right. I mean, there's been a couple of times that Wendy had to talk with me off the ledge, coz I was going to get in the car and drive six hours just to have breakfast with her and turn around and come back. And she was like, you can't do that. Leave her alone. That's what she, and she's a lot smarter than I am. But anyway, that, is I want to just to be with her, that separation was difficult. And I think at times what happens is, is that there's distance between us and God and we don't really recognize it. And here's the reason why we may recognize that with other relationships in our life. But because we can't see God, because we can't physically sit down across the table and have coffee or have a meal with him. There's something about a, the distance that we see. They're there, there's already distance in our minds because we think of God is in Heaven and we’re here. But the reality is, is that what God desires is for us to understand that, that he wants to be with us. He wants to be a part of everything we do. There needs to be that closeness and that when we walk in darkness and when we walk into sin, in essence, what we are doing is we're putting separation between us and God. There's a distance that's there. And what happens is oftentimes because that distance is there we begin to, to lean more towards those mindsets and the reality of the fear and the insignificance you know, and we're not worthy of him. And we feel guilty and shame about our sin. And so what happens is his, as opposed to just being in the darkness, we start hiding in the darkness. You know what that looks like, right? That you hide in the dark to me, anyone that's ever played the game of hide and seek, you always know that the best blood places to do that is a place where its alone quiet and dark right? That's the way you play the game. So what happens is, is if we're not careful, we start playing that game with God and we hide in the darkness. But here's reason why we do that. We hide in the darkness to avoid two things, the accountability and transparency. within that passage that we just read. He talks about the fact that we, when we deceive ourselves into thinking that everything is okay, or maybe it's not that you think everything's okay, it's just that you want everyone else around you to think that everything's okay. And so we just begin to hide. And the idea of accountability is it, listen, if there are things in your life that are causing you to have distance between you and God, we don't want to hear about it, right? It may be things that are areas of comfort for you. It may be areas of instant gratification for you. It may be something that you just so we're saying, Hey, here is something that I want to pursue. And it may not be what God wants me to pursue, but it's what I want in this moment. And so I'm going to keep my distance from God and look at this. I'm going to keep my distance from other people that will make me feel convicted about that because I don't want the accountability in my life is the reason that we oftentimes drift from Church. It’s not because we don't love God. And it's not even because we don't love the church. It's just because there's things that are happening in us. Listen to those things that are happening in you should push you towards the people of God. It should push you towards her relationship with God and not away from him. But that's our tendency is we just begin to hide. We just don't want that accountability. And then alongside that, we also, we don't want that transparent. We don't want to be in the light because if we're in the lie, what is going to do is going to expose all the areas of darkness that we've been in. Right? And so what we do is we just, sometimes it's just easier to keep our distance.  but here's, what's so dangerous about that. You can be so close, but still be so far away. You see, I described to you that distance that we have with Hannah and that Fellowship has not there, but the way that, that he used to be, because there's that separation. But do you realize that you can be in the same room with someone and there are still be distance, right? Anybody that's married knows exactly what that feels. Right? Right. I mean, you could be in the same room with him and be completely just a year, your distance in terms of your emotions, your distance, in terms of maybe your perspective on whatever your fighting about. Don't look at me like that. I know Wendy and I are not the only ones that have discussions about things right.  that you find yourself. have you ever been in the same room with your spouse or someone that you love may be a parent or a child and you’re in the same place, but yet you are a million miles away? And what happens with God is that we can be in the same vicinity. We can be going through all the motions. We can be doing all the right things to make everyone else around us think that everything is good and that we love God and that we're following him. But we really want to just keep our distance emotionally. And we want to keep things on the surface because the reality is it's there are things in our lives that we are struggling with and we just don't want anyone to know. We just begin to deceive ourselves. We just begin to find that is easier for us to fake it than it is to actually deal with it in all along the way Here's what happens. There are things in our lives that we struggle with. There are things in our lives. And listen, I'm telling you this from my own experience, that there are things that we hold on to then at the end of the day, they still, or are they just leave us feeling empty. Then there are things that we are a pursuing that or outside of a will have a plan of God. And that at the end of the day, when we lay our head down and no matter how much we convince ourselves and deceive ourself, that is where we want to be is what we want to pursue. That when we lay our head down a night, there's just, something is just not right. There is something that is just empty. There is something that is just missing. It, it may be something that nobody else in your life knows about it, but you recognize that it cannot tell you exactly what that is. This missing its Jesus because God created us for fellowship with him. And because he created this that way, if there's ever a point in time, when that Fellowship is not what God desires for to be when we are not a sensing that that is the priority relationships, not only in what do we say, but in a way that we live and the terms, the a, the way we spend our time. then what happens is that, that means if there is separation and when there's separation between you and God, life is never going to be what you think it should be. You're not going to experience joy. You're not going to ever enjoy the faith that you say is so important to you because you are comfortable with keeping the distance, you’re comfortable with privately hiding in the dark.  Even if everyone else around you thinks that you are living in the light, you're keeping them at a distance. You're faking it and going through the motions. But inside there is something in you that is just simply dying. You know what the sad truth is, is I believe a lot of people live that way and feel that way, man. I've lived that way in the past and felt that way. And we're just not sure how to get out of it. We're not sure what to do it. If that's where you are today, some of you, you like you, are you still smiling on the outside or your, you’re thinking, I'm a getting that face like a, would you be quiet so I can go to lunch. I mean, I'll say something of that, but an inside of you, there was something in some of you, but it's just screaming out. Yes, that's me to, what do I do? Well, I love the way that John describes the answer to this. it’s the verse of scripture that if you've been here very many weeks, you've probably heard me quote this passage because I think this is the heart in the key of everything that we do. But before I read it, I want you to think about here is the answer for whatever it is that we're hiding as is keeping us. And that is the gospel. The gospel is the vehicle to restore that Fellowship for some of you that are here this morning, you may not have a relationship with Jesus. You have been trying to get to God on your own. You've been trying to do the right thing. So in fact, you're a here this morning because you think, or maybe that will make me feel better about my life If I attend church, maybe God, we'll be happy with me. If I show up today and listen, God's glad you're here. We are glad that you're here, but that's not the answer to what's happening in your life. The gospel is the only answer. The gospel is the reality that Jesus Christ did for you. What you could not do for yourself. You say, God knew long before you were ever born, that you are going to have a period of time or the year we're going to hide in darkness because you were born into sin. He knew that was going to be a separation between you and him because of that sin. And so he planned to send Jesus long before you were ever born long before you ever sinned, simply so that he could have that relationship with you restored. in verse nine, gives us the key of how we do that. And whether you're not a follower of Jesus or whether you'd been a follower of Jesus for years, this is still the answer for you. If we confess our sins, think about what the word confess means. It means to not hide it anymore. It means to be transparent. Now I don't mean standing up in a room. The size of tell everybody all your junk, right? Nobody needs to hear all your stuff, right? But it starts with if you come before God and say, God, man, I confess my sins to you. And don't just say, I confess my sin. Be specific about the things that you're being convicted about. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and he is just, I love those two words. He is faithful means that you can count on him. There's nothing that you've done. That God won't forgive of. There is nothing that you've done that’s caught God by surprise. There is nothing that you've done that’s a bigger than the power of God that overcome sin. He is faithful. And you can know for sure that listen. Even if there's things in your life that you've done, that nobody else will forgive you up. God promises. He is faithful. He will forgive. He is faithful. And he is just. That's crucial because not only is he faithful in that he will do that. He has the right to do it. And the reason he is just in forgiving of your sins is not because you are worthy of that is because Jesus took your place. When Jesus died on the cross, he died willingly for the sins of all mankind. That's all of us and anyone else who ever lived. So you don't have to feel like, well, I want to confess my sins, but then I have to earn God's approval. You don't need to earn God's approval, but if you will confess your sins, he is faithful. And he has just, the fact that he is just, means that when he sees you, he sees you through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And for many of us in this room, if we could just wrap our minds around that simple fact, we went to enjoy our faith the whole a lot more, because we would recognize there, the simple reality that when Jesus forgives us, we are truly forgiven. If you ever had someone tell you, they forgave you, but then every time they got upset with you, they bring it back up. You know what I think happens that oftentimes when we ask God to forgive us for the 475th time of the same thing, we see God through the eyes of that person that did that to us. But what I want you to see is we're not talking about a human being who is flawed and sinful and week and untrustworthy. We are talking about a Holy God who is faithful and just, we confess our sins. He is faithful. And he has just to forgive us, have our sins. And he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. We get a fresh start. We get a new beginning. The weight is lifted off. I joked earlier about Wendy and at times being in the same room but being a million miles away. And I'll just be honest with you. And outside of my relationship with Jesus, Wendy is the most important relationship that I have on the face of this earth. And when things aren't right between us, there is nothing else is right in my life. You know? I mean, work's not right kids, all right with it, not right. No, they do it anyway. Anyway, right? All the stuff is just not right. And you show your just not the same. We don't have that same life in you. but when we come to a place where whatever it is causing us to be divided. When we come back together, there is a weight that is lifted off of me. It's like new life. And even if the issue that we struggle with is still there because we are together is just as our life is unbelievable, just breath of fresh air that comes all over me. That's what God desires to do with us. And when he cleanses us from all unrighteousness, it is this idea of a fresh start. It's this idea of coming before him and saying, God, I surrender myself too. I humble myself before you. Here are the things of my life that I know or separating us. And God to the best. I know how I confess these sins. And God, I trust you. I believe what your word says. And because of that, I ask you to cleanse me of all the junk that's in my life. And here is the good news. If you will come to him in faith, he will do just that. And then it’s a process of moving your life in a way, in a direction where the goal every day is to maintain that Fellowship with you to walk in the light, to do the things that God calls us to do. And to recognize that because he created us for fellowship with him, that the things he calls us to do are the things that are the best for us. Not in terms of God just not being mad at us, but God knows your best. He knows what you need. He knows what will bring you joy. He knows what will bring you peace. He knows that what will make you come to a place where you can enjoy the faith that God has given you? Now let me just make sure you understand this. This is not pie in the sky, health and wealth. You know that, Hey, if you just, you know, if you just love Jesus, then you'll never have any problems in your life. The Bible says that, you know, calamities, the Bible says that bad things. They fall on the jest and the unjust. It was just a part of the living in a sinful world. Life's not going to be perfect. And God uses even those things as a way, a bolstering our faith and moving us closer to him. But the reality is that whether life is good, or life is bad in terms of the circumstances that if we are in fellowship with Jesus, life is still good. It's still good. And that's what he desires.   So if you're here today and you never into, in a relationship with Jesus, you have been trying to do it on your own. Cannot tell you something. You cannot do it on your own. Jesus already did all the work for you. What do you need to do? You need to believe that Jesus did that work for you and you need to come, and you need to confess your sins to him. And you need to allow him to do the work in you and through you that only he can do you didn't to give your life. You're in essence, you're saying, God, I put my life in your hands and listen. If that's where you are today, if you're in this room and you've never begun a relationship with Jesus, he will not reject you. He loves you with all of his heart and wants you to experience that today. If that's where you are, it's just simple. As you pray and say in God, I know I'm a sinner. I know I've made mistakes in my life. And because of that, I'm not as good as you are. And God the best. I know how I asked you to forgive me of my sins and God I give my life to, I place my life into your hands. If you will do that today, based on the truth of God's word, he will save you. He's faithful. And he, he is just, and if that's where you are today, I encourage you that as we pray in just a moment for you to just to pray that listen, God knows your heart is not a magic prayer. You just pour your heart out to him and then you let us know how we can help you. But for others of you in this room that you have a relationship with Jesus. But if you're to be honest, you’re just enduring it right now. I mean, life is hard. Maybe you've made some mistakes or maybe others are made mistakes around you. And it's just, it's just one of those things that you're just enduring it. Can I encourage you to pray that same prayer that God I come to you? Here's the things that are separating us. God, I declare that I need you and Bible says that whatever it is separating. Whatever is, is pulling away. Don't you? That God is faithful and just, he will forgive you. He'll give you that fresh start and listen that’s nothing to be ashamed of. As we all need a fresh start. Some of us, we need it every day, right? I mean maybe every hour. I mean then all of us and we need that. It ought to be a regular routine of our life is doing whatever it takes to maintain that fellowship with him. And then let's you and I, after we pray those prayers, let's stand out from this place. Let's leave this room and let's walk in the light. Let's walk in fellowship with him. Let's spend time with him and then do the things we know to do trusts God for the rest. That's a pretty much it, right? Spin time with him, do the things he asks us to do and to trust him for the rest. If you and I will do that, our faith will begin to be something that we are excited about. And we were passionate about not just something that we endure. Let’s pray together today. And before I pray for you, just with your heads bowed and your eyes closed, I want to give you just a moment. If you don't know Jesus man, just pour your heart out to him. Pray a prayer of faith, knowing he is faithful, and he is just, he will forgive you if you do know him, but do you feel separated from him, man? And just pour your heart out to him. Come back to him today.   Lord, you are a good God.  And God, sometimes I'm overwhelmed at how you can see me, see all the, the darkness, but yet you still love me. You never give up on me. God, I Thank you that there was joy in You. Thank you that there is joy that comes from a relationship with you and God. I pray right now for those within the sound of my voice, the God that they can experience what a real joy filled life looks like. Lord, I pray over the next several weeks as we study this book, that God that you will allow our joy to be complete. Thank you that you desire a relationship with us. Thank you for the Fellowship that we can experience with you. And I pray that this week we can walk and your light. Spend time with you.  Do the things you'd tell us to do, and then trust you for the rest. God thank you for never giving up on us, use us this week for your glory and this in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. Amen.

On Mothers Day, I sat down with the amazingly talented Darius Harper. Darius Harper - a Boston native Darius went on to study at the American musical and a dramatic academy! He would go on to perform at Tokyo Disney Sea and the Disney Cruiselines. An original company member of The Book of Mormon (Chicago) he would then tour the country as Lola in the Tony Award Winning Kinky Boots. He most recently originated and starred in Cirque Du Soleil’ world tour of VOLTA as the emcee and singer. He currently resides in NYC where he is developing a solo show and writing an EP! As a queer black non conforming artist I Thank god for calling me to help bring visibility to the others like and unlike myself. @dariusharius

Health Care workers are much more than Heroes, We can only imagine the struggle they deal with everyday. Most physicians are trained to put patients first. And, while 80 percent of physicians say managing self care important to them, barely half of them practice it at often as they should.These week, we take a moment to honor the Heroes and our Host, Miguel Global shares his heart felt tribute to the brave men and women of helath out on the front lines of the current pandemic.From Miguel Global"Thank you, for your selfless sacrifice each and every day. For showing up in the most difficult of times and making my family just as important as your own. Thank you. I may not know you personally but your commitment and service is felt all across the nation. In the most difficult of times is when our character is most noticed. You made a commitment to serve but most importantly you kept your promise and because of you, another mother is able to see her child, a father can live to protect his family and families all over the world have been granted the privilege and blessing to be together in life instead morning each other because of death.You are the hero, you win the prize. Without your unselfish love for the human race and everything that you give of yourself, the bad stories would be so much worse. You're not suppose to be able to save everyone, it’s not your fault that if everything you’ve given isn't good enough for a perfect outcome. I can’t imagine how heavy your heart is on a day to day, but I Thank you anyway. For the fight, for courage, I am grateful for all that are you, and everything that you represent, For being the greatest superhero in this fight for life. For all of your countless minutes you've devoted for people like me, I wanted to take a few for you, and say THANK YOU!Thank you for all the service members and medical professionals on the front lines, You are appreciated more than you’ll ever know!"THANK YOU!Be Mspired is produced by Mspired Music.For production inquiries:Mspiredmusic@gmail.comPlease leave a positive review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/be-mspired-podcast/id1503449011Any rebroadcast or retransmission of an episode, without the express written consent of Mspired Music, is prohibited. ©2020 Mspired Music, LLCWebsite: https://www.bemspiredpodcast.comInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/bemspiredpodcast/Miguel Global Instagram: @MiguelGlobal

Today's poem looks at the nature of joy and gratitude through the lens of religion, with ee cummings' I Thank you God for this amazing.

In the time we live, taking time to discover the self and develop a spiritual practice is more difficult than ever. In the midst of our daily chaos, we must take the time to ask ourselves: Who am I?Thank you so much for listening. You can always check out more episodes at adasisrael.org/awake or on your favorite podcast provider. Please make sure to hit subscribe, rate us 5 stars, and leave a review to let us know you like the show, it helps us to get the word out. Finally, you can email us at awake@adasisrael.org to give feedback about the show - let us know what you like and what you want to hear more of. Thank you for listening, wishing you a holy encounter this week.

Well, I predicted this a month ago and now it has happened. First me telling you to like Feh Pass and now me telling you to just sit down and appreciate whatever free 5* the game hands us. I do enjoy telling you all how to feel, don't I? Thank you all for listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you would like to reach out to the show you can do so at our subreddit of r/fehology. You can also email the show directly at fehology@gmail.com or illialidur@gmail.com. If you would like to chat you can do so on Discord at Illialidur#3320. Remember you can send us your Voice Messages through Anchor, it is lots of fun to hear what you have to say! You can do this at https://anchor.fm/fehology/message. Lastly, if you appreciate the show and want to support it, you can do that through Anchor at anchor.fm/fehology to show your FEHology Spirit for as little as a dollar a month. I hope you have a wonderful day and schedule another appointment with your FEHologists real soon! Take care. Discord Invite: https://discord.gg/ndqcYbH --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/fehology/support

Almost everyone is familiar with Janis Joplin as a fixture sound of the late 60's, but some may not know that she got her San Francisco start with Big Brother and the Holding Company on their self-titled debut album in 1967. Joplin was ostracized in high school, and you can get a sense of her as a lonely soul through her singing. She joined Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1966, which was an established band at the time. Joplin would move on to become a superstar soon, but this gives you a taste of her early work. Cuckoo This minor key track is about a gold digger, and features Joplin's unmistakable voice prominently. Big Brother and the Holding Company - Call on Me "I need you, darling, like the fish needs the sea, don't take your sweet, sweet love from me." Intruder Janis Joplin wrote this song, and it has a more psychedelic sound. Joplin was inspired by Otis Redding's style. Down on Me This blues track is the big song off the album, though it wasn't a top 40 hit. It talks about how the world is "down on me." ENTERTAINMENT TRACK: “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” by Flatt & Scruggs This bluegrass song is from the movie "Bonnie and Clyde" which was in the theater at the time. STAFF PICKS: “Windy” by The Association Brian's staff pick was a feature of AM radio at the time. This is about a fictional character dreamed up by folk singer-songwriter Ruthann Friedman. The Association was also a staple of television variety shows. **“I Thank the Lord for the Night Time” by Neil Diamond ** Rob's pick by this well-known artist considered this song "as close as this white Jewish kid from Brooklyn could come to being a Gospel singer!" “Heroes and Villains” by The Beach Boys This song that Bruce brought was originally intended to be the centerpiece of the epic and unreleased album “Smile.” It appeared as the opening song to the substitute album “Smiley Smile.” “I Happen to Love You” by The Electric Prunes Wayne's deep cut staff pick reflects the psychedelic nature of the time. It reflects the nervousness associated with a passionate love affair. Carole King was a co-writer on this song. **“The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” by Leonard Nimoy ** A cult classic from the original actor playing Star Trek's "Mr. Spock" finishes out this week's podcast. It played on the popularity of both Star Trek and Tolkien's works.

Hello everyone and welcome to The Drop Zone. This week we will be live with Young Pop a producer and engineer going to school in Hartford Connecticut, He's 21 now, but grew up in Boston and have been in Hartford for 3 years. He has engineered and produced for rappers in Hartford as well as sell beats online where he has made all of his artist connections. He works with artists from New York, Atlanta, and Florida. This year he's going hard in music, dropping a mixtape with artists from Hartford in September and releasing his own Mixtape with artists he has connected with online. I Thank you for tuning in to the Podcast for Producers. I hope you enjoy this amazing episode full of fun and dope exciting beats by many hit makers. . 3 Attachments    

Colossians 1:3-8 - I Thank the Lord for You

Colossians 1:3-8 - I Thank the Lord for You

http://JoshPeckDisclosure.com PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE!  Ezekiel 9 & The Bubonic Plague | Richard Shaw This video is part of the "Sharpening Report Clips" play list.  For the full interview you can go to  - https://youtu.be/m4wZNxAeYQo The Last Days Warrior Summit is finally available! Make sure you don't miss out on dozens of EXCLUSIVE videos from the top conspiracy experts in the world! Josh Peck contributed an hour and a half teaching on Leviathan, the source of all conspiracy. You will not find these teachings, censored videos, PDFs, and mp3 collections anywhere else, and all from the comfort of your own home! Take advantage of this now at https://www.lastdayswarrior.com/last-days-warrior-conspiracy-summit-order-now?affiliate_id=1485176&fbclid=IwAR3xAfAP1NE_DJInOQNX7yA0sE05ul5m4PR02fYUokETLbNVAtJgtiYhnms Join Josh Peck in Dallas in March of 2019 for the Hear the Watchmen conference! Use promo code Josh20 to get 20 dollars off the price of your tickets. Order now at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hear-the-watchmen-sounding-the-alarm-dallas-2019-tickets-51840018892 because it is going to sell out fast! Order The Second Coming of the New Age Official Collection at: https://www.skywatchtvstore.com/products/second-coming-of-the-new-age-official-collection  Your support is essential to JoshPeckDisclosure, which is funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one-time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://joshpeckdisclosure.com/donate or for as little as $1 a month, become a Peck Patron at http://patreon.com/joshpeck and let's build something amazing and change this crazy world together!  I Thank you, take care, and YHWH bless!

http://JoshPeckDisclosure.com PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE!  Gonz Shimura | How To Start A Podcast &  Dealing: Overcoming Attacks  The Last Days Warrior Summit is finally available! Make sure you don't miss out on dozens of EXCLUSIVE videos from the top conspiracy experts in the world! Josh Peck contributed an hour and a half teaching on Leviathan, the source of all conspiracy. You will not find these teachings, censored videos, PDFs, and mp3 collections anywhere else, and all from the comfort of your own home! Take advantage of this now at https://www.lastdayswarrior.com/last-days-warrior-conspiracy-summit-order-now?affiliate_id=1485176&fbclid=IwAR3xAfAP1NE_DJInOQNX7yA0sE05ul5m4PR02fYUokETLbNVAtJgtiYhnms Join Josh Peck in Dallas in March of 2019 for the Hear the Watchmen conference! Use promo code Josh20 to get 20 dollars off the price of your tickets. Order now at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hear-the-watchmen-sounding-the-alarm-dallas-2019-tickets-51840018892 because it is going to sell out fast! Order The Second Coming of the New Age Official Collection at: https://www.skywatchtvstore.com/products/second-coming-of-the-new-age-official-collection  Your support is essential to JoshPeckDisclosure, which is funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one-time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://joshpeckdisclosure.com/donate or for as little as $1 a month, become a Peck Patron at http://patreon.com/joshpeck and let's build something amazing and change this crazy world together!  I Thank you, take care, and YHWH bless!  

Welcome to Yoni Chronicles, a podcast created by the Yoni for the Yoni!! Well not just solely for the Yoni's and Coochies, but for the Shishna's (penis's) haha. This podcast will cover all topics ranging from vaginal health to relationships and law of attraction. I Thank you in advance for taking this journey with me! Enjoy this first episode: "Entrance to the Universe" Love&Light, YogiTB --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/yonichron/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/yonichron/support

On this week's podcast, Marcus sits down with Allen Carroll, a partner with Wilkins Miller. I think if we learned anything from this episode is that Allen is not only committed but likes to have fun! 31 years of the same post-college job to flying planes and riding street bikes, there's much wisdom to be learned. Tune in and listen or read on MobileAL.com, Spotify, or iTunes. Allen: Hi. I'm Allen Carroll. I'm a partner with Wilkins Miller. Marcus: Well, welcome to the podcast, Allen. Allen: Thank you, Marcus. Congratulations to you and your team on your recent recognition as small business of the year. That's an incredible honor and recognition, so good job. Marcus: Thank you very much. I do appreciate that. I think we were talking a little bit before, and I mean it was as big a surprise I think as I could ever have imagined, but it is absolutely an honor, and we don't take it lightly. Yeah. Allen: That's great. Marcus: Well, we always start by getting a little bit of information about who the person is. You and I have a chance to visit a little bit, so I know a little bit about your story, but why don't you tell our adience the story of where you're from? Where'd you go to high school, college, married, how you got to where you are right now. Allen: Sure. I was born in Mobile, the only child of two great parents that ... best parents anybody could ask for. I graduated from Baker High School and then went onto the University of South Alabama, where I graduated with a degree in business with a concentration in accounting. I joined my firm, Wilkins Miller, right out of college. I just celebrated my 31 year anniversary with that firm this summer. Wilkins Miller is a CPA and advisory services firm here in Mobile, with offices in both Mobile and Fairhope. Sort of on the person front, I was fortunate enough to marry a gorgeous, young lady that I met in high school. We got married right after college, and next week we will celebrate our 31 year anniversary. Marcus: Congratulations. Allen: Thank you. That was the easiest decision that I ever made. Marcus: The hardest sale, but the easiest decision, right? Allen: That was easy. We've got two kids, a 26 year old son that lives in Auburn and a 22 year old daughter that is at the University of South Alabama. Marcus: Very good. How long has Wilkins Miller been around? Allen: Wilkins Miller traces its roots back to the early 60s. When I joined the firm in the late 80s, '87, it was known by a different name at the time. It was actually an office of a national firm, and our name has changed over the years, but the organization that I joined as the core is still there. Marcus: Very good. I mean, you all have a very good name in the area, not just for the accounting services that you provide, but also for kind of the business knowledge that you bring along with that. Allen: Well, you're kind to say that, and thank you. We're proud. We have a wonderful group of people. We've got a wonderful group of clients as well. Marcus: The reason why I say that is because your team has been involved in the emerging leader stuff, and I think, if I remember correctly, 1702 and a number of other things that I've been involved in, so I've gotten to know a couple of folks that work for you, and I very much enjoyed getting to know them. But let's go back in time, your first job. This is your crap job, right? This isn't Wilkins Miller, you know, starting out in accounting. This is flipping burgers, or scrubbing toilets, or mopping floors job. What was that first job, and what were some of the lessons that you remember from that? Allen: Yeah, Marcus. Early on, like a lot of kids, I was cutting grass probably in middle school, at a really young age, around the neighborhood. I actually did that on through high school, until I got real jobs. My first real job was at Dollar Rent A Car, which I was washing the rental cars and cleaning the cars as they returned them. It was kind of a weekend job through early high school. Some of you guys may know, Margie Wilcox is our local state representative now. She was my boss. You know, in terms of what did I learn in them, I guess at the end of the day it was just work really hard, and try to go the extra mile, and make a difference. I did that there. Of course, that kind of morphed into airport jobs all through sort of late college, or I should say late high school and throughout my entire college career I worked at the airport. But in the end, I think ultimately just going the extra mile and trying to do things right, and set yourself apart is ... because a lot of folks- Marcus: They don't. Allen: ... they don't. Marcus: Yeah. It's interesting, because we've done a number of these interviews now, and one of the common themes, especially with people that have achieved great success, is not just doing what is expected of them, but actually going above and beyond that, whether it's the customer service, or the information that's provided, or the washing of the cars, you know? I mean, making sure that everything is done to a T. We were just talking with Mamun, which he's a realtor, but he's from Bangladesh, which was a really interesting story. He started out as a dishwasher. You know what I mean? I mean, even there in washing dishes it's like be the best dishwasher that you can be. It's the old adage of if you're gonna be a garbage collector, be the best damn garbage collector that there is. Allen: That's it. Marcus: Right? Allen: That's it. Marcus: Then you just find that as you're doing these things that you're handed more responsibility and more success. Allen: That's right. Marcus: Now, I normally ask about how you start the business, and you didn't start Wilkins Miller, but obviously as a partner you have a very integral part. Why don't you describe, because I don't think a lot of people understand what that kind of entails. What does a partner at an accounting firm really do? Allen: Well, a partner in an accounting firm ... Of course there's various disciplines within a traditional accounting firm. You've got financial reporting, which might typically be referred to as audit types of things, where folks are auditing companies, the financial statements. You have tax compliance area. You have outsource accounting area. You've got a number of areas. You have a consulting area, which is where I spend most of my time, with forensic accounting, litigation services, working with attorneys. That's where I spent the majority of my last 25 years. But within any industry, and accounting's a great example, you know, you're focused early on with technical skills and learning technically skills, being the best at that, but as you mature, and get more experience, and work yourself through the ranks, so to speak, you can grow and become more of an advisor to your clients and working more closely with clients, and senior leadership, and owners. Allen: So, at the end of the day, you're working with folks trying to help them achieve whatever it is that they're trying to achieve at the highest lever, and so partners in accounting firms are ultimately responsible for those relationships. We have help with all of those things with a number of really good folks, and every engagement is approached with a team. But you are a business owner. A partner is a business owner. A partner is responsible for and plays a role with setting direction of a firm, just like any other business owner does, responsible for developing people, developing business, playing a significant role with community activities. So, it's like any other small business owner. Marcus: Now, I know one of the things ... because we have very much and entrepreneurial audience, right? Their mindset is entrepreneurial. One of the things that I've learned over the course of the last two years is ... Last year a buddy of mine, Abe, who's also been on the podcast, suggested a book, Managing By The Numbers. It's the book that they use as part of the Emerging Leaders Program. As you kind of go through that, they're talking to you about balance sheets, and profit loss statements, cashflow, all that stuff and the analysis of all of that. I think one of the things that people don't realize when you go into business ownership is you start as someone who has a talent most oftentimes, like I started, I knew how to code websites. Marcus: One of the things that has to progress as a business owner is you have to first understand that your primary role is people and sales, but then you also have to have a very firm grasp of your financial situation, and that's not just looking at the checkbook and going, "Well, there's $500 in the bank account, so I can write that check." I think that's where people kind of get locked into accounting as not just something that you do at the end of the year to file your taxes, but accounting as a way of looking at your financial situation, and is it for me to buy a building? Is it okay for me to invest in this piece of equipment? Is it okay for me to press in and hire two or three more people? You know? Allen: Marcus, that is so true. Accounting is not ... it shouldn't be historical. While the historical financial statements or the tax returns, all those are infinitely important to the success, at the end of the day the numbers are telling a story. You know, we all need to be looking forward to what that is and of course understanding what those numbers ... or what the story is behind those numbers. Then let's all do our part to help express those, help the owners, the decision makers use that data and information to pick their future and accomplish what it is that they want to accomplish. Yeah. We work very hard to work with our clients to help understand the story behind the numbers, because that's also the fun part with what we do. Marcus: Look back. When you first got the inkling that you were gonna go into accounting, do you remember that moment? Was there something like a decision that was made or something that happened that- Allen: You know, Marcus, as a young person, it's tough. What I did know was that I loved the business. I really loved business. I know that accounting is the language of business, and so I went into accounting because I like business, not so much that I was the debits and credits guy. That was [crosstalk 00:10:51]. Marcus: Crunching number? Allen: Yeah. That was a necessary evil. That's important, and we are in a technical business, but, again, the numbers are ... just they tell the story. That's how I selected accounting is that I fell in love with business early on, and accounting being the language of business was why I chose accounting. Marcus: Very good. It's interesting, because sometimes people, especially like in my world ... I managed to sell a website to somebody, and I put that website together, and I thought, "Wow. There might be actually something to this," and the business has just kind of progressively grown over a decade now because of that. I don't know. Is there a situation there? Because you came out of college and went into Wilkins Miller. Did you even have that experience when you started at Wilkins Miller, like, "Oh, no. This is it. I'm really jazzed"? Because it sounds like you made that decision kind of early on. Allen: Yeah. I knew I liked business. In 1987, we didn't even have computers. Computers were kind of a fresh thing. Marcus: What? Wait. There was no computers? Allen: They weren't widely being used. Marcus: You had to get the abacus out [crosstalk 00:12:05]. Allen: That's right. It was all by hand. Early on there was a lot of technical, a lot of things that are being done by hand, but I think kind of bigger picture, you know, I knew I loved business, and so being at the core of business, in terms of accounting, was where I found my home. It's highly technical early on, but as you get more experience, you get to get out of some of those details, and of course computers and software have helped us get out of the details, even with the young folks today aren't in those kinds of details, and ultimately provide higher level service. But as I got more experience, I increasingly loved the field, as I've gotten more experience and got to work with the business owners and the CEOs, like you, helping shape direction, and select strategy. Again, doing our part to develop the numbers, but then help interpret what does all that mean? It's a lot of fun. It is. Accounting's got I think an increasingly exciting profession for a lot of folks, because of some of those details. Marcus: Yeah. I think as people come to understand what it can do. Now, if you were talking to someone that wanted to get started in running their own business, what's the one bit of wisdom that you would impart to them? Allen: The one bit of wisdom. I would say jump in with both feet and try to be the very, very best at whatever it is that you choose to do. Try to be the very best, and get passionate about it, and try to be the very best, whatever I is. Marcus: Yeah. Those are life lessons that don't go wrong in any way, shape, or form. Allen: That's right. That's right. Marcus: Yeah. Now, what does a typical day look like for you? Allen: Oh, gosh. There is no typical day. That's what's- Marcus: I need to reword that question, because I get that quite often. It's like, "No. There is no typical day." I mean, give people kind of a glimpse. I know you're probably meeting with people a lot and spending a lot of time just answering questions and stuff. Allen: Yeah. I spend a lot of times with our team, which I always really enjoy, on the phone a lot with clients, and managing projects, spending time on those, a lot of phone, a lot of phones, a lot of conversations that occur. Marcus: Now, when you look, and not just to the business world here in Mobile, but when you look to the business world, is there anyone that you kind of look to and think, "Yeah. That guy's ... There's some stuff to look at there," that you really think is cool? Allen: You know, Marcus, that's a great question. It's also a tough question. When I think about that, I don't have it zoomed in on one particular person. I think about some of the traits of people that I admire or that inspire me. I've been fortunate to have a lot of really good mentors over the years that folks had invested in me, colleagues, partners, you know, a variety of folks. My parents certainly made a huge impact on me. But I think about folks that motivate and can get the best out of people. I know I've been the benefactor or the beneficiary of folks that led me, and I could do more with them being there and pushing me than I could do on my own. Allen: I think about football coaches. You know, I'm an old football player through high school. I always admire the college football coaches and their ability to motivate people I think about the business leaders that can do the same thing, in terms of developing teams. In the end, I am really inspired by the folks that are really passionate about what they do, you know, and that they really, truly do is and try to do it at a world class level. I mean, that to me is always really a cool thing, you know, within any industry, or profession, or whatever it is. I'm always really moved by that. Marcus: It's interesting how that has ... I mean, it's not just the business world anymore, is it? When we look to how things have changed even over the course of let's say the last even 10 years or less, you know, you can be a world class baker, or a world class electrician, or a world class whatever and just caring about your craft. I mean, it doesn't have to be Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, or anything like that, right? Allen: That's right. That's right. Marcus: Going kind of along that same vein, are there any books, or podcasts, or organizations that have been helpful in moving you forward? Allen: Yes. In terms of books, a couple of the books that have shaped my past and helped me get better, a couple was, and I would kind of take them in order was Jack Welch's book, Winning, that basically taught me that even at the highest levels of leadership, that getting involved in the details, and understanding, shaking things up, trying to get an organization better processes, whatever it is. That was an early reading for me. But probably the biggest book or the book that made the biggest impact was Good To Great. Are you familiar with Good To Great? Marcus: I am. Allen: Jim Collins. Marcus: Very much so. Allen: For those that may not be as familiar with it, Jim Collins and his team spent 10,000 hours studying and researching companies and looking at similar or the same industry, comparing companies that went to become excellent and then those that stayed- Marcus: That were just mediocre. Allen: ...mediocre. What they learned, as you know, that it's all about the people. It wasn't some grandiose strategy. They found, it was a little bit of a surprise, from what I remember, is that it was all about getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats, and then everything else good comes from that. I read that early, pretty much when it came out. That really has helped shape my own thinking. I think we instinctively know a lot of those things, but we've tried our best within our firm to do that. We don't get it perfect all the time, but we really, really try to keep our eye one that. That was an important reading for me. They actually have a monologue that goes along with that for the nonprofit sector that I've- Marcus: I didn't know that. Allen: ... read, and it's really great as well. Marcus: Is it? Allen: Then some, following on from that, the power of purpose, you know, the book, Starts With Why. Basically, the theme is- Marcus: Simon Sinek I believe. Allen: Yup. I think that's right. The power of having a strong purpose, and that too has been I think ... Again, I don't know that there's anything that is just earth shattering. I think it affirms our instincts that we all want a strong individually and organizations need a really strong purpose and a mission. If you have that strong purpose and mission, a lot of great things can come from that. Marcus: Those two go together though, don't they? Allen: They do. Marcus: So, if you have a strong purpose and mission, you know the people that you need on the bus in order to achieve the goals that you have set forth. Allen: That's it. Those are two perhaps most important things for us to get right. Then the book, Blank, by Gladwell. Marcus: Yeah. Malcolm Gladwell? Allen: Yeah. I think that- Marcus: I've not read that one, but I've heard very good things about it. Allen: You should read that. Again, I don't know that anything will just like surprised you, but it will affirm that I think most of us have really pretty good instincts, that there's a reason for that. We have all these experiences that build into where we are, and it affirms to me that I think we need to maybe listen to those. When I look back, I felt like I've had pretty good instincts, but I haven't always acted on them. Marcus: Interesting. Allen: That book will give you some confidence to act on. Marcus: You said that a couple of times, that there's nothing earth shattering, but I find when I'm reading a book, or going to a conference, or listening to a podcast, or something like that, I am looking for that affirmation, but sometimes it's just a nuance, like there's some ... I'm gonna take one little piece out of that whole thing. I listened to a three hour podcast, or I'll read a 200 page book, and there may be just one paragraph in that whole book, and I'm just like ... You know, I just kind of put my hand against my forehead and go, "Why didn't I think of it in that way before?" It makes the whole thing worth it, because let's be real. We're all reading these books. Marcus: I have this spoof that I want to do on Tai Lopez's video, and I don't know if you know who Tai Lopez ... He's the guy that did the iPhone video in his garage, and he's got a Lamborghini sitting there. He goes, "Yeah, but what I find more important is the 4,000 books," or something, that he had seven bookcases. I want to do a spoof on that, because his whole thing is that he talks about books as a way of folding back the time, because you are taking somebody else's knowledge and injecting it into your head, and that helps shorten the amount of time that it's gonna take you to learn and get where you want to be. Allen: That's a good point. Marcus: So, I think when we listen to a podcast, or read books, or things like that, if we change our perspective and think of it in that sense, then it becomes even more powerful. Allen: That's true. I guess what I was referring to is we have thoughts that we go through time, and maybe we don't have the confidence to think that we're either really on it, or we're missing- Marcus: As business owners, we always have that thought. Allen: Yeah. When you read and you get the perspectives, you either ... that you debunk some thinking that you may have had, or it affirms some of your core thinking. Marcus: Absolutely. Allen: [crosstalk 00:22:38] Marcus: No. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. What's the- Allen: Marcus, you talked about organizations. Of course, I've learned a lot from my organization, but one of the organizations, and it was a service oriented role for me, I was serving on the board of Saint Luke's Episcopal School at the time. It was my kid's school. Marcus: Very good. Allen: It was probably in the 2002, 4-ish, to the late 2000s range. That school was considering, the board was considering creating a high school. It only went to the eighth grade at the time. I was sitting there as chair of the board at the time. So, we began to study that whole process. What I learned put a lot of things for me. I learned an incredible amount through that exercise, but what I learned is, again, the power of people, having the really good people on the bus to accomplish something. Of course, that school went on to acquire the old former Right's Girl School Campus out on University, and it did create the high school, which is doing great things today. My daughter graduated from the high school. Marcus: Awesome. Allen: But the cool thing was is that people, the power in people, okay? Having the right people on the bus in the rights seats, and we had a world class team that came together to make that possible. Secondly is the power of purpose. You talk about a strong purpose is sitting back and saying, "Let's go start a high school, and how can we afford it? How can we fund it? Does it make sense?" That is a strong, strong purpose. Allen: Then the other thing I learned through that is timing, the importance of timing. I didn't realize or didn't appreciate this at the time, but looking back I can see it, that there was probably a very short window of time, because that was on the eve of the whole financial crises that of course the market crashed, and the economy took a big step back in the beginning of I think it's the Great Recession is that we refer to it as. Literally probably a six month or a year window of time that that would have been possibly, because of all the moons aligning, and then there was a period that it would not have been possible. I think that the power of timing ... I wish we could all look in a crystal ball and see all of that. We can't see that, but I think that so much of both good and challenges that come to the world or have come to all of is in our businesses is a lot of timing too. Marcus: There's some truth to that for sure. They all go together, right? So, people, purpose, timing. Yeah. The relationships there are very, very important. What's the most important thing that you've learned about running a business? Allen: Just take care of people I think is the biggest thing. Just try to get the right folks, take care of them, and serve your clients. Marcus: Right. Show them that you appreciate them. Allen: Go that extra mile. Work your rear end off to deliver to clients. Marcus: Do you have any interesting ways that you reward people? Allen: Yeah. Marcus: You've been a very giving ... I mean, full disclosure, you and Lindsey have both been very gracious and brought gifts, because of the small business thing, so I Thank you very much for that. So, I'm betting that that probably carries over into the business world too. Allen: Yeah. We try to have fun. Marcus, we do a variety of things. We try to have a lot of fun as a group. We enjoy each other. We spend more time with our colleagues than we do our own families often. So, much like you all here, I can see y'all have fun. You have a great group as well. That's a big part of it, just enjoying each other and compensating folks well, trying to maintain some work/life balance or integration as well is important. We've got a number of different things. We often have our socials and our TGITs. Marcus: I know you have retreats, where you get together- Allen: We do. Yes. Marcus: ... and have speakers come in and stuff like that. Allen: That's true. Marcus: I mean, there's all kinds of different ways. I guess where I was going with that is you mentioned compensation. Compensations isn't all ... I think I want to break through that box of people thinking that, "Well, I just have to pay people more. I have to give them ..." There is some level of, yes, you do need to pay people what they're worth, but there are small rewards that you can do, whether it's just buying somebody lunch or telling them in some other way that you really appreciate the extra mile that they went. Allen: That's a great point, saying, "Thanks. We appreciate what you're doing," is a big deal. You're right. It's not just about monetary compensation. There are lots of intangibles, because if you don't have the right organization, there may not be any amount of money could pay somebody to get them to really stay with you for the long term. Yeah. There's more to it. Marcus: This is the most difficult question that I'm gonna ask you, and you're gonna squirm a little bit when I ask you this, but how do you like to unwind? Allen: Gosh. I've got a bunch of things that interest me. I grew up, I learned to fly at a very early age. Marcus: Really? Allen: At 18, I got my pilots license. I guess I'm deeply passionate about aviation. Marcus: That is so cool. Allen: That was at Brookley back in the early 80s. That's a life long passion. I'm not current right now, but I really, really, really love flying and aviation. I've got pretty much if you can get on it, and ride it, and twist the throttle or push the gas- Marcus: [crosstalk 00:28:20] motorcycle or- Allen: ... I'm gonna have fun with it. Yeah. I've got motorcycles today. I grew up riding dirt bikes. I've got some street bikes now. I love to get out in the spring or in the fall and ride my bike down to- Marcus: You don't like to ride in the dead heat of summer? Allen: I don't care for that. Yeah. Marcus: With the haze coming up off the asphalt. Allen: That's really just no fun for me. I get on the boat during the summer. My wife and I have a boat. We enjoy getting out and getting in the water, being on the water. I love Dolphin Island. I kind of grew up and my parents have a place on Dolphin Island. My wife and I do now as well. I enjoy getting to Dolphin Island as much as possible, getting out on the water. Those are the kind of things that we enjoy. Marcus: We got to get you back in a plane though. Allen: I'd love to. Yeah. I'm just on the bench right now, just because of time. Ido really love flying and aviation. My son and I, we were fortunate to go to Oshkosh probably 15 years running. I don't know if you ever heard of Oshkosh, but Oshkosh is the great big industry trade show for general aviation up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The whole town shuts down. I think a third of general aviation fleet come through that event. It's like Disney for the aviation types. You know? It's like Disney. Marcus: Abe, from Harper Tech, is a pilot and has a small plane. I've always been envious, because it's nothing for him to pop over to New Orleans and pick up beignets and come back, or fly up to Birmingham and get a hard drive from somebody and come back, or go there for dinner or something like that. I love that idea of being able to, you know, just go, because so oftentimes, as business owners, we don't have time, right? So, if you can cut it out somewhere, that's great. Allen: It's a great way to travel regionally, but you have to stay with it, and take it seriously, and fly a good bit to be good at it. Marcus: Good? Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing worse that a bad pilot. Now, tell people where they can find out more about Wilkins Miller. Allen: Our website is . My email address is . Marcus: Very good. I imagine you guys . I know you're on , because I get pinged there a couple of times too, which is cool. An accounting firm that has an Instagram account. Go and follow them. That's really pretty cool. Allen: Thank you. Marcus: Yeah. Well, Allen, I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast. To wrap up, any final thoughts or comment you'd like to share? Allen: You know, Marcus, I'd like to thank you for doing what you're doing in these podcasts. I'm certainly honored to be here to participate. Thank you for being a cheerleader for the entrepreneurial community in Mobile. Having grown up here, I'm so excited about what's going on, and I think the kinds of things, what you're doing, is an important element in what's going on, so thank you for that. I mean, lots of wonderful things that are going on, so we appreciate what you do. Taking time from your business to do this is incredible, so thank you. Marcus: Thank you for saying that. Well, Allen, I appreciate your willingness to sit with me and share your journey as a business owner and entrepreneur. It's been great talking with you. Allen: You're welcome. Thank you, Marcus.

Introduction Amen. Well, it's my joy to be back preaching with you again. I wasn't sure whether I could keep doing that or start doing it again. We'll find out, won't we? We'll find out whether I still know how to preach but thank you Tom for praying for me. It's kind of interesting for me to come back in the midst of a verse. Some of you may remember, we are right in the middle of Ephesians 6:4. So, this morning you're going to get Ephesians 6:4b. And it's been like two months since we had Ephesians 6:4a. It reminds me of a really powerful moment in Church history. I did my doctoral dissertation on John Calvin, and for me, he's just one of the greatest examples of a verse by verse expository there's ever been in Church history, tremendous unfolder of the Word of God, but the city of Geneva wasn't ready to hear the word from Calvin, and they evicted him and William Ferrell, his co-worker in reform there. And they left, they had to leave, they were thrown out of the city for preaching the word. They were gone for a number of years. And finally, Geneva, the leaders knew they needed the ministry of the Word of God, and they wanted Calvin back, and they persuaded him to come back, and he came back, and as he began his first Sunday back preaching, he started right where he had been many, many years before that and resumed. And I think if you just know the big picture, you know what's being said there, it's like, “We could have had years of ministry of the Word so, but let's pick up where we were and start. “ Now, I've not had such a negative relationship at all. I've been working on an Isaiah commentary, and I was not evicted from this pulpit, but I'm glad to come back and, as it were, parachute into the middle of Ephesians 6:4 and talking about Christian parenting. But in doing so, I want to begin just by getting some perspective, to try to understand where we're at in Ephesians to understand how parenting, how Christian parenting fits into everything. “Zoom” Back to Gain Perspective Zoom Some time ago I heard about a children's book, richly illustrated. You can picture it in your mind's eye, and the book is called Zoom. It was conceived and written illustrated by Istvan Banyai. I don't know anything about the individual, but I think it’s a very clever concept. And the first page in the book starts out with this kind of interesting diagram of triangles, red triangles with dots all over them. As you turn the page, you zoom back and you find out that you're looking at the comb of a rooster. And you can see the rooster, and you can get a little bit more perspective. So we started looking at the details of a rooster's comb, and now we've stepped further back. And then the next page you zoom further back. And there are two children standing on a bench looking at the rooster in some kind of a cottage, I guess. You zoom further back, now you're out the door of the cottage and you can see the cottage, and in fact, the whole barnyard because you're up a little higher and there's a pickup truck and all that. And so the next page, you zoom back a little bit further, and the whole scene it turns out, is just a brochure, I guess, for a set of toys, and you see someone holding the brochure, and it's a little bit jarring because there is this big hand grabbing the whole thing. And then the next page, you zoom back further and the person's in a magazine, and then you zoom back further and the magazine is on the lap of a sleeping teenage boy on the deck of a boat. I'm like “Where are we heading?” And then you zoom back further back and it turns out this whole thing is an advertisement for a cruise on the side of a bus in a city. And after a while you start getting bewildered. I have no idea where this journey is going to take us. Now I'm not going to keep going on this Zoom thing, you'll have to get the book and find out the rest. I'm not going to give you the plot spoiler. I've already kind of ruined the first few pages. I think as you gain perspective on Christian truth, Biblical truth. The further back you step, the more you can see the big picture of what's going on in your life, and you can gain needed perspective. And I want to do that kind of context here. I want to take the Book of Ephesians right here at Ephesians 6:4b and kind of step back more and more to give eternal meaning to Christian parenting, to give you a sense of context of what you're doing as Christian parents. And this stepping back further and further will give an eternal perspective and a radically new view of a series of mundane encounters, and honestly, most of parenting is a series of very menial mundane encounters. And friends, brothers and sisters, we don't have much time. Our life is a mist, as you heard earlier. It's just here, we're here for a little while, and then it vanishes. A Brief, Yet Urgent Time In Job 7:6, Job said, "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle." So you can imagine just how a tapestry or how cloth is made and the weaver's got a spool of thread on the shuttle and he just shoots it across and it's gone, it's just gone. And I never really realized how quickly life goes until I had children. And then you start seeing them grow up and go through stages and you just blow through those stages so quickly. And you just don't have a lot of time when your children are young and their hearts are tender and they are eager to learn from you. You don't have much time. And then as they grow older, they're still in the home, but they're a little more set in their ways, and that's a different phase of parenting. And it just goes, it goes fast. And so, my desire is that you would make the most of the brief time that you have. These series of mundane encounters that just seem like they're not significant, but they really are. I think about like a mother humming while giving her newborn just home from the hospital its first bath. Just that little moment there, or a father gathering three preschool kids on the couch for a family devotion and opening the Bible up like he does every evening, or a mother caring gently and lovingly for a sick child at 3:00 in the morning. There is not going to be an infinite number of times of doing that, at a certain number and pouring out love on that child, or a father driving his family to church week after week after week. Just habitually not forsaking the assembling of themselves together with other Christians. Or parents hugging their kids or talking to their kids or disciplining them when they sin. And in the matrix of an ordinary everyday life, these children grow up, and pretty soon they're gone. And we have to make the most of these days, the time that we have, and I just believe God's Word is sufficient. It's enough. What we have in the word of God is sufficient for us to do a good job as parents, as fathers and mothers. The Context of Christian Parenting Now, for us, I want to just zoom back further and further so we can see where we're at in Christian parenting. You heard what Tom read, the whole context here is of the father-child or the parent-child relationship is set in the larger context of Ephesians 6:1-4, "Children obey your parents in the Lord," as it says there. And you heard the text. And, "Fathers do not exasperate your children, but bring them up in the training instruction of the Lord." But these commands, if you zoom back a little bit further, you go back in Ephesians, are set in the context of the Christian family. And the most important human relationship in the Christian family is the husband-wife relationship. So it comes on the heels of wives being told to submit to their husbands as to the Lord and the husband loving his wife as Christ loved the Church. So the context of healthy Christian parenting is a strong, stable Christian marriage. Then you zoom back even further and you find out that the Christian marriage is a subset of the Spirit-filled life. In Ephesians 5:18 we're commanded, "Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery. Instead, be being filled with the Spirit." So there's this ongoing renewing and refreshing that the Spirit does, and the Spirit-filled life then is lived out in a number of significant ways. But the Christian family, the Christian marriage, and then parenting is a subset of that Spirit-filled life. Then if you zoom back even further, going back in Ephesians to Ephesians 4:1, we find out that the Spirit-filled life is a subset of what Paul calls, “living a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Just the entire pattern of our lives that we are to live up to the calling that we have received, and the Spirit is given to enable us to do that. Then if you zoom back even further, we find out in the first three chapters of Ephesians that God is about some vast amazing glorious building project. He's building a dwelling, a spiritual temple. Reaching for an image from 1 Peter, “made out of living stones.” And this spiritual temple is rising in every generation and becoming a glorious dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. And in that structure, that spiritual structure, we will spend all eternity in fellowship with God and with each other. And that gives an incredible context to Christian parenting. Now we find out, zooming back further, that the building materials for this rising temple are quarried, they're excavated from Satan's dark kingdom. We were at one point, “dead in our transgressions and sins, we were enslaved to Satan in all kinds of lusts and evil desires. Just like the rest of the world, like everyone, we were by nature objects of wrath.” That's what we were. That's where the building materials come from this, and our children come into the world lost, they don't come into the world as believers, they come into the world unregenerate or not having yet been regenerated. And we ourselves the same. But then we see so beautifully in Ephesians 2:4-5, "But God, because of His great love with which He loved us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved." So this awesome work of salvation through faith in Christ is the point of every moment of Christian parenting. That's the ultimate end of Christian parenting. The top priority for every Christian father and mother is the salvation of your children, that they will spend eternity in Heaven, not in Hell, that they will be in that eternal temple, that eternal dwelling with God, that they will be there. That's top priority. It's not the only priority, but it's absolutely top priority. To that end, we find out, zooming further back, in Ephesians 1:13, that everyone who was ever included in Christ is included in Christ when they “heard the word of truth, the Gospel of their salvation. Having believed, they were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” So the children have to hear the Gospel, and only by hearing and believing the Gospel will they be included in this vast glorious work that God is doing. The Two-Fold Purpose of Christian Parenting And once they've come to genuine faith in Christ, we must prepare them to do a pattern of good works that God has laid out before them even before they were born. There's a specific pattern of good works, unique to them different from yours, but unique to them, and in those good works they are called on to walk for the rest of their lives. Having come to faith in Christ, they can do good works. They can't do any as unbelievers. But as a believer in Christ, we are, all of us, “Christ's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them.” And so, therefore, Christian parenting has two great priorities or two-fold purpose: Evangelism and discipleship. That we would evangelize our children, bring them to a genuine faith in Jesus Christ, by the ministry of the Gospel. And then secondly, discipleship that we should teach them to obey everything that Christ has commanded, and get them ready to fulfill their unique purpose in God's redemptive plan. And you don't know exactly what that is, but it's exciting, it really is a thrill. And so you have to get them ready, you have to get them prepared. Zoom back with me one final time to see the purpose of all of this. And what is the purpose of all this? Ephesians 1:4-6, "[God] chose us in Christ before the creation of the world that we should be holy and blameless in His sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will, " listen, "to the praise of His glorious grace." That's the final step in this step-back journey, this zoom-back journey. Christian parenting is done that your children might live eternally for the praise of God's glorious grace. That's the point of it all. Now, as our days are swifter than weaver's shuttles, it's a good image for me because I'm leaving behind a string of thread, and part of that are my children, and every day we're weaving a tapestry to some degree, threads of different colors, but there's this beautiful thing being woven in their lives. And the ultimate end of this, Ephesians 1:10, is that “all things in Heaven and earth would be unified or brought together under one head, even Christ” for the praise of His glory. That's the big picture for me. And it's wonderful to know that for us as Christian parents, it's no accident that we are parents, we're not accidental parents. And it's not any accident that you're specifically parents to the kids you have. I know you may think that it's all an accident. I've actually heard, I'm not going to say much about this, that my kids were adopted. My kids were not adopted. Alright, I have a photographic record of every step of the journey. I watched them grow up. Adoption is a delightful thing, and many of you have adopted kids, but my kids, I watched them get born. And it's no accident that I have the specific kids I have. It's no accident that you have the specific kids you have. It says in Ephesians 1:11, "In Him, we're also chosen, having been predestined," listen to this, "according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will." Every detail has been figured out. So you have been given these children as a gift of God and they belong to God, not to you, ultimately. And that's the biblical context. Parenting in this Era Now let's talk about our own context. Let's talk about the era in which we live, what's going on in the world today in reference to Christian parenting, in reference to what we're facing. What is our context in our society, in our culture, in our nation? What's going on? Well, honestly, in one sense, what's happening right now is the same thing that's been happening in every generation. In every generation, our enemy, the devil, is like a roaring lion seeking to devour our children, spiritually. He's coming after our children as he does in every generation. He didn't take any generations off. He's coming hard after our children, and he wants to destroy them spiritually. Our children already are, to some degree, but will be increasingly under constant, daily assault from the world, the flesh and the devil and we have to protect them and get them ready and prepare them for that battle. One leader in the SBC said this, we are losing our children. Research indicates that 70% of teens who are involved in a church youth group will stop attending church within two years of their high school graduation, 70%. So the world is relentlessly pulling our kids away from Christ, away from the Gospel, pulling them into worldliness and rebellion and unbelief. So Ephesians 6:4 speaks especially to fathers, because they have a primary role in training the parents, but also to mothers as I argued two sermons ago, and really to the entire church as we care about Christian parenting and care that it'd be richly blessed and ultimately the entire society. Now, last time in Ephesians 6:4a, I talked about the negative or aspect or the prohibition in this verse. "Fathers, do not," there's something they should not do. “Do not provoke your children to anger [or wrath.]” We talked about the significance of that prohibition that it shows that God has authority over your children. He's limited your authority, He's limited over what you can do to your children, and you ought not, must not provoke them to wrath. And I gave a careful list of various things that parents can do to exasperate or provoke their children to wrath. Ultimately, the idea is that parents would in some sad, strange way actually be serving the devil to pull them away through discontent away from the Church and away from Christ, because of sins of bad parenting that they're doing. So we listed things like hypocrisy, not living up to standards that you preach. Harsh parenting, being too disciplinarian. Lax parenting, not disciplining faithfully or biblically enough. Unreasonable expectations, inconsistency, lack of biblical input, just a lack of loving affection for children. There's a variety of things last time. Now this time, we're turning around and we're speaking more positively there, “Do not do this, but rather Christian fathers do this.” So that's what we're looking at right now. Parenting “In the Lord” Instead, he says, “Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” or do your parenting in the Lord, that's what he's saying. All Christian parenting must be done in the Lord, the Lord being the Lord Jesus Christ. So Christian parenting is done in Christ. Or as a subset or part of our walk with Christ as Christians. It's done for the glory of Christ, it's done by people redeemed by the blood of Christ, father and mother, it's done by the living, indwelling power of the Spirit of Christ within the father and mother. That's what Christian that's how Christian parenting is done and it's done by the Word of Christ, theScripture, the Bible. We do Christian parenting, I'm preaching about Christian parenting. Now, every nation acknowledges the importance of pouring into and shaping the minds of children. Everyone is aware of that, everyone is aware of the importance of catching children young while they're moldable, malleable, shapeable. Teach the Children While They Are Young Some time ago, I heard a story about a man who lived out in a rural part a mountainous area, and this man, this elderly man was a wise Christian man, had a lot of kids, had a strong ministry. He also had an object of interest on his mantelpiece. It was a bottle with a full shiny red apple inside, with a cork in it. So there's this bottle. And the guests in his home would inevitably notice it and go over and pick it up and try to figure out how he got the apple in there. And they're looking for like the trap door at the bottom or some secret thing on the side, but it's just a simple glass bottle looking like any other glass bottle. How in the world did you get that fully grown apple in there? He said, "Well I'll show you. And he brought them out to his little orchard he had outside the door. And on one particular tree, there were five or six glass bottles and blossoms growing up into the narrow neck of the bottle. That's how it's done. So if any of you have apple trees or pear trees and all that, you can do that and it's kind of exciting and you can amaze and mystify your friends, how in the world did that fully grown apple get inside that narrow neck of the bottle? But you just get it young, while it's still young, and the mind is tender of the child. Everyone all over the world knows that, and I'm going to say that for good or ill. People understand the importance of indoctrinating the next generation in their own worldview. So their own world philosophy, they want to impart on the next generation, they might raise them as they are perhaps as moral philosophers, or as atheists, or as Muslims of various patterns, or Nazis in the '1930s in Nazi Germany, strong emphasis by the government in raising the next generation of Nazis. Hitler boasted. He said, "You can fight me, but I already have your children." And it was true. Many of them turned in their parents to the Gestapo. Or communists, a whole generation of Chinese kids growing up with Mao's red book and being indoctrinated at a very early age. Everyone knows this, the importance of getting children early. So it is in our country, there are people with strong ideological bents and convictions that are not ours, that very much want to train the next generation to follow after their same pattern. But we Christians, we are seeking to do it in the Lord. By the pattern of the Lord's book, the Bible, for the glory of Christ. Now there are three keywords here: nourish, train, and admonish. Let's look at each of them in turn. Key Words: Nourish, Train, Admonish Key Word #1: Nourish First “nourish,” or bring them up, rear them. The word nourish is kind of home base for this Greek word. Paul used it in Ephesians 5:29 when he was talking about the husband-wife relationship, the husband. Said, “the husband should love his wife as his own body. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds it, [same Greek word,] or nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the Church.” So there's a sense of feeding, there's a sense of nourishment, of feeding. So, the idea here in Christian parenting is fathers and mothers, you should feed your children as they grow up. Nourish them. Now obviously, for us, we know that the food of their lives is not just physical food, we know a good father is going to be a faithful provider for his family. “I was young, and now I am old. I've never seen the righteous begging bread, or their children begging bread, out in the streets, never.” So the idea is that a godly man will be faithful to provide physical food for his family. But this goes far beyond that. I think I'm going to go to Matthew 4:4 where Jesus said, Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. So I think the nourishing from father to children, from mother to children here is a feeding of their growing souls on the word of God. They're going to grow up in the Scripture. And the ultimate and the ultimate food of their faith is Christ Himself. In John 6:35, Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me will never go hungry.” So we just want to feed our kids on Scripture, as it points ultimately to Christ, the food of their souls. So just let's get real practical. Fathers, you just need to sit down with your kids every day, and open the Bible and read them the scripture and teach them. Every day. Fathers especially, mothers too, but fathers lead out here. And so, here we're talking as we have many times before about the daily devotion, the family altar, family devotions, and the importance of gathering the family around the word of God. It doesn't need to be complicated, doesn't need to be, it doesn't need to be in-depth. Actually as they're little, it ought not to be too long, don't go on and on. Remember what happened to poor Eutychus and how he fell asleep and fell out. I'm not saying Paul talked too long but maybe someone needed to look after poor Eutychus. Alright. Thank God, Paul raised him from the dead. But at any rate, we're not looking to go on and on and on. So the idea, especially when they're young, it's more times per week than minutes for time. So just be consistent, and feed them the word and spend time in worship, get a little song you guys sing together and “sing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs” together as a family, and then spend time praying. Pray for each other, pray for missions, pray for anything that you're facing teach them to pray. Daily time. So you, fathers, as you're evaluating your performance right now, you're thinking about how you're doing. This may be an opportunity for you to repent, an opportunity for you to say, You know, it's been a good idea, I've known of it but we're not doing it and I need to lead my family better in doing this. But beyond the daily devotional time, there's so many things that fathers and mothers can and should be doing nourishing their children's souls with the Word of God. Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:7 it said, “talk about the Law of Moses, talk about these things, the Laws of Moses. When you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up.” I'm just using a how much more argument. We're in the New Covenant now. We've got better things to say, better promises it says in the Book of Hebrews. We've got a better story to tell. So let's talk about Christ and the Gospel, and the Word of God. When they sit at home and walk along the road, when they lie down, when they get up, just supersaturated, bring them up, nourish them in the Word. Key Word #2: Nurture Second word here is train or nurture. It's a very important word in the Greek. Paideia is the word, it's a word that the Ephesians would definitely have known about. Generally, the word had to do aristocratic families, high-born families, noble families. The father, especially toward the heir, he would hire well-known Greek philosophers or send his son, an heir to a school of key philosophers and he would be mentored and tutored. The word would be paideia, he would receive his paideia and his training to come up into his inheritance, so he could take his father's place. We are heirs of the Kingdom of God and we need to receive this paideia, this training, the children need it. As sons of the king, they need to be trained. Sons and daughters prepared for the full inheritance. And this word paideia has a full range of meaning, everything to do with education. It's impartation of information, but it's also a training of morals. It involves discipline, involves some of the harder aspects of education but it involves generally education in all of its respects, shaping the mind of the child to think and the life, the heart to love what's right and to hate what's wrong. That's what we're talking about here. So it means an education. Fundamentally fathers are ultimately responsible for the education of their children. Now, this is more radical today than it may seem. And we have to be careful to not cede, not give up our role as Christian parents, to other forces to educate our children. Government can be a usurper in this role. Government schools can take a role sometimes high-handedly over the children that Christians need to be aware of and say, “This is not biblically true.” I was reading one document by the government agency of the US Federal Government and this document said it was "inviting families to be equal partners with them in the education of their children." I'm like, "How generous of them. How sweet." I mean, it just melted my heart that they were willing to invite me to be an equal partner with them in the education of my kids. I added for now, for now. I don't know if they're still going to be making that gracious invitation in 20 years. We've seen some rather shocking behavior from the federal government about some controversial issues in which funding was threatened to be removed from schools that didn't see it the president's way or the government's way, and you lose your funding. So, that's a scary harbinger for the future on what it's going to be like in government schools. Now we understand many families are unable to homeschool their kids they're unable to do that. We understand there are some Christian moms that are struggling, they don't have a husband, a father to their kids. And they're battling just to make it, and we understand that the government school is all that they have and it gets their kids ready with mathematics and other things, etcetera, but there's stuff lacking, and that's where the church can step up. It can be a father to the fatherless. We can be involved. We also know that many of our brothers and sisters are actively involved in public education, they're seeking to be salt and light in a very dark place, and we support that, and we're glad for it. But I'm more troubled by parents that send their kids to school, the government schools, as missionaries. At young ages, sending them to be salt and light themselves surrounded by so much darkness. Just understand what's going to happen. They'll be there six hours a day, five days a week, totally indoctrinated not just by the curriculum, but by the other kids and the comments that are made. And if you're going to do that, you will need to work doubly and triply hard in the evenings and the weekends to counteract any false teaching they may have had, or false influences. Sometimes they might not even tell. It could be mockery or shame or ridicule in the cafeteria and they're made to feel ashamed about a biblical view, and they'll never tell you about it, but you as fathers are responsible to ferret it out. Many Christians feel it's just better to homeschool and many more and more are homeschooling. I think there's going to be some more creative hybrids of co-ops and other things in the future where we can step up and educate those that there's no way for those parents to do homeschooling, but the Church can do the full education of those children. It's going to be an interesting road, a steep uphill battle. Al Mohler, at Together for the Gospel this year, spoke of a Christian family he knew who was sending their kids to school, a government school, as witnesses and missionaries. But one day, at dinner father was just talking about homosexuality is a sin, and his teenage son spoke up and said, "Dad. That's hate speech, you need to stop doing that." Well, that's obviously a difficult moment. Those are the kind of things that we're facing. For me, overall, if you were to ask me why we personally have chosen to homeschool our kids, the biggest danger for us, for me, I'll just speak for myself. The biggest danger is secularism. The idea that God is irrelevant to mathematics, God is irrelevant to science, God is irrelevant to literature, God is irrelevant to American history, God is irrelevant to European history. I disagree from the core of my being, God is relevant to everything in the universe He made by the word of His power. It's His universe, He's relevant to everything. So, if some of my students didn't like math, I won't say much more about it, but just didn't like it, I would say Math reflects the character of God, God is an orderly being. He counts a lot of things, He's a counter. It didn't win the day, but I tried. Tried, alright? But I want to teach every subject that way with God at the center. You don't get to do that in the government school. Actually, it's illegal. So I worry about that. So, we're responsible to raise our kids to raise them up. And I love Luke 2:52, “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” That's a great parenting verse. Growing up in wisdom like the Book of Proverbs, rubber meets the road. How to handle your speech patterns, and what to do with your money, and what to do with your friendships and what to do concerning sexual purity and relationships, and all of these things. But it all starts with Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” And so, I want to teach wisdom, I want to see my kids growing in that kind of wisdom. And it also says in stature, there's this physical maturing that goes on. Good parenting, you want to see your kids growing bigger and stronger and more able. So that means, just physical health, physical fitness. Also sports maybe some dexterity skills like musical instruments, different things. You want to see them grow in their physical stature, and in favor with God, that's just religion, piety, the patterns of religion, of prayer and Bible intake, and church involvement. And favor with God. And then in favor with men, that's that socializing aspect, where good manners, how to eat it at the dinner table, and how to hold the door for somebody or see somebody who's weak and you help them, you love your neighbor as yourself. That's a great pattern. So that's word number two training or nurture. And the third word is admonish. Key Word #3: Admonish “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” The word, admonish or admonition is rather negative, it has to do with correcting someone in reference to sin. An admonishment is a warning in reference to sin. And I think of it in terms of the rebuke, the verbal aspect of correcting, a warning, because sin is dangerous. And so, godly parenting involves those kinds of admonishments. I need to warn you about dangers you're going to face in life. I want to warn you. I love what Paul said to the Ephesian elders, he said in Acts 20:31. “So, be on your guard. Remember that for three years, I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.” Well, I'm just going to say, how much more than does a father do that and a mother do that with their children? It's a dangerous world. And I want you to be ready, I want you to be prepared to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now, one of the hard aspects of parenting is that there is a Christian parenting, in particular, there is a mysterious and difficult complex blending of Old Covenant and New Covenant style persuasions. Basically, your children are going to be born under the Law, it says in Galatians, and you're going to need blessings and curses for simple acts of obedience or disobedience. One happens, and you're just going to discipline them. So there's going to be an Old Covenant field of Christian parenting, but always over that is the New Covenant of grace and mercy and forgiveness when they have come to faith in Christ, and their sins are forgiven, and they know they're not justified by works but by faith in Christ alone. And so we have to blend those two together. As Christian fathers, we can say, like Joshua does. As for me and my house, we're going to do X. So we don't practice religious freedom in our home, our kids are not free in that area, and there's going to be disciplines in others, but we want to bring them into the New Covenant, a transformation by the Spirit that only God can do where they love the Law of God, they love Christ and they're following. That's the mystery. Now, when they sin, like in the Old Covenant, we're going to discipline them. There's going to be the rod of various types, both physical and metaphorical. We believe in that, think it's biblical. It says in Hebrews 12:6: "The Lord disciplines those he loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son." But as the children grow older, there's going to be more and more counseling, more and more words spoken. More and more entreaties and persuasion and reasoning that happens as it should. The Word Fully Equips Parents Well, obviously there's a lot more we can say about Christian parenting but this is what the verse says. “Do not exasperate your children, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Ultimate goal, saturating them with the Scripture. 2 Timothy 3:15, “How from infancy, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Top priority is saturating them with the Gospel, but then the Word of God takes them beyond their conversion. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Sounds like parenting to me, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. They're ready for their career to provide for families to raise their children themselves, they're ready, also, for any good works they would do in the church with their spiritual gifts, they're just made ready. And the Word of God can do that. The Goal: Marks of Regeneration Now, with the remaining time that I have, I want to talk about marks of regeneration. How can you know that your child is born again? What are we praying toward, what do we want to see? They come in illiterate and un-lingual, or whatever that word is, from the hospital. Cute except at 3:00 in the morning, not so cute, but they're cute. And then they start growing, and you've got this incredible dimmer switch going on, from darkness to full light of day. And this dimmer switch just keeps getting brighter and brighter. If we're talking about spiritual things, hopefully, that's what we want to see, but how do we know, how can we tell if our children are born again? Now, this list of marks of regeneration, which I've given you in your bulletin, are good for adults too. You want to see these things in adults. If you don't see these things in yourself, you're not born again. Signs of True Regeneration But in terms of applying it to the children, first we want to see in our children love for God and for Christ, a heart attraction toward God, they love God and Christ. How do you know? Well, you can never know what their heart is, but you see their actions and you hear their words. And the Bible says, "Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks," so they're going to speak words of love toward God and toward Christ. Secondly, love for other Christians, 1 John, is big on this. We love the brothers and sisters in Christ, so we want to see in our children are developing love for the Church, and for other Christians, and they love Christian fellowship. They love being with other boys and girls who love Jesus. They love being with older people in the church who love Jesus, they just enjoy fellowship, they enjoy church. Thirdly, growth and obedience to God. They are obeying the Law, not to earn their forgiveness, but because the Word of God is right and they want to see this pattern of obedience. They're obeying God and His commandments. They love God. This is love for God, that we obey His commands. And so, there's a sense of love for the commands of God. And fourthly, love for God's Word, they delight in God's Word. So, practically, you're going to come in and you're going to see your kids, you come in the door, in their bedroom and you find them reading the Bible, just because they want to. And when you have family devotions, they're eager, they're leaning in, their faces are lit up, they ask questions, they answer questions, they're into it. Not detached, not distant, not bored, but they're into it. They love God's Word, and so they read it. Fifthly, there's a sense of conviction of and the hatred for personal sin. They feel that they are sinners. And not only horizontally like they're grieving over getting caught and having to do the punishments, that's normal. But there is a vertical aspect in which they are grieved at hurting Jesus for their sins. They're sad about that. And it bothers them to sin against such a loving God, and they see the sin in their lives as the problem between them and God, and they know that. Sixthly, they are able to actually refuse some temptations. They're starting to fight sin. They're starting to fight temptations, and to kill them and put them to death. They're able to overcome patterns of laziness, or sassiness, or disobedience, and they're starting to grow in those areas. And along with that, seventh, sacrificial good works, they're able to find ways to serve other people. You're seeing those patterns of good works in your kid's lives. And number eight, they're able to explain the Gospel. We can sit down, and they can talk to you, and they can tell you, God, man, Christ, response. That God created the world and gave us laws by which we are to live. Secondly, we are as humans created in the image of God for a relationship with God but we've sinned and we've broken God's laws. And that thirdly, God sent Jesus into the world. Son of God, Son of Man, lived a sinless life, died on the cross in our place, so that we might receive a gift of righteousness. And that He was raised from the dead, and that we believe that the death and the resurrection of Jesus is enough to forgive our sins. And that we don't have to do any good works, but simply by faith in Christ, we can have the gift of forgiveness and eternal life. Then you'd be able to explain that. Now, I know it's going to be children language, but it's just like the dimmer switch. It goes brighter and brighter, and they get sharper and sharper in their understanding and they're able to explain it. And then finally, internal conviction that they actually are God's children. They have a sense, they just know that they're born again. They have a joy from that and a sense of hope. So, there's a lot of things more I could say about that. A Word About Child Baptism I want to finish my sermon today by a few words about child baptism. This is a very interesting and passionate topic for many, many in the church and our own church has been through a long journey on this. We've been thinking about child baptism for a long time. Now, I want to begin by saying I'm not talking about infant baptism, I hope you know that. We Baptists don't believe in infant baptism. I was raised Roman Catholic. I was baptized, I don't remember it at all as an infant. And many churches after the Reformation, did not thoroughly break with some of those aspects, etcetera, that the Roman Catholic Church and Greek orthodox did. And many others have followed the same paedobaptist approach, baptizing infants, Methodists, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians but we Baptists are what we call, credobaptists. We will only baptize people who give a credible profession of faith in Christ. So, we believe in water baptism's command as part of the Great Commission. We don't think you have to be water baptized to go to Heaven. If you should come to a genuine, saving faith in Christ and later that afternoon or the next day, get in a tragic accident and die, you're not going to be at any disadvantage. You don't have to be water baptized to be saved, but you have to be water baptized to be obedient. And somewhere in there, everyone who is born again, as they have opportunity should be water baptized and should not refuse water baptism. Is the Child Ready for Baptism? Now, we need, as we come to the question of child baptism to realize the particular difficulties of the issue, and the difficulty comes from standing on the outside looking in, to try to discern what's actually happening in the heart of a child. How do we know? Now, especially if they're growing in a good, godly, Christian home, they're going to be super saturated with the Gospel from childhood, infancy. They're going to learn the language of the Gospel, they're going to speak it, they're going to be set as they should be. This is what fathers and mothers should be doing. Children learn language by parading back expressions they don't even understand. Somewhere along the line after that, they learn what the expression means, and come to a sharper understanding. Like when a child says to me, that Jesus died to save our sins. Well, my little meticulous engineering mind says, "That's not true. Our sins were doing just fine. They didn't need any saving. He died to save us from our sins, and from the condemnation that comes," Now, you're saying, "Are you being too precise?" It's like, that's not the issue. The issue is, what does the child understand? And so, it's right for them to learn phrases and parrot them back, and then come into a fuller understanding across the years. That's right. That's what child education is all about. That's what our church wants to see happen in our Sunday School Program, Bible For Life. We want to see it happening in every Christian home but the problem is standing from the outside in, we don't know what's generally going on. Now, let's talk about the Sinner's Prayer. The standard, Baptist approach and decades before and recently, I would say this way, is that you would basically lead your child to pray as soon as possible, a Sinner's Prayer, "Jesus forgive me for my sins. Thank you, you died on the cross, etcetera." And then, relatively soon after that, to bring them for water baptism, and then teach them, "Once saved, always saved." That combination has been devastating to many Baptist churches. You end up with lots of baptized church members who never come to church and who thinks they're saved. That's a problem, but I want toddlers and 5-year-olds and 7-year-olds to learn the Sinner's Prayer because they're going to sin. And I want them to be brought to Jesus when they sin. I'm not going to say, "Well, we get to Jesus by and by." I want them to know right away that sinners should go to Jesus when they sin. So, they're going to be praying, "Jesus forgive me. I'm sorry. Will you please accept me?" Etcetera. Where does water baptism fit into that? When does that happen? I would say, every Baptist family waits at some point. It’s not as soon as they pray their first Sinner's Prayer, they're going to be water baptized. Everyone waits. Question is, how long? We also know that children, biblically, are immature in their thinking. It's not an insult, it's just true. “When I was a child, I thought like a child, talked like a child, reason for it like a child. When I became a man and put childish ways behind me.” Also, 1 Corinthians 14:20, Paul says, "Brothers, stop thinking like children." He's not trying to insult children, he's saying, "Grow up and be mature in the way you think" So, children think immaturely. There's no harm in it. We believe, the elders believe, that children can come to a genuine faith in Christ, at a very early age. A genuine faith in Christ. Can I say that again? Because it just keeps coming up again, and again. As we struggle on to child baptism, I just keep hearing this. I want to say again, "We believe, with all of our hearts that children, boys and girls, can come to a genuine saving faith in Christ at a very early age." But I'm going to add this statement, "It's just very hard to tell for sure from the outside looking in." It's real. God knows it. He knows that He sent the Holy Spirit into that child, He knows it, but we don't know. What we've got are their words and their actions looking on the outside. So, when we come to that dimmer switch, as we're cranking that dimmer switch and it's getting brighter, and brighter, somewhere in there, they should be water baptized. Somewhere in there. When should that be? Now, some Christian parents are readier at an earlier age to see their children baptized than others. Some may become even emotional or indignant if the elders want to wait a little longer as a matter of policy. Sadly, some in some churches on this issue have left because they've disagreed so vigorously over this with the leadership of the church. And that's sad. I don't think anyone should ever leave a church over child baptism, ever. My personal conviction. Others are more peaceful about it, understanding the elders' desire to see all children water baptized at some point, and are just seeking to be wise. We have a feeling we're going to err somewhere. We're going to err on this side or that side. because we don't know exactly when they're generally born again. So, there's going to be danger. If we have very little filtering and just instantly baptize kids as soon as they make some profession of faith in Christ, you're going to have the problem that I described earlier. A lot of times the kids don't even remember their baptism at all. It's too young. There's going to be a downward spiral, if you go from twelve, accept baptism at twelve then goes to eleven then ten, nine, eight, seven, six and it just keeps going lower. Some state conventions have baptismal statistics, Southern Baptist churches, from zero to five years. Five years old or younger? Hard for me to accept that. So, there's going to be danger in that side, but then the other side, there's going to be a danger if you wait too long. The kids aren't going to want to be baptized. They get older and older, going through the youth group. They don't get baptized, they're not interested in it at that point, they haven't really been encouraged. There can be a bit of a works thing happening in the family where, "We'll wait to see how many good works you can do, and then we'll know whether you're born again," that can be dangerous. So, there's danger all around. FBC’s Stance on Child Baptism Now, let's talk, finally, about the FBC elders' approach in policy, and what we're trying to do. Until a few years ago, the feel in the church here, I guess, was to just not bring kids around for baptism at all. And now, I think there were cases from time to time, but in general, people just didn't bring kids for baptism. We didn't have any overt policy, but handled more shepherding, that there tended to be a waiting. From my personal development, Mark Dever has been a big influence on me at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, they basically exhort kids to be out of the family, out of the home, on their own, like in college to be water baptized. That's far to one side of this equation. I don't hold those convictions, but what we found was in the general field of, don't bring the kids for baptism, then none of the youth were getting baptized. Kids were going right straight through until they were 18 and never really being challenged with water baptism. We didn't feel comfortable with that. We want to make a change. We were concerned about the downward spiral, so we wanted to set a guideline. So, the elder is, about two years ago, I think, said that, "We wouldn't consider water baptism for children under the age of twelve." Where did the number twelve come from? I don't know. Jesus was twelve when He was in the temple. I don't really know. And therein lies the problem, there was no biblical support for the standard. Now, we weren't claiming there was a Biblical support for the standard, but it became a lightning rod of controversy. When actually, we're trying to encourage youth baptism. It's ironic the way that thing goes. The elders, recently have pulled the twelve off the table. We don't see Biblical support for that. So, what's left? You know what's left? The marks of regeneration. That's what's left. So, I taught them carefully to you today. I can say more, but I'm running out of time, almost out of time. I want you parents, to train your kids toward those marks of regeneration, saturate them. In this case, unlike the SAT or other standardized exams, we want you to teach to the test, say, "Alright kids, this is it." Where's my bulletin? Alright. This is what we're looking for in you. Please do these things, they're all in the Bible. And then you're going to teach toward them, and train toward them, and get them ready to articulate God, man, Christ, response and get them ready. And when they're able to come, and sit with an elder, and give a credible defense of their faith in Christ and they'll be ready for water baptism. We're not going to say an age. We think it's not likely to be much before 12. There could be exceptions but my feeling is, there's no rush here, there's no rush to wait. We're not discouraging anyone, we're encouraging kids to come to faith in Christ. We want parents to saturate their kids with these things and teach them about water baptism. Tell them that we want them to be water baptized when they're ready, we want them to the members of the church. And then Kevin's done some great work with our youth ministry, in really urging youth to be baptized, and we've seen more, and more youth baptisms recently, which we think is really fantastic. If on some point you might think differently, the elders are happy to talk to you about it. We basically don't have an age below which. But it would have to be a really rare kid and the circumstances, just for us, it's hard for us to see a child baptism. We're really pointing more towards youth baptism. We want to see young people baptized. Another issue with children is that they can't count the cost, it's hard for them to know what it's going to cost to be a Christian, but teenagers have no problem with that, they know very well, it's going to be costly to be a Christian. I think that's pretty vital. We also want to see the kids fully understand symbolism, that they understand the symbolism of water baptism, and how it symbolizes what's happened in their heart, inside. So anyway, like I said, the elders are happy to talk to any of you folks on these things. You bring your kids and we'll talk to them, but parent and prepare them toward the marks of regeneration. Prayer Close with me if you would in prayer. Father, thank you for the time that we've had to look at parenting it's just so much we can talk about. I Thank you, oh, Lord, for the grace that you've given us in Christ. And I ask, oh, Lord that you'd strengthen each of us, who are Christian parents to be faithful, to prepare our kids for eternity and for life. Life in this world and for eternal life beyond. Lord, give us strength in this high calling. Help us to be faithful in Jesus' name. Amen.