Right. Welcome. Welcome to those who joined. Right. Let's begin this time with a word of prayer before we start the class. Father, we thank you for this time, Lord, and even as we prepare and learn, pray God that you will reveal your heart, your plans, your purposes for our lives. Thank you for your word. Thank you for teaching us, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. So last year, two days back, we did the spiritual dynamics. We looked at the natural dynamics of the church. We looked at the spiritual dynamics as well as the church. Now, let's go to chapter seven, which is urban church planting. And we look at how few aspects on how churches were started in the book of Acts, the urban church. And then we'll get into chapter eight, which is church planting or the core of the topic that we are going to cover. How to get started. So let's go with chapter seven first. Now, the commission was given to an Acts chapter one verse eight. It says, but you will receive power to be a witness where the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you'll be witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea's, Mary and the ends of the earth.  Now, let's look at Acts chapter two. Now, we know most of this, we know the story, but in Acts chapter one, we see that the 120 were praying, seeking God. Acts chapter two was the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell upon the 120. And we see the whole story there. We know the story. Peter addresses the crowd in Acts chapter two. And let's just read Acts two and verse 41. Now, Peter has preached all through from Acts chapter two was 14 onwards. He has brought out the whole gospel. He's shared. Okay. This is what happened. This is Jesus. You have persecuted you put him into you have killed him, but God raised him from the dead. Now, he seated at the right hand of the Father and he's calling all of us to repent forgiveness of sins and turn our lives to him. And after this entire message, chapter two, it was 41, those who accepted this message were baptized and about 3000 were added to their number that day. Right. So this was the first church plant. Of course, the word church, at least here came much later. But if you see here, it says those who accepted this message were baptized. 300 3000 were added to their number. So later on, we see that the church of Jerusalem in Jerusalem began to grow because we see in the same chapter was 47 47, which is praising God and enjoying the favor of all people. And the Lord added to their number daily, those who are being saved. So we see that the early church, the gospel was shared. People were added into the church. And as we go on, we'll see many, many passages on how God added people into the church. People were minister to people were evangelized. They reached out the disciples. They followed the same model that the Lord Jesus had established. They said, go, reach, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers and do these miracles because I'm sending you my name. Right. And then let's get to Acts chapter eight. Now, Acts chapter eight also is very interesting.  The church in Jerusalem is being persecuted, right? So you've got about 3000 and more people because more people were added. So more than 3000 people in the church, the church is being persecuted. The Romans, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Jews themselves, the Gentiles, so they would be persecuted on every side. So what happened? They were scattered out to different places. And when they were scattered out, Philip went into Samaria. If we read Acts chapter four, eight was four. Those who had been scattered reached the word. There ever they went was five. Philip went to a city in Samaria and proclaimed Christ there. And when the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said, right? Which shrieks evil spirits came out of many and many paralytics and cripples were hidden. So there was great joy in that city. So it is most likely that after the ministry of Philip, Philip was also called the evangelist later on. It is most likely that the church community was established in that place. Let's go now to Acts 13. Acts 13. Now, because of this persecution, what's happening is some of them went into Samaria. Some of them went to Judea and some of them went to Antioch. Now, this is not the Roman Antioch, but this is the Episcidian Antioch, right? Antioch in Antioch and there was a church that had already been started there. So the Jews or the Christians, the believers in Jerusalem got to know that the church in Antioch is growing. So they said, okay, we need to send somebody there. So Peter and the other disciples send Barnabas there. And if you read, let's go to Acts 13. No, let's go to Acts 12 towards the end was 24. But the word of God continued to increase and spread when Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission. They returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John and also Mark. Now, this is again the ministry that started in Antioch. Yes, the ministry that started in Antioch, Paul and Barnabas, they went and they ministered, built the church. And we also see that this church was already established in the free. They had prophets, they had evangelists, they had the 5-fold ministry almost already functioning in the church. Paul and Barnabas go there, built the church. I'm just going quickly because we can't explain the whole thing. These are places where how churches were planted. Acts 17 was 124. Now, this we all know. Acts 17, Paul is in his second missionary journey. He's going into Thessalonica and let's read 1 to 4. Acts 17, 1 to 4. Would anyone like to read? Acts 17 was 1 to 4. Yes, would anyone like to read? Acts 17, 1 to 4. Acts 17, 1 to 4. Now, when they had passed through Amaphos and Paul, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as this custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths, reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, this Jesus whom I preached to you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded under great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. Yeah, so we see here that in Thessalonica, Paul goes, he reaches, verse 4 says, some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent Jews, prominent women. Now, we see here again a launch of a church, a group of people.  Athens was a wonderful way because in Acts 17, Athens, what happened, if you go towards the end, verse 32 onwards, it says, we know the story at Athens, right? He goes, he walks around, he sees and there are statues saying to an unknown God, Paul begins to preach about this unknown God. He gets invited to preach at the Aeropagus at the Council. And towards the end of his entire message was 32 and 33, Acts 17, 32 and 23. When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, others sinned. We want to hear you again on this subject. At that Paul left the Council, verse 34, a few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysus, a member of the Aeropagus, also a woman named Demaris and a number of others. Now, it does not explicitly say that a church was planted, but it is most likely that this was a church plot at Athens. In the same way, in Corinth, we see Paul left to Corinth. Again, he preaches there and people believe that the church was established. So, we see all through in the Book of Acts, we see that churches were being planted. And now, as far as we know, the ones that are only documented, but I'm sure there would have been many more churches planted. There would have been people who came, heard the message of Paul or even others, other believers who preached, they went out and shared the gospel. They would have planted churches and the ministry really were brought. But we see a church planting happen in small ways. We see the power of the gospel just by two or three people ministering. Many people came to know Christ and we see that all through the Book of Acts. If we go to chapter 19, we see Paul in Ephesus. Paul is just preaching and he drives out demons from people. The church has started in Ephesus. He goes on to chapter 20, Macedonia. We know that there's a church in Macedonia. Macedonia is a Roman colony and then Greece. So, we see that everywhere Paul went, the church is planted. Now, it's not that he's not written letters to every church. Hence, we don't know how many church, but it is obvious that he has planted many, many more other churches as well. Let's go to Acts chapter 24. Let's go to Acts 24 and Acts 24, 24 and 25. Let's read that. Acts 24 and 25. Seven days later, Felix came with his wife, Priscilla, who was a Jewess. He went. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. As Paul discussed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, that's enough for now. You may leave and I find it convenient. I will send for you. At the same time, he was hoping that Paul would offer him a bride. So he went. He sent for him frequently and talked to him. So here again, the tribe and Felix. So some of them say that out of this tribe, right? A few believers came out from this entire experience. We go on verse 26 and 24 and 25 again. At this point, Festus interrupted Paul's defense.  He shouted, your great learning is driving you insane. 25, I'm not insane. Most excellent Festus. Paul replied, what I'm saying is true and reasonable. The king is familiar with these things and I can speak freely to him. I'm convinced that none of this has escaped his notice because it was not done in a corner. Now, if you look at this, the whole encounter at the feedlings. If you later on, many years later, if you see in the book of Romans, towards the end of his letter, the book of Romans, maybe digressing a little bit, but just trying to make us understand this better. If you go to us, the letter of Romans. Now this is the letter to the Romans, believers who were in Rome. Paul is writing and he says, he says in a place, sorry, we can find that verse. But he says, greet those in Caesar's palace. I don't know what's going on here, but he says, greet those in Caesar's palace. So there were believers who were in Caesar's palace, working in Caesar's palace. So we see the impact of the great applause of Paul. He was able to, whenever he went speaking of people's lives, start communities, start churches, and he did it in a very simple way. He depended on the gospel, he depended on the power of the gospel, but he also did things practically with wisdom and spiritual. He looked at both the spiritual aspect and the practical aspect. So let's get into this next chapter, the practical aspects of church planting. Church planting requires a lot of personal preparation. Now this personal preparation, we'll talk about it in chapter 24. But look, let's look at it, getting started when we talk about church planting. Now, it is very important to form a team, to start a church planting core team. Now, I know that God may have given you the vision, you want to start the ministry and you got us put it into your heart. Yes, that can be true. You have the vision, you're burning with this desire. Right. Thank you, Daphina, you put the words there yet. So you're burning with this desire to plant a church, plant a ministry. But remember that ministry is not a one person's job. God does not work alone. Genesis 1, what did God say? Let us make man. Jesus too. He chose two other disciples. Then he chose 72 others. He said, go out and teams. So we see that God always works as a team. So God may use you as an individual to be a pioneer. But as a pioneer, you must have a team, right? Look at all the everything that we read in the book of Acts. God gave the vision to Paul. But wherever he went, he went with a team. He had a team of people. He had Timothy, he had Titus, he had Philemon, he had Titicus, he had Luke. So he had people of John Mark, none of us. So he had people wherever he went, there was a team of people. And how would we form these teams? Let's look at a few things. One, have a good and healthy relationship with each other. The people whom you choose in your church planting team is very, very critical. Now again, this must be done prayerfully, wisely. So that goes into personal preparation of praying and seeking God and asking guidance. But once you're forming a team, ensure that you have good, healthy relationship with each other. You need to trust each other. There should be support, there should be no kind of competition among each other. That is very important. In some way, if you feel that there is no trust, there's no support, or you feel that the vision is going to separate ways, stuck, halt what you're doing, regroup.  Now, especially when it comes to church planting quality as a pioneer, you and I may have to make decisions. And those decisions could be very important decisions. It may not be pleasing to everyone, but you've got to keep the vision of the church, the vision of the ministry in your heart at all times. That is number one priority to have a good and healthy relationship. Number two is to be united theologically. That is one heart, one mind. So imagine this, you have five people in a church planting team. All five of us, all five of them must be of the same mindset. Now picture this, three of them believe in healing, two of them don't believe in healing, and five of them are going and starting a church plant. What will happen? Church will start because God will do it right. We can start the church. Church will become 10 people, 20 people, 30 people. Then you'll say, as a leader, you will say, okay, we're going to have prayer and healing service. The other three people will say, hey, healing is after apostle Paul, no more healing. What will you do? And they're part of the team. They've helped you from zero, from scratch. They've helped you to reach out, to evangelize, to get the hall, to get the music system, to get the audio, to do everything in the church. They've helped you from the beginning. And they say, hey, I didn't know you didn't believe in healing. What's happened? Division. So good relationship, united in theology. Right, because that is very, very important. One heart, one, all of them on the same page. Three, you're able to compliment each other's gifts and skills. Right, that is ministering the word, worship, prayer, pastoral care, evangelism, administration. Now, when you start, when we started church or ministry, for example, there are five people as a team, you have started the church, right? And you have this core team in the church. Maybe there are 20 people in church. So you know, okay, maybe one of them can sing well. Another person, you'll be able to, you know, lead in prayer, the other person can minister the word. Another person can, you know, form teams and evangelize. That's their gift. And then administration, very important. Keeping the accounts, making sure that the church is functioning right. So all these different gifts that God places must be able to compliment each other. Nowhere in the core team should one person feel, hey, I am the person who's preaching, so I'm better than all of these. Or this is more important than the others. You know, every aspect of a pioneering stage is important. Every aspect. It could even be the aspect of setting up the stage in the church or setting up the chairs. Even that is equally important to us preachers. Right. So able to compliment each other. There is no competition. Each other's gifts and talents are used together to build God's kingdom. Right. Four. All are committed to the common vision of the church plant. That's all five of them. Right. Are committed to the common vision. So of course, when you start a church, you know, you'll have a vision. You'll have a mission. You'll have all that paper. And very important is to declare and to let people know what is your vision? What is your mission? And now, you know, we have websites. So it's very easy. They can go up to the website, read about the, you know, vision, mission, values, all of that belief system, they can read all of that. But when it comes to the pioneering stage, the church planting stage, have a common vision for the church. Right. Why? Because if you have two or three visions, then, you know, it's divided. Picture this view. The person, the pioneer is saying, one day we will be able to launch, you know, or have 500 people in our church and we will have a Bible college. We'll have this. Imagine another person in the same team says, I, instead of 500 people, maybe he's thinking, okay, I want to have 10 churches. 50 churches with 50 people each. Now, the vision is the same, but it's different. If you get what I'm saying, the main vision is to build a church to up to 500 people and serve the city. Actually, you've got another person saying, no, I want 10 different churches in 10 different places and we'll serve the city. So you see, there's dual visions. Maybe both visions are good, but there are two visions there. It's not going to help. We should be committed to a common vision. One vision, one goal. This is just examples. Then the leader of the church planning team is clearly identified and all the other members support the leader. So the leader is clearly identified. So for example, you've got five. One person has maybe two friends have started to plan together to start or three friends. You need to have one leader among them. Now, choosing that leader, you need to do it in a very wise way. You need to, you know, three of us have come together have these common vision, common goals, common ideas. But there has to be one person who can lead the show. Now, lead doesn't mean to dictate those, but to just oversee, to have things in order. So a church planting core team is very important. Now, we also look at the roles and responsibilities later on. We look at roles, responsibilities of church planning core team. Let's look at this, preparing from a distance. Now, for example, God is calling you to start a church, maybe in the same city or in a different city.  What must we do? As a church planting as a pioneer, we must prepare well. We looked at the preparation stage, right? We must prepare well in advance, gather information, survey the city. Right? If you look at what we did last class, we looked at all those practical aspects, we looked at all the spiritual aspects. So we got to know all of this, preparing well, right? Our homework is done well. Understand the city from a distance, their natural spiritual dynamics. Pray and think and write down, analyze, discuss, brainstorm ideas, strategies on how you feel you're going to launch the ministry. So get together, brainstorm, come up with ideas, develop a contact list. Now, for example, if you know people, you're in a city and you know people in that city, you know, begin to develop a contact list. It's not like you're taking people's information and using it for your benefit. But what you can do is, hey, you can put the word out and say, hey, you know, we are planning to start.  This is a Sunday. We're going to launch a ministry. We're going to launch a church this coming Sunday. Why don't you try and come? Over through that, people will give you contact numbers. First-time visitors may come. So you establish a contact list. So one of the things we do at APC is we have first-time visitors data all the way back from 2000, you know, much before that, I think 2008, 2009 onwards. We have all the first-time visitors. Now it's not like we're going on calling them and talking to them. Just have the details. But we do send them our publications, our books, if there are events anywhere that they'd like to attend. We send them details. So we have a whole system in place where we, you know, keep in touch with our, with members of the church. So now it's not going to happen initially in the starting phase itself. It may take time, but you develop a contact list. Additional information of what is happening in the city. Recommend places where a church plant may be useful or connect with senior pastors of the city. That's again, very important. So what you can do is, you know, if you're planning a church plant, find out some of the good churches in and around that city. Go meet with the senior pastors. Try and talk to them. You know, pastor, I'm planning to start a church. This is what I want to do. You know, you can just ask them for advice. Now they may be in ministry for the last 15, 20 years. So they know the city. They know what works, what may not work. So you go, you talk to them. You share, right? Share your heart with them. And now the response for this, right? Not everyone will say, okay, good job. Go ahead and start. Some of them will say, you know, don't do this. So you don't have to worry about that. But whenever you get some good feedback, right? Apply it. Use it. I remember when we, when we went to the city of Mangalore, I went to a senior pastor of a very good church, English speaking church, went to his house, met with him, spoke to him. And he was good, right? He was encouraging me saying, okay, you know, Mangalore is a difficult place. You have to stay here. You have to spend a lot of time. You have to be patient. You can't expect church to grow to happen over like one or two years. So he gave me a background of the city. They were saying, you know, Canada, the regional languages like Canada and the other languages, the local languages, those churches grow very fast. You know, he gave me a feel of, you know, what is the culture of the people? You know, they don't like to wake up too early in the morning. So they like a later service. Evenings, they want to be free. So they don't like or they don't prefer an evening service. So he gave me a heads up, right? And of course he prayed for me, prayed that we would do well. So you can also do that, right? It's only that the church was already started here, but when I went, I was new there. So if you are planning to start a church, go meet with senior pastors, talk to them, provide support. But here's the thing. If there are people who are already part of a local church in the city, very important, do not ask them to leave their church and come join your church. Do not ask them to leave the other church and come join the core planting team. Now it may sound interesting. For example, if I'm starting a church and I have three people with me, I'm looking for one more person to join the core planting team. Do not go to another church. Speak to some people and say, hey, I'm going to find you in the church. Would you like to come? That would be the wrong thing to do, right? Let them serve where they are. So when you're starting, start well. Start in an honorable way as well, right? Then relocating to be on site, right? So for example, you're in another place. You want to come and start a church. You have to plan well in advance, right? How will you go about it? Survey the phase on site. Then there's a preparation phase. Be open to revise and update your plan. So in this relocating phase, during this relocating phase, make sure you're able to have enough funds, have enough finances with you. Make sure that you're being able to provide for your family if you're already married with children. You should be able to do all of that right now. Prepare a survey, prepare a plan. Don't just go in blindly and say, this is where I will start a church. Have a survey. Think about what you're doing. The Lord Jesus, when He did His ministry, He planned it out. When He went from place to place, He planned it out. The Apostle Paul did the same. It was all planned out. So while you're on site, plan. Then you plan for finances, personal finances. Now, for example, you want to start a church. If we have to start a church, we need money. Money is needed. We cannot say, no, I don't have money. Finances is definitely weird. One, we need to open the trust. Two, you need to be able to get a place on lease or rental. Three, you need equipment. At least speakers and mics. So equipment, you will need. You'll need chairs. You'll need accessories for the church. Things in the church. So finances are required. Now, if you look at the Apostle Paul, we know that he worked. The Apostle Paul and his team worked, earned money, looked after their own needs and went about doing their ministry at least in three cities. In Corinth, Ephesus and Thessalonica. They worked. The great Apostle Paul, the visionary, the man who saw Jesus, who has done these great miracles, who's called to the Gentiles. The great Apostle Paul worked as a dent maker. Later on, we see that in the book of Acts, he says he worked, paid a rent for his house and he ministered to people. So personal finances. There may be a time when God will call you to launch a church or launch a ministry. It doesn't mean you have to quit your job and go. Now, the mindset here, especially in India, they had this whole understanding of secular and full-time ministry. Now, this is a very hard stone to break because it's still prevailed in our nation. The people think, okay, if you're working in the corporate, this is a secular job. But if you're working in the church, this full-time ministry. There's nothing like that. There is no full-time ministry. Whether you're in the corporate sector, whether you're in the church, you're in full-time ministry automatically. You may choose to work. Many, many, many people, especially in the north of India, towns and villages, they call up, they say, we're going through so much trouble. We don't have enough finances for our life, for looking after my family, kids have to go to school. I said, what do you do? So what do you do throughout the week? Monday to Friday? If anybody calls for house prayer, we go. What about the other times? We don't do anything. We sit and pray at home. So many times, nine out of 10 times, I tell them, why don't you work? And nine out of 10 times, the response is, but God has called me for full-time ministry. Now, it's not wrong to work. It's not wrong to support yourself. There will come a time when the church is growing, when you have maybe 100, 200 people in the church, you know that your presence is there. You know it's needed. You know that you have to be around, so you can work with the church. And we'll talk about that as well later on. So you can continue to work professionally and have other leaders serve in the church planting, or the church in the church. So for example, if you look at APC pastor was working, the church was already functioning. He already had staff. We had the Bible college, we had staff for the pastors. We had already a pastor team with the locations as well, church locations. The pastor kept working. So there's nothing wrong with that. And be open to that idea. Then you need finances for church block, as I said, initially, until the church becomes self-sustaining, you need it. Now, when a church is starting, you have 10 people in the church, they're not going to get much in an offering. But you need to pay the rent. You need to pay the electric bills. You need to look after, you have enough funds for the family. We cannot expect what is being given as an offering to be used for everything. We cannot expect that. Until the church is self-sustaining, we must be able to manage our finances. You can choose to do the church plant without any support and becoming a self-sustaining church, but to become a self-sustaining church, it takes time. Think about it. Pray about it. Understand. See if God is leading you towards that. But especially in the starting initial phase, be wise. Prepare well. I remember we had started a Bible study group many, many years ago. And I was working in the corporate sector. And in the evenings, we would have this Bible study group. So we used to meet at a house and eventually that Bible study suddenly grew. So we had 10, then 20, eventually it started reaching up to 50, 60 people. So I decided, okay, let's hire a place, a hall, right? And we'd use the hall every, for the entire month. I would hire it so we can use it how many ever times we want for the month. So I remember we got a place, a small hall, maybe we could seat about 80 people. So we hired this hall. Now, I was just thinking, if I was not working, how would I hire the hall? We couldn't. Now the people are just simple people. They are also working. But we needed a place. So first thing I did is, I paid off the rent for the entire year. My entire year I paid for 11 months. I paid the lease and the rent. I bought chairs. I bought a small, you know, you get these small box speakers. They're talking about 2008 or 2009. During that time. Yeah, 2008 I guess. Two small box speakers. Got them kept it and bought a few cables. And every month I would add things into that place. I got a nice table. Got some books stand to keep some books. So I was able to, you know, just make it look nice. Added a stage after some time. And then eventually, you know, a church plant happened and handed it over to another person to look after the church. And the church is doing well right now. So without the finances, you won't be able to do it. So what you need eventually is God to lead us in what we are doing. We need to think, be wise, ask God to lead us in every step. Then even as you're planning, planning for other personal needs are also important. So needs for the family, workplace, schooling for children. All of this is important. That's why I remember when I was working and we did this small church plant, I knew, I was living with my parents, but I knew that I had to support them. I knew that I had to be honorable and so I would give them a certain amount and say, okay, this is for the house, this is and they would say, no, it's okay, you can use it for the church, but you're doing your bit. You're making sure that your, you know, your family needs are met and now that I married the children, I must make sure that I'm able to support them at their personal needs, right? Then you look at planning for legal, administrative and regulatory matters. Now, this is again very important. Two options, option number one, especially now, before you start a church, you can have it registered as a legal trust. It should be formed as a legal entity. Now, during, you know, early 2000s, what they used to do is start a church and then eventually when it reaches about 50, then they would go and get it registered. But right now, the church before even starting must be formed and registered as a religious trust. Very, very important.  They're asking me questions. Can you please help? And then there's a lawyer there. And the lawyer says, okay, give me the documents of your church. I will go and do a counter. I will counter this attack. No, I don't have documents. So where do you meet? We meet in one fall, but we are just a village in the village's church. There's no registration. There's no trust. There's no legal entity. So what happens? They could not even, you know, counter an approach. And the pastors and the believers are still stuck in jail. Right? Or at some point, there's some financial, you know, accounting is not done in the right way. People have been taken to court for that. Right? So have a registered, register the trust, very simple process, get a lawyer, pay a certain amount, send them with an offer and saying, this is my vision, mission, goal, everything. They will get it done in 10 days. You can also specify, you know, you want the trust to be for the entire nation. So anywhere in India or whichever nation you're in, you can start how many of our churches here. And under that trust, there's so much you can do. You can start schools, colleges, children's homes, anything. Right? So this, having a legal entity is very important. To having an administrative system, keeping accounts, right? What is the money that has come in, money that has gone out, equipment that has come in, equipment gone out. Now in the initial phase, in terms of administration, it may not be much work, right? Because we may be just 20, 30 people, but as the church grows, 50, 60, 100, 120, 150, 200 people, administration is required. I do need to have a good administration team for looking out of finances, equipment, you know, things that you buy and disposing in the church and inventory in the church. All of this must be there. So some things that we have right now is we have an inventory. So if you go to inventory at ebcwo.org, you can find all the details by the IT team looks after that. Everything that we have in the church is an inventory. So if I want something, I'll say, is this available in the inventory? Can I get, for example, I want a speaker. Is this available? It's available. You know, I can request for it and get it. Everything is put in order, right? And then finally, regulatory matters in filing of taxes, income tax for, we know that the church is, the religious trust is, does not pay tax, but filing of professional taxes. If you've got staff in the church, government regulations, following government regulations. Now, all of these matters must be done very carefully, right? Have, again, I'm talking about as the church grows, right? But even if you have two, three people, get guidance from other organizations, get guidance from legal entities, and you know, you can hire them to do your accounting for your religious trust as well. So be aware of these matters. Plan and be transparent with your church members. What you do initially in a church plan will last to the end, right? So one of the things that we have in APC is from 2002, right? We have the incoming offerings of each Sunday, 2002, right? So this is amazing, and we also have everything on the website, all our details, everything, the regulatory, the legal matters, administrative, everything is on our website. So our church members can, you know, always go ahead and read it. So being transparent as well. So now, all of this, we learned over time, right? We incorporated it over time, but now that we are studying this, you can incorporate it right from the beginning to avoid, you know, mistakes that we may have made, right? Or not mistakes, but avoid confusions and troubles and, you know, if you just start all of this from stage one, when your church grows, you will see that there's order, there's discipline, everything will be in an organized manner. When something, when it's organized, God is glorified. Right? So we stop here, and next week we look at this survey phase, how to survey a city and how to launch out a ministry. Right? All right. Let's just close in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time. Thank you for teaching us. And we pray Lord that whatever you've put in our hearts, maybe some of us here to launch and to pioneer a ministry, a church. Lord, I pray that you will give us the wisdom and you'll help us to do things in the right way and most importantly, Lord, to be led by your Holy Spirit. Thank you. Thank you for what is ahead for each one of us, Lord. Pray a blessing over each and every student, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen, amen. Thank you so much for joining. Have a great week ahead. I'll see you next week. God bless.


It's really cool. It really is. I mean to be first of all be part of the Yankees just anything to do with the Yankees been so great to me. You know since my retirement stuff like that. So be able to be with these guys first time baseball in Europe and London. I've never been to London. So it's a cool trip. You know I'm picturing how intense you were as a pitcher. And I'm thinking if you were starting one of these two games you would have never been able to just enjoy the city you'd have been just locked in on. What's the mound going to be like. Right. Yeah. Exactly. There's no way I would have enjoyed it. You know but you know if I would have pitched game one then I could have enjoyed Saturday afternoon and Sunday. So but if I would have had to pitch on Sunday it wouldn't have been a good trip. What do you think the balance is like for these guys coming here trying to enjoy some culture but also knowing they have big games against the Red Sox as well. Yeah I mean these games count you know so it's important and that makes it a little tough that makes it a little tough. But I think the guys are staying on their routine pretty good you know they didn't jump right in the after the travel we had like thank goodness they gave them another day off you know and so I think everybody's going to be able to recover today have a good day a good off day see a little bit tonight probably and maybe this morning and then get ready to play baseball tomorrow.


What's going on guys? It's your boy DPC here today with another Destiny video and in today's video I want to talk about Year 1 Exotics as Year 2 weapons. Now I believe it was within the December update that we saw quite a few Year 1 Exotics upgraded to that Year 2 power level. Some of these Exotics were the Me, the Multi-Tool, the Plan C, the Dragon's Breath, the Super Good Advice, the Hard Light, the Nolan Beyond, the Twilight Gousons, the Nothic Manacles, the Armamentariums as well as a few more. At the time I remember these Exotics being dropped as a surprise with little knowledge known of their plans. Me personally, I feel it's about damn time we had a few more Exotics from our beloved Year 1 powered up to that Year 2 level so they can be used in that PvE and with such events as Trials of a Source and Iron Banner when it comes to PvP. In today's video I will be showing you guys 3 Exotics I'd most like to see return as Year 2 Exotics. Now as crazy as you guys may see my choice is I've chosen 2 of my 3 weapons on the pure basis of me enjoying using them and the 3rd one being my all run favourite Year 1 weapon. Not only to me though but to many many other people for both PvE and PvP. Now before we go any further into the Exotics I'd love to see brought back into Year 2. You guys tell me down below if there were 3 Exotics you could power up to that Year 2 standard what would they be? Let me know what you would choose down below in that comment section Armament or Weapons tell me down below you must have 3 and the reasons behind your picks. Now let's get into my picks. The first weapon I'd love to see return is the Universal Remote. This is a primary shotgun. I actually remember a time within Destiny that many people put this up there with the worst Exotics in the game while I was there having shitloads of fun with it especially in PvP. Some of my favourite PvP memories are with me running around with this weapon. I still feel 85% of the maps in crucible suit close quarter battles and pairing the Universal Remote up with a decent sniper did work amazingly for me just for the moments of destroying people at a distance where the Universal Remote couldn't hit. The second exotic I'd love to see return and remember guys 2 of these 3 picks are true based on the fun I had with them. So the second exotic I'd love to see return is the Queen Breaker's Bow. Now the Queen Breaker's Bow is a weapon rewarded from the Prison of Elders along with the drugs promise and the Lord of Wolves. While the Lord of Wolves was also quite a decent weapon I much preferred the QBB. It just felt so unique using it also extremely satisfying and although 99% of the time you can do better with just a normal sniper for me it just ain't as fun. The QBB is a weapon many have forgotten about and many due to the fact it's completely pointless to be used in both PvE and PvP but I seriously enjoyed using it and that's why it's a part of my 3 exotics I'd love to see return. Okay so moving on to my third and final pick of the exotics I'd love to see return and powered up my final choice is the Ice Breaker. The Ice Breaker is a secondary sniper one that regains its own ammo.  The Ice Breaker though was such a great weapon amazing for PvE and equally great and fun to use in PvP. Now as bad as I do in PvP I do remember running around with this thing and using it as my only weapon and truly enjoying myself. Sadly them times are long gone but why couldn't they return? I feel they can. The Ice Breaker was a weapon many fought along with the Galhorn made PvE way too easy. While I agree and it's why it did receive a few nerfs I still really enjoyed it after these nerfs and if I had the choice of one exotic I could bring back it would for damn sure be the Ice Breaker. But guys those are my three picks tell me down below what you think of my picks as well as giving me the name of three exotics you would choose and tell me why. Thanks for stopping by as always hope you enjoyed the video do drop a like I'd appreciate the support and I'll catch you on that next one peace out till next time peace.


In this episode, we'll be talking about is service design and actual design practice. We'll be talking about how do we design services for real people rather than customer journey maps and personas. And we'll talk about how do we push back against the fetishization of tools and methods by embracing deep learning. Here's the guest for this episode. Let the show begin. Hello everyone. My name is Lara Benning. This is the service design show and live from New York. Hi, I'm Marc and welcome to our new episode of the service design show. This show is all about helping you do more work that makes you proud by designing and delivering services that are good for people and business. My guest in this episode is a true service design evangelist. She's an author. She's a service design researcher and an educator at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. Her name is Lara Benning. The main theme of this episode will be how do we design for real people, real solutions that make their lives better. Lara has a really interesting perspective on this which she shares with us today. If this is your first time here on this channel, I'd love to have you to subscribe as we keep bringing new videos that help to level up your service design skills at least once a week. And don't forget to click that bell icon so you'll be notified when new videos are out. And if you also like podcasts, now you can listen to the service design show on Spotify and you can find the link to that down below in the show notes. So that's all for the introduction. And now let's quickly jump into the interview with Lara. Welcome to the show, Lara. Thank you, Marc. It's nice to be here. Nice to have someone like you on the show. Really cool. I think we have a lot to talk about. So let's not waste any more time. But first of all, for the people who don't know who you are, could you give a really short introduction and also tell us a little bit about the book that just came out? Sure. My name is Lara Penning. I'm an associate professor of transdisciplinary design. I'm director of a graduate program and MFA program, also called Transdisciplinary Design. We use service design in many ways in our program. I'm a researcher. I'm a scholar. I'm a practitioner also. I am a co-founder of a research and design lab called Desis Lab at Parsons. And Desis stands for design and social innovation for sustainability. What else? I just wrote a book about service design. Tell us about it. So it's a textbook. Here it is. It's a textbook. Designing the invisible. That's right. An introduction to service design. The idea of this book was to provide a resource for learners. So for folks who are going through school, either undergraduate or graduate master level or beyond, or if you're just coming from another discipline or background and you want to study service design, this is a tool. The book is really a tool for you and it tries to cover the basics as well as practice and has some templates and exercises. Lera, I know I didn't ask you this one, putting you on the spot, but how about we give away a signed copy of your book to one of the people watching or listening to the show if they leave a comment? Is that possible? We can do that. Yes. Wow. Cool. So the way this works is leave a comment within the next week after the episode and then I'll let Lera know who won and you'll get a signed copy. Yes. Awesome. Lera, the question that I also asked to everyone coming on as a guest on the show is, do you remember the first time you got in touch with service design? Where did you learn about the field? Right. So I first learned about service design when I was doing my PhD in Milan, Italy, and I joined a group of researchers doing work and pretty much defining service design at that point or helping to define service design at that point. There were a number of colleagues. It was very tentative. I think my first connection with service design was through the concept of product service system, which basically tried to service design products and create a new way for us to get stuff done without having to buy more stuff. So it was essentially a strategy towards sustainability, environmental sustainability, trying to reduce material impact of stuff. So instead of buying the washing machine, can you pay for use and share with other people in your meeting? There was a classic case study of the Landro Mat, for example. So that's how I got to know it. Service for me was one entry point strategy towards sustainability, towards sustainable futures. Now, services are much more sustainable than products. We don't talk about that, but that's a really interesting concept. What was this? How far do we go back in time? Yeah. So this goes back in early 2000s. My PhD was from 2003 into 2006. I remain in part of that group of researchers for longer. And in a way, Desus Network still connects me with my colleagues from Ilan and those who also pass through, but others who haven't passed through them. But we all somehow connected through that network of people. So it's been quite a while. It's been a good 15 years. I've been here Parsons at the New School. This is my 11th year. So it's been a while. And in a way, I decided to write the book because there were no books. And I would compile texts from papers, academic papers. I would also go into websites from LiveWork, Engine, and then download every method and everything they had available, case studies from their projects, and use those to teach. And so this book came out of that process of compiling pedagogical materials out of what was out there, both from theories and more academic work, but also from the practice and practitioners. So that was my trajectory. You needed the book for yourself. Very much so. Very much so, yes. Cool. I'll make sure to link to the book also in the show notes. So if people want to know more about that, just check the link down below. Lera, I'm ready to dive into the topics that you've shared with me. I'm ready for some interview, Jess. Yes? OK. OK. Drumroll, please, because there we go. This topic is called, the first topic is called service design as design. Do you have a question starter? We do. How much design is there in service design? I would say a lot. What would you say? I'm trying to say a lot, too. So that's the case I'm trying to make. It's one of the cases that I'm trying to make in my book. And with my students, too, and with my, you know, the people I work with, my project partners, to try to make a case for service design as a original, integrative, but also legitimate design practice in its own right. And it's it's very ambitious because it's transdisciplinary. You know, it's it's not your usual kind of design and it does combine design thinking and design making. So I think that that is the space I'm like I like to explore. Can I interrupt you for a second? Because you said like it's not like traditional design and what is traditional design for you? Well, this year marks 100 years of the Bauhaus and the Bauhaus was all about the building environment and how designers and artists would and architects would help define the way people live. And the building environment and communication was part of that as well. Pretty much as being the manifestation, tangible manifestations of visions of the different preferred futures. So I am from Brazil originally. So a city, a whole city, the country capital was built out of the idea of a designer and an urbanist, of course, reflecting the political identities of the time and culture identities. But it was essentially a design, a design act that materialize a whole city. So if you use that as an example, you can bring this towards the space of services that surrounded and find our lives. So we have to have visions. And that's why I think service design is designed because the primary role of design, my view, is to create and envision new preferred futures. That's what design has been trying to do in different ways and has been doing. Only we don't have a one particular medium to do so. Exactly, yeah. Different ways. But there's also something interesting and we can touch upon that later if you like. But the issue of the design thinking and the design making and the tension I think there is in service design and perhaps the reason why many people think it's not really designed. We'll get to that, I think, in the final topic. So how are you, how do we get there? How do we get service design to be seen and valued as a legitimate design discipline? What do we need to do? I think we need to recognize the service design. It's not only about improving management, but it's about changing culture and mindsets. And this is essentially a design thing to do, to change culture. So my students, when they graduate, they go on to work in very high state positions, sometimes within hospitals, within corporations, within international development agencies, within public agencies. And they will, through their work, change and affect the life of millions of people. So I think it's important that we recognize that it is about creating the experiences to which these people will go about experiencing their services. But it's also about changing the general perceptions and general culture for that people, but also within the organizations that are those providing the services. And that's why I think we need to embrace the idea of service designers, service designers as those who are able to provide vision and the roadmap towards those visions. So what do you think we're missing at this moment to... What are we missing? Why aren't we there yet? Yeah, I think the reason why we aren't there yet is in a way the result of our own success, because service design has been successfully adopted and widespread now within many kinds of industries and sectors, which is a great thing. However, there is the risk of commoditization of the methods and tools of service. And because they're so nice, and for those who don't work coming from a creative background, it's fascinating and it's enticing and it's engaging. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. You get to play with dolls and Lego and the neck thing. So it's fun and engaging, but it's not all there is. There needs to be the recognition that you can't simply pack and reproduce a number of tools and methods, and then you get to the result you want. Design as many people who are coming from architecture or product design, you would know that it requires a constant engagement when you find men. And sometimes you get to a point you have to start from scratch all over again. So it's more about sustaining a certain process and feeding this process towards a certain goal, but it will require long and deep engagements within organizations that sometimes it's hard to sustain for all kinds of reasons. And it's nobody's fault. I don't want to point fingers. I think it's part of the natural pains of growing, I suppose. But I think it's what my big point here is that we are maturing as a field and we need to be more critical about the work that we do, that it's not just for producing methods. We need to be less naive about the politics of what we do when we engage in the different organizations. What do you mean by that? In which way, politics? Well, I think what I mean by the politics of services, I mean things related to the internal politics of organizations for sure, but also the politics of the service being designed or redesigned or studied and what are the different social, political, environmental implications of that? I think a big topic for me right now of interest is related to labor and work. When we design services, we're designing work and how people work. And in an era where platform, digital platforms are really taking over different sectors of our economy, we are always risking forgetting about things that happened before. The case in point, we could use Uber, for example, to talk about how sure there was an industry in place that perhaps was on the best, but all of a sudden it was taken over by another one and whose model simply ignores labor rights that were acquired with a lot of pain through a long process before that. So how much do we want that for society? And now with artificial intelligence really coming fast towards it, I think service designers will have a big role to play in designing work and designing people sometimes out of work. If you talk about some more radical experiments that people are considering, such as a universal income, but I think service designers are very good to, they should be very good at touching upon those very critical issues that we have that are not resolved in a way that we're not just oiling the machine, but we're really being visionaries about the future we want. So I think it's a time for us to become critical practitioners and not just reproducing things because we have a lot of clients that are asking that from us, but I think we need to be selective and it's our role also to educate our partners, our clients in this process. That's a really, really important call to action already in this episode. You already hinted upon this, so let's just move into the second topic. And you said something about designing people out of work. I think we'll touch upon that in this one. And it's actually called here on my paper, designing people, but I'm sure you'll be able to create an interesting, formulate an interesting question out of this that starts with. Okay, who are people behind the services we use? So for me, designing services is designing people in great part and consequently is designing for labor, design for care, designing social justice. I've been very much interested in frontline staff, especially those at the forefront of social services in critical services. I've been learning a lot recently in the some projects I've been engaged with and I have engaged recently with public libraries in Brooklyn. It's an ongoing project we have in my research lab and one thing that I've been learning is how much emotional labor and how much of one person own lived experience goes into providing a services and engaging with a person that in many cases go above and beyond their job descriptions. And this is something we have observed firsthand. We're the project I've been working on relates to services related to post-incarceration. So how libraries, one of the service areas that they are starting to offer is related to connect people that are coming out of prisons to the service they need. This is a huge issue here in the United States and Brooklyn in some neighborhoods that you'll find that has been a very important component of social life. So we have observed in some particular branches how people are compassionate, people are helpful, people will help patrons of the library even outside the physical space of the library they go out and reach out and help people getting help. And then the question becomes which is wonderful to see to begin with, right? But it's the question then for service designers is how do you scale that? How do you train people? How do you sustain that kind of a very personal relationships that are part of the service engagements and their service connections? And I'm giving this one example but I think this is present in every kind of care related world. This is for sure the case of nurses in hospitals and doctors and in general related to people in some kind of need or immigration services, right? So I think that that's where my heart is. This is where I think there is a human interest that I think it's important but I think it's interesting for our field to understand you can't design the conditions but you can most of all provide ways to sustain things already happening and instead of managers designing oh I think people should do that. What if we learn from the things that already work and try to amplify those? So I think that is a philosophy that I'm learning and I think it is about designing people it's designing their future what they do can we sustain them and help them be the best they can be in those positions and also give them agency to be who they are in the situations rather than just reciting out from a playbook which is what happens in a lot of times, no criticism but you can compare the two and I think there's a lot that can be learned from that. So I'm trying to figure out what does this mean for me as a SERVS designer? How does this actually influence my design process? Yeah, I think it has to do with deep learning. It has to do with it's not just that's the reason I was criticizing the idea of just packing up tools and methods and then try to quickly go about them. I think you need to spend time with your project clients and partners and really immerse yourself there and be able to carry out some kind of active listening rather than just interviewing people to quickly try to come up with a solution. I would even argue, so I think deep learning, deep listening, active listening and being humble about you're there to learn and really differ any kind of judgment and try to understand things from people's point of view and I mean both the user and the staff member and also, you know, and that is time. So you need to budget time. You need to, in the end we have to write contracts, right? We need to do people and all that. So it needs to be translated in that kind of language. So I think it's budgeting time and allowing for that kind of longer engagement because there is no bullet, silver bullet that will get to a final conclusion. I personally don't like personas. I think some methods have reached the limits of what they can offer. I think they can be helpful but I'm interested in the people. So I think I'm recently a more interested in collecting stories rather than building personas, real stories from real people rather than trying to put people in categories. I think that is an easy mistake and it's easy for you to use your own personal bias, whether you are the privileged person in the room or not but for sure, most cases designers when you go to certain situations, you are the privileged person. So you have more power and agents over your life in some cases and you need to be able to understand and listen and learn from the others. So budgeting time, calculating and being able to tell that to your client. Exactly, you're finding ways on how to explain the value of that, right? Yeah, it's true. It's not easy but hey, we've came a long way to our headies. So I think it's our job. I wanna use the rest of our time that we have to touch upon the third topic because I think it's sort of the central theme already in this episode. So let's just move into that. Is that okay? Sure, absolutely. I've narrowed it down to these two words, more mindset. Okay. Okay. How can we define advanced mindsets for service designers that allow them to go deep into the realities they're designing for and the people in the lives of people they're designing with and for? So I will go and try to define a number of mindsets that I think are important. I write about them in the book is my last chapter and one is precisely the one I was telling you just now. So learn how to be an active listener and learner. So it's a learner mindset and being there and listening. I have observed in some case studies of colleagues who are really good at that. I work with some colleagues in my lab who also try to use this idea of being present and you budget time and you knew it was gonna be several days there with a camera and you have to have the whole ethical aspect of doing research in that way. And also, you know, people use the word empathy a lot. I think there's a lot of interest in that and knowing how to refrain from your own judgment and put yourself in the shoes of the person. You know, how far can you go with that and not assuming anything, right? And then I think another one, so that's number one. Number two is learn how to lead and manage processes and conversations with people, right? How can we stage not only workshops, sometimes it's meetings, productive meetings, working sessions where people come together and be the steward of those processes that can take time and will probably be revisited over and over. So it's more of a soft skill in the end, not so much design early if you ask me, but it can be design early. Sometimes we have to design the tools for that. Designers are very good at designing games, cards, and whatever are the artifacts that can sustain those things. But it's really keeping things in time and revisiting. And some conversations can be really hard and painful. So how can we do that in the right way? I think the other point, the third point, the third mindset is goes back to service designers design, that of our job is learning about things, but also spotting opportunities for change, for the better, right? That's what designers have been doing all along. We can make things better. That's what it is. So we have to be able to have those visions, to be imaginative and create situations that aren't here yet. There are, somehow it's creating the future all the time and capturing those ideas and visualizing them. That's another point. Making it tangible, making the future tangible, yeah. Exactly, exactly. So if you're a service designer, so don't come from a visual design background, you should partner with one because that's part of our job too, to create visuals and to put this in front of people. Some people prefer writing, find, some people do videos, whatever you do, I'm here in a design school, so that's part of my day-to-day life, but I realize in some other situations, it is in the case, but you should hire someone, you should be working with people who can actually do that and have that skill. And then, and related to that is materializing, but also testing and simulating. You have, it's the famous prototype. You have to enact, right? You have to really enter the performatic aspects of services, services they unfold. They don't just, you just don't put it there. And there's nothing like, you know, enacting something to feel how you just know and you just know it's wrong or it's right and you can take leads from that. I've been reading a lot of drama literature for actors lately and you know, and we perform every day, we're performing now, we're performing all the time. Everything is a performance, but I think that I like to use the idea of services as a performance when I'm designing service prototypes because service prototype is not just an object. You have to put something out there and people need to do something with that. So I think the idea of a performative kind of approach to prototypes, things become true, right? When you enact them, when you perform them. And I think lastly, my first fifth point is related to knowing that our work is gonna be on the process also and ultimately you're working towards first learning how organizations work but defining your work in relation to that. So your job is about changing them and changing your organization. And that's hard to do and you have to be humble. You cannot come from parachuting and not knowing how that is gonna be like. I know that I work in a very complex organization where universities tend to be that but I guess that's the case elsewhere as well. And you have to build your way towards and so there's a lot that goes into beauty relationships with people inside organizations and clients not only the top level management but you have to develop relationships with everybody in different areas and understand where people are coming from. I'm saying this because I, most of my work is public interest design so whether it's not for profits and government and some of these organizations for, they're of their very nature, they tend to be very, sometimes not interesting changing things because they're always either in a shoestring or they are subjected to all kinds of scrutiny from the public, rightly so you, if you're a public institution. And so they're a bit risk adverse in terms of trying new things or we do things in this way, this is bureaucracy, bureaucracy is out there because you need them, you need two things to be controlled so that corruption doesn't happen, right? So there's a reason behind that but on the other hand, it creates a really, you know, tighten a kind of organizations and flows that are not necessarily the best, the best, the most open kind of organization for change and people need to want them. So it is a process that you need to steward rather than impose. That's a lot to process and I can definitely recommend people getting the book but just one question related to this is, you know, you work with students every day and you probably explain these four mindsets and they sort of feel that this shouldn't be, service design shouldn't be productized and oversimplified into tools and methods. How do you get them to actually do this? So how do you challenge them to adopt these mindsets? Well, with our students, we do that by proposing nice projects hands-on related to, you know, somehow part of the real world. So we work with partner organizations, we'll have us coming over and, you know, giving us access to people and to them and these are studios that we design, you know, and sort of curate for students but they also do theses on their own so they have to do them by themselves, those kind of thing. And you know that part of their time in doing something like that is to just build relationships. So that is a long year, more than a year long process actually. So that's how we do in this education environment. In an education environment is different from, you know, this is real life by the way too, people say it's not real life, it is real life. So I'm just saying that too, you dissipate that notion but we have the opportunity here to create some sort of protected environment where the stakes are high but they're different from when you were a designer out in the world and you have to pay yourself and pay people. Yeah, there are other constraints. Yeah, there are other constraints. So it is a sort of protected environment. So we simulate, we do it, we curate and we do that in a way that makes sense for a partner organization who have access to a lot of intelligent people doing interesting work and questioning things and coming up with interesting ideas. But it is different from, you know, hiring a professional designer. That will happen later when they graduate, hopefully. Hopefully, I'm sure of it. Lara, you've given us so much food for thought. That's the right expression but I'm sure there's also something on your mind that you would like to share with us. A question that you would like to ask us to serve design show community. Is there anything on your mind? Yeah, I think things I wanted to bring to our community is related to things that I've touched upon. It's this design. Are we, what is your politics as a service design? Can you talk about it? Can you think about it for yourself? What is the role of aesthetics in your work? You know, aesthetics is not just the color of something. It's much more than that. That will determine how you would, you know, behave in a certain space. And I think this aesthetic question, we haven't had that conversation enough or if at all in our community. And somehow I see the aesthetics question, the political question as being related. Interesting. I think that is the new book I want to write. And these are elements that I want to uncover. I think sometimes at touch points, you know, it's just one inch door towards a much bigger discussion. Working in public interest design, somehow you have to confront yourself with that and the cultural implications of things. So these are aspects of services that I don't think have been enough discussed. So I think it's something our community need to do more about. And I think it's our job in academia also to be pushing forward the discussions that people working with clients, they don't have the opportunity to do that. Well, this is the opportunity for the community to contribute to your new book by leaving. But even comments on the podcast or the video. And let's not forget, we'll be giving away a signed copy of your book. So make sure to leave a comment in general. Lara, it was really a pleasure to listen to you. So much inspiration. Thanks so much for making time in this busy period of the year again. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much, Marc. So what is your take on service design and aesthetics and service design and politics? Leave a comment down below and just of all, leave a comment because then you'll make a chance to get that signed copy of Lara's latest book. If you enjoyed this episode and know somebody who might be interested in what we've just discussed, don't forget to share this episode with them. You'll help to grow the service design community and you'll probably put a smile on somebody's face. If this is your first time here, I'd love to have you to subscribe to the channel so that we can keep bringing you more videos like this. Thanks so much for watching and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.


The study aims to predict the future incidents of lung cancer in 40 countries by 2035, with an emphasis on country and sex-specific disparities using data from 126 cancer registries of 40 countries in cancer incidents in 5 continents volumes V11 and the Nordpred age period cohort model. The results show that global ASRs of the 40 study countries are predicted to decrease by 23% among males, from 35.8 per 100,000 person years in 2010 to 27.6 in 2035, an increase by 2% among females, from 16.8 in 2010 to 17.1 in 2035. The study highlights the need for resource redistribution and improved LC control measures to reduce future LC burden worldwide as lung cancer incidents is expected to continue to increase through 2035 in most countries, making it a major public health challenge worldwide. This article was authored by Gunfeng Luo, Yanting Zhang, Zhiyun at Ziberia, and others.


All right, hello. My name is Alan Chang. I am a software engineer at IBM Research. And today, I'd like to talk to you about iterate and open source project that I've been working on. So what is the core problem? When you're developing an application or an ML model and you want to release a new version, how can you ensure that the new version is performant, that it works as intended, it will not affect users negatively? How can you ensure that it is truly better than the original version? Our solution is iterate, a metric-driven release optimizer. It's a tool that can automate SLO validation, as well as AB and AB in testing. Iterate makes it easy for you to ensure that new versions of your apps and ML models perform well and maximize business value. Iterate makes it easy, oh, sorry. With Iterate, you can perform experiments. It can do a variety of tasks, such as let me see if I can bring my mouse over. All right, just forget about my mouse. Collecting metrics, validating those metrics against service-level objectives, SLOs, and also recommend you the best version among many other tasks. And it's made for DevSecOps, MLOps, SRE, and data science teams. And it's also easily extensible to work with your apps and ML models and the tools that you use and whatever additional functionality you may need. This open-source project is started at IBM Research, but it's being developed in the open. And we're working with different communities, like Knative, K-Serve, Selden, Litmus Chaos. And that's what's allowed Iterate to become what it is today. So I hope after this talk, you'll think that our project is interesting, and you'll check it out. All right, so here are some of the things you can do with Iterate. You can do load testing with SLOs. So Iterate has built-in mechanisms for generating load and collecting latency and error-related metrics. And later on in the talk, I'll give a demo of how you can do this with HTTP and GRPC services. Iterate can also utilize custom metrics. So you can easily define what metrics to collect and how to collect them. And then you can use those metrics for your experiments. I'll be giving a demo of how you can do this with metrics from Istio. You can also do AB and AB in testing. This is actually a feature that we're in the middle of porting from a previous version of Iterate. I don't want to go into too much detail, but basically in the previous version, we're using a CRD model, whereas now we're using a local namespace scope model. And the difference between these two models is that with the current model, the local namespace scope model, we don't require you to install any custom resources. So you don't need to be an admin of the Kubernetes cluster. Anyone can just use Iterate out of the box. But AB and testing is still being supported for the CRD model. And we're working hard on porting it to the current model. You can also experiment locally as well as within the Kubernetes cluster. We have a GitHub action, so you can include it in your CI CD pipeline. And as I mentioned before, it's easily extensible. I mentioned a few ways that you can extend this for your application. For example, you can define custom metrics. You can define custom tasks that will run in your experiment. And you can also configure Iterate to work in your CI CD story. So to give you some more context, let me see if you can get the mouse again. Where's the mouse? Oh, there it is. OK. So an Iterate experiment is basically just a set of tasks. So the two most prominent tasks are collecting metrics and assessing versions. But there are other tasks being developed. For example, we have a readiness check task that will ensure that your services are running before continuing with the experiment. And under the cover, Iterate experiments are just home charts. So this makes them simple, declarative, and reusable. And we have already created a few different kinds of experiment charts that you can use right away. But of course, you can easily create your own. All right. So I have a few demos for you today, four in total. So the first two have to do with low testing for ACP services. So I'll be showing you how you can do this both locally, as well as in Kubernetes. Then I'll show you how you can perform low testing for GRPC services. And lastly, I'll show you how you can use Iterate with traffic mirroring and custom metrics. And during these demos, you'll be introduced to the concept of experiments, as well as the Iterate CLI, which will help you run these experiments and visualize results. So we will go to our website, Iterate.tools. So let me click on this. All right. And it kind of breaks things. All right. One second. Oh, god. One second. Let me maximize this. All right. So it's kind of awkward, because the mic is in the center of my chest, so I can't turn my head. All right. So let's go to tutorials. And we'll take a look at the first one, benchmarking and validating HTTP services. So you'd be interested in this demo if you wanted to see how well your HTTP service is performing. And to do this, we'll be using the low test HTTP experiment chart. And we have a cool diagram that will show you basically what will happen during an experiment. So as I mentioned before, Iterate has low generation capabilities. So Iterate will be making requests to your HTTP service. And ideally, your HTTP service will be responding accordingly. And as I mentioned before, Iterate also has built-in metrics. So it'll be utilizing these requests and responses in order to create metrics, latency, and error-related metrics. And lastly, it'll validate those metrics against any SLOs that you have defined. So I already have a sample service running in the background. Let me scroll down a little bit. So I have the sample service running in the background already. And so to launch experiment, it's very simple. You just use this one command. And I will explain what's going on in here. All right. Yep. All right, so you can see on the top over here, right? We're doing Iterate launch, minus C, low-test HTTP. So this is the experiment chart. We want to use the low-test HTTP experiment chart. And this experiment chart has one required parameter. This is the URL. And this is the endpoint to your sample service, right? And in addition to that, we also have some SLOs to find. So we have the error rate. We want the error rate to be 0. We also have mean latency. We want the mean latency to be less than 50 milliseconds. And we also have some other SLOs. We want to make sure that the latency at these percentiles are at 100 and 200 milliseconds. All right. And we have started it. And we can see it ran two tasks. It ran the gen load and collect metrics, HTTP tasks, as well as the SS add versions. Now what we can do is we can look at the experiment report. So if I do Iterate report, we get a nice summary of what occurred during the experiment. So as you can see here, the experiment has completed. There were no failures. We ran two tasks and they both completed. We can see all our SLOs were satisfied. And we can also see a list of additional metrics that were collected as part of the experiment. Note how during this demo, we didn't need to set up a database or anything like that. We just use all of iterates built in mechanisms to do this. All right, so let me try to figure out where my mouse is. All right, now let's try running the same experiment but in Kubernetes. You can see here we have the ACP service as well as Iterate running within your Kubernetes cluster. And you might be asking why you would want to do this. Well, there's a few different, there's a few good reasons why you want to do this. Firstly, your ACP service may not be exposed externally. In that case, running Iterate within your Kubernetes cluster may be your only option. Secondly, there's many different ways that you can start up a service within Kubernetes. You can use a deployment, a safe set, but you can also use custom resources. For example, you might have a Knative serverless service or you can have a KServe or Selden machine learning service. And Iterate can work with all of these. This is a part of reason why Iterate is so powerful and flexible. So let us give it a try. So I already have everything set up in the background. So I have a mini cube running. Wait, let me first clear this. So we start from a clean slate. You can see, yep, I have my ACP bin service running. And so if I want to repeat the experiment, I need to make a few changes first. So the first change is I need to be doing Iterate K launch instead of Iterate launch. This will make sure that Iterate is running within the Kubernetes cluster. And then the second thing is I need to change the URL so that now it points to the service running within mini cube. So I'll be using the in cluster endpoint for this. So let me just change this, ACP bin default. And I think that's it. So let's give it a try. And it's launched. And I guess I can show you this. You can see that there's this job that started that's basically Iterate running. But what you can do is you use Iterate assert, completed to see if the experiment has completed. And it has completed. So if we look at the Iterate report, it's as expected. Everything has completed. And our SLOs were satisfied. And we also get some cool metrics. All right. So let's take a look at our next demo, which is on benchmarking and validating GRPC services. So this will look pretty familiar to you guys. It's pretty similar to the previous two demos. This would be useful if you want to see if your GRPC service is holding up well. So to perform this experiment, we'll be using a slightly different experiment chart. This is the load test GRPC experiment chart. And I already have set up a sample service running in the background. And so all we need to do, again, is run one simple command, this one over here. And let me clear this. All right. And you can see here, we're going to launch the load test GRPC experiment chart. And this experiment chart has a few different parameters. It has this host, call, and protogurl. These are all GRPC-specific parameters that are associated with this experiment chart. And we also have some SLOs. And you can see this experiment actually has three different tasks. It has this task called run, gen load, and collect metrics GRPC, as well as SSAP versions. Now we can do iterate report. And we can see here the experiment has completed. And unfortunately, we did not satisfy all SLOs. And this is probably because I have a lot of stuff running on my computer to support all these devos. So unfortunately, the only SLO that we satisfied is error rate, but not the latency SLOs. And we also have some additional metrics. All right. So let's go to our last tutorial, which is about traffic mirroring and custom metrics. And before I do that, I actually need to do something here. I need to change the context of my Kubernetes. So you won't be seeing any changes. OK. All right, so let me move my mouse. All right, traffic mirroring. If you guys are not familiar with traffic mirroring, it's this idea that you can duplicate traffic for another service. So let's say you have a version 1 service and a version 2 service. And you want to know if the version 2 service is ready for release. Well, you can set up a traffic mirroring with Istio so that the version 2 service gets a copy of all the traffic sent to the version 1 service. And then you can monitor the second service. And what this allows you to do is it allows you to see how the version 2 service is running with real traffic without affecting end users. This allows you to test the VT service in a safe environment with you're testing it in the environment that it is intended for, with minimal risk. And that's exactly what we'll be doing in this demo. In addition to that, we'll also be demonstrating custom metrics. So as all this is running, Istio is also generating metrics about how these services are performing. And it's storing that into a Prometheus database. So instead of relying on the build-in metrics that I described earlier, this experiment would actually query the Prometheus database for those metrics from Istio. And it'll be using those for the experiment. And to do all that, we'll be using this new experiment called SLO Validation Istio. And this is also a bit different from the other experiment charts that I showed earlier in that it actually runs a task on a schedule. And the logic behind this is when you're dealing with traffic mirroring, you're working with real traffic and real traffic is unpredictable and it may not be consistent or readily available. So this experiment should be run over a period of time where you can see how the version 2 service is performing. All right, so let me see. Yeah, so let me first clear this. And cube CTL get all. You can see I changed my context. And now we have a version 1 service and a version 2 service. And I set up traffic mirroring as I described earlier. And so I think we're ready to run the experiment. So if I take this and put it here, and I actually need to add one more thing here, no download, and then I run it. OK, so what's going on here is we're launching the SLO validation SEO experiment chart. And this experiment chart has different parameters as previous ones. We have a cron job schedule, which determines how often the tasks will be run. And we also have a provider URL. This is the URL to the permissive database that we'll be querying for metrics. We also have the destination workload and destination workload namespace, which allows you to select the service with the traffic mirroring. And we also have some SLOs to find. All right, so if we do iterate k report, we can see we have, it looks like everything worked well with the experiment completed. And we had no task failures. And we satisfied the SLOs. And we got all these cool metrics. Actually, there's one thing that I forgot to show you guys. So I'll try it right now. You can generate a cool, like, HTML version of this report. And let's see if it works. So report.acml, all right. Open report.acml, all right. It opened up on my other screen. All right, that's great. One second. All right, let me try to show what it looks like. So you get this cool, cool version. And unfortunately, this experiment doesn't have any nice histograms. But you get the picture. All right, so let me go back to my slides. And let me full screen this. Enter full screen. All right. All right, to recap, I showed four demos. I showed a good variety of experiments. So you can see how simple and complex these iterate experiments can be. I showed you how you can use iterates built in metrics in order to load test HTTP and gRPC services quickly and easily. We did not need to set up a database or anything like that. And I also showed you how you can run iterate both locally as well as in Kubernetes. And the latter is important for some reasons. For example, your service may not be exposed. And iterate can utilize a whole range of Kubernetes resources. And lastly, I showed you how you can use iterate with traffic marine and custom metrics, allowing us to use metrics from Istio. And here's the roadmap. Here's what we have planned in the future. I mentioned this before, but porting AB and ABN capabilities, we also want to have notifications. So we want the user to get notifications about when an experiment has completed and also any data that they might be interested in. And we could create a Slack notification or some kind of other notification that will trigger a CI CD process. We also want to have more custom metrics for other service meshes and databases. So today, I showed you custom metrics for Istio where we were able to collect metrics from Istio and Prometheus. But I've also been working on templates for K-Serve, OpenShift, LinkerD, and there's many more service meshes and databases that we can support. We also have this AutoX service that's in the works. And the idea is we want to automatically launch experiments after detecting changes in new versions and services. And maybe we can also create traffic marine templates. So in today's demo, I showed you how you can use iterate with traffic marine already set up. But we can also create templates to help you set up the traffic marine. But before we do so, we want to hear what you think about iterate and if this is something you'd like to see. So feel free to scan this QR code. It'll bring you to our GitHub page. You can take a look, join our Slack. Maybe give us a star if you feel like it and join the conversation. So I hope you enjoyed my talk. And are there any questions already? So at IBM Research, we're always working on cool ideas. And we think that AB and AB in testing and SL validation, it should be core to any kind of project. So that's kind of it. I'm not really sure what else to say. Yep. Any other questions? So the question is, where does this being used? So again, I mentioned that we've worked with K-native, K-Serve, LITBUS Chaos communities. And some of those guys are using iterates. And yeah. I think we have something on our GitHub that shows some of our adopters. And so. Any other questions? All right, well, that concludes my talk. Thank you for coming.