What is the power of story in our lives? What is the power of the stories we tell ourselves in our lives? I am a life coach for elderhood. I engage people who are wanting to pursue their lives into the best, most extraordinary elderhood of their life. We each of us have a childhood, we have a teenage adolescence, we have an adulthood. And then now we have an elderhood, become much more of an acceptable and useful concept since the 90s. What are you doing in your elderhood? What stories are you telling yourself in your elderhood? And how do those stories impact the decisions you make? In my book, Don't Just Age Engage, Life Coaching for an Extraordinary Elderhood, I explored five spiritual tasks, which I think are pertinent to and certainly prominent in our elderhood experience. So in continuing to grow up, if we approach these with intelligence and with a willingness to explore them and to resolve what sometimes some challenges they present to us. The first one is grieving and we addressed that last, the last program we had, lots of grieving when we get to elderhood. We sort out our stories, sorting out our stories as we go through elderhood. What are those stories that we want to keep? What are some of the stories we want to change? What are the stories maybe we are through living one of this card? Forgiving is the third one and then we go on from forgiving to preparing and on to letting go. And we'll explore those in future programs every two weeks here on Think Tech Hawaii. And I'm so grateful for the partnership of Think Tech Hawaii that allows and enables me along with so many other great and wonderful hosts and programs to bring critical considerations to my viewers, to our viewers in the Hawaiian Islands here where we are and beyond throughout the world. So welcome to this. Aloha, your friends that I just haven't met yet. So glad you're here. Today to look at the power of story, I am inviting one of my dear friends who is a life coach for lifestyle and health. Mary Steck in California who's come on to us in the Zoom platform. Hello, Mary. Good afternoon, Larry. I'm so pleased to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. You're so welcome and thank you for being willing to bring your expertise and your insights and your sensitivity to people, kinds of changes we go through. I'd like to invite you, if you will, to share a little bit about yourself. However, you would like to introduce yourself to the viewers. Well, you know, we, you and I had a lovely conversation yesterday and I have made a few notes, but I forgot to make notes about myself because that's usually how it is. I am a health and lifestyle coach, and I've been a studier of spirituality and self improvement, self development for most of my life. And I'm the best of the mother who had me in an alternate alternative thinking thing. So it's kind of who I am. I'm, like I said, I'm very, very happy to be here and this subject is one of my favorites. Yeah, I thought it might be. Yeah, I've seen you work with people. So what are the changes that they come about from changing of stories. So what is the power of story in the lives, Mary? Well, you know, I as a health coach, I've been working for several years with people who are challenged with with weight issues. And they have their own particular stories but I want to go back from the beginning as I said I've made a few notes you know you're in Hawaii. Most of the I'm sure all of the people watching this know the the the two words talk story. And I've kind of been, I've been thinking about that. What does that really mean talk story. And I spent this this afternoon actually dividing that up into three different categories of talking story. The first category that I've identified is the category of experience. And those are the stories of our memories and the cultural stories that have been passed down through the ages, those stories of teaching those stories that enlightened and instill love and inspire and make people laugh. Memories of vacations and family and pets those are those wonderful experiential stories we cherish. The second grouping of stories are the beliefs. Now this category are kind of are the ones that are self inflicted. They're the ones that we pick up as children. You know we hear the word no. I think it's 5000 times before we're three years old. And it starts building a self image and in that self image we we we start adopting stories like I can't. I can't do this. I always fail. You know if somebody says, you're a bad boy, that's a story that's a that's the seed of a story. And those stories we take with us it's their manufactured stories. I can't, I can never make money. I can never save money. I can't get out of debt. Nothing ever works for me. It's just my luck.  You know, I'm bad at marriage, or I can't lose weight because I'm big boned. That's that's one of the ones that that I've experienced with in my work with people who are losing weight, or I'm just too old. Excuse me let me interrupt you just a minute because I have a trigger to remember memory I have of my grandson, Ethan who is six years, six years old, and he was talking with his mom. One day she reported to me and she said, you know, mom, he said, you know mom sometimes I just make bad choices. I'm not a very good boy. And I don't know where she picked that up I'm sure he did I mean I'm he sure he didn't pick it up from his mother because she wouldn't say something like that. I don't know where he picked that up and so, in my response to him. I next time I saw him on Facebook, or on FaceTime, or was zoom actually I said, Ethan your mom. Sometimes I make mistakes, but that's just mistakes.  And it was so funny Mary because he just glowed with this concept that that I think he's a wonderful boy. The power of that go ahead Mary. Yeah, I mean can you imagine being raised by parents who are consciousness conscious enough to enforce that positivity and a self image in you. Yes, you go to school and you, you don't get picked for the team therefore I'm a loser, you know, but the problem with this is those experiential stories actually start dominating the talk story, the memory stories.  And I'm going to give you a little tool because I realized that a lot of times on programs like this we tell you all the things that are wrong but we don't give you give you a tool to fix it right. Let's go with it. So the third level that that I came up with is the someday story. As we mature, and we reach retirement, or it's a it's a dream state it's a fantasy state. Someday, I'm going to get up and, and play, you know, learn a new game. Someday, I'm going to take a vacation someday. And that does that begins another loop that is it reinforces the I'm not, because if you don't take action. It's a fantasy state and the fantasies never come true. Therefore, oh I knew I couldn't do that. You see, so you self inflict again, a story of failure, because you set yourself up in the someday routine is that what you're saying. That's exactly what I'm saying it's based on the fantasy wouldn't be wonderful if I took a trip around the world. Yeah, that would be wonderful. But if you don't get into action and make it happen, then you have another failure to deal with and it's just this endless loop, you know. So, like, So as a coach, what do you do to move people through that. Yeah. You know, that this is again, as I said that we always give the problems but not the solutions. I'm sure most of us have had an aunt Tilly, who when we get together for Thanksgiving we sit down or whenever dinner and we sit down and until he starts her old stories over and over again it's like. Okay, here we go again here's aunt Tilly, and wouldn't you like to just in a very nice way just cut it off. Stop her story. Nice way. I mean I'm talking. Not. I'm not. This is virtual. So there is a tool that you can use and it's it's actually it's it's like the, it's a karate chop tool. So, when you when we start feeling stories, you know come up. The first thing is a gut check a body check is what I'm thinking true. You know, Byron Katie asks herself, you know she she teaches three questions is this true. Oh yeah. Yeah. Is this really true are you absolutely sure. Alright, I, I'm unlucky in love. Is that true. Is it really true you know and go through that and you really get down to really answering that. And then you have a, you can kind of feel it in your body, are you constricted when you when you make a statement about yourself. I'm a bad piano player or I'm whatever that's negative. Do you feel a constriction in your body. And, or do you fill an expansion. If you do an affirmation, I am strong, I am clear, you know, actual body feeling, you know. And so when you can that constriction start happening, you can actually and the thoughts running, you can actually do a karate chop. You go, stop. Stop. Exactly.  Oh yeah. Great. That's a great tool to be alert to what's going on to change it then stop, consider what it is and then change it. That's right. So how, how, when you work with people as a coach, do you recognize some of those stories that they've been telling themselves and do you know when the pause, what do you do when you hear those stories. Well, a lot of times I asked them to leave their stories on the, on the door before they enter the room. They're allowed to have them. You know, if they want them, that's fine, but they can, they can park them outside the room. And then pick them up on the way on the way back if they choose, you know, and we've got choices. And empathetically listen without judgment. And that's as a coach, that's a whole other dynamic. As you know, we are, we listen without taking it on. Empathy is something that's kind of a dangerous trap. You can hear it and then start wearing it or you can hear it. Feel it and hand it back if you know what I mean. But I also ask people to seek tiny little victories, tiny little victories, even if it's one push up against the wall. I'm too heavy to do exercises I can you do one push up against the wall. I can do one a day. And that starts developing the serotonins because of the success. And it starts feeling good and it starts breaking that addiction to the cortisol that's created when you're feeling bad and sorry and you're in the negative spin. And your body starts going in your brain starts saying I like this part better than the other I like feeling good better than I like feeling bad.  And as seniors, you know we don't have to grow old. I decided a long time ago I'm old. I'm rediscovering myself I'm 74 and I'm rediscovering myself all over again because I've decided I can. And those are the decisions to make. And if you can take one tiny action step, if you want to paint for the first time in your life as a senior, just go by a brush. Right. I have an older brother, right. My older brother Randy is in California Southern California, as well Mary close. Well, Dan and San Diego, San Diego area, and Randy's just stating great shape he's doing really well. And we've been talking a little bit about elder hood. And, and he essentially is saying he's not, he says I'm not not really an elder. Well is is more than a river in Egypt. And, but it serves him well to be able to keep telling himself that he's going to stay vital he's going to stay younger and he's not going to. He says if you lose it, you know, if you don't use it you lose it. These are kind of some of the story snippets of his story that he keeps bringing up to himself. And, and, and, but it's, it speaks about the story that people have about elder hood to what do you notice in elder people, you work with elder hood people people in this stage of life. What are some of the stories that you hear from them about aging. I, a few years ago I met a gentleman who was in a memory care unit. He was quite he had pretty advanced dementia. And every time I would see him huge smile on his face. How are you. I'm fantastic. We would walk outside isn't the sky beautiful. Look at that beautiful flower that everything he saw everything that he allowed in his mind was beautiful. It was fabulous.  I said, I've noticed that his world is perfect. How did you do that. He said we cultivated it. We planted only positive affirmations and feelings for years, because there were, there's Alzheimer's in his family, and he knew that, you know he was losing some capacities. And I realized that what we plant in our, in our subconscious and cultivate and feed is what we will be left with when our mental capacities start diminishing. So, to make a choice as we enter elderhood of of priming your 90 year old mind. How do I want to live do I want to be that curmudgeon that, you know, the guy that nothing pleases him and life kind of sucks, you know, or the guy that isn't this wonderful. The primary neuro linguistic programming people who had had known a woman who was in attendance at their one of their conferences seminars and knew that this woman had been abused as a child and really severely abused and afterwards they talk with her and this is so wonderful that you're here and you're doing so well and how. How is it that you became such a great success in your life after what you've experienced as a child and young adult and young, young person. I said well I decided I was going to rewrite my history and I wrote my story of my family as though it were the perfect family that I could possibly want. I rewrote my story and that's what I live by the power of story. Our histories are really not records of incidents. Our histories are impressions of our experience. They are ways in which we do that memory. They get filed in that hippocampus in that middle. Range of our brain that middle brain where all the feelings of belonging, longing of loving of caring of wondering of fear of fear. They get, they get launched in there and our response which often is a reaction to circumstances. So how can a person who has their story about themselves lodged there so strongly how can they deal with that story and get rid of it or how can they get beyond its grasp into something that's creative and life affirming. Well I think life affirming is is a magical affirming your life every day gratitude every day. I have stories we all have stories. I don't know that they're going away but I know I've got better stories that I refer to you know my mind my, my brain is a is a library which book do I want to take off the shelf today and read. You know, I just, it's overriding it's over it's constantly you know when, when you wake up in the morning, and this I do every single day. Wake up in the morning and say, I want to, I get to, and I choose to. Right, whatever task you have ahead of me of your of you. Today I'm facing a new day and I want to, I get to and I choose to make this the best day of my life.  Gratitude, and gratitude, or being able to make a choice. And that's the thing I think we forget is that we, we have a choice to live. Our old stories over and over that old record they never wear out and they get scratched but they never wear out or change the record. Yeah, I am. I'm so saddened by our society which looks at elderwood as a place of victimhood. You get to elder and you become a victim. And certainly if I surrender to all the changes without feeling as though I have a choice, or knowing how to make those choices, having a community that wants to support those positive choices. And in fact, I do go into depression and victimhood and my gosh, especially with coven 19 how many elders are sitting at home, isolated from their family isolated from their communities.  And very few of us probably have this.  If you, if you look at the Native American culture, the elders are the wise ones, right are the wise ones.  Write them down. I'm writing memories down.  And I'll just take one example one experience and I'll just write it out I'll relive it. We have creative intelligent wise individuals who've reached a point in our life where we may not have to work any longer we have time to create and to share to talk story and to teach and to enlighten and make people laugh. Don't give up on your stories don't put them away. Absolutely. Absolutely right. And that gives a kind of purposefulness to all those experiences can you because you can pass them along. Oh yeah. And I recommend also doing a video, doing a video of those and making the video available to the grandkids. Five years from now 10 years from now and they wonder, what was grandpa really like. Right. Right. What did grandpa do during the war. And but we did do we mean we've gone through our generation has changed the world. And we need to own that we're using 70s kids. And, and there's value in that you know, Ag Mandino wrote this, and I love this says week is who week is he who permits his thoughts or stories to control his actions. Strong as he who forces his actions to control his thoughts. Very good. Who's who's was that. Yeah, that's great. So take action and control your thoughts don't they're not, they're not real those old beliefs those old stories aren't real. Yeah, there, there are two reasons that I've been a church person I know there are two reasons in the belief systems that we believe belief systems one one reason is because they no longer fulfill our personal needs. We have to look elsewhere for personal strength, personal nurture. I mean there's some horrible, horrible individuals, individual beliefs about individuals that have perpetrated abuse and self self flagellate self abuse and or so it may not fulfill the needs of the individual. The reason is because we have a vision of what can be, and the system of belief doesn't move us up. It just wants to keep us locked in. So many people feel locked into the belief system that they have, and want to get beyond and match themselves up into something new and visionary. Well that's part of what coaching is about to certainly what's part of what a nurturing family experiences about help you change your story. What are the stories that you viewers use in your life to tell yourself. What are the stories that you start with I always because nobody always does anything. What are the stories that you say I never can. Nobody never can. You always have an exception. There are no absolutes in that sense. So I encourage you please take a look at your stories. Mary thank you so much for this I am really really enjoyed of course, the opportunity to be with you in this context. reflection. And I thank you for being there we have one minute left.   So thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, Mary. Eric, would you bring up that website. Here's my website a global community for your extraordinary elderhood and under that if you would like to purchase my ebook. You can go to the digital resource center and you'll find don't age. Just don't just age engage.  And aloha see you in two weeks will return with the third piece of aging extraordinarily and that is forgiving. Come back aloha. Thank you.


From VOA Learning English, this is the Education Report. Outdoors in the open air seems like a natural place to study natural science. It also makes sense in a place like Southern California where people like to be outside a lot. Now, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has redesigned an outdoor space into a living exhibit. The one-and-a-half hectare area used to include a parking lot. Now it welcomes birds, butterflies and many other living things. Teacher Eva Eng has visited the museum's outdoor campus with her students. She says they enjoyed the experience. The children were learning about plant science in school. Museum scientists come outside to describe plants and insects in the natural setting of this outdoor laboratory. Greg Pauley studies turtles. He tells students how urban development has changed the habitat of turtles like the western pond turtle. He says these animals are happiest around small bodies of water that grow and shrink with the seasons. Today, with development, there is much more permanent water like the pond at the Natural History Museum itself. The scientist says the changing habitat is one reason why western pond turtles are disappearing. In addition to science lessons, the open air exhibit provides contact with nature in a way that city children rarely get. Landscape architect Nia Lair says children can get real-life answers to questions they may have. Outdoor classrooms help students understand how the natural world is interconnected and how living things need habitat to survive. Museum official Karen Wise says the whole museum is opening up to an indoor-outdoor experience. For VOA Learning English, I'm Laurel Bowman.


seven o'clock and we have four or five board members so we're in pretty good shape we have the applicants the applicants representative Barbara what is your interest in this application um my husband and I are adjacent landowners okay okay so let me call us mean to order there's a regular schedule meeting the town of Berlin Development Review Board we have one application before us tonight it's an application by Christina Casagrand for a conditional use review of a request on the section 2108c for additional use of rural enterprise associated with existing agricultural land so we're going to hear that application as a conditional use and what I'd like to do is start the meeting off by asking anybody that wishes to give testimony this matter tonight to please raise your right hand hey bob you may want to talk to Barbara about her rights as a well it's good to be out let me Barbara if you uh you're you're here he's a buddy property property owner are you interested in being an interested party to this hearing interested party is a party that has uh the right to testify although we would hear anything you want to say regardless uh and also has the right to appeal a decision of the Development Review Board if you disagree with the decision of the Development Review Board so our interested party status gives you a legal status in the hearing process especially as it applies to appeals are you interested in being an interested party or are you just listening in um I was invited to this um as we are adjacent landowners but I don't think that I have any objection to this I would like to hear what's going on okay well you can always change your mind and and if you want to be an interested party but if you want to testify at all you want to say then I'm going to ask you to raise your right hand and be sworn in okay all those attending all of you that tend to give testimony this matter before the board to wow I'll get it straight here yet no matter before this board tonight please raise your right hand I just want to tell truth and none about the truth and imagine before this board tonight are the penalties of perjury I do Dan it's not necessary for you I know thank you um so um it's our custom to start an application like this by asking for an overview by the applicant and but uh an overview strictly because we'll get into the details when we review the individual criteria and the same thing for anybody that has questions we just want to get a general picture of what's what's what's before us tonight I think we all know but we're going to ask the applicant to give us that general picture Christina are you going to be doing a testimony or will Dan be leading this before your team um I believe Dan will be works yes I'll be I'll be happy to take the lead Mr. Chair okay and the floor is yours if you would give us an overview of this application and then we'll delve into the individual criteria that you've given us sure thank you very much um and members of the DRB I'll start off by simply noting that this application is not seeking to change anything that exists on the ground today with one small exception that I'll get to in a moment so the parking area the building the use the hours are all going to stay as they are have been historically this is an as-built project we're simply looking to do a couple of things one is to come into compliance with the town and to make sure that the zoning classification fits the use as well as create a zoning classification that a fit that fits the emerging and sort of future use that we're projecting for this particular project so I'll start with an overview um Ms. Castigran owns several hundred acres of land but we're really only going to be focusing on and and Tom do I have the ability to share screen you do yes sir great let me share um just because I want to focus on let me stop sharing for a second uh and make sure that I have so I'm going to start out with a a picture of of the particular site that we're looking to uh talk about so as you'll see um this is route 12 that runs across the frontage of the property Crozier Road is a discontinued class uh I believe class three road that was discontinued in the 70s um and there's a parking area here that's been in existence and there's what's referred to as the crush house right here and this is this area is the really the area that we're looking to cover with this zoning application so this is a a mixed use application and let me begin by saying that most of the property is not looking to be reviewed in this application the the the vineyard Ms. Castigran's house the forest land that's all going to stay the same um we're only looking for this particular area right here and under your zoning bylaws under section 2005 it allows for multiple uses on a single property so we're really only looking for this crush house the parking lot and really the immediate immediate area that serves this crush house um so the yard that's around it we're not looking to go up into these vineyard fields that you can see up uh above we're not looking to go um into any other area but this this immediate area that will serve for this rural enterprise use so let me give you sort of a historic overview of the of the use of this which is that um and let me actually let me show you on this exhibit um a little bit more uh this is this is our exhibit and it shows on a section of a survey uh really a good sense of the area you can see there's the crush house right here there's a patio off of it there's a walkway to the parking area the solar panels um and and then the the discontinued road that goes out to route 12 for entrance and exit to the property um so what we are looking to do um is really the historic use of the property um so miss miss castigran purchased this property um in 2002 and it's a 2000 acre property i was understating by quite a bit um and most of it is enforced most and there's a section that has been uh cultivated as a vineyard um there's a portion that uh supports her house and barn um and then um this crush house that sits below um and this crush house was constructed uh I believe in uh the end of 2006 Christina am I remembering that correctly I think it's 2009 2009 I apologize um that's why you're here it's a fact check um but uh the crush house has always been an integral part of the agricultural use of this property uh miss castigran started fresh tracks farm um with the vineyard and has been producing wine at the site uh since since 2006 and that's the 2006 I was thinking of um and this crush house is where the wine is processed where it's stored uh and where there's retail space for people to come purchase bottles of wine taste wine um you know have cheese and uh cracker plates uh have small receptions there um but it has been so it's been a retail space it's been it's a it's an integral part of the actual vineyard agriculture uh space so it's it's always been tied to the vineyard itself and we're not looking to change that um what we are looking to do and when when it was erected our view was that it was part of the agricultural use um and and certainly to the extent that this was built uh to process all of the grapes that were uh grown on the property um you know we felt it was consistent with act 250 um that it was uh an agricultural use but there's always been a small retail component that's been tied to the farm uh she's had uh tour groups come in to do wine tastings um and these these hours have been largely limited to the daytime it's always been uh something that would close at 8 p.m uh might open as early as 10 a.m and that's not anything we're looking to change uh so the back of the the back of the crush house is uh primarily not open to the public because it is a um it is a processing place for the wine uh for it's either processing or storage um and it's really the front portion of that that octagon um that has a reception area and retail space so under your zoning bylaws you have what's known as a rural enterprise under section 3117 that's allowed in this district and it it states that the purpose is to recognize that Vermont's rural areas are characterized by working landscapes where resource-based economic activities have traditionally flourished the purpose of this section is to accommodate rural enterprises that support economically viable farms and or forest lands in town and region by and then at least four things that can do adding value to local farm or forest products direct marketing of local farm or forest products engaging in agritourism or education and or offering goods or services needed for farming or forestry so what has clearly we would put forward that the historic use of this falls under that rural enterprise use and and what miss castigran is hoping to do is you know obviously in this post-covid world um you know she's looking to figure out how does her business survive how does the farming enterprise that she's established survive and one of the things she wants to diversify is the retail offerings potentially at the at the crush house to be offering things that aren't necessarily the the wine she makes or that she um the related items such as corkscrews and glasses that are related to the wine um what she'd like to be able to do is some limited retail in that space preferably favoring um you know the type of Vermont based products but regardless of which would continue to do the crush house function the wine sales in the area but but diversify so given that um we believe that this use would still fall under the rural enterprise in that it would be the direct marketing of local farm or forest products it would be adding value to her farm um and it would be engaging in agriturism uh or education in that anyone who comes into the crush house regardless of what they purchase would still be um on the farm would be you know seeing the oak casks that the wine is stored in um and and be shopping or experiencing uh this as they have been um on a farm type setting so that's that in a nutshell is what we're looking to do and and we believe the rural enterprise designation that um that the town has in its only bylaws allows that um we're only looking for this very narrow uh section of demand we're not looking to change the the 2000 acres and really we're not looking for any type of changes to the uh the structure it's hours the parking lot the entrance the exit you know this has all existed since 2009 um it has worked well we're unaware of any complaints from neighbors or the town as to uh flow of traffic or uh use it's closed at 8 p.m we're not looking to extend those hours um the one change that we are looking to do is um and i'll call this i'll share this screen is the um the the sign the existing sign and and part of our application is to recognize our is to get approval for the fresh tech tracks sign um but if you'll notice here um down below this is bottom lip signage um and i understand that uh in in reviewing the bylaws that's not allowed under the current zoning bylaws um and what we would propose to change is to remove this bottom lip and replace it with a a uh top lip sign so that the light would cast down as opposed to up and be in compliance with the zoning bylaws and so that's literally the one change that we're proposing um we would seek approval for the sign as you can see uh it's a wooden sign um it's well made it's tasteful um you know it's set back from the road um it's in compliance with the size requirements and you know i'm not going to go into necessarily much much more detail i'll ask if the let the board have any questions if they if they have any um but uh you know all of the setbacks and frontage requirements uh we believe are satisfied uh we believe that you know with the entrance and exit with the discontinued road there's certainly wide enough uh size of the right away and access points this simply hasn't been a problem that we're aware of there's a fully established curb cut with this road um and again this is something that has been really road tested for the past 12 years and has not created any issues within the neighborhood um it's certainly part of this ongoing farming operation and looks to continue to do that and that's simply what we look for that approval from this board for thank you Dan welcome thank you um uh i want to ask if the uh board members have any questions uh of a general nature for the applicant i do yes poly go ahead okay so dan just a couple of clarifications so the sign is existing you would just be changing the lighting is that correct that is correct okay the other question is i'm not clear in terms of what kinds of products that that christina wants to be selling sure and i'll let christina talk to clarify this but you know part of this is we don't know um because we're still exploring uh i know christina is still exploring what this is going to look like on the other side of of covid um you know so i think she's looking into partner with people um that would be able to provide that obviously there's the the space itself so we're not going to be bringing in tractor equipment to sell on the on the front lawn um but you know this would probably be an expansion of the retail operations in in logical ways um but we don't we don't have specific items it's not as if she's going to start carrying you know a line of cookware um but she may um and depending on on on really what the market will bear okay but but things like farm products or something like that or we we've looked to the rural enterprise for guidance in that um but i think regardless of the items you know what we're what we are proposing is that this would essentially these retail items would be subservient to the larger function of the crush house as an agricultural site this is this is really um for the vineyard the final final stop on the agricultural product line and so it's still going to be the crush house it's not going to we're not looking to change this into a retail showroom per se the retail is just simply going to support the the crush house functions okay thank you any other questions gen over net general nature because we're going to go through the some of the review criteria but that's a good question balia anybody else have a question uh from the board um i'm going to ask uh Barbara monard did you have any questions for the applicant of a general nature at this time no i don't okay um tom uh mr zoning minister did you have any comments you wanted to add at this point no i'll have some thawing this uh mr richeson's presentation okay in that case i'm i'm going to someone um unless there are issues that people have in having reviewed the material i'm probably going to move quickly through this um since there are no changes proposed to what's there but it's but it's a permitting process uh uh we we know what's there there's so it's not not not you guess it worked here um i think that the issue is does it qualify as a rural enterprise uh that's sort of the first issue that is there i have looked at the standards um uh you're all familiar with them uh does anybody have any question with regard to it being a legitimate rural enterprise no if they're i'm sorry i didn't give everybody a chance to say yes or no no if they don't questions and i'm gonna move on uh to the um criteria you've grouped a lot of them uh dan uh i'm gonna sort of hit them individually just so that we our our background covers them um we um we'll start with the site plan criteria which you also started with those and that really starts with parking um and you've given us a pretty good narrative on that just paraphrase for us stan sure um just the property is frontage on route 12 uh parking lots off crowsier road the former class three um it has approximately 47 spaces that exceeds the minimum parking requirements um by 26 spaces and historically parking has never been a problem at the site uh and the curb cut equals or exceeds the minimum length and the b 71 standard um then there is uh more than sufficient circulation for cars entering and exiting both the lot and the parking spaces um i'll bring up one thing here quickly um and and we have some latitude here our bylaws call for paving of parking of more than 20 spaces um unless there's intermittent use could you speak to that did you notice that in our bylaws here i i um i i did not and i would have further i apologize but you know the use here is fairly light um this is an agricultural setting it is and uh you know it is not a heavily used parking lot by having the sort of uh hard packed uh parking area it allows it to retain a rural character in in conformity with the surrounding landscape as well as um you know more than adequate for for the parking and and simply the traffic is not what i would consider heavy it's very light retail um and there are long gaps of time particularly in the off season when traffic is very long um it does exceed the minimum requirements by as you pointed out 26 spaces but that's not more than double the minimum requirements so um and you know i think that's acceptable from my perspective but is anybody have any questions with regard to that mr chair yes tom i not not for with respect to parking but i just want to confirm that i spoke to mr brian macka boy from uh v trans uh it's a root 12s of state highway and i asked them if v trans had any concerns with the access off of root 12 for this project and he said the v trans has no outstanding issues with that access thank you thank you any any questions for the african on parking it's not a group together parking circulation and snow storage uh which sort of tend to all go together um any questions with regard to circulation which goes to what tom just spoke of which the access from root 12 if none nope so if so i'm assuming this road is maintained by you christina yes yeah okay i i see see former town highway i assume that you must be yeah i was thrown up a long time ago so i maintained that okay you mentioned dan this was thrown up back in the 70s when it was thrown up uh frequently when towns throw things up they throw them up as trails or they throw them up as class four roads or did they just throw it up period entirely they just threw it up entirely and going back i actually looked at the the vermont highway maps for berlin and i believe the last one was somewhere in 1972 that showed this as a class three road and then in 1980 it was marked as discontinued okay others other have been left this class four or have left biggest trails i wasn't sure about this one here it doesn't materially change that but um okay any any other questions on parking circulation snow storage certainly plenty of room for snow storage um the um and we'll probably need it tomorrow stop it yeah we hope not okay and again you've grouped a few things here landscaping lighting setbacks and outdoor space um i'm going to ask you to speak to uh landscaping quickly individually sure um simply the site has been landscape to reflect its agriculture and rural setting um as you can see from uh the exhibits in the pictures um it's largely open field around the building with um some plantings done to adjacent to the building uh but largely mimicking the sort of rural past pasture appearance that's across the road and um alongside in other areas any questions on landscaping you're in none um and and you're you're welcome to barber chime in bar but you have a question thank you um the um lighting sure there's existing lighting uh this includes five 15 foot full cutoff light poles along the edge of the parking area the building has two scots i think i wrote my application scone lights but i'm in sconces uh light fixtures under the roof and small twinkle light strands under the roof over overhang an immediate yard area surrounding the crush house that i think are removed on a seasonal basis um no new lighting is proposed this has been satisfactory if you ever pass by you can see this is a pretty low uh glow lit area um i mean it's obviously lit safely for uh pedestrians and traffic entering and exiting the building um but the lights are of course turned off when the building is not in use and the lighting quite obviously the lighting for the sign is of course the one that we're proposed to change uh to and over a downcast light okay um your your text does not address shut off time for the parking lot lighting um what is your proposal with regard to turning off the lights in the parking lot when close to business eight o'clock yes will that be on a timer or just turned off turned off by staff christina we're working on that one we have a photo eye so it should shut off when it gets dark actually um it's been problematic but um it is possible for us to do it at a specific time but of course we haven't really been open because of the pandemic so they've just been off so this would be a kind of relighting of the light so we can we can make sure that they go off as soon as the staff members you know safely in their car or ready to go yeah so hour after close of business something like that yeah that seems reasonable thank you yeah um i might suggest a timer that's i mean you are really on photo cells so they don't come on they don't come on until it's um dark but you do you do want them to turn off when you're done to the day right if that's acceptable to you it is yeah um the uh the question besides mine with regard to lighting the um are there any other lights besides the pole lights you have lights on the buildings exterior lights on the building entrance like entrance light several soffit lights okay a few downcast lights on the outside and then one light uh string light in the front if you drive by well you could see it when we were open so there are a few like one set of string lights and several soffit lights that come underneath the roof that overhangs the front of the building and then in the back which you can't see is of course a spotlight where ipark or staff goes and that's on a that will just come on when you pull in and that's so you can put the key in the door but that's in the back so you'll have no nighttime security lighting or anything like that it's interior so um so there's some lighting in there to try to see with the camera okay um any other questions on lighting if not i'm going to move on to uh sides and you've already addressed the sides as existing sign and you propose to change the lighting on the side any questions on lighting on the side there are no comments or questions i'm going to move on quickly a lot of pages was there a sign on the building um there's sort of a logo burned into a piece of wood but there's no writing on it on so it doesn't there's no wording on it and it's quite small so i don't know if that would it's about this big not sure that that would count and i should i'd like to back up if that's okay can we return to lighting for a moment i think those soffit lights do stay on at night because the cameras don't catch anything so i was wrong about that the soffit down lights around the building i believe we leave them on or the camera wouldn't catch anything so those have historically always been on at night and i apologize i missed that thank you the so the the logo technically is a sign how how big would you say it is oh probably about 12 inches wood we made it ourselves it's pretty simple you might not identify it as anything but it's it's above when you walk in honestly i don't remember seeing it yeah i i'm i'm glad i remembered it just now it's sort of forgotten about it myself but we'll make that part of your application it's likely a piece of art as well mr chair yeah uh the um you do have some temporary signs uh at your facility frequently and there is subject there are specific rules under this this um air culture uses that there are specific rules on that um uh you you need to observe those i don't know do we permit those tom or are they just soon be followed the guidance follow the guidance that the town is in the process of developing a licensure for that but we're not there yet okay so it's out it's outlined in back in that section 317 or whatever it's 3117 um so um which allows my observation is you have not not succeeded that but um just something you need to watch uh i think it allows up to six temporary signs i don't know they're ever seen six temporary signs there okay um the um you've indicated that you do have wastewater and water permits you've had them quite quite some time and then you've outlined that where your storm water goes anybody question on again they've been sort of moved together but the water wastewater or storm water you have not uh i'd like to move to conditional use criteria and um perhaps Dan quickly if you just sort of run through that for us sure um you're next i'll be happy to do that so uh the can the use uh as it has been and as we expect it to continue um has not impacted the community facilities or utilities won't have an impact on local schools parks water sewage systems or transportation infrastructure or any of the city services uh or town services um traffic of the site has consistently been a low level um as an agricultural retail operation it has 10 years of ha traffic history which have not generated complaints or issues with traffic on route 12 with the surrounding properties the number of trips has been uh and it is expected to remain well below the 75 um that would otherwise trigger a traffic study um i think as as as tom had indicated uh the entrance and exit is in conformance with the state's uh standards or at least as an acceptable level um as far as an entrance and exit off of this um the change is unlikely to affect the care you know any any classification that's given permit by the board tonight is unlikely to change or affect the character of the area as we've indicated it's been operating for 11 years any of the retail is going to fit really within the existing use and unless you go inside would probably unlikely to be noticed by any neighbors or any other individuals in the area um you know it's a modestly scaled business and building it's tied to the agricultural operations of the farm we're not looking to subdivide this off of of the property it will continue to be part of the part of the farm operations the hours of operation are consistent with historic use as well as uh residential use which is you know by closing at eight um it will be quiet presumably you know within the hour if there's any any noise at all um this is generally generated very low levels of noise there's not smoke or other uh effluent in in air um so it's largely been a fairly low impact uh on the neighborhood um and the property itself is surrounded by fields and agriculture there aren't particularly close neighbors nearby to the actual crush house itself um that might be uh affected in a in a tighter net neighborhood or a tighter packed neighborhood um and no significant natural resources impacted by the application the structure is built sits outside of the floodplain and riverfront areas protected by the state of vermont and identified on the a and r natural resources atlas um and the remainder of the the thousand plus or two thousand acres remain dedicated to agriculture and forestry purposes of which this this actually continues to allow uh and support um and there's nothing that's going to affect either solar arrays or renewable energy and as shown in fact there is a solar array next to the building um and certainly room for more if miss castragon decided or any neighbor decided to install solar or other renewable energy systems thank you uh are there any questions for the applicant by members of the board barbara did you have any questions no i think you know i was concerned about what time that's going to close would you answer that so well i'm okay good tom did you have any additional comments no sir dan any further comments on your part no i think we've presented and obviously if there's any questions about any of the materials we're happy to answer if there are no questions are there questions if there are no questions i would entertain a motion to adjourn before we do that i just wanted to commend you dan that was a very thorough application i had a lot of information so that's probably why there are not a lot of questions as a as a former drb member down down the hill from you guys uh and mom billyer i i know the value of providing answers before the questions are so i will move that we close the hearing and i'll second most have been made and second close the hearing uh is there a discussion of that motion no discussion then i would uh all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye raise your hands if you would aye aye aye opposed the motion is passed thank you uh the hearing is closed we thank you thank you very much for your presentation thank you barbara thank you for showing up um thank you christina thank you for your time everyone yeah a nice meeting you wish i wish you well with that and a certain hope to see it fully open again thank you i appreciate that i should do not get free samples that's under the graph and corruption yeah i was just gonna say so we have one other item of business tonight and that is the minutes of excuse me barb yes for those who are attending if they if you don't hear about our minutes you you're free to leave now see you know that see you later and thank you everyone i'll talk to you tomorrow thank you everyone thank you it's the only matter we have remaining before the board tonight is the approval of the minutes of april 6th um although i do anticipate we might go into a little recession but we'll do that afterwards um so any any is there a motion to accept the minutes of um april 6th okay tour but thank you for you moved polly you second sure okay discussion of that there were nice brief minutes christine thank you i think it's first time first time we've had a set of minutes on one page i know that meeting sent a lot of records so so okay all's favorite of the motion is through the minutes of april 6th please say hi hi hi minutes of the april 6th are approved um excuse me mr chair just one one order of business i i just want to do uh since christie's here as well that uh yesterday paulie was named as a permanent member of the uh development review board so she's no longer an alternate so now there are two alternates uh tour nelson and josh fits you thank you paulie yes now we just need one more permanent member it's true it's true uh i don't even know when people's terms expire um i intend to have a conversation with select board when person's term expires you basically re-advertise the position there may be other people that want a lot to that's a good idea want to be interested um we we've actually we've actually done that have you yes through front porch form we've done that well i didn't see the uh position of um uh represented the regional planning commission and the transportation advisory committee advertised that's not on my radar that's an annual position really huh yeah i thought it was for life annual appointment careful torque okay um i there's nothing nothing i've missed here i would attain a motion to go into the deliberate session okay so moved second second discussion all those in favor of going to deliberate session at this point in time please say hi hi hi i i need to move some folks around mr chair okay joining shortly mr chair i thought for a minute uh carly you're gonna have to cheer tonight oh oh jake i tried i tried to do myself in today i told the back was hit my head on a pavement oh wow bob yeah that's my first thought was okay you're standing up now but will you be standing up in an hour from now oh my god but i seem to be wow yeah it was a it was kind of a dumb move i was unloading some heavy equipment on my truck oh geez that's dangerous well i got my second shot today so i didn't know if i was gonna be sick but i feel okay great great which would you have the um visor visor yeah yeah we we didn't have any reactions to the visor ourselves so i just i had a fairly mild reaction so my son my son uh who's turns 50 this year he had a pretty significant reaction real yeah because the younger people have better immune systems i didn't used to think that was younger easy easy clearly is i just had i just had my birthday yesterday yeah happy birthday birthday bob you should have judy check your eyes just to make sure yes induction no i don't have to stay awake online or have to be woken up every two hours or whatever it is yeah yeah trust me you get to be my agent happens anyway okay well that's a good thing yeah tonight anyway is there is there any other real business to come before this board tonight hearing none i would accept a motion to adjourn so moved motion made by tour seconded by poly um all those who pay that motion please signify by saying i i the motion and the meeting is adjourned and i thank you all very much for attending tonight not tonight thank you thank you guys good night everyone night


Hoi Hoi and welcome to SCP memes where I cover the dank memes from the dank memes from site 19 subreddit trying a new setup today. I have my camera now finally up on a boom mic stand I guess I've managed to fit a well I've managed to fit the camera on top of it. I have another microphone stand coming in but I don't have it right now so I'm kind of holding on to this and hoping that it works properly for this one episode should be in tomorrow so I can hook it in over there and then just slide it over and I'll be perfectly fine but in the meantime we're going to do this in a very bootleg way where I'm literally holding the microphone in front of my face so you may hear some rustling and or changes in tone I guess which way is the front this is the front right yeah yeah this is from the microphone so let's get started on looking at the memes I'm also trying it on uh to stream directly to my computer so we can uh it may be a little laggy I think there's a little it looks like there's a little bit of you know it looks like there's a little bit of I don't know I'm looking at a preview so I don't know if it's any good but uh hopefully by Thursday I will have a setup where I can literally just switch stuff on and start recording and not have to worry about all this setup which right now it's actually pretty this was just one switch two switch another switch for the light that's hooked onto the top of the camera already and I just started recording and I'm good to go so all right let's uh let's let's take a look at the memes there's not a whole lot of them today but I've made up for it by the fact that I'm going to talk a lot about each and every single one of them I don't know that for sure things are bad now but there is a light at the end of the tunnel the light at the end of the tunnel uh that reminds me of the thing I worked with uh scp illustrated on the uh there's a interesting we'll call it yeah well it's a wind daybreak story so it's a wind daybreak story that I did with uh scp illustrated should be quite interesting when the time comes scp 682 is the most powerful scp that's infographics scp 343 scp 231-7 scp 001 or at least most of them scp 3999 scp 2845 and then outside 3812 you know there's a lot of 3812 stuff I should probably read that one because everyone keeps referencing it I have no idea what they're talking about nothing at all um but um I mean me personally I would be like what about scp 2343 far more powerful than 343 maybe it depends it depends they're all reality work well most of them are reality workers anyway so it doesn't really matter but yeah when anyone says scp 682 is the most powerful scp it shows a very limited scope of what they consider powerful in the world but it is what it is you can't uh can't change how people look at the world even if you think it is stupid y'all y'all y'all y'all debauch I've actually done this in typing I don't know if I've ever said y'all I don't even think I say y'all that much in real life but I do type it I like saying y'all how y'all doing because there is no word in the English language well there is no non slang word in the English language for the collective you which is the reason for y'all or use or use guys although to be fair the least the most gender neutral version is y'all because you guys and use guys both you know not gender neutral but y'all is just you all but um the thing is that like I don't know when I'm typing sometimes I do make things a little shorter y'all I've done this before and people like what's that I'm like should dove or shouldn't dove scp foundation goc scp foundation the goc shaking hands and then looking over at the ui u yeah ui u is the problem I don't know if the ui well it depends on the yeah it depends on the canon we're talking about it always depends on the canon we're talking about the ui u is not entirely incompetent in every canon you know but it is incompetent in most canons let's be fair the serpent's hand are just some tree hunters serpent's hand are dangerous terrorists the scp foundation going back and forth I think what it is is that like when it's convenient for them they describe them as harmless and when it's convenient for them they also describe them as incredibly dangerous um the answer is actually probably somewhere in between they're not that dangerous but they're also have the potential to be incredibly dangerous uh I think what happens is generally that uh the scp foundation kind of it depends on what the scp foundation is trying to do as to whether or not the serpent's hand is particularly dangerous to those aims sometimes the serpent's hand might actually agree with what the scp foundation is doing not often but sometimes certainly more often than then when it's the GOC um but then a lot of the times it's like hey let's just let everything out and see what happens like a bunch of idiots I think that's really about the portrayal though like the person that's writing is the one that's fucking up then gotta be great claimed by infographics but Dr. Cramarian hey look at me who shot Hannibal anyway I'm uh man I did that video and so many of the comments we're like oh I can't believe the infographics show would do this they're so terrible they're ended they're cancelled and I'm like oh dear you didn't actually watch the video which is borne out by the uh watch time length watch time length is for that video is particularly short yes that's a metric I know each video has an average watch time length and that one's only like three minutes even though it's a 10 minute video although in the first three minutes I do cover that the claim was already released so maybe that's why people just stop tuning in but I don't know I think there's a lot of people it must be like just clicking and then clicking away no way to know for sure but I do it is important to know that the infographics show did release their claim everything's fine now Dr. Cramarian makeup tutorial I actually briefly considered when I was uh getting this camera set up going of actually cosplaying as Dr. Cramarian and uh I was gonna put uh like a demon mask but I was gonna cut it so that it would be like right to here only and cover down to here and then wear long sleeves and a black glove on this hand um wait no it's the left hand isn't it yeah I think it's left yeah yeah it's left so it would be the other side uh yeah anyway yeah that was the concept behind it anyway but then I ended up doing something else entirely so uh anyway I just it was too much trouble and it also seemed kind of silly when I really gave it some thought the statue the old man hard to destroy reptile the shy guy the plague doctor siren hey wait I'm when I first very first was reading this before I read I saw I looked down to the bottom of it I took exception I was like those have not the siren has nothing to do with the other ones and then I saw the joke and was like oh oh of course that makes more sense it's not doesn't belong it's not one of the power rangers 682 wants to kill all life immortal SCPs I mean that's gonna be pretty hard but we'll give it a go 682 is willing to give it a go the broken church evolving to go to a religious group in some canons the scp community the scp community and the horizon initiative uh the horizon initiative does not get used anymore Abrahamic religions have just kind of fallen by the wayside on the scp wiki which is interesting because series one had a very strong Abrahamic religion like tradition and then it just kind of disappeared that's the closest I can get to a whistle going on a random rant after being shown hey hey oh dare you say such honest things about me this is unacceptable behavior and and and there's pretty much nothing I can do about it yeah yeah that's right I do good to go on rants for absolutely no well I mean I think they're usually tangent usually related somehow man I'd love to hear myself talk though anyway that's it thank you very much for watching if you enjoyed the video please scroll down hit the subscribe button if you haven't already and then hit the notification bell next to that so you're notified when I upload new videos it is incredibly critically important that you hit the subscribe button otherwise what the hell am I even doing here it's one of the main metrics by which uh youtube measures success and if I ain't got success what am I even making videos for and where did that voice come from and then head on over to patreon.com forward slash d samaritan and pledge at any level like everybody here on the screen already has including dr j redacted and vb who have both pledged at $100 it's nice to know that i'm not alone out here and i'll see you all again on thursday and hopefully i will have to hold the microphone at the time that happens


Hello David Digger Hernandez here and you are watching Spirit Church on the encounter TV network I'm now finishing up my series on the prophetic We're gonna go all throughout the scripture and I'm gonna show you many different powerful truths concerning the prophetic I know that this will inform you. I pray that it inspires you But first Steven Maktezuma is here with me He's gonna lead you in some very anointed worship and then we're getting right into this message here is Steven Maktezuma We could have a scene Worthy of all the praise we could have a brain Worthy of every breath we could ever be we live for you We live for you Jesus the name above every other name Jesus the only one who could ever say Worthy of every breath We could ever breathe We live for you We live for you Holy There is none beside you Open up my eyes With your heart and lead to those of So let's get right into this I want to first take a look at the different types of prophetic Giftings that there are so there is one prophetic ministry and under that category of the prophetic There are many different types of prophetic gifts So number one let's take a look at the first one the word of knowledge and this is found in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 In verses 7 and 8 the scripture says but the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit with all in other words It's not given to this person that they might glorify themselves or that they might receive from this gift themselves These gifts are given so that people might minister to others in verse 8 The scripture says for to one is given by the spirit the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge by the same spirit So the word of knowledge is like what we see in John chapter 4 where Jesus confronts the woman at the well And he reveals to her details about her lives I've had experiences with the word of knowledge myself one time while ministering in a small group setting the Lord revealed to me To tell a man I see that there's a woman in your life who was recently in a car accident And she drove a silver car God says the word of the Lord to her is and then I gave her a very personal word for her life But it was the word of knowledge knowing the information about her life that others would not have known other than by divine Revelation had they not known her that was what opened the door to her heart That was what opened her up to receive the word of the Lord that was ministered to her So the word of knowledge allows you to see the situation Supernaturally so when I look at an individual I can look and I can see all of the different things going on in their lives I can look and I can see all of the different aspects all of the different problems all the different Circumstances and that right there is revealed by the word of knowledge It's when you see the situation or you receive information in a divine way now the knowledge you receive is Itself mundane to somebody who doesn't know it but to the person who's receiving this knowledge in other words the fact that you knew Their name or you knew their exact situation or you knew what they prayed last night in their bedroom That right there is what opens them up to receive the prophetic word of the Lord through that gift of the word of knowledge So that's number one the word of knowledge that allows you to see the situation Number two the word of wisdom and this doesn't necessarily allow you to see the situation It does allow you to see the solution That's also found in the same portion of scripture that we just read first Corinthians chapter 12 verses 7 through 8 Now an example of this might be the daily navigation of a ministry or a business or some task that God has given you to perform This wisdom this knowing what to do in each circumstance is itself a prophetic expression So the word of knowledge I receive Knowledge supernaturally the word of wisdom is I receive wisdom supernaturally when I first began the ministry I was 13 years old. I never went to business school. I never studied media I didn't know the ins and outs of broadcast and communication It was the Holy Spirit who gave me the wisdom for each and every circumstance that he wanted me to understand This reminds me of Solomon in the book of Proverbs the man was full of divine wisdom this reminds me of Joseph and His solutions that he gave remember Joseph was not only able to give wisdom He was also able to interpret dreams. There was another prophetic expression there But here we see the word of wisdom and the word of wisdom I believe is what's applied when interpreting somebody's dream and Interpreting a spiritual meaning behind a vision so number one the word of knowledge you see the situation Number two the word of wisdom you see the solution Number three discernment you see the spirit and this is found in first Corinthians chapter 12 verse 10 where the scripture says To another the working of miracles to another prophecy to another discerning of spirits to another diverse kinds of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues so here we have to Slow it down just a little bit because I want you to understand that being able to see into the spirit is not the same as being cynical or critical or judgmental or negative about people often people say things like oh well I can see things in people that nobody else can see and really what they're talking about is their own suspicion their own Negativity which is not necessarily always the Holy Spirit sure often God will reveal to you when someone is coming in the wrong spirit or God will expose people who are coming in the wrong Spirit, but if you're someone who just walks around and always just is able to see the negative in people That's not a plus. That's not a gift That's a flaw in yourself that you really need to work on if all you ever see is the negative and people are oh Everyone else thinks that person is a good person, but I see deeper I see the negative of course everyone has negative inside of them So this is not at all the application of the spiritual gift known as the discerning of spirits that is criticism That's negativity. That's legalism. That's that's a religious mindset Just looking at everybody judging and that is also your own suspicion So be careful to distinguish between the gift of discernment and your own negative judgments of people So number one the word of knowledge you see the situation number two the word of wisdom you see the solution Number three discernment. You see the spirit Number four Insight this is where you see the soul Matthew chapter 12 verse 25 the scripture says Jesus knew their thoughts and replied Any kingdom divided by civil wars doomed a town or family splintered by feuding will fall apart there We read that Jesus knew their thoughts first Corinthians chapter 14 verses 24 and 25 say But if all of you are prophesying and unbelievers or people who don't understand these things come into your meeting they will be convicted of sin And judged by what you say As they listen their secret thoughts will be exposed And they will fall to their knees and worship god declaring god is truly here among you So it is possible To see into the thoughts and to see into the souls of men now this does not mean that prophets are mind readers This does not mean that prophets can always see the hearts of people This is just one expression of the prophetic where god reveals what's in the soul or in the mind or in the thoughts So let's recap before I give you the last one here Number one the word of knowledge you see the situation Number two the word of wisdom you see the solution number three discernment you see the spirit number four insight you see the soul And number five is prophecy where you can actually see the future as god reveals it mark chapter 8 verse 31 The scripture says he then began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders The chief priests and the teachers of the law and that he must be killed and after three days rise again Jesus saw into the future the prophets who foretold of the coming of christ also themselves saw into the future So this is one expression of the gift of the prophetic that really does differentiate a true prophet from a false prophet Anyone can go and gather information on somebody and pretend it's a word of knowledge People do it through facebook all the time Anyone can navigate a situation and say that god gave them wisdom Anyone can look at someone and say oh, I called it. I knew they were negative That's sometimes again as I said someone's suspicion now. I'm not saying that any of these gifts are um Not something that god wants you to have of course He wants you to have these gifts and I'm not saying any of these gifts are negative things unto themselves I'm simply saying that out of all of these the insight or seeing into the soul seeing the thoughts in the heart And seeing into the future are two of the greatest demonstrations of the prophetic power that god has given to his church that we can that I can think of Those two in and of themselves are very powerful persuasions of the power of god So when someone can see into someone's thoughts or when someone can see into someone's hearts Or when someone can see into the future Then they are truly demonstrating the power of god Now i'm not saying that the other ones that were mentioned are not the power of god or not demonstrations But they are lesser expressions. These are higher levels of expressions when someone can look into the future And declare it with detail and then that comes true then that prophet is obviously shown to be a true prophet Now again, this does not necessarily mean that if you miss a prophetic word that you're there for a false prophet In fact, I'll give you some quick references now. I'll throw those up for you here A wrong prophet is not a false prophet. That's very important to remember In acts chapter 20 in acts chapter 21 You'll see that there are various prophets prophesying and they're saying contradicting things yet The scripture calls each one of them prophets. So a wrong prophet is not a false prophet We're under a different dispensation new covenant prophets Sometimes do miss it and I just gave you the scripture references for that But I want to focus in here before I close up this lesson On the different ministries of the prophetic So I gave you the different types of the prophetic But I want to I want to show you the different ministries and there are two of the different ministries Okay, and I want to give you a simple explanation for being able to tell the difference between the gift of prophecy And the office of the prophet Let's go first to the scripture first Corinthians chapter 12 verse 10 says to another the working of miracles To another prophecy to another discerning of spirits to another diverse kinds of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues There we read of the gift Of prophecy now here in first Corinthians 12 Paul the apostle is describing gifts that affect the body as a whole So think about this in that same chapter Paul the apostle describes gifts of healing and he even asked rhetorically If people have these gifts or if everyone has these gifts But remember this There is a gift of healing Yet the bible says in mark chapter 16 that Every believer can lay hands on the sick and see them recover There's the gift of the evangelists in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 Yet we're all called to evangelize the same for the teacher We're all called to know the word and give an answer Of a reason for the hope that is within us We're all called to study to show ourselves approved yet not all of us are called to be teachers What then does this mean? There is a difference between the function in a gift And the specific focus that god has given a specific grace So in other words i'm an evangelist with a teaching gift God has graced me to win the lost now i'm not a pastor I'm not an apostle. I'm not a prophet Those aren't my areas of grace though at sometimes the gift of prophecy comes on me That gift is something that god gives to you as a focus and the office i'm going to show you in a moment what that is So let's go now to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 through 12 Where the scripture says now these are the gifts christ gave to the church the apostles the prophets the evangelists and the pastors and the teachers Their responsibility is to equip gods people to do his work and build up the church the body of christ So again, let me recap here on this point We have the gift which is the function or the specific area of grace All believers can to some degree function in all of the gifts because we all have the holy spirit And I think they should be called gifts of the holy spirit because they belong to the holy spirit They're not functions that I do their functions that the holy spirit does through me So if we all have the same holy spirit, it stands to reason that we can all at some degree in some way Flow in these different operations. So then The gift is that special area of grace that special area of focus The office is like that in that there's someone who's given this special area of focus or grace Yet the office of the prophet comes with authority and influence and this really is The only differentiating factor between the gifts and the office. I'm going to give it to you simple Let's not complicate this. Let's not try to describe Well, a prophet can prophesy this good and someone with the gift of prophecy can prophesy this good There's no differences in the accuracy because they both come from the holy spirit So what is the major difference? I'm giving it to you now. It's two words authority and influence Now church authority is different than the influence that a believer has in the local church And again, there's not much of a difference between the gift and the office other than the level of authority So the authority must first be given by God and it is cultivated by man God will position you read Isaiah chapter 6 when he called Isaiah the prophet as a prophet And then he told them go and tell the people who will not listen Tell them to look and not see to listen and not hear in other words God decided just how far his ministry would go. He decided just how far his influence would reach So then the gift of the prophet the prophet the office of the prophet is someone who's in Ephesians 4 11 One of those ecclesiastical leaders of the church whom God has grace to lead To guide to correct and to help build and equip the church as a whole as opposed to the individual So again the difference between the gift and the office is simply the authority and the influence Well, that is it for this lesson now. I want to pray with you I hope that as we were going through the scripture today that you're Hunger for the things of God was stirred Let me pray with you now and pray that God would guide you as you begin to grow in your spiritual gifts Especially the gift of prophecy father in the name of Jesus I pray for that one receiving this now And I ask you lord to stir up that gift within them. Let it be like fire in their bones, lord I pray lord you would stir them and you would cause them to speak forth the oracles of God in the name of Jesus And I want you to receive it by saying amen Well, that is it for the lesson. I want to welcome now the new members of spirit church There you are up on the screen. We love you and we are praying for you I always say that because I always mean it If you like information on how you can join the spirit family almost 10,000 members now Then go to david hernan is ministries.com slash spirit church when you sign up by the way, it's free You'll receive a weekly email from me with the brand new teaching fresh from heaven just for you and A brand new worship cover or original from steven mocked zuma and the best part You can always reply to that email for prayer support from our ministry staff Now to your comments and these comments are from last week How to know your prophetic the three different signs which was a part of our prophetic series If you haven't seen that yet, I really recommend you go and watch that Maybe you're someone who's watching this you're saying the prophetic ministry sounds awesome But I don't really know if I'm prophetic go and watch that teaching We cut through the confusion and I give you three Clear biblical signs that you are indeed prophetic go and do that while you're at it Be sure to also subscribe to our youtube channel youtube.com slash encounter tv Like comment share spread the word and make sure your friends see this content now to your comments from last week Eunice writes may god continue to increase your ministry and bless you Thank you for your teaching meet aviary says when I felt that desire for the spiritual gift I thought instantly you want it for your own glory I believed it for a second until I heard that verse from Corinthians Now I know that it's the devil speaking to me that I only want it for my own glory So meet aviary got some clarification They thought originally it was their own flesh that wanted the gift of prophecy And they found out that was just a lie of the enemy trying to keep them from the gift And now they're confident that god has given it to them The next commenter writes your messages are a blessing to me. You are answering a lot of my questions Thank you for everything blessings from romania. Well blessings to you from sunny southern california And finally sarah w writes thank you steven for singing give me faith This song actually changed my life a couple months ago every time I hear it I remember how god delivered me out of the depression and confusion I went through also Thank you david for being so faithful to god You always inspire me to be better in my spiritual walk God bless you your family and ministry and we get testimonies like this all the time of people Who are being touched by this ministry in fact? I just met a man His name was mr. Swanson I'll call him because I don't want to give away his first and last name help protect his privacy But he said I could share this story publicly There's this man by the name of mr. Swanson who I met while ministering in northern california And he came up to me and he told me brother david in 2017 My son passed away And I became suicidal because I thought life was no longer worth living And then he says well flipping through the channels of his television one day He saw encounter tv come on to his screen And he said that ever since then god has been doing a work in him His daughter told me he was very stubborn toward the things of god But now his heart has been softened god has touched him and he's got the hope and the joy of the holy spirit He's found purpose in life again all because of the power of the holy spirit This truly is the holy spirits channel this media truly is making a difference We're seeing lives impacted all around the world and this is where I need your help If you'll notice I don't charge for this content. I don't want to charge for the word of god You'll notice we don't charge for our events. We don't want to charge for people to come and hear the gospel Let's just not biblical what is biblical however is the taking of offerings as paul did often And so i'm taking an offering here for the ministry If you have been blessed by this content or maybe you've been watching it for some time And you said eventually I want to support well now is the time now we need your support Be sure you're signed up to our emailing list because I have a major ministry announcement coming up in just a couple weeks You're not going to want to miss it and I want you to know that your support is going to help This ministry grow and become stronger and impact more lives and we're growing month over month week after week We're seeing the impact just grow and and I know this that there is an acceleration of growth coming That this ministry has not seen we have not even scratched the surface. I'll put it that way So become a supporter Become a monthly supporter of this ministry sign up to give a gift of $30 a month That's it $30 a month is easy to do for most people. It's difficult to do for some So either way I want you to stretch your faith Become a supporter for $30 a month and I'll send you a copy of either Carriers of the glory encountering the holy spirit in every book of the bible or 25 truths about demons in spiritual warfare You'll get to choose one gift. I'll sign it for you. We'll send it to you It will be my thank you as an initiation for you becoming my partner Now, maybe you're someone who doesn't necessarily want to do the monthly giving. 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