to those who joined in the last few minutes. So, we will pray and we will get started. Just want to request someone to lead us in a word of prayer, please. Anyone, you can unmute yourselves and pray. Ma'am, can I pray? Yes, please. Okay. Heavenly Father, we come before your throne of grace in the name of Lord Jesus Christ. As a verse, you give us grace and mercy every morning and give us new opportunities. So, Lord, Father, bless our pastor with the spirit of revelation, wisdom, knowledge and understanding and remove every form of distraction so that this class will go smoothly without any kind of distraction, technical, and bless each of us with a listening ear and understanding heart so that we can grasp and understand whatever we learn in this class, Lord. And thank you for hearing this prayer. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Abhishek. Thank you for leading us in that word of prayer. So, what we'll do is we will get back to what we were discussing in the last session. So, basically, we talked about the house of God and in the context of us being the family of God and then we touched on a couple of points here. We said that we are a family but we are a spiritual family and there are boundaries between the spiritual and the natural families and then we said the way every family has a culture, it has values, it has vision, it has mission. So, similarly, even the local church must have these things and we said that in our family, people are at various levels of experience and maturity so that applies to the church as well. People who are more mature, they are expected to be more responsible and greater accountability is expected from them and those who are just growing in God, we nurture them and we help them grow and there's more of forgiveness and understanding given to those who are just growing up in a regular family as well as in the church family. So, these are some things that we talked about then we said that in the family of God, there are fathers and mothers, those who are mature in God and we talked about how they impart into the lives of those who are growing in God and then we also said that it must be a relationship where there is that mutual understanding and care so the mentors or the fathers and mothers as we want to call them, they are pouring into the lives of the people who are growing and those who are receiving, they are very respectfully received from those who have gone ahead of them so we touched upon the characteristics of fathers and mothers and then the characteristics of sons and daughters in the house and I think we have covered that on our fathers and mothers and yeah so what we will do is oh yeah we talked about how we can establish a good relationship with someone whom we want to mentor and you know that's where we were at we said that it's good to have a personal relationship with people and then from that place you know when we communicate with them and not just you know superficial communication but anything deep that has to address matters of character they will be in a position to receive because we have built trust in that relationship and then we said that in a mentoring relationship one must exercise positive influence and see to the spiritual growth of the person who we are mentoring and always deal with people's character more than we deal with gifting. Now there will definitely be inputs that are provided for a person to grow in the anointing and hone the skills that God has given them but you know the underlying core thing would be the character so we said that the character is the wine skin if the character of the individual is not okay then even the anointing cannot last for a very long time okay and then we we talked about how we must not be jealous or envious of you know the father's another should not be envious of the people who grow under them in fact they must be proud if anyone has greater accomplishments compared to the mature folk okay then yeah trained people based on that God appointed destiny so we we don't just get them to do things which we think are essential for the for the functioning of the local church but we always have their destiny in mind okay and and that's how we we position them that's how we we groom them nurture them and then you know as the Lord leads if God would want that person to minister outside of the four walls of that local church then you know we bless them and send them out and also help them to make that transition so uh this was about the mentoring relationship and how to build a positive mentoring relationship okay uh yeah okay so the next topic here is about developing community but I think the subject of fathers mothers even in the Christian circle right now it's it's um I mean it already exists in certain places I think I don't know I don't know what to call it but it may not be used in the in the right way so I thought we could just talk about fathers and mothers and mentoring relationships a little bit before I touch on the Christian community and also in the last class Samuel you had talked about you know how a mentor should should go after the mentee and be or let's say labor of love right long suffering so just to keep going after a mentee and to never give up on the mentee so the fact is that uh yeah that's that's true that's true and a mentor should have a heart of that kind the father or the mother um but you know reciprocity is is equally important so while the the father or the mother is doing their part to uh to develop you know a young person or somebody who's who's fairly new in the Lord the responses of of that individual really matter in the long run and if the the mentee response well enough you will see a faster growth okay so uh it has to be it has to be from both sides the cooperation has to be from both sides so I just thought I would mention that and I mean uh Samuel do you have uh anything to ask on those lines or just I think um no my thoughts on mentorship which is few thoughts even I've been thinking about it so so at one level they are the church pastors who who are the shepherds who say who look after the flock and you know bear burden for the flock and make sure that you know everyone who's attending um is being spiritually nurtured but I think you know a mentor is at a deeper level where once you decide that you want to mentor someone I mean if you jump into mentorship for the opportunity to try out and you don't know the mentee well there are good chances that uh you know expectations are not set there are chances like you know the mentor-mentee relationship doesn't work but um you know if if if there is more intentionality in terms of uh you know okay I I've known this person for a while and and there is an opportunity for mentorship let me let me uh let me kind of think what I'm getting into and you really think about that you you evaluate this person that you that you want to take up mentor I think I'm just uh in my mind I think I'm thinking of mentorship at a whole new level where it's it's more than uh just uh you know I mean so because a mentor is not a mentor for the whole church unlike a pastor is you know you're you're talking with one individual I think the default position should be that that yes uh you know I'm here to develop a character the spiritual growth but but this person will have character flaws there are chances that the person might still you know there are chances that person might not like you know what I'm the way I'm doing it so so I think the default person for me would be uh to to know all of that and and enter into I I mean can be customized to the default position once I decide to take up mentorship for someone I'm going into like this is this is this could be this could as well be a lifelong relationship and and even if the entire world gives up on this person I I won't I'll be the last person because I think I'm looking at if I'm looking at Christ as my model for mentor and I'm looking at myself as a model for mentee and if I'm saying Jesus Christ mentor me uh you know I'll not always be you know aligned but but I would expect Christ to give up on me I mean it's ideal and the most ideal I know it's it's not always available but the default is where I'm entering saying like I'll not give up on this person uh like I said uh you know it could be customized I mean they could see like you know they are there are chances that the mentor himself could could backslide could fall into something you know obviously loses the right to mentor someone and all of that or or it could it could it could even be a mutual consent like a life gets in the way that men marriage has kids other responsible things like that so you know they at a later journey uh with mutual understanding the mental mental relationship could end or could transform into something like friendship or better but you know this whole like if you say a father's son when does a father give up on the side never I mean ideally a father doesn't give up on the son eternally hopeful eternally so so I think that those were my thoughts thank you yeah sure sure short uh Samuel thank you thank you for sharing um so uh yeah I mean I I do understand where you're coming from and the the thought that a mentor should never give up on a mentee you know it it is uh I mean that's what it's supposed to be like right because Paul he wrote to um I think it's the Corinthians where he says that you have many teachers but you do not do not have fathers so you know a heart of a father is is something that uh you know it's it's for the complete well-being of the children and the love of the father goes to a great extent so yeah in that regard yes the mentor or the father must never give up on the mentee uh and yeah and and again you know as uh I pointed out earlier if at any point the the one who's being mentored does not want to receive then it becomes hard but yes the father should go a long distance in journey and you know do their level best to uh to help see this person grow and when we talk about growth uh you know I just wanted to share with us on scripture now it is uh from Galatians Galatians 4 and verse 19 let me read it for us it says my dear children for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you so you know that scripture's like the basis uh of what spiritual fathers and mothers should be doing so that is like the goal or the outcome of spiritual mentorship where Christ is formed and Paul says you know I've labored I've been labored in pains so that Christ be formed in you so uh whatever it takes you know teaching them the word uh mentoring them with regard to their character teaching them about the anointing the work of the Holy Spirit these are things that that are the focus as we mentor people because what is our goal Christ be formed in you I labor I labor so that Christ be formed in you so Galatians 4 19 I is a scripture that we can remember and I also just wanted to share this pdf pdf you can download you know from our website so we had done a sermon on spiritual fathers and mothers it covers the insights that we've shared in this section about what mentorship is supposed to be and nurturing is supposed to be and all of that uh but another good thing is that uh this sermon addresses some of the um you know some of the things that mentors should not do okay so I will read that out for us I thought that will be helpful um for us to note in this class as well so uh basically we talk about how one must not violate divine order if so by divine order basically it means that you know there's a family structure and there's a family boundary that God has assigned so as a pastor or a leader like you can't you can't trespass the other boundaries that individuals have like you know okay we've understood enough about this in prayer and intercession and believers authority so not to violate divine order now suppose uh uh menti is from another uh is from a local church and you know we are mentoring them in the area of leadership or something like that now we can't trespass the the boundary right there is a pastor over that individual and you know that pastor uh sort of uh work mentors this person in a different way so you know you can't override that so maintain those boundaries don't violate divine order uh no control or manipulation you know uh control manipulation because in the name of in the name of um spiritual mentorship okay spiritual control and manipulation is a possibility uh and you know that is something that we must stay away from uh and you know Paul in fact he warned the Galatians and he said that you must not come under bondage again so if Christ Jesus has set us free um yes there are fathers and mothers in the church but that relationship should not become a relationship where you know you cannot make any decision of your own or you don't have a you don't have a thinking uh mind of your own and everything has to be told to you by uh a preacher or you know everything from the bible has to be revealed to you through uh uh particular pastor only if they teach from the word can we understand God's word you know because things like this are happening around the world unfortunately so uh we must not let a mentoring relationship for a father mother uh spiritual father mother relationship become manipulation and control okay and uh not to abuse spiritual authority so abuse of spiritual authority means interference in people's decision making now uh somebody who is uh uh growing in the Lord whom we are mentoring they might want to make a certain decision regarding their career or how they want to plan their finances or whom they want to marry it's completely their choice you know as mentors as fathers and mothers we are responsible to share the truth of God's word so we place the truth of God's word before anyone but the choice to decide is that individuals so you know that is something we must respect and we must not abuse our spiritual authority if we if we try to force people to make decisions um uh based on what we think is correct what they need what we think they need to be doing you know that is abuse of spiritual authority so that is not uh you know um mentoring or spiritual fathering or mothering okay yeah so the the other uh some of the other points here is um not to uh be envious of of those who have gone ahead of us so you know it could happen that you know when uh someone does better than the mentor then the mentor looks for ways to pull them down or bring them down so uh to not not to do that uh and to be open and secure such that um people can receive from others as well for example uh there is a pastor in a church and the pastor is very anointed in terms of teaching now uh since the pastor has the teaching anointing and he really uh imparts the word into people's lives now if the pastor says that okay you must not listen to any other preacher or you must only read uh uh you know my commentary of the bible or things like that what happens is we are trying to control people we're not letting them have uh you know that that full perspective of what god is doing in the global body of christ so uh a mentor should not stop a mentee from receiving from several two ministers of god because in the body of christ there are many you know whom god has raised up and the work of god is being done through the lives of so many people so uh a father and a mother will not try to control okay and say that no you must listen only to me you must follow only what i say and things like that so uh and a little bit from history you know the shepherding movement of the 1970s and 80s uh there is an element of abuse you know that started in the christian circle um and and that is something we must be wary about uh so uh while it's good to to have you know spirit people used on like spiritual covering and all that all that's good but at the end of the day our submission is to god okay the submission of every believer is directly to god and the time for people who he puts into our lives but nobody becomes a mediator there's only one mediator the lord jesus christ so some additional thoughts here uh and uh to to be cautious about you know um uh some of the things that are being taught in the christian circle these days things like if you don't have a spiritual father or a mother you have an orphan spirit so these are all misconceptions and there is no biblical basis for things like this um or you must be connected to a spiritual father or a mother otherwise you will not develop in god i mean um there's no scriptural basis for statements like this if what if you don't have a spiritual father or mother you know the word of god uh one john two seven it says the anointing in you will teach you all things you know if it comes to that if you don't have a mentor the holy spirit is our mentor right so i can still learn still grow still mature through the word of god i don't need a human being to always be there for me now it is the way god works that he has given teachers in the body of christ and he does connect us you know to other individuals human beings in our lives and we praise god for that we receive from it but if at all we don't end up having a mentor that is not going to stunt our spiritual growth okay so uh yeah there are lots of other statements like your spiritual lineage is important like who's the father your spiritual father of the father you know teachings like this uh so i think i i'll just stop here you can have a look at the pdf we address all those issues and i think it will be very helpful um for us so christopher we are right now on page number 64 page number 64 yes yeah so uh i hope those those thoughts help everyone any any other clarifications okay shrikumar is asking can we pray to god to give us a spiritual father yes shrikumar that's a that's a good prayer we can pray that yeah we can pray that it's biblical it's biblical to have spiritual fathers and mothers so there's nothing wrong with that okay so i think there's enough like yes yes this this this really helps uh first i think um i i wasn't aware of this pdf but i'm looking at it and it's very specific i think the specific uh details really uh so i mean my thought was just around uh so that i think there's two sides of the like the one spec one end of the spectrum is where people have uh taken the mentorship to a whole new level and have misused it you know with with uh with uh you know manipulation and all of the other things that you're saying but uh what i also see is the other side of the spectrum where it's taken very lightly you know like yeah you know yeah i like i'm i'm becoming mentor and then in one week i'm changing like you know and and it the whole thing is just namesake and and that is not effective either so yeah yeah sure sure yeah that that makes sense and a good way in which we can um look for a mentee or look for a mentor is to be led by the spirit of god okay so i am reminded of elijah and elijah you know how god made that connection so god has a way of bringing people uh you know making people cross apart uh and when we we see that divine connection there go by that don't just go by thinking oh yeah i can do a good job of mentoring this person but in addition to that in spiritual mentoring we need that divine connection over there for us to uh decide you know who we want to mentor or who wants to um who we want to be mentored by yes okay uh ashri kumar yes i saw your hand raised so pastor you you cleared it uh when you said that no holy spirit will actually my question was this that whether we can choose a mentor or the god has to give us a mentor so that line now you clear it so that's why i just um you know lower thank you okay sure sure great so that's the best way of finding a mentor depend on god depend on the holy spirit so if we are comfortable with this subject we can move on to the next section over here which is about community developing community uh okay so developing community i think christopher in the last class had a question about live group um so you know we will address that as of now in the local churches one of our main gatherings happens to be the sunday service which is fine but in addition to that if we have other ways where people can connect they can get to know one another smaller group connections it really helps for um many things to happen in the lives of people okay so that nurturing can take place we can find fathers and mothers mentors we can learn uh you know so many things we can um equip ourselves in the in the work of god's ministry uh and all this can be done well if there are smaller groups where life to life connection happens so while we talk about christian community we will try to define what christian community is supposed to be and our best example is that of the early church okay so there is a passage given here in our notes i'm on page 65 the end of that page acts 2 versus 44 through 47 could somebody please read this passage yeah anyone please acts 2 44 47 yes now all who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and fighting them among all as in on hard need so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house they eat their food with gladness and simplicity of heart praising god and having favor with all the people and the lord added to the church daily those who were being saved amen amen thank you thank you charts for reading uh so some characteristics that we can see in the early church is the sharing of resources they had uh you know that the spiritual life they were serious about it and they engaged in things that would strengthen their spiritual life so there is prayer that is we talked about they met you know uh to learn from the teachings of the apostles so the word of god had importance in their community worship okay so they got together worship god so that was the reason that was the core connection for the community and then uh yes they also had fellowship they ate food in each other's homes and why is it that way we discussed it you know when we talked about the different kinds of church structures uh early church had homes where people could gather but today the format is slightly different you know we can't really gather uh in people's homes all the time so uh you know we have our main services and then you have other forms of gatherings and then yes some churches do have life groups so they gathered in people's homes um then they worshiped they worshiped at home they worshiped in the temple they had favor with all people so that just shows they had good healthy relationships among themselves and with the uh people outside uh and you know it was it was a place where god was working uh and the presence of god was so real the work of god was so real that many people were being added to the community so it was a growing community uh and uh that's how we observed the early church now given that in mind what we're saying is a good godly community of believers will have the following characteristics one is to have christ at the center okay so why what is the reason we fellowship christ is the reason okay so that must uh be the main thing because otherwise we just end up doing a social club like anyone else out there in the world and it it is no different from the communities that we can be a part of outside of church so uh when we talk about nurturing or developing godly community we must make sure that christ is at the center of our fellowship and our gatherings then we relate to one another so that we can spiritually build one another up so again the way paul said you know what is the reason for my laboring that christ may be formed in you christ's like character may be formed in you and what is the reason for our spiritual fellowship with one another same thing same thing that we may grow uh in the things of god uh and therefore you know a good spiritual community will have um engagements and worship and prayer and sharing of the word because these things are important without these things how are we going to uh develop in in the spiritual matters so uh doing like i mean doing community minus the pursuit of god doesn't make it a christian community okay or what else are we saying that the goal of spiritual community is to grow together in godliness okay and then the other other requirements as we see in the bible you know love one another with brotherly brotherly love carry one another's burdens so we're there for each other even the early church was uh was a very caring church they they took care of each one's needs and similarly christian community should have that genuine care for the people who belong to the community then um yeah i am just trying to give us some distinct points here okay uh we must also be a community that engages in love and good works towards the people outside then a good christian community is a community that engages in the great commission that has love for the people who are lost in the world outside uh and it's a community that experiences the kingdom of god you know the kingdom of god and we've discussed you know what is the meaning of the kingdom of god the power of the kingdom of god the values of the kingdom of god the principles of the kingdom of god so it experiences all of that and that makes for a good christian community now what christian community should not be now uh we're not saying that you know in any any gathering uh which is you know let's say a church gathering um if you miss out on prayer something's wrong or you know if we all didn't sing a two or three worship songs together then something is wrong with us no it's not about the activity but it's about the the uh you know the overall vision of why why we have these relationships you know the genuine care the genuine intention to see everyone grow and develop in god so as long as we have that i know activities will happen sometimes you know every time you meet somebody from your fellowship you may not pray with them that's okay it's not about the christian activities uh but the goals have to be correct why why are we together or why are these relationships how did this these relationships form and what is the reason for which you know we we have uh this fellowship so in case our gatherings or the fellowship uh becomes one of worldliness okay what do we mean by that you know we could all be um from the same church uh and from the same fellowship but there's nothing uh you know spiritual about about uh this fellowship so basically you know people gather everyone is a christian but the the things that they follow are of the flesh for example in Ephesians five it says but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor course chesting which are not fitting but rather giving off thanks so if you know so called believers they they come together and conversations are about you know some uh uh unholy things or you know some bad movies stuff like that we could be believers we could be from the same church but you see that that fellowship that community is not fitting the model that we see in the early church and the instructions of god's word for us so doing community like that uh it's not you can't classify that as christian community just because people of the same church are coming together often okay we could be hanging out but talking all kinds of things doing all kinds of things that not uh you know righteous in god's sight so that is not true christian community also uh in the name of christian community sometimes what happens you know we like to cling to the believers and that becomes an excuse for us not to step out in the world and uh make disciples okay so i think the archbishop of canterbury does one statement he makes that a christian should not become uh you shouldn't um uh what uh assault is not you know meant to be happy in the salt shaker so we're all together we're just happy to be solved together we're not willing to take a risk and share the gospel proclaim the gospel with others outside so that again is not christian community you know so uh these are things we must be careful about okay now uh i i said that maybe once in a while you know we really don't engage in in prayer or there may not be any sharing of the word you just come together uh and then you know for whatever reason there's no prayer or anything you just leave but in general in general you know we honor the Lord through the sharing of our faith we honor the Lord through the sharing of the word we honor the Lord through worship you know all the other things that draws closer to God because otherwise what happens it's all it's about us and it's not about God anymore so always keep God at the center of christian community and fellowship so that's a little bit about christian community what it should be what it should not be any any comments on this any thoughts and after this we could move on to the next section here okay is there a question canady yes canady we can hear you you are muted yes yes please okay canady do you have a question okay i'm not sure if uh ban is raised by mistake here okay sorry everyone i think i'll have to mute canady because he probably is not able to hear us okay fine yes uh abraham you have a question yes pastor i i once led a group i mean especially here in vietnam i once led a group that um as we were growing it got to a point that the activities became um like um self-conscious it was to make people feel comfortable it was to know people's problem you know the agenda was oh let's have more fun time i mean you know um they like to go outside and eat they like to go outside and talk but um being the leader then i i realized that if i allow those things even though those things are good but those things are not really helping the people especially when they brought the issue of um trying to know people's problems so i said okay um if we are supposed to know people's problem can we solve it because these are people that even if they discuss the problem they don't have the solution so i was trying to let them know that the most important thing here is the word of god and that is prayer but it was like prayer was becoming forceful if you are calling for prayer it's like a bed it's like you are causing people to do something abnormal and also if you are trying to make decisions based on the word of god let's give this people the word of god that's the only solution to their problem so that at least when they have issues that we cannot handle we can go to the past and find solutions so i think this became a very i mean challenging moment for me that it looks like i see um either i am being too spiritual or i'm trying to say that i know so much that the other people don't know so it really had a an impact on me that i don't know the day i have to step back and do so many other things so my question here is that is it because i don't know about the cross culture ministry and uh accept their culture or um you know because i am from africa and they are from asia so it's like oh we are we are too forceful because at the point i was told that oh africans are giving the grace to pray you know it's like okay so prayer god has given people grace to pray other people don't have the grace to pray so it's like um we are more of want to speak in tongues we want to pray we want to share the gospel but other people are very quiet so how do we balance this too is it about christ as you said or is it about culture and all those things i i would like to get some clarification thank you pastor yeah thank you ibrahim very interesting um thank you for sharing you know honestly the challenges that you have faced uh so from my perspective um i would say that you know a little bit uh can be the the cultural difference here um uh but overall you know we we we are people of the kingdom culture okay so uh yes we could be from different nations and worship god in differently but we have to adopt the kingdom culture based on god's word so the overall uh overall thing that you're saying about having prayer and fellowship uh based on you know fellowship for the sake of spiritual growth that is correct what you're saying is correct okay now um i don't know i mean i i don't know if the if the the way the fellowship was going on uh was uh intentionally for for spiritual growth or some some things were missed out over there so when something like that happens a good thing to do is to see if you can address it with the leaders in a in a very you know respectful way um and then if possible make changes okay uh so that that is how we would go about uh making amendments uh now if if you know that the the format of the church is such and then they're not ready to to accept our inputs then just let it be because you've done your part of of for sharing your concerns uh and what you've done you know engaging in other things that's fine it's fair enough you know you you got involved in other things so that's okay uh now talking about you know culturally the way you prayed and um you said you know Africans people say that okay they are grace with more you see um i mean i i'm talking from my experience i i shared with all of us right like i had so many brothers and sisters from Africa worshiping at at our location and uh you know i i i loved their style of worship and then uh also they had this concept of overnight so they constantly like uh and we didn't start off you know overnight worship also we had that for uh for you know several months through the night we would pray you know but what i realized is some of the other folk like you know the uh Indian folk from our location they found it very difficult to connect with that extent you know uh like in terms of the time the prolonged periods of time to engage in prayer because uh these these brothers and sisters from Africa they were used to it but some of you know our other friends here they were not used to it so what i'm trying to say is sometimes there can be that cultural difference so uh when they notice that you can see how to bridge it okay so what we did is we kind of shortened the time so we didn't go through the whole night but we decided we will just do you know three or four hours straight you know prayer worship and all and it was fine for the uh Africans as well as you know the the Indians who were joining so from that place we're building uh capacity even of the uh the Indian folk who are not used to you know that kind of overnight um prayer and worship be every week so culturally there can be some challenges Abraham so we will have to observe if you've gone to a new place to minister we'll have to observe observe where they are at and then see how um you know and also again we really need to ask the question whether things have to be done in the format that we used to do it in our earlier place okay so you might want to do things differently for this particular crowd where God has sent you so you don't have to follow the um old format or way of doing things am i answering your question does it make any sense yes thank you so much okay sure sure yes thank you right so yeah all these aspects if we take that into consideration then we will be able to do community in a better fashion yeah great question any anything else to clarify before we proceed because these are all you know aspects that we are going to apply so that's the reason i'm asking us okay great so i think yeah we have we have a good idea now and then you can practice make changes learn so the rest of the content here in the section it talks about how in the family in the family we said that the householder or the leader of of the house the spiritual leader of the house is responsible for um the way things are so the word of God teaches us that God promises us that he will judge the world but the judgment will begin from the house of God so God is a God who wants to see order in his own family first so as God's people you know we we must yield to that we must cooperate with God and know that just because it's a family we can't do things our own way we have to go by God's word and God's standards okay and there are certain practical aspects that have been put out here for us to consider and we've touched on nearly you know all of these elaborately earlier so we we are saying that we can create a sense of belonging in the church beyond the Sunday services so then you know your life groups come into play you could also have teams right here at a PC they have different teams and in fact the teams become a place of fellowship yeah you know the teams have people mentoring one another praying for one another so you have ushering team worship team media team so there are different ways of creating small smaller groups and it's after every local church how they want to create these smaller groups so to live in community and then develop a some mentality so the pastors if they treat people as sons and daughters then you know you you develop sons and daughters and the congregation has a son daughter mentality towards the leaders and you know that's how life should happen in the family of God then encourage fathers and mothers to nurture younger ones and all the ingredients of true Christian community you know make sure that we we try to focus on that and build true Christian community some of the challenges that that we might see we've already said you know of time to develop Christian community it's not all that easy anymore okay because we have a very different way of very different way in which people's lives are scheduled you know you have people connecting online and everyone's online these days so even if you call them for for something that is offline they may not prefer to come so there are there are new challenges in our in our society today but we can be creative and see how this Christian community can be nurtured you know in person and also use other resources to do that okay then what are some of the other challenges yeah in large congregations people might feel disconnected so we have to be intentional about creating smaller groups and when smaller groups do form we have to be careful about clicks clicks and factions because people can end up in their own you know group it could be a language group or it could be a group that has subscribed to a certain ideology or you know the way in the Corinthian church some people were fans of Paul and some were fans of Apollos so within the church within the congregation we can have all these divisions but we have to be careful about clicks and factions okay so I know we've overshot time but we will take Mangi's question and then we will go for a break yes Mangi please go ahead thank you Pasta yeah um I just want to say to ask about uh talking about mentoring and family and father figures and and mothers when does does does the father know or realize that the child is grown and then it's time to to release to release them so that they can go and fly on their own because most of the time they tend to to hold it as the young people down and think the people remain under their wings for forever thank you yeah sure good question Mangi uh so Mangi it depends on the destiny of that individual okay and the growth progression of the individual so as a mentor we will work closely with them and we will observe okay and we'll see okay God is God is opening up these doors and the person is growing in that in their personal work with the Lord in the you know in the ministry they are serving well so as we are observing these things the progression that they are making you know at some point they may not need as much input so we are only available for whatever input they need or if they need input okay but otherwise we just let them grow we let them grow initially yes there's a lot of hand holding but eventually they become more and more independent and then uh we we mentioned that a mentoring relationship should be a divine one that you know God divinely orchestrates uh connections like Paul and Timothy okay uh so in the same way we must be led by God to understand the timing the seasons that the mentee is going through and you know God God orchestrates this timing in in amazing ways and you kind of know oh okay and this maybe the person got a job in another country and they're moving out but that's as much as you can do for that individual now they they're moving for good you may not have that same opportunity anymore so from a distance you can still continue to encourage them but uh you know at that point maybe you could think to yourself yeah I have to release this person now let them go and do what God has called them to do so that also is uh led by the spirit led by God so that's how we will know Maggie as we are walking with people yeah does that help yeah sure sure and uh I remember we had one session for the volunteers in church uh about mentoring and in that uh session a pastor was sharing about how as we mentor people uh and Maggie you brought that up also you know at what point uh I mean people can the fathers and mothers can sort of keep the mentees under okay forever but in that session I remember pastor was sharing about how as the mentee grows there could come a time where the dynamics of the relationship changed slightly so it's like at some point they have become those those fellow workers together with us and they don't need as much input maybe all they need is to work together and you know a word of encouragement and accountability from time to time but you become like sort of you know uh uh how do I say this they grow up like in irregular families you know those those who are parents of teenagers and younger adults you know your relationship dynamics is very different because now they're more like friends and you don't you don't really have to grill them on the basics so that can happen even in a spiritual mentoring relationship where they are somewhat friends uh and then you know you talk about the same things uh and you know they are very mature uh and the interactions change after a while so they're not really under anymore yeah so additional thought there mangy okay so okay uh Susan has a question let's let's take that up uh yes Susan please go ahead no ma'am my mistake my hand got mistake okay okay okay no problem no problem Susan all right uh bet I was reading about the journey of Paul and Barnables Barnables was like Paul's father figure then the dynamics changed yes but it looks like it took a disagreement for the mentee to step out yeah yeah yes uh bet you know personalities they clashed uh and uh that's how they parted ways but yeah you're right you know at some point Barnables was not uh providing as much input into Paul's life as he did in the initial days okay so thank you for sharing that on okay on that note we will go for a break we'll come back at 10 or 6 a 10 minute break and then we will move on to a different topic okay thank you everyone see you after the break bye


Welcome to a very spooky episode of The FeeCast, your weekly dose of economic thinking from your friends at the Foundation for Economic Education. I am Richard Lawrence, here today with our expanded panel of Anna Jane Perrell, Dan Sanchez, Mary Ann March, and our special guest, TK Coleman. Welcome TK, always happy to have you here. It's good to be back. And we are here, the weekend is upon us. Halloween is going to be celebrated this weekend. How are you guys looking at your plans? I have a killer costume idea.   It's going to be awesome. Well, we have the pleasure of that in the office as well. Excellent. Yes, because Halloween falls on a Wednesday this year. It does. And that does end up making some difficulty for planning, but we get two weekends now that we can celebrate it, right? That's true. We get the pre-Halloween and the post. You have to have at least like three costumes the way that it falls this year. It's very stressful. I have a five-year-old, so she'll be able to trick-or-treat without the judgment that college kids get when they trick-or-treat. There's actually a law that was recently passed against people above a certain age trick-or-treating. Wait, where was that? In a local community. Yeah, a lot of places in Virginia, I read about this that in Newport News, there were finds and things for people over the age of 12 years old. 12's the cut-off. Yeah, and after a certain time of night, no trick-or-treaters at all, and they're suggesting that they're maybe not going to have this really be enforced by police, that police are just going to really be looking out for safety. But it's like, why would you even create a law that you have no intention of really holding up? But also, how is that a safety issue? You're basically saying, I mean, like, how is somebody who's over the age of 12 asking for candy at someone's door not safe? I mean, I guess when you say, I don't know, I just, it doesn't make sense to me. The whole situation becomes much more unsafe when you have cops out there actually patrolling for ages. What are they going to do? Arrest the 13-year-olds? Well, probably not. I mean, we would hope not, I guess, but they, if, you know, it's at the discretion of the police at this point, because it is a law in the books, it's just astonishing that at the age of 13 years old, essentially, where we want to start making people criminals for trick-or-treating. Childhood is over with, no more trick-or-treating. You have to buy your own candy at the drugstore. So Devil's Advocate, because I totally disagree with this law, but Devil's Advocate, I'm assuming that it's not for the 13-year-olds. I'm assuming that this is for the 18, 19, 20-year-olds or the 30-year-olds who are knocking on people's doors ever so creepily on Halloween night. So what's your response to that? Like, let's treat the argument fairly. Well, like, I mean, so if you're, if somebody comes to my door who's 20 and that offends me as a person, why don't I? We're frightens you. Oh, so you're saying that you think it's actually people who do get scared by, like, adults coming, coming to ask for candy? Yeah, like, like, you know, some creepy person can be like, well, this is the night, right? Where people are knocking on strangers' doors and so forth. Right. Well, yeah. And you've got older people. Masked adults. Yeah. You know, like, a home invader or something. And when you're dressed in a costume, there's no difference between being 25 and being 55, I mean. Very true. That's true. I guess I would just say to the people who are giving out candy, you don't have to open your door. Right. It's nice if you want to give out candy to trick-or-treaters, but if you feel that there's somebody on the other side of your door who's scary, keep it locked. I suppose if it was, yeah, if it was a really big concern of mine, which is other than the concern being it's just, it makes me angry that a 19-year-old is trying to get free candy from me, which I would be like, no, I'm not giving you candy. That's what I would do. Great costume. But I was really concerned about perhaps the fright factor. Maybe like make a cute little sign that says we, we'd love to have our young, you know, community members take candy. It seems like a lot of these like nanny state laws, it's, it's all about avoiding difficult conversations. It's like, I don't even want to have that conversation of, of like telling someone like I'm not going to give you candy because you're too old. So I want the law to do this for me. Right. I think that's the main point, right? To what degree do we need to legislate this sort of stuff, right? And have cops out there ready to enforce it versus just being able to say, no. It just seems weird to say it's a misdemeanor for somebody to ask for candy.  That just seems silly. Yeah. Well, this weekend, my husband Colin and I are not going trick-or-treating. We are going to have a party on our block with our neighbors and we're going to have candy out. But we are still trying to figure out what we are going to dress as. And in an effort to try to figure this out, you know, do you go funny?    They've got all these awful costumes. Like I remember seeing one of Yoda. It was a blue Yoda mask, right? So it was not even the right color. And a plastic smock that on the front of it said, Star Wars. It was like, you know, in one... In theaters. In theaters, yeah, this Halloween or whatever it was. But it wasn't even trying, really, aside from the face shape, right, to be anything resembling the character. And it just struck me, and I have an article out this past Wednesday, actually, on this, why Halloween costumes used to suck. I think we say why they're terrible. But the whole point of the article was it just dawned on me. The reason we actually have true to screen costumes today off the shelf is because we are so much wealthier and we have the ability to command all sorts of other people overseas, for example, to make these things for us and to make them in a way that we actually appreciate, we actually think is screen accurate. And so the result of globalization, of being able to, you know, sort of outsource all the different things that we can't do for ourselves. One of the outputs of that is that we have good Halloween costumes now, and it's a sign how much wealthier we are now because of global trade. Those people aren't just supplying the demand. People across the world now, because of globalization, are constituting the demand. Because especially a lot of these characters, they're famous and beloved in China and in India. Totally. And so when there's a bigger market for a good, then you can afford to put more labor into it and more specialization and better quality. That's the point, is the larger the market, the greater the degree of the division of labor and specialization that we can have, and the cheaper everything is. And the wealthier we all are. And the higher quality. The higher quality. And also, like the more specific the good can be to the interest of the consumer that it speaks to, right? I think that it also makes it, I guess, items can be very, very tailored to your interest. I think that that's one of the benefits that you see too, is that you can get a very specific, I can get Yoda that looks like this, right? I can get this kind of Yoda costume. That's not only true to this, but, you know, specifically in this film or something like that. I think that it is, that's another thing that you see. You can even get a Yoda costume for your dog. I've seen so many pet costumes this year. Some good ones too, little sharks and Wonder Woman costumes. And think about that before, none of that was off the shelf, right? You could always make a costume, right? You could always kind of cobble together maybe something that resembled Mr. Incredible. But now you can actually have the Mr. Incredible costume for 20 bucks from Target and you buy one and you get 150% off. Yeah. Well, I think what we're seeing is kind of the demand. So, yeah, Halloween happened, you know, in the 80s or the 70s, for example, and it was more likely that you would make your costume from scratch. And there's a lot of like labor and resources that go into that experience and it was necessary because you want your kids to trick or treat. But now think about, you have that choice. You can say, I'm just going to buy a costume or if you truly get joy from that experience of making a costume, that is still a possibility. And so you preserve not only do the people who enjoy making costumes and truly believe in like the creative experience and kind of all of those benefits, that's preserved, but then you also get people increase their utility of costume, costumes in general because they can outsource it if they want. It all comes down to choice. Yeah. And at that time, things like Star Wars, Disney princesses hadn't even come out. There wasn't as much of an advance in just these iconic characters that kids want to be and want to look exactly like.  And so it was just like simple scary ideas. And there weren't, again, it's like the advance of the market because we, in some ways, had much better movies and stories. Harry Potter, yeah. We were so costume poor back then. In fact, the article that I wrote has a bunch of these examples of like, you know, Luke Skywalker with a smock that says Star Wars on it or Alph. If you guys remember Alph, it's got like a little word bubble on the smock that says trick or treat. It's like, you know, where is this coming from? And the image at the very top of the article actually is a person in a ghost costume, right? And it says on it, I am a ghost. And so, you know, I feel like if you need to explain in words or use words written on something to explain what you are, that's probably a design fail. So it's obviously a very festive time for us. Is anyone else going to dress up? I plan to avoid it. I'm thinking that I wasn't going to dress up. But now I'm thinking of trying to get a costume that says I am the criminal that was arrested for trick or treating at age 30. I think that would be like, ooh, that's a scary guy. You know, of all places, I think you'd be able to find it at one of those pop-up Halloween stores that, you know, emerge sometime in late September, early October. And that's a new thing, too, right? I love those, yeah.  Ooh, to be to be like a scroll of a law and says useless next to it, that'd be pretty spooky. Libertarian horror movies. Richard, you just brought something up, which I think is an interesting topic, which is Halloween pop-up stores. Yeah. And we've been seeing these for a lot of years now in empty, empty storefronts and doing a little reading before this podcast. I found out that those stores really became prominent after the 2008 recession because. Really? Yeah, because commercial real estate landlords were so desperate because they're at malls, anchor stores were seeing sales plummeting, and strip malls were seeing a lot of stores closing down. And so it became an opportunity for the landlords to have a little short-term rental where they can rent the space out and make some money. I think that's so often missed when we talk about the boom-bust cycle that really is the fault of the government. But just the fact that the bust is actually the healing process. Like the bust is what's actually fixing the malinvestments of the boom. So in this case, a Halloween business actually made more sense given people's preferences than these long-term big housing projects. And so this capital that then has to be liquidated in the bust, liquidation doesn't mean it just disappears, that all this wealth just disappears. It means that it's repurposed to things that make more sense like Halloween stores. Which is an example of creative destruction, right? Taking resources that are underused or not used and putting them in a productive purpose, which in some cases we might question whether Halloween costumes are the best way to do that, but that's what the customer wants, right? I mean, for last-minute purposes, for just being able to browse through the store, it's obviously valuable to people in that area to be able to have such a place. And even places like Party City, which have brick-and-mortar stores, will open up pop-up locations and they start hunting for these things as early as January. I mean, it would be nice if we had lived in a world where the savings rate was so high that people really were saving enough to finance a house in the long-term and weren't blowing it on things on short-term purchases like Halloween costumes. But that wasn't the reality. That wasn't the reality of consumer preferences. And government manipulation was making it seem like it was that people were saving more than they actually were. And so this shift was actually reflecting people's actual preferences better. You know, looking at you, Dan, reminds me that we missed last week, Beardwatch 2018. Which, by the way, people who are watching are able to see. However, it is important for me to note as well that our podcast is available in audio form on Spotify, iTunes, and Google Play. And so in case you are driving and you can't watch the progress that we are monitoring here at Beardwatch 2018, you can find our podcast on those various other platforms. I do have a Beard milestone to report that when I was zipping this up, it actually caught. Oh, Dan, I'm so excited for you. That's phenomenal. So, you know, going back to the notion of Halloween costumes, right? So we live in a culture today that is becoming more and more sensitive to what we are dressing as. And some costumes, it turns out, are becoming off limits. And we haven't had sort of the onslaught of that yet because we're celebrating Halloween this coming weekend. But I think we can begin to think that it's coming, right? It's 2018. So we're constantly talking about whether something is cultural appropriation or maybe something a bit more benign, which is just people dressing up as costumes in costumes. And so the question I have to you is we've talked a lot this year on this very podcast about the Marvel movies and particularly Black Panther. And it's a big, big thing this year. What do you guys think is going to happen if you end up having a bunch of Black Panther costumes out there?  What's the, you know, degree to which this is going to be another fight that we have in society? As a predictive answer, what do I think is going to happen? Independently of my thoughts about what I think should happen, which I definitely want to do. And we'll get there in a minute. Yeah. As a predictive answer, I think it's all about how it's going to be done because there are different kinds of costumes. There are different ways you can try to look like someone else. So for instance, with Spider-Man, if I wanted to look like Spider-Man, I can paint myself red. That'd be one approach, right? Or I can put on a costume that covers up my whole body and now I look like Spider-Man. I think if people wear Black Panther masks or like outfits or costumes and they do it in a way it's like, hey, I'm me, but I'm wearing this outfit. Just like people do for Star Wars. Like most people, well, I actually don't know what most people would do, but if I were to go as like Luke Skywalker or something, I can put on the outfit and people kind of know. I would predict no one's going to have a problem with that. On the other hand, if someone puts on Blackface and says, hey, I'm one of the characters in Black Panther, I am 100% certain that there's going to be a whole lot of conversation about how that's insensitive, how that's offensive, and that person's probably going to have some difficulties to deal with if they do that. That's my predictive answer. It's all about how it's going to be done. One of the controversies last year was the Moana costume of the character Maui because Maui doesn't wear a shirt and so much of the costume is like a body costume. Of all the tattoos on darker skin. Right, exactly. I actually ended up seeing that on a list aimed toward parents for this Halloween on costumes to avoid. So there are lists now and they can be very helpful, especially if this is something that matters to you. Yeah. It's a tricky subject because, well, I definitely agree that if I were to see somebody in Blackface, that would be even offensive to me as a white person because there's a history of white actors putting on black paint to resemble African Americans instead of just hiring somebody who looks that way already. But I know that culturally there's a really fine line. Even just today I'm hearing about Kendall Jenner who got in trouble for having really curly and teased hair in a photo shoot for Vogue and people are accusing her of cultural appropriation and saying that she was wearing an afro and Vogue denies that it was supposed to be an afro. They say it was supposed to be a nod to the earliest 20th century, but it's just if I've got curls in my hair today for our viewers who are just listening and if they were teased up really big, would I be accused of cultural appropriation? I'm not sure. It's sticky. TK, you had a prescriptive as well as a descriptive? Yeah. I have so much I could say on this topic. I don't even know where to begin. I've never been interested at all in the slightest in discussions on who should and should not be offended by X because I accept it as a fundamental fact of life that different people are going to be offended by different things. Sure. And a part of what makes human communication complex is that we have to navigate a world where I'm going to be bothered by things that don't bother you. You're going to be bothered by things that don't bother me. How do we sort that out? That's something that we're never going to get rid of. There's no law we can pass. There's no philosophical technique we can apply. There's no strategy we can employ that's going to eliminate that fundamental problem across the lines, whether it has anything to do with race or not. So for me, this is really a question of cost-benefit analysis. What do you choose to care about and what cost are you willing to pay for the things that you say you care about? So let's use an example like being married. There are things that I can do that annoy my wife. And I can talk all day about, oh, well, she shouldn't be bothered by that. Well, she is. She is. And I'm not going to change that. So the first question is, do I care? Is being at peace with this person a priority to me or am I in a state where I feel like, I don't care about being at odds with her about that sort of thing. If being at peace is a priority to me, then I will modify my behavior without a sense of being a victim, without a sense of self-compromise. And I'll be honest that the only reason I'm modifying my behavior is because I care about this person. This bothers them. And I'm not going to do a thing that bothers me because I prioritize being at peace with them. That's life, right? On the other hand, there are moments where I can say, here's a form of behavior that bothers someone over there. I don't care about my relationship with that person. I don't care about how it affects me that this person or these group of people don't like me. That's fine. This happens to be true politically, right? I may come down on political positions and there are people that may say, well, I think anyone who believes that is cruel. Well, I'm okay with that, right? That's the cost of having a position on something and I don't modify my behavior in accordance with their preferences. But one thing that I give up the moment I choose to take that stance is the right to treat myself like a victim. I'm not a victim, right? I'm not a victim if I do things that people don't like and I say I choose not to care about the fact that you don't like them. So when it comes to the whole thing about wearing costumes that offend certain cultures and so forth, I don't think you're going to win a debate about who people, what people should be offended by. I don't think you're going to speak to a demographic and say, you should grow up and stop being offended by X because even if you're right, you're just not going to be successful, right? Show me evidence to the contrary. I'm willing to change my mind. So if I know that putting on a costume is going to offend someone, then I got to ask myself, do I care? Is it a priority to me? And if it is, then I modify my behavior. And if I say, well, I don't care because this is my position and they shouldn't be offended, well, that's fine. But don't cry about it when those same people get angry at you and they misunderstand you in very predictable ways, right? Regardless of how much we may try, we can't legislate feelings. And even without bringing government to the matter, we can't command people to have the feelings that we wish that they would have. And so what you're saying, TK, is what your position is that it all comes down to personal choice, right? You can choose to modify your behavior if it's worth it, or you can choose not to and face the consequences. And that's what we do by living in a society. We have a lot of people who may have different opinions and it's up to you whether you see yourself as a victim or whether you just say, this isn't worth me worrying about. I want to resound that story. I think I saw this in practice recently, one of my favorite podcasts other than the FeeCast. My favorite murder, it's two comedians who just talk about, they pick out murders and they talk about them. It's very dark. But basically they did a t-shirt line that was summer camp themed because it was a summer t-shirt series for their merchandise and whatever their podcast. And the summer camp themed t-shirt had a teepee on it representing kind of when people would sleep in teepees at summer camp and it became, as I was listening to each episode as it came out, they were commenting on their fan base being really offended by that and they really, I would say, I would call it overcorrection but that implies that I think that it was the wrong choice. I'm just saying that it was very, they responded immensely to their fan base freaking out and they said they took down the designs and they apologized profusely on their episodes and they donated $10,000 to Native American initiatives and it was just this thing where I think it points out, do I care? Do I care about the relationship I have with my fan base or with even a specific component of my fan base that cares about appropriation? And I think that that was, it's a very, very interesting observation that do I care about my relationship with these people and do I want to offend them? And they ended up releasing a new design. Yeah, with just the teepee, with a regular tent. It was really interesting to see real time how I was like, oh, cute t-shirt. Oh my gosh, people are commenting on this. And then immediately, you know, I mean people that I love. But isn't that a sign of the immediacy of the response in commercial society, right? You think about how rapidly they were able to address the concerns of their market and how quickly they had something else out that, you know, okay, so maybe it wasn't perfect, but it actually was something that people in their audience would actually prefer to buy. That's a really good point. I didn't even think about it like that, but yeah, how the, I mean, it is a great example of how the market responds quicker than perhaps another, you know, an institution that is not beholden to its profit, with shareholders, to its customers. If you are not beholden to your customer, you are less likely to affect change and perhaps change that matters. I think it's really powerful to realize that you ultimately have no control over whether someone else is going to be offended. Sure.  And I think that that's where sort of it's not so useful to try to question the motives of other people because they have their motives and they're going to do what they're going to do. But questioning motives within yourself I think is really powerful because I do think that a lot of this offense that's taken over Halloween costumes, that is basically identity politics which is a form of power politics. And I think of like what my choice is to be offended. So I'm of Mexican descent and so I can choose to be offended by someone, you know, wearing Mexican costumes. A sombrero or something like that. Right, right. And if I was really caught up in identity politics and I wanted to empower myself politically at the expense of another group and to get certain kinds of advantages or pity points exactly, then I could do that. But really I think that's like disempowering for myself. So I choose not to do it and that's where I think analyzing the motives can really help. So let me piggyback off that and push back a little bit. So I agree with you on that self-empowerment message. I made up my mind a long time ago that I would never allow the quality of my day to be dictated by what someone chooses to do with a Halloween costume. Even if I can understand other people's inability to do that with great sympathy, I recognize where I have choice and this is not the thing that's going to bring down TK Coleman. There's nobody on this planet that's going to wear blackface and then that's going to be the answer to why I didn't become all that I could be. No way am I going out like that. However, I think that the understanding of things, I think it works both ways too. I think there are some people who get offended or who get their feelings hurt or who get upset or who feel threatened for reasons that have nothing to do with a consciously made choice to be offended or to assert power over someone else. I think most forms of offense happen to be instinctive responses to various forms of conditioning we've had. So you see someone white and blackface for instance, that can be for some people just like hearing the n-word and it hurts and it takes you back not because you're trying to let it control you but for you it means something specific and it's sort of like, what are you doing? What are you trying to say to me? And for some people it makes them feel safe, it makes them feel threatened and I know it's fashionable to make fun of people who feel unsafe but if you want to understand who you're dealing with and figure out the best way to resolve conflict it's useful to acknowledge that that sort of thing is at play too. There are definitely people who try to play power games and use that kind of stuff to make you squirm but there are many people out there who just genuinely feel hurt by it. And there are a lot of opportunities when we're dressing up as other people to actually in many cases maybe definitely not blackface but like to actually emulate people who are of a different culture than we are and that's a bit of hero worship, right? And so you have the opportunity at Halloween perhaps to dress up in a non-offensive way as someone who might not be of your same culture and in many ways I think it's interesting to distinguish between appropriation which has got a negative connotation it's stealing something from someone, taking their identity away from them and assuming it, right? Versus just sort of culture which is the exchange of ideas and customs and styles through communication firstly but also through commerce. We have so many examples of things that we have in our American culture that we wouldn't have had without trading with China or without trading with Madagascar wherever else that we're finding things that are of value. We don't have to make those things ourselves but we're enriched by them and so I think there's a distinction to be made between sort of the mean-spirited type of appropriation, right? And the more general way in which culture grows through exchange. Yeah, I recently watched The Toys That Made Us. It's a documentary. Oh yeah, it's an awesome show. And they had one episode about Transformers and Transformers is one of the really popular costumes these days but it originally came out in the 80s and it was interesting to see like how it evolved that it started when G.I. Joe like the original G.I. Joe figures were adopted in Japan were borrowed from America into Japan but then in order to market to Japanese children they made it like a cyborg part robot hero. Sort of like a Power Rangers sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. And then they made that into like a transforming type hero and then it eventually evolved into what basically were the Transformers and then the American toy company borrowed that back and marketed it to American children. So yeah, so this with commerce, this cross-culture, cross-pollination it can be a really good thing. And it's peaceful too and it makes us less alien to each other. And I think there's a difference between imitation and mockery. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and mockery is just mean sometimes unless it's for purposes of comedy. Even then these days. So I think there's a useful distinction that relates very well to the one Richard just made which is a distinction between a person trying to be offensive versus a person doing something that happens to be offensive and sometimes these two things get conflated. So Megan Kelly recently told the story of someone who wore someone who was white dressed up as Diana Ross for Halloween. And Megan Kelly's taken a lot of black right now because she basically said isn't that flattering? Everybody wants to be like Diana Ross? Why would that be a problem? And so I think this distinction for moments like that could be very useful. So one, is this person who dressed up like Diana Ross racist? Do they wake up that morning and say, I know that if I do this, people are going to be hurt but I don't care. Sure. Maybe that didn't happen. Maybe there was no thought of that at all. You know, a lot of our maturity as human beings comes from thinking that things are okay or harmless or there's not going to be a reaction. We speak a certain way and people give us feedback in the form of disapproval and then we step back and we say what do I want to do about that? Do I agree? Do I disagree? Do I want to change? Do I want to compromise? And so forth. So we all have personal experience with thinking that it's okay to joke a certain way or say a certain thing and then someone says, hey, I don't like that. I don't appreciate that and then we go, oh I didn't know. It's just that thankfully most of us haven't been caught on camera doing it so we still get to fly under the radar. But in this case that very well could have happened and that may have happened in many instances where people do things that offend us regardless of what the offense is but that's different from saying I know there's going to be a predictable response to what I do. Being intentionally provocative in a very mean spirited sort of way. And I believe you have people in both category. I believe you have people that do things like this and they hurt people's feelings and they're completely shocked and they're like, no I'm not racist. I'm not sexist. I didn't know and it stinks for them because now they've got to be stigmatized and lumped into this evil category and they don't get a second chance because their moment of failure happened on the big screen. But then there are also people who say, you know I know this is going to ruffle some feathers and that's what I want to do. And you have the freedom to do that. It's just that you don't get to be a victim when you get the predictable response you were aiming for. I feel like but I feel like this that conversation kind of leads to well now we're judging people based on intention and like that's a hard thing to do right. I mean we can't that's I don't know it's hard. It's hard to identify intention right. You should only judge in theory you should only judge people based on the action right and then the consequence of that action. So I just don't I don't know it's it's hard I guess we project a lot of intention on things that may or may not be intentionally hurtful and so I think that I guess I don't know in this situation we're talking about appropriation if you do something that's you absolutely did not intend to undermine someone's culture or to hurt someone what do you do in the sense that you've you've done this thing you've appropriated something that hurts someone that is invested in that culture yeah I think one of the I think one of the main problems we have based on both of your comments is that we've sort of thrown empathy out the window right and I think one of the other things that may be a benefit of commerce is that we again are less alien to each other we're more empathetic with each other we can understand each other better it all comes down to communication and unfortunately we're finished with our time today so we're going to have to cut it off here our intention of course is to be provocative and have a great discussion we will definitely do that in future episodes on this topic as well yes beard watch 2018 but for now we hope that everyone has a very happy Halloween and we'll see you next week on the Feetcast


So good morning and I will come back to NPTEL lecture series on classics in total synthesis. We have been discussing about total synthesis of various alkaloids. So we have been talking about total synthesis of alkaloids and in the last lecture we talked about the total synthesis of resurpin and today we will talk about synthesis of eohembine which has close similarity with resurpin. So if you look at the structure of eohembine and it has the same core structure of resurpin but it has acyl group here with trimethoxy aryl group attached to the carbonyl and you also have a OME group in resurpin. So this natural product was isolated way back in 1880 and it was a major alkaloid isolated from Corinander eohembi and this correct structure was reported by Wittkopp in 1943. You can see it took about 63 years to assign the correct structure of eohembi and it took another few years to complete the first total synthesis which was reported by Van Tommelen in 1958 and the key reactions involved in the total synthesis of eohembine was Dielsall reaction. So the Dielsall reaction was used to construct the E ring and followed by dihydroxylation, cleavage and cyclization which is almost like Woodward's total synthesis of resurpin. So now let us see how Van Tommelen approached the total synthesis of Tommelen and let us see his retrosynthetic approach. So he thought first he can cyclize this amide and this carbonyl group followed by cyclization at this carbonyl, he tries to form the C D ring using these 3 functional groups. If you look at this di aldehyde, this di aldehyde, the di aldehyde can be obtained by cleaving the cyclohexene. If you do a host analysis or if you do dihydroxylation followed by cleavage, you can get this di aldehyde and once you see this cyclohexene, wherever you see a cyclohexene, one reaction which should come to your mind immediately is Dielsall reaction. So that is what he proposed, a intermolecular Dielsall reaction between butadiene and benzo quinone, parabenzo quinone as the key step and that is the first step in the total synthesis reported by Van Tommelen. Now let us see how he did or how he accomplished the total synthesis of Van Tommelen, the combined starting from butadiene. So the first step as he proposed in the retro synthesis was the Dielsall reaction between butadiene and parabenzo quinone. So in benzene, when you reflex, you get this bicyclic compound. Now one can selectively reduce the e-n-dio, the double bond of the e-n-dio by treating with zinc and acetic acid without touching the isolated double bond. So this double bond is in conjugation with two carbonate group which can be easily reduced selectively by treating with zinc and acetic acid. Now this is symmetrical diketone, okay. So next is carrying out Darsen's reactions. You know Darsen's reaction is to homologate. So here the homologation was done with alpha-chloroethyl acetate. You generate an anion here that attacks the carbonyl group and this O- comes and expels the chloride to form the epoxide, okay that is the first step in Darsen's reaction. So now simple hydrolysis will give the carboxylic acid because it has to undergo decarboxylation followed by opening of the epoxide to get the corresponding aldehyde, okay. So the hydrolysis, the saponification was done with the aqueous sodium hydroxide and followed by opening and protection of the resultant aldehyde, okay. It is a homologation to get the aldehyde and the protection with diethylene glycol, okay. So this was done in the presence of diethylene glycol to get the corresponding aldehyde. So homologation was done from carbonyl group to CH2CHO. Now the aldehyde was easily oxidized at room temperature with silver oxide to get the corresponding carboxylic acid and that carboxylic acid was converted into corresponding acid chloride followed by treatment with tryptamine, okay. So it forms basically the corresponding amide, okay. Once you see this, now the next step is to cleave this double bond, okay. Once you cleave this double bond you get a dialdicate. So this was done in two-step protocol. First you carry out the dihydroxylation to get the diol and then you reduce this ketone, okay. You reduce this ketone under hydrogenation condition, okay. That is little bit tricky. So you can see that normally one would use sodium borohydride or lithium aluminium hydride but you also have the amide if you use a LAH that can reduce the amide but they have used simple hydrogenation condition to reduce the ketone to get the corresponding triol, okay. So you have 1, 2, 3 alcohols in the products, okay. But one can selectively cleave 1 to diol with sodium borohydride can cleave this 1 to diol, okay. And this structure also one can redraw this way, okay. This is for the sake of cyclization, okay. Once you cleave this, this aldehyde has to cyclize with the amide, okay. So you rotate, rotate this bond, okay. You rotate this bond, okay. Now this diol upon cleavage with sodium borohydride you get this aldehyde and that aldehyde immediately you can see it forms an aminol, okay. Immediately it forms an aminol with this particular aldehyde, okay. And this untreatment under the same condition, okay, it undergoes cyclization, okay. It undergoes cyclization to get these products. Here during sodium borohydride reaction so many reactions are happening. One it forms the dioldehyde, then this amide amine adds to this aldehyde to form this aminol. Then you can see the indolmite coming and attacking here, okay. That leads to the formation of the third ring, C ring, okay. But the problem is the stereochemistry at this ring junction, okay. Here the hydrogen in your amine should be alpha but what he got is beta. Meanwhile you can also see this hydroxyl group attacks this aldehyde to form a 5-ambered lactol, okay. In one step as I said many reactions are taking place. Now this lactol you treat with para toluene sulfonic acid and methanol so it forms the corresponding lactol methyl ether, lactol methyl ether. The lactol methyl ether if you reduce with LAH, the LAH is known to reduce the lactol, okay. LAH can reduce the lactum to corresponding tertiary amine. So you got the tertiary amine. Now you do the demethylation by treating with aqueous HCl to get the corresponding lactol. Then acetylate you get the corresponding acetate, okay. So basically one why they have to do more steps because if you have a lactol, okay. If you have a lactol, LAH will reduce the lactol also, okay. That is why the lactol should be protected, okay. Then your lactum should be reduced. Now the acetate you treat with or you carry out a pyrolysis that means you heat it at very high temperature and this can undergo elimination. As you know, acetates when you heat at very high temperature it can undergo cis elimination to introduce the double bond, okay. The pyrolysis gives the double bond. Now again you can cleave this double bond. This is a enol ether. So if you do, if you treat with osmotic oxide again you get the diol and the diol if you treat with sodium paravidate it gives one side aldehyde and other side OCHO, okay. What you need? Here you need OH, isn't it? And here you need ester, okay. So this can be easily done by treating with chromium trioxide methanol. So chromium trioxide methanol what happens? It oxidizes the aldehyde to corresponding carboxylic acid and since you are using methanol that gets esterified and also during the process this OCHO also gets hydrolyzed to get OH. So now if you look at this structure it has almost everything in place except this stereo center. This stereo center should be opposite. So that is one thing. Second if you want optically pure Yohembi, okay then you have to resolve, okay. So the resolution was done by treating with camphor sulfonic acid. So with camphor sulfonic acid first you got pseudo Yohembi. Why it is called pseudo Yohembi? As I said the stereo center is opposite at this carboxylic acid, okay. And it is known in the literature earlier when they did isolation of Yohembi. This stereo center can be inverted by treating with mercuric acetate, okay. So when you treat with mercuric acetate it forms this imenium ion, okay. When you treat this with mercuric acetate it forms this imenium acetate. The imenium acetate if you reduce it now then the hydrogen comes from alpha, okay. So that is what you did. So from pseudo Yohembi first you treat with mercuric acetate to get this imenium ion and which is in situ reduced with pellet platinum methanol to get the corresponding isomerization at this carbon to get the natural product Yohembi, okay. So that is how 1 time million completed the total synthesis of Yohembi and the key steps as I discussed was a Dielsall reaction followed by one pot cleavage of diol to dioldehyde and then cyclization on the top portion to get ABC ring and the southern hemisphere to form the lactob. There are two key reaction, one is Dielsall reaction, other one is sodium peroidate cleavage to form two rings, okay. The synthesis involved 20 longest linear steps and overall yield of 0.024% from Dielsall reaction attack, okay. Now we will move to the second synthesis. Here the synthesis is asymmetric one, earlier one which you, when we talked about total synthesis of 1 time million, it was resemic synthesis but they resolved, they resolved at pseudo Yohembi stage and then converted into a naturally occurring Yohembi. Here what we will do, we will discuss about Mamos total synthesis Yohembi, it is an asymmetric synthesis and he used an intramolecular Michael reaction, an intramolecular Michael reaction as the key reaction to form the D ring and that is where he introduced the chirality, okay. So let us see how he synthesized. Yohembi was known to be made from this 2, 3, C-Co Yohembi, that means this has been already converted into Yohembi by 2, 3 groups, Hilbert's torque and others, they have completed 2, 3, C-Co Yohembi to Yohembi. So his idea was to make the 2, 3, C-Co Yohembi, if you could do that, that completes the formal asymmetric synthesis of Yohembi, okay. So his idea is basically to make this bicyclic compound, okay, in optically active form. So for that he proposed this can be made from this bicyclic enone, okay, this bicyclic enone and this bicyclic enone can be made from this keto ester, okay, by intramolecular cyclization and this keto ester, if you look at this carefully, he wants to use an asymmetric Michael reaction, that means you generate an anion here and add to this alpha beta unsaturated ester, asymmetric Michael reaction, that is the key step, okay. Let us see how almost completed the asymmetric total synthesis of Yohembi. He started with protected benzylamine, okay, trifluoroacetyl benzylamine, then treated with sodium hydride and coged with this bromide. So this bromide can be obtained in one step from acrolein. So this is acrolein, okay, in one step one can make this bromide, okay, it is a protected compound. So basically you remove this hydrogen and coge with this bromide. So you get the corresponding N-alkylated compound, okay. Now you can deprotect or remove the acetyl using oxalic acid to generate the aldehyde. Once you have the aldehyde, then you do a stabilized Wittig reaction to get the corresponding trans alpha beta unsaturated ester. So you have introduced the Michael acceptor now, okay, you can see that Michael acceptor has been introduced. Now what we need is you have to introduce the Michael donor. So for that, you hydrolyze the trifluoroacetyl group with potassium carbonate ethanol, you get the secondary amine. Now you do a Michael addition, another Michael addition, okay, this Michael addition with methyl vinyl ketone, you get the corresponding methyl ketone. So now the stage is set for the key intramolecular asymmetric Michael reaction. So now let us see which chiral reagent he has used for the key intramolecular Michael reaction. So he took this compound and then treated with alpha phenyl ethyl amine, alpha phenyl ethylamine. So that is the chiral amine. So alpha phenyl ethylamine is, you see, this is the one, okay. So he took one isomer that is the plus isomer of alpha phenyl ethylamine and then made the corresponding enamine, okay. He took alpha phenyl ethylamine and then treated with this ketone. So you have a ketone and then treat with primary amine, it can form imine that imine can undergo you know isomerization to form enamine. So this is the enamine. Now this enamine can undergo an intramolecular Michael reaction, okay. So you can see this can be redrawn in this confirmation. I will leave it for 30 seconds so that you can see how this can be redrawn like this, okay. So once you know how to redraw this and it is pretty easy how the chirality is transferred. Chirality that is this, it is like a chiral auxiliary, okay. Alpha phenyl ethylamine is a chiral auxiliary that is used successfully for the asymmetric Michael reaction, okay. So that is how the two chiral centers, okay you can see the two chiral centers are fixed using this asymmetric Michael reaction, okay. Next you do not want the benzyl group because you have to remove the benzyl group so that the N-h can be attached to the indole, okay. So hydrogenalysis will remove the benzyl group to get the Piperidine ring, substituted Piperidine ring. Now you protect the Piperidine, Piperidine with Boc and hydride to get corresponding N-boc then you try to cyclize these two, you need a 6-perma ring, okay. The Claisen reaction you do this on this keto ester to form the corresponding 1-3 diketo, corresponding 1-3 diketo. Once you have this 1-3 diketone, now if you treat with para-tolybine sulfonic acid and methanol it can form enol ether, this we have already discussed when you have 1-3 diketone and treat with para-tolybine sulfonic acid and alcohol, methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, butanol, so it will form the corresponding enol ether, okay. Since this is unsymmetrical you can get both isomers, however what he found out was keeping this reaction for long time, keeping this reaction for long time converts isomer A to B. So basically if you run this for long time initially you get a mixture of A and B, but if you keep it for long time the A is converted into B which is what he wants. So it took the enol ether, now you can reduce the ketone, okay, you reduce the ketone with di-ball to get the corresponding allylic alcohol, okay. Now if you treat with acid, para-tolybine sulfonic acid, so protonation will take place here, okay, then this lone pair will push the double bond and in the process you will get corresponding enol, okay. That enol, now you have acidic proton here, okay, you have acidic proton here, so that can be removed using LDA and quench with Mander's reagent, Mander's reagent is cyanomethyl formates, okay. So you can easily introduce CO-TME group at alpha composition, okay. Then you reduce the double bond with under standard hydrogenalysis condition, so you get the corresponding bicyclic compound, okay. Now what you need? You need to selectively reduce the ketone to alcohol, then you have to remove the bar group. So before removing the bar group, you have to protect the hydroxyl group, you protect the hydroxyl group as TBS and while protecting the alcohol as TBS group, the bar also got removed, then you alkylate the piperidine with this indole ethyl bromide, okay, indole ethyl bromide and now you can see you have the complete structure of your hembine except that this bond is not formed, okay, except that this bond is not formed, okay. But as I said, 2,3-C-Co-Euhembein has been already converted into Euhembein, okay, there are at least couple of reports where 2,3-C-Co-Euhembein has been converted into Euhembein. So if we can remove the TBS group, okay, so that will give you 2,3-C-Co-Euhembein. So from here the known steps are treatment with mercury acetate in the presence of 5% acetic acid and followed by sodium borohydrate reduction. So basically as you know it forms an iminium ion, okay, then the cyclization takes place again followed by iminium ion and then reduction with sodium borohydrate, the hydrate is delivered from the alpha side to get Euhembein, okay. So that is how he could accomplish the asymmetric formal total synthesis of Euhembein, okay. The key reaction in the asymmetric total synthesis of MOMOS is the asymmetric intramolecular Michael reaction. So if you look at the structure of Euhembein, only the D-ring has 2 chiral centers, okay. So the chiral centers were introduced by asymmetric Michael, intramolecular Michael reaction. Overall the synthesis was done in 13 longest linear steps and with impressive overall yield that is 25.6% yield. If you compare this yield with one-termilanes, this is significantly high, I would say it is 100 times higher than what one-termilanes reported, okay. Both are interesting synthesis and both had its unique key reactions to synthesize Euhembein, okay. So thank you.