Podcast appearances and mentions of Pleasant Street

The importance of being Pleasant is not to be dismissed, You may think it means being a pushover, but I disagree, It can sometimes take far more strength than just making a fist, Because it requires you to have empathy to a significant degree. [full text below] Ep. 403 - Pleasantly Happy We begin as always  with the Happy Creed. We believe in Happy,  in Balance and Growth,  of being Mindful and Grateful, Compassionate and Understanding. Yowza Haha My Happy Friends! The importance of being Pleasant is not to be dismissed, You may think it means being a pushover, but I disagree, It can sometimes take far more strength than just making a fist, Because it requires you to have empathy to a significant degree. I encounter people in bad moods on a regular basis, And I sometimes want to tell them to go take a flying leap, But that just pollutes the waters of my mental oasis, Resulting in nothing more than a psychological garbage heap. But being Pleasant, on the other hand, can sometimes work wonders,  Once they realize I'm unflappable, they can stop pushing quite so hard, They might even apologize for their attitude and their blunders,  And then I get to be the bigger person and someone they can't disregard. I grew up on a street that provided access to the cemetery in my town, They called the street Pleasant to make it seem nice and quiet, I imagine a name like Cemetery Lane wouldn't have had the same renown, And if it was called Death Road, the town parade might've turned into a riot. But Pleasant Street wasn't always peaceful, there were fights, funerals and speeding cars, We lost more than one beloved housepet over the years to drivers not paying attention, And there were dog attacks, rivalries and acts of bullying that left lasting scars, As well as forms of cruelty beyond levels of above-average comprehension. So I learned to be tough because in my house you needed a thick skin, And yet I didn't want to grow up to be cold, bitter, angry, hateful or afraid, So I left Pleasant Street, while still carrying some of those feelings deep within, And ridding myself of that pain has been something of a lifelong crusade. Who else but such a one as that would do a weekly podcast about Balance and Growth, Trying to come to terms with the unpleasantness that can sometimes bubble forth, But I don't just want to pretend to be Pleasant, which can come off as fake and forced both, I try to find real reasons to actually feel and be Pleasant letting Happy be my True North. Used to be that behind my smiling mask was a face of pure vengeance and hot fury, I couldn't fight all the Mean People at once, so I sat brooding, plotting their eventual demise, Someday, I vowed, when least they expected it, I would be their executioner, judge and jury, And then I'd laugh, and bury them so deep that no one would ever catch wise. But the further I got from Pleasant Street, the more I could let those bad old feelings go, And as I did I realized that underneath all that darkness there was light, I remembered the days long before bullies ever came into my life and brought me low, Back when people arguing who could claim to be my best friend was the only fight. I was Pleasant and Happy, and what I once was, I was sure I could be again, I just had to strip away all the old bad habits, aggression and grudges I was holding on to, Not for anyone else, but for myself, I needed to decide there and then That I would aim for Balance and Growth in all that I say and do. It took me a minute, and it's not smooth sailing always even now, I've had to suffer through heartbreak and tragedy, near death experiences and loss, But even when I get stressed I still find causes to smile and you want to know how? I remember that Happy comes from within, and knowing that makes me my own boss. Haha Yowza

In this episode of What Makes You Wonderful, we're thrilled to have a conversation with event coordinator Matt Ditchen about his exciting upcoming event, Art House. Matt shares why he decided to get involved with a project to showcase a diverse range of artworks created by local artists. This event marks his first art show, and his primary objective is to provide a welcoming platform for artists to display their creations and feel truly appreciated. Art House is this Friday, June 7, 2024, from 6-9 p.m., at The Co-Op, located at 131 Pleasant Street, Morgantown. You can also find out more information on Instagram here: @art.house.wv  

 "The sunshine reminds you of concreted skiesYou thought you were flyingBut you opened your eyesAnd you found yourself fallingBack down to yesterday's liesHello, Pleasant Street"Please join me on our virtual Pleasant Street, joining us are David Crosby, Fred Neil, Joni Mitchell, The Doobie Brothers, Eagles, Jackson Browne, Jethro Tull,  Dave Mason,  Peter Green, John McLaughlin, William Ackerman, Trevor Gordon Hall,  Van Morrison,  John Mayall, Jean-Luc Ponty,  Jack Bruce,  Eric Clapton,  Baker Gurvitz Army,  Al DiMeola,  Rodrigo y Gabriela, The Beatles and Tim Buckley.

801 Pleasant Street - 9,950, 1,334 SF (built in 1973), from Courtney C. Smith III to Helena Ornberg. 5200 Futura Avenue - 0,500, 1,182 SF (built in 1970), from Gary W. and Gail L. McVay Trustees to Cole Schraitle. 900 East Washington Street - 0,000, 1,540 SF (built in 1975), from Lewis Ray Bolton Trustee to Stephanie Wright McKaig and Jamie Calton. 8009 Grassmount Court - 2,000, 1,376 SF (built in 2001), from Virginia L. Clarke and Alice A. Talmadge to Emily Kucklick. 2112 Bromby Street - 5,000, 960 SF (built in 1986), from Ashley L. Williams to Colleen Miehm....Article LinkSupport the show

In this episode of The Active Advisor podcast, hosts Bryan Moore and JR Shields, CETF, of Harbor Capital are joined by Taylor Nissi, CFP®, CTLC®, Partner at Pleasant Street Wealth Advisors, a family-owned financial planning and wealth management company. The conversation cuts across multiple financial and wealth management touchpoints. Join them as they discuss: Benefits of independent wealth management companies The client persona at PSWA Key attributes of successful financial planners Tips for financial planners wanting to go independent Share advice for upcoming financial management professionals

A 24-year-old Henrico man surrendered himself to Henrico Police Monday in connection with the shooting death of a 37-year-old county man in Highland Springs Sunday night. Thristian Xavier Greene walked into the Henrico County Sheriff's Office at about 2:45 p.m. Monday to turn himself in, according to police. He now faces a second-degree murder charge and a charge of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He is being held without bond at the Henrico Jail West facility. The shooting, which took place in the 700 block of Pleasant Street at about 8 p.m. Sunday, claimed the life...Article LinkSupport the show

A 37-year-old Henrico man was shot and killed on the night of April 23, and Henrico Police are seeking the public's help to identify his killer. Trevell Hosea Archer was shot in the 700 block of Pleasant Street in Highland Springs at about 8 p.m. Several people called 911 to report the shooting. Archer was taken to a local hospital, where he later died. His death remains and active police investigation, and detectives are asking anyone with home security cameras that may have captured the suspect or vehicle to come forward. Anyone with information should call Detective Egan at (804)...Article LinkSupport the show

The complete audiobook is available for purchase at Audible.com: voicesoftoday.net/psm The complete audiobook is available for purchase at Audible.com: voicesoftoday.net/psm Completely Psmith By P G. Wodehouse Narrated by Graham Scott The complete career of the immaculate Psmith! First, as fellow lost lamb with cricket prodigy Mike Jackson at Sedleigh school; then shaking up the world of commerce in his genial efforts to reform boorish bank manager Mr Bickersdyke; and later converting twee family periodical 'Cosy Moments' into a crusading yellow journal, in pursuit of the bashful owner of New York's notorious Pleasant Street tenements. And finally following distressed damsel Eve to Blandings Castle - seat of fluffy-minded peer Lord Emsworth - in the guise of an absconded Canadian poet, and (from the best of motives) becoming embroiled in a plot to steal Lady Constance Keeble's fabulous diamond necklace...

Have you ever wondered where the relaxing sounds you listen to come from?  When you take this Journey of Relaxation with me you will know exactly where and when it was recorded.These relaxing sounds are coming to you from Pleasant Street beach on September 14, 2021 at 2:20 pmGo see the pictures at Journeyofrelaxation on TikTok, Instagram, FB and YouTube.Please help more people find this by rating or reviewing and liking or sharing with your friends or a random stranger or an enemy. Please tell everyone.New intro Support the showTake a moment to find the beauty of nature every day,Duchess of the DunesTikTokFacebookYouTube

Recently (Summer 2022) the Tilden House in Canton, MA had an archeological group look at artifacts and sift sand looking for more clues on how people lived at this 1725 home located on Pleasant Street (across from the "Rez"). Canton Community Tv's Tim O'Connor visited the site and interviewed those supervising the dig. 

Claremont Police Chief Mark is here as his retirement is quickly coming fast.  Next week is his final week.  He talks about wrapping up things, Brent coming next week, how the transition of power will take place, and more.  Plus we talk gardens, drought, my dishwasher is busted, who in Star Wars we are, the drug bust last week, Pleasant Street is almost complete, and various other topics.

Chief Chase and I look back at the great parade in Claremont for the Stevens Alumni Weekend, talk about the Pleasant Street project, the new apartment building in Claremont, parking downtown, look back at old stores in Claremont, where we used to buy our old tapes, the drug bust in Claremont, Claremont PD going viral online, police commission meeting tonight, and much more.

Guest Lisa Sears' is the embodiment of our podcast themes; connection, community, conversation and art. She's also a hoot.    Artist and curator of the recent Lines Connecting Lines exhibit, Lisa has so much to share. Discover behind the scenes insight into how this collaboration came together. Learn about Lisa's passion for curating inspiration, her artistic process and what inspires her to create.    Inspire, create, do. We are all artists. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Including yourself. Lisa L. Sears is a fine artist creating paintings and drawings in water-based media on paper and canvas. She earned her BFA in studio art at the School of Visual Arts, University of North Texas, with additional painting and photography study at University of Texas and mixed media painting at Art New England through MassArt. Her work has been described as symbolic, mythic, emotional, colorful, dream-like and nightmarish, which mixed all together might equal the moniker “whimsical depression.”  Dedicated to making art available to the community, Sears has been involved in Malden public arts projects including several years with Windows Art Malden, the Switchbox Project, “Pictures at an Exhibition Reframed” (a free piano concert and art exhibit organized by Malden Creates), and a recipient of a Malden Cultural Council grant for “Lines Connecting Lines”— a collaboration between area poets and artists—which she created and curated. Additionally, she was involved in the workings of Malden Pops Up, and participated in its later restructuring as The Gallery Inc., serving as Exhibit Coordinator and Curator for six-months. She has also enjoyed exhibiting her work locally at Malden Public Library and UMA Gallery. Sears is once again involved with Malden arts through The Gallery@57 on Pleasant Street in Malden. Lisa Sears' Art on FB

Chief Mark Chase is here as we talk about a whoel bunch of random stuff like guns, hunting, fishing, having 8-tracks, the Claremont Airport, Stevens Alumni Weekend's parade, Pleasant Street project and more.

The Appalachian Soul Man Returns for a new season of interviews and great West Virginia music. This week Aristotle Jones grooves out to brand new singles by Megan Jean's Secret Family, and Jeff Grable. The Feature Artist of the Week is D-Mop and Davis Kimble of the Rock and Funk Fusion band Intoxicated Zen, Winners of the Summer Camp Festival Battle of the Bands at 123 Pleasant Street in Morgantown WV.

Chief Chase is here as we talk about the Pleasant Street project,  Spring returning , driving in cities, the arrest last week with the Claremont / Newport police depts, and more.

Claremont Police Chief Mark Chase is on as we talk about ATV's, riding ATV's on the roads & trails, the Pleasant Street project is back in action this Spring, memories of Claremont, the smokestack discussion, frauds, and more.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Good morning, welcome to Mosaic. My name is Jan, one of the pastors, along pastor Shane and pastor Andy. If you're new or visiting, we'd love to connect with you, we do that through the connection card in the worship guide. If you fill it out legibly, you can redeem it at the welcome center for a gift and then we'll also send you another gift in the mail, just to say thank you for coming out. Today is a big Sunday at Mosaic, we have baptisms after this service, three baptisms. Praise God for that, we're excited. And then we have our first quarterly members meeting which is a potluck. Praise God. It's the first one in a long time and it's going to be delicious because you're bringing the food.And if you're not a member and you're like, "ohhh..." You can become a member just not today and no, you can't come. Don't even go downstairs, don't be tempted. But there's a membership class on March 20th which is the first step to becoming a member. So you can, in lieu of coming today, register for that. It's 1:00 to 3:00 PM with lunch provided, please do register, send an email to admin@mosaicboston.com. We love membership at Mosaic. It's important, it's biblical. It's crucial for the body to grow in holiness and righteousness together as we hold each other accountable and spur each other on to good works. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word.Heavenly father, we thank you so much that you though you are the great holy God of the universe and yes, we deserve your eternal wrath at the great judgment. We deserve eternal damnation for rebelling against a holy and just God. And you the holy and just God, you figured out a way to remain just and to justify sinners through the wonderful, powerful, tremendous news of the gospel which is the power of God and to salvation. For those of us who are Christians and saved from the judgment that is to come, we thank you, Lord. We had nothing to do with that, it was all by grace through faith. And make us an unabashed unashamed body, just members of God who proclaimed the gospel boldly and courageously because we know how powerful it is and as we do so, Lord, save many people. We pray for revival in the city and beyond in New England and we pray that you spark it through revival in the church.A revival where we love the gospel rooted in the gospel, proclaim the gospel and live in a manner worthy of the gospel as we live by faith because the righteous shall live by faith. We pray, holy God, be honored today, glorified through the proclamation of your word, through the hearing and listening and submission to your word. And empower us by the power of the holy spirit to share the gospel with anyone and everyone who would just listen. We pray all this in Christ's holy name, amen. We're in a sermon series through the book of Romans today, the sermon is on two verses. I was going to say just two verses but I'm not going to say that word just because these are some of the most powerful versus in all of scripture. They encapsulate in themselves the whole idea, the sweeping idea, the argument of the book of Romans and it also encapsulates Christianity in and of itself.The question before us today is how does a person become a Christian? I've been wrestling with this question for 20 plus years and in Boston for 12 plus years. What in the world could take a regular modern New Englander in 2022 who's just pagan. And when I use the word pagan, it's not derogatory. It's just, you don't know Jesus yet. Just pagan, godless world view, living for themselves. Maybe considers themselves a good person, like, "I'm a good person. I'm just not the religious type or I don't believe in organized religion." Or, "Christianity is just one of the many ways to God." How do you go from that to becoming a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, repenting and believing God. And not just believing in God but believing God, obeying God, getting baptized, joining a community group, becoming a member, serving at Mosaic Boston and tithing.What in the world could take a person from that? Where I want nothing to do with God to you're sharing the gospel with your pagan friends. What in the world would do it? And I particularly think about men, just Boston bros, just New England, Boston bros. They all get the same haircut, they're faded up on the sides. They all smoke Parliaments and go to the Dunkin' Donuts ones for extra sugar, extra cream. Just people like that, just salt of the earth, wearing Timberland to everything. You're wearing your favorite jerseys, Tom Brady Jersey and it's the new one. It's half Bucs, half Pats because you're a traitor just like he is and you're still heartbroken. So, a guy like that, works the job, lives for the weekend, no sexual ethics at all, sleeps around, hooks up, addicted to porn, just statistically speaking.What would it take for a guy like that who's only religion is the Red Sox and he goes there for the communion at Fenway Park, you get a hot dog and a beer and that's your tithe because it's $80. What would it take for that guy to get, say, radically saved? Committing himself to Christ, committing himself to sexual purity? Finding a woman of God, pursuing her, loving her, submitting to Christ, marrying her, loving and leading her as Christ told us, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." What would it take for the guy like that to get a Bible and walk around with it? Because this is how I judge your spirituality, by the size of your Bible. Because if your Bible is less than five pounds, are you even saved? I'm not sure.And then you work a job, you're faithful to your spouse, you raise some godly kids. You tie it to the church, you do everything you possibly can to build the kingdom of God. What would that take? What would it take for a young woman to go from feminism, anti patriarchy, and submit to a man named Jesus Christ? And then if she is to be pursued by a godly man and gets married and submits to her husband as the church submits to Christ and everything, what would it take for whole families to get converted and become Christians? What in the world could do that? What would it take? Well, it takes a powerful working of God, it takes the power of God. It takes a miracle, it's the only way. But what's our role, dear Christians? Our role, what must we do to unleash the power of God in this city?What must we do? Well, what we must do is we must unashamedly proclaim the gospel. Shamelessly, unabashedly, we must believe the gospel, receive God's righteousness as Christs righteousness and live by faith to grow in righteousness. And those are the points but I'll repeat them as we look at these two verses that changed the world, Romans 1:16 and 17, would you look at the text with me? For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith, as it is written: “The righteous shall live by faith.” This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word, may he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Four points. Number one, do not be ashamed of the gospel. Number two, believe the gospel. Number three, receive God's righteousness. And four, live by faith to grow in righteousness. First point, do not be ashamed of the gospel. The context for these verses begins with the stream of thought in verse 14 and 15 of chapter one, I am under obligation, Paul says both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Paul's cradle, the motivation of his whole life, was Jesus paid it all. All to him, I owe. He knew because he was a student of the Hebrew scriptures, he knew what it would take for God to remain just and also justify people. He knew what it would take, he realized that it was Jesus Christ. He alone, it is finished. Jesus paid the whole price. So Paul, his whole life was driven by this indebtedness to God.I have an obligation to God to preach the gospel. God call told me, God commissioned me. It's my job to preach the gospel and he also felt the obligation to people. Greeks and non-Greek, just everybody, he felt the obligation that these people are headed toward eternal damnation. The justice of God is coming, the second coming of Christ is coming. The moment that you die, you stand before God and if you rejected Christ, if you didn't believe in Christ as the only way of salvation, you'll spend eternity in hell apart from God. That's what motivated Paul, He's like, "I owe it to people. I love God. I'm preaching in gospel. I love people. I want to preach the gospel." Because that's what love is, you want the best thing for people. That's why Paul's so eager to preach the gospel. He says, he's passionate, he's zealous, to preach the gospel.And that brings us to our text, verse 16, says for. I'm eager to preach at for because I'm not ashamed of the gospel. For context, Paul was murdered for preaching the gospel. That's how he died, he was executed, most likely beheaded. The founder of our faith was executed for proclaiming the truth to Pilate into the Sanhedrin. All of the apostles were executed for the faith except for the apostle Paul but basically he also was executed for the faith by being exiled to an island called Patmos. They were executed by a government for preaching the news that there's a Lord higher than Caesar. There's a kurios higher than Caesar. That there's only one way to God and then with that, they preached the biblical sexual ethic.Sex is only between a man and a woman in the context of marriage. That there's only two genders and the pure unadulterated gospel is always scandalous, it always has been scandalous to the world. Satan hates it, demons hate it and people rebelling against God who are just enjoying their sin, they hate it. But despite the deadly resistance, despite the venomous hatred, despite the steely cold indifference, mocking, dishonor, scoffing, reproach, Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, he gloried in it, he honored the gospel. He boasted in the Lord and he knew Jesus' warning and Jesus warned his followers. Mark 8:38, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words... Look at these, these are important words. In this adulterous and sinful generation.What's the connection there? The connection is people love their sin and to tell people about the good news, you first got to share the bad news. And people resist the bad news because people love their sin, they don't want to turn from their sin. No matter how great the implications of salvation are and this adulterous, sinful generation. Of him will the son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. So you're a Christian, if Paul mentioned this and you got to ask, why is he bringing up shame? "Paul, we know you're not ashamed, you're the great apostle." Because even he struggled with the temptation, he struggled to shrink back.Even the great Paul, so if he struggled with this temptation of being ashamed of the gospel, how much more so are we? Quick question, are you even in the slightest embarrassed by the gospel? Are you even in the slightest embarrassed by the teachings of Christianity? Are you in the slightest embarrassed of Jesus Christ? That you are a follower of Christ? And if so, why? And the only reason that comes up is you're afraid of the fear of man. You esteem people's opinion of you more than you esteem the opinion of God. It's a desire to be liked and respected by the world and all of that ultimately is just meaningless. The word for ashamed here is to be or become characterized by the feelings of shame, guilt, embarrassment, disgrace, remorse. To experience a painful feeling or sense of loss of status because of some particular event, it's a loss of status."I didn't like that. I might get up and leave and I want everyone to notice. Pastor Jan notices when Pastor Jan is preaching and people get up." And sometimes I know when they're going to the bathroom because they go that way and most of the time they just go right down the middle. They got pissed off and I'm going to continue my sermon because I'm not ashamed of the gospel, what are you going to do? We shouldn't be ashamed of the gospel. We should be ashamed of sin, we should be. We should be ashamed of continuing to live in sin. Roman 6:20-21, for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness but what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life. For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.Unfortunately in much of modern evangelicalism, it feels like Christians are ashamed of the gospel. It's like, "Yeah, the stuff in the old Testament, you don't really have to believe." "Yeah, God's holy but he's loving, just focus on that." "Yeah, God's not as bad as you think he is." And my personal pet peeve is, "Hey, just try Jesus. You got some problems in your life, just try Jesus. It's like sharing an ice cream flavor with someone there's mint and chocolate chip, there's Jesus. Just try Jesus." No, we don't preach try Jesus, we preach repent and believe in the gospel, it's the only hope. Paul wasn't ashamed in the gospel nor was he ashamed of the holy scriptures. Lots of Christians today are fine with the gospel and all of the attention is only on the gospel. That's all they talk about is the gospel. Repent and Jesus forgives you of all your sins and then you can live any way you want.They're ashamed of the holy scriptures. But if you're ashamed of the holy scriptures, there is no gospel apart from the holy scriptures. It's part and parcel, it's the whole cannon, it's the whole council of God, all 66 books. It's all one seamless teaching doctrinally about God, about salvation. There is no power onto salvation apart from God and apart from the scriptures, there is no gospel. That's why Paul says here, I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed because this is power, that's why. And that's what a lot of churches do, that's what a lot of Christians do. They become ashamed, they shrink back from the gospel and they shrink back from the power source. A lot of churches, they milk things down, just milk toast, weak sauce, gospel, just not the gospel.And I think for some reason, God has a special calling on this church. Because in the nation, we are in arguably the hardest place to start a church, arguably the hardest place to proclaim the holy scriptures of God. And the harder it gets, I don't know if you noticed, the more high octane, holy scripture, pure unadulterated gospel we give you. The darker everything gets out there, the longer my sermons get, the fewer verses I got, it's just gospel because that's where the power is. The power to change absolutely everything. Mosaic, I've been praying and I said this to my newsletter, I've been praying for us to grow in depth of understanding the gospel, loving the gospel. And I've been praying for us to grow in becoming unashamed of the gospel, just preach it to everybody.Everybody, all your colleagues, just preach to the gospel. Just get to the point where you do get fired. Preach to your boss on the way out. HR, a little debrief, just preach the gospel and then start your own business so you can have freedom preach to gospel to everyone, just everyone. Everyone hates on a home service pros where they just put the gospel on their truck and they're like, "Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation." And, most of them, they're not Americans and they just don't care. They're just on a bash because everyone needs home service pros so you don't care what your plumber is going to say to you when he's saving your life so he just preaches the gospel. So, here's my specific prayer. I see the challenges long term of preaching the gospel here, I see it.You see it with Canada, you see it with freezing bank accounts, you just see it. There is a law now in Canada where if I preach the sermon, I'm going to preach in two weeks about biblical sexuality, I would be arrested for preaching that sermon in Canada. You don't think that's coming here? This is why I'm preaching this sermon at the second service because my wife's not here. If that comes, I don't care. What I do care about is us having a space to meet to continue ministry when we get booted from our lease. That's why my real prayer is for us to share the gospel with our landlords because scripture says to the Jew first and also to the Greek, we just share the gospel to them and then we don't have to pay them rent and all of a sudden we're one church, man, that's how we spark revival.So I have a specific prayer request. I am praying that we double this year. I'm praying that we, as a church, double this year, double in everything. Double the people attending, double people getting saved, double our community group attendants, double our community groups, double our membership, double our budget, double everything. And I think this is the year and you know why? Because it's 2022. And this Tuesday, which sometimes is pronounced two's day is 2/22 so you got a 2/22/22 and it's a Tuesday. So I think the stars are aligning. God's like, "I want the whole church to pray for us to double." I think so. Some people, when I say stuff like that, they're like, "I think he's nuts." I'm not nuts, I actually believe. And I read scripture and I see that they do stuff and I'm like, "I just want to do that."That's why I started at church, that's why we moved... So this year, the Lord led me to fast. I don't know if you've noticed, some people are like, "Pastor Jan's been shrinking. Well, what happened to the guy?" I was on a fast. I felt like the Lord said on January 19th, you got to fast. You got to pray and fast. I'm talking about biblical fast, I'm not talking about fasting from Facebook and Netflix. That's not fasting, that's abstaining. I'm talking about fasting which is abstaining from foods for 20 days and it ended last Monday. So the first Romans sermon, I was 19 days no food. I had my Pellegrino's for the electrolytes and I had water. The reason why is because I believed and I was praying, I had extra time, right?If you're not eating or cooking or cleaning up, it's basically two extra hours a day. So I'd wake up every morning. I got two extra hours. For some reason, I live on Pleasant Street on my roof, I see the temple. Literally, I see the temple. I look and the Temple's right there, the dome. And I just pray over the dome, my prophecy, I get all charismatic and I just pray for God to... I was there this morning. I saw the sunlight come up and I'm like, "Yeah, the Lord's with us." So I'm saying all that, I believe that God is going to spark revival in this nation. And I believe God is going to do it here because historically, he always starts in Boston. And I believe it's going to start with us because I know the other churches in the city... I pray for them to grow too in the gospel. But for some reason, we are positioned, I know. So that's why I ask on Tuesday that you pray and also don't be ashamed of gospel, preach it.Man, just preach it. Just everybody, every person you meet, just preach the gospel, just preach the gospel. You know why I say that? Because other parts of the nation, you study church growth and here's how most of it happens. It starts with a church that finds a guy who's really good looking and has a really good looking family and "All right, you're going to be the lead pastor." And it's very fashionable. He wears the skinny jeans, he wears expensive sneakers. He's got the watch. The watch game is nice, perfectly groomed beard, I don't know why. And he holds the mic and screams at people and you start a church. And all of a sudden people from other churches are showing up and you got transfer growth.Well in Boston, there's no such thing as transfer growth because we're one of the biggest churches. So, you want to transfer? What do you want? Park Street closed down and everyone come here. I wouldn't be against it but... Just kidding. What I'm saying is the only way we're going to grow if we were really serious about it is conversion growth. Where people are pagans and they hear the gospel from someone in our church and they get saved, radically saved. So for each of you, your homework assignment for this year is to convert at least one pagan, at least one, that's how we double. If every single one of us converts a... And you're like, "Pastor Jan, do you believe in converting people?" Yeah, that's the whole point of me being up here.If you are not a Christian, I want to convert. I want to proselytize, I want to evangelize. That's my job, that's all of our jobs because we're not ashamed of the gospel. Don't be ashamed of the gospel. There's a lot of Christians that are like, "Yeah, but we're not like those Christians. We're not the fundamentalist." I got nothing wrong about fundamentalists. I like that word, it's got the word fun in it. It's got the word dam in it which is cool because it helps you explain the gospel. Like apart from Jesus, you are going to be damned for eternity and it's got the word mental in it where you have to use your brain to actually learn the truth of the gospel, fundamentalist. And also it depends what your fundamental is, what's our fundamental? It's the gospel so we're not ashamed of the gospel. "What is the gospel?" You ask if you're not a believer. Well, the gospel in a nutshell is euangelion, just means good news but I think the word good is too weak.It's not even good news, it's not great news, it's tremendous news. It's the tremendous news that though we are in sin, we've transgressed the commandments of God, we've rebelled against the holy God, God, out of his great love for us sends his son, God incarnate, Jesus Christ who lives an absolute perfect life morally. Loves God with all of his heart, soul, strength and mind. Loves people as himself and then offers up his whole life as a sacrifice for our sin. On the cross, he atoned for our sin by paying the penalty for it. By absorbing the wrath of God that we deserve for our law break, that's why he cried out, "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?" He was forsaken by God on the cross because he took our sin upon himself. He went through hell on behalf of us. He's buried, resurrects on the third day and he's ascended at the right hand of God, reigning and ruling.And when you repent and believe, that very second, all of your sins are forgiven. Every single one, every sin, every sin you will ever committed, you are forgiven and you become a child of God, your eternity is secure. You know how people say, "I just believe everything will work out." That's not true if you are not a Christian. It's not true. That's a lie. Everything will not work out for you if you rebel and if you reject Jesus Christ. You will spend eternity in hell so that's why my job is repent and believe. Please, just the whole city, just everybody. And share the gospel because how else are we going to fill Fenway Park? How are we going to do that for Easter one of these years? 2024, because I know that's going to be a crazy year so we should have a worship service in Fenway Park, that's my dream. I'll pray about that.Point two, believe the gospel, right? It's not power unless you believe. Romans 1:16. I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The gospel doesn't unleash the power of God, the gospel is the power of God. The more we unleash the gospel, the more the power of God is unleashed. The word for power here is God's power, supernatural power, his strength, his force, his might. Power for what? It's power for salvation. The most absolute, most important thing, any person needs is salvation. And the word for salvation usually in American churches, it's just a watered down understanding of salvation. People are like, "I got saved." Or like, "I walked down the aisle. I checked off a box of a card, I guess I'm saved. God's forgiven me all my sins. I'm chilling."Or like, "God saved me from an addiction or God saved me from a particular troubles." And usually what people mean is salvation from a temporal danger. That's not what Paul is talking about. The biblical doctrine of salvation is primarily eschatological, which just means end times. And what he means is judgment day is coming. God hates evil. God despise sin. He's angry about it. There's a wrath that he has and a lot of people are like, "I don't want to believe in God of Wrath." I do. There's so much evil and wickedness in this world, I pray for the second coming to come as quickly as possible. I do pray for that. I want God's wrath. I can't wait for God's wrath descend upon the world. That's because I'm a Christian and every Christian, if you are a Christian, if you have been saved from the wrath of God, we should be crying out, "Lord Jesus, come." The day of salvation, day of judgment, eschatologically speaking, is one and the same.When Paul thinks about salvation, he thinks about this kind of salvation. Romans 5:9, since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from what? From the wrath of God. It's coming. So this salvation includes deliverance from a final judgment and it includes a restoration of the glory which we once lost. There will be a glorification part of salvation. There's justification, sanctification, glorification, I'll get into that in a second. But we'll when the judgment comes, if you are in Christ, Jesus isn't coming to judge you, Jesus is coming as your merciful savior to redeem you from the corruption of this world. He's going to usher in the new heavens and new earth and by doing so, he's going to restore our bodies.So now our bodies will have no even ability to sin, glorified bodies, no sickness, no aging, just perfectly according to the image of God. You get that in Philippians 3:20 and 21, our citizenship is in heaven. From it, we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. So when Paul thinks about salvation, the doctrine is a threefold doctrine of salvation begins with justification. It continues as sanctification. It ends with glorification. Justification is, I have been saved. The very moment that you repent of your sins, all of your sins are forgiven. You are acquitted, not guilty.Now begins sanctification, and the sanctification process is you growing in sanctus from Latin but it's holiness. If you're growing in righteousness, just a practical righteousness, God gives you the imputed righteousness of Christ and basically, you live, you grow into that close by daily repenting of sin. So you're not earning your salvation, you're working out your salvation as Philippians 1 says. And then when we die or when Christ returns is glorification so there's a past tense, a present possession and a battle and a final salvation. For whom is the gospel? He says for the Jew first and also to the Greek. For Paul to describe this in this phrase, he's talking about the totality of all humanity. Every human being is a sinner and every sinner needs the gospel.It's not a different gospel for the Jew and for the Greek, it's the same gospel for everybody. And Jesus did start with the Jew first. Jesus Christ, I don't know if you know this, was Jewish. He was Jewish. Grew up in Jewish family, a Jewish little boy. Grew up going to the synagogue, grew up going to the temple. He knew the Hebrew scriptures and he was Jewish to fulfill all of the prophecies about the Messiah. Jesus came primarily to minister, to whom? To Jewish people. Jew first and also to the Greek. I find this verse very important and this is kind of how I understand things. I always look for God's fingerprints over our ministry and as he leads but don't you find a little serendipitous where we meet to worship Jesus Christ?I got a Hebrew scriptures behind me and I've got a reminder every single Sunday, the 10 commandments. And you should look at that 10 commandments and be like, "Well, how many commandments did I break this week?" And then repent of that. My third daughter, this week broke five commandments. I know that because my wife literally listed them out to her. You stole, you lied, you dishonored your mother and your father and you did that because you're an idolater, that's number one and you didn't worship Yahweh as God. We're all sinners. We've all transgressed the law of God, Jewish people are not saved any other way. It doesn't matter if you're born Jewish. It doesn't matter how religious you are in following the old Testament, there's no way you can get saved. Take your 10 commandments, Jewish people, look at how many of them you have broken and then ask, "Well, how can there be atonement for my sin?" And a day of atonement is not enough, of a holiday.There is no sacrificial system right now. Read the book of Hebrews, please. And I have a very soft spot in my heart for Jewish people because I grew up in kind of a Jewish town in Cranston, Rhode Island. A bunch of my friends growing up were Jewish. They were not Jewish, they were Jew-ish like Julian Edelman says. And then my roommate in college, freshman year, was Jewish and then he joined the Jewish fraternity called AEPi and I lived with him the second year. And the whole time, I'm trying to share the gospel just even in college, they don't know their own scriptures. Just read your own scriptures. They all point to Jesus Christ and then read the book of Hebrews and you see that all of us need Jesus Christ, it's the same gospel.The word for believes here is very important because in our modern understanding of faith, it doesn't matter if what you believe in is true as long as you hold that belief sincerely. It doesn't matter if you believe in Jesus, doesn't matter if you believe in Buddha, it doesn't matter if you believe in the flying spaghetti monster. It doesn't matter if it's true, that's just your belief. Well, that's not how scripture uses the word faith or belief, pisteuo here, belief is to consider something to be true and therefore worthy of one's trust. God is the object of faith so therefore God says, believe in the gospel. Believe God because it's true. So what do we believe in Jesus Christ? We believe in the historic fact that there was a man named Jesus Christ, that he lived a perfect life, that he was empowered by the spirit, that he died a literal death, that he rose on the third day, a literal resurrection.We believe all that. There were over 500 people that saw him resurrected and that's what explains the growth of the Christian movement so be careful of divorcing faith from truth. That's not saving faith, saving faith begins by saying, I believe God. I believe the gospel. I believe the holy scriptures. What's the connection between the gospel and faith? What releases the power from the gospel to get people to believe? What's that connection there? Well, I got to bring in Ephesians 2:1-5 to show you where people are apart from God. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which he once walked following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when you were dead in our trespass made us alive together with Christ, by grace, you have been saved.And later on, he goes on by grace through faith, you have been saved. But what he's saying is apart from Jesus Christ, apart from the sovereign work of God to save people, people are spiritually dead. A spiritually dead person has no faith to offer God. A spiritually dead person wants nothing to do with God. So Jesus Christ intervenes, God intervenes, when the person is still in a state of spiritual deadness and God gives salvation. God acts upon the sinner while the sinner is still dead and unable to believe. Therefore, the message of the gospel is also the means through which God creates faith, that's why the gospel was power. When the gospel is proclaimed, God isn't saying, "Hey, spiritually dead person. You need to find some faith in yourself to believe in the gospel."No, when the gospel is proclaimed, God uses the gospel to create faith, to summon the faith that's necessary for salvation to happen. God calls people through the gospel but people have to obey that call when they believe. Yes, the gospel summons faith and those who obey the call of God and believe are saved while those who are summoned and do not believe will indeed face the actual wrath of God and judgment. So those who reject the gospel, disobey God. I just broke your brain if you listened. And I'm going to try to fix it. This is the interplay between God's sovereignty and human responsibility. God is sovereign over salvation. We're dead, we can't do a thing but God calls us to repent and believe, huh? The only way this works is if you understand that faith is an act of the will.Faith is an act of the will, you must decide to obey the gospel. You must decide to believe in God. You must decide to repent of your sin, that's on you. And once you do that, we tell you the only way you decide was because God gave you the power to decide. Now, worship him the rest of your life. Incredible humility. Your job is to obey the summons of repent and believe and your job is by the will to say, "Yes, I will believe in God." So this is really important because a lot of people, they just think faith is... I hear this all the time, "You grew up in the faith. God gave you the gift of faith. It couldn't work for a person like me." Well that's if you believe the faith is some magical thing from the outside. Faith is an act of the will. You are to obey the gospel. And when you obey the gospel, faith is created and that's a gift from God.So yes, our responsibility is, we the gospel. God saves us and God gets all the glory. Romans 10:14-17 encapsulates this great. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent as is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news but they have not all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." People are to hear the gospel and what's the gospel that they're to hear? You have to obey the gospel, that's verse 16. It's right there.So in our presentation of the gospel, we don't do the walk down the aisle. We don't do the fill out a card and I don't say accept Jesus into your heart. I just tell everybody, obey God, believe God. Obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. The emphasis there is on the will. You have to activate the will. You have to say, "Yes, I choose God." "Yes, I submit to God." "Yes, I yield to God." "Yes, I believe God." "Yes, I want to obey God." And as you do all of that, God justifies you by grace through faith and you're not saved because of the act of the will, you're saved because God is the one that activated the will. Where do you get the power to believe in the gospel? You get it from the gospel. The gospel is what creates and awakens faith.The gospel is what gives the faith. Faith's not prior to the gospel and depending on the gospel, faith isn't our contribution to the gospel or salvation's a gift. So we have to receive the gift but yes, it starts with us activating the faith and that's all by grace as well. And I hear this all the time, people are like, "Preach the gospel." You want me to preach the gospel? I'm barely hanging on in my faith. Do you know how many problems I have? How much stress? How much work? Where do I get the power to preach the gospel? You get the power to preach the gospel from the gospel. So do you want to be more powerful spiritually? Love the gospel, believe in the gospel, meditate in the gospel, root yourself in the gospel, share the gospel and as you do, you get more powerful in sharing the gospel. That's why the gospel is at the heart of everything we do at Mosaic.Why? It's the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. And then third receive God's righteousness and this is verse 17. For in it, in the gospel, the righteous of God is revealed from faith, for faith. As it has written, the righteous shall live by faith. The word for righteousness here is the same word that's used in other places to talk about justification and it's used as the same word to talk about justice. So it's a status of legal rectitude that satisfies the moral requirements of God's character. And it includes sinners being put right, being put into an upright relationship with God and it includes that God remains just as he justifies the sinner. And this is a very important question, How can a just holy God forgive anybody? If you're standing before judge and you're clearly guilty and the judge is like, "Yeah, but I like you so not guilty." The judge is no longer just.So how's the holy God remain just and holy and yet forgive sinners? How? Well this is what Martin Luther wrestled with because the Catholic church up until the 16th century, what they taught was it's workspace salvation. The only way that you can be saved is by making yourself righteous, by you living a good and moral life and to pay off the debts of your sin. And the reason Martin Luther, the great reformer, who was a monk and he was also a doctor of the law of God. And because he knew God's law so well, he knew that God isn't going to judge him according to his own standards or according to standards of the culture and God's not going to judge him according to other people's standard. No, God is going to judge him according to God's perfect standard.So Luther, for years he wrestled with the fact. He's like, "How can I satisfy the law? I can't." And this is what he writes and put together a study guide that you can get online on the blog or it's in the newsletter in which there's a quote from his commentary. And he says that he hated this verse above any verse because he believed that the righteousness that God was talking about here is the righteousness that God demands from people for them to be saved and that's what the Catholic church taught. That's why in many parts of the world, that's what the Catholic still believes. And this is the difference between Christianity and every other religion, every single other religions workspace salvation's what you do to be made right before God.And then Martin Luther dawned on him as he kept studying this he read Augustine and he realized that the righteousness here is not the righteousness that God demands from people, it's the righteousness that God provides for people. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that's why Luther, when it finally dawned on him when he was awakened and saved, he realized it's an alien righteousness, not his righteousness, That we are saved by grace through faith because of the perfect righteous record of Jesus Christ. And that's why he says that this is from faith for faith. The more you exercise your faith, the stronger it gets but it begins with believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The righteous status for this righteousness is not just acquittal from guilt but it's also the fact that the one acquitted is also regarded as being in full conformity to the moral law.So God doesn't just say not guilty, he also says holy. And that's what justification is, by grace through faith, yes, you're not guilty but God views you as righteous, views you as holy. That's the beauty of the gospel we're given in alien righteousness and this is all throughout the scriptures. I'll just give you a few here. Galatians 2:21, I do not nullify the grace of God for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. So you can't fulfill the law to be pardoned by God. Romans 5:17 for if because of one man's righteousness, death reign through one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, man, Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:9, and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.Or second Corinthians 5:21, but double imputation. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. The very second you believe, this is why the gospel is so powerful. Why I'm not ashamed the gospel, it's the power of God and salvation for everyone who believes. The righteousness of God has revealed from heaven. We forget, the very second you believe God, believe the gospel, repent of sin, turn to... All of your sins, forgiven. God views you as not guilty. You are the child of God. And this is where a lot of people just stop and we're not going to do that, we preach the word. A lot of people stop here and they're like, "Now I don't need to live a righteous life, right? I got a get out of hell of free card. I don't have to do any..."No, that's not how it works. This is what Luther talked about. He's like "Simul justus et peccator" in Latin. He's like, "I'm justified, simultaneously justified," Simul justus... "I am still a sinner." And that's why Paul continues and this is point four that now that you've received the alien righteousness of Jesus Christ, now we are to grow into it. This is point four, live by faith to grow in righteousness. And this is verse 17, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. The righteous shall live by faith is from Habakkuk 2:4. And that verse is quoted three times in scripture here and it's quoted in Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38. And in original context, Habakkuk the prophet is dismayed that God would allow his people to suffer at the hands of pagans.And God comes to Habakkuk and says, you got to keep trusting the promise, keeping God, because the righteous shall live by faith. What unlocks life in your life? What creates flourishing of life in your life? It's the righteous living by faith. This is what true saving faith is. It's a faith that doesn't just save you from the penalty of sin. It saves you from sin, from patterns of sin and it creates in you a desire to be more righteous, true saving faith, changes your life. You believe God, you trust in his word so much that it becomes the most important thing to you. You get to the point where you realize God's word is more important than food. Where you want to study God's word, where you know that it gives you the paths of righteousness, it also gives the power to walk in paths of righteousness because the righteous shall live by faith. So you got to do everything you possibly can to strengthen your faith.The very second you sin, you are a none believer. The reason why you sin, you just forgot to believe in that moment. In that moment, you forgot to believe how holy God is, how much God hates sin. What the penalty sin is, what God did to save you from sin. This is why the gospel is the power of God and salvation. You meditate the gospel in these moments of weaknesses and the temptation where you want to walk away from the Lord. You got to fight for faith and you do that by activating your will and saying, God, I'm going to believe and I know that you're going to bless me and I know that when I honor you, you honor me and this is what changes. So I say that to say this, If we're going to ask God for revival while we're playing around with sin, don't even ask God for revival, don't even do it because you don't believe it.You don't believe it. Do you want the power of God unleashed in this church and in this city? It's going to come with God's holy spirit leading us in ways of righteousness. And if we are playing with sin, then do we even care about things of God? That's what I'm saying. And we're thwarting the power of God. Every single revival starts with a church that loves God's holiness, loves God's word, hungers and thirsts for... Jesus when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Satan comes and he's like, "Look, you have an eaten for 40 days, you're probably kind of hungry. Turn these stones into bread." And Jesus says this, "Man shall now live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."You know what Jesus there is saying? He's not just saying people should believe in God, people say that all the time. No, Jesus is saying to true Christians believe God, believe every word that God has spoken as R.C. Sproul put it. He said, this doesn't require a leap of faith or crucifixion of the intellect, it requires a crucifixion of pride because no one is more trustworthy than God. Matthew 5:6, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. Is that you? Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do you want live a life of righteous? Roman 6:13, do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.Matthew 6:33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. And Hebrews 10:38 and this is important because this is the other time Habakkuk it's quoted, But my righteous one should live by faith if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure. God is saying, if I've given you the righteousness of Jesus Christ, I've imputed it to you and if you shrink back, God has no pleasure in that. And if God has no pleasure in that, God is not going to release the power of the holy spirit through you. He's going to release his discipline and that's Hebrews 12. I say all this because I love you, I want the best thing for you and I want this church to grow and I want the gospel to be proclaimed in power.So final, quick encapsulation of the gospel and you're like, "Can I get a cheat sheet verse for the gospel?" I'll give you a verse, John 3:16. You know that one? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God, he's the greatest lover. So loved, that's the degree. The world, that's the greatest company of people. That he gave, that's the greatest sacrificial act. His only begotten son, the greatest gift. That whosoever, the greatest opportunity. Believeth, the greatest simplicity. In him, the greatest attraction. Should not perish, the greatest promise. But the greatest difference, have the greatest certainty, ever lasting life, the greatest possession. If you're not a Christian today, obey God, believe God, believe in the gospel and Christians do so as well.And I pray that we become a people who are not ashamed of the gospel. Just to everybody, preach the gospel to everybody. Everybody, even the mayor. Preach the gospel, just everybody. Why? Because Romans 1:16 and 17, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith. For faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.Let us pray. Heavenly father, we are so thankful for the gospel. The tremendous news that because of your great love for us, though we were sinners, you sent your son, Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, you are our Lord and I pray that you make us a people that follow you, that walk in steps of righteousness. Make us a people that are righteous because of Christ and pursue righteousness by living lives of faith. And we do pray for revival in this church. We pray for revival amongst the members. We pray for revival for Eddie and everyone who listens. And we pray for revival in this church. We pray for conversions. We pray for people to be regenerated. We pray for eternities to be transformed and we do all this to give you all of the glory and as we receive joy, we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Good morning, welcome to Mosaic. My name is Jan, one of the pastors, along pastor Shane and pastor Andy. If you're new or visiting, we'd love to connect with you, we do that through the connection card in the worship guide. If you fill it out legibly, you can redeem it at the welcome center for a gift and then we'll also send you another gift in the mail, just to say thank you for coming out. Today is a big Sunday at Mosaic, we have baptisms after this service, three baptisms. Praise God for that, we're excited. And then we have our first quarterly members meeting which is a potluck. Praise God. It's the first one in a long time and it's going to be delicious because you're bringing the food. And if you're not a member and you're like, "ohhh..." You can become a member just not today and no, you can't come. Don't even go downstairs, don't be tempted. But there's a membership class on March 20th which is the first step to becoming a member. So you can, in lieu of coming today, register for that. It's 1:00 to 3:00 PM with lunch provided, please do register, send an email to admin@mosaicboston.com. We love membership at Mosaic. It's important, it's biblical. It's crucial for the body to grow in holiness and righteousness together as we hold each other accountable and spur each other on to good works. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word. Heavenly father, we thank you so much that you though you are the great holy God of the universe and yes, we deserve your eternal wrath at the great judgment. We deserve eternal damnation for rebelling against a holy and just God. And you the holy and just God, you figured out a way to remain just and to justify sinners through the wonderful, powerful, tremendous news of the gospel which is the power of God and to salvation. For those of us who are Christians and saved from the judgment that is to come, we thank you, Lord. We had nothing to do with that, it was all by grace through faith. And make us an unabashed unashamed body, just members of God who proclaimed the gospel boldly and courageously because we know how powerful it is and as we do so, Lord, save many people. We pray for revival in the city and beyond in New England and we pray that you spark it through revival in the church. A revival where we love the gospel rooted in the gospel, proclaim the gospel and live in a manner worthy of the gospel as we live by faith because the righteous shall live by faith. We pray, holy God, be honored today, glorified through the proclamation of your word, through the hearing and listening and submission to your word. And empower us by the power of the holy spirit to share the gospel with anyone and everyone who would just listen. We pray all this in Christ's holy name, amen. We're in a sermon series through the book of Romans today, the sermon is on two verses. I was going to say just two verses but I'm not going to say that word just because these are some of the most powerful versus in all of scripture. They encapsulate in themselves the whole idea, the sweeping idea, the argument of the book of Romans and it also encapsulates Christianity in and of itself. The question before us today is how does a person become a Christian? I've been wrestling with this question for 20 plus years and in Boston for 12 plus years. What in the world could take a regular modern New Englander in 2022 who's just pagan. And when I use the word pagan, it's not derogatory. It's just, you don't know Jesus yet. Just pagan, godless world view, living for themselves. Maybe considers themselves a good person, like, "I'm a good person. I'm just not the religious type or I don't believe in organized religion." Or, "Christianity is just one of the many ways to God." How do you go from that to becoming a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, repenting and believing God. And not just believing in God but believing God, obeying God, getting baptized, joining a community group, becoming a member, serving at Mosaic Boston and tithing. What in the world could take a person from that? Where I want nothing to do with God to you're sharing the gospel with your pagan friends. What in the world would do it? And I particularly think about men, just Boston bros, just New England, Boston bros. They all get the same haircut, they're faded up on the sides. They all smoke Parliaments and go to the Dunkin' Donuts ones for extra sugar, extra cream. Just people like that, just salt of the earth, wearing Timberland to everything. You're wearing your favorite jerseys, Tom Brady Jersey and it's the new one. It's half Bucs, half Pats because you're a traitor just like he is and you're still heartbroken. So, a guy like that, works the job, lives for the weekend, no sexual ethics at all, sleeps around, hooks up, addicted to porn, just statistically speaking. What would it take for a guy like that who's only religion is the Red Sox and he goes there for the communion at Fenway Park, you get a hot dog and a beer and that's your tithe because it's $80. What would it take for that guy to get, say, radically saved? Committing himself to Christ, committing himself to sexual purity? Finding a woman of God, pursuing her, loving her, submitting to Christ, marrying her, loving and leading her as Christ told us, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." What would it take for the guy like that to get a Bible and walk around with it? Because this is how I judge your spirituality, by the size of your Bible. Because if your Bible is less than five pounds, are you even saved? I'm not sure. And then you work a job, you're faithful to your spouse, you raise some godly kids. You tie it to the church, you do everything you possibly can to build the kingdom of God. What would that take? What would it take for a young woman to go from feminism, anti patriarchy, and submit to a man named Jesus Christ? And then if she is to be pursued by a godly man and gets married and submits to her husband as the church submits to Christ and everything, what would it take for whole families to get converted and become Christians? What in the world could do that? What would it take? Well, it takes a powerful working of God, it takes the power of God. It takes a miracle, it's the only way. But what's our role, dear Christians? Our role, what must we do to unleash the power of God in this city? What must we do? Well, what we must do is we must unashamedly proclaim the gospel. Shamelessly, unabashedly, we must believe the gospel, receive God's righteousness as Christs righteousness and live by faith to grow in righteousness. And those are the points but I'll repeat them as we look at these two verses that changed the world, Romans 1:16 and 17, would you look at the text with me? For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith, as it is written: “The righteous shall live by faith.” This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word, may he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Four points. Number one, do not be ashamed of the gospel. Number two, believe the gospel. Number three, receive God's righteousness. And four, live by faith to grow in righteousness. First point, do not be ashamed of the gospel. The context for these verses begins with the stream of thought in verse 14 and 15 of chapter one, I am under obligation, Paul says both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Paul's cradle, the motivation of his whole life, was Jesus paid it all. All to him, I owe. He knew because he was a student of the Hebrew scriptures, he knew what it would take for God to remain just and also justify people. He knew what it would take, he realized that it was Jesus Christ. He alone, it is finished. Jesus paid the whole price. So Paul, his whole life was driven by this indebtedness to God. I have an obligation to God to preach the gospel. God call told me, God commissioned me. It's my job to preach the gospel and he also felt the obligation to people. Greeks and non-Greek, just everybody, he felt the obligation that these people are headed toward eternal damnation. The justice of God is coming, the second coming of Christ is coming. The moment that you die, you stand before God and if you rejected Christ, if you didn't believe in Christ as the only way of salvation, you'll spend eternity in hell apart from God. That's what motivated Paul, He's like, "I owe it to people. I love God. I'm preaching in gospel. I love people. I want to preach the gospel." Because that's what love is, you want the best thing for people. That's why Paul's so eager to preach the gospel. He says, he's passionate, he's zealous, to preach the gospel. And that brings us to our text, verse 16, says for. I'm eager to preach at for because I'm not ashamed of the gospel. For context, Paul was murdered for preaching the gospel. That's how he died, he was executed, most likely beheaded. The founder of our faith was executed for proclaiming the truth to Pilate into the Sanhedrin. All of the apostles were executed for the faith except for the apostle Paul but basically he also was executed for the faith by being exiled to an island called Patmos. They were executed by a government for preaching the news that there's a Lord higher than Caesar. There's a kurios higher than Caesar. That there's only one way to God and then with that, they preached the biblical sexual ethic. Sex is only between a man and a woman in the context of marriage. That there's only two genders and the pure unadulterated gospel is always scandalous, it always has been scandalous to the world. Satan hates it, demons hate it and people rebelling against God who are just enjoying their sin, they hate it. But despite the deadly resistance, despite the venomous hatred, despite the steely cold indifference, mocking, dishonor, scoffing, reproach, Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, he gloried in it, he honored the gospel. He boasted in the Lord and he knew Jesus' warning and Jesus warned his followers. Mark 8:38, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words... Look at these, these are important words. In this adulterous and sinful generation. What's the connection there? The connection is people love their sin and to tell people about the good news, you first got to share the bad news. And people resist the bad news because people love their sin, they don't want to turn from their sin. No matter how great the implications of salvation are and this adulterous, sinful generation. Of him will the son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. So you're a Christian, if Paul mentioned this and you got to ask, why is he bringing up shame? "Paul, we know you're not ashamed, you're the great apostle." Because even he struggled with the temptation, he struggled to shrink back. Even the great Paul, so if he struggled with this temptation of being ashamed of the gospel, how much more so are we? Quick question, are you even in the slightest embarrassed by the gospel? Are you even in the slightest embarrassed by the teachings of Christianity? Are you in the slightest embarrassed of Jesus Christ? That you are a follower of Christ? And if so, why? And the only reason that comes up is you're afraid of the fear of man. You esteem people's opinion of you more than you esteem the opinion of God. It's a desire to be liked and respected by the world and all of that ultimately is just meaningless. The word for ashamed here is to be or become characterized by the feelings of shame, guilt, embarrassment, disgrace, remorse. To experience a painful feeling or sense of loss of status because of some particular event, it's a loss of status. "I didn't like that. I might get up and leave and I want everyone to notice. Pastor Jan notices when Pastor Jan is preaching and people get up." And sometimes I know when they're going to the bathroom because they go that way and most of the time they just go right down the middle. They got pissed off and I'm going to continue my sermon because I'm not ashamed of the gospel, what are you going to do? We shouldn't be ashamed of the gospel. We should be ashamed of sin, we should be. We should be ashamed of continuing to live in sin. Roman 6:20-21, for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness but what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life. For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Unfortunately in much of modern evangelicalism, it feels like Christians are ashamed of the gospel. It's like, "Yeah, the stuff in the old Testament, you don't really have to believe." "Yeah, God's holy but he's loving, just focus on that." "Yeah, God's not as bad as you think he is." And my personal pet peeve is, "Hey, just try Jesus. You got some problems in your life, just try Jesus. It's like sharing an ice cream flavor with someone there's mint and chocolate chip, there's Jesus. Just try Jesus." No, we don't preach try Jesus, we preach repent and believe in the gospel, it's the only hope. Paul wasn't ashamed in the gospel nor was he ashamed of the holy scriptures. Lots of Christians today are fine with the gospel and all of the attention is only on the gospel. That's all they talk about is the gospel. Repent and Jesus forgives you of all your sins and then you can live any way you want. They're ashamed of the holy scriptures. But if you're ashamed of the holy scriptures, there is no gospel apart from the holy scriptures. It's part and parcel, it's the whole cannon, it's the whole council of God, all 66 books. It's all one seamless teaching doctrinally about God, about salvation. There is no power onto salvation apart from God and apart from the scriptures, there is no gospel. That's why Paul says here, I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed because this is power, that's why. And that's what a lot of churches do, that's what a lot of Christians do. They become ashamed, they shrink back from the gospel and they shrink back from the power source. A lot of churches, they milk things down, just milk toast, weak sauce, gospel, just not the gospel. And I think for some reason, God has a special calling on this church. Because in the nation, we are in arguably the hardest place to start a church, arguably the hardest place to proclaim the holy scriptures of God. And the harder it gets, I don't know if you noticed, the more high octane, holy scripture, pure unadulterated gospel we give you. The darker everything gets out there, the longer my sermons get, the fewer verses I got, it's just gospel because that's where the power is. The power to change absolutely everything. Mosaic, I've been praying and I said this to my newsletter, I've been praying for us to grow in depth of understanding the gospel, loving the gospel. And I've been praying for us to grow in becoming unashamed of the gospel, just preach it to everybody. Everybody, all your colleagues, just preach to the gospel. Just get to the point where you do get fired. Preach to your boss on the way out. HR, a little debrief, just preach the gospel and then start your own business so you can have freedom preach to gospel to everyone, just everyone. Everyone hates on a home service pros where they just put the gospel on their truck and they're like, "Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation." And, most of them, they're not Americans and they just don't care. They're just on a bash because everyone needs home service pros so you don't care what your plumber is going to say to you when he's saving your life so he just preaches the gospel. So, here's my specific prayer. I see the challenges long term of preaching the gospel here, I see it. You see it with Canada, you see it with freezing bank accounts, you just see it. There is a law now in Canada where if I preach the sermon, I'm going to preach in two weeks about biblical sexuality, I would be arrested for preaching that sermon in Canada. You don't think that's coming here? This is why I'm preaching this sermon at the second service because my wife's not here. If that comes, I don't care. What I do care about is us having a space to meet to continue ministry when we get booted from our lease. That's why my real prayer is for us to share the gospel with our landlords because scripture says to the Jew first and also to the Greek, we just share the gospel to them and then we don't have to pay them rent and all of a sudden we're one church, man, that's how we spark revival. So I have a specific prayer request. I am praying that we double this year. I'm praying that we, as a church, double this year, double in everything. Double the people attending, double people getting saved, double our community group attendants, double our community groups, double our membership, double our budget, double everything. And I think this is the year and you know why? Because it's 2022. And this Tuesday, which sometimes is pronounced two's day is 2/22 so you got a 2/22/22 and it's a Tuesday. So I think the stars are aligning. God's like, "I want the whole church to pray for us to double." I think so. Some people, when I say stuff like that, they're like, "I think he's nuts." I'm not nuts, I actually believe. And I read scripture and I see that they do stuff and I'm like, "I just want to do that." That's why I started at church, that's why we moved... So this year, the Lord led me to fast. I don't know if you've noticed, some people are like, "Pastor Jan's been shrinking. Well, what happened to the guy?" I was on a fast. I felt like the Lord said on January 19th, you got to fast. You got to pray and fast. I'm talking about biblical fast, I'm not talking about fasting from Facebook and Netflix. That's not fasting, that's abstaining. I'm talking about fasting which is abstaining from foods for 20 days and it ended last Monday. So the first Romans sermon, I was 19 days no food. I had my Pellegrino's for the electrolytes and I had water. The reason why is because I believed and I was praying, I had extra time, right? If you're not eating or cooking or cleaning up, it's basically two extra hours a day. So I'd wake up every morning. I got two extra hours. For some reason, I live on Pleasant Street on my roof, I see the temple. Literally, I see the temple. I look and the Temple's right there, the dome. And I just pray over the dome, my prophecy, I get all charismatic and I just pray for God to... I was there this morning. I saw the sunlight come up and I'm like, "Yeah, the Lord's with us." So I'm saying all that, I believe that God is going to spark revival in this nation. And I believe God is going to do it here because historically, he always starts in Boston. And I believe it's going to start with us because I know the other churches in the city... I pray for them to grow too in the gospel. But for some reason, we are positioned, I know. So that's why I ask on Tuesday that you pray and also don't be ashamed of gospel, preach it. Man, just preach it. Just everybody, every person you meet, just preach the gospel, just preach the gospel. You know why I say that? Because other parts of the nation, you study church growth and here's how most of it happens. It starts with a church that finds a guy who's really good looking and has a really good looking family and "All right, you're going to be the lead pastor." And it's very fashionable. He wears the skinny jeans, he wears expensive sneakers. He's got the watch. The watch game is nice, perfectly groomed beard, I don't know why. And he holds the mic and screams at people and you start a church. And all of a sudden people from other churches are showing up and you got transfer growth. Well in Boston, there's no such thing as transfer growth because we're one of the biggest churches. So, you want to transfer? What do you want? Park Street closed down and everyone come here. I wouldn't be against it but... Just kidding. What I'm saying is the only way we're going to grow if we were really serious about it is conversion growth. Where people are pagans and they hear the gospel from someone in our church and they get saved, radically saved. So for each of you, your homework assignment for this year is to convert at least one pagan, at least one, that's how we double. If every single one of us converts a... And you're like, "Pastor Jan, do you believe in converting people?" Yeah, that's the whole point of me being up here. If you are not a Christian, I want to convert. I want to proselytize, I want to evangelize. That's my job, that's all of our jobs because we're not ashamed of the gospel. Don't be ashamed of the gospel. There's a lot of Christians that are like, "Yeah, but we're not like those Christians. We're not the fundamentalist." I got nothing wrong about fundamentalists. I like that word, it's got the word fun in it. It's got the word dam in it which is cool because it helps you explain the gospel. Like apart from Jesus, you are going to be damned for eternity and it's got the word mental in it where you have to use your brain to actually learn the truth of the gospel, fundamentalist. And also it depends what your fundamental is, what's our fundamental? It's the gospel so we're not ashamed of the gospel. "What is the gospel?" You ask if you're not a believer. Well, the gospel in a nutshell is euangelion, just means good news but I think the word good is too weak. It's not even good news, it's not great news, it's tremendous news. It's the tremendous news that though we are in sin, we've transgressed the commandments of God, we've rebelled against the holy God, God, out of his great love for us sends his son, God incarnate, Jesus Christ who lives an absolute perfect life morally. Loves God with all of his heart, soul, strength and mind. Loves people as himself and then offers up his whole life as a sacrifice for our sin. On the cross, he atoned for our sin by paying the penalty for it. By absorbing the wrath of God that we deserve for our law break, that's why he cried out, "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?" He was forsaken by God on the cross because he took our sin upon himself. He went through hell on behalf of us. He's buried, resurrects on the third day and he's ascended at the right hand of God, reigning and ruling. And when you repent and believe, that very second, all of your sins are forgiven. Every single one, every sin, every sin you will ever committed, you are forgiven and you become a child of God, your eternity is secure. You know how people say, "I just believe everything will work out." That's not true if you are not a Christian. It's not true. That's a lie. Everything will not work out for you if you rebel and if you reject Jesus Christ. You will spend eternity in hell so that's why my job is repent and believe. Please, just the whole city, just everybody. And share the gospel because how else are we going to fill Fenway Park? How are we going to do that for Easter one of these years? 2024, because I know that's going to be a crazy year so we should have a worship service in Fenway Park, that's my dream. I'll pray about that. Point two, believe the gospel, right? It's not power unless you believe. Romans 1:16. I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The gospel doesn't unleash the power of God, the gospel is the power of God. The more we unleash the gospel, the more the power of God is unleashed. The word for power here is God's power, supernatural power, his strength, his force, his might. Power for what? It's power for salvation. The most absolute, most important thing, any person needs is salvation. And the word for salvation usually in American churches, it's just a watered down understanding of salvation. People are like, "I got saved." Or like, "I walked down the aisle. I checked off a box of a card, I guess I'm saved. God's forgiven me all my sins. I'm chilling." Or like, "God saved me from an addiction or God saved me from a particular troubles." And usually what people mean is salvation from a temporal danger. That's not what Paul is talking about. The biblical doctrine of salvation is primarily eschatological, which just means end times. And what he means is judgment day is coming. God hates evil. God despise sin. He's angry about it. There's a wrath that he has and a lot of people are like, "I don't want to believe in God of Wrath." I do. There's so much evil and wickedness in this world, I pray for the second coming to come as quickly as possible. I do pray for that. I want God's wrath. I can't wait for God's wrath descend upon the world. That's because I'm a Christian and every Christian, if you are a Christian, if you have been saved from the wrath of God, we should be crying out, "Lord Jesus, come." The day of salvation, day of judgment, eschatologically speaking, is one and the same. When Paul thinks about salvation, he thinks about this kind of salvation. Romans 5:9, since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from what? From the wrath of God. It's coming. So this salvation includes deliverance from a final judgment and it includes a restoration of the glory which we once lost. There will be a glorification part of salvation. There's justification, sanctification, glorification, I'll get into that in a second. But we'll when the judgment comes, if you are in Christ, Jesus isn't coming to judge you, Jesus is coming as your merciful savior to redeem you from the corruption of this world. He's going to usher in the new heavens and new earth and by doing so, he's going to restore our bodies. So now our bodies will have no even ability to sin, glorified bodies, no sickness, no aging, just perfectly according to the image of God. You get that in Philippians 3:20 and 21, our citizenship is in heaven. From it, we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. So when Paul thinks about salvation, the doctrine is a threefold doctrine of salvation begins with justification. It continues as sanctification. It ends with glorification. Justification is, I have been saved. The very moment that you repent of your sins, all of your sins are forgiven. You are acquitted, not guilty. Now begins sanctification, and the sanctification process is you growing in sanctus from Latin but it's holiness. If you're growing in righteousness, just a practical righteousness, God gives you the imputed righteousness of Christ and basically, you live, you grow into that close by daily repenting of sin. So you're not earning your salvation, you're working out your salvation as Philippians 1 says. And then when we die or when Christ returns is glorification so there's a past tense, a present possession and a battle and a final salvation. For whom is the gospel? He says for the Jew first and also to the Greek. For Paul to describe this in this phrase, he's talking about the totality of all humanity. Every human being is a sinner and every sinner needs the gospel. It's not a different gospel for the Jew and for the Greek, it's the same gospel for everybody. And Jesus did start with the Jew first. Jesus Christ, I don't know if you know this, was Jewish. He was Jewish. Grew up in Jewish family, a Jewish little boy. Grew up going to the synagogue, grew up going to the temple. He knew the Hebrew scriptures and he was Jewish to fulfill all of the prophecies about the Messiah. Jesus came primarily to minister, to whom? To Jewish people. Jew first and also to the Greek. I find this verse very important and this is kind of how I understand things. I always look for God's fingerprints over our ministry and as he leads but don't you find a little serendipitous where we meet to worship Jesus Christ? I got a Hebrew scriptures behind me and I've got a reminder every single Sunday, the 10 commandments. And you should look at that 10 commandments and be like, "Well, how many commandments did I break this week?" And then repent of that. My third daughter, this week broke five commandments. I know that because my wife literally listed them out to her. You stole, you lied, you dishonored your mother and your father and you did that because you're an idolater, that's number one and you didn't worship Yahweh as God. We're all sinners. We've all transgressed the law of God, Jewish people are not saved any other way. It doesn't matter if you're born Jewish. It doesn't matter how religious you are in following the old Testament, there's no way you can get saved. Take your 10 commandments, Jewish people, look at how many of them you have broken and then ask, "Well, how can there be atonement for my sin?" And a day of atonement is not enough, of a holiday. There is no sacrificial system right now. Read the book of Hebrews, please. And I have a very soft spot in my heart for Jewish people because I grew up in kind of a Jewish town in Cranston, Rhode Island. A bunch of my friends growing up were Jewish. They were not Jewish, they were Jew-ish like Julian Edelman says. And then my roommate in college, freshman year, was Jewish and then he joined the Jewish fraternity called AEPi and I lived with him the second year. And the whole time, I'm trying to share the gospel just even in college, they don't know their own scriptures. Just read your own scriptures. They all point to Jesus Christ and then read the book of Hebrews and you see that all of us need Jesus Christ, it's the same gospel. The word for believes here is very important because in our modern understanding of faith, it doesn't matter if what you believe in is true as long as you hold that belief sincerely. It doesn't matter if you believe in Jesus, doesn't matter if you believe in Buddha, it doesn't matter if you believe in the flying spaghetti monster. It doesn't matter if it's true, that's just your belief. Well, that's not how scripture uses the word faith or belief, pisteuo here, belief is to consider something to be true and therefore worthy of one's trust. God is the object of faith so therefore God says, believe in the gospel. Believe God because it's true. So what do we believe in Jesus Christ? We believe in the historic fact that there was a man named Jesus Christ, that he lived a perfect life, that he was empowered by the spirit, that he died a literal death, that he rose on the third day, a literal resurrection. We believe all that. There were over 500 people that saw him resurrected and that's what explains the growth of the Christian movement so be careful of divorcing faith from truth. That's not saving faith, saving faith begins by saying, I believe God. I believe the gospel. I believe the holy scriptures. What's the connection between the gospel and faith? What releases the power from the gospel to get people to believe? What's that connection there? Well, I got to bring in Ephesians 2:1-5 to show you where people are apart from God. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which he once walked following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when you were dead in our trespass made us alive together with Christ, by grace, you have been saved. And later on, he goes on by grace through faith, you have been saved. But what he's saying is apart from Jesus Christ, apart from the sovereign work of God to save people, people are spiritually dead. A spiritually dead person has no faith to offer God. A spiritually dead person wants nothing to do with God. So Jesus Christ intervenes, God intervenes, when the person is still in a state of spiritual deadness and God gives salvation. God acts upon the sinner while the sinner is still dead and unable to believe. Therefore, the message of the gospel is also the means through which God creates faith, that's why the gospel was power. When the gospel is proclaimed, God isn't saying, "Hey, spiritually dead person. You need to find some faith in yourself to believe in the gospel." No, when the gospel is proclaimed, God uses the gospel to create faith, to summon the faith that's necessary for salvation to happen. God calls people through the gospel but people have to obey that call when they believe. Yes, the gospel summons faith and those who obey the call of God and believe are saved while those who are summoned and do not believe will indeed face the actual wrath of God and judgment. So those who reject the gospel, disobey God. I just broke your brain if you listened. And I'm going to try to fix it. This is the interplay between God's sovereignty and human responsibility. God is sovereign over salvation. We're dead, we can't do a thing but God calls us to repent and believe, huh? The only way this works is if you understand that faith is an act of the will. Faith is an act of the will, you must decide to obey the gospel. You must decide to believe in God. You must decide to repent of your sin, that's on you. And once you do that, we tell you the only way you decide was because God gave you the power to decide. Now, worship him the rest of your life. Incredible humility. Your job is to obey the summons of repent and believe and your job is by the will to say, "Yes, I will believe in God." So this is really important because a lot of people, they just think faith is... I hear this all the time, "You grew up in the faith. God gave you the gift of faith. It couldn't work for a person like me." Well that's if you believe the faith is some magical thing from the outside. Faith is an act of the will. You are to obey the gospel. And when you obey the gospel, faith is created and that's a gift from God. So yes, our responsibility is, we the gospel. God saves us and God gets all the glory. Romans 10:14-17 encapsulates this great. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent as is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news but they have not all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." People are to hear the gospel and what's the gospel that they're to hear? You have to obey the gospel, that's verse 16. It's right there. So in our presentation of the gospel, we don't do the walk down the aisle. We don't do the fill out a card and I don't say accept Jesus into your heart. I just tell everybody, obey God, believe God. Obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. The emphasis there is on the will. You have to activate the will. You have to say, "Yes, I choose God." "Yes, I submit to God." "Yes, I yield to God." "Yes, I believe God." "Yes, I want to obey God." And as you do all of that, God justifies you by grace through faith and you're not saved because of the act of the will, you're saved because God is the one that activated the will. Where do you get the power to believe in the gospel? You get it from the gospel. The gospel is what creates and awakens faith. The gospel is what gives the faith. Faith's not prior to the gospel and depending on the gospel, faith isn't our contribution to the gospel or salvation's a gift. So we have to receive the gift but yes, it starts with us activating the faith and that's all by grace as well. And I hear this all the time, people are like, "Preach the gospel." You want me to preach the gospel? I'm barely hanging on in my faith. Do you know how many problems I have? How much stress? How much work? Where do I get the power to preach the gospel? You get the power to preach the gospel from the gospel. So do you want to be more powerful spiritually? Love the gospel, believe in the gospel, meditate in the gospel, root yourself in the gospel, share the gospel and as you do, you get more powerful in sharing the gospel. That's why the gospel is at the heart of everything we do at Mosaic. Why? It's the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. And then third receive God's righteousness and this is verse 17. For in it, in the gospel, the righteous of God is revealed from faith, for faith. As it has written, the righteous shall live by faith. The word for righteousness here is the same word that's used in other places to talk about justification and it's used as the same word to talk about justice. So it's a status of legal rectitude that satisfies the moral requirements of God's character. And it includes sinners being put right, being put into an upright relationship with God and it includes that God remains just as he justifies the sinner. And this is a very important question, How can a just holy God forgive anybody? If you're standing before judge and you're clearly guilty and the judge is like, "Yeah, but I like you so not guilty." The judge is no longer just. So how's the holy God remain just and holy and yet forgive sinners? How? Well this is what Martin Luther wrestled with because the Catholic church up until the 16th century, what they taught was it's workspace salvation. The only way that you can be saved is by making yourself righteous, by you living a good and moral life and to pay off the debts of your sin. And the reason Martin Luther, the great reformer, who was a monk and he was also a doctor of the law of God. And because he knew God's law so well, he knew that God isn't going to judge him according to his own standards or according to standards of the culture and God's not going to judge him according to other people's standard. No, God is going to judge him according to God's perfect standard. So Luther, for years he wrestled with the fact. He's like, "How can I satisfy the law? I can't." And this is what he writes and put together a study guide that you can get online on the blog or it's in the newsletter in which there's a quote from his commentary. And he says that he hated this verse above any verse because he believed that the righteousness that God was talking about here is the righteousness that God demands from people for them to be saved and that's what the Catholic church taught. That's why in many parts of the world, that's what the Catholic still believes. And this is the difference between Christianity and every other religion, every single other religions workspace salvation's what you do to be made right before God. And then Martin Luther dawned on him as he kept studying this he read Augustine and he realized that the righteousness here is not the righteousness that God demands from people, it's the righteousness that God provides for people. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that's why Luther, when it finally dawned on him when he was awakened and saved, he realized it's an alien righteousness, not his righteousness, That we are saved by grace through faith because of the perfect righteous record of Jesus Christ. And that's why he says that this is from faith for faith. The more you exercise your faith, the stronger it gets but it begins with believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The righteous status for this righteousness is not just acquittal from guilt but it's also the fact that the one acquitted is also regarded as being in full conformity to the moral law. So God doesn't just say not guilty, he also says holy. And that's what justification is, by grace through faith, yes, you're not guilty but God views you as righteous, views you as holy. That's the beauty of the gospel we're given in alien righteousness and this is all throughout the scriptures. I'll just give you a few here. Galatians 2:21, I do not nullify the grace of God for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. So you can't fulfill the law to be pardoned by God. Romans 5:17 for if because of one man's righteousness, death reign through one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, man, Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:9, and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Or second Corinthians 5:21, but double imputation. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. The very second you believe, this is why the gospel is so powerful. Why I'm not ashamed the gospel, it's the power of God and salvation for everyone who believes. The righteousness of God has revealed from heaven. We forget, the very second you believe God, believe the gospel, repent of sin, turn to... All of your sins, forgiven. God views you as not guilty. You are the child of God. And this is where a lot of people just stop and we're not going to do that, we preach the word. A lot of people stop here and they're like, "Now I don't need to live a righteous life, right? I got a get out of hell of free card. I don't have to do any..." No, that's not how it works. This is what Luther talked about. He's like "Simul justus et peccator" in Latin. He's like, "I'm justified, simultaneously justified," Simul justus... "I am still a sinner." And that's why Paul continues and this is point four that now that you've received the alien righteousness of Jesus Christ, now we are to grow into it. This is point four, live by faith to grow in righteousness. And this is verse 17, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. The righteous shall live by faith is from Habakkuk 2:4. And that verse is quoted three times in scripture here and it's quoted in Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38. And in original context, Habakkuk the prophet is dismayed that God would allow his people to suffer at the hands of pagans. And God comes to Habakkuk and says, you got to keep trusting the promise, keeping God, because the righteous shall live by faith. What unlocks life in your life? What creates flourishing of life in your life? It's the righteous living by faith. This is what true saving faith is. It's a faith that doesn't just save you from the penalty of sin. It saves you from sin, from patterns of sin and it creates in you a desire to be more righteous, true saving faith, changes your life. You believe God, you trust in his word so much that it becomes the most important thing to you. You get to the point where you realize God's word is more important than food. Where you want to study God's word, where you know that it gives you the paths of righteousness, it also gives the power to walk in paths of righteousness because the righteous shall live by faith. So you got to do everything you possibly can to strengthen your faith. The very second you sin, you are a none believer. The reason why you sin, you just forgot to believe in that moment. In that moment, you forgot to believe how holy God is, how much God hates sin. What the penalty sin is, what God did to save you from sin. This is why the gospel is the power of God and salvation. You meditate the gospel in these moments of weaknesses and the temptation where you want to walk away from the Lord. You got to fight for faith and you do that by activating your will and saying, God, I'm going to believe and I know that you're going to bless me and I know that when I honor you, you honor me and this is what changes. So I say that to say this, If we're going to ask God for revival while we're playing around with sin, don't even ask God for revival, don't even do it because you don't believe it. You don't believe it. Do you want the power of God unleashed in this church and in this city? It's going to come with God's holy spirit leading us in ways of righteousness. And if we are playing with sin, then do we even care about things of God? That's what I'm saying. And we're thwarting the power of God. Every single revival starts with a church that loves God's holiness, loves God's word, hungers and thirsts for... Jesus when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Satan comes and he's like, "Look, you have an eaten for 40 days, you're probably kind of hungry. Turn these stones into bread." And Jesus says this, "Man shall now live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." You know what Jesus there is saying? He's not just saying people should believe in God, people say that all the time. No, Jesus is saying to true Christians believe God, believe every word that God has spoken as R.C. Sproul put it. He said, this doesn't require a leap of faith or crucifixion of the intellect, it requires a crucifixion of pride because no one is more trustworthy than God. Matthew 5:6, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. Is that you? Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do you want live a life of righteous? Roman 6:13, do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. Matthew 6:33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. And Hebrews 10:38 and this is important because this is the other time Habakkuk it's quoted, But my righteous one should live by faith if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure. God is saying, if I've given you the righteousness of Jesus Christ, I've imputed it to you and if you shrink back, God has no pleasure in that. And if God has no pleasure in that, God is not going to release the power of the holy spirit through you. He's going to release his discipline and that's Hebrews 12. I say all this because I love you, I want the best thing for you and I want this church to grow and I want the gospel to be proclaimed in power. So final, quick encapsulation of the gospel and you're like, "Can I get a cheat sheet verse for the gospel?" I'll give you a verse, John 3:16. You know that one? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God, he's the greatest lover. So loved, that's the degree. The world, that's the greatest company of people. That he gave, that's the greatest sacrificial act. His only begotten son, the greatest gift. That whosoever, the greatest opportunity. Believeth, the greatest simplicity. In him, the greatest attraction. Should not perish, the greatest promise. But the greatest difference, have the greatest certainty, ever lasting life, the greatest possession. If you're not a Christian today, obey God, believe God, believe in the gospel and Christians do so as well. And I pray that we become a people who are not ashamed of the gospel. Just to everybody, preach the gospel to everybody. Everybody, even the mayor. Preach the gospel, just everybody. Why? Because Romans 1:16 and 17, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith. For faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Let us pray. Heavenly father, we are so thankful for the gospel. The tremendous news that because of your great love for us, though we were sinners, you sent your son, Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, you are our Lord and I pray that you make us a people that follow you, that walk in steps of righteousness. Make us a people that are righteous because of Christ and pursue righteousness by living lives of faith. And we do pray for revival in this church. We pray for revival amongst the members. We pray for revival for Eddie and everyone who listens. And we pray for revival in this church. We pray for conversions. We pray for people to be regenerated. We pray for eternities to be transformed and we do all this to give you all of the glory and as we receive joy, we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

The complete audiobook is available for purchase at Audible.com: voicesoftoday.net/ps29f109 Psmith: Three Novels By P.G.Wodehouse Narrated by Graham Scott Three novels from comic master PG Wodehouse, featuring the incomparable Psmith! First, in 'Psmith In the City', Psmith takes on the world of commerce, in his genial efforts to reform bank manager Mr Bickersdyke. Then, in 'Psmith Journalist', he converts twee family periodical 'Cosy Moments' into the yellowest of yellow journals, and thwarts the New York gangs in his crusade to unmask the owner of the notorious Pleasant Street tenements. And finally, in 'Leave It to Psmith', Psmith pursues distressed damsel Eve to Blandings Castle - seat of fluffy-minded peer Lord Emsworth - in the guise of an absconded Canadian poet; and from the best possible motives embroils himself in a plot to steal Lady Constance Keeble's fabulous diamond necklace...

In July of 2006, Shawn O'Brien was a 34 years old carpenter who didn't show up for work on Saturday, July 22. Around 6 o'clock that night, his sister called 911. She had found him lying in a pool of blood on the floor of his Pleasant Street basement apartment. First responders weren't sure what happened to Shawn. They believed he had possibly had a seizure. Did he fall and hit his head? The police didn't consider the basement a crime scene so they didn't close it off immediately and investigate it. Police would come back at a later time to investigate the basement. The autopsy would be inconclusive but ruled that O'Brien had blunt force trauma to his head. And it didn't seem likely it came from a fall. “This is a classic sign of somebody being assaulted,” said Dr. Timothy Gallagher, an independent forensic pathologist. Gallagher also said, he cannot with one hundred percent certainty rule out that it was an accident, because there are no witnesses to corroborate what exactly happened in his final moments.But, Gallagher does not believe O'Brien just fell to the floor. “Most likely not,” he told the NBC 10 I-Team. “When a person does fall, their injuries are just one-sided, they do not hit the ground and turn over and hit the ground again and turn over and hit the ground again. They hit the ground once, creating one injury,” said the forensic pathologist.The police have two persons of interest. A man named Armand Rouleau rented the apartment to O'Brien. The other person of interest is Armand's then girlfriend, Lynn Hallal.Today, Natalia St. Louis is no longer a teenager. She is an adult who is determined to find out what happened to her father 15 years ago. Please be sure to visit Today, there are no answers about Shawn's death. Natalia St. Louis is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in her father's case. She has a Facebook page titled “Justice for Shawn O'Brien.” And if you know anything about Shawn's death, you can contact the Cranston Police Department at 401-942-2211 with your tips.

Episode 14 of Feel Free to Deviate features Judith Black, but I call her Judy because I know her. Judy was the photography professor at Wellesley College for 25 years, including the 7 years that I worked there. She's a great photographer whose work centers around home and family life, and since Corona she's released two books, Pleasant Street and most recently Vacation, and has become one of the darlings of the photo book scene. She is associated with prestigious institutions of higher learning, has received one of the most competitive grants in the art world, and I bet she even has one of those “World's Best Mom” mugs. I describe her as a compulsive mentor, because she seems to thrive when teaching or guiding people, but she's humble enough to acknowledges the people who supported and encouraged her along the way. While we were talking, she attributed much of her success to luck. Yeah, she's had some luck, but luck is not the whole story. She also said, “You work hard to get lucky sometimes.” Sound Wizard Ed suggested that should be the subtitle of Feel Free to Deviate. Maybe they are both right.  You can find a bazillion Judy pictures on her website:
 https://www.judithblack.me Or buy her book Vacation on the Stanley Barker website. https://www.stanleybarker.co.uk/products/vacation
https://www.stanleybarker.co.uk/collections/books/products/pleasant-street And here are a ton of “press clippings” about how great she is. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/02/judith-black-best-photograph-family-fathers-day-1983#comments https://aperture.org/editorial/judith-black-all-american-summer-vacation/ https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/aug/18/judith-black-vacation-friends-family-american-road https://www.1854.photography/2021/07/a-mothers-record-of-road-tripping-with-her-children/https://an-tics.com/Collected-Tales-The-Journal-Of-Grievances  She's also on Instagram @judithblackphoto  https://www.instagram.com/judithblackphoto/   Feel Free to Deviate is the podcast about people, their careers, and their relationships with success. My name is Jim Turbert, and I am the host. Find Free to Deviate on your favorite podcast app, and new episodes are released every other Thursday. Visit https://feelfreetodeviate.com for more information. Feel Free to Deviate and host Jim Turbert can also be found on Instagram and Facebook @feelfreetodeviate.  https://instagram.com/feelfreetodeviate https://jtfanclub.com https://jimturbert.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/turbert/ Feel free to send inquiries to mail@feelfreetodeviate.com Also go to https://feelfreetodeviate.com/feel-free-to-donate if you are feeling generous and want to contribute to the production of Feel Free to Deviate. No pressure. Uh… Not much pressure.  Sound editing and post production by Ed Mubarek at https://boomkaas.com

Pricing Mistakes That Will Cost You Thousands When You Sell Your HomeSegment 4Pricing Mistakes That Will Cost You Thousands When You Sell Your HomeBarb a lot of people go off those automated valuations like on Zillow to determine what their home is worth.  How does a home seller decide what price to set when selling their home?Pricing a home appropriately can mean the difference between a home seller getting TOP dollar for the home or the home sitting on the market for a longer than normal period of time.Here is why:Price too high – no or few showings – no offersPrice too low – buyers don't offer enoughPrice too high and slowly walk the price downNational statistics – Net LESS MoneyWhat About Pricing according to those automated valuations?Not accurateAverage homes around youThey Do not know YOUR improvementsPricing Just Right!Pricing too low:Most buyers assume you will accept that numberOr if they need work…EVER LOWER! BLA StoryAgents suggesting a PRICE TOO LOW may not have YOUR best interest in mindPricing too HIGH:Most Buyers FEAR THEY HAVE TO OFFER OVER ASKING PRICE!Pricing a Home REALISTICALLY vs OPTIMISTICALLY will always command top dollarHow:Careful evaluation of:Similar Recent Sales Compare Apples to ApplesCurrent Similar CompetitionPut your Buyers Hat OnIf you are thinking of making a move and would like:Tips on how to prepare and position your home to command top dollarGet a great idea on how much your home will sell for in this marketCall us at 719 301 3900You are listening to the Real Estate Voice with myself Barb Schlinker of Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty, you can reach me at 719 301 3900 Barb, its time for the Lightning round of some of your Hot New Listings, tell us about them.701 Pleasant Street, $424,999, Adorable in Pleasant Valley3825 Gingham Way, $510,000, Cape Cod Modern vibe154 S Blue Hills Dr, Pueblo West, CO, Stunning Rancher w Views and 7 Car Garage Space $695,0001354 Tonka Ave, $449,999, Backs to 38 Acre Park West Side5214 Borrego Dr, CS CO 80918, Spectacular Views, $499,9995822 Roy Heights, CS CO 80918, Low $400sComing Soon:134 S Claremont St, CS Co 80919, Upper $200sGershwin Ct, CS CO 80911, Upper $300s6570 Stonehedge Dr, CS CO Low $300s501 S Siesta Way Pueblo West CO $1.2M

Claremont's City Manager, Ed Morris, is on as we talk about the Pleasant Street project, when it will be done, what to expect for Winter, what they found under the surface, and more. We discuss grants, the Moody Block, how a City can help encourage investors, the building that came down on Main Street, is 5 Guys coming to Claremont and more

Another foggy morning here as Joe beats me to a fog joke. Joe wrapped up his driving the corn truck this week. We talk cow poop smell in Claremont, cooking steak on the grill, the Claremont City elections are coming up soon, the Pleasant Street project, Sullivan County Nursing Home, and more.

You're listening to the Westerly Sun's podcast, where we talk about news, the best local events, new job postings, obituaries, and more. First, a bit of Rhode Island trivia. Today's trivia is brought to you by Perennial. Perennial's new plant-based drink “Daily Gut & Brain” is a blend of easily digestible nutrients crafted for gut and brain health. A convenient mini-meal, Daily Gut & Brain” is available now at the CVS Pharmacy in Wakefield. Now for some trivia. Did you know that famous author David Plante was born in Providence? He has been published extensively in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. He has been nominated for national book awards for Difficult Women, The Family, The Country, and The Woods. Now, we turn our feature story…. Parking along a section of Canal Street would be prohibited under an ordinance being considered by the Town Council. During a workshop on Monday, council members unanimously agreed to move the proposed ordinance along to a regular meeting when it might schedule a public hearing. The ordinance would ban parking on the east side of Canal Street, beginning 60 feet from the corner of Industrial Drive to Pleasant Street. Council President Sharon Ahern said she had driven through the area recently and agreed it is difficult to pass when vehicles are parked on the street. She noted that the council considered the same parking ban in 2018, but decided against it when the owners of Jeanne's Dance & Gymnastic Center at 49 Canal St. said their business relied on the parking spaces on the street. Ahern has asked whether a drop off zone could be established to accommodate the dance center. Town J. Mark Rooney said a drop off zone on Canal Street in front of the business would be dangerous, but said such a zone could potentially be established on nearby Pleasant Street. The council is also considering permanently adopting an increase in the penalty for parking in a tow zone from $75 to $150 in addition to the cost of having a vehicle towed and stored. The council adopted the $150 fines last summer as a temporary measure that was approved under an executive order from Rooney that allowed for quickly increasing the penalty when illegal parking increased as individuals swarmed the beaches after COVID-19 lock downs. The $150 penalty will also be applied to motorists who violate no stopping zones such as the ones that beach goers often use. A three-hour parking limit from May 1 through Oct. 15 for 14 municipal parking spaces on Spray Rock Road is also under consideration. Police Chief Shawn Lacey said the department has received several complaints about the spaces being taken for longer stretches of time. Stay up to date on this story at westerlysun.com There are a lot of businesses in our community that are hiring right now, so we're excited to tell you about some new job listings. Today's Job posting comes from ALDI in Westerly. They're looking for part-time floor associates. You'll be responsible for merchandising and stocking product, cashiering, and cleaning up the store. Pay is up $14.30 per hour. If you're interested and think you'd be a good fit for the role you can apply using the link in our episode description. https://www.indeed.com/l-Westerly,-RI-jobs.html?vjk=29ee93bf88f3a0fe Today we're remembering the life of John Richard Leighton Stewart - a long time resident of Larchmont, New York and Westerly  Rick was born in Manhattan in 1936. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Larchmont where he attended school. Later he went to Syracuse University in upstate New York.  Rick was also enrolled in the United States Naval Reserve from July 1953 until his Honorable Discharge in July 1961. After graduation from Syracuse University, Rick moved to Manhattan and began a career in Banking and later in Real Estate Management. Eventually, Rick returned to Larchmont where he met and married his beloved wife, Anne and became a proud stepfather. Anne and Rick spent many happy summers in Westerly and planned to retire to their beach house. However, Anne passed away suddenly and shortly thereafter Rick moved to Westerly permanently. During his younger years, Rick was an expert skier and swimmer and always enjoyed living near the water. He was an avid football fan throughout his entire lifetime and eagerly waited for the annual Super Bowl. In later years, Rick liked reading at Misquamicut Beach, tending his garden and caring for his two dogs. That's it for today, we'll be back next time with more! Also, remember to check out our sponsor Perennial, Daily Gut & Brain, available at the CVS on Main St. in Wakefield! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chief Chase is on this week as we talk about the rain fall recently & was there any flooding issues in Claremont, the major drug bust last week in Claremont that netted over 5,000 bags, drug problem in the area, what to do if you see something, the Pleasant Street project, posting on Facebook and more.

A high-pitched squealing sound coming from a church on Pleasant Street in downtown Rochester has divided a neighborhood. Some call it a nuisance, while others say it's necessary to prevent loitering. Plus: After a year on hiatus, the food truck rodeo is back. Navigating the pandemic has been quite the journey for some local food trucks.

This week on Ear Shot: A high-pitched squealing sound coming from a church on Pleasant Street in downtown Rochester has divided a neighborhood. Some call it a nuisance, while others say it's necessary to prevent loitering. Plus: After a year on hiatus, the food truck rodeo is back. Navigating the pandemic has been quite the journey for some local food trucks.

Chief Chase is in the studio with a special guest - Sully the comfort dog! We talk about Sully, how he has been doing, his role with the Claremont PD and more. Plus I got to pet him. We also talked about the Pleasant Street project, how it's going, where the process is, and much more.

Claremont Police Chief Mark Chase is on recapping last week's 4th of July celebrations, driving up Dump Hill, the upcoming Pleasant Street project, and more.

Chief Chase is talking about remembering old songs, "old" music, Stevens graduation is coming soon, Prom went well, the Pleasant Street construction project, Stevens Alumni Parade, volunteer opportunities in Claremont, driving the wrong way in Claremont and more.

Chief Chase is here as we talk about Claremont of yester-year, the Pleasant Street project, parking, and more.

Esta semana en Islas de Robinson, clásicos norteamericanos en cruce de caminos entre el folk, el country y el rock. Tiempos inciertos, 1967-69, con música a paso seguro: calidad indiscutible. Suenan: BREWER & SHIPLEY - "I CAN'T SEE HER" ("DOWN IN L.A.", 1968) / NEIL YOUNG - "I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU" ("NEIL YOUNG", 1968) / THE EVERLY BROTHERS - "TURN AROUND" ("ROOTS", 1968) / BEAU BRUMMELS - "CHEROKEE GIRL" ("BRADLEY'S BARN", 1968) / HEARTS & FLOWERS - "SECOND-HAND SUNDOWN QUEEN" ("OF HORSES, KIDS AND FORGOTTEN WOMEN", 1968) / ERIC ANDERSEN - "MISS LONELY ARE YOU BLUE" ("MORE HITS FROM TIN CAN ALLEY", 1968) / BUFFY SAINTE- MARIE - "SUMMER BOY" ("FIRE & FLEET & CANDLELIGHT", 1967) / TIM BUCKLEY - "PLEASANT STREET" ("GOODBY AND HELLO", 1967) / DILLARD & CLARK - "SOMETHING'S WRONG" ("THE FANTASTIC EXPEDITION OF DILLARD & CLARK", 1968) / THE DILLARDS - "NOBODY KNOWS" ("WHEATSTRAW SUITE", 1968) / THE BYRDS - "ONE HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW" ("SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO", 1968) / JOAN BAEZ - "ONE TOO MANY MORNINGS" ("ANY DAY NOW", 1968) / BOB DYLAN - "TELL ME THAT IT ISN'T TRUE" ("NASHVILLE SKYLINE", 1969) / Escuchar audio

7100 block of Fernwood Street – Police arrested and charged a citizen with assault with a knife at an apartment complex Feb. 5 at 9:26 a.m. 6900 block of Forest Avenue – Police arrested and charged a citizen with shoplifting at a retail store Feb. 5 at 3:51 p.m. 5600 block of Chamberlayne Road – Police arrested and charged a citizen with possession of heroin and cocaine at a hotel Feb. 5 at 7:02 p.m. Pleasant Street at Lowell Street – Police arrested and charged a citizen with selling cocaine Feb. 6 at 4:36 p.m. 2200 block of Watts Lane...Article LinkSupport the show (http://henricocitizen.com/contribute)

2020 in review and the future of Lebanon. Optimize Senior Living, Crown Dodge, Home Paradise, Housing, Improvements, Sibcy Cline, Karie Lacy, Pleasant Street update, Fire Station, Police, First Responders, and more. Support the show (http://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=CKk27_INNWREPcK7eFolWWbIT6OS78fh5K1BIuosF0aKBcPRvjPhdWkL-53k2cESLTKajW&country.x=US&locale.x=US)

Jake and Ron discuss Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series.Gene Wolfe, Shadow & Claw: The First Half of The Book of the New Sunhttps://www.indiebound.org/book/9780312890179Gene Wolfe, Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of The Book of the New Sunhttps://www.indiebound.org/book/9780312890186Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sunhttps://www.indiebound.org/book/9780312863944Michael Andre-Driussi, Lexicon Urthus, Second Editionhttps://www.indiebound.org/book/9780964279513Michael Andre-Driussi, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun: A Chapter Guidehttps://www.indiebound.org/book/9781947614093Jack Vance, Tales of the Dying Earthhttps://www.indiebound.org/book/9780312874568Necessary Reading: Peter Bebergal, "Sci-Fi's Difficult Genius," The New Yorker (April 25, 2015)https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficult-geniusMichael Andre-Driussi, G.U.R.P.S. New Sunhttp://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/newsun/Island Books3014 78th Ave. SE, Mercer Island WA 98040(206) 232-6920info@islandbooks.comhttps://www.islandbooks.com/Pandemonium Bookshttps://pandemoniumbooks.com/4 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139+1 617-547-3721The Wrath of the iOtiansTwitter:  @OfiOtiansGmail: thewrathoftheiotians@gmail.comMusic:Land Of The Me-me by Aleksandar Dimitrijevic (TONO)Licensed under the NEO Sounds Music License AgreementInterested in starting your own podcast? Jake and Ron have had a great experience with Buzzsprout. They not only host your episodes, but they offer an abundance of  resources to help you grow and market your podcast. Use the following link to sign up https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1397515. If you sign up for a paid plan Buzzsprout will send you a $20 Amazon gift card.

Long Point and Wood End were two salt-producing villages at the tip of Cape Cod that were hit hard economically when mined salt from New York and elsewhere became a less expensive option. The villagers abandoned their towns but took their houses with them by floating them across the bay to Provincetown. The old village houses comprise much of the far West End of Provincetown and have little blue squares on front to of each building to identify them. See: https://lostmassachusetts.com/a-lost-place/f/release-of-the-floating-city-episode-1---long-point-and-wood-end If you have listened to our first actual podcast episode: The Floating City - Long Point and Wood End, here are additional details and notes to help you on your own hike and historical research. First, a great overview can be read at CapeCod.com: Hidden Cape Cod: A Village That Used to Exist in Provincetown. Next, the blog Building Provincetown has details about each floating house. The houses are generally on Atwood Avenue, Bradford Street, Commercial Street, Nickerson Street, Pleasant Street, Point Street, Soper Street and Winthrop Street. I would either point you to the specific details in the blog or simply wander the quiet backstreets and look for the blue ceramic tiles with the floating house and the Long Point light in the background. Please note these houses are generally private property. Cape Cod fiction author Barbara Eppich Struna also has a great blog piece about the entire history which includes historic photos and maps. View Mapcarta.com for details on getting to Wood End and Long Point. In the podcast we give safety advice going to Long Point and accessing the breakwater. To highlight the point, CapeCod.com has a number of articles about emergencies occurring in the area, for example: "Walker suffers possible broken leg at West End Breakwater" and "Woman stranded by by incoming tide near West End". There are many such articles highlighting the actual danger involved in looking for ghost towns and lost places. Other hazards like poison ivy may impact hikers even if they are careful. Listeners can also get the poison ivy treatment Tecnu in our bookstore. The historical reading authored by Mary Heaton Vorse was from Time and the Town: A Provincetown Chronicle. Also covering the spelling of Massachusetts, poison ivy, Provincetowns Black Flash phantom, sponsorship of the podcast, skipping rocks, preview and contacting Lost Massachusetts. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lostmass/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lostmass/support

The curious deaths of a large wealthy family on Pleasant Street strikes Kansas City. 

Joe Osgood talks about his first car, the debate over Covid 19, differing opinions of doctors for a cure, the Pleasant Street project in Claremont, and more.

For the 10th episode of Bad Roads, I am joined by my friend, musician J. Marinelli. J. originally hails from Morgantown, WV, but currently resides along the fjords of Trondheim, Norway. For the last 15+ years J. has regularly recorded and toured as a 1 person band, playing guitar, drums, and singing all at once. Prior to venturing out on his own, J. played in mid 90s cult indie/emo rockers Samuel (State College, PA/Washington DC) and Les Trois Malhueres (Washington DC). I can't say enough good things about J. as a human and as a musician. Be sure to check out his great new album, Laughing All the Way to the Fretex.All music beds, except for the intro music, in this episode come from the album Luck in the Valley by Jack Rose.Intro-The Messthetics-Better WingsThe Julie Ruin-Brightsidehttps://thejulieruin.bandcamp.com/J. Marinelli-This Is What We Talk About When We Talk Shithttps://jmarinelli.bandcamp.com/Daniel Johnston-Wild West Virginia (Excerpt)Segment: J. MarinelliThe Clash-Safe European Home (Excerpt)Segment: J. MarinelliTh' Inbred-Dead TimeNonmeansno-It's Catching UpWire-MannequinJ. Marinelli-Let's Get Awesome https://jmarinelli.bandcamp.com/Segment: J. MarinelliSamuel-The Leaving KindTexas is the Reason-Something to ForgetSegment: J. MarinelliLe Trois Malhueres-I Am the Greatesthttps://carcrashrecords.bandcamp.com/album/les-trois-malheuresThe Gotobeds-Blazing Sun of Youthhttps://thegotobeds.bandcamp.com/Segment: J. MarinelliHasil Adkins-Chicken Walk (Excerpt)Segment: J. MarinelliJ. Marinelli-Mistake By the Lakehttps://jmarinelli.bandcamp.com/Paint Fumes-Heartbreak Reactionhttps://paintfumesnc.bandcamp.com/The Chokers-Cock Raghttps://thechokerspgh.bandcamp.com/J Marinelli-400 More Yearshttps://jmarinelli.bandcamp.com/Kid Congo Powers-Peanuts (Subsonics cover)https://kidcongopowers.bandcamp.com/J Marinelli-Angel F**k (Misfits cover)Support the show (https://venmo.com/Jesse-Novak-9)

Claremont City Manager Ed Morris is discussing the city in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, the Main Street building project, how infrastructure improvements on Water Street benefited Claremont, Pleasant Street rehabilitation project, working with Newport on a regional dispatch center, and more.

Audio Transcript: Good morning. Hello. Welcome to another online edition of Mosaic Boston, Brookline. If you are tuning in online, live, thank you so much. We're so glad you're here. Take a couple moments say hello in the chat below. If you are at the beach while we are watching online, enjoy. But thank you for listening after you came home, or on the ride back, and paying attention. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Holy Word?Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you. We thank you for the gift of life. We thank you that you have designed us to be people who live lives of joy rejoicing in you, and we experience the utmost joy when we are the absolutely, absolutely closest to you. And Lord, show us that often, the fact that we don't pursue you, the fact that we don't press into you, the fact that we don't strain forward, and press ahead to get as close to you as possible.That's actually the cause of so much of our unhappiness, our sadness, our depression, our anxiety. And show us today that the secret to joy is pursuing Christ, who pursued us, pursuing Christ to His perfection. And as we get closer, we get perfected. And as we get perfected, we get more and more whole. And you give us a holistic health, which leads to joy.I pray that you give us these secrets, and give us the power of the Holy Spirit, not just to understand it with our minds, but to receive them with our hearts. And also, empower us to live this out with our wills, our actions. And Lord, I pray that you bless our time, the Holy Word, we're so thankful for it. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.One my favorite things about living in the city, living in Boston is every spring, I love that the Boston Marathon passes right by my street. I live in Pleasant Street, and the runners come right down Beacon Street. It's always amazing. The city is energy packed. It's incredible energy, incredible feel and emotion. And my favorite of all the Boston marathons was the 118th Boston Marathon of 2014.And I remember distinctly because that Easter Sunday was April 20th, the day before the marathon. And for the first time, we were meeting at the Fenway Regal movie theater, and for the first time, we moved the Easter service from theater seven to the biggest theater they had. It was an act of faith. We had no idea how many people would come, and we had hundreds show up. The energy was amazing.And we had dozens of people in the blue little jackets from the Boston Marathon. We've prayed over them. It was incredible. But that marathon was particularly memorable, and emotional because it was the year after the Boston Marathon bombings were three people were killed, and many were wounded. And the whole marathon, and the build up to it was incredibly emotion filled.And in a story book ending, the winner of that marathon, Meb Keflezighi, 38 years old. He was actually the oldest man to win the marathon in 83 years, and the first US citizen to win it since 1983. And he ran with the names of the victims written on the corner of his bib. And as he approached the finish line in Back Bay in Copley Square, as he approached the finish line, there were chants of USA.And as he crossed the finish line, an incredible triumph and joy. He raises his hands. He raises his fist, his arms, and almost collapses, but keeps going. Incredible. I love that. What a memory. Let me ask you, how did he feel when you crossed the finish line? You already know the answer. Triumphant joy, just exploding with joy. Let me ask you a question. How did he feel while he was running it?How did he feel in preparation for the Boston Marathon, the tens of thousands of hours that he hit the pavement by himself with nobody watching, just driving himself pressing into the goal, the purpose that he set for himself full tilt with every nerve, every ounce, every muscle, every fiber of his being because he had a purpose in mind. And the purpose was to win.And this is incredible. This is incredible story in it of itself. But this is actually analogy, the metaphor the St. Paul uses to describe the Christian life. That there's a starting point, and there's a finish line, and in the middle, this is what our life is. You become a Christian, that's the starting line. Scripture talks about this as justification that you are made righteous, just by grace through faith in Christ.And the end is glorification, where you have a brand-new redeemed body just like Christ's resurrected body. But in the meantime, we are called not just follow Jesus slowly. It begins with a walk just like a child crawls and then walks. But then the Lord says, we are to seek maturity, and we are to run after Christ in an ultramarathon way. And this is important because St. Paul says, I'm pursuing perfection in the text that we're going to read today.And this is important because Jesus didn't call us to be good. He actually called us to be perfect. And the closer you get to Jesus, the more you realize how much you lack perfection, and there's this holy tension between a Christian getting more holy, and realizing how unholy he or she is. And the godliest Christians are still so very aware of imperfections.Still, there's a tinge of disappointment in themselves, a personal frustration that fuels them forward to pursue Christ who is perfection. The closer you get to Him, the more perfect you get as you understand your imperfections, which fuels you to keep following him more. This world isn't heaven, we know that. And Robert Browning put it like this. He says a man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what is heaven for?A man's reach should exceed his grasp, meaning I am reaching for a higher-level amount of holiness than I can ever grasp in this life. But that reaching, that hunger, that desire for it is what actually transforms us. Today, we're in Philippians 3:12-21. Would you look at this incredible text with me? Philippians 3:12-21.Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I've made it my own. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you, and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with mindset on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word may write these eternal truths upon our hearts. So, what must I do in order to become perfect as the Lord calls us to become? And the word perfection actually means completeness or wholeness. Assuming that we have, presupposing that we have brokenness in our lives, in our hearts, and we know each one of us do if we're honest with ourselves.So, how do we get that perfection? Well, this frames up our four points for today. Number one, acknowledge imperfection. Number two, press on for perfection. Three, keep growing in maturity, and four, remember what's at stake. One is acknowledge imperfection, you see this in verse 12. How honest St. Paul is with himself.Not that I've already obtained this, or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. If anybody qualified as a candidate for perfection besides Jesus Christ, St. Paul was number one, the most likely candidate. He had a spotless spiritual resume on the outside as he told us verses four through six.And then, after becoming a Christian, he pursued sanctification 30 years. This is where he is in his life. He's been a Christian for 30 years. He's already written half of the New Testament. He's planted churches in all four regions of the Roman Empire. He's giving everything, sacrificed everything to follow Christ. A good friend, a member of the church invited me to mass challenge, which is a startup incubator just to see his office.And in the bathroom, there's a sign that says everybody wants to change the world, but no one wants to change the toilet paper. And that's where we find ourselves in the culture. Everyone wants to change everything. No one wants to change the little things. St. Paul actually focusing on the little things, and the most important thing, the gospel actually changed literally, had a global impact with his life.And still, he says I'm not perfect. He still says I have a long way to go. And this is one of the lessons that we can extract from this text is that successful people never stop growing, always developing. They're always expanding, learning. He said I haven't obtained this. I'm not perfect. I don't consider it my own. And actually, verse 13, there's two emphatic personal pronouns before the verb.He says, brothers, I, even I, I, even I have not yet grasped it. Incredible spiritual humility that he learned from time with Christ. Dear friend, do you willingly acknowledge your own imperfections, your own flaws, your own sins? Are you willing to own your mistakes? Are you willing to face your faults, not just to excuse them, not just to play the victim card?And we can do this by the power of the gospel. Because when we acknowledge our sins, and when we show remorse for them, contrition over them, when we repent, there's always grace. Sometimes, we tend to think too highly of ourselves. Romans 12:3, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.But to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. What he's talking about here is, can you look at yourself with an honest self-assessment? This is called self-awareness to do, an inventory of your life on a regular basis. Sober self-reflection, as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."And why are we talking about this? Usually, this topic comes up January 1st, or the first Sunday of January New Year's resolutions, like inventory of life. By the way, this is the last Sunday of June, meaning the year is almost halfway over. This is a perfect opt and what a half a year it's been. This is a perfect opportunity to stop, and pause, and say, "Where am I? I need to do a self-inventory." Where am I? Where do I want to be? Where do I need to improve? What am I glaring weaknesses? What are my shortfalls? What are the things that I need to work on? What are my blind spots?Where do I need growth as a person, as a human being, as a Christian, as a friend, as a son, as a daughter, as a husband, as a wife, as a church member, as a child of the family of God, as a student, as a professional? This is a personal inventory. Where do I need to change? And by the way, how thoroughly am I talking about? Like this, do an inventory of yourself as thoroughly as you do an inventory of others.And each one of us, we do, we can see other people's glaring blind spots when they can't, and we feel that. We see them imperfections, and we criticize. With that same perspective, with that same magnifying glass, do an inventory of your life. The first step to pursuing perfection or wholeness, progress in the faith is to acknowledge that you haven't arrived.And this is what it means to grow in faith. Because you know what happens when we think we have arrived, you become proud, and complacent, and you stop moving. Growth always begins in the mind. It's a change of thoughts that leads to a change of feelings, that leads to a change of action. So, thought, I need to keep growing, I need to keep running, I need to keep pressing ahead.Feelings, I want to be the person that God has created me to be. I'm not that yet. Actions, what do I need to work on by God's grace? Philippians 3:15, let those of us who are mature think this way, starts with the mind, and if anything you think otherwise God will reveal that also to you. And by the way, this is so contrary to many people, but many actually Christians in the church.Today, a lot of Christians would rather pretend to be a healthy Christian. We'd rather pretend than change because change always takes work. It's painful. And yes, we're all sinners. Yes, we have problems. Yes, we struggle with doubts. For some people, reputation is more important than transformation. And St. Paul gives us an example of incredible honesty with himself.And by the way, this is a mark of maturity in the faith. There's absolute transparency. This is where I am. This is what I'm struggling with today, this week. And you voice it to other believers, and you ask them to pray for you. And what that does is that gets them to open up as well, and you together can fight the good fight of faith. Proverbs 28:13, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.Don't conceal, instead confess and forsake. Seasoned Christians are acutely aware of inadequacies of what you need to work on. And mature Christians don't just say, "Oh, look how far I've come." That's nice. That's good. But you also have to say in the same breath, look how far I have to go. Philippians 3:12 St. Paul says, not that I've already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own.Because Christ Jesus has made me his own. I press on. I overextend myself. I go for it with all I've got. I throw myself into this straining with every nerve, ounce, muscle to reach the price. Incredible intensity, maximum effort, he understands that there's no gain without pain. It's so counterintuitive because one of the idols in our culture is comfort.So, for us, if we idolize comfort, then the opposite of comfort is pain. If we worship comfort, we only pursue comfort. We develop a resistance, a lack of tolerance for pain. And therefore, we don't accomplish the purpose that God has for us. We understand that the most valuable things in life always take pain, work, sacrifice.To create something, to build something, to become a person who edifies others, adds value to their lives, and to serve others, to give to others, which is actually a greater blessing. It's more blessed to give than to receive. What's your motivation St. Paul? That's why whenever you see a driven person, you're like, "What are they motivated by? What gets them up in the morning? What is it?"St. Paul says, this is my motivation. Verse 12, not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but press on to make it my own because Christ has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. He starts with that. He says, Christ made me his own. I am reaching to grasp the righteousness that God has for me because Christ has already grasped me, made me righteous.And this is the interplay between justification and sanctification. Justification is monergistic. Yes, I'm dropping a big theological word on you. You can look it up. monergistic, meaning one way, justification, God says, I choose you, I regenerate you, I change your heart from stone to flesh. Now, you're mine. Now, you're a Christian. It says if He grasped us, as we're running the wrong way, turns us around and now, we're running for Him.That's monergistic justification. Sanctification is synergistic. There's an interplay between God's will, God's energy, God's desire, God's Holy Spirit, and our effort. We can't earn our salvation justification. However, there is an effort to our sanctification that there are things that we have to do. The metaphor for justification in scripture is accounting. You were in sin. God takes your sin upon himself and Christ on the cross.By grace through faith, He recommends you or accounts to you a righteousness that is not your own. That's justification, it's an accounting term. However, what St. Paul is doing here is talking about sanctification, and he doesn't use an accounting term. He's using analogy. He uses an athletic analogy. And athletes know this, if you want to win, you have to experience pain, discipline yourself in absolutely every single facet of life.So, it begins with acknowledging our imperfection, but it doesn't stop there. He continues and talks about pressing on for perfection. So, press on for perfection. Point two, Philippians 3:13, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the price of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. By the way, this is totally unexpected in our culture.Our culture stops at point one and says, "Yeah, I'm not perfect. Yeah, I acknowledge that I'm not perfect. Yes, I have things to work on." And we stopped there. St. Paul says, "No, no, I don't stop there. I'm not perfect, but I pursue perfection." The fact that he has not accomplished these goals actually motivates him, it actually energizes him.Starkly different from our culture, which uses our imperfections as a justification to stay in them. We use our sin as a justification to continue sinning more. I'm not perfect, and I can't stop what I'm doing. So, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. St. Paul says no, no, if you are a Christian, you have no excuse to remain in habitual sins, to remain in sins that dog you, and plague you for years. They keep you ensnared for years.He says fight the good fight, turn to Christ, repent of sin, ask for more the Holy Spirit, put a plan into place of how you're going to wage war on the sin on a daily basis. And he uses his sin, everything that he's done in the past, and he uses that as motivation to pursue perfection. He says but one thing I do, I press on, I press on, it's a present tense verb meaning continuous action. I keep pressing on.And by the way to press on. This is the same word that he used in verse six when he says as the zeal, I persecuted the church. As the zeal I pressed on to get the church. What's he doing? St. Paul is a master wordsmith. Every single word matters. Every single word is planned, and he's filled with the Holy Spirit. What's the Holy Spirit doing through St. Paul's gifts and talents? This is a wordplay.It's a play on what he said. He's saying with the same passion, with the same zeal that I persecuted the church, I am pursuing Jesus Christ, and His righteousness, and I'm trying to make that my own. With the same passion that you pursued sin before meeting Christ, with that same zeal, with that same energy, with that same planning, and you know what I'm talking about.Prior to meeting Christ, there is this part of our imagination that's fallen, where we plan things to do, we plan ahead to sin more, to put ourselves in a position where we provide for the flesh. And he says no, in the same way, you need to plan for sanctification. You need to plan for holiness. Tonight, how am I going to plan to wake up tomorrow, and pursue Christ to fight flesh, and be filled with the Holy Spirit?And what's his trick? St. Paul, how do you do that? And he says this one thing, I do, I do one thing. What do I do? I forget and this is verse 13. This one thing, I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. This is his trick. That St. Paul only do one thing in his life. No, of course not. He did lots of things. But he did everything he did with one purpose, to glorify Christ to the maximum, and to share the gospel.He says this one thing, I do, I proclaim Christ and Him crucified, meaning everything he did in the church as he evangelize, apologetics, as he wrote epistles, as he quipped leaders in the church, and plant the churches, as he defended the faith before kings, and before centurions. Everything he did, he did with one purpose in mind, and how did he make sure that every single detail his life was aligned with that purpose?He says, I forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, forgetting and straining forward. This is important. Because St. Paul, actually, he had a past, what a past he had. Not only did he persecute the church, but as a young man, he was actually present. When the first martyr of the church was executed with stones by the Pharisees, St. Paul was there guarding their clothing, probably looking on with glee, and then he used that to go and persecute church.Did he have a past? Yeah. I was actually talking with someone this week, and we were talking about God, talking about faith. And he said, I got a past. Bad, I got a rap sheet. I said, well, what did you do? And his response was other realm, and it was on text, it was R-E-A-L-mmmmmmm, other realm. And I don't know what that means. But I will tell you this. St. Paul's other realm was worse than that.Because most likely, he was a murderer of Christians. He would take fathers, mothers out of homes to go and imprison them. And ultimately, they were executed for being Christians. And St. Paul says, I forget what's in the past. I forget all the bad things I did. I forget all the defeat that debilitates, and I forget all of my heartbreaking sin, my guilt, my grief, my grudges. And I also forget all the good things I've done, all of the wins.Because sometimes, wins actually drag us down. You get to a place where you did great for the Lord today, and you're like, "Yeah, I did really good." And you take your foot off the gas of continuing pressing forward. He says, I forget what's in the past, I'm not manipulated by my memories, I leave the past in the past. And by the way, this is what we talked about last week. He says every day, I count my gains as losses in order that I may gain Christ more.So, every day, he would sit down and tally up, look at the gains that he had for Christ, all the wins that he had. And he would transfer that to the lost column. And what that does is it empties up the gain column to get more of the Holy Spirit, more of Christ for the next day. You do that one day. The next day, your gain column is a little wider, it's a little bigger, so you can actually do more.Because what happens is if you follow Christ full tilt like this today, tomorrow, you're going to wake up, and you're going to be just a little stronger. And here, I want to use the term compounding sanctification, compounding sanctification. It's like compounding interest, compound interest, you know how that works? Compounding interest, if you don't know how it works, it's incredible.It's where you invest, and you make money, interest off of what your investment. And then, the next year, you make interest off the interest in the compounds. The same thing happens with sanctification. The more you pursue Christ today, the easier it is to pursue Christ tomorrow. So, perhaps you're in a place, and you walk with the Lord where you're like, "I can never even imagine freedom from this particular sin.I can never imagine not wanting this. I can never imagine the taste buds of my soul being so recalibrated that I want the good things, not the bad things. I want the helpful things, not the harmful things." And St. Paul says this is the trick. The trick is I forget what lies behind the good, the bad, the ugly, everything, and the wind. And I press on, I press forward to what lies ahead. That's what gave him power to run the race with Christ.And this is 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, one of my favorite passages. He says do you not know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So, run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So, I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air. But I disciplined my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.Incredible. By the way, St. Paul must have been a fan of sports. And I miss sports so much. I can't wait for sports to be back. I'm praying with all I got that the NFL season is going to start on time. I'm going to root for the Pats, of course. Tom Brady, maybe a little, I don't know. I've forgiven him just a little bit. But St. Paul uses these metaphors because he says that's how you understand self-control and self-discipline.Luke 9:62, Jesus said, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. You can't drive a car looking in the rearview mirror, you can't run a race looking backwards. Yes, we definitely learn from our mistakes and our setbacks. But we move forward with those lessons, not with shame, and guilt, and anxiety over the mistakes. We tend to remember things that we should forget.We tend to dwell on our shame and our sin in the past. Why do you keep remembering the things that God has already forgotten? When you repent of sin, God chooses to forget that sin. He cast it behind himself, he cast it into... scripture says as far as the east is from the west, and this is by the way, is a mark of maturity that you're always looking forward, not back. You don't look back to spiritual victories, you don't look back to spiritual defeat.My parents were moving a couple years ago, and we went to help them clean out. It was their house in Cranston, Rhode Island before they moved to Jamestown, and we were in the basement helping them clean out. And my wife was with me, and she discovered my closet growing up. And by this time, we were married, I think 12 years or something.And there's a there was a box with all of my trophies from football, from wrestling, from baseball, from rugby, from all over this. And she walks out in amazement holding this box, and she's like, "Why have you never shown me this?" And I was like, "Baby, because that was high school. And I'm no longer in high school." I never want to be like Uncle Rico. You know who Uncle Rico is? Napoleon Dynamite.That's the guy who lives in a van, and he's always videoing himself throwing footballs, and says he can throw footballs over a mountain, and he's a middle-aged man still living this glory days of high school. Some of you perhaps have something similar happened spiritually where you had a time when you were on fire for the Lord. And you live in those glory days. Remember what I did for Christ?St. Paul never stayed there. What are you doing for Christ today? What are you doing for His glory and His kingdom today? And by the way, looking forward, one of the reasons why we don't look forward, and press forward, and have a forward-thinking mind. For many of us, it's because we live in a culture where youth is an idol. We idolize youth, and therefore a lot of people have a hard time aging.And we can't look back and reminisce. We can't stay there. It leads to this place where we don't enjoy what God has for us today. And I love Proverbs 31:12, and this is the wise woman, the Proverbs 31 woman, strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She laughs the time. God has given me grace today. God will give me grace for tomorrow.And how do I press on for perfection? The key is verse 12, not that I have already obtained this, or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. What's this? What's the it? What's the object? Philippians 3:11, by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead.In Paul's mind, the resurrection from the dead, that's the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that's the price. So, Paul is pressing in to get Christ, to get the resurrected Christ get His power. Paul pursues perfection by pursuing Jesus. Paul pursues perfection by pursuing the light of Jesus. And he does this into his old age, and that's what gives him strength to keep going.Point three is keep growing in maturity, knowledge, your imperfections, press forward to perfection, and then keep growing in that maturity. Verse 15, let those of us who are mature think this way, and if anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.I love the fact that he talks about maturity here. When you keep running after Christ by acknowledging imperfections daily, and pursuing perfection by pursuing Christ, that grows you in maturity on a daily basis. And St. Paul says, those of us who mature, we are to think this way. My daughter Milana, she's three years old today, Thursday, the day I'm preaching, this is June 25. You will listen on Sunday.But today Her birthday. And I she's turning three, she turned three, and I love the age of three. That's one of my favorite ages. Now, I'll tell you why. Because now she's in a place, and I've seen this with all four of my daughters. She's now in a place where she is growing in self-sufficiency. She's growing in maturity. She can feed herself. She knows when she needs to go to the bathroom.She can articulate what she wants. She can actually help around the house, and clean up her room. She doesn't scream as often when she doesn't get what she wants, or when she hears the word no. When you become a Christian, dear friend, you are a baby Christian. It's okay to be a baby Christian. You need someone to carry you around. You need someone to feed you, milk you.You need someone who care for you and serve you. Dear Christian, it's not okay to stay there. And I'll just be the real talk right here. A lot of the Christians I know, because of this extended adolescence in our culture, a lot of Christians I know, they stay in this little infant baby toddler child stage of Christianity. Yeah. I've got enough to get to heaven, but you don't continue to grow.And here's how you know that you are an immature Christian. How do you react when you hear the word no from someone in the church family? Number one. Number two, what kind of food do you prefer? Milk or like the mushy baby food? Or have you now gotten to a point where you love spiritual meat, steak as I call it? Children, immature Christians, they need to be served, all of the attention is on me.It's as if I am the only one that exists. That was Milana up until the age three. She's still almost there. Hopefully, we're trying to grow. And part of maturity is you now look to the needs of other people, you now want to serve other people. My daughter, Sophia is there, she's already serving, she's already caring. And that's what it means to grow in maturity. And how do we do that?We do that by pursuing maturity through God's word. Colossians 1:28-29, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. That's the goal St. Paul says of the ministry. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. He says this is the goal of my ministry.This is the goal of our ministry is to get you to a place where you begin to serve, where you begin to feed yourself, where you begin to care for yourself, and when you begin to feed others, and care for others. And the best way to grow in this attainment, grow in this maturity is to find heroes in the faith. And that's why St. Paul says brothers, join in imitating me. Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.This is what I talked about a couple weeks ago that there's things in Christianity that must be taught. And there's things in Christianity that must be caught, where you begin to emulate the example of other people. And this is how I seek to grow in my own life. Look at the people who are few steps ahead of you and emulate them.One of my favorite heroes in the faith, and each one of us should have heroes in the faith is George Mueller, who devoted his life to preach the gospel, and also care for orphans at age 71. He wrote a letter to some of his students at age 71. He said, you know what's the key to my success? Scripture and prayer, and he said I've read the Bible cover-to-cover over 100 times.That's incredible, over 100 times, and he said, every time it's been as if I'm reading for the first time, every time it's refreshed me, and encouraged me. What an example. What an example. Can someone look at your spiritual disciplines, scripture prayer, fasting, silence, and solitude, giving, serving, worshiping the Lord?Can someone look at your clear spiritual disciplines and say, "I want to emulate that?" With George Mueller, I want to emulate him. Every Christian, you need to know that there's always someone watching you. There's always someone following you in some sense. Right now, someone's following and you looks to you to show them the way. Someone prays because they've heard you pray.One of my favorite prayer warriors is my Uncle Victor in DC. Actually, I pray in the same temple as he prays because I've never heard someone pray as passionate as he did, and he is a hero in the faith. Someone is watching you fight the good fight, fighting your battle. Someone wants to be like you, and your Christian walk, and they're cheering you on. Someone sees Christ in you and admires your strength.Someone is borrowing your faith when they don't have any. Someone believes you're the best Christian they know, and that's so true in Boston, Massachusetts. Someone is hanging tough because you're standing tall. If someone's smiling when they think of you. Someone is thanking God for your friendship. Someone is following you. So, keep going. Don't let them down, and keep growing in maturity. Keep growing the people around you in maturity.And number four, remember what's at stake. Verse 18, for many of whom I've often told you, and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to himself.Paul says, watch those who are worthy of imitation, and weep over those who are not. And he's talking about them as enemies of the cross of Christ, the cross of Christ is the general principle of the Christian faith. It's at the very center of what we do. 1 Corinthians 1:18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.The cross tells us that there's nothing that we can do to save ourselves. The cross tells us that only God can save us. The cross tells us that God, His son died on a cross in excruciating pain, physical, and excruciating pain, spiritual in order to pay the price for our sin. Meaning, we can't save ourselves, and there's two categories of people who are enemies of the cross.Number one, it's legalist. And he talked about beware of the dogs, beware of the evildoers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh. That's the beginning of chapter three. It's people who say the cross isn't enough for salvation, we must add works to it in order to be justified. Says that's an enemy of the cross because you're saying Christ's sacrifice was not sufficient.The other group of enemies of the cross are those who are licentious, legalists, and those who are licentious. Meaning, these are people who say, "Oh, God forgives me of all my sin. Now, I can live any way I want, and God will just continue to forgive me." And St. Paul says, "No, you don't understand the cross." You don't understand that the sacrifice that was made, how precious the blood of Christ was.And he didn't just die on a cross to forgive you of sin. He died on the cross to free you of sin. And he says stop diminishing the value of the cross, and he says their end is destruction as verse 19, destruction here is talking about eternal punishment. It's not temporal punishment. It's destruction, not annihilationism. You don't cease to exist, but you experience the wrath of God, you experienced His judgment.And anytime I talk about the clear teaching about the judgment, for those who reject the gospel, I get pushback where people say, I can't believe in a god like that. But if you reject mercy, you can't expect mercy. If you reject mercy, you don't get mercy. So, receive mercy today. This is the beauty of the gospel. You ask for forgiveness. You repent of your sin. You turn to Christ.All of your sin is blotted out, everything, your whole other realm, rap sheet, everything is forgiven, receive it now. And if you don't receive that mercy, judgment is coming. Jonathan Edwards, commanded this sermon to you. It's called The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners, in which he argues, sin against God is a violation of infinite obligations.Therefore, there's an infinitely heinous crime. It's an infinitely heinous crime deserving an infinite punishment. We sinned against an infinite God. And that's an infinite crime, therefore, there's an infinite punishment, and that's a place called hell. And by the way, the destruction, the enemies of the cross, he says their appetite is their god. Their belly is their God. What's he talking about here?That's verse 19. What's he talking about? Is he talking about gluttons, or is he talking about just people who pursue sensual pleasure, or sexual morality? Yes. That's an outward working of something that happened on the inside. And in the context, this belly or this appetite is actually a synonym for the heart. In the ancient world, they felt with their innards, with their bowels.And what he's talking about here is emotions. He's talking about feelings, when feeling is not facts, when emotion is not truth, govern and regulate our life. When we pursue that which feels good, instead of that which is good. That's what he's talking about. And often, that leads to physical and ultimately spiritual destruction. And they get to a point where they glory in their shame, quagmire in a cesspool of shame.Where people take things that are shameful, sinful, hurtful, harmful, and we actually present them as good. We take bad things, and present them as good things, and whoever calls the bad things bad things is actually a bad person. That's where we are in our culture. And in Philippians 3:20, he says, but our citizenship is in heaven.And from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to himself. He's talking to Philippians, who treasured Roman citizenship, and he says Philippian Christians, remember that your identity is not in Roman citizenship, Americans, your identity is not in your American citizenship.Primarily, it's in Christ. We are first Christians, second Americans. And he says we're citizens of this other kingdom. And from it we await Christ will come and power and glory. He's talking about the Second Coming, which is one of the most frequently emphasized truths in scripture. It's in every book of the Bible, except for Galatians, Philemon, and 2 and 3 John. Scripture talks about it all the time.And the same way that Jesus promised He'll come the first time, and He did. He promised that He will come in the second time and He will. C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, if you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.And when it comes to the second coming of Christ, there's two truths that we see here. That our bodies will be transformed, our lowly bodies will be transformed into a body like His glorified, our current bodies are subject to disease, death, sin. He says there will be transformation, not just outwardly, but also inwardly. Then we'll never be able or desire to sin. And second of all, he says, Christ will subject all things to Himself.So, if we are not willingly subject to Him in this world, we will be forced into subjection in the next one. Everybody will bow in knee before Jesus. He will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I can't wait. So, make certain dear friend, that you today are in submission to Jesus Christ as Savior, and as Lord so that when He comes, He is your Savior and not your judge.The four points, if you missed them, acknowledge imperfection, press on for perfection, keep growing in maturity, and remember what's at stake. That's what leads to wholeness or perfection. Robert Murray M'Cheyne said, "Lord, make me as holy as a redeemed sinner can be." Keep on the path, keep running your race, and keep your eyes on the prize who is Christ.The more you get of Him, the more perfected you become, and the more joyful that you feel just like Meb as he crossed the finish line of the 2014 Boston Marathon. That said, would you please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. And Lord, I pray that you give us strength to lay aside every weigh and sin, which clings so closely.And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, what a God you are. We love you, we praise you, we glorify you, we honor you, and we pray all this in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In this episode of The Woof Meow Show from June 6th, 2020, Don talks with Veterinary Behaviorist Dr. Christine Calder about anxiety, fears, and phobias in pets. We start with a discussion of the multitude of words used to describe fear in our pets; anxiety, nervous, shy, skittish, timid, and more and then discuss how pets indicate they are afraid through body language and their actions. We also discuss extreme fear, phobias, specifically noise, storm, and firework phobias. Lastly, we offer suggestions to help you help your pet. If your pet is afraid of summer storms or fireworks, you will not want to miss this show. Contact Info for Dr. Calder Facility: Midcoast Humane Address: 190 Pleasant Street, Brunswick, ME Phone: (207) 449-1366 Website: https://midcoasthumane.org/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Christine-Calder-DVM-DACVB-Veterinary-Behaviorist-104864721012254/ More info on Dr. Calder from the January 2020 issue of Downeast Dog News - https://downeastdognews.villagesoup.com/p/what-is-a-veterinary-behaviorist/1846547 Recommended Resources Articles on Don’s Blog ( http://www.words-woofs-meows.com  ) Crate Habituation to Reduce Anxiety – http://bit.ly/CrateHabituation Help! My Dog is Aggressive, Reactive, Fearful, Anxious, etc. – What do I do? – WWM – APR2017 – http://bit.ly/HelpDogAggx How Can I Tell When My Dog Is Anxious or Fearful? – http://bit.ly/DogsSignsofFear Management of An Aggressive, Fearful or Reactive Dog – http://bit.ly/BhxManagement Podcasts from The Woof Meow Show (http://bit.ly/WfMwPodcasts Podcast – Introducing Dr. Christine Calder, Maine’s 1st Veterinary Behaviorist - http://bit.ly/WMw-DrCalderVetBhx Podcast – Separation Anxiety in Dogs with Dr. Christine Calder – https://bit.ly/WfMw-SepAnxDrCalder

Don talks with Veterinary Behaviorist Dr. Christine Calder about separation anxiety in dogs. Separation Anxiety is a panic disorder in dogs that cannot cope with being left alone. These dogs are not misbehaving to get revenge but are suffering. During the show, we discuss separation anxiety and its symptoms, sharing experiences with mild and extreme cases. We discuss which dogs are more likely to suffer from separation anxiety and address other disorders that may have some of the same symptoms. We discuss treatment options and things one can do to prevent separation anxiety. Contact Info for Dr. Calder Facility: Midcoast Humane Address: 190 Pleasant Street, Brunswick, ME Phone: (207) 449-1366 Website: https://midcoasthumane.org/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Christine-Calder-DVM-DACVB-Veterinary-Behaviorist-104864721012254/ More info on Dr. Calder from the January 2020 issue of Downeast Dog News - https://downeastdognews.villagesoup.com/p/what-is-a-veterinary-behaviorist/1846547 Recommended Resources Articles on Don’s Blog ( http://www.words-woofs-meows.com  ) Alone Training – http://bit.ly/AloneTraining Crate Habituation to Reduce Anxiety – http://bit.ly/CrateHabituation How Can I Tell When My Dog Is Anxious or Fearful? – http://bit.ly/DogsSignsofFear Management of An Aggressive, Fearful or Reactive Dog – http://bit.ly/BhxManagement Preventing separation anxiety – Teaching your dog to cope with being alone – http://bit.ly/PrevSepAnx Podcasts from The Woof Meow Show ( http://bit.ly/WfMwPodcasts )  Podcast – Introducing Dr. Christine Calder, Maine’s 1st Veterinary Behaviorist - http://bit.ly/WMw-DrCalderVetBhx From Downeast Dog News Separation Anxiety (Part 1) – What is it? –  https://bit.ly/SepAnx-Calder-1 Separation Anxiety Treatment (Part 2) – https://bit.ly/SepAnx-Calder-2

If you are wondering if you should spay or neuter your pet, and when to do so, may find this podcast helpful.  Not so many years ago, the consensus opinion was that spaying and neutering pets early was necessary to control pet overpopulation. Evidence also suggested spaying/neutering reduced the risk of various cancers and the development of certain behavioral problems such as aggression and marking. Today, the evidence is less clear. In fact, if you ask five different pet professionals if you should spay or neuter and when to do it, you may get multiple opinions even from the same individual. Before you decide whether to spay or neuter your pet, the best thing you can do is take the responsibility to do some research and to consider the information that is available. Your decision may depend on many factors; species, breed, your individual pet, lifestyle/situation, and even where you live. Did you know that in some countries it is illegal to spay/neuter a pet, or that, in some of those same countries animal shelters and rescues are unnecessary because they do not have homeless pets? As for the health and behavioral pros and cons of spaying and neutering they can go both ways. For this show, which first aired on February 15th, 2020, Kate and Don invited Dr. Christine Calder, a veterinary behaviorist, who also spent fifteen years as a general practice veterinarian, to help us sort through the latest information on spaying and neutering so that you will know what to ask and consider when you discuss whether to spay your pet with their veterinarian. Our podcast page will include links to several articles you may find helpful, but be advised they do not encompass all the information on the risks and benefits of spaying and neutering your pet. Contact Info for Dr. Calder Facility: Midcoast Humane Address: 190 Pleasant Street, Brunswick, ME Phone: (207) 449-1366 Website: https://midcoasthumane.org/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Christine-Calder-DVM-DACVB-Veterinary-Behaviorist-104864721012254/   More info on Dr. Calder from the January 2020 issue of Downeast Dog News - https://downeastdognews.villagesoup.com/p/what-is-a-veterinary-behaviorist/1846547 Podcast – Introducing Dr. Christine Calder, Maine’s 1st Veterinary Behaviorist - http://bit.ly/WMw-DrCalderVetBhx   For Reference Reexamining the early spay-neuter paradigm in dogs, dvm360, 2019, Dr. Mike Petty and  Dr. Mark Goldstein, - https://www.dvm360.com/view/reexamining-early-spay-neuter-paradigm-dogs Are There Behavior Changes When Dogs Are Spayed or Neutered?, Stanley Coren, PhD., DSc, FRSC, Canine Corner, Psychology Today - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/canine-corner/201702/are-there-behavior-changes-when-dogs-are-spayed-or-neutered Long-Term Health Risks and Benefits Associated with Spay/Neuter in Dogs, Laura J. Sanborn, M.S., dogs naturally blog, - https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/long-term-health-risks-benefits-spay-neuter-dogs/ Behavioral and Physical Effects of Spaying and Neutering Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris), Summary of findings detailed in a Masters thesis submitted to and accepted by Hunter College by Parvene Farhoody in May 2010. - http://www.naiaonline.org/uploads/WhitePapers/SNBehaviorFarhoodyZink.pdf  

This (updated) version of a podcast conversation with David Arteaga includes more of his music. The conversation took place before the Coronavirus broke out but certainly addresses some key principles of living woven in and through his original music. Arteaga is well versed in philosophy, classical music, jazz, and art of all kinds. He plays and composes music the way he lives – with generosity, integrity, honesty, and a sense of purpose. He believes “art has a central role in bringing people back to a recollection of why we are even here sharing this tiny little planet.” David Arteaga is a saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He leads the David Arteaga Quartet and runs the Sunday-Nite Jazz Jam Sessions that he founded in 2014. In 2017 David Arteaga recorded “Picture,” a CD of original jazz compositions he performs with Max Ridley, Plamen Karadonev, and Dave Fox, members of his David Arteaga Quartet. All music excerpts in this podcast are from the David Arteaga Quartet CD "Picture" performed by Max Ridley - bass, Plamen Karadonev - piano, and Dave Fox- drums, and David Arteaga-saxophone. The CD is available for purchase at https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/davidarteagaquartet For more information about David Arteaga, visit http://davidarteagamusic.com Published – February 3, 2020 Co-hosts – Papi and Ose Schwab Producer – Papi and Ose Schwab Recorded in the Podcast Suite at MATV studios, 145 Pleasant Street, Malden MA 02148. matv.org matv.org/culturematters

The complete audio is available for purchase at Audible.com. https://adbl.co/2SdhslS Psmith, Journalist By P. G. Wodehouse Narrated by Graham Scott Listed in the BBC's "100 Novels That Shaped Our World", Psmith, Journalist takes Wodehouse's immaculate hero to the apparently dull city of New York, where he takes command of twee family periodical Cosy Moments, converts it to the yellowest of yellow journals, and embarks upon a crusade to unmask the owner of the notorious Pleasant Street tenements. But soon the staff of Cosy Moments find themselves dodging ambushes and assassination attempts, as the mysterious tenement owner tries to put them out of business - permanently; and war breaks out among New York's notorious street gangs...

In this episode of The Woof Meow Show from January 11th, 2020 Kate and Don interview Dr. Christine Calder, Maine’s first and currently only veterinary behaviorist. Dr. Calder is one of only 86 veterinary behaviorists in North America so we are lucky to have her here in Maine. Behavior problems are the second biggest reason that someone takes their pet to the veterinarian other than for an annual wellness exam. Unfortunately, veterinarians get very little education on behavior while in, so having a veterinarian that also has expertise in animal behavior has the potential to greatly benefit Maine’s pets. Behavioral health is as important to the quality of life for our pets as their physical health, and behavior is often the first indicator that our pets give when they are not feeling well. If you are a pet parent, pet care professional, or general practice veterinarian, you will not want to miss this show. We discuss why and when Dr. Calder decided she wanted to become a veterinarian, where she went to school, and what her education as a veterinarian entailed. We talk about her career as a general practice veterinarian and when and why she decided to specialize in behavior. Dr. Calder shares the rigorous process she had to complete to become accredited by the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB). Don asks Dr. Calder about the 2015 AAHA Canine and Feline Behavior Management Guidelines and the findings reported. We discuss changes that need to occur in veterinary schools and the veterinary community to improve behavioral health for our pets. Dr. Calder discusses her practice at the Maine Veterinary Medical Center in Scarborough and explains how pet parents, trainers and behavior consultants, and general practice veterinarians can contact and work with her to treat pets behavioral disorders. Lastly, we list the most common behavioral issues in both cats and dogs. You can hear The Woof Meow Show on Z62 Retro Radio, AM620, and WKIT HD3 at 9 AM on Saturday. If you are not near a radio, listen on your computer at http://bit.ly/AM620-WZON or your smartphone or tablet with the free WZON 620 AM app. A podcast of the show is typically posted immediately after the show. You can download this show and others at http://woofmeowshow.libsyn.com/ , at Don’s blog http://bit.ly/Words-Woofs-Meows and the Apple podcast app. Contact Info for Dr. Calder Facility: Midcoast HumaneAddress: 190 Pleasant Street, Brunswick, MEPhone: (207) 449-1366Website: https://midcoasthumane.org/Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Christine-Calder-DVM-DACVB-Veterinary-Behaviorist-104864721012254/ More info on Dr. Calder from the January 2020 issue of Downeast Dog News - https://downeastdognews.villagesoup.com/p/what-is-a-veterinary-behaviorist/1846547 Recommended Resources Articles on Don’s Blog ( http://www.words-woofs-meows.com ) Do I Need a Dog Trainer or a “Behaviorist”? – http://bit.ly/WWM-Trainer-Behaviorist ©12JAN20, Donald J. Hanson, All Rights Reserved

The latest “Belmont Buzz” features Belmont Woman’s Club co-presidents Wendy Murphy and Maria Papadopoulos talking about the club’s centennial anniversary and the club’s role in maintaining the historic home on Pleasant Street in Belmont known as the William Flagg Homer House.

Tessa and Paul chat about the Vermont Urban Legend Folklore, Marble St. located in West Rutland, Vermont. Known to have a ghostly story about a lady ghost hitchhiker that can sometimes be seen wearing a white dress, carrying a child or pushing a child by a stroller. And sometimes can be seen without the child at all. It's also said this lady connects to the other urban legend or folklore of the vanished town of Whipple Hollow, which was populated back in the 1840's of the Marble Business days. If this lady is somehow connected, was she from Whipple Hollow or was she from somewhere else? I emailed the West Rutland Historical Society and this was the response I had gotten. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the original response I got back. "In most cases about the past, a great deal of information we get is through oral history and difficult to prove. This is also true of Whipple Hollow. There was never really a town per se. There were farms, owned and worked by Swedes with help from new immigrants who were boarders and family members.   Just south of the Florence Pittsford line, there was a rather large property owned by the Mills family, and like all of the subsistence farmers, they probably sold foodstuffs, or perhaps had a blacksmith in the family who also worked for others. There was a school, on the first cross road now called Bristol Road, that went into Proctor, over the mountain. On this road is also a cemetery, most markers are from early 1800s. The historic society is in the process of putting together another book on schools, and there was also a school on this Bristol Rd, just west of the cemetery.   This was the community of Whipple Hollow. When the True Blue marble business expanded in the mid 1840s because the rock was used for building foundations, many of the farmers went to work in the Ericson quarry and True Blue mill. Which had the first steam driven saw in the country.   But True Blue was 2 miles south of this "community" and though the railroad came out to the crossroads of Marble, True Blue and Pleasant Streets, there was never a village there either. The marble company did build houses (shacks, really ) above True Blue, but technically that was the end of Pleasant Street (the area beyond John Kurant;s farm).  The only other population along the road called Whipple Hollow (starts where John Kruszewski used to live) and goes into Florence, about 4 miles long. That was just a stretch of farms.   There is a great deal of oral history that includes stories of ghosts, but today many of those can be explained by fog settling over the swamp and magnifying the night lights coming from the quarry area.  Also, some believe that since it contained many "lovers' lane" locations, landowners would create Halloween type diversions with carriage lights, dynamite, and other scary stuff just to keep people off their land. There is a booklet that we published about Whipple Hollow. Some are still available at $5 a book, but there's not a great deal that can be verified as records were lost or destroyed, town lines were redrawn and landmarks destroyed." - West Rutland Historical Society -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To be honest, This response just shows how much urban legends, folktales and or lore can do. We can take particularly anything and turn it into something scary. Whats even interesting is that, sometimes documents are either destroyed, never happened or just somehow got lost. So the urban legend about how a Town in Whipple Hollow “Vanished” couldn’t have happened. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Watch The Passenger: A Vermont Urban Legend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dMMZEPYKeQ   October Spirit Productions Social Media Official Website Facebook Instagram Twitter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MUSIC CREATED BY http://whitebataudio.com (Intro + Outro) Shadow's Symphony "Cloaked In Sadness" KEEP UP WITH THE PODCAST http://ehpodcasts.com  http://paypal.me/ehpodcasts  SOCIAL MEDIA http://facebook.com/EHPodcasts  http://twitter.com/EHPodcasts  http://instagram.com/EHPodcasts  http://pinterest.com/EHPodcasts  LISTEN TO US ON http://bit.ly/EHPodbean  http://bit.ly/EHPodcastYT  http://bit.ly/iTunesEHP  http://bit.ly/EHPAlexa  http://bit.ly/EHPSpotify  http://bit.ly/EHPStitcher  http://bit.ly/EHGooglePlay  http://bit.ly/EHPTuneIn 

Episode 113. Owner of Dunkin Donuts Restaurants in the Greater Boston Area. Sharon Smith's Golden Hour. Sharon Smith is in the house! As most people in this city know, Dunkin' is an integral part of Boston's image from an outsiders perspective. Sharon just happens to be the all time ultimate hustler, who start baking donuts at Dunk's in her teens and did it for 15 YEARS. She was then promoted to store manager, years later she moved up into her role as an operating partner, and now she is the official co-owners of 20+ Dunkin' Locations all over Boston and Florida. An absolute boss, the Ultimate Hustler; and a wicked interesting success story. Sharon lives, breathes, and sleeps Dunks' and she is evidence that anyone can create success (given the right habits) for themselves. Sharon discussed: - How To get into franchising and the steps you should take do it effectively - Baking Donuts for 15+ years, working 16 hour days, before being promoted - The importance of persistence and taking pride in her work - Creating employees that WANT to work for you, and creating a productive work environment - Drinking Starbucks on her off days and the best thing you can order from Dunks An absolute boss. I hope you guys enjoy! Send us a DM if you get anything from this episode! ----------------- WATCH this Episode HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHourL9OCPs ------------------ The Official Score of the "The Rise of Dercules" was composed by Josh Schuback (@josh_schuback) & Designed by Jack Bigelow, (@jack.bigelow). Voiceover: Tim Blouin, @timblou8 ------------------- The "GDP Jingle" heard in every podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud) was created by MyCompiledThoughts. @mycompiledthoughts ----------------------- Record Live From Warehouse XI: www.wxi.space ------------------------- This Episode was Produced By: Big Fresh @abu617 -------------------- Follow Sharon! Visit Her New Dunkin' Location: 350 Pleasant Street, Belmont MA ---------- Follow GDP! Instagram: @bigboachie @goldendeerproductions YouTube: YouTube.com/GoldenDeerProductions Facebook: Facebook.com/GoldenDeerProductions Website: goldendeer.productions -------- Follow Conor Holway: Instagram: @godholway LinkedIn: linkedin.com/conorholway Twitter: @boachbonnie -------- Listen to Our Podcasts Here! iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-g…d1437829342?mt=2 Soundcloud: @goldendeerproductions Spotify: Search: "Golden Deer Productions" ----------- The Golden Hours Podcast is a Boston Podcast run by Golden Deer Productions. The podcast is hosted by Conor Holway (a great guy), and we try to show love to anyone making moves in the city.

Intuition-First Sense Interview with Justin Soules of Soules Sports & Fitness! Enjoy Vicki’s interview and discussion with Justin about his journey of opening his own fitness facility, and how he has learned to rely on his first sense! This podcast was recorded at ‘Alison Larkin Presents’ Produced by Josh Reis Engineered by Galen Wade Podcast notes by Tracey Palmer PLEASE SUBSCRIBE to this podcast so you don’t miss future episodes, and it would be greatly appreciated if you could also leave a review! Visit Vicki’s web site www.VickiBaird.com to learn more about Vicki or to book an individual session Check out Vicki’s Social Media pages: https://www.facebook.com/CoachVickiBaird/ https://www.instagram.com/coachvickibaird/ https://twitter.com/coachvickibaird https://www.linkedin.com/in/vicki-baird-3850889/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGH5rJR_JSS9Nvt6JprbyDw Read Vicki’s first book: https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Has-Accept-Accentuate-Appreciate/dp/1452548420/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=vicki+baird&qid=1553782546&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull Follow Josh Reis at: https://reisfitfoods.com/ for the BEST Protein Bars https://www.facebook.com/reisfitfoods/ Instagram @joshreis and @reisfitfoods Join him at one of his classes at Soules Sport and Fitness Www.soulesfitness.com 925 Pleasant Street, MA 01238 413-394-4906 --- 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/vicki-baird/message

Intuition-First Sense Interview with Josh Reis of Reis Fit Foods! Enjoy Vicki’s interview and discussion with Josh about his weight loss journey and current career as a nutritionist and fitness trainer, and how he has learned to rely on his first sense! This podcast was recorded at ‘Alison Larkin Presents’ Produced by Josh Reis Engineered by Galen Wade Podcast notes by Tracey Palmer PLEASE SUBSCRIBE to this podcast so you don’t miss future episodes, and it would be greatly appreciated if you could also leave a review! Visit Vicki’s web site www.VickiBaird.com to learn more about Vicki or to book an individual session Check out Vicki’s Social Media pages: https://www.facebook.com/CoachVickiBaird/ https://www.instagram.com/coachvickibaird/ https://twitter.com/coachvickibaird https://www.linkedin.com/in/vicki-baird-3850889/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGH5rJR_JSS9Nvt6JprbyDw Read Vicki’s first book: https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Has-Accept-Accentuate-Appreciate/dp/1452548420/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=vicki+baird&qid=1553782546&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull Follow Josh Reis at: https://reisfitfoods.com/ for the BEST Protein Bars https://www.facebook.com/reisfitfoods/ Instagram @joshreis and @reisfitfoods Join him at one of his classes at Soules Sport and Fitness Www.soulesfitness.com 925 Pleasant Street, MA 01238 413-394-4906 --- 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/vicki-baird/message

On Thursday, April 11 at 1 p.m., employees at the 700 Pleasant St. Stop & Shop location in Waltham went on strike, advocating for a better contract. There are about 300 employees at the location.

In Episode 35 Angelo and Brandon welcome back friend of the podcast, Jared from Worst Kept Secret! Topics Covered: The band's debut full-length album "Confidence|Arrogance" dropping March 31, we debut a track off the new album for the first time ever anywhere "Second Take", their cover of "Broadway" by the Goo Goo Dolls, the band has its own beard oil, why Jared can't grow a beard, their album release show at 123 Pleasant Street in Morgantown West Virginia on March 31, and so much more! Find out more about Worst Kept Secret: www.facebook.com/worstkeptsecretwv Opening Track: Worst Kept Secret — Broadway (Goo Goo Dolls Cover) Full Track: Worst Kept Secret — Second Take Outro Track: Worst Kept Secret — Run N' Gun Subscribe to the Spinning Thoughts Podcast on iTunes, Google Play & more. Follow the podcast on Facebook and Twitter (@SpinThoughtsPod) to keep up-to-date with Angelo (@avgargaro), Brandon (BRobSpin) and everything music! Please visit our website for more! www.spinningthoughtspodcast.wordpress.com

Mike Schilling delves into the joy of letting a cider go wild, stopping fermentation, double pitching yeast and funky/sour cider. This chat was recorded before a live audience at Beerology in Northampton Massachusetts on Friday November 4, 2016. Mike and his wife Jordana Starr who co-own the store invited cidermakers traveling to CiderDays to stop in pick up supplies. It is an easy on off location just a block shy of the hub and bub of downtown Northampton. Note that there is ample parking behind the storefront. In this chat we discuss: Wild yeast Double pitching yeast Fermentation temperatures Making cider in an apartment vs in a cellar Contact info for Mike Schilling Beerology - website Address: 342 Pleasant Street, #1 Northampton, Massachusetts Telephone: 413 - 829-2337 email: info@beerology.beer FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/beerologynoho/ Twitter: @BeerologyNoho  Mentions in this chat "Funky Lama", a nano brewery in Normandy France is making beer with cider from Manoir d'Apreval in Normandy - The brewers Octave Letellier and Baptiste Guyot do a double yeast adjunct. First with the yeast of the beer and then at the end of the first fermentation of the wort they add the yeast from cider as well as Apple juice. Listen to the chat with Octave Letellier's mom Agathe Letellier episode #049.  Ask for the following 3 #CiderGoingUP Campaign cider supporters - By supporting these cider makers, you in turn help Ciderville.  Big Apple Hard Cider - NYC  Kurant Cider - Pennsylvania  Oliver’s Cider and Perry - Herefordshire/UK  Go to this page to see the ciderchat.com show notes page with photos  Please Help Support Cider Chat's (Ria's) trip to the International Hall of Gala Ciders. I am sure I won't have this trip paid off for a while and every little bit counts. Please donate today. Social Media company mentioned in this chat We Are Pr - helping small business manage social media Donate to Cider Chat! Help keep the chat thriving! Find this episode and all episodes at the page for Cider Chat's podcasts. Listen also at iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher (for Android), iHeartRadio and where ever you love to listen to podcasts. Follow on twitter @ciderchat    

With a bit of history on the oldest Cider Fest in the US held the 1st weekend of November CiderDays (yes it has always been spelled as one word) was founded in 1994, by Judith and Terry Maloney or West County Cider in Colrain, Massachusetts. Listen to their son West County's cidermaker in 001: Field Maloney | West County Cider, MA USA CiderDays is always held on the first weekend of November. For many years, it was a one day event. It took a few years, but before we knew it CiderDays became a two days and then three days. This podcast chat provides insider tips on traveling to CiderDays, places to stay, where to get cider and off beaten tips for this region. 047: Attending CiderDays provides info 2016's  schedule, that chat goes live on September 21, 2016. Where you can get supplies to make your own cider or buy cider to take home. Tip: Place your order for cider supplies now - especially yeast! Beerology this is a brand new store and it will be open by CiderDays 2016 (Northampton, MA) Beer and Wine Making Supplies, Inc (Northampton, MA) Pine Hill Apple Orchard (Colrain, MA) also has a retail outlet with some cidermaking supplies and they sell bulk cider on CiderDays (usually 3-4 large cider blends so bring your carboys and barrels). Let's begin with a bit of history; The first CiderDays began as a one day event on the first saturday of November, the year was 1994. It has been held on the first weekend of November every year since. Of course the Maloney's didn't do this all alone, but they were certainly the catalyst. Local orchards like Pine Hill, Clarkdale Fruit Farm, the now closed Greenwood Orchard in Northfield, which I regretfully say had one of the most amazing assortment of cider trees around along with a beautiful old press was sold after the owner just couldn't sustain the lack of interest in apples. Ug! Some of those trees are still there shrouded in vines. That orchard sold to folks who don't care about apples. It happens. You can now stop in at so many more orchards to get a jug of cider or buy pear juice at Clarkdale for instance. Many sell  fresh apples - pears and you can also enjoy a walk in the orchard. One of the main source for CiderDays volunteers  was Valley Fermenters, consider to be the oldest homebrew club in the US. I am a member and as such I gladly volunteered to go out to a cider house in the region and stand ready with carboy, airlock and sweet cider to provide a demo on cidermaking. At the end of the day, we all congregated at the building next to Pine Hill which has since been turned into a residence. It was there that West County use to have a tasting room. A few of use showed up and Judith and Terry would provide a big round of cheese and we would all bring out our own bottles of cider. The chatter would grow louder and louder and eventually Judith would stand up on a chair and  thank the group and do a toast. Little did we know that that after party would eventually turn in to the two session Cider Salon that is sold out every year. In 1998, I was invited to the after after party/dinner at the Maloney's. Their home is tucked up high onCatamount Hill. A catamount is another name for a mountain lion. There are many sightings of these big cats and just as many denials by the Fish and Wildlife department in Massachusetts. Driving north of Pine Hill Orchard in Colrain, make sure to look to the right as you go down a long steep and I mean steep hill. You'll want to shift down and slow a bit, not only because of the hill but to see the beautiful life size metal shadow figure that is mounted on the side of the rocky hill that was cut in the form of a mountain lion.  If you see it, you too can say that you saw a Catamount! I certainly passed the lion on my way to the Maloneys, when I was invited to attend their special CiderDays after after dinner party with  local apple farmers like Ben Clark of Clarkdale Orchard and Dave Shear of Pine Hill Orchard.  Along with Paul Correnty who was the chef for many years at the Cider Dinner, up until the Maloney's and the other organizers realized that a larger community dinner made sense for CiderDays. Paul is quick to a smile and also the author of The Art of Cidermaking (1998). Published in 1998, it was the first book I ever owned at the time on cidermaking and by the way he spelled cidermaking as one word. In that book are photos taken of local orchards that are still to this day involved in CiderDays. It was at that first dinner I attend, likely in 1998 cuz Paul was sitting next to me on a milk crate as there were no more chairs. We sat at a long table, with candles illuminating lots of cider smiles, bottles and jugs of cider and good conversation. It was then that I proclaimed out loud that I would really like to help promote apples and cider. And so I did, with many subsequent writes ups and features in Brewing News. I wrote the obituary for Terry Maloney when we lost him due to an industrial accident while working in his cidery in 2010. I had to really work hard to convince the editors to let me have space for cider in the well known beeriodical Brewing News, but they relented and now just this year all the writers for Yankee Brew News were told that they could put cider news in their regular beer column. I'm not precise on the date, but soon I was the only person teaching cidermaking at CiderDays.  For about two years in a row, I did a demo on saturday and sunday. I'm posting a photo of me taken at the saturday event that was held back when the old brick building in Colrain was used. I remember seeing Terry watching me and then saw Mike Beck standing way in the back…I think shaking his head. I had brought along a big jug and bottles to share. I'm a bit of a rogue cidermaker and at the time didn't give a hoot about specific gravity or the science. Mike, probably thought I was crazy and he'd be right. But I also thought what up with this cidery from Michigan that is encasing their bottles is lime green? Of course that has changed, but back then - it was pretty wiggy branding for Uncle John's. I taught cidermaking for the first 16 years of that event, but as my professional work as an international consultant in curriculum and crisis intervention became more demanding I had to pull back. Between 2008 and 2012 I was only able to do my demo at New Salem Preserves and that was about it. I barely had time to make my own cider, and as a result the quality in most recents years really declined. Which leads me to say,  "Yes getting sweet cider to ferment is easy to do. The work of nurturing and paying attention to the cider once you get it rolling requires time and a bit of skill". I suspect I will get back to it and certainly will make cider this year, but not the same volume  that I use to make. My cider is now the voice of many around the world chatting about what you and I love to sip and savor. There are more stories to tell and I plan on collecting those during this coming CiderDays, so if you have one, please don't be shy. I want to hear your tales if you have ever attend Ciderdays and would like to share a special moment for this amazing event - or leave me a message on this site via Speakpipe! Overview of chat tips and mentions Franklin County is located in Western Ma - which is 75 miles to the west of Bos. Folks can fly into Logan airport, Manchester Airport in New Hampshire, the Providence Rhode Island airport and Bradley Field Airport in Ct. Any of these airports will drop you into a region where you can plot your own map to CiderDays. Want to find a local cidery? Check out Cydermarket LLC If you are traveling west on Route 2, pick up cidermaking supplies at NFG Home Brew Supply Shop. They are open  thursday 3-8, friday 9-2 and saturday from 10 - 3. I would recommend Bradley Field, mainly because it is the closest, super easy to get around, with lots of choices for local hotels - and some nearby Beer stops with tasting rooms - note there aren't that many cider hotspots. Its an easy one hour drive up  interstate 91 to Franklin county. Or take Route 75 north and into Agawam and stop at Kaptain Jimmy's. They are part of the Opa Opa Brew Label (yes this is owned by two greek brothers who came to the US with nothing more than a blanket) and they have built up a big beer empire locally. I like this place because they have great food, big pours and a distillery on site. Easy stop, affordable and on you go. Then pop on route 57 and it will take you back to Interstate 91 or go along the mighty Connecticut River and follow Route 5 all the way. That will drop you right smack into Northampton Massachusetts, where Smith College is located. As you are entering town on Pleasant Street you will see to your right Beerology at 324 Pleasant. This is a new home brew supply store own by husband and wife team Mike Schilling and Jordana Starr. I am going to record a Cider Chat at Beerology on Friday November 4th with Ellen Cavalli of Tilted Shed Cider in California and maybe Darlene Hayes too. They are both traveling together. You can listen to my chat with Darlene by going to episode 18. Stop in and get your supplies at Beerology on the way in as they are really stoked to share their wealth of knowledge. Northampton is a college town and a very eclectic city with excellent coffee shops, beer bars, like The Foundry, Dirty Truth, and Sierra Grille. The Sierra Grille has two dedicated cider taps. And I am talking with O'Brain Tomlin (who by the way is actor Susan Sarandon's brother - cool right) he is a great dude in his own right believe me and he loves to talk about food. I expect he will be doing a cider menu that weekend, so stay tuned for last minute tips as we get closer to CiderDays. As you are rolling north on Route 5 out of Northampton you can stop in at Beer and Winemaking Supplies Inc - also a homebrew shop, incase you forgot some critical items like a carboy or a food grade plastic 5 gallon bucket to get some unpasteurized sweet juice that weekend. Also, this stretch of road has a  bunch of gas stations and further up on Route 5 you can hop back on Interstate 91 and sail north or if you decide to take the back way you will pass Big Y grocery store and then River Vally Market - which has a nice selection of food and a bit of cider. From here you are about 20 minutes to Greenfield and Franklin County. Franklin county spans both sides of the Connecticut River. There is a spectacular view at Mount Sugarloaf  which is a State Park. I don't think you will be able to drive up this late in the season, but there is a nice hike that would take an hour of your time to get up and down. Here they filmed a Mel Gibson motion picture a couple years back now. Whatever…and many folks travel here to view the Ct River. You can see all the way south to Springfield. There is a great hike up the road, but I recommend taking the trail with its switchbacks and views along the way and then coming back down the road. Believe me it is worth it. You can then drive north from Sugar Loaf and pass into South Deerfield. that will take you back to Route 5 and in no time you will be in Old Deerfield. There are two big attractions right in South Deerfield, Yankee Candle which is a trippy tourist area, but it has lots of restrooms and a restaurant and then also the Butterfly museum. There is also a Red Roof Inn right off the highway here. This is not a bad location to land after a busy day, because you can fly right up the highway and manever about pretty easily from this spot. It is about a 10 minute drive up the road to downtown Greenfield. Deerfield Academy is located in the Heart of Old Deerfield or Historic Deerfield as some prefer to call it. This is where a lot of events have taken place over the years for CiderDays at the White Church, where we also hold our monthly Valley Fermenters meeting on the second thursday of every month. There is a ton of history here to see. A world class museum and the Deerfield Inn, if you have the bucks to stay here, they do have a very nice restaurant and the location is perfect for many CiderDays events. If you are just driving through this town you will see a ton of old New England homes and the Sheldon Hatchet Door. It is the original door that was there when during a very bloody 1704 Raid on the town. Check the link provided to find more info. Swing up north on Route 5 and soon you will be in Downtown Greenfield. Stop in at Seymour a beer bar, that I know will have cider on hand - I expect they will be having a bit of a cidercentric selection all weekend. I will be there on friday night post Darlene Hayes talk across the street. Watch for my tweets on last minute updates on events and meetups on my twitter feed @ciderchat If you are looking for lodging during your stay check out Airbnb and also some of the fine Bnb's  There are a bunch of selections. There is also a Hampton Inn, a Days Inn in Greefield.  You might be caught having to look south in Amherst and Hadley for lodging or even Northampton. But don't worry, it is all pretty darn drivable and as this is considered the 5 college area there are lots of cheap darn good eats to find too. I use Hotels.com to peruse the reviews and make the best selection and recommend the same to you. As I said earlier Franklin County covers a very wide area. You will hear folks calling the hill towns of Colrain and Shelburne Falls " West County" and some think this is the Berkshires, but in the end it is all still Franklin County. Do know there is lodging also in Shelburne Falls and out this way on Route 2, which is also called the Mohawk Trail. In Shelburne Falls, you have to see the Bridge of Flowers, which was an old trolley track that is now adorn with flowers and lovely to walk year round. This town has also been  used for filming major motion pictures like the Judge and Labor Day. But I know it as a great place to walk about and get a good bite to eat, view the Pothole area south of the bridge that connects Shelburne Falls and Buckland across the river and get a cone of ice cream before heading home. Dinner Options: West End Pub Blue Rock Have treat at Mo's Fudge Factory Recommended hike in Shelburne area: High Ledges (approximately 1 hour back and forth) While you are up at High Ledges, you will pass by a sign that says Wheel-View Farm. This is also a cidery and has a Tasting Room. Check with their webpage to find timing. Coming up from Northampton or Pittsfield, Ashfield's Elmer Store serves food and has wifi. Help Support Cider Chat's (Ria's) trip to the International Hall of Gala Ciders. I am sure I won't have this trip paid off for a while and every little bit counts. Please donate today. Donate to Cider Chat! Help keep the chat thriving!   No need to scroll up. I have posted the chat right here for you to start listening. Enjoy![app_audio src="http://ciderchat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/046-Going-to-CiderDays-Insider-Tips-Massachusetts.mp3"]

John 8:48-59. The first installment of Pleasant Street's series on the life of Christ: I AM. The story "starts" with the eternal past.

PD106: SEGEMENT 1 Annual NSS-CDS Workshop: “2010: an Innerspace Odyssey” May 21-23, 2010…. Otter Springs, Florida  SEGMENT 2: Interview with Dr. Thomas J. Goreau about Coral Reef Restoration and the use of BioRock  Dr. Goreau is the President of the Global Coral Reef Alliance. The GCRA is a coalition of volunteer scientists, divers, environmentalists and other individuals and organizations, committed to coral reef preservation. Global Coral Reef Alliance   37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Set list: 01. Tim Buckley, "It Happens Every Time" LP Tim Buckley (Asylum, 1966) 02. Tocotronic, "Ich Glaube, ich Habe Meine Unschuld Verloren" CD Digitar ist Besser (L'Age D'Or, 1994) 03. The Saints, "(I´m) Stranded" LP Anarchy In The Uk-Uk Punk 1 (1976-77) (Rhino/WEA, 1993) 04. Jim O'Rourke, "All Downhill From Here" CD Insignificance (Drag City, 2001) 05. The Kinks, "Lola" LP Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One (Pye, 1970) 06. Koop, "Come To Me" CD Koop Island (Superstudio, 2006) 07. Carla Bruni, "Le Toi Du Moi" CD Quelqu´un M´a Dit (Naive, 2003) 08. Vicent Gallo, "Fools Rush In", CD Buffalo 66 Soundtrack(Will, 1998) 09. Tim Buckley, "Understand Your Man", LP Tim Buckley (Asylum, 1966) 10. Cactus Cream, "King Size", CD Elefante be bop 11. Tocotronic, "Freiburg" CD Digitar ist Besser (L'Age D'Or, 1994) 12. Kettcar, "48 Stunden" CD Von Spatzen und Tauben, Dächern und Händen (Grand Hotel van Cleef, 2005) 13. Tim Buckley, "Pleasant Street" LP Goodbye and Hello (Asylum, 1967) Foto: Universität Bielefeld Música introdução: Carlos Santana, "Samba Pa Ti" BG: Elwood & Jake, "Theme From Rawhide" Links: Rss feed 2.0: http://octopusmonosound.podomatic.com/rss2.xml www.timbuckley.com, www.tocotronic.de, www.saintsmusic.com, www.dieselmusic.se/koop, www.carlabruni.com, www.vincentgallo.com, www.cactuscream.com.br, www.kettcar.net