I wanna start by saying this. I wanna talk a little bit about God's will and we're gonna go into faith. God's will is not determined by the outcome of his disciples. Sometimes the disciples fails or they don't fulfill God's will. I need to say this because doctrines have been built because somebody prayed for somebody and they didn't receive healing. So there are people that write doctrines that say that it's not God's will to heal today. It has already ended. So God's will is not determined by his disciple if he prays for somebody and if they don't get healed. God's will is not determined by that because sometimes the disciples fails and doesn't fulfill God's will. I will give you an example in the Bible. Jesus was on top of the mountain with his other disciples and on the bottom of the mountain there was those disciples where they couldn't, the Bible says they couldn't drive out a demon-possessed boy. They couldn't bring healing into the boy. Now, if it was in the 21st century we would have wrote a doctrine about it saying, it's not God's will to heal that boy. It's just his condition. But Jesus was physically there. So when they brought the boy to Jesus, it got answered and God's will was manifested on the earth. The boy was healed and he was given back to his father. So Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now, Jesus rebuked his disciples many, many times because of their lack of faith. Matthew chapter 17 verse nine to 20 says, then disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why couldn't we cast it out? And he said to them, because of your little faith, Jesus tested his disciples. Before he broke the bread to the thousands, he says, you give him something to eat. He said that to test them. And they said, how are we gonna, with, do you know how much money it's gonna take to feed all these people? But he already knew what he was gonna do. He tested their faith. Matthew eight, 26, and he said to them, why are you afraid, you men of little faith?  Mark 16, 14 says, later he appeared to the 11 as they sat at the table and he rebuked them for their unbelief and their hardness of heart because they did not believe.  He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. See the thing is, he worked with his disciples on their faith because he knew that in order to bring the kingdom of God to the earth, it's gonna require faith. And he rebuked them many, many times. Now, a rebuke corrects us from a certain pattern of thinking. For example, when you go pray for somebody and they don't get healed, there's this pattern of thinking that can creep into your mind, your thoughts. Well, maybe it's not God's will. Maybe God is trying to teach him a lesson. You see, Jesus didn't allow that kind of thinking to affect his disciples. So he physically said, he rebuked them. He rebuked them, he rebuked them, he rebuked them.  God's will is not determined if that disciples passes or fails. God's will is set in heaven. Now, what is God's will? The Bible, we are given the old and the new testament. A will or a testament is a legal document. For example, if I have kids and I'm gonna die and I have an inheritance to leave my child, I'm gonna write out a will so that when I die, when I pass away, I'm gonna give it to them and they're gonna know what they will inherit. In the old testament, in the new testament, God left us his will. You see, many Christians, many believers, they're waiting for a special revelation of God's will. They think they need a special revelation, not knowing that God has already left him his will on this earth. You see, Jesus is the perfect theology. When Jesus walked on earth, he didn't give one person a sickness or pain. Only people that Jesus inflicted pain was when he made a whip and he went into the temple and he drove out those in the temple. You see, our bodies are representative of our temples, of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus is actually willing to drive out things out of our life that don't belong. So the only pain, the only sickness that, I'm gonna rephrase that, the only pain that Jesus inflicted was driving out, cleaning out the temple.  Now, Jesus never gave somebody sickness when he walked on earth. You see, Jesus took sickness and pain upon himself. Now, in the legal court system, in the legal court system, if I committed a crime and they carry out punishment on me, it's just and it's true and it's fine. Now, if they carry out justice on my wife because I committed a crime, is that legal or illegal? Now, if Jesus carried, took sickness upon himself, is it just that we carry it? Is it legal that we carry it? Why would he give it to us if he took it upon himself? John 1 3a says, for this purpose, the son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Acts 10, 38 says, Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him. God is our solution, he is not our problem. The Bible says the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. Sickness steals our health. Pain steals our strength, our money, our time, our joy. It puts a strain on relationships. It stops a person from working, from providing. John 3 1 2 says, dear friends, I pray that you may enjoy health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. Exodus 15 26 says, for I am the Lord who heals you. Isaiah 53 5, and I am reading God's will to you right now. This is all God's will. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed. Psalms 103 2 3 says, bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases. Our God is called a redeemer. A redeemer is a person who redeems, meaning someone who repays, recovers, saves and exchanges something for something else. You know, if it was only our souls and our spirits that are needing redemption, then Jesus would never receive stripes on his back because when he received stripes on his back, it was for our bodies to be healed. Corinthians says the body is not for sexual immorality. The body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. Why would God put sickness in the body where the body is belonging for him? His temple is holy. His temple is clean. So dear friends, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that it all may go well with you even as your soul is getting along well. Job says, I know my redeemer lives. Does your body need redemption? Jesus said it's not the healthy that needs a doctor. It's the sick. So if you're afflicted, if you're in pain, Jesus is here for you. James 5, 14 to 15 says, is anyone sick among you? Let him call upon the elders of the church and let him pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the sick. You see, I'll explain this, don't worry. You see, God's will represents this. God's will is full of life, of healing, of redemption, of salvation. God's will is ready. You see, there's no problem on God's side.  Took the stripes on his back for our healing. God has done everything he could for us to experience, for us, for the promises, for his will. God's will is ready, but the problem is, even though it's God's will for you to be saved, for you to be healed, for you to be delivered, for you to be delivered, I wanna ask you, is it God's will for everyone to be saved? Will everyone be saved? Why? They don't accept? Now, the top represents God's will. The bottom represents your need for healing, your need for salvation, your need for breakthrough, your need for deliverance, and in between, that blue thing represents faith. God's will, as much as he wants to, as much as he desires to, he works through faith. I'm gonna prove this to you. If you open up to Mark chapter six, verse five to six, it says, and he could do no mighty work there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them, and he marveled because of their unbelief. Jesus, think about this. Jesus, the Son of God, says he could do no mighty work. The Bible doesn't say he wouldn't do. Now, the word could and the word would is two different things. The word could, meaning he was restrained. He wanted to, but he couldn't. The word would, meaning it's on his part. If he didn't want to, that's Jesus. But the Bible says he couldn't do any mighty work that except lay his hands on a few sick people and he healed them, and he marveled because of their unbelief.  It's funneled through faith. Faith is the currency of heaven. God answers faith, not need. Faith is not a feeling. Faith does not rely on sense evidence. Faith is believing what God will do, what he has promised to do. Faith acts, faith receives. Faith is based on God's word. That's why I'm reading to you God's will because if you don't understand God's will, you're gonna have a problem with faith because you're not gonna be sure what God's will is. You see, when Jesus walked on earth, there was two things he marveled. He was amazed. He was astonished at is when people had great faith and when people had a lack of it, two things. Now, what angered Jesus was the Pharisees, but what amazed and marveled that he's like, wow is when people had a lot of faith and when people had no faith. You see, before Jesus healed anyone, he looked for faith. He identified faith in people. Romans 10, 17 says, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You see, church, this is why we share testimonies to encourage your faith. This part in the middle represents this balloon. See, your faith at times, when you hear the word of God, it grows. When you hear testimonies, that's why we share these testimonies right here. So your faith will be enlarged because faith is affected by what you hear and what you believe. We share testimonies to encourage your faith, but we share the word of God to build your faith. I want you to open up and I want us to look at a story of what happened in Mark chapter five, verse 21. Now, when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to him and he was by the sea and behold, one of the rulers of the synagogues, Giara is by name. When he saw him, he fell at his feet and he begged him earnestly saying, my little daughter lies at a point of death, come and lay your hands on her that she might be healed and she will be well.  Giara has heard that Jesus is capable of healing. So Giara has started with a little bit of faith. He came to Jesus. Now let's continue to see what happened. So Jesus went with him and a great multitude followed him and thronged him. Now a certain woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years and had suffered many things from many physicians and she had spent all she had and she was not better but rather grew worse when she heard about Jesus. She came behind him in the crowd and touched his garment for she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well.  And his disciples said to him, you see the multitude thronging you and you say who touched me and he looked around to see who had done this thing but the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth and he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your affliction. Hold on, we didn't get to the story what I wanna get but we're gonna take a little sidetrack. Think about this, this woman touched Jesus. How dare she, how dare she come to Jesus and reach into his pockets without asking what's his will for her? How dare she do that? She literally touched his clothes and power left her, left Jesus, went into her and healed her. How dare she do that? Does she know what God's will is?   So, so uncool. But you see, God's will is ready and it's available and Jesus noticed that power left him, went into the woman and it brought healing and Jesus says, go. He said, daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your affliction. While he was speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house and said, your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? Now, Giaris is walking with Jesus. This woman gets healed, Giaris faith probably went up even more. He just saw physically a woman get healed but then news came to his house, your daughter is dead, why trouble the teacher? What do you think happened to his faith? He just heard his daughter is dead. Now, listen to me carefully. I did some research. If you wanna know what was happening at his house, because the Bible says somebody from his house came and said, your daughter is dead. Do you wanna know what was happening at the house? They already were going to have a funeral. They hired flu players.  They already hired people. They already had an agenda at the house even before Jesus came. Now, a lot of people go to doctors, hospitals for help. In 2019, about the average hospitals combining the United States made about $1.1 trillion. The top 10 hospitals reported in 2017 is just top 10, a revenue of $3 billion. The top 50 hospitals earned more than $123 billion in revenue. One of the executive pays in our top hospital was $21.6 million.  They already hired somebody. So money was being paid. But the Bible says, if we keep reading, as soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, overhearing what they said, Jesus heard what was spoken. Your daughter is dead.  It's like cold blood into your veins when you hear that report.  When you hear that, what do you do? What do you do? Because the hospitals, they make money off of your sickness. Some of them have an agenda. I'm not saying hospitals are bad. I am for doctors in hospitals. They have their place. But millions and billions of dollars are being made from people getting sick. Jesus overhearing what was said says, he said to the ruler, do not be afraid. Only believe. Will you allow Jesus to overhear your condition? Yeah, the Bible says it's impossible with men. But what my Bible says, what's impossible with men is possible with God. If you can bring a little faith to our God, I'll tell you what he can do. And he said to the ruler, do not be afraid. Only believe. And he permitted no one to follow him except Peter, James and John, the brother of James. Then they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and saw a tumult. And those who wept and wailed loudly and he came in and he said to them, why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping. They ridiculed him. Some of them were hired. They were mourning. And in some translation that says they laughed at him. I mean, think about it, what kind of emotions is that?  When he came inside, he said to them, why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping. And they ridiculed him.  All the ones that have a different agenda, you need to put them out. Put them out.  Immediately the girl arose and walked for she was 12 years of age and they were overcome with great amazement. Now, Jesus paid a high price. You know, hospitals, $1.1 trillion for your sickness. And a lot of times people get worse, sometimes get worse than better. But Jesus paid a high price for your healing. He paid a high price. It was the blood of Jesus, the sacrifice of the wounds that happened on his bodies for your and my healing. And the last thing I wanna end it with is a testimony. If we can have the worship team come up. I want you to fix your eyes on the screen. This is a testimony of what happened at one of our race to deliver conferences. This is Julia. Many of you guys know her. She came to one of our race to deliver conferences. Now, if you don't know her, she got into a car accident and became paralyzed from the neck down all the way to her feet. They had to put a catheter within her to feed her. Julia is an incredible woman of faith, incredible woman of faith. Her parents wanted to buy her a wheelchair. And Julia says, I don't want you to buy me a wheelchair. And she said, if you buy me a wheelchair, that means I'm gonna be in this condition for the rest of my life. She says, that is not my portion. And her dad says, how are we gonna bring you to the conference? So they agreed to get a wheelchair on rent. They rented a wheelchair and they brought her to this conference of race to deliver. But what I'm emphasizing is the faith that was inside of her heart that says, even when before she came to race to delivery in her heart, she says, I do not want you to buy me this wheelchair. That is not my portion. My portion is what the Lord has for me. The Bible says whose report will you believe? Will you believe the report of the doctor? Or you believe the report of the Lord? And Julia came to our race to deliver conference, received prayer. She started walking, got healed her. The next picture you see, the next picture is Julia got water baptized right here at our church. The next picture we see is Julia graduating from our internship program. But how her healing happened is her faith allowed God, allowed the will of God to touch her life. God is willing to heal you. He has done everything on his part, but he goes through, he funneled, it's all gets funneled through faith. Will you enlarge your faith?


good day you absolute chad of a human being or or chadette or chad them welcome back to another video on my channel the autism and mental health channel my name is thomas henley and today we're going to be talking about autism and anime now you may be thinking to yourself why why why is there any sort of link between these two things and you you may also have the thought that you know to be honest my my child really does love anime and i've never really understood why hmm you may also be absolutely bamboozled by the facts that you know anime comes from a different country to the country that you're born in you know a japanese culture with different sort of social rules and different sort of norms and styles and animations and you may think you know for someone who you know has a diagnosis where they they struggle with understanding social concepts wouldn't it be a lot more difficult a lot more difficult for for that autistic child to understand a different culture 90 percent of my screen time you know the time that i'm actually spent watching tv or watching youtube or watching anything of that nature it's usually anime that i watch you know to be honest the the majority of stuff that i do watch tends to be informative stuff tends to be documentaries but in terms of pure entertainment i always gravitate towards anime now before you say well i do not know that you were weeb thomas well i'm not i used to be probably when i was very very young but that was because i never felt really a part of society until you know i know i never really felt understood or or a part of society or understood socializing or communication or social groups until i actually delved into the world of anime now you could say that this is probably not the best place to teach shows social skills you know you have a lot of emotion and like you know it's it's it's a it's not reality basically but for me during those times when i was really really depressed during those times when i was really really anxious and didn't really know where i where i fit in with the world anime was probably one of the the biggest escapes that i had and furthermore i actually started my career in taekwondo which i eventually took up to quite a high level in terms of getting a national gold medal british british national gold medal junior and senior as well as competing at the commonwealth championships and winning a gold medal and god i hate i hate talking about myself but i know that it's it's interesting to some people so i'm like probably should say it but i i feel like a gigantic narcissist if i like so yeah i got a medal i got a trophy which was like best best male fighter i competed all across the world and come trained and training camps with gold medalists olympic gold medalists so i took it quite far and the the anime that really sort of encouraged me to go do that was uh an anime that you may know which is dragon ball z but i'd also say that things like yugioh and things like pokemon were absolutely massive for me during those times this is because they put a really really strong focus on core values you know things like um gritting your teeth and and getting on with it things like training hours and hours and hours just for one result and failing and then learning from that failing or it could just be something as simple as appreciating the people that you have around you appreciating the people that fight with you people that have your back and a lot of those core values in anime did a large amount to sort of encourage me to get out of that really poor mental state that i was in and take it out on other people in combat sports yes it didn't sound as romantic as as i thought it would saying it out loud so i've done a little bit of rambling about my personal uh love of anime and there are some key things that i really want to go over that i think you know could explain why a lot of autistic people like anime and definitely explains why i have liked and and do like anime so number one yes indirect exaggeration yes two words completely meaningless to you i understand that completely meaningless to me but i just couldn't think of a better title that fit in my little instagram post blog whatever you want to call it so basically in an in anime there is undoubtedly a lot of emotional displays and you know with with other types of film tv it's it's always very subtle you know all all of the characters intentions how they feel they're a lot harder to pick upon and when you're autistic and you struggle having that cognitive empathy being able to analyze people's emotional states just by going off indirect things it makes sense that it that's something that exaggerates those things and makes it very apparent is going to make it a much easier watch and you're going to be able to sort of predict things a lot easier you're going to be it's going to be a lot more of a comfortable watch rather than trying to analyze the social situations that are happening it definitely takes a lot of the guessing work out of it and although it might not be totally conducive to understanding real life interactions and sort of understanding emotions in the context of a social situation but that's not really what what you want from entertainment entertainment supposed to be relaxing and fun and anime or to be honest a lot of modern day cartoons do a really good job of amplifying the emotions of the characters so that it can be visibly seen it's not subtle it's straightforward it's exaggerated and it's easy to watch number two a cable dropping down there number two japan is different yes if you did not know it's probably one of the only places that you can go in the world where you could get octopus flavored ice cream or wasabi cookies or like they do a really good job of amplifying the quirky aspects of their culture and i really like that the first time that i was actually introduced to what japan was was watching a film called the karate kid not not the new one with jaden smith and all that i like the old school versions you know karate kid one two and three mr miyagi daniel laruso i think that's what he called him i absolutely binge the absolute mother of god out of that series i'm calling it a series but it's not a series it's a it's literally like a trilogy of newbies i at least i think there's three there might be enough off oh yeah with a girl what's what's she called was one with a girl or was that number three that's beside the point i was introduced to both sides of japan i really really really got into the history i loved watching things like i think like the last samurai i think the one of the first books i ever read was was just like a a story of like a samurai whose his parents got killed and like they basically enrolled to become a samurai and they trained and they found that their trainer was the person that they were going to seek revenge from it was a very very interesting thing and like i really liked it's not it may come across as sounding like an insult but it's not but i found the the social rules and the social sort of concepts within within japanese history within modern japan within anime just a lot more more straightforward a lot more easier to understand and although you know in film and in tv and in anime it's it's all exaggerating and it's all part of the plot and it's not reality but whenever i made any friends that were japanese you know we had like an exchange student who came over and i really i really got on with them and it was one of the first times i actually felt like a a cool person in a in a social group i didn't feel like the weirdo or the outsider you know they liked that i was good at taekwondo and that that i was doing well and i was quite academic and i was like yeah of course like why why wouldn't they like me but all the all the british kids obviously thought that i was weird and quirky and strange and they didn't want anything to do with me so this type of culture i'm not i'm not going to go into too much of it because i'm not a cultural expert and i wouldn't want to say anything over um what other japanese people are telling us about their culture so i'm just going to leave it as that leave it as that and just say that you know entering a world which is much different to your own isn't doubtably going to be a massive escape it's also going to be quite um validating as you you realize that even though you don't fit into the culture that you're born into there might be some cultures out there that you really identify with so that was a really great moment for me number three yes where we're i think we've got two more this is this is one of the one of them the next one's number four yes number three internal monologues yes so it's it's not always done in all films and all tv series but i i have seen quite a few uh like i think tv series like dexter they have that he has like an internal monologue which kind of i guess gives sort of a a parallel way of hat of what he's presenting on the outside and what he's actually feeling on the inside uh which you know seems all positive and good and normal on the outside but inside he's a he's a demon with you know just trying to blend in so that nobody finds out that he's a psycho so you know american british tv we sometimes do it but in a lot of the animes that i've watched there is either one of two things there is either a really strong internal dialogue particularly if it's surrounding one or two characters like death note you know with l and oh my god i've forgotten his name the other guy light with those two that there is really strong like you're like internal dialogues from pretty much all of the characters to be honest but specifically those and as well as the internal dialogues you also have explanations for things you always have like it with pokemon you know actually misty go do something and brock gives some really bog standard commentary which to a lot of people is quite funny but for me little little autistic tom uh that monologue it really helped me sort of tie together what was happening i think in terms of the internal monologues the actual things that they were saying in their heads it really sort of resonated with me and how i go about my life you know you kind of have this picture that most people are kind of going out and they're not really thinking they're just kind of going in the motions of things and you know from talking to a lot of autistic people it seems that we have a lot more of that in that internal monologue those those thinking about what we're going to say and i know some people don't which is okay it's not for the for the whole of people i'm not saying every autistic person in general has an internal monologue um this is just something that i've i've heard about quite a lot you know as as kind of going through life and thinking through things and understanding uh the world around us it really really translates well into that idea of an internal monologue and it makes it a lot easier to follow the story the characters intentions and how they feel i like that about anime it's not something that makes me cringe or urk or it sometimes does get me a laugh especially with pokemon about some funny funny times with my mate watching the like the first 10 episodes of pokemon oh my god rock is such a comedian is so funny so number four without trying to extend this video as you know as far along as i wanted it to it's only like it's like 15 minutes recording now it's not going to be for you because i'm going to chop it down because i thought like a bloody animal but number four yes art styles just by searching through some of the posts from your favorite autism creators you'll see that there is quite a wide variety of art styles quite a wide variety of color choices of of particular uses of of certain brushes you know you might might watch some autistic artists or tattoo artists and you know they produce stuff which really goes against the idea of what you think a tattoo is or what you think a piece of art is they really they really do a good job of personalizing it and making it into something that's very individual i feel like you know that this this kind of thing that i've noticed um it's very similar to how anime is you know they can be quite creative the ways that they express emotions the way that they amplify humor through visual effects or i'm not gonna say effects but visual changes through through different animation styles it's really really interesting and you know people may say that oh anime is all the same thing it follows the same market as the same sort of weird sort of um dynamic where where two of the characters are sort of a little bit clicked a little bit sort of on the edge of being maybe a little bit sort of intimate you know that that kind of feeling um but they they actually do have quite a wide variety of anime like different genres like different ways of actually drawing or painting or designing a character different ways of telling the story different characters like obviously all film tv they're going to have different characters and ways of telling it but within that genre of anime it does seem like that that you know they can be from different worlds it's like it's all up to the imagination of the people who are creating it so they can make some really out there things i'm thinking of things like neon genesis evangelion which felt more like an art piece rather than an anime but then you can contrast that with things like one punch man which is like it's taking the concept of being invincible and sort of applying it to regular old guy's life is absolutely hilarious and there's all sorts of concepts like that that you can really delve into with anime and the thing is is that it's not always to people's tastes and if people tell you you have to watch the sub versions or you have to watch the original versions don't bloody listen to them watch it however you like honestly like maybe the thing that I want to be doing is listening to something and then occasionally glancing at the screen while I'm playing on my phone that tends to be the case when I'm watching anything so that you know having the dubs usually quite helpful for me but again you can get some really weird creative takes on popular tv shows just just type in an anime of your choice and what was it you have to they do like a mix around of it they dub it no they don't dub it um they abridge it you gear the abridge series is always would have felt like my god it's one of the most quoted animes that I've watched and it's not even the original anime it's an abridge version where they just take the make out of it very very funny very hilarious the whole thing with this this these types of our styles is that they're very different they're very quirky and I always gravitate towards different and quirky things and a lot of autistic people that I know like to gravitate towards difficult and quirky things not difficult different you know things that that really open your eyes to the ways that humans can express themselves I find it really really interesting and whenever an anime comes out and it looks to have a different sort of different vibe or different style I'm always really intrigued by it the anime that I'm watching at the moment is called Hajime no Ippo which is sort of a series about a kid who's who's pretty pitiful and then he sort of goes through the ropes as it be and he starts to become a boxer and he sort of learns how to do it and he does all these amazing things and he shows all these his amazing talent and the boxing like the actual combat so well done honestly and that's just one of the the things that I that I've been watching at the moment but it's the most standout thing and there's a lot of season so it's going to be a while before I finish it but it is definitely my comfort show at the moment so I've talked a lot about anime I've talked a lot about autism and the ways that they can sort of cross over and sort of I don't know flip over each other you know insert really witty comment but I don't want to keep you too long so make sure if you haven't like your subbie put a comment down below what's your favorite anime I want to know and if you want to stay up to date with things social medias either side here I can't remember because it's always flipped when they when they start to edit it so it's what it's one of these sides except outside oh no maybe not no outside hmm I don't know but you will find the written versions of pretty much all of the videos that I do over on Instagram along with a nice little picture that you'll recognize from the thumbnail so very easy to find and yeah I hope that you have enjoyed this video and make sure again let me know what your anime is and I'll see you in another episode of my youtube channel that doesn't sound that doesn't sound too bad I'm still working on the outros should really put some time into to actually developing it but I feel like that would that would tarnish my creative style so we'll leave it at that


Yn ymgyrch o'r pwylltau, mae'r pwylltau ymgyrch yn gwahaniaeth. Yn ymgyrch o'r pwylltau, mae'r pwylltau, ymgyrch o'r pwylltau, ymgyrch o'r pwylltau, er mwyn. Byddai'n pwylltau yn ymgrifiad, sy'n rhai cyflym, ac yn rhai cyflym o'r pwylltau, mae'r pwylltau ymgyrch yn cyfnodd. Rydyn ni'n gwein i'r chymdeithasol ar y canfeyl. Mae'r pwylltau yn ymgyrch o'r pwylltau. We grow up hearing stories and they continue to resonate with us, telling the story of the product, making us connected to them. When a story is good, the bond with a product is incredibly powerful. This connection, the remembering, the actual emotional bond made by a passionate emotional experience, this is what you want from a product. Think about the reason you buy a particular brand. Think about the reason you use a particular site or an experience. Likely you have a deep bond and a connection with that, the story is strong. The things we own also have stories, the experiences we've had with them, for example. Maybe it's a ring that someone beloved gave you, or your favourite t-shirt that when you wear it, really good things happen to you. Or the stone that maybe you carry in your product that you are convinced brings you good luck every time you have it there. If we have emotion when using, that connection becomes even stronger. From clothing to things we own, it's actually human nature to attach the experience to the object. For example, let's take a simple t-bowl. There's a story to the experience of using that. The tea that maybe you make on a cold day and you wrap your hands around the bowl to a warmth. I have one myself that I drink daily from and as I do, this feeling of calm embraces because it's that ritual of the experience that I have when I use it. And digital experiences also have stories attached to them. That time, for example, you got to life using a particular filter in Instagram of a really amazing moment that you shared. Those moments, just like any story unfold in the experience. And our digital footprints tell stories. Your Instagram feed or perhaps your Twitter memories. Google actually taps into this with something called Remember at this day. Our digital stories are powerful and catalogued. Timelines show the life we've led, telling our story in binary. Stories are actually tied to our genetics, our very essence of being. They have been shared in every culture as a means of experience and entertainment, education, and in storing models or actually cultural preservation. When we have a good experience, we share it. We tell the story because as humans we are storytellers. You likely have already told one, if not many, many stories already today through the people that you've interacted with. We even actually tell stories in our sleep. I saw this tweet a few weeks ago from the Obama Foundation. The shared story allowing you to see through someone's eyes resonated really strongly with me. This shows the power of stories. By being told, stories can bring about change. This is because storytelling actually predates writing. Earliest forms of storytelling combine gestures and expressions and we're entwined with rituals. For example, rock art is thought may have actually served as storytelling. Indigenous people in Australia painted symbols from stories on cave walls. This was a way to actually help the storyteller remember the story. That story was then told with a mixture of spoken word, music, rock art and dance. This kind of combination. People have used even the carved trunks of trees and even sand or leaves to actually record stories. Tattooing has also in complex form represented stories and information about genealogy, affirmation and social status. Stories bring about connection. They bring about empathy and insight into someone else's life. They convey often more than facts. They are narratives that activate certain parts of the brain when we hear them. This allows connection and by linking to your own experiences relacibility is one of the essential ingredients of all stories because you have that, you relate it. And this connection also tightens recall. An experience is shared. This is the reason as children we tell ghost stories at night during sleepovers or around campfires we tell the stories and parents read to their children. Through stories you learn and humanity is passed on. Stories actually have a structure and by knowing that and these basic principles you can use this in creating a product. I'm going to take a little bit of a look at that now. There are some critical elements of a story and these are plot, characters and narrative point of view. It's important that most stories also have a conflict of some form. We're going to get to that a little bit later but it's really important to think of when creating a product. A classic structure could be seen something like this. I'm going to go through each section and as I do you're probably going to start making connections of how stories form. This though isn't a smooth arc and it's represented as a story arc is a lovely smooth experience. I would encourage you to start to see the bumps, the staggers and not think of this as literally an arc. These points also aren't set. They shift and adjust with each story. More or less though most have these. We start with the beginning. This is a setting, an exposition. This is the once upon a time where the heroic character starts generally from humble beginnings and this sets up the tale to be told. Next you have the conflict, a problem. All good stories, as I said, come from a point of conflict. Something happens to trigger a change and then this reaction happens, the story. And then you have a rising action, something that solves the problem. The aforementioned crisis is now being solved. At this point, often stories can get a little bit more complicated and layers and layers happen, sometimes more and more add up and turns and plot twists spiral to reach the next point. Then you have the culmination, the core of a problem. Finally at some point you reach this and this could be the final race for something or maybe the monster is laid. Perhaps it's not an end as much as knowing what the quest involves to finally complete it. And there's maybe more story that can come after a crisis. The story doesn't necessarily end there. Whatever it means, the story arc has reached a peak. And often this point comes as a pause, a breath of relief after a hectic frantic emotion. And then you have this falling action. This leads to solving a problem. After you get to the core of the problem, this happens. Maybe this is the after effect, but often though this is the effect of knowing the core problem and solving it, for example knowing where the final treasure is. And finally, after the long journey, we come to the outcome. How something is solved. Usually this results in a change for the heroic character. Often the world is changed through the arc. They are back at a point, yet they're not right back. A change has happened, and yet this is the happy ever after. Folkloreists sometimes divide all tales into two main groups of Martin and Sagan. Really forgive my pronunciation. These are German words, and the rough translations of these is fairy tales and legends. The first is Martin. These are the once upon a time tales. The stories we are used to attaching the word story to. The tales of our childhood, the castle, the enchanted forest. This world is separate and other from the one that we exist. Then you have Sagan. These are the stories pass on to each other. They actually happened and are of a very, very particular time and place. This is actually their power. These are the stories you want to tell in a product. As we create products, we want to create legends. We want to enable our heroines and heroes to succeed. All products have a story. The stories hold the product together. In many ways, it survives based on its own story arc. A product has several different types of stories that is worth identifying now. The first is the story of those that experience it. Then you have the story you attach to it. For example, have you ever given your phone a backstory of emotional intent? I know what I have. The story of how something is actually made is the third story. People buy better versions of themselves over just products. You've likely heard the term selling the dream. Whilst you ethically want to be cautious of this, you have to think when creating a product about enabling a better self. If you feel icky, because it can feel icky to start talking about selling, but what if it's enabling someone to earn a living? What if it allows them to send flowers to someone in a different continent they haven't seen for years? Or what if it allows them to tell their really important story through a blog? Dreams can be big or small just like stories. Airbnb really get that storytelling is important. Stories are so important they have an entire section devoted to them. They are selling the future story, the one of belonging. And the story of the production of an object is often nowadays as important as a story trying to be sold. Production being ethical is also a story to sell in itself with brands like Everline. Their brand is built on these words. Know your factories, know your costs, always ask why. They believe in radical transparency and declare this on their site. And that and that actually embrace telling stories in their product. For example, in the label you actually see this, saying where the product contains. And it shows the production story in the lining. Many manufacturers are doing this, telling the story of how something is made, where it comes from.  They see the bonding, the value and the long-lasting relationships. They have this scheme called Warnware where they see and they're trying to have a lot more of their products repaired. There are even videos telling the stories of the years that people have spent with each of the garments. It shows also those that do the repairs and the letters that are sent in when the products are also sent in, telling the story of why it's important to be repaired. And products by their very form can cause stories to be told. Monzo, which is a kind of a banking system, has this incredibly strong colour. Every time I use the card I get asked, what is that? Being noticeable allows the product to be sold itself by existing. I tell the story because people see that bright card and they ask about it. I find myself over and over telling the product's tale. Because using the product is incredibly delightful, I'm telling that experience. I willingly tell that story every time because it's so positive. But just like a positive experience tells a story, so does a bad one. We then attach a tragedy to a product. It might not even be the product itself. What about if you've had a really bad customer experience? I've had this myself with Fitbit because products actually break, but my own experience involved repeated breaking and whilst in the end it was replaced, my trust had been broken. I had to also fight for a result and didn't have a great experience with that because my trust was just gone forever. You may tolerate using it, I used it afterwards, but the delight has gone from the experience. Our product hearts are incredibly fragile, delicate and easily broken. Similarly, a good support experience can turn everything around. I had myself this experience recently with Airbnb. I had a really interestingly bad booking and it turned good by a full refund and incredible attention to customer care. Products also tell their own stories and we attach stories to them. For example, this example of saying that the MacBook was breathing. Humanizing inanimate objects is a very, very human thing to do. I do this all the time and I suspect that most of you do as well. This comes down to the very human nature of bonding. You attach and as a result infer around an inanimate object. This is a mixture of delight, emotion and attachment. So stories are really important, how do you actually discover them? Assuming stories or telling the story of someone else is far from the best route. You start quite simply by listening. Likely you are being told stories but you are not hearing them. From support calls through to testimonials, the stories are being told. Even issues or bugs reported have their own story. It's really just about listening to them. And just like a friend is there for you and supports, be there for your stories. Researching stories loosely forms, or I'm going to put it loosely into two types and these are going to be short and long. You can also see this is surface and deep. Just having surface stories isn't really going to be something to guide your product with. They are a good instant here. Great to have but don't fall into the trap of thinking they are going to be representative or give you deep insights. A good way of thinking about this is temperatures. But a word of caution. Short stories often because their real ease have a whole truckload full of bias. For example social media or reviews. A Twitter comment isn't a long story and really doesn't have an in-depth plot. Long stories give you a fuller picture but by their very nature are far more intensive to run. If you want to get deep stories to power your product then you need to dive into long stories but you can daily swim amongst the short stories. Phasing in and out is really important to not drain research and also keep those hunches that you have true when you're making the product. It's important to know when telling the stories of users you need to make sure you show all aspects and cover a wide wide range. Just limiting brings issues. So this is a story that's told in a lot of cultures about without seeing people describing for example an elephant by touch. So maybe someone who is feeling the head says this is a pot or maybe someone feeling an ear says it's a basket. The tusk, a plowshare, the trunk, a plow or maybe the foot they're saying a pillar. Without knowing the full picture how can you actually know what you're creating? This comes without knowing the stories. It's also important everyone involved in the product process gets involved in researching these stories. So once you've discovered all the amazing stories there's a step that quite often people miss. That's actually keeping them. The stories need processing, logging and to be available for everyone that works on the product today and will in the future. Otherwise what was the point in listening? This isn't just about presentation. It's important to have a place to store and easily search. That's like the baseline for these stories. I'm not talking about fancy personas or distilling either. It's about having a place to log these precious stories. Having it searchable for that future archaeology. Presenting the stories is going to be the next step to keeping them. Once you've logged them in the raw format you need to, depending on what works for your team distill them and present. There are many many different ways of doing this and not just personas. I'm not actually going to suggest the right way. I'll give you a guide here because it really depends on the team and who you are delivering this to. Make sure that everyone comes to the team is actually onboarded through the stories. This is crucial as it sets the tone and ensures rapid immersion. You then all speak the same language. Remember the tradition of stories being learning? Do that in your onboarding. When someone joins the team being able to have the stories told fast tracks them to the understanding. The product narrative should be shared as part of everyone's welcome. Once you have the stories, once you have them being listened to and are part of the onboarding, what now? Well now it's time to take the stories into the product themselves. This is where the stories begin to make real change. They come alive over just being told word for word. The value of stories can be directly seen in teams. You might be asking how can that be seen. They keep the focus on the user for a start. This perhaps is the biggest one as they're there right in the centre. You can't escape them as their story is being told. It also enables collaboration and sharing. This levels up as you listen to people saying, for example, what would Mary say about this and what would her experience be? And then telling the story of Mary. Stories also fuel creativity. They also enable faster product cycles by setting your team off on the right path. Everyone is on the same page being told the same stories, united. Stories activate people. You see this in children being told stories. It makes us experience and live that story. Crafting these into the product creation process taps into creativity that is otherwise sometimes locked. And this often leads to more exploration and safety to making those leaps when you have this creativity. Because there's that bond of the story mixed with the potency of the experience, it's a powerful conception to design a product in. These stories need to be told everywhere they can. If you have a physical space, put them around on your walls in your lunchrooms and in your breakout areas. Maybe you make physical story books. Whatever, they should be part of your space as a product team. And remote is no excuse either. These stories should be spoken in meetings. They should be easily seen everywhere the remote team actually interacts. This goes back to the presentation of the stories and adapting that to the team. Any product decision should also involve the stories because they back up and fuel it. Tell them in review meetings and ensure the voice of the users drowns out the latest hotness technique or design trend. Unless I did know it doesn't really matter how you show the stories, it's really quite useful and good to have some visualisation. Remember the Indigenous stories from Australia combining mediums? That's an incredibly effective way to tell the story and have it recalled by everyone on your team. A good tip is to get everyone to actually experience visualising the stories. This is where some people are going to cry, I am not an artist. But you can do this, everyone can be involved. Getting people to actually draw and interact visually with these isn't just for the designers in the group. There should be something for everyone. There are many easy methods you can use to visualise and anyone can do it no matter what their drawing ability. Story arcs are possibly one of the simplest forms and I don't encourage you to start exploring. You can read a little bit more with Donnelly Tell's resources and book that I'd encourage everyone to check out. You start with this current state of the character and drawing this can also be really helpful. Then the story arc. Remember we had this at the beginning. This seems familiar right now. A product can also have an arc. This experience is a story. Another basic but powerful method of telling stories is a story board. This literally can be stick people. Don't feel you have to create any great work of art here.  It works just as well. User or customer journey maps are also a really easy format to follow. You have a timeline and there's actions along it and there are a variety of ways to present this. If you're in a workshop mode, having a post-it timeline is a really great experience for everyone. You can then distill this and really use it in something. I've even seen people use Trello for this to catalog or plot. There are many, many approaches but it's really key to physically do by placing on the arc or timeline. Just like with any of these visualisations, there are many key elements you need to ensure to be effective. The first is experience. The actual doing of the visualisation is crucial to recall. By creating this visual story, that's where engagement happens. Our brains are connected and the story is stronger. Then you have report. Anything that is done should also be reported to the entire product team. You might not have everyone there who's working on it, so making sure that you document and report it and always summarise the explorations is really important. Then archive. Keep a log of the work done. Don't throw it away. This could just be like the stories that you archive but this also comes back to my early point of if you listen to a story, never lose it. This goes for visualisations or anything in a workshop, anything created. If someone joins in the future, they can use this to onboard and be on the same page as everyone. But again, make it easy to find. And then finally review. Don't cast your work in stone and say it's done, put a bow on it. Your product will change. So will the stories. You need to go back, take the temperature and go back to listening is really crucial. Otherwise you're telling the story of the people in the past that used your product. So I've looked at both why it's important and how to find the stories and store them. How do you kind of take this into the actual product? You found them, you visualised them. Now is when you really take them, those arcs and think about what the ideal map would be. Storytelling in a product can be seen as shifting between various phases.  Next you tell the stories, you visualise. Then after the product is shaped by the stories. Working out product paths to achieve the ideal happy ever after is that stage. Remember the structure of a story? Think about an experience. There's a beginning, a conflict, maybe that's sign up, sign up is always a conflict. Think of the story arc. Maybe they get lost or end in a checkout just abandoning their cart because the experience jarred for them. Maybe they tried to look for something and they couldn't, so they'd go and find it somewhere else. Perhaps they're trying to put their name into a checkout and it doesn't let them because of character or format limitations. Knowing these stories of crisis allows you to remove those obstacles and move the customers to success away from those harmful experiences. There are several storytelling techniques you can employ in product design worth noting. The first is setting the scene. You need to ease in the experience. Every story starts with a once upon a time. Paint that picture. This is the welcome, the tone setting for the entire experience. Your first point sets this tone for interactions after. And expectations are set. Next you cast your characters. Every part of the interaction and the experience is a character in a sense. Make sure you introduce them, have specific roles and respect those interactions to keep everything in the flow. For example, make sure your characters stay true. Having a form field change character partway through without any reasoning is incredibly disturbing for the person interacting. And then engagement is key to the flow of the story. Keep the pace. Move the reader or customer through the experience. Here is where you use that story arc, the tensions, the speed variations or to bring the heroic success. The pace of an interaction is key. Just fast enough but not too fast.  This is the all lived happily ever after. The end is often just as important as a beginning. The closure of an experience is something we often forget. Changing the narrative of a story from a tragedy to a heroic tale should really be your goal. It doesn't have to be a full sword wielding heroic tale either. Small tragedies add up to make a broken experience. But small wins also add up to a large pleasant heroic experience. Imagine once you see the story of a broken flow, you can't ignore it, you now create for it. That's the power of stories. It's worth noting a product also has this overarching story, but it also has little, even tiny subplots and stories of interactions. Write down to the story of a button click, the story of a form element. These little points are essential to understand. If you think of a great mystery, you don't know until the very, very end what the problem was. This is the same for an experience. Often you don't know that that button is going to really break it, but it sure will be that tiny little button that is the problem. The flow of experience matters just like story craft, craft that experience from start to end because these tiny little details matter. Maybe it's a new way to find tea like this from teapigs. Yet it's cute and it's not going to work in all cases, but having these little details adds up in the context of their sight and their experience, it's perfectly fitting to their tone.  Whilst designing for crisis, it sounds like something you really want to avoid, however there's always a crisis in a story. There's the will there, won't there? Our brains love a little bit of peril, just a little, not too much. Designing with this in mind in the experience can avoid distrust because we tend not to trust things that work too well, that work too smoothly, too unreal. Something's too good to be true. A little way you can do this is with time because being too fast can often be just as bad as being too slow for an experience. It's about balance. As someone overcomes a little something, they emerge changed for better by the story arc. How can you actually have that in your product? How can you give someone that win and that heroic journey? You need to think about that. That has to be safe. The kind of thing I think about in this context is if you have an ice cream and it's melting, there's this will it, won't it, kind of with the melting? It's safe, it's not too traumatic, and that's what you really want to go for. Plot, twist, a basic part of storytelling. Maybe it's something that works positively and expected, such as if you do a checkout and you have 10% automatically applied, that's a double delight. You've got to be gifted something and didn't actually have to add a code in. It just happened for you. If you plot the story arcs, you can follow them and see the impact before creating. Then you build with firm foundations of insights. Before you add something, think about what is the story? What does this add to the overall experience? Because if you're following a story, adding something to it can actually unbalance it. If you have a story set in deep space in the year 4000, if you were suddenly to add gremlins from the 1980s, that kind of took a very different turn as a story. The story may start out to be vague, but it's one that appears over time. Let everything come into focus as you listen. Potent design truly focused on stories means every decision is thought of as it changes the plot, the features, the counts, everything how it impacts the experience. A lot of this comes down at the core of having a story-driven process, and this means all roles. Anyone working on the product, if stories are at the heart of what you're creating, then so are those of the stories you're telling. The product will be created from a place of authenticity and truth. Keeping a touch point on this is how you stay true to those stories. There should be this constant story stream from the sketches that you make at the start to the product's ideal story to research and the product's real story over the years. The story of those who use the competition at the start that you learn about, the story of those telling and using a product over the years. This stream flows through your entire product creation experience, carrying along the team making it. The seeds of stories land throughout the product and grow. Stories are powerful. They're part of our genetic heritage. They teach us, guide us, and move us through the world. They fuel creation. By using them, you can change the narrative from tragedy to happy ever after because they resonate with our very essence and souls. By putting stories at the heart of everything you do, your experience will improve. And yes, everyone will live happily ever after. Thank you. So we have some time for questions. It doesn't have to be a full story. Can be a shorter question. Who's first? That was a great talk. Thank you. Thank you. How do you take someone whose first experience is a bad story and help guide them to where a story is better for both of you? So, I mean, the first place would be listening to what their bad story is, but you need to find ways to empower someone. If you think someone in a heroic tale, they find a magic weapon, right? And that weapon enables them to conquer or vanquish the monster. You need to find that for someone. Find whatever is the way that they are empowered, the way that they can grow. And not the way that you support them or just carry them with them helpless. That's not a particularly great heroic story. Generally, heroic tales don't involve the characters being carried. So, yeah, it's just that way of just really empowering and finding, from listening, finding ways that you can give them back control and give them back that ability. Next question. Not a question. I just wanted to thank you for offering your slides online. OK, thank you. No more questions. Last chance. Everyone just wants to go to the after party. Yeah, I think so. Fortunately, the after party is not until 8. And before we talk about the after party, there's one more thing that we absolutely do have to talk about. But first, big hand for Tammy.


Braided rivers leave a distinctive set of facies behind with deposition that's tied very closely to the dynamics of how the sediment's transported and deposited within the channels. So the channels in braided rivers migrate back and forth, and the deepest part of the flow has, of course, its grain sediments. As the channels migrate, they're eroding away the bars. And so if we plot a typical sequence of rocks, starting with zero at the base of a channel, it's eroding the bar on one side. So it's usually an erosional surface, and the course's grain sediments are at the bottom. And now the course's grain size that's integrated depends on the river itself. We'll make ours have cobbles here, and cobbles can accumulate. They get deposited, brought in by floods, and accumulate. And so this right here represents the base deposits at the base of the channel. As the beds accumulate, the water gets shallower, the bar migrates to the side, and so they often find upward. Usually the flow is so fast that you might not deposit very much of this finer sand. So we'll make ours end, and it looks like about coarse sand. And if we think about the sedimentary structures down here, there might be some planar lamination, but the trough cross stratification is more common. As you get further up into the area here, you can end up with ripples. Or if you remember the bed form diagram, you start to get planar lamination and finer grains at a lower flow speed. And so you might actually have some upper planar lamination in some of the sediment here. So in general, what this change in the channel faces are showing is a finding upward of the sediment and a change in the grain size. So this is at the base of the channel. This part is deposited on a bar that's migrating into that area. And so then at some point the top of the bar might be exposed a little bit. And then the next flood comes, and the flow speed might be fast enough that this gets eroded. Or it could be that just another channel migrates into this area, and this will end up eroded, and the thicknesses vary. So this would be, again, the base of a channel, the main part of a channel finding upward onto the bar. So this would be another channel deposit, and then this would be a channel deposit as well. So if we were going to define faces for a braided river channel, the characteristics would include the sedimentary structures, the grain size, and their relationships to each other. So we could define them as being a group of rocks. The channel faces of a braided river could be a group of rocks that typically has a scoured surface at the base with gravel or cobble lag deposit or conglomerate. And they find upward with a trough cross stratification, a planar lamination, and current ripples in correspondingly finer grain sizes. So that's the channel faces themselves, but we also have overbank deposits. And so the overbank deposits, because the water is still flowing, usually consist of sand and silt, plus soil, and if it's post-divonian and on earth, vegetation. If there is some mud present, they can include things like mud cracks as well. Thanks for watching.


Hello everyone, welcome back from the break. Hope everyone's back It's a to do a quick read of what we discovered in the last class We finished the section of look at the third and fourth point of what is worship and try to understand a little bit more on on the verse John chapter 4 verse 23 and 24 what it really means to worship him in spirit and in Truth, okay Sorry guys, I wanted to I wanted to give us another scripture. I don't know where I wrote it And where it's gone. So Great, okay Okay, never mind. Sorry apologies Okay, so yeah, we saw that it is the Holy Spirit that Who abides in us and powers as to worship him in spirit? And we also worship him in truth, which it simply means Worshiping him according to the revealed word of God Okay So that was the last section of the chapter but What I want to do right now is just share briefly on the topic of encounter Because on in the fourth point It's not in your notes, by the way, I'm going to share my screen and I'll share these share this PDF Later in the stream section. Okay, so you don't have to look at your notes. You all you have to do is look at the screen, okay? John has already heard me speak on the subject apologies John It is going back to the fourth point You know we see that worship is a response to an encounter with God, isn't it and this word Encounter is such a big deal in in the context of worship in You know in the Christian in a Christian walk keep talking about this word encounter with the Lord I had this encounter with God so I felt like you know adding this to the subject We'll just help us understand a little bit more better. Okay, and I hope that's all right as mentioned You know, I will share this PDF in the class stream section for you to You know, take a look at it later. All right so Encounter What what is an encounter? You know, what is the dictionary definition to it? Okay? It says Encounter by definition simply means to experience or be faced with Unexpectedly be faced with or experience something hostile difficult or whatever. Okay, so that's that's what an encounter is. Okay, and Coming face to face with an unexpected Okay, there's an unexpected, you know encounter with the reality. Okay more definitions on encounter means Some things up with my computer. Okay, sorry Encounter means to meet face to face unexpectedly and Encounter in involves an element of surprise Of an element of suddenness it means to meet someone or To meet someone in a way that you have not expected it to be Okay, it means to meet someone or meet someone in a way that you have not expected it to be The last definition says an encounter does not mean a second-hand report about a person or a situation It means a face-to-face Meeting, okay, you know, I'm sure we've all had this we've come across a situation where You know, your friend will tell about another friend that you have not met yet It's like, okay, hey, you know what this person is like this. This is the so-and-so person is like that He looks like this, you know, she looks like that Etc. Etc.  So it changes the perspective, okay So the fourth point there as it mentions is an encounter does not mean a second-hand report So when you and come when you encounter someone or something, okay You have like the first hand report, you know, you've tasted and you've seen you've experienced it That is what an encounter is so to encounter God Means to meet him face to face and expect that something unexpected will happen as a result of that encounter Okay to encounter God means to meet him face to face and expect that something unexpected will happen as a result of that encounter It is a divine appointment which is marked by his presence his power and his deliverance When you encounter Jesus, you are forever changed by the experience. Okay, so Why an encounter with God matters? Why is it important? You know Why is it important? You know, what's the big deal about it? Why do we have to learn about it? Why do we have to, you know, go a little bit more deeper into this? Okay, and how is it related to worship? We'll see that in the sections to come. Okay So why an encounter with God matters? You need an encounter with God to start a relationship with God It's a very simple point, right? It is somewhere in our life. We encountered the love of God We encountered the grace of God. We encountered his mercy in our lives We've tasted somewhere in our journey, right? We've encountered that So that encounter, that initial encounter initiated a relationship with the Lord Right? So we need to have an encounter with God to start a relationship with God And so if you don't see flashes of lightning or hear the audible voice of God, you don't see the heavens open Doesn't mean that you haven't encountered him Okay, if you don't see things like what Isaiah saw or Ezekiel saw Doesn't mean that, okay? It's because at some point in our lives we've encountered his love of grace, like mentioned, you know, we are where we are And what is happening in those moments is that God is planting a seed in our hearts Okay, and this seed is the beginning of something beautiful Okay So that's why it's important, okay? The first point is that we need an encounter with God to start a relationship with God And then the seeds are never meant to stay as seeds, isn't it? Encounters with God builds our faith Okay, so your relationship with God builds our faith Okay, so your relationship with God starts with an encounter, but it continues by faith Okay, so seeds are never meant to stay seeds. They are made to grow Okay, so likewise faith isn't meant to stay a seed in our hearts, but it is destined to grow So in order for a seed to grow into a healthy tree We need a good soil, water, sunlight, etc, etc So similarly, life isn't always going to be easy In those wilderness seasons, you need to have faith to continue And encounters are like water to our heart. They increase our faith Encounters with the Lord is like water, like a good soil, like a good light of sunrise hitting us It increases our faith. It helps that seed to keep growing and growing So encounters with God builds our faith So let's look at a few very familiar encounters from the Bible that people have had And you all know all of these characters that we are looking at Okay, so Abraham's encounter with God You know what happens in his journey of faith, he's not as a father of faith, isn't it? It's very interesting in the life of Abraham and Sarah and Jacob One of the first things that God does in this encounter is that he changes their identity It changes their identity. It's like he's bringing them into his reign, into his rule, into his kingdom, into his family That's what baptism also means. Baptism simply means immersion. It's like bringing them into his fellowship So Abraham becomes Abraham Jacob, his name is changed to Israel and in Genesis 30 to 30, Jacob names that place as Peniel Which means I have seen God face to face So we know the encounter of Abraham. We know the story of Jacob. This is just a few And you know the encounter of Paul Okay, so who is Paul according to the Bible? We see that Paul is a devout Jew. He's known as the Pharisee of the Pharisees He's a religious. He's a persecutor of the Christians. He persecuted the church. He killed those who believed in Jesus In Acts chapter 8 verse 3, you see that Paul, Saul began to destroy the church Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison And Acts chapter 9 verse 1 and 2 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples He went to high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus So that if he found any there who belonged to the way, the way were the Christians, the people of Who followed Jesus were known as the people of the way, right, who belonged to the way Whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem You see, he was a very passionate persecutor of Christians And what happens? Encounter with the Lord He encounters Jesus He goes blind for three days And he's a changed man And what is happening there is that he's having a revelation of Jesus and the cross Why do you persecute me? Jesus asked him, isn't it? So he is having this encounter with him And in that encounter, there is this revelation of who this Jesus is So in every encounter we have, guys There is a revelation of who this Jesus is Just like we read in Psalm 145 There is new reason It means there's this new revelation, ongoing revelation Just like the creatures in Revelation chapter 4 They have unlimited perspective, ongoing revelation of who God is Which leads to unending worship That is what is happening in every encounter And that's what happened here In Revelation chapter 6 verse 14 We see that, may I never boast Except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, Paul writes Through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world A guy who persecuted the church Who murdered Christians Who went to the officials Asking for letters, official letters So that he can take Christians into prisoners But one encounter with him, with Jesus Changes everything, his entire course of life There's just another character But one of my favorite encounters in the Bible Is mentioned in John chapter 20 Can we all just go to John chapter 20 please Is everybody doing alright? Yeah, with me I hope you are John chapter 20 everybody John chapter 20 verse 1 onwards I'll read it for us It says, early on the first day of the week Early on the first day of the week While it was still dark Mary Magdalene went to the tomb And saw that the stone had fallen She went to the tomb And saw that the stone had been removed While it was still dark she ran Verse 2 So she came running back to Simon Peter And the other disciple The one Jesus loved And said, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb And we don't know where they have put him Verse 3 So the Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb Both were running But the other disciple outran Peter And reached the tomb first So John runs faster than Peter And he reaches the tomb first Verse 5 Interesting, pay attention He bent over And looked in at the strips of linen lying there But did not go in It's amazing the details The Bible records Why does it have to mention that But it did not go in, it's amazing Verse 6 Then Simon Peter Who was behind him arrived And went into the tomb So Peter sees the strips of linen lying there Verse 7 As well as the burial cloth That had been around Jesus' head The cloth was folded up by itself Separate from the linen Finally the other disciple Who had reached the tomb first So Peter went inside He saw and he believed And believed Verse 9 They still did not understand From the scripture That Jesus had to raise Had to rise from the dead Verse 10 Here's where the story takes a different turn Verse 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes But Mary stood outside the tomb Crying She did not go back As she wept She bent over to look into the tomb Mary sees two angels In white Seated where Jesus' body had been One at the end One at the head And the other at the foot They asked a woman Why are you crying?  Who is it you are looking for? Mary thinking he was the gardener She said, sir If you have carried him away Tell me Where you have put him I will get him Jesus said to her Mary She turned toward him And cried out In Alameic Which means teacher Just look at that Verse Verse 15 When Jesus asked her Why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? She says Tell me where you have put him And I will get him Oh boy How many of us know how heavy a dead body is It's pretty heavy And It's not impossible But it's very hard For it to be carried by one single person It's very heavy But here Mary is saying Mary was willing to love On a dead Jesus Like I don't want I don't want any more deliverance I don't want any more healing I don't want any more blessing I don't want him for what he can do I want him For who he is And at that point Jesus calls her by her name Mary She turned towards him Verse 17 Jesus said Do not hold on to me Mary For I have not yet returned to the Father That means there was something else On Jesus' calendar That he wanted to do But then it was Her desperation for Jesus That made Jesus stop by Okay Jesus said Do not hold on to me For I have not yet returned to the Father Mary But go instead to my brothers And tell them I am returning to my Father And your Father To my God and your God Mary Magdalene went to the disciples I have seen the Lord And she told them that He had said these things to her That last verse in verse 18 I have seen the Lord The result of hunger The result of desperation The result of just waiting A little longer on him The result of Just wanting Jesus For Jesus And not something that he can do But I have seen the Lord And When I was reading this scripture A few Many years ago Once again Holy Spirit just so beautifully reminded me And he asked me to Go to second Song of Songs If I can quickly find it Song of Songs Chapter 3 Okay Song of Songs Chapter 3 This thing of John 20 John Chapter 20 was Which is so beautifully Kind of prophesied So many Hundreds of years ago Song of Songs Chapter 3 It says verse 1 onwards All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves I looked for him But did not find him I will get up now And go above the city Through its streets and squares I will search for the one my heart loves Pay attention to this So I looked for him But did not find him Verse 3 The watchman found me As they made their rounds in the city Have you seen the one my heart loves Scarcely had I passed them When I found the one my heart loves I held him And would not let him go I held him And would not let him go Song of Songs Some agree Some don't agree As a metaphor Or as an analogy Between The church As the bride of Christ And Jesus as the bridegroom But then the same imagery In a way it's happening here In John 20, 20, isn't it? When Mary was just waiting Waiting for the one that her heart longed for When she found She held on to him So much that Jesus had to say Don't hold on to me, Mary For I have Not yet returned to the Father Okay So A powerful encounter You know, and that Results She's the first evangelist It's awesome, isn't it? So three lessons for Mary's encounter With Jesus that we can take away Intentional Hunger, desperation, brokenness And humility Intentional First verse, John 21 Early on the first day of the week The Sabbath got over While it was still dark Mary Magdalene went to the tomb She must have not slept all night She was intentional She already planned She intended to go And look for Jesus She was intentional She was hungry When Simon and John went back She stayed outside the tomb Crying She was desperate She wanted to go to an extent Asking Tell me where you have laid him I will go get him I don't know what she wanted to do But she was desperate She was broken She was humble enough to say I want him I want more of him Desperation This desperation, brokenness, hunger Those things are like magnet It's like What to say, a black hole Right? When we walk in that such desperation Haven't Just can't ignore And time and time again We read in the Bible that God says I saw the tears of Anna I saw the cry of Hagar and her kid And he always responds And so God always responds When we get desperate for him When we get broken before him Before him Okay, that's point one And two Sorry, the second lesson In her encounter, Mary's encounter With Jesus is that she was focused She couldn't care less about the two angels So she wasn't impressed Yeah, angels If it was me, I was like Angels You know But she was focused I want Jesus I'm looking for the one my heart loves I just pause and ask yourself this question Who is it The one that your heart loves Is it Jesus Is your heart looking for something else Or someone else besides Jesus Is your heart focused Or is your heart fixed Is your eyes fixed On Jesus And finally The third point is persistence And patience With intentionality And focus Is relatively easy to have An encounter with God Is already promised That when we draw near to him He will draw near to us She waited Peter and John went back home But she stayed back She persisted She was patient So those are the three lessons From Mary's encounter with Jesus It's a beautiful encounter It's one of my favorite encounters in the Bible And so And just going on to another section What are the results Of an encounter Okay The effects of an encounter Could be different It's so different to different individuals We may experience Something that you've never known before A new confident in God's love A fresh infelling of the Holy Spirit A boundless joy in the goodness of God But whatever happens We find that many people experience The following changes One, an encounter will lead us to a repentance You see that in Psalm 51 At the end of the encounter Most people will come face to face With their own sinfulness When Isaiah Has this encounter with the Lord That he sees He says, woe unto me For I am a man of unclean lips When we come face to face With The Holy One The Most Holy One You kind of see yourself as we Okay, now I know who I am Right And that leads to repentance And there's a sense of new direction Okay, when Peter and Andrew Ordinary fishermen encounter Jesus Their lives took a drastic new direction From fishermen they went on to become The fishes of men And finally The last result of an encounter with the Lord Is a transformed heart When Jacob had an encounter with the Lord His relationship with his brother Esau changed So all of the above Repentance, new direction Transformed heart Just leads to one thing That is worship Right, so as we Saw on that fourth point in your notes That worship Is our response To an encounter With the Lord Okay, so ask yourself this question What if you encounter God today What would you do What have you done with the encounters You have had with God so far And what's an encounter with God That has marked your life Okay This quote is actually by Bill Johnson I forgot to give credit there But he says You were created for encountering God And you will never be satisfied Until you continually live In the experience for which You were created Okay, you were created for encountering God And you will never be satisfied Until you continually live In the experience for which you were created Okay So that's the end of That's just a brief study On encounter Why is it important for us to have An encounter with the Lord What have we done with the encounters That we've had so far You know, what can we learn From some of the encounters That people have had in the Bible As just as one example Three lessons that we could take away From Mary's encounter With Jesus Is that it should encourage us It should push us It should motivate us To be focused, to be hungry To be desperate And humbly seek after him more Right Everybody doing well Are you guys with me Did I lose you all Okay So I mean after just looking at all of this Do you think that an encounter With the Lord is important Yes Do you long for an encounter with him The teacher side and me Wants to continue With the chapter But just feel like We need to just pause at this moment We just pause And just like Mary Can we just wait on him Just to stick this time Just to stick this time And just settle our hearts And just lift your prayers Up to him And say My heart's been divided For too long My heart has been fixed On too many other things But you Lord I've been focused on everything else But you Lord I've been focused on my worries My fears about tomorrow I've been focused on My insecurities I've been focused on my pain What I'm going through I've been focused on the storms all around me But I just want to stand still right now In your presence I want to recognize your presence I want to acknowledge your presence And just say that I am hungry for you I'm desperate For you God Can we just take another 30 seconds Or a minute And let the Holy Spirit minister to you Yeah Is that okay Just take a minute or so Let's take a break from all the theory That we've learned So many things So many points So many steps Just open up our hearts So Father we I pray in your name This incredible privilege that we have To come to your throne of grace Just as we are And to call you Abba Father And so Father Everything that we are learning about Worship Lord I pray that we will worship you In spirit and in truth Lord Beyond the points Beyond the theory Of our understanding Beyond the definitions of worship That you would release an encounter That we will walk into an encounter with you God That defies definition So we open up our hearts And I pray Father That you would encounter each and every single person Father in this class Lord I pray that That you would see the hungry heart A desperate heart Lord I pray that you would see a humble heart I thank you Lord Amen Amen Yes Is there anything that you Does anybody want to share Any insight from what we've learnt What kind of stood out to you What would be your key takeaway Feel free to share Yes Divya please go ahead Yeah thank you Vesta So this Encounter With God All those encounters mentioned In the Bible Has always been very fascinating Because I think each person Has a You know a unique revelation about God Maybe it is And one thing that is really common Is the holiness Aspect of God And Yeah And how even in the Old Testament Like God is revealing Himself progressively Like I am Jehovah Jaira Jehovah Rafa So that progressive revelation Through different encounters So yeah And one thing that One thing that I really You know did not know Was even after becoming a Christian For a long time I mean I always try to do things for God But It was a constant struggle for me And There was a time when God put this word Inside me Like be still And know that I am God And it was a Very It was very precious for me Because yeah I was like those disciples Maybe in the storm They are just you know They are not looking And they are not realizing They are just telling me still And know that I am God Have a revelation of who I am So yeah And then counter with God Really helped me with the Response You know to the right response Me trying or striving to do things Yeah Yes I just want to share Thank you David Thanks for sharing Anybody else But today We will conclude with that Anybody Yes Alice correct Yeah Because take away from me was like When you were sharing the Greatness of God Becomes more greater When we Obey Him So the obedience become The factor to To see More greater God To see The greatness of God And more and more deeper way So yeah So that was like key take away Thank you Alice Thank you for sharing Just one more person Yeah Thank you for sharing He has the power to cleanse us From all the sins You just need to seek his heart Person Key take away from today's lesson And we will conclude Share something Sure Isaac please go ahead Yes and In the Story of the encounter For us encounter with the Lord I'm just saying that Sometimes in our lives It is the Lord himself Who prompts The encounter Because from what I saw From Paul's encounter with the Lord His motive was different In fact he was Going about Persecuting Killing, destroying Christians What I'm saying God saw Maybe he needed him Or we needed him So I said God From the encounter Because it was not Paul's intention To have an encounter with the Lord In fact it was the contrary But God Encountered him On the way to Damascus Yes Take care of yourself Thank you Isaac Yes Alright guys Thank you all for sharing Thank you for being part of class today I hope everybody could take away something From today's class I will share the encounter notes On the class stream section Okay I will stop the recording Thank you all for joining Take care Have a good day Bye bye I'll see you all next week Thank you Pastor Thank you guys God bless you Thank you


What's up guys and welcome to Trendy Updates up our SPM boys. Now unto the trending news today is Wasingishu Senator Jackson Mandago has been arrested in Eldoret. Now this comes after Senator has been sought by the police of a Finland scholarship saga. Kamuna kumbukani story ambayili kweiki trend last week from a lady who had raised concern and addressed the officials of Wasingishu county and among them was Senator Jackson Mandago. Now he has been arrested by the police and along the police had sent a warrant of arrest against Senator Jackson Mandago and it said the national police service is in the process of executing a warrant of arrest against Wasingishu Senator Jackson Mandago who has gone underground seeds yesterday and calls upon the senator to present himself at the nearest police station. Okaiza kwandika namba pali. They also went ahead to appeal to any member of our public with information about Senator Mandago's whereabouts. Na okaiza kusemom kimuna mueziku report. Lakini news that are coming in is that Jackson Mandago the senator of Wasingishu county has been arrested over the Finland scholarship saga. Lakini pii kumbukwa that the president Rutoad Center warning on overseas scholarship saga kaiza kusema and asking the leaders who embezzled the money meant for university airlift program to refund victims. Na akaiza kusema however is not going to be returning at a kua and face the law. Nona Leo Jackson Mandago the senator meza kushi kwa pali. The senator himself had commented and said there are rumors all over Eldore town that DCI officers have been looking for me the whole night with the intention to arrest me. I wish to reiterate that I as a law abiding citizen I am available to present myself to any station once or summoned. Na libu ala eza kusema evondo news are coming in that he has been arrested. Nteza kusoma comments pwale. Anato JB classic says hope the rule of law will confront him the way that young lady confronted him head on. Obviously Manu says formalities tupu if Didymas Barasi killed a guy and he was in parliament yesterday passionately giving speeches on legislation. Kuyu akuna kitua tafaniwa. Misa Pradila na sewa na hapa meosha mandago niyajia neza drive de wa wa wewe alafu kuna breezy laboi. Seizu sadly watatoka tu na yo pesa aita kua refunded at this is Kenya our country. Pari seizu hao watu ho hawa na ruma wa na resa jemku hat mtu atadui dawa ya antepredipresent okay. DM Kemani says the media is a powerful weapon if used correctly. Anikimali zia black beetle says and the way wa kale wa li kua wana ja kevi diyae daily umgetani wana enjoy ride gia elevator. Aya Barasi let us know down on the comment section what are your thoughts regarding what's in gishu senator Jackson mandago being sort of by the police regarding the Finland and Canada scholarships candle but in the meantime keep it trendy updates hapa SPM buzz