Praise the lord everyone. So good to see your faces. Hallelujah. You look great too. Hallelujah. Come on let's praise the lord. It's time to worship. Thank you lord. Bless your lord. This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. Let it shine. This little light of mine. Yes. I'm gonna let it shine. Oh. This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Jesus gave it. Jesus gave it to me. I'm gonna let it shine. Oh. Jesus gave it to me. And I'm gonna let it shine. Jesus gives me and I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Come on. You are here that you tuned in together to rejoice and be glad. And then our pastor is Bishop Arlene Alexander. Amen. The First Lady is our own Queen, Queen Bobby Alexander. We are so excited at what God is doing here at Shield of Faith. Long speech. Amen. So right where you are. Come on. Lift those hands and let's give God praise. Amen. Come on. Let's receive minister, Tanisha. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord, Saint Luya. Can't nobody do us like Jesus. He's greater than a friend. He's our provider. He's our protector. He's our reference. Hallelujah. He's our snow of the love like Jesus. Let us go. Hallelujah. Unto the Lord in prayer. Hallelujah. Let us pray together. Hallelujah. Father, we thank you for waking us up this morning, starting us on our way. We thank you for your loving kindness and your mercy and your grace. Lord, we thank you for the privilege and the opportunity that you've given us to come into your house, to worship you in spirit and in truth, to exalt your name and to reference you and to acknowledge how good you've been to us, God. Hallelujah. We ask that you receive our praise and our worship on today. Let your shekinah glory fall on our hearts and in our minds. On today, help actions and all that we say and that we do unto you. God, our praise and our worship is unto you. Praise you. We thank you for the wonderful leaders that you have blessed us and graced us with. Hallelujah. Our pastor and our first lady and all the auxiliary in the house, the ministers on down to the people. God, we thank you for the fellowship with one another. We thank you for just blessing us, Lord. You've given us the truth. You've bid us to come unto you to receive your word. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus, because you are great and greatly to be praised. We pray that you save someone on today, God.  Hallelujah, Lord Jesus. Receive us on today. Meet us here as you met the Samaritan woman at the well. And we'll praise and worship you in spirit and in truth. We love you, God. We love you, Jesus. We awesome in your holy matrimonious name. Hallelujah in Jesus' name. Amen. Be reading into your hearing Proverbs 14 verses 30 to 35. And it says, the heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones. He that oppresses the poor reproaches his maker, but he that honor him has mercy, has mercy on the poor. The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous has hope in his death. Wisdom rested in the heart of him that has understanding, but that which is in the midst of fools is made known. Righteousness exalts the nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. It's a disgrace to any people. Hallelujah. The king's favor is towards a wise servant, but his wrath is against him that causes shame. Lord, add a blessing to the reading to the end of this word. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. We want the wisdom of the Lord to fall down on us this morning like the dew does in the morning. The Lord waters everything with the dew that he gives, and we want his spirit to do it. Like the dew in the morning, gently rest upon by. Like the dew, like the dew in the morning. Jesus today, and we bless him. Hallelujah. He is God. Hallelujah. Simply because he is God. Hallelujah. He loves us with an everlasting love. Thank you, Jesus. Because of who you are, I came to meet Jehovah. Hallelujah. In the presence of the Lord, then a thousand days elsewhere. Hallelujah. Oh, it's so wonderful, wonderful. Just to think about Hallelujah being face to face with the Lord. Amen. Like upon his face. You're 12. Then a thousand hours. Then a thousand. We wish to see the Lord face to face. Amen. Amen. Amen. There's nothing that this world can offer me that is better than one day in the presence of the Lord. Amen. Amen. At this time, we will have our bishop come forward. Amen. Bishop Alexander. Praise the Lord to all the people of God. Hallelujah. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord. Because he's good. Because his mercy endure it forever. Amen. And thank God for his grace and his mercy that he bestows upon us because we belong to him. Right now the program says I'm going to sing a solo this morning. But what I would like to do is teach a song. Amen. This is the song. It's this long. Now, do we have some more of these out on the table in the hallway there? If we can get as many of those passed around to people. All right. All right. I'll just, you may be seated for a moment. Then perhaps you'll stand as we get into this song. And the message on today will be addressing the message to the book of Matthew, Matthew number 25. And the book of Matthew 25, it has from the beginning, it has several parables that are directing the people of God or the world in general. The first parable is the virgins that are wise virgins and foolish virgins. Then at verse 14, it addresses the master who went away on a journey and left talent to the workers. We're going to begin at verse 31 when Jesus says, be ready. Now, let me say, give me the key. I want to ask you to join me when you learn this. And let me give you the words. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please, in as much as you have done it unto one of these, you have done it, done it unto me. That's the whole song. Now, Jesus is speaking to those who are planning on going to heaven. And he says, I want you to be able to understand what I'm saying. I want you to understand that because you can't just go to heaven because you want to. There are rules and regulations. And Jesus talked to us concerning our attitude. Say attitude. Thank you. Sometimes when the Lord begins to bless people, they forget where they started and they get the big head. They forget their amnesia. And they began to look down on people that they consider in the lower class than they. How about the royal family? They think they're better than everybody. You can't join that club unless you're born into the family, the royal family. But Jesus said there are some people who are not a part of the royal family. Not the true royal family, but that royal family. He said there's somebody else other than that. He said, don't you get it twisted? Don't you think you're better than anybody? He says, in as much as you have done it unto one of these, the least people, the people on the lowest level as level goes, people without a home living on the street. He said, in as much as you have done it to the least of these, my brother, you've done it unto me. Come on, somebody. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, you have done it, done it unto me. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, you have done it, done it unto me. I'll let you come in next. In as much as you have done it, I said next, one of these, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, you have done it, done it unto me. Now let's stand. Now you all know it. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, you have done it, done it unto me. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, in as much as you have done it unto one of these, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, in as much as you have done it unto one of these, in as much as you have done it unto one of these, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please. In as much as you have done it unto one of these, put your hands together. Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Thank, thank God. Thank you Jesus. Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Thank God, thank God. You may be seated. Hallelujah. Now, that's an old, old one. If they had a contest of knowing the old songs, I kind of pride myself in knowing all the old ones. But I got stuck halfway through that. I had to call Sister Springfield. I called and got Sister Madkin and she said, what can I do for you? I said, you can't do nothing for me, you don't know. I said, I want to speak to the lady who knows the song, the shelf behind the door. I just learned that a couple years ago. I never knew there was any such song as that. When Sister Springfield got on the line, I said, I'm trying to remember the words to, in as much as you have done it unto one of these, I said, the least of all, I said, I can't remember what comes next. Immediately she said, the least of all my brothers, the Father's heart to please. Jesus is speaking. And he's going to help us get our attitude right in order to make the flight. Come on somebody. Now in Matthew chapter 25, I told you about the wise foolish virgins and we spoke concerning the master who left and left various ones with talent. We're starting at verse number 31 and I want to use partly as a topic, are you ready? And what brought that to my mind as I studied this passage is that I've been in music all of my life, grammar school through high school and college in choral music. And one of the songs that we sang in college is Ride the Chariot. And it goes like this. Ride the chariot in the morning, Lord. Ride the chariot in the morning. I'm getting ready for the judgment day, my Lord, my Lord. Ride the chariot in the morning, Lord. Ride the chariot in the morning, Lord. I'm getting ready for the judgment day, my Lord, my Lord. And it goes on now. This is commonly known as a Negro spiritual. Well, I just say it's a spiritual. And I'll read the last stanza. It said, get ready for the mighty journey leaving in the morning. Get ready for the master call. Just call me in the morning. Get ready if you want to see Jesus. Are you ready, my sister? Are you ready for the journey? Do you want to see Jesus? I'm waiting for the chariot because I'm ready to ride. All right. Now that was someone's testimony. In Matthew 25, 31 through 46 what's being considered is a parable spoken by Jesus. And it's addressing the final judgment of nations. Verse 31, I'll begin to read. When the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit up on the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. Jesus says he's coming back and he's coming back in glory. Now he said, I'm not coming back like I came before. I came meek and lowly born in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes and I came to set people free. He said I came with every nation in my mind that they might be clean and holy and ready to go back to heaven when I come back. So he says he's coming back and he's coming back in glory and he's bringing some angels with him. Come on, he's bringing a heavenly host. He's coming to be enthroned. Then verse 33 said, and he shall set the sheep on his right hand. But the goats on his left then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come. Come ye blessed of my father.  You're chosen by the father. Inherit the kingdom.  He said because I was hungry and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you clothed me.  I was in prison and you came unto me.  I'm keeping record. I'm an all-seeing God and I'm everywhere there is a where. And I know who you are. Each and every nation.  He says, now I'm coming to take those who belong to me to heaven. And how I will determine who belongs to me is by what you've done. Not what you didn't do. He said, you've proven to me that you're righteous. You've proven to me that you understand that it's not all about you and yours. He said, so I've come to take those who belong to me back to my father's house. Oh, what a wonderful day. Oh, what a wonderful day when Jesus comes and he separates the sheep from the goat. Come on, somebody. You know, sheep and goats are different breeds of animals, but one has a propensity to do some crazy stuff when the others have their right mind. He said, to those who are on the right, he said, you belong to me. He said, you've proven to me that you love me. He said, I didn't have to pry you. I didn't have to wrestle with you to get you to do the right thing. He said, you heard what I said and you knew this day was coming. He said, so you prepared to ride the chariot in the morning. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Thank God for a just God.  Hallelujah, hallelujah. You know, this world's in a bad shape. Anybody know that? Now, there are nations who are really showing out, Russia being one of them, with the great power of weapons that they have.  But the Lord sees, the Lord sees all and he knows everything that transpires in the world.  But Jesus said, you better watch out. You better not pout. You better not... Jesus says, I'm a just God. I see, I know, and I care. And those who belong to me, they've got to pass into the kingdom. Verse 37 said, then shall the righteous answer him saying, Lord, when saw we, and we saw thee and hunger and fed thee our thirst and gave thee drink, when saw we thee a stranger and took thee in our naked and clothed thee when we saw thee sick or in prison and came unto thee. And here's where the song comes.  Come on, somebody. He said, when you come against a foe who is less than you and you take advantage of them, he said, I feel that. And he says, when I feel it, I take notes. I keep track. They're not getting away with it, just understand that. He said, you managed to walk with me. You cared for one another. You did for the poor and for the needy. And you didn't put them on an airplane and fly them across the country with nowhere to go and no nothing to eat, no place to stay. You didn't do that. You embraced people.  He said, inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, my brethren. He said, you did it unto me. He said, I felt that. I felt your compassion. I felt your sympathy towards those who had less and who were determined to be in a lower class. I felt it when you responded to them. Now the sheep, they ready for the judgment day. Come on somebody. How about how many sheep here today? How many sheep here today? Ready for the judgment day. Come on. I will ride the chariot in the morning, Lord. And you know why I'm going to ride the chariot in the morning? Because I'm getting ready. Come on somebody. Get ready. Get ready. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. Again, so I was not surprised, but it kind of touched my heart. I'm okay. My watch wanted to know if I was having a bit. I wasn't surprised, but it did something in me to see how people can be so unkind using live human beings for a chess piece. People without ability to fend for themselves or defend themselves, they're being used as pawns. And they say to those over in Martha's vineyard, y'all got it good. You don't have no barter next to you like we do. When they come across our barter, we sending them up to you. We're tricking them and sending them up to you. God sees verse 41 said, then shall he say also to them of the left hand, depart from me. Now, Jesus said to the sheep, he said, come ye. He said, you go on with me. But over here he said, depart from me.  I was thirsty and you gave me no drink.  You thought nobody existed but you. Everything's about me and mine and that's it. And everything I get my hands on I'm gonna hold on to it and I'm gonna see to it that you don't get none. I hear a couple of amants. I didn't make this up. This is the word. Y'all wanna see it? I got it right here on my paper.  Cut off from God. From his mercy for his love from his compassion and he said you get what you get.  Fire that can't be quenched. A fire that can't be put out. But by LAC it's fire. The best. Said that's an impossibility. You've been assigned to eternal damnation. How about that? He said because you wouldn't feed anybody so forth and so on down to verse 44 then shall they all so answer him saying what? When saw we thee and hunger or at thirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister unto thee then shall he answer them saying verily I say unto you verily means of the most solemn truth I say unto you in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye did it not to me and these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal. Now I want to make this simple Jesus says they're going to go into everlasting punishment. I don't know anybody who likes punishment of any degree. They say there was a child who was disobedient and the parent set the child in the corner turned the chair into the corner so he had to sit in the chair and look at the corner and they say they addressed the child and asked the child are you having a tough time isn't it terrible having to look into that corner isn't this punishment terrible don't you feel bad because I can see it on your face you're sad he said I'm sad on the outside but I'm standing up on the inside we rebel against the least amount of punishment and I see on my pad my Facebook I see people upset because they got a ticket from the police even when they did something they were angry and wanted to fight because they had to pay a few dollars but when you go to eternal punishment in the lake of fire you'll pay the price for all of eternity all of eternity all of eternity I'm getting ready I'm going to ride the chariot in the morning because I want to see my Jesus when he comes I want him to say to me come unto me come on in you did well well done you've been a good you've been a faithful servant enter into the joy of the Lord come on in and have yourself a seat come on somebody anybody ready anybody wanna go the train is getting prepared to load up you can't get there unless the job is done well Lord I was thinking about it and I was it makes me think of the wife's youngest sister she wrote her a letter and she said I'm thinking about getting saved next year she was a little kid now thinking about getting saved next year I'm going to work Lord I know I'm in a mess I know I'm not where I ought to be but I'm planning on getting it straight one day the whining said tomorrow very well might be too late too late too late I want to encourage everybody get your house in order get your house in order oh the Lord loves you wants to have you he came and suffered and bled and died so that you could have the right to the tree of life instead of eternal damnation he said I'm planning on seeing you there when you do what's right when you're righteous I'm not going to leave the good old US of A out amen 14 that we had in our devotion Proverbs 14 verse 30 through 35 it said a sound heart is the life of the flesh but envy the rottenness of the bone these are comparisons he that oppresses the poor reproaches his maker but he that honored him had mercy have mercy on the poor have mercy on the poor now I want us to be careful of getting so fixed on judging somebody who's on the street you don't know them you don't know what caused them to be in that position and you don't know where you're headed because you may be high today riding high in April and shot down in May by next month you may have lost everything that you ever owned so I checked myself I'll tell you y'all do it too when you start to approach somebody and you know they're going to ask you for some money well I'm sorry when you understand that you belong to Jesus you didn't run and capture him he ran and captured you and you're doing much better than you've ever done before not just by hard work or getting into the right college and universities and so forth none of that is what caused you to be where you are it's by the goodness and grace and the mercy of Jesus Christ the righteous who loved you and he said you can't turn your face against people who don't have what you got he said I could have left you down in your sins without a way to be recovered he said I chose you come on you the chosen I chose you I called you unto myself and when I saw you responded to me he said I wrapped my arms around you I filled you with the Holy Ghost and gave you the power to stand up and do what is right he said so I used to hear this when we were growing up we had some people from they say you ain't such a much you ain't such a much you're only what you are by the grace of God and I started to put myself in check I've been a giver all my life when I got downtown working downtown I had to park about four blocks away from city hall and there was always somebody going to catch me before I got to my office and put the bag on me and I remembered what my pastor James A. Johnson said he said the Bible said give to those who ask of thee and to him that would borrow turn not away but he said he didn't say how much to give but give something you need to give something to everybody who ask of thee don't y'all start messing with me I had to try to run and get out of here before y'all start asking me for some money but by the grace of God the Lord has helped me and I give and I tip I know how it feels to be down and I have worked for tips I wasn't always a fireman I wasn't always a carpenter I learned how to receive tips in my youth I just shared with my wife I had forgotten one of my jobs I had never told her about I worked in the barber shop shining shoes and sweeping up hair and welcoming tips so now there should be a spot of compassion in your heart willing to respond to people who are down and out you don't have to give your whole paycheck but help them along the way alright now let me get back to my script here verse 32 the wicked is driven away in his wickedness but the righteous has hope in his death the righteous knows that when they die they own their way to heaven wisdom rested in the heart of him that has understanding that which is in the midst of fools is made known they can't keep their mouth shut here's the verse verse 34 exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people righteousness doing the right thing is what causes a nation to rise and when the nation rise they're pleasing God because of their righteousness the king's favor is toward a wise servant but his wrath is against him that causes shame now I want to beat up on the USA a little bit it's a shame before God how people are being treated and we need to pray as never before for our country amen amen you know the thing that is done in politics has something behind it or somebody behind it trying to get more and more for self so that's not the will of God the Lord wants us to live peaceably one with another he wants us to love one another he even wants you to love your neighbor how about that so here's what I want to say in closing in order to escape eternal judgment in the lake of fire we'll be who to get it right talk to yourself say self get it right self you can't go on the chariot when it comes if you ain't got it right you got to live a holy and a sanctified life a set apart life to the kingdom of God and his will righteousness exalts a nation righteousness exalts you but sin will bring you down every single time I love Jesus anybody love Jesus anybody love Jesus anybody have a feeling towards doing the right thing without having to be beaten and driven I'm your shepherd and I'll lead you he said you just follow me and I'll take you on home to the other side hallelujah I want to thank Jesus I want to thank him for what he done I thank him for what he is to me hallelujah hallelujah receive the first lady at this time hallelujah hallelujah thank you Jesus one of the encouraging testimonies I heard this week in fact yesterday or day before yesterday there was a young lady that we know we've been knowing her long time and she's been ill and so she came down she had some kidney problems and then in doing the examination for her kidney problems they found out she had some tumors and they're cancerous and she told them I don't want no chemo I don't want anything done I just want to leave I just want to go and so the person who talked to her asked her say are you ready to meet the Lord she said I'm ready she said I'm ready to meet the Lord other than that I wouldn't say it this but I'm ready she was confident that she's ready spiritually asked are you ready spiritually she said I'm ready I'm asking the questions to you are you ready spiritually if the Lord would come today we don't know when everybody pay attention to me everybody pay attention to me we don't know when God is coming back and we don't know when deaf is going to meet us but the thing about it we must be ready to meet the Lord whenever that time comes we don't know when that time is coming we must be ready to make that flight we all like to fly but there is one flight we're going to take that's going to be eternal eternal whether it's up or whether it's down it's going to be eternal so we got to be ready and another thing God's going to separate the sheep from the goats on the right on the right side going to be the sheep on the left side is going to be the goat are you a sheep or are you a goat self examine yourself today Ashley y'all stop talking come on move over stop talking this message is for you that's my niece so I know her but the devil is trying to get her to talk to ignore what's being said okay that's alright so are you going to be a sheep or a goat someone who's going to follow the path of righteousness who's going to follow the shepherd and God is our good shepherd he said I am their good shepherd I am the door to the sheep fold that's what the Lord said he said I am Jesus said that I am so what I'm saying to you are you going to be a sheep or are you going to be a goat a sheep is one that's going to follow what God said who's going to listen to the voice of God who's going to do what God tells them to do a goat is one that's going to do what they want to do they're going to have a pleasure while they're down here on earth just for a little while because all the pleasure they have down here on earth only lasts for a moment it only lasts for a moment I mean the pleasure they think they're having down here on earth only lasts for a moment even before they meet eternity it only lasts for a moment so you guys decide today are you going to be a sheep are you going to be a goat are you going to do everything in this world that you feel like you big enough and grown enough to do and ignore the one who every breath that you take you cannot even breathe without God you can't breathe without the Lord every breath you take he allows that breath to be taken hallelujah and if he allows that breath to be taken you got to give him some credit and you got to give him some some gratitude or some respect to say I want to be what God want me to be I want to follow the Lord because he could take that breath away just like that because he's the only giver of life and the only taker of life God is the only one that can give you life and the only one can stop you from breathing so you decide today are you going to be a sheep are you going to be a goat are you going to ride in that chair when the time comes and also Bishop was talking about the politicians of that they're goats they're goats they don't know what's right and what's wrong they're goats and their minds are too pigheaded to even learn what God wants them to do what they do of that's why they do that but I want to go back to when Jesus was talking about when I was hungry and all that it's not only the people out in the streets but there's people right in our church who need help and sometimes we see it and sometimes we don't and some of us got money and we can help them and we won't do it but let us not only do for the people that's begging for the heart to give some money to or give something to or give some food to or whatever do that I've done it many times and Lord do that because we can't take nothing back when we leave here you can't take it when you leave here you've got to get rid of it because God can get rid of it for you and you don't want to you can store up and store up and store up somewhere and we don't want to disappoint God we don't want God to be angry at us we don't want to do God to do wrong we don't want to do that God said at least you do it to the least one you do unto me we don't want to do that unto God we got to be careful of how we treat others how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ how we treat those in the world we got to be careful somebody might come in believe in the way we believe we got to be careful of how we talk to those people when we witness to them when we try to convert them we got to be careful how we do that we just can't go out you're a sinner oh no you can't do that you're loving good passion when you do that you got to leave them with love sure they know they're a sinner already you don't have to tell them they're a sinner they know it already so we have to be careful how we treat everybody even from the pastor all the way down to the youngest child who's the youngest child in here I think Ashley baby is the youngest child in here we have to be careful even our backsliders when they come back to church we have to be careful how we treat them those are the least of one of his those are the least so be careful so this message was not only about getting to heaven but this message was also about our attitude toward people our attitude toward people and our attitude some of us going to lose out on God or lose from taking that fight because our attitude toward people so we got to be careful how we treat each other and people out in the world that's all I didn't mean to get up and say all of that and I want I started saying I want all the goats to come up but I ain't gonna say that I just got you saying you got to be careful but all those who want prayer that the God would get them into the sheepfold bring them back to the sheepfold if you want prayer come up and let somebody pray for you because you can't do it by yourself I'm going through something in my life right now y'all say oh Pastor Bobby you always going through something but see God is working me with everything that I go through and when I found out I wasn't going to tell nobody I said I'm not going to tell nobody but last Sunday when I was up in church up in my office I opened my Facebook and I belonged to this group and I opened it up and I saw the testimony of this one lady and she began to tell me the miracles of God she began to talk about what God did for her and she looked on as she said I have my friends and my family praying for me so I said I called my husband and I said do you think the Lord want me to tell people what's going on in my life he said well yeah maybe so I said I'm only going to tell the prayer warriors that's what I'm telling that that opened up and you know what it did it took a big old weight off of me because I was holding that in me it took it off of me and I was able to relax after that so I'm telling y'all pray for your first lady pray for her amen pray for her I ain't going to tell you what's going on but pray for her amen but God is good so even treating people when you pray for them just pray for people don't judge me because they might be sitting down or they might be not praising like this you don't know what's going on in their life at that time they might be sick they might not be feeling well just pray for them amen don't judge them amen do I have anybody who want prayer just general prayer just pray for me that I be more kind that I be more ready for the kingdom of God anybody want prayer in here and I know some people need it but you have to want it in order to get it if not I'm not going to bed here if you want to come up you can but if you don't that's okay don't let it be played too late don't let it be said too late amen amen without further ado that's it so we're not going to bed and you heard the message so you are held responsible for the message and you heard it you still held responsible for it because God has spoken through the man of God God spoke to this man today amen and you heard the message and you can't say Lord well I didn't know nobody told me that ain't going to work you're going to say depart from me you workers of a nicotine I know you're not amen praise God you lost your things we praise the Lord for the service on today it's time now to receive our offering receiving of offering it's a continuation continuation of worship and so I ask you not to freeze up on the offering amen it got so quiet in here Bishop McMurray used to say silence in heaven for the half half an hour well this don't be silent it's time to give come on amen let's sing something so they'll get happy come in to my heart come here to my heart come in to my heart Lord Jesus come here today the scripture said I've been young and now I'm old yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread that's the testimony of the psalmist I want to assure you that the Lord provides he'll never leave you in a lurch so in the history of time God has continued to be faithful to his word to supply all of our needs you'll never go hungry by giving in the offering let's hold our offering Father in the name of Jesus we come and we thank you we thank you because you're good thank you because you're kind and loving thank you because you have promised to go with us to the end you'd never leave us nor would you forsake us and that you promised that you would make a way out of no way even and we thank you because you've proven yourself so many times so we come before you right now with an offering that is coming from our hearts willingly that it might increase the building of the kingdom of God we thank you for the opportunity to give into this building in Jesus name we pray amen and amen alright you can come he's coming again so soon oh be he's coming again so soon be ready he's coming again so soon don't let him catch it don't let him catch you with your work undone don't let him catch you with your work undone don't let him catch you with your work undone he's coming again so soon don't let him catch you with your work undone don't let him catch you with your work undone he's coming again so soon be ready be ready Thank you for the offering, though, thank you for those that gave, thank you, God. Hallelujah, because you have said that if we give, it shall be given. Good measures, press down, shaking together and running over God. Put it in our heart so that we'll be a blessing to the kingdom. God, we thank you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. All right now, sheeps and goats. That's right. Sheeps and goats. Amen. No in between. Amen. No in between. Nope. So choose your side. Choose your side. That's right. Choose your side. Right. It's serious. It is so serious. It is serious.  Yes. No change. No change. No change. Hallelujah. Be ready, saints of God. Be ready. Come on. Let's put our hands together for the word of the Lord. Amen. Let's be determined to walk with Jesus. I'm telling you, every day we come. Wait, wait, wait. Just one minute. Now, I feel the sense of, wait, wait, wait. Don't go away. You heard the first part when he said to the sheep. Now, if you're sheep, you should be rejoicing right now. See, you know, see what the devil want to do is the devil want to point and make you feel bad.   Amen. You're chosen. Hallelujah. You are chosen generation of royal priesthood. Yes. A holy nation of bacteria people. Yes. Come on, let's go. Hallelujah. Stand up. Stand up. We're going to see. We're going to run the devil out of here. Amen. Amen. We have a determination in our heart. Hallelujah. We're going to see it. We're going to see him. We're going to see him. Hallelujah. I'm determined to walk with Jesus. Yes, I am. I'm determined to walk with Jesus. Yes, I am. Relational persecution. I'm determined to walk with Jesus. Yes, I am. Relational persecution. I'm determined to walk with Jesus. Yes, I am. God bless you in Jesus' name.


Namaste, I'm glad to join this conversation on textiles. I'm also happy to see people from different countries participate here. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations, ICCR and Uttar Pradesh Institute of Design have made great efforts to bring everyone together. You have picked a great theme, weaving relations, textiles traditions. Friends, our link with the textiles sector goes back centuries. In the textiles sector, you can see our history, our diversity and immense opportunity. Friends, India has textiles traditions that are very old. We were one of the earliest to spin, weave and dye cotton. Naturally, colored cotton has a long and glorious history in India. The same is said about silk. Friends, the diversity in our textiles shows the richness of our culture. Go to every state, go to every village, go among different communities. There will be something unique about their textile traditions. If Andhra Pradesh has the Kalamkari, Muga silk is Assam's pride, Kashmir is home to the Pashmina, Fulkari's add pride to Punjab's culture. If Gujarat is famous for patolas, Banaras has made a mark for its saris. There is Chanderi fabric in Madhya Pradesh and Vibrant Sambalpuri fabric in Odisha. I have just named a few. There are many, many more. I also want to draw your attention to the rich textile traditions of our tribal communities. In all of India's textile traditions, there is color, there is vibrancy, there is eye for detail. Friends, textile sector has always brought opportunities. Domestically, textile sector is among the highest job providers in India. Internationally, textiles help us to build trade and cultural relations with the world. After all, Indian textiles are highly valued globally. They have also got enriched with customs, crafts, products and techniques of other cultures. Friends, this program is also in the context of Gandhi's 150th birthday celebrations. Mahatma Gandhi saw a close link between the textile sector and social empowerment. He converted the simple Cherkha into a key symbol of India's independence movement. The Cherkha wore us together as one nation. Friends, today we look at textile as a key sector that will help us build an Atman-Dirbhar Bharat. Our self-reliant India, our government is particularly focusing on skills upgrade, financial assistance, integration of the sector with latest technology. We are assisting our viewers to help them continue to make world-class products. For that, we want to learn global-based practices. We also want the world to learn our best practices. That is why it is good to see 11 nations participate in today's conversation. The exchange of ideas and sharing of best practices will create new avenues for collaboration. Friends, world over, the textile sector employs many women. Thus, a vibrant textile sector will add strength to effort of women empowerment. Friends, we need to prepare for our future in challenging times. Our textile traditions have showcased powerful ideas and principles. They include diversity and adaptability, self-reliance, skill and innovation. These principles have become even more relevant now. I hope that the programs like today's webinar will contribute to further reinforcing these ideas. I also hope it will contribute to a more vibrant textile sector. I wish ICCR, UPID and all participants all the best in this effort. Thank you. Thank you very much.


Hi there and welcome to the channel. So today we're out in the garage getting some more winter sewing jugs ready to go outside into the snow. So today's winter sewing is going to be all about perennial flowers and specifically I'm going to be using some native wildflowers that I purchased locally here and these are all supposed to do very well in our climate. I'm in zone 3, Saskatchewan, Canada. And the company's name is Blazing Star Wildflower Seed Company. I just want to show you this cute little container that these seeds came in. And inside here are 10 seed varieties of native flowers that we're going to plant up today using the winter sewing method. So we're going to be trying two different ways of sewing these seeds. First of all, it's going to be using the traditional milk jug like you see most of the time. But I also am going to attempt to use some of my small little nursery pots here that I've filled up with dirt and we're going to set them up in a clear tub like this. Put them out in the snow the same as we do as the jugs and see how they do. So I've been running out of jugs. I'm down to I think I only have a few left. So I thought something like this if you can get some plants going in little containers like this. I have no end of these little pots. I got a few of these from the dollar store. They're very cheap. So we're going to test it out and hopefully it works. If you notice today, I've got this cute little apron on. My daughter gave this to me for my birthday, which I just had last week. This is a great little thing to throw on when you come out and start working in the dirt to kind of protect your clothes. It's got some little pockets here.  So as far as what type of soil you should use in your winter sewing jugs, you can just use an organic, all-purpose, good quality potting soil that you purchase from the store. I've done that in the past where I buy a big giant bag of it and use it for all my winter sewing. It works good. One thing that I did find is that it does become quite compacted. You know those jugs sitting there outside the the dirt gets quite compacted by spring. So even if you are buying an all-purpose soil that's got everything in it, I would recommend adding maybe a little more perellite or vermiculite to it just to kind of keep it airy and light and just help those seeds with germination. So here this year I have been making my own potting soil for seed starting and for my winter sewing. So my recipe is pretty basic. I kind of just wing it by what I have in my stash here, but the main ingredient is peat moss and vermiculite or perellite. So as you can see here, I got a nice mixture here. I've been just kind of working through it with my fingers just to make sure all the lumps are out because sometimes those big bales of peat moss that you purchase are pretty compacted and you kind of have to work at it for a while. That's kind of nice and therapeutic. I don't mind just working with the dirt here a little bit. So I've also added in and this is just because you know, I'm always trying to repurpose and reuse as much as I can in my indoor growing. I had a lot of small little pots from different things I've been growing indoors, house plants, stuff like that that I also just dumped that dirt back into this container so I can kind of reuse it. So that's up to you, but I don't mind trying to reuse my potting soil as much as I can. It's always a great way to take it as far as you can. So I have three of my jugs started here and I'm first of all going to get them filled up with some of my potting soil. So because these seeds are going to be sitting in these containers until you know, they're ready to go on the ground. They're going to need, you know, a little extra nutrients that you wouldn't normally find in your seed starting mix. Like I said, I have used peat moss and para-light in here. I've also added a couple scoops of mushroom compost that I purchased and I'm just going to give a very very light sprinkling of this organic fertilizer. Again, this is optional. This is just me making up recipes as I go. This is a all-purpose 444 and this is also some worm casting that I just recently harvested from my worm bin. So I'm just going to give a little sprinkle in here as well. Top these up a little bit more and you always want to make sure that your soil that you're planting into is well moistened. So it's got a really good start in the spring when it thaws. I always like to do the bottom watering first if you have time. So how I do that is I just put it in a container that'll hold water, put in a couple inches, just let it sit for an hour or so and wake up from the bottom and we will also be moistening it here from the top. That way you're sure that it's going to be moistened all the way to the bottom. So I'm setting up these pots the same way where I'm going to fill them up about halfway with my homemade potting mix here and then I'm just going to give a little pinch of the organic fertilizer.  I think when you make your own potting mix it's kind of like cooking.  So the top layer of these containers will just have the potting mix without you know that extra fertilizers and worm castings is when they germinate they don't really need a whole lot of nutrients from the soil but once they start shooting down roots they will hit all these extra goodies that we put into the soil. Their roots will reach down there and tap into that fertilizer. So I'm hopeful that this method is going to work for these flowers. I'm pretty much tapped out of milk jugs. It seems to be you know a little bit of a faster setup where you can get more things started in a smaller space. So I will definitely try to do a follow-up video in the spring here to show you how these are all doing. So I'll give these a good watering from the bottom and the top. Let them sit in a couple inches of water here. Let's soak it up and then we will be ready to plant our seeds. So these have been sitting in water now for a couple hours. I've left them out here and they've pretty much soaked up all that water from the bottom and the tops are feeling nice and moist as well so I think these are ready to get planted up. Something that I've never tried growing before and you don't see very often is the crocus. It is a natural wildflower that grows in Saskatchewan. They pop up very very early in the spring. They're hard to find. They're very rare in my opinion and they're always very special when you can find them. So I'm going to try growing them. It says that they need two years before they bloom. So it's going to be kind of a tough one but the instructions tell you to make sure that you plant them with this little seed head pointing down into the soil. So a little bit tricky but we're going to start with the crocus. So as you can see the crocus has a tiny little seed here at the end with a tail. So it's telling you to just poke it into the dirt with the tail up and I probably have way more than I need so I'm not going to plant them all in the winter sowing jugs here. I might, if I have some space, I might attempt to grow each of these also indoors under the grow lights. I'm starting to plan all my stuff that I want to start indoors and have to make sure that I don't run out of space. So I have to be pretty selective on what I have going under my grow lights. I think these all will start right away here and once they get past that two leaf stage and get a little more established, I can just move them out here to my garage. I got two sunny windows out of my garage so a lot of my flowers are probably going to end up out here in the garage once they get going and make room for all the tomatoes and peppers and other vegetables that I want to get going from my garden. So I'm going to give them a you know inch or so of potting soil on top, help kind of keep them warm until spring. Once we're done planting all these up I will be giving them another spritz with some water. So I'm going to be marking these inside as well as outside. So in case you don't know what a prairie crocus looks like, there's a pitcher. These seeds all came with a nice little book that shows you the pitchers of everything that you're planting and along with instructions. So this is the Gay Largia seeds. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly but they're kind of similar to the crocus where they have a bit of a tail on them. The instructions say to not cover them but to just kind of lightly press them into the soil surface. So I'm just going to sprinkle them around just like they would naturally spread if they were self seeding out in the garden. I think I will still give it a bit of a cover with a little bit of soil just to protect them a little bit. So the next one up is going to be the Smooth Aster which is a purple daisy with a yellow center. This is what the seeds look like. Again they're kind of wispy things with little tails. I'm going to sprinkle them on the top. Most of the instructions that came with these flowers tell you that you can direct sow in spring, early spring, as soon as the ground is slightly warmed. Wild blue flax is the next one we're going to plant. So if you use flax seed in your diet you can see that these seeds are quite similar to flax seed. And the last thing to go into the milk jugs is going to be the Giant Hossop and there are the seeds. So these are a violet colored spike type flower and they are says they smell a lot like a niece which is kind of that licorice smell so kind of interested to see how these turn out. Next up is the purple prairie clover. There's the seeds. These are a cone shaped flower, grows up to 40 centimeters tall, blooms from July to September and the roots of these help fix nitrogen. So they're also beneficial for you that way. So now we're going to be planting up into these pots. A little bit smaller surface area but I think still good opportunity for some plants to grow. So I'm going to give them a good generous amount of seeds. Prairie cone flower.  There's your seeds. So these also bloom from July to September. It's always been kind of hard for me to keep perennials alive through the winter. We have very cold winters here of course in zone 3 so temperatures can drop down into the minus 30 degree Celsius quite often. In fact we have just been going through that here this past week. It seems that our yard also gets hit by frost a little faster than other areas. I guess we have kind of a low lying area so sometimes it's a challenge to keep perennials going year to year. So I'm hoping that this year I can get a good start in my flower bed and you know just come up with a good way to protect them with some straw or leaves over the winter and hopefully keep them going. So the black-eyed Susan is something that seems to do very well here on the prairies. You see them growing everywhere. They self seed very well and spread like crazy. So we'll see if we can get these going in my garden. Prairie cone flower. So this is a bright also a bright yellow flower surrounded by a brown column like center. Cone flowers do really well in our climate here as well.  The petals on the bergamot are what are the main ingredient in Earl Grey tea because of that unique smell and flavor which I really love so I'm hoping I can get some growing. I can't actually get the lid off this right at the moment but this is what the seeds look like. So I should also mention that I have had these seeds sitting in the freezer for about a month since I received them. All these are perennials like I said so they need to go through that stratification process where they are frozen. So the winter sowing method simulates that really well. So because these seeds have to survive the winter in the frozen ground they have a very hard coating on them and the stratification process of thawing and freezing in the spring helps break down that outer shell on the seed so that they can germinate. And it looks like I have one extra container here so I got to go find something else to add to this. So I found some hollyhock seeds so I'm going to plant them up in this final container. These are technically a biannual meaning they only grow for two years but they self seed pretty easily so if you get a good plant going you can usually get them to self seed and keep going year after year. So I like to water them with something that doesn't spray too hard such as this little pump bottle that I have here looks really good. You don't want your seeds to kind of get washed around or pushed around so I'm just going to make sure everything's got a nice top layer of moisture before we head outside. I'm going to be setting these up using the lid as the base. I've got lots of holes in there so there's good drainage. I've also put lots of holes on the top part so we're just going to put it on here. It's going to snap into place so it shouldn't blow off. It might be a good idea once we get it out in the sunshine and in the space that may be susceptible to wind maybe put a brick or something on the top here just to keep it in place and the holes aren't super big. They're not like on the milk jug but there's the rain and water can get in easily so it might be something that we have to keep an eye on in the spring make sure they don't dry out. Here in zone three Saskatchewan we still have at least two full months of cold weather you know freezing temperatures at night going probably right into you know the end of April early May so doing flowers such as this you still have time as long as they get well frozen and you know sit there for at least a few weeks before the spring thaw starts. Another little trick here if your tape or maybe your jug is just kind of a little bit wonky and you can't get a good seal just take a spoon or a stick or something like that and then you can just kind of go along on the inside and press against and then it kind of helps you make sure that that tape is well sealed all the way around. I find some of my jugs come to me a kind of bead up and out of shape but this will work really well to to get a good seal on it because you don't want any of that cold air getting in. Okay so this is where I am keeping my winter sewing jugs right now I have them in a old wagon here that keeps them from blowing away and hopefully safe from the dog for now so if you haven't already done so please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on updates coming to the channel on my winter sewing as well as all of my other gardening adventures here on the Saskatchewan Prairies. Thank you for watching and happy gardening!


When you think of English history, the Anglo-Saxon migration and invasion of England from mainland Europe is probably one of the first things that comes to mind. Long before the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century AD however, Ancient England was mainly comprised of Celtic Britons, yet who were these people that inhabited Ancient England? The Britons are thought to be the descendants of Celtic tribes from Ancient Spain, who sailed and settled large parts of the British Isles around 7,000 years ago. In England, around 64% of the population is thought to be descended from these ancient Celtic people, a far higher rate than any Anglo-Saxon route, with 73% of people in Scotland, and 83% of people in Wales, sharing the same Celtic descent, according to one Oxford study. As well as England, Britons lived in parts of Southern Ancient Scotland and Ancient Wales for centuries, as this map from around the 6th century AD illustrates. Over the centuries, the Britons maintained and developed strong trading links with the Celtic Gauls of Ancient Europe, who controlled most of modern-day France and Belgium, amongst other territories, and shared many cultural traditions with each other. In relation to the organisation of the Britons, instead of thinking of them as one kingdom, the Britons should be thought of as many groups of different tribes who shared many cultural, social and political traits. Similar to other Celtic societies, the Druids played an important religious and legal role in Britain. This Celtic priesthood is thought to have settled legal disputes, studied the stars and officiated ritualistic ceremonies, potentially even performing human sacrifices in certain instances. The Britons also minted their own coins, as they had a somewhat developed economic system for the time. The Britons spoke the common Britonic language, an ancient, insular Celtic language. During the Roman period, starting around the 1st century AD, Britonic took inspiration from Latin, particularly in relation to words for church and Christianity. In around the 6th century AD, the common Britonic language had become split into early versions of languages such as Welsh, Cumbric, Cornish and Breton, which is still spoken in Brittany, France, today. In the 1st century AD, much of Celtic Britain was conquered by the Roman Empire, giving birth to such hybrids as British Latin, but I will explore the Roman conquest of Britain in more detail in a future video. Four centuries later, the Anglo-Saxon migration and invasion of ancient England, beginning in the 5th century AD, further eroded Celtic Britain, with this being followed by Viking and the Norman invasions in future centuries. By the 11th century AD, the Britons were largely fragmented into the Cornish, the Welsh and the Cumbrians, in the Hain or Glaive, or Old North, region of southern Scotland and northern England. Many Britons also left the mainland, and settled in such places as Brittany in France and Galicia in Spain, which is why these places have Celtic roots.


As we've been previously discussing, networks are all about connectivity and what's flowing through those connections. How something spreads across a social network is then one of the central questions within social network analysis. The study of network diffusion tries to capture the underlining mechanism of how events propagate through complex networks. Whether the subject of interest is a virus spreading through some population, the spreading of some social movement, some new fashion or innovation, or it may be a marketing message spreading through an online social network. Whatever this phenomena of interest may be, the primary questions of network diffusion remain the same. Questions such as what are the different forces that are affecting this diffusion and how will the structure of the network affect that process? How fast would it spread? For example, will we get tipping points? And how can we enable or constrain this process of diffusion? These are some of the questions that we'll be touching upon in this video. Firstly, we need to understand the different forces acting on the network. What are the forces pushing the phenomena out over the network? That is to say, how contagious is this phenomena that's spreading? And inversely, we need to ask, what are the counteracting forces resisting it spreading? So we're talking about, on the one hand, the infectiousness of the phenomena that's spreading, and on the other hand, the resistance of the agents to that phenomena. And these are two counteracting forces. As an example of this, we might think about the social network of some society consisting of a dominant and minority culture. We might think about the current situation in the country of Myanmar, with the minority of Muslims and a majority of Buddhists. Now we'll add to this network some actors within the majority culture that are trying to spread some rhetoric of violence towards the minority group within this network. And then ask, how will this diffuse? So we have this outward force of these actors spreading this rhetoric that has a certain degree of infectiousness. But we also have the individual's opinions that may be more or less receptive to that message. In analyzing this social system, we might then create a conceptual or cognitive map representing people's opinions towards those of an alternative ethnicity. By understanding people's opinions, we can get an understanding of how resistant they will be to that message, and thus some understanding of the two forces at play. And this would form the basis of our model for how rapidly this message might diffuse through the network. The overall density of the network is important for the obvious reason that with a high level of connectivity, something has many more channels through which to spread. But beyond this, we also need to ask whether the agents within the system are actually capable of spreading that phenomena themselves or not. As we turn up the overall connectivity within the system, the nature of the diffusion process changes fundamentally. At a low level of connectivity, when we're dealing with an isolated group of people, we have to try and affect the whole group, and particularly the average people. We try and broadcast to everyone, as exemplified by traditional advertising and political campaigns that put up posters and billboards in public spaces where the mass of people will get exposed to them. This is a kind of brute force method to diffusion that is necessary at low levels of connectivity. But when we turn up the distributed level of connectivity, this is no longer the case. Now everyone can be a means of diffusion. We no longer need to use brute force trying to affect everyone. We can now be much more strategic, simply affecting those who have the greatest capacity to affect others. In this way, we can get much higher leverage. Influencing the network in the right place can now have a much larger non-linear effect. And we see this with the current trends within advertising. Because we're all now much more connected, agencies can focus less on broadcasting commercials to the mass of people, but instead focus more on getting influential bloggers to adopt and spread their message for them. Next, we need to consider the overall topology to the system, how something will spread across it will be significantly influenced by the clustering within the network. Clustering creates heterogeneity. This might be the different ethnic and linguistic clusters within the network of our global society that are resistant to the spreading of a single homogeneous ideology. Or we might be talking about the clustered cultural groups within a single city. This clustering and heterogeneity within the network will clearly be resistant to some uniform phenomena spreading across the entire network. This clustering may well also create competing phenomena within the same overall network where a new phenomena is introduced but given different interpretations or forms by different sociocultural clusters with these different variants then competing. We might think about the spreading of some religion that gets interpreted in different forms by different cultural groups or the local dialects of some common language. These are all sub-clustering that give the network a heterogeneous topology and make it resistant to a uniform spreading. This heterogeneity due to clustering can create bottlenecks to the process of diffusion where we have some cluster and just a few links connecting it to some other groups. These links are then critical to the spreading process which reduces robustness and increases the capacity for exercising power. Centralized networks can be very effective at spreading. With preferential attachment we get major hubs and those hubs are key enablers to the diffusion process because a hub is attached to many small nodes who may pass on the phenomena to them and then they will affect all the other nodes within their local network and thus in just two hubs we've managed to cover a whole sub-system. But we should always remember that centralized social systems will have strong power dynamics because of the high degree distribution and this can distort the diffusion process. For example, if we think about giving aid to some African country such as the Democratic Republic of Congo a large percentage of that money may well get siphoned off at the central hub of the network until the diffusion process even begins to take place. Or as another example we might think about broadcast media which again is a centralized system that can be very effective at disseminating uniform information to a broad group of people and we've seen how it's been used effectively as a means for creating national solidarity among millions of people within a country. But again we know it is often used as a means for manipulation and propaganda spreading and this is easily achieved because it's a centralized network. And this is the nature of centralized networks in general. They have a high concentration of power allowing them to be very coherent, effective and capable of rapid diffusion but they can also be more dysfunctional as in these previous examples. Centralization is essentially a top-down method meaning that few people are trying to affect many. This centralized mechanism always comes at some expense and has significant limitations and this ties back to our previous discussion about the agents within the network working to spread the phenomena. That can only happen when we have distributed connectivity. The agents have to be connected to each other in a peer-to-peer fashion but centralized systems will typically repress and work to exclude those distributed connections and thus there may be a certain trade-off here. Networks don't always grow in a linear fashion but may grow exponentially. Whenever there is exponential growth there is typically some positive feedback loop driving them and in this case it is what is called the network effect. The network effect arises when users gain value from others using the same network. The more people that join the more value for everyone else. This is a positive feedback loop. A good example of this would be a language. The value of some language is relative to the number of other users of that language. The more people that adopt that language the more valuable it will be. People learn English, Spanish and Chinese as second languages not because these languages are in any way better than any others but simply because billions of people speak these languages giving them a powerful network effect and lots of value. The network effect may be seen behind the formation and spreading of many phenomena within social networks such as the spreading of some fashion and as always with positive feedback it will give us exponential growth, tipping points and cascades as we previously talked about. What is happening with the network effect is that there is really a positive externality. When I choose to learn a particular language I'm not just generating value for myself but also some of the value is being externalised to everyone else who is using that network as they now have more communications options available to them due to this positive externality. The network effect gives us what is called MECLAF's law which suggests that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users of that network. Because of all these positive externalities the system as a whole now has value greater than its individuals. With the network effect people will not only adopt a phenomena based upon its value in isolation but also on the measurement of how many others will also adopt that phenomena. We choose to go to a party or some other gathering only if we think others will also go and thus expectation becomes very important. People not only have to value something but they have to expect that others will also adopt him and thus expectation can be a very high leverage point with respect to diffusion in social networks. The network effect is also notorious for creating lock-in. Because there is so much value created by everyone simply using the same network this creates a strong force towards convergence. Everyone using the one network at the expense of all others. We see this with the dominance of English as a global language and the decline of many other small languages. This network effect may give the diffusion process a strong tipping point because below a certain level of people adopting that phenomena the value is very low. We might say it's sub-linear. Adopting some radical new fashion when no one else has will come at great social cost but doing it when everyone else has will come at a much greater value. Thus the pioneers of some new phenomena whether we're talking about a new political opinion, a new social movement or a new style these first adopters will have to be very committed putting in a lot of resources and getting quite little out. But if the phenomena does spread then the network effect will take hold. There will be some tipping point or phase transition where rapidly goes from a fringe activity to a mainstream phenomena and the course of least resistance. Complex contagion is the phenomena in social networks in which multiple sources of exposure to some innovation are required before an individual adopts that change in behavior. This differs from simple contagion in that it may not be possible for the phenomena to spread after only one instance of contact with an infected neighbor. The spread of complex contagion across a network of people may depend on many social and economic factors for instance how many of one's friends adopt the new idea as well as how strongly they actually influence that individual. In complex contagion the probability of adopting a behavior or an idea varies with the extent of exposure. As an example a person might not respond when they see a piece of information on just one social media site but when they see it on another or a third this may trigger them to have greater belief in that piece of information and start to share it. When we allow for this more complex form of diffusion we now have to start to take into account different sources of contagion that may be conflicting as we noted when talking about clustering. The spreading of propaganda may be an example of this within a very simple homogeneous scenario where we have just one national broadcaster we'll have a relatively simple contagion process with just one single message being propagated but in a more complex setting with multiple channels there may be conflicting messages and we have to understand the network of interacting messages that people are receiving and also the significance that they ascribe to those different channels. In this video we've been talking about the diffusion process within social networks looking at some of the primary considerations. We talk firstly about the two counteracting forces of the infectiousness of the phenomena that is spreading on the one hand and the resistance of the agents on the other. We highlighted network density as a second major factor where when we turn up the overall degree of distributed connectivity the nature of the diffusion process changes fundamentally allowing for a peer-to-peer process of sharing. We noted how clustering can create a certain resistance to uniform spreading but centralized networks can be very effective and enabling the diffusion process through the use of large hubs. We briefly talked about the network effect and how it can create rapid diffusion once the tipping point is reached due to positive externalities. Finally we expanded our model to include complex contagion where an agent must be exposed to a number of different sources before adopting him.


Hi, I'm Dr. Aditi Bussells, at-large Councilwoman for the City of Columbia. February is Heart Month, one that is near and dear to my heart as a woman and a public health researcher. According to the American Heart Association, heart disease claims the life of a woman about every 80 seconds, but almost 80 percent of heart disease can be prevented. Cardiovascular issues like heart disease and stroke can affect women at any age, making it so important for all women to understand their risk factors, learn about their family history, and to recognize the symptoms of heart attacks and strokes. It's also important to know that the best way to prevent heart disease is by taking care of yourself. There's a lot of research to show that lifestyle changes like moving more and eating healthy and getting those preventive checkups can make a huge difference in reducing your risk. So know your numbers, educate yourself on your family history, get your regular checkups, move more and make healthy choices. Take care of yourselves.