Alright, recording is on. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to PC310. Let's take a moment to pray and we will get started. Could somebody please pray with us together and we will start. Can somebody pray and we will start. Okay, Roshan, Ryan, Abbot, why don't you just pray with us please. Father, in the name of Jesus, we just thank you and praise you for this wonderful and beautiful day, Lord. Thank you for gathering each one of us this day, for these lectures and for these lessons, O Lord. Holy Spirit, we just welcome you in the name of Jesus in our midst, Lord. Whatever is being shared, each one of us, O Father, we pray that you will impart to us your wisdom, your understanding and knowledge, O Lord, so that we can be good stewards of the things that you have entrusted to us so that we can be good representatives of yours on the earth, O Father. Just pray that you will take hold of Pastor Ashish, Lord, and just give him your wisdom and understanding knowledge to share with us and to teach us, Lord, the things that we need to know and learn to serve you in a better way. We just thank you, praise you and give you the glory, submit this time in your hands. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen, amen. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you to the class today. Crisp, I see your comment about the lecture videos. It's for this course, but from last week, is it that it's not the opening? Is that what the problem is? No, it's for some other courses also, Pastor. I think it's across the courses. Okay, all right. I will have our team looking. Yeah, thanks for letting us to this. I will have them look at it right after this class. Good. Okay, so we started last week talking about church staff management. Again, like I mentioned last week, I'm just calling it church staff management in some other places. You may call it employee management or staff management, or you may use different language. That's okay. Here we just call, we just refer to them as church staff. These are people who are full-time with the church. So we were just talking on various aspects. So as a Christian organization, we're talking about a local church organization, but it could also be any kind of Christian ministry. How should we take care of the people who are working full-time for the organization? So that's kind of what we're talking about. And one of the reasons we're talking about it is one is sometimes as pastors or as Christian leaders, we may not know what goes into taking care of employees. We may not know that. We may not be aware of it. So it's good to have some sort of understanding that I need to look at all these things, if I need to take care of people who are working for the church or the Christian ministry. So we're doing it from that perspective. So you need to cover all of this. I think the mindset is that we're all serving God, so we shouldn't expect to be treated well. We're all sacrificing. We're all doing serving God. So the mindset traditionally in Christian ministry is you don't really care for the people because we're all sacrificing for God. Whatever comes your way, you just take it and so on. But I think that's a wrong mindset. We need to take care of the people who are serving God because we are people. We have to live everyday lives. These people have families. They have children. They have to educate their children. All these practical things are there. Now, just because you're working for a Christian organization or church or ministry doesn't mean they should be ignored and sacrificed. So yes, we're going to honor God. We're making sacrifices, but at the same time, these are realities that need to be taken care of. So that's another thing we want to stress as we talk about this. So let's just pick up from where we paused last week. Maybe I'll just quickly review and then we can move forward. For church staff, just quick review. There are people who have paid full-time. There are people who have paid part-time and then there are volunteers. Volunteers will talk about that separately in another lesson. We spent a lot of time last week emphasizing the hiding process. That means you want to make sure that you bring in the right people into the team so that the work can happen well. People can be served well. So the hiding process is important. We encourage you to have a good, robust hiding process as part of the church or the Christian ministry. I was just saying some things that I normally do when we are interviewing people. We ask certain kinds of questions. We look at certain, what we would call as red flags or warning signs. We look at that. Then we also do background checks. Once we are done, we give them an offer letter. I've put up some samples there so you could look at it. You can definitely use them. Just modify them and use them as you wish. We also give them our staff guidelines so they have an idea of what it means to be a staff of the church. What are their privileges? What are the things expected from them? Then we also, when they get started, we have some basic things we follow. Make sure they have a computer or a machine to work on. They'll have their email ID set up. They'll have bank account set up. They'll have paperwork done to take care of the PF and take care of their health insurance, all those kinds of things. They'll give in a welcome pack. Usually we give them our APC jacket, a laptop bag and all those kinds of things. All these general things. Usually it's the first day of work. All these things happen. Then we start talking about compensation. That means we need to pay our people fairly to the best we can. This will vary from organization to organization depending on what the capacity is. We have to make sure they're paid well so they can take care of their homes and families and so on. How do you determine compensation? We talked about this. What can the organization afford? What are the levels of skills and competencies they're bringing in? What are the responsibilities they're going to carry? What is the leadership they're going to provide? What is the level of performance and objectives of the organization they're going to advance? How are they growing professionally and how long are they with the organization? These are some things we take into account. These are the benefits and these are the intangible benefits they would get. Till then, we covered last week. Let me just pause and see if there are any questions on this based on our discussions last week. Any questions so far before we get into some new things? Everybody's okay? Any reflections? Any thoughts? Any questions that may come up later? All right. Let's move forward. Some more things now on church staff management. Now we get into, okay, you've got people in your team. You've got people on staff. The important thing here is to keep them all motivated. That means they need to be excited about their work. They need to enjoy their work. They need to give their best. They need to be giving every time they're doing their work every day, they need to give out their best. They need to have hard work. Not dragging their feet and doing it because they have to do it. They should enjoy it. They should give their best. They need to be creative, come up with new ideas with passion, be willing to go the extra mile. So basically how do we keep employees motivated? And of course, this applies to any organization, but we're speaking specifically from the Christian church or the Christian ministry perspective. So I think from a church and a Christian ministry perspective, we have this big advantage that our work has a lot of meaning. This is a big motivator. It's meaningful work, meaning what we're saying is we're not just creating a product that will be consumed and gone. But for us, we can always look at the fact that the work we are doing is going to touch lives for eternity. We can get people saved. We can nurture people. We can help people journey through life. But what we do can actually have eternal significance. And so there's huge meaning in that. So that is a very powerful motivator. And we need to keep reminding people that we are serving Jesus Christ. We're serving the Lord. We're serving the kingdom of God. We're not just serving some organization. No, we're serving God. We're serving His kingdom. And we are touching lives.  So that gives them a lot of meaning. Another big motivator is giving them freedom to make choices, empowering them.  I want them to be, but at the same time, I'm always thinking I don't want them to go off track. Right. I don't want them to do something wrong. Or, you know, we've got to keep everything aligned. We've got to keep everything honorable, especially in the Christian context. You know, so there is that I want to have, I want them to have freedom and yet I want them to, hey, stay on track.  So there is that tension always there. I admit it. That's why I'm always watchful or to the best I can. I try to watch. I try to make sure things are okay. Things are staying on track. And yet with all of that watchfulness, I also need to let go. You know, it's okay. You make the decision. I respect your decision. Go for it.  You decide, you know, they have that sense of empowering. So it's a little tension, but that's the ultimate objective is let's have, let's give them the freedom they need to make choices and so on. And of course we need to leverage competencies. What are they good at? So if we put people in places where they are not good in doing those things, they will feel very frustrated. We will also feel very frustrated. It's not going to work out. So we need to put them places where they have the competencies, which is what they're good at, which is what, you know, they have the skills for and which they will enjoy. So that's also an important thing, an important motivator. And they should feel like, hey, I can come to work and I can do this. I can do it well. And it's something I enjoy doing. It's something what I'm, you know, I have the skills for. Fourthly, we want to encourage personal growth. And that means we want to help them learn, develop new skills and new challenges.  The problem in church and in Christian ministry is sometimes people have the mindset that, hey, you know, the skills I had five years ago or 10 years ago, I'll just keep doing the work and you know, everybody will just treat me nice and so on. So there's no, there's nothing that's challenging them to develop new skills, learn new things and keep themselves, you know, updated. Nothing really challenge. So, so what we have to bring that in, we have to bring those challenges and we have to, you know, in some way push motivate people say, hey, we have to do these things. So one of the ways we do it at at ABC is for our staff, we have like staff meetings every month. We be in those staff meetings, we talk about new things. We talk about these things that they should develop. Basically, it's a skills development session on various things. For example, at this moment last week, not last week, last month in a staff meeting, we were learning about project management. So I told them, you know, this is how we do it. This is how we do a project estimation. This is what we need to do.  Each would, you know, do in project estimation for this scenario, whatever it is based on their area of ministry. And then next week, when we have our next staff meeting, everybody's going to present what they have developed their, you know, their project estimation project planning and estimation for that work that was given. So it's kind of like forcing them to learn new skills. So we talk about this is how you do it. So they have to present it. And then so like that, we kind of, you know, we kind of stretch them, you know, force them to learn some new skills, whether it's whatever technology or so on so forth. Because that is what we need to use in doing the work of the ministry. Right. So we can't be using things that we did, you know, five, 10 years ago. We have to use tools that are relevant, current ideas and concepts and methodologies that are current. So for that, we need to keep giving them input and stretching them. So that's something. But then while it is discomforting, maybe to some, to many people, it is actually very motivating because they like, Hey, I'm learning something new. I'm personally I'm growing. I am being encouraged to try out new things, learn new skills. That's a big motivator for most people. Now, some people can be intimidated by it, but most people would enjoy it. And if you make it fun, like we make it like a group activity, we make it like a team activity, then it's a fun thing. There's no pressure. It's that learning becomes a fun process. Then, you know, people are very comfortable. They're both very motivated. A couple of things. I hope, you know, you're all with me. A couple other things, you know, when we want to motivate our church staff, when people do a good work, you know, you highlight that you comment them publicly. So either when we have, you know, group meetings, or maybe through email, you can, Hey, so and so did. Here's an amazing thing, you know, just what happened. So, for example, you just highlight the work that was done, you know. So, for example, when our media team does some really exceptional work, really good work, then I would send them an email. Sometimes I thank them personally. Sometimes I thank them publicly. On Monday, I'll send them an email.  Thank you so much. Or I might send it to everybody like, I think last week, I think it was last week. Yeah. I sent an email to everybody highlighting what, you know, what our IT team had done.  So today we have people from 196 countries using the resources on our website. And then I gave them all the statistics, you know, we had so many 40,000 some downloads. We had over 40,000 people coming into our website through search engine. And then so that becomes sorry, it was maybe like 60,000. I forgot the number. That's just this calendar. Yeah, that is just from Jan to September 15. That's seven and a half months. Here are all the statistics, you know, just sharing with them like, look, this is happening and everybody's contributing to this. A lot of people are contributing towards that. And then some lessons that we can take away. So when you share that it really, wow, everybody feels excited. Wow, you know, what I'm doing is actually reaching almost 200 countries.  And that is serving people in 200 countries. And just look at the results. These are the number of people, you know, who are visiting and using the resources. So the everybody feels encouraged.  So you highlight the progress. It motivates people. Another thing is to involve people in decisions. So this is very important right now. There's also a problem in the sense that for most of us in leadership, we like to make the decisions.  We can see things. We know what's going on. So we like to make decisions. But then to engage and involve people means it takes time. It also means you have to deal with all kinds of questions and ideas, which takes time and energy. But then when we, but then the thing is this. If we as leaders, you know, you may be the pastor of the church, or you may be the head of the ministry. If you're making decisions and pushing it, then it just becomes a command and control type of leadership. It's not a collaborative type of leadership. And then people just feel like, okay, I just have to do what the boss says.  They become more like, I just have to do what I'm told to do. But when you involve them in the decision making process, you know the direction to go to, but you invite their ideas, you invite their contributions.  But you may not have thought about this or that or so on so forth. And then when when discussions are happening, when people are involved in the process and they come up with some idea, oh, I never thought of it. That's a great idea. Oh, I never thought of that. That's a great idea. And you could put all these ideas together and the end result is most often much better. So as pastors as leaders of Christian ministry, we need to engage people in decisions, you know. At the same time, you don't want to get sidetracked because sometimes people are not able to see the big picture. They may be caught up with some small minor detail and then they may, you know, so you don't want to get distracted by those things also. So there is that balance and you need to, you know, the goal is let's be collaborative. And the beautiful thing is when people are involved, then they feel very motivated to go out and execute because they feel like, look, we made the decision together. So we are going to make it happen together. Right. It wasn't like somebody made the decision is telling us to do it. No, we all decided we all pulled in our ideas. All our ideas are there. Or at least most of the ideas that were shared, the relevant ideas are there. We are going to do it. And they feel motivated to execute that decision. So it's very, very powerful. And I think later on we will talk about this, you know, this whole way of brainstorming. We call it brainstorming. Right. So example, yesterday we had a meeting about 40 of us. Of course, we did it online because everybody's in different places, our church staff and pastors. We were talking about, you know, just growing, growing our locations, growing the ministry and also starting up multiple services and so on. So this is all like, okay, everybody share your ideas. You know, what are the pros and cons? What are the challenges? How do we do this? So everybody's just sharing their ideas. So they know that, you know, everyone's been heard. Everyone's put in their ideas and then quickly wrap up. And it's okay. This is what we're going to do, but we will come back with more information, et cetera and so on. So everybody's part of this whole process. And then, you know, we may have another meeting next week as a follow-up to what we discussed yesterday. So things like that. So people are engaged. All the staff, pastors are involved in the process. A few more things, provide positive reinforcement. You know, you tell people they're doing a good work personally. So you can highlight process at a group level. But at a personal, we talk, whenever you talk to people as a pastor, say, hey, you're doing good work. Thank you so much. Just saying a thank you to them, you know, will really encourage them. And also, whenever possible, do it in public. So you want to appreciate them in public, commend them in public. A big motivator is trust. If you trust the team and they know that you trust them, they will feel empowered. They will feel motivated. Now, of course, trust is earned. So, you know, we don't blindly trust, but trust is earned. And then when they know that you trust them, they are highly motivated. Another point is to coach the people. So this is tough because when you coach people, sometimes you have to give them hard feedback. And I do this with the pastors. You know, I just tell them. And for, you know, one of the things we, the culture, we talk about culture, one of the culture we've created is give feedback. And, you know, we are open to giving and receiving feedback. But that's part of coaching. Because if you're not able to tell somebody that they are wrong, if you're not able to correct somebody, then coaching cannot happen.  You know, of course, sometimes it will hurt. For example, you know, last week, I was working on our pastors and we had had a meeting. We discussed something. He went out and he did something different. So I said, hey, we discussed this, but you ended up doing this. So I actually corrected him. And he told me later on, you know, when we did a call, he said, you know, I felt hurt when I was corrected. I said, yeah, but then he realized, but that's part of my learning. I said, yeah. And he understands where the correction is coming from, you know, and then he said, yeah, I learned my lessons and so on, so forth. So, you know, so we have that happening. There was another pastor again, you know, he kind of when he presented a work, he only presented his work. And but then there were so many other people who were doing work and he never mentioned any of their names. So I corrected him as, hey, you see, when you spoke about it, you only mentioned about yourself. There were all these other people doing work. And as a leader, your first responsibility is to applaud others, put yourself last. That's what you always have to do. So like, you know, I corrected him and he was like, oh, I'm so sorry, but thank you for correcting me. He realized, you know, where he went wrong. And so, so like this, that has to be coaching where you correct people, you show them how to do things right. But then that's what motivates them. They know that, hey, somebody's watching somebody cares for them enough to tell them what's right, what's wrong, how to grow as a leader, how to grow as a pastor, how to grow and what what they're doing. So in here in our culture at ABC, we correct each other. We, we, we're not afraid to tell somebody, hey, that's that wasn't right. Do it like this. And then we understand that it's all given with a good heart. Of course, sometimes it's painful. It hurts. But then that's part of our coaching and nurturing people. And it motivates actually motivates people saying, look, we are working together and we want the best for each other. And then of course, a leadership that inspires is also important. So what I've done here is just said with you many different ways in which we can motivate church staff and motivate people. And this is so important because the work of the ministry must not happen. Like some routine dead work. No, there's got to be life. There's got to be passion. There's got to be creativity. There's got to be energy in what's happening by the people who are serving in the Christian ministry. Let me pause here. Let me take up questions. And, and, yeah, let me see anything else. Any questions on this? Yeah. Thank you, sir. Sir, I want to know, like as you, as you were sharing, you know, so many things regarding to the feedback and motivation. So as a leader, it's, it's easy for us to, you know, to correct others or, and as a leader, it's easy for us to motivate others. But when it comes to our personal challenges, how we can able to motivate ourselves and how we can find our own mistakes. And that is something I just want to thank you so very, very good question, very good question. So, so as a leader, right? First thing I would say is this one of the, one of the requirements of being in leadership is self governing and self motivation. And when I say self motivation or self governing, I don't mean we're depending on our own strength, but we have to be able to draw our motivation and draw our accountability from God. That's the first thing. That means, you know, as a leader, because you're in that position. Everybody's looking up to you. When you are facing challenges, they may or may not, you know, you may, you may or may not be able to go and tell somebody, you know, whom you are leading. Hey, I'm going through challenges, help me, whatever. That usually is very difficult. Right. I'll share two or three points on this. But anyway, the first thing is, you know, as leaders, we have to have the ability to keep ourselves to govern ourselves and to motivate ourselves.  And you are watching over your own life because nobody else is going to do that.  It's like what the apostle Paul said, you know, I keep my body in subjection and I, you know, I discipline myself less when I have preached to others. I myself should be a constipate. So Paul is talking about self governing.  He tells the same thing to Timothy in 1st Timothy chapter 4, you know, Timothy is appointed as a pastor. And so Paul tells Timothy, you know, watch over yourself and over your teaching because in doing so you will save yourself and those who listen to you. And I just paraphrased it, but that's essentially what he writes to Timothy.  So that's self governing ability as a leader. We have to have that and self motivation.  So you need to go to God. Or I draw my strength from you. I, you know, I am going to keep my vision fresh. I'm going to keep myself encouraged in God. It's like what David did, you know, in 1st Samuel 22, I think when Ziklag, the incident Ziklag happened, it says David encouraged himself in God, even when all his soldiers were all discouraged, David encouraged himself. So that's one thing. The second thing is you're a leader, but everybody in whom you are leading should know that you welcome and you receive feedback or correction. So anybody at APC, like I'm meaning our staff know that they can come and tell me straight if I'm doing something wrong and our staff do it.  Of course they are respectful. They know that I'm the leader, but, but they are not hesitant to come and tell me that something can be done like this. Something can be done. So we have created a culture where the leader is not above the law, so to speak, right? Everybody follows the same thing. So the leaders also open to receiving correction, receiving ideas, receiving input. And so, you know, I publicly will acknowledge if I'm wrong, so I'm sorry, I'm wrong. That was a better idea. We will do that. So you've, what has happened is over time, we create a culture where people feel comfortable in sharing their ideas, sharing their feedback, even sharing opinions that are different from what the leader would share. And therefore, the leader can be corrected. So that's the second thing that as a leader, you are open to correction. Another thing we have created is we have an email called email ID called feedback at apcw.org. Basically that's open to anybody and everybody who wants to give feedback. So we get emails from people, you know, all kinds of emails, people give feedback and I take them seriously. And sometimes this feedback is addressed to me directly pointing out something about me and that email goes to everybody. So it's not hidden, you know, so when somebody sends, I'm just sharing this with you. When somebody sends an email to feedback, it goes to all our passes and all our staff. Okay. So that means it's not hidden. So it's everybody sees it. For example, on this Monday, which was a couple of days ago, somebody sent an email feedback and the email was correcting me directly about two things. This person was noticed that I was doing wrong on the pulpit. So this person is watching us online services. I don't even know which part of the world he is from. He didn't mention it. But he's, you know, he said, you know, I love the online service. I love the message, etc. But I have two things that I want to tell pastor and I want to correct him. And he mentioned two things, you know, now these are somebody could think that these things are silly. What he mentioned, but these were two things he was observing in the online service that I was doing wrong. And that email, of course, when you send an email to feedback, it goes to the whole everybody gets it everybody. So whole office, everybody gets it. So it's like an email correcting me directly, but it's gone. It goes to everybody. So what do I, what did I do? You know, I responded. I responded to that person. But I also copied everybody. That means I let everybody know that I'm taking full responsibility.  Thank you for your feedback. Thank you for helping us move towards excellence because he was correcting me. His motivation is for us to do better than what we are doing. So I said, thank you. And then I just asked him to kind of explain. I said, you know, I'm willing to learn. So please explain it to me. I'm willing to learn and I'm willing to, you know, work on it. So through that, so I purposely wrote back to him. And I said, yeah, you know, tell me if there's something I can do to get better. We will do it. But I also let copied everybody because I want, you know, BCC. I copied them in BCC so that I want everybody to know that as a leader, I'm not afraid to get feedback and I'm willing to correct myself in order to become better. Right. So that's the second thing is creating a culture. By example, create a culture where as a leader, anybody can correct you. So this was some unknown person. Even your own church staff can come and tell you things. And they do tell me, of course, they tell me respectfully and I take it and I correct myself. The third thing is, and this is not easy, but to have people outside that you can talk to. So this means having good relationships with some pastors who are older but who are outside the church. So that's the third thing. So I know pastors in Bangalore city. They're senior. That means they're older. Some couple of them. Let me say that they're retired. That means they're not holding positions of leadership. They've come out of it. They've, you know, they've done the ministry. They're all in the seventies and plus they're still ministering, but not in, you know, holding positions. They kind of stepped out of it. They've handed off their work to others. And so I have good relationships with them. We used to meet once a month. This was before the pandemic. So we have to restart those monthly meetings now, which we might do in, you know, maybe in November or something will restart. Those meetings, but we used to meet every month once a month just to build our friendships, a talk and so on. And then so you have good relationships. So what happens when it's needed? If you need advice, if you want to discuss, we just want encouragement, you know, here are pastors you can talk to. Right. They're senior. They're older. And they're good friends. We care for each other. We just talk to them. And you ask for it. You can ask for advice or input and so on and so forth. So these are these three things. Sorry. It was a very long answer to your question, but I hope I answered your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. All right. Very quickly, we'll answer Kennedy's questions before we move forward. Kennedy, maternity leaves, breastfeeding offers, emotional offers, a case where husband and wife, relative working together, work at X direction. Okay. Yeah. So of course, maternity leaves for us, at least here in India, it's dictated by our labor laws. And so we just follow the labor laws. I think I forget what it is. I think it's three months or six months maternity leave that you give. It's in our guidelines. I think it's three months paid maternity leave. Three months or six months. I forget, but whatever the labor laws are, we follow it. It's in our guidelines. So those laws are dictated to us by the government. So we follow those laws for maternity leave. For paternity leave, I think it's three days or something for the father. And then other offers, we don't have any, and they're not mandated by the government. So we don't have any other than the maternity leave. In the case when there's husband and wife, relative. Yeah. So that is a very challenging situation when you have both husband and wife working same organization, but at least at ABC, we treat them like we treat any other employee. There is no, you know, no preferential treatment, anything. It's everybody's treated as a staff. There are advantages and disadvantages of having husband or wife working in the same organization. Disadvantage would be usually they'll take leave at the same time. So both will be gone. But if they're working in different areas, it doesn't matter very much. The advantage, of course, is, you know, both would be generally would be highly committed to the organization and so on. And so that's a positive. But we just treat they're all treated as staff. So there is no special preferential treatment to anybody. If they're anybody's relative or anything, they're all treated equally. Appraisals are done, reviews are done separately and so on. So there's nothing in a preferential treatment to anyone because they are married or okay. Good questions. Anything else? All right. Let me see if you can move forward a few more minutes and then we go for a break. Kennedy, you have another question. Hello. Yes, go ahead, Kennedy. Let me ask one with total dear respect. It's not with any manless because it's a very personal question. What kind of support does your wife give you when it comes to management or your cooperation? Does it chip in or do you share whatever you decide as a PC group or just give me some kind of direction?  Does this give you any support or does she chip in or do you share whatever emotional pressure you have or stress, work stress? Thank you. Good, good question. So in the early years, I would say, you know, from Amy and I, we got married in 1995 till, let me say till, I think it was 2007, we would be serving together. You know, so when you were in the U.S., we ministered together and we came back here and we started the church in the early years. Amy was part of, was leading worship and so we would serve together. So a lot of discussion, everything would happen. You know, we would talk about church and ministry and so on. And then so that was those years.  So in to, I think it was 2007, I may be mistaken about the year, but I think it's that Amy chose to go back and work in the hospital.  So then she was free to go back to the hospital and work. So from 2007, Amy kind of stepped away from being directly involved with the ministry to doing more because she was more involved in the Mission Hospital. She was, she works in a Mission Hospital. So she was focusing on that. And that was well and fine.   You look for opportunities to pray for them. You look for opportunities to minister to them. You can't do it all the time, you know, because you have to be, you have to first provide the medical treatment. And then when an opportunity comes, you do it. So there was a slight, does it change in that, but Amy is still a trustee of the church. That means it's one of the people on the board. So she would be still involved in that level as a trustee. So since that time, so things are a little different. So now, when, so one of the things we tried to do is we needed to keep family time as family time. You know, so we don't want to fill up our family time discussing church. And we try to avoid doing that because family time is family time. You spend time with the family, taking, you know, when our children were here, it would be take care of the children. We don't want to consume our time with discussing church matters. So for the most part, we kept church away from interfering with family. So churches, it's happening, but when we are in at home, we want to focus on the family. We want to, you know, spend time, family, children talking about things that are of interest to them. So that was kind of what we did from the beginning. And so even now, I do discuss a few things about church, but not much. We intentionally keep church away. When we at home, it's more of family time. I will discuss one or two things. You know, if there's something I feel I need to discuss, I will discuss, but I don't talk about, you know, so example, if in the office, if I'm there full day and I meet with eight different people in counseling sessions, I don't even talk about that. I don't mention who came and spoke to me, what, nothing of that. Church, leave it there. But there may be some important decisions because Amy is also a trustee. Those things we would discuss or, you know, things that matter. We would talk a little bit, but we don't let that consume our relationship or consume family time. So to answer your question, you know, yes, my wife supports me. Now she's a doctor, so she's working in the hospital. She will share her experiences with some of her patients and some of the things that she's going through in the hospital. She'll share with me and we'll discuss some of it, but it's a little bit. It's not everything. Similarly, in my work as in the church in the past, we share some ideas. We discuss a few things, but we don't let our work, whether it's hospital or church, consume our family time. I hope I answered your question. Kennedy. Okay. Okay. One last question and then we'll take a break. I hope these questions are useful to everybody. Okay. Abraham with church staff, do they work full time from Monday to Friday? So Abraham, what we have is every person has to work 40 hours per week, minimum of 40 hours per week. Every staff has to work minimum 40 hours per week. How they work, we leave it entirely up to them. Some people who don't have to do anything on Saturdays and Sundays, they will work Monday to Friday. So they work Monday to Friday, 40 hours, they will do 40 hours Monday to Friday. But most of our church staff have to work on Saturday and Sunday because we have services, we have conferences, we have events, usually happening on Saturday and Sunday. So most of our church staff are actually busy on Saturday and Sunday. So they will take time off during the week. So they may take their Monday off or any day. We just leave it to them. Those who are working on Saturday Sundays, they will take a Monday or a Tuesday or whatever time during the week they will take it off. The only requirement is every week, Sunday to Saturday, every staff has to work 40 hours. So how they work the 40 hours, we leave it to them. Each one decides based on what they need to do and so on. Is that okay? All right. So everybody fills in their time sheet. I will show that to you. We have HRM, so everybody reports the time sheet there and they show that they have to work 40 hours. Good questions. Thank you. We'll take our break now for 10 minutes, come back and we'll go forward. Okay. Thank you.


Ever pondered a flower causing an entire nation's frenzy? Strap in for a ride to 17th century Netherlands where tulips were more than mere blossoms. They were the emblem of opulence and obsession. Fortunes spun around, destinies rewrote themselves, and a nation teetered on the brink of fiscal catastrophe. Intrigued by the tulip mania that sent shockwaves across the globe, click the pinned video to unfurl the flamboyant almost unbelievable saga of tulip mania.


What I absolutely love about being an engineer is that any product I need I can just make you see I'm a swimmer and as a professional swimmer if there's one thing you need to monitor during your training That's your heart rate Actually, our professional trainings are divided into three target zones that are dependent on the heart rate of the swimmer And each one would lead you to a different result from the workout So that would be either fat burning or improving your general fitness or Maximizing your performance and working on building the muscles. So a professional athlete needs a combination of all three During his training in order to work on the entire aspects of his body and to maximize his workout But guess what? There are no ways today for professional swimmers to monitor their heart rate while they're swimming So when I was in the swimming team what we did is manually count our pulse after each race So it took us 60 seconds to get a value that we needed instantaneously and continuously during our training and Really even when you do get that value all you can do with it is think oh My heart rate is 120 now. It should have been 180. Well next time I'll go faster So being a bit of a quantified self-freak I looked for devices that would help me do the job But all I could find was either the watch that is coupled with a sensor belt or a finger clip or an ear clip But really when I swim I only want to wear my swimming suit my swimming cap and my goggles And do not want to add anything that creates drag in the water So in my last year of engineering I took part in the stars of science competition Which is kind of like the Arab version of the American inventor and I won the third place for this The first swimming goggles that can monitor the swimmer's heart rate in real time during his practice So let let me explain how they work, so I'm just gonna turn them on Okay, so there's the sensor on The on one side of the goggles that measures the heart rate from the temporal artery that runs next to the eye And there's the batteries that are then on the other side and in between There's a color-coded system that tells the swimmer where he is according to his target zone So since it was very difficult to get a pool on stage. I'm gonna show you a video of how it works instead Okay, so how it works So the swimmer enters his age and his target heart rate through the buttons that are on the casing And then there's a circuit board that's in this waterproof casing that compares the value Between the target heart rate and the measure heart rate and then the light goes red if the swimmer should slow down It goes green if he's on target and it goes yellow if you should go faster So really it's a very intuitive color code system like the traffic lights But it's the first time that the swimmer is able to track his heart rate in the water and to monitor his training so Now I'm working on transforming this alien-like prototype into this so This is all I do. I only work on this It's a monitor that you can clip on any type of goggles So the swimmer does not have to give up his favorite pair of goggles and the next target is to get to this Something that is so small and that can not only measure your heart rate But it can measure any kinds of information you as a professional or a recreational swimmer would want to know such as your calories the speed the number of laps the number of strokes so anything you could imagine and I Mean the whole point of this is to get to be able to give the swimmer a self-tracking experience that is so non-invasive and so Unconscious to be able to get him to have a complete assessment of his workout So this is a prototype that I engineered based on a need I have as a swimmer and very soon I hope it's gonna be a product that will help but the millions of other swimmers in the world become quantified self-freaks like myself Thank you


The medical team aboard the U.S. Navy's board-deployed aircraft carrier, USS George Washington, makes preparations to respond to a Philippine government request for disaster relief assistance after the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan. And we're just here to support whatever we need to do from a medical perspective, whether that be personnel, supplies, along those routes. George Washington is able to bring sanitation and hygiene supplies and train the medical personnel to areas devastated by natural disasters. Medical does support the relief efforts in the Philippines, not only because we are the most powerful Navy in the world, but because we are firm believers in soft power and a global force for good. Upon its arrival, the ship will assist the Philippine government and military with their relief efforts. For U.S.S. George Washington, I'm Suman Beverly-Luponic.


I'd like everyone's attention for just a few moments. We've been really fortunate today to have multiple members of Congress stopped by the Expo and Policy Forum, and that is continuing during the reception. And it's my pleasure to welcome to the lectern, Representative Earl Blumenauer. Representative, if you'd like to say a few words and address the crowd, I know you have to run for a vote. We'll gather them for sure. Okay, Representative Blumenauer is waiting for everyone to make your way into the foyer. So, what's that? Just that people are interested. So if you're uninterested, if you feign disinterest, you may stay in line at the buffet. Here we go. All right. Jared, how are we doing? Are we, we're working on it. Let's give Representative Blumenauer the attentive audience he deserves for making his way all the way over here to the ninth floor of the Senate building. I actually, I think the last time I heard you spoke, you were on a panel at COP last year that Liz Beardsley with USGBC moderated and really enjoyed listening to your thoughtful remarks about the passage of the IRA and everything. So, really looking forward to what you'll share with us this evening. All right. I'm gonna assume that's everybody or most everybody. So, sir, welcome. Thank you again for joining us. Really, really appreciate it. Well, thank you very much. I had some expectation competing with food, maybe a drink and a long day. That I might just be here kind of filler for some of my colleagues who will come in. But I'm used to that. A House member coming over to the Senate. I really enjoyed reviewing your program. I will tell you, I feel like my life is passing in front of my eyes as I look at the things that we're talking about, putting these pieces together. The Inflation Reduction Act, in some cases, are things that I've been literally working on. Well, the direct payment goes back to the Economic Recovery and the Obama Administration. We've repeatedly moved these things forward. I, for one, am getting really tired of the notion that we're gonna play chicken with expiring provisions every year or two. The extension, are we gonna have them or not? Are we gonna be able to sustain the industry and the momentum? Are we gonna be subject to some quacko? Well, I should, actually, that's kind of mainstream when we talk about quacko these days as you look what's going on. The largest investment in energy and carbon reduction in our history, and the, what is it, 385? We've blown past that. It's over $400 billion now and counting. It is exciting to watch the jobs being created and the changes that's taking place in terms of people recognizing what it is that we did. I mean, nothing explains this better than watching Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was in the forefront of the deniers and the people who were against it, showing up in Georgia for the opening of a project. I mean, this is powerful stuff and even the people who are on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the issue are starting to understand that they can't be on the wrong side of the politics. Now, I'd like to think that what we have seen of late with the hottest temperatures for the July 4th in history, I come from the Pacific Northwest where we have seen some of the worst air quality in the world having vast tracks of forest land and fire happening again now in Canada, the horrific floods in the North.  Everything, the sort of worst case scenario is coming together now. And it would hope, I would hope that that would get people's attention and mobilize them. And I have some sense that that's starting to take the place. People are having greater difficulty being in absolute denial. And each sad chapter that is added builds that momentum. You know, think of the difference in terms of Texas. Texas is experiencing horrific heat, strain to provide electricity. This is the same state that had the collapse a couple years ago, cold snap that some of my Texas friends blamed on renewable energy on wind and solar, not. But isn't it interesting that they've been able to provide the electricity because of the additions to the energy mix that's solar and wind? I mean, these things make a difference. We're hopeful that you're going to be able to help us spread this word. I'm spending all the time I can working with our friends in the administration to figure out, you know, getting the guidance right for Treasury and working with people on the implementation because there's so much involved. Nobody knows it all. It's complex and it's hard. But in every instance, there are opportunities to enhance the utilization of these resources and lack of resources is not a problem for us failing to move forward. It's not everything we need. It's not everything that we're going to get but we're in a very positive position right now. But that's all of us being engaged with the implementation, protecting what we've got from misguided efforts that unwinding it. They're not going to be successful but we don't want to plant any doubt in people's minds to discourage aggressive action to implement this legislation. It's going to take a lot of hard work to be able to build on this success but it's worth it. And I think the infrastructure that we've developed in terms of the citizen infrastructure, the people who are willing to join arms with us and who've been a part of selling the song and story for years now, this is your moment, this is our moment. And it's coming not a moment too soon. So I'm pleased to be here to just kind of mark time till my Senate friends come and impress you with their wisdom and sagacity. I wish I could stay and monitor that but unfortunately I have to go back because some of the wackos are on the floor in the house and we're going to have a series of meaningless votes. Luckily, virtually nothing that they have undertaken to try and unwind this legislation is going to be enacted into law. It's baked in and this administration is going to work with us to be able to protect and enhance and implement. And each of us need to develop our initiatives to build on the momentum, to build the constituency because we're not done yet. This legislation is phenomenal and as I say, I'm excited some of these things I've been working on for over a dozen years. They've come together at just the right time but we've got a lot more work to do in terms of integrating things like land use and transportation, reforming the agricultural system, one of the largest areas of carbon opportunities. And actually with this farm bill, with Senator Stabenow in her swan song, the fact that the Republicans can't pass anything on their own, we've got some leverage to maybe have a farm bill that is more appropriate. Some of you have had to endure my presentations on the farm bill, know that I am absolutely convinced that we need to make people understand that we spend too much for the wrong people to invest the wrong way in the wrong crops at the wrong time. We can do better with this farm bill which will have profound effects on our overall carbon agenda. But there's no insignificant addition to this agenda. So thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for crawling away from the food and the conversation and returning phone calls. I know it's a sacrifice to have one more politician yammering at you. But I appreciate the work you've done and the partnership we have going forward. This is the moment we've been working for. We have another year, 12 months before everything falls apart here and everybody's consumed with the next presidential election. But the next 12 months, we're gonna be able to move on the implementation, fighting a rearguard, supporting the administration and making progress that is long overdue and much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you.