Today I'm gonna give you five of the quantitative data analysis questions from the digital SAT in five minutes or less. Today we're gonna focus on those questions that ask you to support a claim using data and tomorrow I'm gonna show you how to handle the questions where you have to complete the text using data. And it's gonna ask you what data from the graph best supports the researcher's claim and so what you need to do is go straight to the text and try to figure out what that claim is. Jill argues that focusing on a specific relationship status including less common statuses could lead to growth. I'm not quite sure what we're talking about in terms of growth here. I may wanna go read that first sentence so I get a better idea. It says, although dating apps are hardly new, they have proliferated considerably in recent years on mobile phones. However, it seems that the growth has stalled. Okay, so the growth in use of dating apps has stalled. It's gone flat, but that this marketing expert thinks that if we focus on this specific kind of group we could actually see some growth. So all I wanna do is find an answer that matches that idea. First one says here that 30% have used a dating app and there's significant room for growth across all statuses. The all status answer is always gonna be wrong if we're being asked to focus on something specific. B, the group with the lowest usage rate are married couples and there are likely few dating apps focused on married couples. That doesn't really make any sense. Married couples would be a very large group, first of all, not an uncommon one and obviously not a group that really needs to use dating apps. C says, the only group with any growth at all was the divorced separated widowed category all of whom could benefit from having an app focused on their specific situation. That's your answer. And we do see that when we look at the data there was that one percentage point growth in that category. So it makes sense that the expert would be telling us to focus on that category for more growth. For a second question, we're gonna focus on the claim here. And it says that when examining data from younger workers he found the pay gap is much smaller. Therefore it would be best to focus on the gap in older workers. First sentence tells me the gender pay gap. So the point here he's trying to make is that there are different gender pay gaps. There's a gender pay gap for younger workers which is less than there is for older workers. And so we should focus on the older workers. So let's take a look at our answer choices. Despite the better situation for female workers aged 25, 34, there's still a pay gap that must be addressed. He's not asking us to focus on the younger workers. He wants us to focus just on the older ones. Comparing all female workers to those aged 25 to 34. All right, so this thing all women that's gonna be wrong. Also we need to focus specifically on the group that he wants us to. C says, female workers aged 25 to 34 have closed the gap significantly faster than other women reducing the gap by 12 points. Okay, that is true, but that's not the point he's trying to make. D says, the gap for women aged 25 to 34 is currently 10 points smaller than it is for all female workers. There's our point. Okay, proving the efforts to close the pay gap should focus more on older workers. That's exactly what he was trying to say. D is the right answer. All right, for the third question says CDC director Rochelle Walensky has argued that mental health support needs to be increased to address this issue. The distinction of being the only nation where gunshots are the primary death of children. Okay, so basically a lot of kids die in the USA because of guns, it's really sad. She argues that mental health is the issue. Gun deaths among children sharply increased in 2020 and 2021, years where the pandemic had a significant mental health impact on young people in school. There's your answer, that's gotta be it. After 2020, we see a huge increase in the number of children dying from guns. So the argument makes sense. This data does support the claim. We're gonna mark A and move on. The fourth question here is asking about John Stapleton's claim. And so if we look at the text for John Stapleton in the middle, it says, the author of How Americans View Their Jobs hypothesized that people would be likely to see their work as more integral to their identity if they received more education. Those with some college or less had approximately the same number of responses in each of the three categories. So that answer is gonna be wrong because we wanna focus probably on that extremely or very column. B, the percent of respondents reporting that their job was only somewhat important or not important was the lowest in the group with postgraduate studies. And for the same reason I can say B is wrong, I wanna make sure I focus on that extremely or very important column. There was a 5% increase in those who claimed their job was very important in their identity when respondents had a bachelor's degree and a further 14% increase when a master's or doctor was involved. That's the answer right there. So we're seeing the importance to one's identity continuously increasing as we add education. That's your best answer. Okay, question five asks us about Al Gore's claim and in the text Al Gore says that we must be careful about how we communicate progress as it can suddenly cause support to decline. He specifically noted the Paris Agreement signed in 2016 provided a false sense of comfort to many people. Several countries including Canada and France saw modest declines in concern about climate change in 2017. I wanna take a quick look at the data there because that could support his point. 2017 would be after the Paris Agreement and I do see that there are small declines there but I don't think that that's the best evidence for this question. So let's go for B. Four of the country's surveyed saw declines in concern over climate change after the Paris Agreement was signed with several others flatlining during that time. I wanna make sure that the data supports that and it says here that yeah, four countries saw declines. I can see that for example in Poland there's a big decline right there and then there's also several flatlining countries like South Africa and so that illustrates the claim. I think B is our best answer. The key to handling these questions is to make sure you understand the claim and then look at the answers and then check the data. If the answer could support the claim you have to check the data. If the answer doesn't support the claim at all just ignore it and keep moving. Here in like question five I have two answers that could support the claim but one did a much better job than the other and so it's important for me to make sure I check with the data and make sure I find the best support for that claim. You also wanna try to read that first sentence of each paragraph just to get an idea of what the paragraph is about but also make sure you focus on where that claim is and so you can minimize reading the whole paragraph just kind of picking the parts that you need so that you can improve your speed. Tomorrow I'm gonna show you a video on how to handle the other kinds of questions where we do sentence completion style graphs and charts questions so I will see you then.


Hello everyone and welcome to navigating open source project hurdles to achieve community empowerment or how the heck do you get through graduation. Just as a quick poll of the audience, how many are potentially considering submitting a project to the CNCF? Okay. How many are associated with a project in Sandbox? Okay. How about incubating? Okay. No one at that tier? Graduated? I know you are. Okay. So with that, my name is Bob Killen. I am known as Mr. Bobby Tables across all the things. I am a program manager for Google's open source programs office. I am also a member of the Kubernetes Steering Committee and chair of CIG Contributor Experience. And I'm Ijomal Nurmamat Kuzi. I am a director of DevRel and company called Cyzdik. We also open source donated a project to CNCF called Falco that provides runtime security for Kubernetes containers cloud. And previously I was with Bob Killen in Google's OSPO where we work with many different projects both CNCF and not CNCF, including projects like Knative and Istio that we help to open source and donate to CNCF. But what people don't know about us is that Bob and I, we started a project called Alpaca and it's totally a real project. It's a software packaging with middle-out compression. So very real. And we think it adds a lot of value to the cloud native ecosystem. And we're wondering, oh, why don't we donate it to CNCF? So it's quite safe to say that CNCF is one of the most well-known foundations and it's got a lot of support. It's like it has really wide ecosystem with many vendors, many players, many developers and projects within it. And there's a lot of interest and momentum for cloud native software. But CNCF is also very, very big. It can feel like it's very overwhelming landscape and it often feels so. So how do we know that CNCF is the right place for our little Alpaca? So we ask ourselves a question. Is my project right for CNCF? CNCF says that the project is a good fit if it first is the mission of CNCF, which is to make the cloud native computing ubiquitous. Some examples they give is software that extends or integrates with an existing CNCF project like Kubernetes or software that fulfills the current need like wasn't. Alpaca lets us package and compress software to ship across the cloud. So we think it's a good fit. By the way, it's totally real. However, that decision might be different depending on your project. There are other foundations out there with different cultures, with different focus. And sometimes when you apply to CNCF sunbooks, the technical oversight committee, they may recommend you to join other foundation that might be a better fit for your project. And examples of those foundations is like other foundations under a left umbrella like AI and data. There's also Apache Software Foundation. There's Open Infra Foundation and they have all different goals, purposes and different culture and focus. So when you plan to open source your project, it's just choose whatever is close for your project and close to your heart. And if you decide to join CNCF, on a very high level, you get a few really important things that help you grow your project. First thing is visibility. CNCF is a large organization and projects get credibility by being part of it. They also receive marketing benefits from the foundation that help you achieve the visibility and we'll dive into those a bit more later. Being part of CNCF also helps you to be aligned with the cloud native ecosystem. When you join CNCF, you join a large community of cloud native projects and their maintainers. By being within it, you can work across CNCF and meet stakeholders from different projects and that help you align your efforts with efforts of the rest of the players in the ecosystem. And CNCF also has a proven legal framework and it's one of the bigger benefits of joining any foundation. They have lawyers that have built the right licensing and ownership frameworks for the project so you don't really have to worry about that. As an example, you isolate it from any legal considerations, from accepting contributions from different individuals or organizations and usually that's a headache like to set it up properly. But perhaps the most important benefit that you get is a vendor neutral home for your project and this is very important like for multiple reasons. This gives trust and peace of mind for users that choose to adopt your project and when your users are people and companies and by seeing that your project is part of the CNCF, they will be sure that it will always stay open. The licenses won't change in the future and their governance framework also ensures that there's not a single vendor that drives all the decisions for the project. Okay, so I love the idea of being a CNCF project and your project may too and within the CNCF there are certain project maturity levels that roughly equate with the whole innovators, early adopters and early majority tiers of the crossing the chasm diagram. We're all here at the CNCF, I'm sure everyone knows a good amount of this and don't have to dive into a lot of detail, but the tiers for us are sandbox incubating and graduated. So our wee little alpaca has decided yes, it wants to join the CNCF and it's still a very young project so it's going to aim for sandbox. So with that, we let the journey begin and start to look at what it actually takes to become a sandbox project. The requirements for sandbox are not very strict and that's by design. The lack of strictness is to ensure the projects have the best chance for success. But before even joining the sandbox, there are few important considerations that anyone should understand. And specifically, you need to understand what happens to your intellectual property and what you will need to end up like transferring to CNCF. So you'll transfer a trademark, your logo, your domain name if you have and it is a legal process. So if you're a company, please check with your legal department before you go ahead with anything. And all of your code needs to be licensed with Apache 2 license and there might be other licenses that they approved by CNCF but Apache 2 is what is recommended. And anyway, you should adopt something very permissive. The transfer of the trademark to CNCF also doesn't mean that you can't use it anymore. There are clear policies around how to use the trademark in a commercial product and from our time, when we're donating K-native to CNCF, the big question for the company was, oh, can we use K-native in the name of our Google branded service? And the answer is yes, there are clear policies that you can follow and so can do other vendors if they launch similar products. So knowing this, if you still want to move forward, there are some requirements to join the sandbox and we'll categorize them into streaming buckets. First is governance. Like we said, there are not a lot of requirements. At this stage, you're just asked to adopt the CNCF code of conduct and have simple discoverable governance. It's worth mentioning that as you grow, these requirements will change and CNCF mapped out the whole journey and things will change over time. There are a few things that are not hard requirements at this stage but they're really nice and useful to have even at this stage. And that is documentation and contributions and how to build your project, how to test and what you expect from your contributors and also ensure that your project metadata and resources all vendor neutral. So when you usually start your project on your laptop or your company, it's all testing, infra is managed by you and a good goal is to have that infrasherable so others can join you in building your project once you are in the sandbox. And we've seen over and over many projects struggle with just vendor attach. It can take a long time to move stuff out of vendor controlled CI into community owned CI. It's also good to have a discoverable communication channel. A lot of CNCF projects use Slack and you can use CNCF or Kubernetes Slack for your project. You just start a channel there and you invite people to join there. And probably at this stage for your project, more than governance, it's important to have a clear proposition for your project. What it is, what is it exactly? What does it do? Is it real like our Alpaca project? How does it fulfill the need in the cloud native ecosystem? And usually it will be a read me file in your repo or on your website like landing page if you have a website. And it's not the requirement but it's always a great idea to have cool demos for your project. Can you show in a concise manner why your project is awesome? And that's usually what gets people convinced. And good guides for new users to pick up and use your project are also useful. Okay. So now we get to dive a little bit into the security requirements. Again, for joining the CNCF, it's pretty minimal. The biggest thing is that you have some access controls. So things like 2FA, if you have org members, they don't all have admin access. And while this is the only requirement for Sandbox, there are a few things that I highly recommend implementing early and they'll help you down the line. Namely, having a process for handling vulnerability reports or other security issues. This can be as simple as creating a security mailing list that a few of your maintainers are on. And having a process for this is required for incubating. So getting it going early just sort of takes care of it ahead of time later. Another useful thing that is not strictly required at any level would be to actually set up some sort of group secret manager, like one password or a key base. You seriously would not believe the amount of secrets you can accumulate quickly. Zoom, CI, Google workspace, it's a lot easier to have those in a secret manager from the get-go instead of trying to deal with it later. Like, trust me, it sucks trying to get creds out of a vendor account than the person left the vendor. So, Alpaca has done their homework. They've created some basic governance. They've checked their licenses, created a lightweight vulnerability triage process, and they think they're ready to apply. So, yes, it applies for Sandbox. It's pretty straightforward. There's an issue template in the C&C of Sandbox repo with all the questions that you need. The big thing I want to call out is that there are a lot of people entering Sandbox, and they essentially go into a queue to be reviewed by the TOC, and they batch review them roughly every two months. They will keep your issue updated with various labels that will indicate its state in the entire process. I recommend checking out the README in the C&C of Sandbox repo, and that will cover it all. So, Alpaca got pretty lucky. There wasn't a lot of projects in the queue. About two months later, congrats. It's now a Sandbox project. It's in the C&CF. It's excited. They aren't even going to bother looking at the incubating stuff. They're going to look at graduated projects for inspiration for their governance, their policies, and they're going to talk to some of the maintainers there to get some good advice. So, don't just copy Kubernetes. Now, a lot of new projects look to it as the golden standard, and that's all well and good, but they think they need to implement its structure, governance, and policies word for word. And Kubernetes has 10 years of history to get where it is, and it's a very big and large project. Now, that's not to say there aren't pieces that are great for smaller projects, and I'm sorry, I'm getting a phone call apparently. So, it's great to be inspired by Kubernetes governance and Kubernetes policies, but I really don't recommend just copying them at this time because you're going to have a bad time. Alpaca has heated the advice of other maintainers and scoped things down to just focus on the right priorities for this stage. And at this stage, we're still trying to find the market fit for Alpaca and build our identity, and we focused on developing solid use cases. What are big problems or problem categories that we're trying to address, and we document them and explain them very well, and we advocate for a project. Like, we join all the meetup groups, we write blogs, we present our project to different, like, audiences, and, like, we talk to different groups in CNCF and get feedback continuously and try to improve. We also need to love and nurture our first users, and luckily, we have those because we got the really cute mascot, and it really helps with acquiring new users. And users will always be our priority, right? But in early stages, you will know them well, and it's a really great opportunity for you to work closely with them, understand their pain points, and, yeah, like, get really high-quality feedback. And we use that feedback to build what users need, hopefully. And also, in early stages, we build features and try to build them fast. So it's good to stay lean and keep simple development processes. But also, it's very important to have a good, reliable testing. And this will help you to build new features fast, but also make sure that the core of the project will always work as intended. And Sunbox is a safe environment to experiment, and you really need to experiment a lot. And not everything will be a hit. You might even end up changing your vision for your project, and that's totally fine. Or you might find new interesting use cases that can further solidify your belief in your project. And to help you grow, CNCF offers a few services. By the way, we know that Costco is not Alpaca. It's Lama, but it's pretty close, so we used him here. But here's the list of the services that CNCF provides for Sunbox projects, starting with CICD, with some limitations, of course, ending with supporting, like, you in events, supporting you with documentation and design, like website development, so on and so forth. So you can check that link out for details. So with your great vision and your friends and CNCF support, things are going really great. And maybe a few hundred PRs later, you look around and think, what is next, right? And the next step for a project with CNCF is to join the incubator. And you're still in the Sunbox, and you have been working hard on your project priorities, which we mentioned earlier. But now we, to get to the next level, we need to do a bit more. Specifically, you, like, you have built identity for your project, and now you want to solidify it by documenting real-life production case studies. In fact, it's a requirement from the CNCF to go to the next level, and they want to see evidence of production usage of your project. It's always a good idea to add a file where adapters of your project can add themselves easily. This is usually done with an adapter's MD file in your repo. And I think it's better to go beyond company names and logos and actually interview them and document them into detailed case studies. And your readers will appreciate technical details, and so go deep. Don't be afraid to end up with five pages of case study, right? And these case studies will be your amazing marketing material, and they will help you to get more users who relate to your use case. And your users will always be your best advocate, so try to get as many of case studies as possible. We talked about users earlier.  Sometimes it's hard to keep up with everything, so issues, pull requests. So you need to have clear processes for validating and accepting contributions. A good tip is to have a good issue template, and so your users submit issues properly, and you can triage them easily and faster. Finally, while you used to focus on building and shipping lots of features really fast, at this stage you probably need to start prioritizing stability more highly. A roadmap can be a useful tool, and it's not a hard requirement from the CNCF just yet, but it can help you to communicate and set some expectations with the users on what is coming next. Okay, so we have worked to mature our project, and we think we're ready to graduate from the CNCF Sunbox, and how do we actually do it? Well, to move to the next level, you will be asked to fill out DD, which stands for due diligence document, and the purpose of this document is to provide the TUC the information that they need on your project organized really nicely and made readily available, so they can form their opinion whether you're ready to move to the next level or not, and this document also helps them to drive consensus when they're taking the decision. And there will be many questions asked, and what is the purpose of the project? What are the primary use cases? What are the performance or governance or security considerations? So we will dive into those requirements a bit more here. Okay, so starting with the governance requirements. The requirements for incubation aren't that bad. It's mostly just documenting a few things and demonstrating that you've had growth. So maybe more members from various different organizations, you'll be able to get more information from DevStats. These are all just things that just kind of evolve with the project as it matures. But somewhere before, there's a few things that you can implement here that will really help you in the long run. First thing is like documenting your contributor lifecycle. This is technically a graduation requirement, but it's very useful to implement earlier. A contributor lifecycle or sort of creating the policies around what defines a contributor, how they can join the org, become a member or maintainer, and when they should be potentially moved to emeritus status and removed. It's useful to implement early in the project's life sort of like once they've started to firm up their identity and are in the stage where they're going to be potentially adding a lot more people to the project. It removes a lot of the ambiguity around becoming an org member and defines like various sort of activity requirements to continue to be an org member. On the removal side, it's not fun to remove people from a project, but it's important and necessary. Having people in the org potentially with elevated permissions that aren't doing anything there is a legitimate security risk. The other thing is like people are allowed to grow or have other life situations. Things might change and take them away from the project. And this just helps sort of defines it and can help like remove like stem off any sort of like conflict that might arise if someone is potentially has their rights pulled from being an admin or removed from the org. For alpaca, they've decided to like to be an org member. You must sustain 50 dev stats contributions a year or actively serve in a noncode role to stay on as an org member. People might nitpick what meaningful contribution is, but there's a big difference from a single type of fix to opening a PR with a design proposal. Now these requirements may change in the future, but it gives alpaca a good base to work with. Another thing that isn't a requirement at any level but is very useful is a contributor ladder. So similar to documenting the life cycle as sort of like entry exit criteria, a contributor ladder compliments it by creating roles and paths for maintainers into leadership. So many projects start out giving all org members right or admin access or like with merge rights, but that really doesn't scale well as you grow. So having a ladder with defined conditions like on what sort of knowledge does it take to have a new contributor move to a org member or maintainer or to give them merge rights can just like really, really help there. It gives contributors a growth path and can reduce instances of like why was that person granted admin access or why was that person promoted to a leader instead of me? So quickly going back to our fluffy little packaging project, they've decided to delegate to giving people merge rights to the code owners for an area or repo and with it requiring two leads to sign off or a simple majority of say the root owners in the event that a lead for that area isn't available or is no longer active. Next on the like technical docs front, technical docs and processes front, most of the requirements here, again sort of like just naturally evolve as the project matures. The big thing is just remembering to document them. You wouldn't believe how many projects like these naturally things happen, but they don't actually document them and just doing that can like save you a lot of stress later, especially when going for bumping up to the next level. So one of the things that's like not mentioned here is licenses. This has really bitten multiple projects in the rear and has caused problems when they go to try and move to the next level. They'll accidentally import a dependency with an incompatible license. And it's, you know, it is possible to get exceptions, but that can take a long time and requires both the governing board like lawyers and the governing board to sign off and you're talking, you know, months to get that taken care of. It's easier honestly just to like implement a process or CI check to prevent that sort of thing in the first place. Okay. With that out of the way, let's cover the last thing, security requirements. Yay. So we covered the security vulnerability port and sort of like triage process earlier. The remaining things for incubation are like the open SSF best practices badge, which isn't really security related, but just has a bunch of things you should be doing already. Like, are you really seeing with a version scheme? Are your docs up to date? Do you have an SSL certificate?  And then the last thing is a self-assessment, a security self-assessment using the sort of process created by tag security. And it's really there just to make sure you are following security-minded best, like development best practices. You can see, like, check it out in the CNCF tag security repo for a bit of info. Okay. Deep breath. That's a lot. But let's come back to, you know, Alpaca. At this point, the DD doc is done. They've gone back and like documented the things that were missing. A lot of the things, you know, they were already doing, they just, you know, weren't written down. So they apply for it. And after, you know, some more time in the queue with a whole slew of other projects. The TUC gets to vote and has approved Alpaca for incubating. Lots of people are happy with that. You know, turns out the whole, you know, middle out compression thing works out pretty well. There's even this Pied Piper company that's interested in it. So it's a huge milestone, right? So we take our time to celebrate it with our friends. We organize a meetup, go to local events. We share our journey and plan for all the exciting future. So when you hit such a milestone, please be proud of yourself. Take your time to celebrate and recognize and reward the contributors who help you get there. And once you officially join the incubation, the priorities of your project will be well supported by the processes that you set up, everything that Bob mentioned. And at this point, you'll be experimenting a lot less, right? Now it's time to introduce more controls and processes around releases. And gross is still important, but you want to make sure that you have a path for people to grow. And that's where the ladder that Bob mentioned is really useful. Also, this might like be a great checkpoint for you to revisit your governance, right? You have a lot of people involved in the project working from different organizations, geographies, time zones. So it's very important to have a formalized decision making for each part of your project, like how you're, how you vote on new features, how you make changes in the community like management, or how do you veto certain decisions. And all of that needs to have a formalized approach. On top of those processes, now you get to access to more support from CNCF. This support can help you achieve the user and contributor growth and bring more awareness to your project. So you get to participate in CNCF co-located events like Kubecon. You can have your own small conference like Istio Day or Argo Con. And you also get help with like running community surveys or more help with documentation, etc. But incubation is a process and your project will be part of it for a while, at least a year. It usually takes more like three, four years. You'll continue to build your project, grow your users, your contributors, release quality software, deal with a lot of bugs and open issues and always wish that you were documenting more things. You will continue this journey and after some time you will want to go for graduation. Everyone does. Graduation is the last official milestone within CNCF and the graduation indicates the maturity and long-term health of your project. So again, we find ourselves in a similar situation where we look into requirements. At this stage, you hopefully got all the basics when it comes to software management like releases, issue triage, security, and you do those things really, really well. To go for graduation, you also need to demonstrate that the governance of your project ensures vendor neutrality and long-term survivability. So CNCF looks into the diversity of vendors who participate in your project and how the decisions are made. And to make sure that the project meets these criteria, we go back to our favorite process. And actually, we talked a lot about what requirements we need but we haven't spent a lot of time sharing why there are such requirements. Well, CNCF is 501C6 and ultimately it's responsible to its members. The governing board and TUC are extensions of that. So members join CNCF to ensure they have a voice and get reliable, scalable, predictable software that is vendor neutral with transparent processes, ensuring decisions are made in the open. And this is more important for graduation than any other level because it signals that the project is ready for widespread adoption. Okay. So a package in the home stretch here. You'll actually find there isn't a lot more things for it to actually do. The main thing is now, again, you just must document these things like any sort of like leadership path and how your people are promoted. Similar thing here for technical processes. If you have a roadmap or some other way of tracking your enhancements, something like, you want to have something like Python peps or Kubernetes caps, just some way to show that, you know, docs are getting reviewed or designs are getting reviewed and, you know, give people time to make suggestions and changes. One other thing I will say, it's easy to fall in the trap of making things too complicated or convoluted and you don't want to make it impossible for people to propose, you know, work and to do on like new features. So you need to balance usability and gathering the information needed to review and track your enhancements. Last thing, the security audit. The CNCF has partnered with like multiple vendors that can help you perform it. The biggest thing is like just be available for them and it will help speed things along. So our package has been diligent. It's going well. It means it's time for graduation. We're running a little slow on time, but I promise we're close to being done. Yeah, so we officially graduated project, right? And with this status, we get a bit like more support from CNCF but it's not a lot more. I will try to be faster. So the graduation status is basically a reaffirmation from CNCF of the maturity of the project and its community. So you're stable, you're used in production all over the place and you must be winning, right? Now what? What do we do after that? And well, often by now your project is a few years old and there's broadly a shift in priorities. Okay. So this is where things really start to change. You're being used in a lot of production environments. People want to know that they can upgrade and roll back. That if there's an issue, there is logging and troubleshooting. You are naturally trending towards more stability. The other thing is like your code base might be large and more complex and things can slow down and overall your project kind of becomes boring. But that's kind of expected. You're stable and hopefully you have like the various technical controls in there to help you at that point.  The other thing at this point is you don't have as many good first issues and getting up to your speed in your code base takes longer. By now for one reason or another, people might be leaving the project. You're out of the phase of just trying to get more contributors and now you need to find the balance between your current contributors, your maintainers, and recruiting new people. No, I'm not saying you shouldn't just stop trying to get new people coming in, but you should be more intentional about it and where to direct them. And you need to know where in the project to actually do that. And part of the problem is we all love our projects. We love the people in them. And like I've said it before and I'll say it again, but like open source is how you make friends in your 30s. But because we love our projects, we don't want to let it or our friends down. So it's a lot easy to fall into like bending over backwards for it instead of finding a productive way to say we're down to one person here. Hopefully you have a good ladder and you have some community members in the wings that can backfill some of those people. But it's a good time to think about how you can streamline more things for your maintainers. They're going to be lower on time. The other thing when it comes to streamlining is it includes your governance. Just because you graduated doesn't mean you shouldn't reassess your policies and make sure that they work for you at that point in time. If it doesn't, marry Conduit and if it doesn't spark joy, time to revisit. Okay. So by graduation you should have pretty comprehensive documentation. You'll have your own website. But you need to think more about how you communicate the state of your project. Publishing information on the wins and risks may seem kind of odd for a long-term sustainability, but trust me, its importance can't be overstated. Many maintainers participating as part of their job duties and quite often they literally have to justify why they should be allowed to continue to contribute. So like with a list of achievements a maintainer could say, hey, this is what I helped do and why it's worth it for me to continue to contribute. And if they aren't doing for the job, it's a good thing to include on their resume. The other part of it is looking at the risks. People will just assume you're well-staffed and everything is going smoothly unless you surface it in some way. If I'm an end-user and like Alpaca or another project is critical to my environment, we're not going to commit resources unless there is some way that signals that it is. So the other aspect of communicating all this, well first the risks and achievements complement each other, but when it comes to communicating these things, we're all very, very technical and we tend to communicate in very, very technical ways, but a lot of the people that are making the decisions on allocating headcount or doing this stuff aren't going to understand that stuff. So you need to think about how you can rephrase what you are doing to really reach them. The big point in all this is it actually all boils down to being transparent. Everyone wants growth and to look like they're great in a healthy project, but it doesn't help to hide when there are issues. Being transparent can buy your maintainer some grace because there's certainly a lot of assholes out there, but I swear most people have a bit more empathy and are more forgiving to you like slow repies or slow reviews when they know you're down to like one person. Okay.  But as we've seen, there's not the real magical end state and it's ever-changing thing that needs to be managed and the journey will continue and you will think it might look like this straight line from now on, but actually like everything else it will be bumpy and there will be lots of ups and downs and there will be big wins and issues and you're not going to win them all. But building a solid foundation with a mind for sustainability and being able to adapt as things come along can turn your hurdles from something like this to this. And with that, we're done. Thanks for putting up with us going over for a little bit. Yeah, it was too much.


When the narcissist replaces you when they discard you and find someone new When the narcissist replaces you You may blame yourself You may think that it's because of something you did wrong You may think that the narcissist has changed You may think that they are so much happier now with this new person The narcissist hasn't changed They're still the same person You're just witnessing the beginning stages of the abusive cycle When the narcissist meets a new target They love bomb them. They prepare and train them for a specific purpose By pretending to be everything that person needs them to be So they might do nice things for them. They might buy them gifts But it's all for show It's designed to hurt you and it's designed to secure their new supply The narcissist will never have a healthy relationship They're self-absorbed and they lack empathy. They cannot share another person's experience They cannot feel any care or concern for another person So they cannot connect with them Because empathy is what allows us to connect to other people It's what stops us from doing things that might hurt other people Narcissists lack empathy. They cannot feel what another person is feeling So they will never have a healthy relationship They will never be able to experience a deep connection with anyone It will always be superficial. It will only exist on the surface Where their only concern is what they can get from you Rather than what they can share Which is why when the narcissist has used you for all your worth They will discard you because you're no use to them anymore But when you see them as someone new You assume that they get in a different side of the narcissist As though there's this whole other side of their personality When there isn't What you got from the narcissist was what they had to give There isn't anything else other than what you got That was their personality That was them and this new person is going to go through the same thing It's just that the narcissist gives you an orchestration They know how to plan and coordinate the elements of a situation to produce a desired effect They give you a false impression They manipulate your emotions Just as they did when they first met you They led you to believe something that was not true Which is why you should never believe anything a narcissist is displaying to you Because all you're going to get from them is an illusion A deceptive Appearance or impression The narcissist does this to manipulate you to trick you into believing that there's so much happy with someone else Because it makes them feel good It stops them from regretting their decision to discard you The last thing a narcissist wants to feel When they leave you is regret They want to feel like they made the right decision And if they can get you to believe it, it makes it more believable for them They discarded you because in their minds, they believed that you were the problem You didn't do what they wanted you to do You didn't give them what they wanted Maybe you questioned and confronted them And maybe it hurt when the narcissist discarded you But it is actually the best thing that can happen Because it means that you are not a good source of supply for the narcissist It means that you stood your ground You realised that you deserved better But now you need to accept that the narcissist is never going to change Maybe they've replaced you But it's going to be the same as it was with you Because they never look at themselves They never reflect on their own actions So they don't think that they need to change anything They don't think there's anything wrong with them When there's something wrong with all of us We all have things we need to change or improve So people who think they don't have anything wrong with them Are actually more flawed than anyone else They don't care to change anything about themselves Because they lack empathy They don't care about how their behaviour is affecting you They're selfish So they're always going to be abusive The cycle will always repeat itself And they will just expect people to overlook what they're doing To pretend as though nothing is wrong Which is something that some people may do They may be a doormat for the narcissist They may be willing to be their punching bag And they will act like nothing is wrong But you don't know what's happening behind the scenes You don't know what's really going on with them All you're seeing is what the narcissist wants you to see You're watching their movie And they can feed whatever narrative they want to you Whatever makes them look good They will often replace you just to hurt you Just to make you feel like you were the problem So that they can feel like there's nothing wrong with them Because narcissists are shame-based people Who are doing everything they can to avoid reflecting on their shame Deep down they know there's something wrong with them They just don't want to reflect on it It's too painful for them to deal with They don't want to do the work to correct it So they'd rather blame you They'd rather create a situation where you feel like you're at fault They will go from one relationship to the next Whenever the other person questions or confronts them Whenever they feel like they're at fault And you may think the narcissist is running from you You may think that they are replacing you But they're actually just running from themselves They're trying to replace this undesirable reflection of themselves Thank you for watching I hope this video resonated with you Please like, comment, share and subscribe If you would like to donate My payback link is in the video description Couching inquiries You can email me at Couching.naar.tv at the Cudder UK Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon


All right. Good morning, and I'll come back, everyone, to our second lecture. I've just started the recording, so this lecture will also be recorded. Yeah, thank you for sharing it with us, Zechariah 410. Do not despise the day of small beginnings. And that's how it's true. That's how God usually works in all of our lives. We start small, and he sees our faithfulness in small things, and then the law of progression works. God begins to progress things. Let's move into the next chapter now. We're going to talk about the fact that each of us are ministers and ambassadors for Christ. It's along the same line that we just talked about in the earlier chapter that God has gift, grace, and function for each of us. There's gift, grace, and function for each of us, so it's along the same lines. We just developed this a little further. Let me share the PDF. All right. So we are ministers and ambassadors in Christ. One of the things we try to emphasize over and over again here at ABC is we say every believer is a minister. There is a ministry. There's work or there's service that God has for every believer, and that's something we need to awaken people to. And that's what this chapter does, and it's given to us in Christ. So in Christ, there is a heavenly call on our lives. Could somebody read Philippians 3-12-14, please, for us? Philippians 3-12-14. Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I am in layhold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid, has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Thank you. So the Apostle Paul is telling us about his own personal life, his own journey, and he says, look, I'm not already perfect. Now this is Paul speaking, you know, this letter, the letter to the Philippines was a letter that Paul wrote while he was in prison at Rome. So this is around 80, around 8066 or maybe 64 to 66, around that time when he was imprisoned in Rome or under house arrest. There's one of the last few letters that he wrote, and around 8068 he was killed at Rome. So these were letters he was writing, they called them the prison epistles. He was actually writing from, you know, where he was under house arrest in Rome. Now you can imagine that this is like towards the latter part of his ministry. It's not like in this early part of his ministry, it was the latter part of his ministry. And Paul, the Apostle, towards the latter stage of his ministry saying, look, I am not already perfect. That's very interesting. I'm not already perfect. But what am I doing? I'm pressing on. That means I'm pressing forward. I'm looking ahead. I'm moving forward so that I can lay hold of the purpose, that for which meaning the purpose for which Jesus later hold of me. So Paul has this deep awareness of God's purpose on his life, you know, there's a that for which Jesus later hold of me, you know, and all of us should live like that with a deep sense of purpose in life, that Jesus has touched us for a purpose. And that's what Paul is saying. And then he tells us, he says, you know, I don't count myself to apprehend it. That means I don't consider that I have really got a hold of everything that Jesus has for me. You know, so you can imagine, by this time, he's already done three missionary journeys. He has already established, you know, churches, so many churches with people estimate he has traveled to more than 50 major cities in those times. And plus, you know, we don't know how many other villages and towns you'd have visited along the way. So by this time, he's already done a lot. And still Paul is saying, I don't feel like I've apprehended everything. You know, I don't feel like I've got a hold of everything Jesus has in store for me. So what does he do? He says, one thing I do, I forget the past, forget those things which are behind, you know, so meaning, you can imagine, he's saying, I want to forget the past.  By this time, he had written many of his episodes. He's done so much already, but he's saying, I forget all that. And I'm reaching forward for what's up ahead. You know, think about this man. He still feels there's more. God has more for me. You know, and he's sitting in prison right now. He's in Rome. He's under house arrest. His movement is very limited. And he's saying, hey, I still feel God's got more for me. I don't feel like I've really got a hold of everything. And this whole thing is, he says, I press toward the goal. That means I press towards the finish line. I'm running towards the finish line so that I can get the prize and I can get my reward of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Wow. This is a beautiful statement. He says, you know, in Christ, in Christ, there's the upward call of God.  And this is true not just for Paul, but this is true for all of us that in Christ, there's the heavenly call. And therefore you and I can live with such a sense of purpose, like Paul, that Jesus laid a hold of me for a purpose. And no matter how many years I have been in Christ, it's not over yet. We haven't finished everything he has in store for each of us. But what do we do? We forget the things which are behind, let them go, and instead we look forward to what's ahead because there are wonderful things ahead. And we must keep pressing towards the finish line to receive the reward he has for us in the call that he has placed on us in Christ. So we can state with absolute confidence for every person who was in Christ, there is a heavenly call, an upward call of God. There's a heavenly call, a call that has come from heaven upon every person. And in that call there is purpose. God calls us for a purpose or to a purpose. And we must reach forward towards ahead and say, Lord, I want to fulfill it. So live with that sense of purpose in Christ Jesus. You are in Christ. There's a call of God on your life. So in relation to that, a few things, we must live with a sense of wanting to fulfill our ministry. Let's read Colossians chapter 4 verse 17. Somebody could read that please for us. Colossians chapter 4 verse 17. Colossians chapter 4 verse 17. Okay. Whoever first person can continue. Colossians chapter 4 verse 17. And say to Archipus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. Thank you. So Paul is writing to this person, Archipus, and he's saying, we don't know too much about him. His name is mentioned. Paul is writing and he's saying, you know, be careful about the ministry which you have received in the Lord and I've underlined in the Lord. You see, all of us have received a ministry. That means now the ministry, you know, it sounds like a very technical word. The word ministry simply means to serve. This means to serve. Okay. So all of us have been called to serve, to do something which has been given to us in which you have received and it is in the Lord. So in Christ, everybody, each one of us has received a ministry. Now, like we said, you know, the ministries would differ the size of the ministry, the scope of the ministry, the scale of the ministry, the influence and the impact. So all of that will be different. That's okay. According to the gift and the grace, God's given to us. That's okay. But our responsibility is to make sure we fulfill it. Fulfill it means make sure you complete the work. Whatever he wanted you to do, make sure you finish it. So we must take heed. That means we must be watchful, we must be careful. We must be diligent about this. There's an heavenly call that God has put on each one of us in Christ. And our responsibility is to be watchful, to be diligent and to make sure that we fulfill the ministry which we have received in Christ. So fulfill your ministry. And the labor we are doing is in the Lord. Could somebody read 1 Corinthians 15, 58, please? 1 Corinthians 15, 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren. 1 Corinthians 15, 58. All right. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Thank you. So Paul is reminding us about something. That our labor, that means the work we do, the call we answer, the ministry we do, each of us, our labor is in the Lord. I underlined that again. In the Lord. That means it's in Christ. It's not something that is outside of our being in Christ. So this whole study is about being in the Lord, being in Christ. So in Christ, while we have all these blessings and all these wonderful things we've talked about, it also called to labor. We call to answer. We are, you know, we're invited to answer this heavenly call. We have this ministry given to us in the Lord. And Paul is telling us that work that we do, it's in the Lord. It's coming out of our life in him. It's coming out of this place that we have in him. The work we do, it's coming out of that place, out of our inheritance and identity in Christ. So it's not something separate. You are in him. You are a new creation in him. You have a wonderful identity, your wonderful inheritance. And out of that place, you're also serving. You're laboring. You're answering a call. You're fulfilling your ministry out of being in Christ. So it's your labor in the Lord. It's your work in the Lord. And when you and I are operating, are doing our work from that place in the Lord, the work we do is never in vain. It's not in vain. It's not a wasted life, right? So when we, whatever we do, it's not a wasted life. So we can be steadfast. We can be immovable. We can be abounding steadfast is to be steady, consistent, immovable. That's unshakable and always abounding, always increasing. So because the work you're doing is coming out of your place in Christ, it's not wasted. And it is something you and I can be consistent. We can be unshakable and always increasing because this is the work coming from in the Lord, a place in the Lord, right? So that's the key point I want us to understand. So that leads us into this next truth that the works that we do, the ministry, whatever, you know, God's called us to do, it actually flows out of our life in Him, out of our life in Him, right? And I would like us to read Romans 15, 17 to 19 from the Passion translation. I've put the one from the King James, New King James up above, but let's just read it from the Passion translation. It just brings it out a little clearer for us. Could somebody read that, please? Romans 15, 17 to 19. Romans 15, 17 to 19. Now then, it is through my union with Jesus Christ that I enjoy an enthusiasm and confidence in ministry for God. And I will not be... Frisapsius. Frisapsius. Thank you, Pastor. To speak of anything expect what Christ has accomplished through me. For many non-Jewish people are coming into faith, obedience by through power of Spirit of God, which is displayed through mighty signs and amazing wonders, both in the word and deed. Starting from Jerusalem, I went from place to place as far as distant Roman province of... Illyricum. Illyricum, fully preaching the wonderful message of Christ. Okay. So this place Illyricum is part of Albania today. Today the country of Albania or Northern Albania. And so Paul basically says he went as far as Illyricum preaching. But I want us to understand something here what Paul is saying. He's saying it is through my union with Jesus Christ, through my union with Jesus Christ, through my life in Christ that I am so enthusiastic and confident in my ministry for God. Isn't that a beautiful statement? It's because I am in Christ. I am so zealous. I'm so enthusiastic and I'm so confident of the work I'm doing. So that's something you and I must learn and must live. That because we are in union with Christ, because we are in Jesus, we enjoy the zeal or we are able to have the zeal and this confidence in ministry to God. This past Sunday it was a little funny. Nowadays we've opened up our services in all our locations. So usually Sunday I preach two services. I do the 8 o'clock service and then the 10.30 service.  So we went to visit her at her home and to pray with her. And by the time I got there we were already very so tired. And then it is typical in Indian homes. If you visit they will feed you a lot of food. And we told them we already had lunch and everything. We can't eat anything more. But no, they had to put food out and put things out and you had to eat.  It was so difficult because we actually went to pray. And then of course this was an elderly person so she wanted to talk and she was talking and we were just being there to be there for her. And by the time I think it was like 4.30 or something I was really tired, really tired. But then the time came when all those initial pleasantries were over and now we were going to do the communion. Honestly, while all this was happening I was feeling so tired. I was really tired. But then when time came, now we are going to do the communion. Be in her house with her and then pray for her and pray for her healing. And it was like suddenly there was this enthusiasm that came and even I was surprised because physically by the time it was 4.30 we left home like early in the morning around 7 ish we leave. Now this was 4.30 in the afternoon. I was really tired already. But the time came. Okay, we're going to partake of the communion. We had kept the communion things out there and a few of us were there. Suddenly I just felt so refreshed then as we started just reading the scriptures we sang a few songs and then we read the scriptures about the communion. It was just so wonderful. The presence of God just came just filled and I could just feel the presence of God just coming on us and it is almost like I was outside of myself because I know my body was so tired. I was very tired. But that moment I was able to minister out of my spirit and then you know, this is to minister the communion and pray for her and minister to her and so on. So I'm just sharing that simple thing. It's just, you know, it's part of life in the sense that look we will feel tired and all of that. But then this is where it comes from through our union with Christ because we are in Christ. We have that enthusiasm even though physically we are tired but when it comes to serving God and serving people there's that freshness, there's that enthusiasm, there's that seal that infuses our lives and then of course it gives us confidence in ministering to God, administering for God to people. So all of ministry, we must understand comes out of that place we have in Christ and therefore we can speak of those things which Christ accomplished through us. So when we are ministering out of that place in Christ we have the enthusiasm, the zeal, the passion we need. We have the confidence we need in the ministry we do and we realize it is what Christ does through us and it's what Christ does through us. So all of ministry flows out of our union with Jesus Christ and keep that in mind, you know. When you go out to minister, you know, do whatever God has called you to do. Remember, it's flowing out of your life in him.  It's really his work coming through you. Now we just have to make ourselves available. We have to be there and then he ministers through us and because of that we can minister boldly in the Lord. You minister boldly in him, right? So let's read these verses here in Acts 14. Somebody could read Acts 14-3 and also 2 Corinthians 3-5, 6 and verse 12, please for us. There, Acts 14-3. Therefore they stayed there a long time speaking boldly in the Lord who was bearing witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. Yeah, 2 Corinthians 3. Note that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves but our sufficiency is from God who also meant as sufficient as ministers of the new covenant not of the letter but of the spirit. For the letter kills but the spirit gives life. Therefore since we have such hope we use great boldness of speech. Now there is in both these passages you see the word boldness or speaking boldly, right? So what is in Acts 14? This was Paul and Barnabas. They're on their first missionary journey. It says they spoke boldly in the Lord. So what was the source of boldness? It was being in the Lord, right? And so you and I, when we minister, we get minister boldly in the Lord. So when you minister and you understand that ministry is really coming out of your union with Christ and because you're in him, he is working through you, then you get minister with boldness. You minister boldly in the Lord. And Paul writes about that in 2 Corinthians 3. He says, look, we're not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as being from ourselves. So what's happening here is not from us but our sufficiency is from God. God is the one who makes us sufficient or fully fit for that situation. It's God who makes us able to handle the situation. Our sufficiency is from God and he has made us sufficient as ministers. He's made us well able, fully equipped as ministers of the New Covenant. And because our sufficiency is from God, because he has made us sufficient as ministers of the New Covenant and because it's the work of the Spirit, or what do we do? He says, we use great boldness of speech. In other words, we speak boldly. We minister boldly. So when we recognize that it's God working in us and through us by his Spirit, as we minister, we can minister with great boldness of speech. Let's keep that in mind. And all of this is in relation to us being in him as ministers to do the ministry.  And we are familiar with these verses in John 15. Verse 5 and 8, Jesus said, I am the wine, you are the branches. If you are in me and I am in you, you will bear much fruit. So notice he says much fruit. Much fruit means there's an ever-increasing measure of fruit. It's increasing. So our bearing much fruit comes out of us, abiding in him. And he, in us, from this place of our life in him, much fruit comes. And the Father is glorified when we bear much fruit. We are fruitful in the call of God and the life we live and also in the work we do. So that's much fruit. But how does much fruit come? He says it's the life that we have in him. So this whole understanding of our life in him, of our identity, our inhabitants, of our life in him is the basis for us being very fruitful in life and ministry. And we understand how to abide in him. And he announced that that life that we have in him and living out of that life, then we will bear much fruit. So fruitfulness comes from our life in him, from our abiding, remaining, continuing and operating out of that life. So next week we will talk about how to do that. But as we abide, remain and live out of that life in him, that's the secret to bearing much fruit, being very fruitful in life and ministry. Now what do we do in ministry? I'm just touching on a few things here before we finish this chapter. One of the things I want to encourage us to do in ministry is to nurture other people in Christ. So Paul tells us, for instance, in 1 Corinthians 14, 15 and 17, he talks about having in Christ Jesus giving birth to people through the gospel. He says, you know, you may have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers for in Christ. I have begotten you through the gospel. So notice how he's talking about being in Christ, but then he's talking about birthing people into the kingdom of God. And later on in that same passage, he refers to Timothy as his son in the Lord, somebody whom he is, you know, not only birthed, but nurtured in the Lord. And therefore he says, you know, Timothy will teach you of my ways in Christ. So nurture other people in Christ Jesus. So that's one part of our ministry is to help other people grow up in Christ, become strong in Christ, become equipped in Christ, you know, be perfected in Christ. Paul writes this here in Colossians 1, 28, he says, we preach Jesus. We warn every man, we teach every man that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. So what are we doing? We are helping perfect people in Christ, we're helping nurture them. The word perfect means to bring them to a place of completion or majority. So we are helping bring people to that place in Christ Jesus. So one aspect of our ministry, that is the ministry God has given to all of us, is to help birth people and to help nurture people in Christ Jesus. So in Christ, there's a heavenly call on your life, there's a ministry you need to fulfill, there's work that you do in the Lord that you shouldn't give up on and that work is something that you do out of your life in him and out of any work out of him, you'll be very fruitful and part of that work is to nurture other people in Christ Jesus. Okay. Another aspect of that work is to represent Christ as his ambassador. So let's read this passage here in 2 Corinthians 5, 17 to 20. You can start reading and I'll just scroll it up when you come towards 20. Can somebody read that for us? 2 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 17 to 20. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, all things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. Now, all things are of God who are reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not inputting their three passes to them and has committed to us word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through. As we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Okay. Thank you. So notice in verse 17, it says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. So this is our foundation text for this whole study, being in Christ, be a new creation. All things have gone, all things have become new and all things are from God right now. And he's reconciled us to himself through Jesus. So it's wonderful. God's done this work for us, but he didn't stop there. He has given us the ministry of reconciliation.  Everything is from God. We are reconciled to God. All of us wonderful. But along with that comes the ministry of reconciliation. That was God saying, look, I've done all this for you. I've made you a brand new person. Everything has changed about you because everything in your life now comes from me.  And what is that ministry of reconciliation? It is like through us, God wants to reconcile the world to himself. And then he wants to reach the rest of the world. He wants to reconcile the world, every other person, every person in the world. He wants to see them brought back to him. And so in view of that, we people who are in Christ, we are now ambassadors for Christ. So that's a very important message. To be in Christ makes us ambassadors for Christ. Now this word ambassador is a very interesting word because when Paul was writing this, he chose a very particular Greek word. He chose a word that was normally used about generals in the Roman army or for governors. So these were high ranking officials, a general in the army or a governor of the Roman army. Paul picked that word and he said, look, we are that for Christ. And so in English, in modern English, we think about an ambassador. We think about a diplomat. We think about somebody who's representing a country in a different country. And Paul is saying, that's who we are. We are these high ranking diplomats for Jesus. We are representing Jesus in this world. For one reason, we want to see the world reconciled back to him. So to be in Christ makes you and me ambassadors for Christ. Diplomats, people who represent Jesus in this world so that people could be reconciled back to him. So we need to do everything we can. We need to see more and more people reconciled back to God, brought back to him. And remember that as ambassadors, you have the full backing of the country you represent. And that's true. Even the earthly realm and ambassador, he's fully backed up by his country. He may be sent as an ambassador. He or she may be sent as an ambassador to a different country.  If they need any help, there are countries behind them to assist them. And this is the true about you and me as ambassadors for Christ. Christ is fully behind us as we go out to represent him in this world. And so we must represent Christ faithfully. You know, when we preach his word, we don't peddle the word of God. That means we don't, you know, we don't contaminate the word. We don't mix it in. We don't adulterate the word to mix it in with things. That's what the word peddle means to mix it in with things so that, you know, makes it nice for people. No, you give the pure word, the unadulterated word. We speak in Christ and we speak before God in Christ. So we represent Christ in his word faithfully. And if we suffer for him, our sufferings are in Christ. So even when people mock us, laugh at us, do all kinds of things against us because we are ambassadors, it's in Christ. Nothing to be ashamed of. It's an honor to be able to suffer in his name. The last point I want to bring out here in this chapter is that we, because we are all in the Lord, because we are all, each one of us have a heavenly call, our answering and heavenly call, doing a ministry given to us in the Lord, each one of us. You know, we may be from different parts of the world. We may be from different backgrounds. We may have different, you know, positions in life. And we may, whatever, there's so many things that could be different. Yet we are all coworkers in Jesus. And this passage here in Romans 16, we won't read it, but what I want to point out is Paul mentions the names of so many different men and women. And what is so unnotable is he calls them his coworkers or his fellow workers. And he says they are in Jesus, in Christ. You see how many times he says, you know, he uses that phrase, those phrases, in the Lord, in Christ, or in Christ Jesus, in the Lord, in Christ. That means he says, you know, they are my coworkers in the Lord. They are as much in the Lord as I am. And whatever work they are doing, they are also doing it in the Lord. We are fellow workers, you know, and for some he refers to as fellow prisoners. That means they were also imprisoned, imprisoned with him, you know. They suffered with him together. And so I really want us to keep that in our hearts and minds that when we see other people serving the Lord, we honour them. We see them as competitors, not as people that we have to outdo, but as coworkers, fellow workers, fellow prisoners. We are in the Lord. We are all doing our work as God has assigned for us and we are doing it in Christ. We are doing it in the Lord, each one of us. And so we are not competing. We are not fighting. We are fellow workers or coworkers in the Lord. And you find this in Paul's writings in many places. You know, we refer to different people, Taikikus in the Lord and Epaphroditus in the Lord. And, you know, he urges us to, you know, recognize those who are other people or in the Lord and honour them. So what did we learn in this section as ministers and ambassadors? Each one of us, let me quickly review before we close. Each one of us have a heavenly call in Christ. And therefore we need to live with that deep sense of purpose like the Apostle Paul did. And we need to fulfill our ministry, make sure we finish the work, live to finish that work and know that, you know, when we labour, it's a labour in the Lord. It's not just our own efforts, but it's coming out of him. And so we can be faith, you know, steadfast in our work. And it is through our union that we receive enthusiasm and confidence and just Christ working through us, all of these wonderful things. The science, the wonders, the miracles. And so we can minister boldly in the Lord because it's the Lord working through you.  And as you minister out of your place in Christ, that's the secret to bearing much fruit. If you try to do it on your own, he says it'll amount to nothing. It's nothing. But when we do it out of our life in Christ, it's going to be very fruitful. That's the secret. And we must nurture other people in Christ and we are ambassadors for Christ to the world. We are representing Christ to the world. And lastly, we are coworkers with others who are also in the Lord, serving the Lord. Okay. So with this, I will pause here. Let's see if there are any questions, anything that people want to ask. Any questions, anything that you want to discuss here on what we spoke about today before we close. Any questions? Elisha, Paul, Enoch, any questions? Okay. All right. Okay. I was going to close. Okay. We have a question. Go ahead, please. Yes. Yes. Thank you. This about what we read in Philippians chapter three. How can we ensure that we are not pursuing something that Christ has not laid hold of us where you're not chasing after something else? Yeah. I think so first.  And I want to live for that purpose. Right. And Lord, show me what is that purpose. Show me what you want me to do. Right. And this is, I would say, it's a lifelong prayer.  Lord, show me what you want me to do. Right. So it's not like we would ever stop praying that. So Lord, show me what you want me to do because I want to live for that purpose that you have for me. I want to live for what you have called me to live for. Right. So we constantly pray. And then what we do is our responsibility is to discern the will of God step by step. Every step of the way, I need to discern, this is what God wants me to do and we begin to walk in step and in time with Him. God gives us a sense of direction. He gives us saying, OK, this is what I'm taking you. This is what I want to do with you.  But then we have to journey with Him step by step. And then, of course, there are practical ways by which we can receive God's guidance, you know, in each step of the way. So that's where, you know, I think you're learning on receiving God's guidance in how He leads us in different ways by His Spirit, by His Word, by the inner witness, by many other ways that God leads us. You know, we learn to be open to God's guidance and our goal is follow His leading, avoid distractions, you know, avoid things that could distract us from what He's called us to do. Sometimes even good things can become a distraction. We need to stay focused on what God wants us to do and we need to discern. You know, there may be three good things. All three things are good for you. But what, which one of the three does God want? So that has to be aligned to the purpose of God for your life, right? So we receive God's guidance step by step. We journey, you know. Thanks. Thank you. OK. All right. So let's close in prayer. Next week we're going to get into the last section, which is how do we live out of that life in Christ? You know, so we know what is our identity. We know what is our inheritance, but then practically what are things we do to live from that and because only when we live from that, we can bear much fruit. We will get into that next week. Could somebody please lead us in prayer and dismiss us? Rosalind, you want to pray? OK. Go ahead. Yes, Pastor. I want to pray. Go ahead. Let's pray. Thank you Lord. Hallelujah. Thank you Father. Wonderful Lord Jesus. We thank you Lord for this wonderful session, for this powerful session that we had. Thank you for speaking to us Lord. As members of your body Lord Jesus, may we function supernaturally by your praise that you have given us, O God, and in glory to your name, thereby fulfilling the upward call that we have received in you. May we press on towards our goal Father. Lord, thank you Jesus for getting those things that are behind us. Looking at you Lord Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Lord, I thank you and I bless you. I praise your name. Lord, I also thank you for a dear pastor and ask you Lord to anoint him and use him mightily for your glory. Father God, everybody that has been shared that has been sown in our hearts Lord, may we bring hundred-fold fruits Lord, God, for your glory. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord and Jesus, mighty and independent. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you everyone. God bless you. I'll see you on Friday and have a good day. Enjoy the week. God bless. See you again soon. Bye. Thank you sir. Thank you. Have a good rest of your day. Thank you each one. Thank you.


The pan-European social-political organization, Afeni Farah, has warned that Nigeria may be drifting towards a dictatorial and tyrannical state urging the federal government to shun nepotism, confront insecurity, and restructure the country. In a statement by its acting leader, Chief Ayio Adebanjo, the National Publicity Secretary Comrade Jerry Ajayi, Afeni Farah said that it was forced into this unpleasant conclusion in view of the various actions and pronouncements of the federal government in recent times. They stated that the dictatorial tendency of the presidents can be seen in his insistence to go ahead with the reopening of grazing routes and the signing of the Petroleum Industry Bill into law. Well joining us to discuss this further is Mogadji Adejumon. He is an Afeni Farah chieftain. Thank you very much for joining us. Good evening. It's good to be here. Great. Why is Afeni Farah taking this position? This is not the first time we've heard many people actually say that the president is dictatorial in nature, the government of Nigeria is heading down that road. But why is Afeni Farah so certain and has decided to take this position? It's not a new thing for us to come out this way and to make a statement categorically about the trend and the trajectory of this government which of course is leading us into some kind of tyranny and not only that there's so much impunity disregard for the rule of law and a bitrary rule to say the least. And of course we can really explore all of this and you will find out that we have only come out to say exactly what has been happening since the beginning of this administration of Major General Muhammad of Buhari in the course of governance. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic configuration, multi- religious composition and very little is given to the rights of the indigenous people and we have all manners of impunity and chief of that is this fixation on grazing, grazing roots and then the wrong nomenclature. Let's even start from there. What is exactly about the header that goes into somebody's farm uninvited and it goes over this cow to graze on somebody's food produce? That is no clash. That is impunity, that is criminality. So why call it farmers headers clash? This is the 21st century. Why would you want to believe that nothing has moved since somebody drew some roots? We have had developments all over in which case whose roots exactly? The one that passes through an airport and are you going to stop the plane from flying and taking off and for crying out loud what Abraham and Lot did 4,000 years ago realize it wasn't going to pay and then they had to go into some ranching exactly what was jettisoned 4,000 years ago is what we are reproducing in Nigeria. It is derisory. So it is impunity to call it farmers headers clash, call it by its real name. It is impunity to say that bandits are here and there abducting people that is terrorism. You don't call them bandits, call them by their real names.  In 1969 there was a judgment given in Ibado. That banned open grazing. That law has not been obtained, it is still subsisting and so other laws and legislation in which case many states of the south west have legislated already against open grazing and yet we still want to have a precedent which is so fixated on creating roots for cattle to move in this jet age when people are going to space. I want to give the president the benefit of a doubt and I'm not in any way trying to speak for the president, I'm not a presidential spokesperson but in this regard the president neither is he here nor is his people here or are his people here to help to speak on this matter so I would be the devil's advocate on this one. What if the president who has surrounded himself by the way with a lot of technocrats and personal assistants and people who know how to deal with and do some damage control maybe what if the president has seen that this is the only solution to the issue that we're facing today and he might at some point or to some extent douse tension and that's why he's very insistent on this. Why don't we give him that benefit of a doubt? We cannot because I can remember there was a time he wanted to be president in 2011 and such a question was given to the contestants that came on a television program and I have the tape I have the video with me and in 2011 he was still talking he was talking about the grazing roots. The grazing roots is no solution let us face it what we need is what others do and they have been successful instead of is the state of Israel let me just begin to give examples now. Uncannily is about the size of your states about 30,000 square kilometers that is the state of Israel but then just about the size of one of the states of the Southwest but they produce the best meat in the whole of Europe they don't graze you don't go I have been to Israel four times you don't you don't see cows on the road they have the ranches everywhere even where you call the desert they be able to create arable farming land and they have the best cows the longest the biggest and the one that give the best milk why would we want to regress thousands of years into the kind of situation in which we'll read about in the holy books and believe that is the solution to the 21st century problem if we have a problem it is about creating solutions fixing the problem if we have those who want to simply feel free to go and destroy other people's lands we treat them as criminals that is the way to do is not to give them the permit and let us face it there are northern governors northern senators that have openly said this open grazing thing shouldn't be followed anymore in fact the 19th state governors actually said so at one time I remember somebody an official of the of the Senate actually said that it's not going to be possible to be talking about grazing woods they said all of that but mr. president wouldn't listen so it is not for the lack of the kind of advocacy that would suit a situation that we have in Nigeria is about the obstinacy of mr. president in wanting to do what he thinks is the solution and of course this is not nothing to be sentimental about he's a fuller me and he identifies with his group I have no problem with that I'm a woman and I identify with my people but that is not to now make my people to impune upon the rights of others simply because I am a woman I remember when president of passenger a woman was in government and there were issues of insecurity and family situated in the in the in the in the corner of the order on account for e-bar gani Adams when the OPC was found to have been involved in certain insecurity the president's did president of the bus he did what was need for in fact he went to the extent of issuing a shoot on site order on the convener of the OPC and but but but the president has done that but there has also been we do respect respect and the president has done the same in the scientific he has done scientific well the president at some point declared a shootout shootout site for these bandits and terrorists he did so sometime this year so let's give him that benefit of that but because of time let's move to the pia which used to be the pib now your um the affinity also seem to touch on that um you seem to have an issue with uh you know the pia what are your concerns well um the truth of the matter is this uh Nigeria is not exactly a federal state because if it were then we wouldn't even be having a pib in the first instance it's it's being run as a unitary state um this petroleum the kural is situated on somebody's land and it's it is their land and the only thing that can happen in a federation a true federation is to have the people who administer where such things are found in situ to pay taxes and perhaps to remit part of the process to the center but you don't take over the whole thing and uh ascribe three percent so the communities and then thirty percent to the river basin authorities of which we have um almost tried the number in the north it is not just right you you you just don't trample upon the principle of federalism and and that is the reason why we always have to question uh the structure and and that is why we will always have people agitating and not for self control not for not for resource control anymore but for self determination if they are not going to be given the little things that really matter in a in a true federal state and that is part of why we believe that this country is now being run on the basis of dictatorship but can we can we also blame the pia on can we solely keep this blame on mr president's table because this bill that became law was legislated by people who represent us and people who represent the people who have the oil right under them so can we really say that it's mr president's problem he only has to accent to it and there are several lawmakers on the floor of the national assembly both on the uh the upper house and the lower house is this really the president's problem okay now now let us look at it critically i started by saying that we have a problem with the structure and that we are not truly practicing what is called true federalism and let us start let us look at it critically in the municipality of cano city in the 60s they had only two local governments in the principality of legos in the 60s we had four local governments and in the 70s legos was even in crystal six but today we have only 20 local governments while we now have cano and jigawa that was taken out of it having close to a hundred local governments and that is about representation and that is the problem we have with a structure that is so defective where you go to the house of assembly what do you find you find that uh the southern states are 17 the northern states are 19 that's the lopsided nest but then it does not only end there it ends with representation there are over a hundred in terms of number of those who represent the north over the south in the house of reps and if you go to the senate there are um six senators because of the 1917 dichotomy six senators that the north have over the number that we have in the south and if you add a budget to it it becomes seven so there's nothing you take there that should fail for what is called equity that will be found to be useful because of the sheer number that they will throw at us and once they throw the number they can pass the bill and it only be hopes on a precedent who believes in equity who believes in equality who believes that there should be there should be no inequity that such a bill is not put to law looking at the fact that we have seen this president refusing to sign even certain bills that have been on his table for the past two years why quickly run to put his accent so this particular bill and i'll tell you something else quickly quickly because we have to go sorry let me let me just finish this because this is very important a group in the north actually congratulated uh the members of the national assembly from the north for doing what they call the right job of making sure that the bill was passed in both houses that gave the north an edge over the south so the president went ahead and put his accent so inequality and that is the point we are making the restructure itself is bad the constitution itself is bad authentically as said said that many times that we cannot continue with this defective structure we cannot continue with this defective constitution and there's no point in trying to patch a tire that has suffered a hundred punches all we have to do is change completely make a new constitution we cannot continue with this bad structure this country believe me is torturing torturing towards being a failed state and all because of the bad structure or because of the defective constitution well we want to thank you Mogadji Adejima is an a fairly fairer chieftain and we want to thank you for being part of this conversation you're welcome all right well thank you all for staying with us we'll take a quick break and when we come back i will give you my take it's time for my take so um it's very shocking that we take a lot of decisions without consulting the Nigerian people this is what we call a democracy but then the government is not for the people it's not by the people it's not in the interest of the people unfortunately so we've been asking for restructuring day in day out and we've even politicized the word restructuring because now it means different things to different people how do people get the kind of government that they deserve the kind of governance that they need if the government is not listening to the people whereas the room for a tete tete with the people who lead us if government is not going to listen to us who are you governing if the governed does not feel heard how are we going to be reopening our doors to people who have killed who have maimed who have destroyed our minds of livelihood taken our homes from us we've had to run away from places that we once knew as home because a group of people said they do not want western education and today it's easy for our governments and our leaders and even our security agencies to come up with an idea and i'm not in any way saying that it's wrong for us to try to rehabilitate people who say that they're repentant but how easy is it going to be for the people who've lost children who've lost husbands who've lost brothers the soldiers who are fighting at the edge of this war trying to keep our borders safe how easy will it be for these people to accept these so-called repentance people back into society are we making the right choices here but yes we want to win the war against this insurgency yes we want to put an end to terrorism but are we going about it the right way so i want our governments to do the right thing think about it because Nigerians are watching and you will hear from us soon i am mary anacol thanking you for watching


All civilians, who can hear this message, you must pay close attention. It is from an international organization dedicated to your security, and the message regards your safety. You are currently dreaming. This message is being transmitted to you through esoteric technologies available to the organization making the alert. Your dream state has been induced by a powerful reality warping anomaly. An anomaly is any item, and it your phenomenon, which can violate natural law in some way. The anomaly in question is called a reality bender, a human capable of somewhat altering reality to suit their desires, either consciously or unconsciously. It is believed that this reality bender subconsciously desired to sleep restfully, and has accidentally sent every nearby human into an interruptible coma. The long-term negative effects of this coma are unknown, and it is therefore recommended that you take certain steps to wake up as soon as possible. Please concentrate on disrupting the narrative of your dream once this message stops. For example, if you are dreaming about being chased, instead confront the pursuer. Other examples could include interrupting a dream of heights by climbing down towards the ground, or interrupting a dream of public indecency by getting dressed. These common dreams should give you ideas for how to interrupt your current dream. Disrupting your dream in this manner should cause you to quickly wake up. You will then forget this interaction, and remain unaware of the presence of reality altering anomalies in the world. Be assured the reality bender causing this situation will be contained. Thank you for your attention and cooperation. Secure. Contain. Protect.