Hello and welcome to Daily Debrief brought to you by People's Dispatch. I am Shreya. In today's episode, we look at West Asia where Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations. The agreement was reached on Friday, March 10 during talks in Beijing. Meanwhile, another interesting development in Beijing comes as President Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as President extending his tenure by another five years. An important development for West Asia took place on March 10, Friday as Iran and Saudi Arabia announced to re-establish diplomatic relations. The agreement between the two regional rivals was reached following talks brokered by Beijing. The countries have also decided to re-open their embassies within two months. In 2016, Saudi Arabia had cut its ties with Iran after protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran following Riyadh's execution of the Shia leader Nimr al-Nimr. The latest agreement holds significance for two reasons. It is the coming together of two regional poles of power and for the role played by China. We are joined by newsclicks Prabir Purkayastha to talk more about this issue. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode Prabir. We are glad to have you back. A very important development taking place in Asia and a lot of change in terms of who are the players, who and the involvement of China like we just talked about earlier and most importantly the relationship that Iran and Saudi have shared historically in several parameters and also politically. So there's a lot going on here and has a larger implications as well. Could you start off by explaining like what is the you know the significance, the pressing significance of this announcement? You know this is important for a particular reason which is of course that oil is a critical resource for the whole world. It really underpins the energy structure of the world at the moment still. It produces not only in Europe both LNG and oil produce also electricity. Obviously for automobiles, for cars, for trucks, buses. It's a huge resource that is required in almost all countries and also if we look at it even deeper, it's also a feedstock for various chemical processes, fertilizers and so on. So this energy structure is crucially dependent still on West Asia. Why is it so?  It is also supplying a lot to the international market but West Asia has really huge resources which are not used in the region so much. Therefore the surplus of this to the rest of the world countries like India and China are of course extremely significant. So it plays an outsized role in the world because of the strategic significance of the hydrocarbon economy. So to say we may talk about global warming, how should get away from this but right now it is also what Europe wants to call transitional fuel. How could I correct that is a different question but there's no question. The hydrocarbon economy is very important for the world. It underpins our energy infrastructure. Given that the fact that there are fissures or divisions in the area between the countries means for outside powers it makes it easier to intervene and therefore the Iran-Saudi Arabia contest so to say in the region also allowed a power like for instance Israel to believe it could create fissures on those who oppose Israel support the Palestine people and particularly the Palestine state which effectively has never been allowed to come into play really earn its independent status by Israel. Given that that if Iran and Saudi Arabia come together then the fissures the divisions among the Arab states and among what are called the Sunni-Shia states all of that then goes away or at least diminishes considerably. Of course there is still the issue of Yemen where Saudis and Iran are an opposite side so that issue has not yet been settled but the potential is there but it does create a much more of a shall we say resistance to Israeli politics in the area and particularly may therefore change the equation for Palestine or the forces within Palestine given Israel right now has a really right wing government that is going all out to crush even internal resistance as well as resistance from the Palestinians but leaving that out for the moment so I think this is a huge change for West Asia and what the West likes to call Middle East geographically that's something very difficult for us to see because it's to the west of us so it's really a huge change for the area and particularly for United States which has considered itself the mentor of West Asia including the Carter doctrine which said essentially that West Asia's oil is a strategic resource for the United States and therefore the Carter doctrine essentially meant what the cartoons in our times when we are young used to say their oil our oil is under their sand that was the supposed to be the American imagination that it is their oil America's oil which is under Arab sands now this vision is of course also going to have a significant change because if Iran and Saudi Arabia come together then all the other countries in the region whether it is Syria whether it is Emirates whether it is you know Iraq all of them then can start coming together as a West Asian region and therefore the possibility of peace in the region providing a more unified and this you know understanding against for instance what Israel has been trying to do but also playing its role in the world in a much better way than the world intervening in West Asia so I think this is a huge change particularly as you might be aware that Saudi Arabia is of course the largest reserve of oil but also the largest one of the largest exporter the largest exporter in fact and the fact that it was always delegated in dollars meant also the dollar hegemony of the United States was also being maintained so I think Saudi is now making up with Iran Saudis earlier deciding to sell their oil in the Chinese to the Chinese in Chinese currency all of this are herbingers of change which will be in the US will no longer be the arbiter of the region other players are also going to play their role right and on that note Trabir like you mentioned a very important element of this agreement is that it's been brokered by China and this somewhere signals towards the changing power dynamics in the region when it comes to the influence of US and now something like this happening with the brokering with the mediation from China so what can be the implications I think you hinted towards it in the earlier question as well for the rest of the countries and what does it say to the so-called say about the so-called great power rivalry in the region you know the great power rivalry is a concept which sort of comes from colonial times so I don't think that that should be the framework with which we see these things in fact it's also interesting that's what the ex-colonial and the settler colonial powers would like to talk about the world they see it in terms of great power rivalry with the British and the French the Americans talking about the Monroe doctrine that this is really our hemisphere I don't think that's the way to see the question is can we have a different way of saying international issues and increasingly whether we can have a cooperative framework rather than a competitive framework now one part of the cooperative framework if was if you could have a trade equation in which all countries can trade with each other the question of currency becomes then of course important whose currency and that's why the global currency being dollar was gives United States a whip hand over the global trade as well as the financial markets the second part of it is if it is not competition then of course it makes it much easier for countries to trade with each other in a different way now as you can see that the world trade organization WTO's concept supposedly of free trade was very useful for the United States in the west at one point to capture other people's markets but now that they don't have that kind of hegemony you can see that they are starting what would be called the great power rivalry as you talked about and the sanctions on Russia of course with the Ukraine war being the trigger but also sanctions on China so given all of that the fact that China has emerged not only as a largest trade partner of 80 countries in the world over the last 20 years displacing United States from that position also means that China's role is becoming politically much more important and don't forget this is really Asia China is close to Central Asia it's one border of Central Asia Russia's another border of Central Asia other border of Central Asia is Iran so all of this regions if along with West Asia you get that Eurasian land mass minus South Asia because we actually and Southeast Asia are not a part of this region then there is a dynamic which is developing which means that this region can emerge as a political player in its own right and it does not need to indulge in who rules over whom because what China seems to be doing with also the belt road initiative that it is partnership of the economies we give you technology we'll give you knowledge we'll build infrastructure and that's what really attracts out the Arabia we'll build inductive infrastructure we'll be other infrastructure for you in exchange for you whatever you can give us in the case of West Asia obviously oil also for Central Asia the other issues minerals and so on so whether the cooperative picture can emerge rather than a great power rivalry is the issue because Central Asia originally was always the great game which was really competition between colonial parts and of course Russia as well so given that is the world changing and I think it's a very important harbinger of change really indicator of change when Saudi Arabia and Iran both by no means allies of China in the past are asking China to negotiate as an honest broker between them and the peace agreement is being signed in China so I think that's a very very significant indicator that the fulcrum in the world today is not just the United States but also China because it's such a large economic power and therefore we are seeing multiple poles emerge today and also the role of bricks might become in the future very important because bricks is really China India Russia Brazil South Africa all continents and their current GDP if you're taking in purchasing power parity terms it's just a little more than the G7s therefore the economic weight in the world of course purchasing power parity is not the same as the dollar value of the economy so that G7 still leads but the fact is purchasing power parity is what people see when you buy and sell within the country that's what you see so this the fact that bricks 5 is already bigger than G7 is an indicator also the economic weight is changing and I think that is why you will see increasingly whether it is Africa whether it's Asia whether it's Latin America you will see countries will say we'll settle our differences ourselves we don't need the big brother United States telling us what to do and right now after West Asia the conflict is really in Africa and because I think Latin American countries are more capable of asserting themselves though they haven't till date but Mexico Brazil Colombia all of these countries Chile Argentina all of them have the ability to decide how they want to run things in Latin America I think the next part of this which is going to play out in Africa and China's influence there is not inconsiderable and Russia has also has residual long term goodwill because of the role it played in decolonization of Africa I think so this is the harbinger of very interesting times that you have really a country which has never been instrumental in making peace between two major other countries not in its fear of influence by a long shot but it should be seen by the two contestants as the country to mediate between the two of them I think that's a very very important change that we are seeing today right very rightly said Praveer I think this is a development that has global implications and one that needs to be closely watched out for thank you so much for joining us today China's President Xi Jinping secured a third term retaining his position as president for another five years on Friday March 10 nearly 3,000 members at the National People's Congress voted unanimously in the great hall of the people for the 69-year-old Xi he came to power as president in 2013 and was also elected for a record third term as general secretary of the ruling communist party in October 2022 on March 11 Li Qiang the former communist party chief of Shanghai took up the country's second highest post on Saturday putting the close ally of Mr. Xi in charge of reviving an economy battered by three years of COVID-19 we're now joined by Anish from People's Dispatch to talk about these latest developments so first question first is that what really happened at the parliamentary at this parliamentary session can you explain it to us so yeah so the the session that is about to conclude uh actually concluded uh is the what is called as the two sessions uh in most mainstream media outlets basically uh uh you know a consecutive session not a consecutive a parallel set of two sessions held by one the National People's Congress which is the highest legislative body of China and the national consultative body which is basically a united front of not just the Communist Party of China but also members of the United Front parties that are part of the member of part of the United Front that rules China so most people don't know this but technically speaking despite the most you know a very unique part a single party dominance or a single party controlled state China is technically speaking led by a coalition of about a dozen political parties uh that had created a united front during the Chinese revolutions so it is uh so this body doesn't really have the sort of legislative or executive powers as the National People's Congress does but uh they are significant because they do uh from a part of a larger consultative body which includes uh you know different sectors ranging from industrialists to trade unions to youth movements and women's movements being part of this coalition so it is generally a massive consultative process that has come to an end and we have seen uh significant uh measures and policy measures actually uh taken up because eventually the NPC is the one that uh frames uh you know the body of the state's uh policy directives and it is these policy directives that will be uh you know uh that will actually lead the country for the next one year uh that will actually uh inform government policies of all matters or at least most of the matters uh for the next one year and we have seen the focus this time being on uh rejuvenating the growth rate uh not just uh on a quantitative term as in just basic numbers on GDP growth but also in in qualitative terms with special attention being given to science and technology research development uh and also to uh boost the high-tech industry industrial sector that is now growing and you know coming to coming of age in many ways in china to an actual global leader and this is what they want uh to actually lead their economic growth uh at least for the next five years that Xi Jinping would be uh president at least and so these measures are definitely part of an overall scheme to uh basically push China's uh you know economic power forward uh but in a manner that is uh you know driven by advancements in science and technology and this is significant considering the fact that the United States is right now making measures uh that is trying that will attempt to choke at least several of China's uh you know technological uh field and advancement and also its research development also anish can you tell us about the significance of this third term yeah so it is not necessarily uh just the fact that Xi Jinping has been re-elected for a third term it is not unprecedented in China's history obviously uh but it is the fact that he's also coming with a very new team of state council a new administration that will be overseeing uh the state reforms that are that have been passed by the national Congress uh key among them is basically Li Chiang who was very recently elevated to the second senior most position after Xi Jinping in the Politburo Standing Committee which is the highest you know political body within the Chinese Communist Party and you have other members including Li Wuxiang who was a member in fact the leader of the China's national trade union confederation and you have other members as well who were you know who were administrators who ran cities who were also faces of the uh the COVID-19 pandemic as in the the zero COVID policy that was implemented and also in the aftermath when uh aftermath of winding down of the zero COVID policy so you have actually uh faces that were very crucial for the last two or three years in running uh not only the grassroots of the China's economy but also uh informing the national policy on counter-pandemic and also the economic fallouts of this pandemic uh so definitely bringing them to uh you know to the national state council you have a very clear vision of revival of the economy and at the same time a very you know key focus on you know a very qualitative and also regimented uh growth targets that the new government will be pushing for in the next five years so this is definitely a sort of a significant push forward if you see for China domestically speaking obviously in the foreign policy issues you will have a very similar set of policies but there is definitely an attempt to address a certain and the encirclement policy obviously of the United States especially with you know focus on science and technological development so these factors will also be part of the fact that this new uh you know this new cabinet that has been formed uh will be taking on will be taking head on in the next couple of years right thank you so much for joining us Anish yeah and that's all we have for today for most stories follow our website peoplesdispatch.org you can also follow us on facebook twitter and instagram


Let's go for a walk. Friends, I'm Bianca Renee, and you're watching Bianca Renee Today. And today's video is long overdue, which is how to take care of your curls or keep them safe while swimming in the pool or swimming in the ocean. Granted, I'm making this video in 2020 where summer was basically canceled. I think there's about 24 hours left of summer. But if you happen to cross a body of water in the near future, you're gonna be ready. If you're new here, welcome. I post new curly hair videos every single week. So if you have curly hair questions, there's a 99.9% chance I have a video explaining exactly what you're worried about. So hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any more videos. Let's jump on into the tips before you jump on into the pool. My first tip is to get your hair wet before getting in the pool. I know it seems kind of strange to get your hair wet before getting it wet in the pool, but think of your hair like a sponge. When you put sponge in water, it's gonna soak it all up. And then it doesn't only have much room to absorb anything else because it's already full of water. So we kind of want our hair to be full of clean water from the shower. And then when we jump in the pool, the chlorine water doesn't really have too much room to fit because it's already full of clean water. So depending on where you are, you could just make sure to hop in the shower before you get in the pool, put your hair under the sink, or if you're already at someone else's house and it's kind of weird to use a shower, you could bring a bottle of water in the pool with you and then dunk your hair before it's submerging it in the water. Another thing you should do to add on to that water because water will evaporate and dry eventually is to add a leave-in conditioner. You could use a conditioner or a deep conditioner, but I would probably save your deep conditioner for after you go swimming. So maybe choose between a leave-in or a regular conditioner. A conditioner is also gonna do the same thing where it's going to fill your hair up with moisture so that there's not a lot of room for anything else to get in there. I would also recommend grabbing leave-in conditioners or regular conditioners that have different oils already in there because as we know, oil and water don't mix. So if it has hydrating, moisturizing, or sealing oils in there, it's gonna be a great pick for your conditioner. The third option of things you could apply to your hair just straight-up oils. You could use coconut oil, avocado oil, jojoba oil, almond oil, all of those oils are not only just going to not mix with the water, but they're also a natural SPF.  Now, if you haven't seen it, I have a full video about oils. There's moisturizing oils and there's sealing oils. Olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado oil are all moisturizing oils, meaning they are able to penetrate the hair shop because they're small enough to get in there. So that way, just like the water, it's gonna be in there versus the chlorine getting in there. But then you have Jamaican black castor oil, jojoba oil, and grapeseed oil. Those are three oils that are sealing oils. So they kind of sit on top of the hair, making hair look very shiny, but they aren't necessarily getting into the hair shaft. So those oils are gonna be sealing your hair so that the water can't get in. Now, what does this sound like when something is blocking the moisture from coming in? Silicone. Yes, I know, but let's talk about it. The reason why I usually don't like using silicone is because it acts like a plastic type barrier that will not allow any moisture or nutrients into our hair. The instance where we want to keep something out, what comb's really good at? Now, I don't know if I can verbally tell you to use, you can use, ooh. You can use that one silicone product in the back of your cabinet in your bathroom to go swimming because it will keep out the water, because it's like plastic. But there's also so many other ways to go about it. I much rather you use a natural oil that kind of works the same way versus a synthetic, plasticky type silicone. But it is much harder to wash out a silicone versus a natural oil, which at least has some benefits to it. So those are all the things you could apply to your hair before getting in the pool. Water, a leave-in conditioner or a conditioner or some essential oils. So now it's time to get in the pool. Let's discuss how cute you're trying to be. There's levels to getting in the pool. So if you're like my cue, I'm gonna go to the party, put my toes in the water and just hopefully nobody splashes me. Then you might wanna get a cute sun hat to protect your hair from the sun, maybe add some oil as like a SPF barrier. But the best thing you could do to protect your hair from the water is not get in. But that's no fun. We wanna live our best life. So let's actually get in the water. If you're gonna be in the water, you're doing somersaults, getting kind of crazy, it might be best to do a protective style. So that would mean putting your hair in a braid or two, doing a twist out, just kind of locking your hair in place so it's not just swimming around, getting all extra tangled.  I mean, it's gonna be tough because curly hair is a whole process in itself. Us curly-haired people are fortunate enough to not have to wash our hair every day and our hair usually looks best on like day two or three. But you might not have that luxury if you're getting your hair wet every single day because of swimming. So obviously the best option would be to wear a swim cap. Or if you could put your hair in very thin, small braids to where it could still fit under your swim cap would be even better. If you can get your hair wet, put a leaving conditioner in and then put on your swim cap, also gonna be a great option if you absolutely have to get into the water all the time. For me, honestly, I usually just end up getting in the pool with my hair down because it looks cute. But then I just gotta be mentally prepared to detangle after. If I'm ever in a situation where I'm gonna be in the water a lot like maybe on vacation or I know I'm gonna be at some place tropical, then I'll honestly just get my hair braided. Like in box braids, safest protective style you could do for constant swimming. That's not like the professional thing where you have to wear a swim cap because it's not gonna fit under your cap. So now you've had your day in the pool. Let's talk about what to do when you get out of the pool. The best thing to do is to immediately rinse off that chlorine. If you're not home, if you're at someone's house or there's like a shower at the beach, at least just rinse out your hair just to get all the ocean and or chlorine off of your hair.  Then once you get home, if you aren't already, I'd hop in the shower and give it a nice good clean. This is where a lot of people might think like, oh, let me use my strong sulfate shampoo to get out this strong chlorine. But that's kind of like a lot of harshness on your curls because the chlorine is gonna be very drying. Chlorine isn't good for straight, wavy or curly hair, but curly hair is prone to need more moisture anyways. So if the chlorine is drying out your hair and then you get in the shower and you put a very stripping sulfate shampoo, like that's just, it's a lot. You're losing a lot of moisture. I would then stick to a clarifying sulfate-free shampoo to still rid all of the chlorine but not stripping your hair even more. So now let's talk about conditioner. In this instance, we might wanna either do a conditioner and a hair mask when we get out or just skip the conditioner and go for the deep conditioner. You want a hair mask or deep conditioner that is very nutrient-rich to really give your hair that moisture. If you didn't put your hair in a protective style, you're also gonna have some detangling to do. Yeah, especially if you have kids that are swimming and doing summer salts, their hair is probably getting super, super knotted. But fortunately, I found the best detangling brush of all time. This portion of today's video is sponsored by Be Hairful. I've made a whole video on this before that wasn't even sponsored and I declared it my favorite brush for detangling because it just glides through your hair. Don't believe me, just watch. So let me get my conditioner. I apply it to one side at a time to separate my hair into two sections. Now, this brush is so good that I could start at the bottom like I normally do and you will see that the brush just goes right through. It doesn't snag, it doesn't pull, it just gets rid of all my tangles. Even though you should never do this, you even could start at the top of your head, pull down and it just glides through. So I always say, if you have kids that don't wanna sit still and you need to get through their hair or you're just tired of detangling your own hair as an adult, you gotta get this brush. So I'll make sure to link the Be Hairful brush in the description box. You also could use my promo code to save some money but definitely check it out and let me know what you think. So now that our hair is completely detangled, we wanna leave in this conditioner for at least 20 minutes. So I'm gonna wrap it up, put it under a shower cap and let it sit so my hair could soak it all up. If your hair is starting to feel damaged, you need to take things to the next level. Then you might wanna use a protein treatment or olaplex. You guys might have seen me talk about olaplex and my Instagram story if you're not following me, follow me right now. But this is an olaplex hair perfecter. This is their number three, which is the only one that I use because it's one of the only ones that is silicone free. But this is a hair bonder. So it's supposed to repair and strengthen your hair for all hair types, not just curly. But what it does is it finds those broken hair strands and it bonds them back together. So I've seen plenty of success stories where people have really like straggly damaged hair and this is able to get their actual ringlets back. So if you guys want me to do a more in-depth video on olaplex or have questions, leave a comment down below and let me know. So those are all the main easy common tips that you guys can keep in mind before you get into the pool. It's all about getting that moisture back into your hair, protecting it from the sun, protecting it from chlorine. So whether you have to wear a hat, put your hair in braids or just really soak your hair in water, oils or leave in conditioners, it's gonna all help to keep your hair as healthy as possible. If you have any more tips on how you protect your curls while swimming or going to the beach, please leave a comment and share your tips. If you found this video helpful and you want more curly hair videos, make sure to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe. I post new videos every week. You also go follow me on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter at Ms. Bianca Renee. I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for watching Bianca Renee Today.


The study aimed to develop a new, 8-item scale called the Career Student Planning Scale, CSPS. The scale was designed to measure college students' perceptions of career planning during a traumatic event, such as a pandemic. It was found to have acceptable psychometric properties and demonstrated a valuable input to existing measures. This article was authored by Magnus A. Gray, Min Sung Kim, Sun Jian Lee, and others.


Hey, this morning, I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me to First Kings, First Kings chapter 18. I believe in Bibles. Anybody believe in Bibles? I like paper Bibles. I'm old school. I like to write notes in it. I like to hold Bibles. I encourage people to bring Bibles to church. When the power grid goes out and we all go back to Amish, there will still be Bibles. And if all of your notes are in you version, you're going to have to start your discipleship process all over again. So hopefully you came to a pastor's conference. You have a Bible with you. First Kings chapter 18, title of what I want to share with you this morning is subversive surrender. Subversive surrender. And I'll unpack what I mean by that here in just a moment. But the context of First Kings chapter 18 is not unfamiliar to probably everybody in this room. It's Elijah, confronting Ahab, Jezebel, the prophets of Baal. The reason why I want to start there this morning is because one of my assignments in life, you know, different people have different assignments. But one of the assignments that God gave me as a young person was to call a generation to respond to the Lord, to be a prophetic voice, to call a generation back to total devotion to God. That was, as a teenager, that was the thing that God gave me as a 13-year-old young man, immature, still growing, still developing. But I had come out of a, you know, a dysfunctional background, broken home, really no sense of direction, a lot of insecurity. What's interesting is I told my church a couple of weeks ago, one of the most traumatic moments of my life was giving a speech in like sixth grade, fifth or sixth grade. My teacher's name was Ms. Kenneson. And she was our communications teacher.  And I was so shook up by having to get up in front of people and speak. So I was very artistic. So I created this really good image of a whale shark, 3D paper mache, the whole thing. And then I had written out the information. And Ms. Kenneson was a unique lady. She had long white hair. She lived with another woman. She smoked a pipe and she had a picture of Tom Selleck on her wall. And so this was my communications teacher. And I remember standing up in front of the class and giving my speech on the whale shark and getting my, you had to submit your manuscript. When I got my paper back and she evaluated my test or my speech, I got an F on my speech. And she said, Lee, she was kind of a gruff old lady. She goes, Lee, not everybody is cut out for communication. There are plenty other avenues for you to pursue. And I say that because the difference maker in my life was not, I was, you know, a young man that just felt like, hey, I'm good at gab. And so I'm going to do this for a living. The thing that changed my life was as a 12, 13 year old young boy hearing the Lord speak my name, call my life, put the pieces of my brokenness into context and give me an assignment for my life. So it changed my life. And so I say that to say that, you know, my assignment, what I am passionate about is calling the church to be who we're called to be as a prophetic voice in the hour in which we live. And nothing speaks to me more in our day, in our time right now than the account of Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal and Asherah. We know this story. There's been a drought that was at the summons of Elijah as a judgment against Israel in their apostasy against the Lord. And so Elijah said, it's not going to rain. I'm saying rain stop, and it's not going to rain until I say it's going to rain. And what's interesting is Ahab was the king of Israel, and he had forsaken the covenant that Israel had with God, and he had married a woman named Jezebel, who was a Sedonian woman, an idolatry or a pagan. He had violated God's command. He had married her, and she became the dominant voice. She became both probably relational, but also, more importantly, the spiritual dominant force. Ahab was very passive. Jezebel is very passionate. Not all passion is equal. Not all passionate is righteous. She was passionate, but a passionate about the wrong cause. And what happened was that leadership led Israel into a time of indecision and syncretism, where they continued to worship Yahweh, which was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but they also worshiped the Baals. Jezebel's name actually is rooted in her deity that she worshiped, which was Baal. And Israel is in this time of apostasy and syncretism, where they're kind of worshiping Yahweh. They worship the Baal. They kind of worship all kinds of things, and they're not wholehearted, devoted.  And there's this showdown that takes place on Mount Carmel between Elijah, the prophet of God, and the 400 prophets of Baal, and the 450 prophets of Asherah. How many know? Elijah was outnumbered, but he's the one who called the fight. He's the one who called the contest. He appears to have one day. He says, I want to gather all of Israel together at Mount Carmel, and we're going to see whose God is God. And I love what Elijah says to the people, as all of Israel's gathered together for the showdown. I mean, there hasn't been a showdown like this since Rocky took on Drago in like Rocky IV. And I mean, it's that kind of a thing. It's like this massive battle that's taking place, and so everybody comes for. All of Israel comes. And Elijah stands up in front of all the people of Israel, and he makes the statement. He says, how long will you go limping between two opinions? He says, if the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. And we'll pick up in verse number 30 of 18. It says, then Elijah said to the people, so everybody's gathered together. He says, we're going to offer sacrifices. The prophets of Baal, you guys go first. Bring us two bowls to sacrifice. Everybody's gathered there. And he says, you guys go first. And the God who answers by fire, he's God. And so the prophets of Baal, they do their thing. They put their offering on the altar. They pray. They cry out. They cut themselves. They gash themselves. They're bleeding out. Elijah mocked them a little bit. We'll get to that in a moment. But then it comes Elijah's turn. And then Elijah said to all the people in verse 30, come near to me. You know, all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down. And Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the Son of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came saying, Israel shall be your name. And with these stones, he built an altar to the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar as great so that it could contain two says of seed. And he put the wood in order. He cut the bowl in the pieces. He laid it on the wood. And he said, fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood. And he said, do it a second time. And they did it a second time. And then he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar, filled the trenches with water. And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and he said, oh Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all of these things at your word. Answer me, oh Lord, answer me that this people may know that you, oh Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back. It says, and then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust. And it licked up all the water that was in the trenches. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces. And they said, the Lord, he is God. Yahweh is God. The Lord, he is God. And Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape. And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook of Kishon and he slaughtered them there. We're going to stop right there for this morning. So we've got this, this crazy setup. Israel is in a massive drought. Elijah is the prophet. Ahab calls him, you look earlier, he says, you're the troubler of Israel. You're the reason for all of our problems. You're the troubler of Israel. The reason why we're in a drought, the reason why we don't have any rain is because of you. Now what's interesting is that there were about, you know, 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah that are in the land of Israel. And yet there's still a drought. Israel is under the influence of a demonic spirit at this time. It's a spirit connected to the deity of Baal. You see, idols are so devastating and destructive because not because of the actual thing that's been formed, but because of the spirit that is attached to it and the deception that comes with it. And you know, we read about Baal in the Old Testament, but sometimes we may not know the specifics about Baal. Let me, let me just give you the rundown of who Baal was. Baal was a deity that was worshipped all across the Middle East. It actually began in Babylon. His name was Baal. It evolved into Baal and he became one of the dominant fertility gods of the Canaanite people, Sedonian people, Babylonian people. It's just kind of all over. Baal was a god of fertility. In fact, sometimes they referred to him as the god of the storm, thunderstorms. He was a god that controlled rain. He was the god that controlled fertility of your herds. He was the god who controlled the fertility of your grounds. So in modern terminology, here's what we would say. We would say that Baal represented sexual freedom, multiplication, family legacy, wealth, and weather patterns that determined the economy. So it was, Baal was everything. Baal was every part of everyday life because they were all agricultural. They were all farmers. And if you're going to plant seed, you need rain. So if you need rain, who do you pray to? The god of the thunderstorm. Come and bring rain.  How do you gain increase? Well, when your herds multiply and their, you know, their offspring are good and there's a lot of them, that's when you begin to gain wealth. The ashura that you may be unfamiliar with, you know, we talk about ashura poles, they would always have an altar to Baal and then a pole to an ashura.  And the reason why they brought Baal and ashura together was within their folklore. They believed that if Baal, the god of the storm, would have relations with ashura, it would release a spiritual blessing on the land. In fact, they had temple prostitutes that would act out all kinds of sexually immoral things in front of the altar and in front of the poles of Baal. This is what was taking place in Israel. This wasn't pagans. This was the children of God were living like this. They were called to be 100% devoted to Yahweh, to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They had a covenant with God and yet they're over here worshiping the Baals. And as Elijah said, they were torn between these two opinions. Now, you and I might read that and think to ourselves, how in the world could they possibly confuse devotion to God, the God of the Bible, the father of Jesus? How could they confuse that and yet come over here and worship Baal, the God of rain? And by the way, somebody must have prayed because we're getting all kinds of rain here today. So how could they confuse that, this paganism, this sexual immorality, this blending of religions of Christianity with all kinds of weirdness? How could they read the God's Word where it says, you know, the thou shalt not and yet come over here and do it in the name of Baal? How could they still worship in the temple at the altar of the Lord or at the tabernacle and yet then also come over here and do all these immoral things? How in the world could God's people possibly do that? That just seems unfathomable that that could ever happen in church. We live in the 21st century. And what's interesting is the perspective. Now listen, here's the key. Here's why Israel lived like this. There's an answer to it. Israel, like many of the other Middle Eastern Iron Age people, believed that there were multiple gods. Everybody kind of had a God and different, they believed their God was the greatest God, but they believed that other deities did other things. And here's what they believed about Yahweh. They believed that Yahweh was the God of deliverance out of Egypt. He was the God of the desert who would bring you through the Red Sea and feed you in the wilderness. They believed He was the God of miracles and power, but they believed that Baal was the God of everyday life. So let me put it to you in modern terms.  But on Monday through Saturday, they needed somebody who was more invested into helping them build wealth, experience pleasure, walk in blessing and favor. In other words, they had Jesus on Sundays for their soul and their spirit, but then practically every single day, they were living according to a worldly view of how blessing, favor, purpose, destiny, and pleasure was going to be played out. That's what syncretism does. We kind of take this and we take that. We treat Jesus like a salad bar. Has anybody ever gone to like a Ruby Tuesdays and they've got those incredible salad bars?  It was like lettuce that was 14 years old that they spray painted green, a couple of shredded carrots, some old Wonder Bread croutons, and you know, Thousand Island dressing. Ruby Tuesdays is like an assembly line. You go there, it's got the cold plates, 14 kinds of lettuce, a little cherry tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, seeds, bacon. Come on, bacon. Bacon. 90 kinds of dressing. So you just kind of go through there and you fill up, right? And their plates are huge.  Nobody puts mushrooms on anything that's saved. And you kind of pick what you want and you go through it. When you come out, you've got your custom salad. That's what we do in America with Jesus. Everybody starts at the salad bar of religion and we, well, we need some God. God's the lettuce. But then we take this and we say, well, I like this part of Jesus.  Oh, I'm going to put that on there. I'm going to take some Philippians in there where it says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I like that no weapon formed against you. So I'll put a little seeds on there. You get to the bacon. I'm not sure what the bacon is. It's probably no ISE, no ears heard, the things that God has prepared for those who love him. So you put a little bacon on there. But then you get over here to the cucumbers and go, yeah, I don't really like that cucumber part. And I'm not really, I'm not really big into blue cheese, nasty. Gorgonzola. It's like moldy cheese. Why in the world would I put that on? And this is what we do with Jesus. It's like, I like this part of God. I like this verse out of the Bible. I don't like this verse out of the Bible. I like how the world views this. I like how chicken soup for the soul says this. So, and what we end up with at the end is a secretized version of God and of Jesus that looks a whole lot more like a projection of ourselves than it looks like a revelation of him. And it's exactly what Israel did in the time of Elijah. That's why Elijah calls them together and he says to them, how long are you going to go about limping between two decisions, between two ways of thinking, two paradigms? What's interesting is that there was a drought. The reason why Elijah called a drought is because of the nature of who Baal was. Baal was the God who controlled the rain. And at Elijah says, well, guess what? No more rain. I'm going to show you that God is stronger than the demonic powers of Baal. And it frustrated. How many know? It frustrates demons when God does miracles. And it frustrated the people of Israel. So, Elijah calls them together and then there's the showdown. There's a showdown and I love what he says, the God who answers by fire, he is God. And we see a revival that takes place in Israel. They go from the consensus being against Elijah in favor of Baal and the prophets of Baal, to then the whole gathering of people saying, yes, Yahweh is God. Jesus is God. Yes, we're on that side. And then there is a reversal that takes place. But before that could happen, Elijah had to confront the spirit, the prophets of Baal because, listen, there are always going to be prophetic voices that rise up to shape and to shift culture. They're not always godly prophetic voices. You see, God will always raise up a prophet or a prophetic voice or a prophetic people that will call the church back to first love devotion to Jesus. But there are prophets in our culture that are selling the spirit of Baal. And I believe with all of my heart that what we are seeing in America in the last 20 years has, there's a lot of cultural reasons for it, but I think that what we are seeing is Baal by another name. A spirit of Baal has been unleashed on American culture. I mean, think about the cutting and the mutilating of the body. All of these types of things that are going, the sexual promiscuity, the idolatry, a lot of what Baal promised we would call the American dream. You want to get people upset in your church? Just tell them the American dream does not equal the gospel of Jesus Christ. Tell them that and find out who starts gashing themselves. Don't be surprised, some lady stands up and back, ah, ah, ah, ah. The prophet of Baal shows up.  But I really do believe that there has been a demonic spirit, and Paul writes about it in, in Timothy, he says that in the last days, people will give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. Do you know the doctrines of demons? The devil never shows up.  Can I come in? Now he comes in camouflaged. And when it comes doctrinally, what we're seeing across the body of Christ in large segments of churches and things that at one time were well meaning love Jesus, is you're starting to see doctrines of demons and things that are more shifted towards a spirit of Baal that's been unleashed. And false doctrine, that's actually doctrines of demons, but it's syncretized with the Bible in Christianity. And as leaders in a church, we need to be aware of it. And the way that we recognize it and the way that we approach it has everything to do with whether there comes a time when God pours out rain of renewal and revival once again. You see the battle, the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal was over this. Who will control the rain? Who will control the rain? It's what it was about. And I want to propose to you this morning that God has raised you up, God has raised your church up, God has raised the volunteers, the moms and the dads, the young adults in the college campuses, the usher, the greeter, the nursery worker up in your church. He's raising up a prophetic people who will not cave into syncretism but actually be a prophetic people corporately that affects and determines the spiritual environment and atmosphere of a generation. The church of Jesus Christ is supposed to stand as Elijah in the midst of our generation and say, choose between Baal or choose between Jesus and to stand in the authority of heaven and by our prayers and by the way that we live our lives counter culturally and subversively, we control the rain. We control the rain. I believe the church of Jesus Christ, there is a promise in the heavens that God will move among a generation if God's people will choose to live their lives from a prophetic perspective. I believe that with all of my heart. So what I want to share in the next few minutes is I want to talk to you about some things that need to be surrendered. These are some things that I find in Elijah the way that he confronts these prophets of Baal that I think are applicable for you and I, especially church leaders. Because listen to me, I know that I just know that there's all kinds of pressures. There's pressures within the church. There's pressures from the outside of the church to change, to conform, to be something that you're not, to offer things that God hasn't spoken to you, to preach on things, to avoid certain things. And what it takes is it takes courage. What we really need is we need a Holy Spirit courage to be subversively surrendered. Subversive means to resist. Subversive means to undercut. But a lot of times when we talk about subversive, we use it in an aggressive form, that we have to be aggressively subversive. I want to propose to you that in the kingdom of God, in the hour that we live, the greatest way that we can live counter-culturally subversive lives is actually by surrendering some things. Surrendering some things that we've taken on board that maybe we need to rethink. So let me just give you this morning five things that I think we need to surrender. Number one is we have to surrender satisfaction with crowds without conviction. We have to surrender, and this is for pastors, including the guy up on the platform. We need to surrender satisfaction with drawing crowds without conviction. What do you mean by that? Well listen, the American church is proficient at drawing crowds. We can draw crowds. We can draw crowd for all kinds of stuff. And a lot of unfortunately the dashboard of success that we have used in the American church for whether we're successful as a church, one of the main dials is the attendance. We're just getting real this morning, is that alright?  Maybe, maybe, I think that it's important for us to know that we should be growing. It's important for us that we need to reach people in our community. There's hundreds of thousands of people represented in this room. We need to reach them. One of the greatest ways that we reach them is come and see. So they come, somebody invites them, they hear about it, they're spiritually hungry, and they come to church. And when God is alive and when God is on the move in a church, there will be crowds. I'm not saying we should contend for small churches. That's counter intuitive. But what I'm saying is, if at the end of the day the crowd, the size of the crowd dictates to us the level of our success, but yet when we gather the crowd, there's no spirit of conviction that's moving in the lives of people, and we go home satisfied, but people go home unchanged. We've got to surrender that. We've got to surrender that. Sometimes what happens is we'll do things and we'll undercut certain things in order to get the crowd. We can get the crowd. You know, Jesus was great at drawing crowds. Jesus was great at getting rid of crowds. Jesus did not, I mean, there was never a moment where Jesus is walking, and he's like posting on his Instagram, hey, about ready to walk into Bethsaida if you're around. It's a little flash mob sermon. Meet me at the synagogue. Hashtag Messiah. I mean, Jesus didn't do that. Jesus was the worst self-promoter, but the works that he did spoke for themselves. And so he couldn't avoid crowds. Crowds, they chased him onto his vacation spots, wherever he went. And he's trying to teach the disciples, and they're frustrated because they want to have a staff meeting. They want to talk theology, and then sick people keep coming up and interrupting, and getting mad that Jesus is healing them, getting mad that Jesus is feeding them. Jesus is successful, right? I mean, he's got thousands and thousands of people. I've been where they say that Jesus preached sermon on the Mount. It's big, grassy open field, and thousands and 5,000 men, and probably 15,000 people with women and children. Everywhere he go, he's got people thronging him, crawling through crowds to touch the hem of his garment. It's amazing. He's got crowds. What did Jesus do with the crowds?  That's weird, Jesus. That's weird. Take it back. Say you don't mean it. Tell us we're great. Tell us we're awesome. Just tell us how much you love us.  And then he turns to the closest disciples, and he says, are you going to go also? Where else are we going to go? You have the words of life. But I mean, Jesus, think about Jesus. Jesus was not insecure about crowds. And we as leaders, if we're going to be able to be prophetic voices in our generation, we've got to get rid of the insecurities. We've got to surrender that. Because like Elijah, Elijah gathers everybody together. And what does he do? He calls them. There is a spirit of conviction. Choose, decide. You've got to make a decision.  We're called to draw crowds in order to make disciples. We're called to make disciples. You know, in the Old Testament, there's three kinds of leaders. There's the Joshua type of leader who can get you into the promised land. There's the Moses type of leadership that can get you out of Egypt but can't get you into the promised land. And then there's the Aaron kind of leadership that gives the people what they want. The people came to Aaron in the absence of a Moses into Joshua, and they said, hey, build us a God, build us a calf. And he says, what's his response? It should have been, no, you know better. But he said, all right, give me your jewelry. And he begins to make them a God. And then when Moses comes and looks at his brother and he's like, what in the world were you thinking? He's like, well, they gave me older jewelry, I threw it in a thing and a cow popped out. We got to make sure that if we're going to be leaders that are making disciples that we're not operating in a spirit of Aaron. Or we're just giving people what they want because we're insecure and we somehow need them to feel significant. What do you do when people leave your church because you teach on something that they don't like? It's not something they chose out of the salad bar. What do you do when that happens? Pastor, I love everything about you, but when you teach on that, you know, that really, that really irritates me. That, you know, that bothers me because that's my issue. Listen, we're not teaching the Bible because we hate people. We teach the Word of God because we love people. And we believe in the transforming power of the Gospel. But listen, Arthur Wallace, a great revivalist out of England, said, it's impossible for you to offer a pardon to someone for a crime they've never known they've committed. So we can't offer grace and salvation to people until there's a conviction that takes place, the work of the Holy Spirit that prepares their hearts. If every time we draw a crowd where it's like, whoa, we're doing really good, I'm going to delay teaching on that or I'm not going to go there, I'm going to skip over that. We end up with a Jeffersonian Bible that we've cut out all the things that ultimately may lead to a conviction in transformation in people's lives. We've got to surrender that. Again, Arthur Wallace, I love this statement. It's, it's one I've thought on for many years. He says this. He said, we will either become profits to our culture or ultimately we will become products of our culture. Which one do we want to be? Do we want to be profits to our culture? Or do we want to become products of our culture? For a large section, a large segment of leaders in the body of Christ, they're content with just being products of the culture shaped by culture instead of shapers of culture. Number two, we need to surrender relevance without presence. We need to surrender relevance without presence. What did Elijah do? After they, you know, the prophets of Baal, they say, okay we're gonna go first. They got their bowl and they put it on the altar and they began to dance around. The Bible says they raved. There's a bunch of molly being passed out. They've got the, you know, electric music going, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. Prophets of Baal, Asherah, I mean, think about it, 800 of them. It's a rave and they're dancing around. Nothing's happening. What's Elijah doing? He's like, you need to sing a little louder. Maybe he's busy. Maybe he's in the bathroom.  I love that that's in the Bible. Elijah's my kind of guy. Maybe he's in the Bible and the fan, he's in the, in the Bible. He maybe he's in the bathroom and the fan's going and he can't hear you.  Just imagine the scene and Elijah's just standing back knowing nothing's going to happen. He's confident in, he's confident in his God and when they're all done and they're exhausted and it's going on all day and God, their God has not responded, Baal can't break. Baal cannot break the prophetic declaration over the land. Elijah steps to the forefront and the first thing he does is he rebuilds the altar of the Lord. He rebuilds the altar of the Lord and it gives us very specific details of how he did it. He took the 12 stones that represent the 12 tribes of Israel and he begins to assemble them and then it quotes right there, it says, recalling back to what God said. It says, you shall be called Israel. Israel means one who reigns with God or one who has prevailed with God. What is Elijah doing? Let me tell you what Elijah's doing. Elijah begins to take stones and in the audience of all the Jewish people he begins to rebuild their identity. Remember who you are. Remember you are no longer Jacob who's a deceiver and a supplanner and a Caesar of opportunities. You are Israel. You prevailed with God.  You have a prophetic destiny. You have an identity. Remember the promises of God that were made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Elijah prophetically begins to rebuild the altar of the Lord and upon the promises of God the presence of God in fire will appear. He begins to reorganize the wood on top of the altar. What was he doing? He was choosing the presence of God over the relevance in the eyes of the people. Now I used to, we, I think we probably all used to use this probably 10 years ago or more. Everybody wanted to be culturally relevant and I think that there's nothing wrong with relevance meaning that we want to be understandable in the context that we're at. We want people, you know, there was a big period of time in the church where the church was unaware and unprepared for people that were not Christians to come into our midst. If they did it was just kind of an anomaly and we just kind of did what we did and we used our Christianese language. How many know what I'm talking about? It's like well hello you know a first time guest comes in and it's like well hello brother how long have you been saved? Save? What do you mean by that? Well I mean washed in the blood. Okay that's weird. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Praise the Lord. And and we had our own language. I mean in Christianity we're a massive subculture.  You seen those? I mean like they look like beer t-shirts except it's just something like no high like the most high, some something like that or we've got Christian bumper stickers that say this car will be unmanned in case of rapture and we've got those. We even have Christian breath mints. They're called testaments. And if you think I'm kidding I have a whole bunch of them back in my office. Somebody gave me a whole bag of them as a verse on the breath mints. Do we really need that? So we've kind of created a subculture and out of that subculture some people awaken and say we need to make sure that we're speaking to our culture in a language that our culture can understand. But somewhere along the line we stepped over the line to where relevance meant. We surrendered our values. We surrendered what we do as the church to the lowest common denominator that the world can understand. And instead of using relevance I mean relevance is a fine word but I think we ought to be more contextual. And here's what we need to realize is when it comes down to do we choose between relevance which has evolved into a belief system that we need the world to tell us we're okay. We need the world to tell us oh you're good people. Oh you make sense. You're logical. Oh that's wonderful. Your apologetics answer all of my questions. And so you're so relevant. Here's what's happened in our pursuit of relevance we've become irrelevant. In our pursuit of relevance we become irrelevance and if we don't surrender that in favor of the presence of God rebuilding the altar of recognizing according to Exodus chapter 33 when Moses said if you do not go with us we don't want to go into the promised land. Moses was willing listen think about this. Moses was willing to forego the promises of God in the promised land if it meant he would have the presence of God in the wilderness. He said God if you don't go with us we're not going. And he says because of this it is your presence in our midst that distinguishes us from all the other people on the face of the earth. So a lot of times what we've done is we've taken the presence of God we've done it down we don't want we don't want worship to be over the top. We you know we pray that the Holy Spirit doesn't do anything weird. It's like we treat the Holy Spirit like crazy uncle that we keep in the closet and bring them out for special events and holidays because we're afraid if we invite our friends to one of my first dates I took Jane to church when Jane and I were dating and I took her and I was going to a small little assembly of God church and I said you want to go to church and she didn't come from any type of a Pentecostal charismatic background whatsoever. Good reform girl and I said you want to go church and she said yeah I want to go church with you so I took her church on the way to church my prayer was this oh God do not let anything weird happen at church today because I just know and we got we got to church it was a Sunday night we're sitting in the back and worship was good I still remember the songs that we we sang and the whole time I'm enjoying it and then all of a sudden a little Hispanic lady up in the front begins to speak in tongues I mean just going it was kind of how we did it there was a lull in the worship you guys remember this somebody to speak on in tongues and then you waited and then another guy on the other side another guy I remember who it was he he's standing over here he interprets and I my body temperature rose to like 400 Celsius I'm just like oh no I really like her it's over and then we went back into worship service was great I got in the car and I'm nervous and I said so what did you think of church she goes I loved it I go really she goes yeah the the worship I really felt the presence of the Lord and I said oh that's awesome and she goes and I love that they translate for the Spanish too I said oh yeah do it all the time see we all we all wrestle with this how many know though that the Holy Spirit's not weird he might work through some weird people sometimes but Holy Spirit's not weird we don't have to be ashamed of the presence of God it is God's presence in our midst is powerful intimate presence in our midst that actually marks us and distinguishes us in the middle of a world that already has Disney in the middle of the world that can make CGI animated films listen in our attempt to be relevance we're only going to look like cheap counterfeits we need to lean into the thing that we have that's from heaven that the rest of the world hungers for tries to imitate how many have noticed all the movies are supernatural you got witches zombies phantoms ghosts premonitions and aliens the world's not afraid of the supernatural so why are we building our churches and taking the supernatural out of it we need to give them the real thing need to give them the real thing when jesus steps on the scene vampires leave demons flee they tremble aliens go back to wherever they go i don't know where they live with Elvis someplace they go back to wherever they go the Holy Spirit comes when the presence of God comes and listen the Holy Spirit comes when we rebuild the altar when we remind the presence of God the church is reminded of who we are we are reminded of the promises that God has for us we are reconnected to our identity you know psalm 92 the book i just wrote called flourishes based on psalm 92 and it says in psalm 92 it says the righteous shall flourish in the course of their god when they're planted in the house of the lord do you know that everything that god created he created a corresponding environment that if that individual creation finds that environment it will reach its maximum potential so you take a bird the bird was created for the air you take a fish the fish was created for the water you take a fish out of the water and it doesn't thrive you throw the fish up in the air and expect it to fly it's gonna flop you take a bird out of the air and hold it under the water it's gonna drown where were christians where were human beings created to thrive in the garden which was what the presence of God we were created to be planted in the presence of God in relationship with God within the boundaries and the borders of God's word the word garden actually is a word that means a bordered environment that has been custom guarded and cultivated the house of God the the church of God is supposed to be a place for God's presence and when people walk into the presence of God something should trigger in their heart where they begin to flourish and come to life see God's an environmentalist environments matter we've got to surrender relevance for the sake of the presence let me move on and give you the rest number three we have to surrender business models for kingdom order church in this or in this hour we don't need CEOs what we need is shepherds we need we don't need the the best practices of corporate America listen i've read business books leadership books i've read them all but Elijah when he starts he goes back and he begins to put the wood on the altar in order and there's a kingdom order and what i'm saying by that is yes church has a business component of it but one of the biggest challenges that are facing churches in this hour is our governance it's the order of the hour we don't have apostolic presence in our churches we don't have the voice of the prophet in our churches we don't have an evangelistic spirit we we've bought into a world kind of model that is based on fear manipulation pain and insecurity instead of new testament model that says god appoints elders within the church that there's apostolic oversight and that there's prophetic encouragement and if we're going to be able to become new wineskins that hold the new wine of god then we've got to get things in order we've got to put the the wood on the altar in order so many of the moral failures so many of the economic failures that have taken place in churches large and small throughout the course of the last couple decades have had everything to do with just bad governance just not having proper order and you know what it's possible for you to have proper order on paper but not have it in your heart one of the greatest gifts that god has ever given to me over the course of you know 23 years sometimes people when they come to your church they'll say how in the world how in the world did you did you start from zero and build what you've built it has absolutely nothing to do with that i'm just a great leader and better than everybody else there are so many traps that i came to as a leader that if i did not have apostolic voices in my life like tom lane and jimmy evans and rick renner and lauren kovarubius i would have stepped into snares of the enemy and i would have been taken out i promise you it's not i'm just i'm not like some ninja that just swung through it like american ninja warrior and got through the crucible and nobody else did it's just i i knew that i was not smart enough and i needed people in my life we get in trouble when pride rises up inside of us as leaders and we think we can do it ourselves and the business model is and what i mean by the business model is in american business model we celebrate entrepreneurs do it yourself be self-made you've got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just go do that now we need kingdom order and we got to surrender our ego and we got to submit and become subversive in a generation that does not celebrate authority we need to be people that honor and welcome authority and influence into our life let me give you the next couple number four is we have to surrender the fear of man for the fear of god fear of man is a snare but it says in proverbs nine that the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy one for by me your days will be multiplied and your years added to your life aw tozer said this no one knows the true grace of god who has not first known the fear of god we need to once again embrace the fear of god what do i mean by the fear of god i mean at the end of the day we live our lives as leaders knowing that we exist to serve him not others we serve others as an extension of serving him but we don't fear we don't live our lives afraid of what people are gonna say about us what they're gonna think about us what culture is gonna think about culture already thinks you're weird can i just encourage you i've had pastors say it's like you know we just really want to be culturally relevant we don't want to be too strange and too weird we want you know people to feel really comfortable can i just tell you something you believe that god became a jewish man was born in the middle east by a virgin that was announced by angels you believe that he died on the cross and actually rose from the dead 40 days later he ascended into heaven that god is a glorified jewish man with holes in his hands sitting on a throne and one day he's coming back with faithful and just tattooed on his thigh riding a white steed and gonna establish a kingdom and that you're going to reign and rule with him you've already gone off the deep end can i just let you off the hook we might as well believe it all lock stock and barrel might as well give up the fear of man go all in on this thing live your life in the pursuit of the fear of the lord knowing that one day you're going to stand before you're not going to stand before crowds of people judges you're not going to stand before the people in your community your followers on twitter the bullies on facebook or what you're not going to stand before any of them we're going to stand before one person and we're going to look into those eyes that blaze like fire the one who died for us on the cross who endured the shame was beaten spit upon crucified mocked who lived for an audience of one and you know what i want to hear on that day well done good and faithful servant i don't want to hear him say well okay i want to hear him say well done that's what it means to live in the fear of the lord let me give you the last one we've got to surrender self confidence for bold prayer first 42 says in elijah went up to the top of mount carmel and he bowed himself down on the earth and he put his face between his knees he said to his servant go and look and report back to me and he sent him seven times you see he had prepared the altar he had put the sacrifice on it god answered by fire god answered by fire god's waiting to reveal himself miraculously to this generation i believe that with all my heart but he's waiting for the altar to be prepared for us to get things in order to embrace the presence of god to walk in the fear of the lord he's waiting for the altar to be rebuilt for us to be reminded of our identity and to be reminded of the promises of god to make our decision of who we're going to serve then god will answer by fire but then we're called to be people of prayer because out of a revived church comes a praying church a praying church like elijah goes and he sits down and he puts his head between his knees and he begins to pray says servant go look into the skies and he comes back nothing go again nothing go again nothing how long are we going to do this till we see the clouds beginning to grow and he comes back and he says i see a cloud in the sky the size of a man's hand and Elijah says behold go i hear the sound of the abundance of rain you see who controls the rain rain represents revival renewal and refreshing upon a culture who does that a praying church that's become a revived church we got to be revived people of prayer bold prayer acts chapter four i love it it says when peter and those guys are brought before the the council and they have to give an account for what they're doing they tell them don't preach in the name of Jesus it says that they were stunned they were amazed at their boldness and they knew that they had been with Jesus if we're going to be a bold church we got to be with Jesus and in that same chapter those same bold disciples what do they do they prayer prays prayers like this and now lord look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders performed in your name through your holy servant jesus and when they had prayed the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the holy spirit and continue to speak the word of god with all boldness a revived church is a praying church and we got to be a praying people you want to know who controls the rain god controls the rain god's ready to send the rain if we'll be people that will pray if we'll be people that will prepare the altar of god if we will surrender if we'll surrender the things that are weak we can seize the things of the kingdom i want you to stand up with me if you would every great revival doesn't matter where it was at korea argentina wales the west coast of the united states europe africa every great revival regardless of its distinctions and its themes has one major key that opened the heavens and brought the rain and it was prayer it was prayer in korea in the year 1901 there were less than a thousand christians in the whole nation of korea today in korea 25 percent of the population is born against spirit field five of the largest churches in the world are in the city limits of soul korea on friday nights they have all night prayer meetings people go to prayer meeting across denominational lines pray from 10 p.m to 6 a.m and then they go to work you ask them what's the key to revival prayer in nigeria right now there's a pastor who's building a million seat sanctuary it's not like sanctuary as you and i build because nigeria is a war between islam and christianity but he's building a facility that will see a million people on friday nights they'll have people walk five and six hours to come to prayer meetings in argentina for years and years and years they prayed for god to move they prayed for signs and wonders for a harvest they prayed for decades and then god answered with rain some of the great hymns that were written by charles westley john westley came out of prayer meetings where they got together the holy club and they would pray for god to move in a generation for god to move and awaken england send the fire today and god brought rain first great awakening prayer second great awakening prayer azusa street prayer ladder rain outpouring prayer jesus movement prayer and i'm not talking about weak prayer i'm not talking about just quiet devotional prayer i'm talking about profits rolling up your garments saying no to some things in the world gathering together in clusters and out of desperation and out of hunger and out of thirst calling on the god who answers by fire to move in our generation and if he did it once i believe he'll do it again if he did it before he'll do it again in our day god do those works again in our day i believe he wants to do it in your city i believe he wants to do it in your church i believe he wants to do it in your life and in your family see i don't believe that we're just supposed to hunker down and wait for jesus to come back i believe when jesus comes back he's gonna step into the middle of revival fire that has blazed across a continent i believe that the largest generation on the planet more people alive on the planet today than all of human history combined up until a decade ago all alive at one time god has positioned in corner of the enemy that in the last days he wants to pour out his spirit elevate a praying church and thrust in the sickle and see the greatest harvest the world has ever seen in one generation and be listen before we go any further instead of just talking about prayer i want us to lift up our hands towards heaven all across this place today and i want us to pray god help us to rebuild the altars in the midst of a generation that is torn between two opinions a generation that has learned syncretism a generation that has learned that jesus is an add-on accessory to your already good life lord in the midst of a generation that is confused about who jesus is let us be a church that is crystal clear and is solidly devoted and fervently praying let us be a prophetic landmark that when people come when people ask when people seek that there's fire in your house lord let there be fire on our altars let there be fire on our altars in our churches let there be fire on the altars once again god lord we don't we don't need led flames coming up we need the real thing god light a fire again stack the wood again when the world says oh it can't happen oh we poured water on it wants we poured water on it twice we poured water on it three times wet wood doesn't catch fire god send fire light it again in our day in our generation let them see you move in power and in might god send the fire today this is our prayer god fulfill it in our day we pray in jesus name amen amen


We're here with David Drake from the Bash Bakers, a long-standing basher, a long-standing bash team Dave. What brings you back for the 25th bash? Well I've done so many now and I think this is the 18th and it was the 25th so I thought well you've just got to come back and do another one. I didn't intend to but here we are. It's a pretty hard thing to get away from isn't it? Definitely. Once you're a basher you're always a basher I think. So I've put my wife and daughter along this time and we're having a great time. We're going to head south on a couple of mellard hens. Come over here my friend. I notice you've got a list of the basher's that this particular vehicle might have done at any particular favourites in their day. I think this one here, the 2000 bash, the needy to Auckland one, that was one, had four versions on that bash and we got into Christchurch after a wet trip over this pass and the clutch decided it didn't want to go any further so we got it fixed, we thought, got to Amberley, it wasn't fixed, went back to Christchurch, left at six o'clock at night to go to Westport, ran out of fuel at the Nagahua Junction, fuel blockage, got towed into Westport, had a bottle of bourbon, went to bed, got up in the morning and headed off to Nelson after about three hours of sleep. And I had some virgins with me and one of them said to me when he got to Christchurch he was supposed to get off, can I come the whole way with you? I said certainly you can and now his company's on their colour right, been with us the whole time and was a great spot so. And I also had, I think it was Ed Finn from Ford with me, was his first bash too, so that was the most memorable bash. Sounds like one hell of a committed day there getting back over to Westport two o'clock in the morning, then five o'clock off to Nelson for the kids. Oh yeah, that's right, we got up and washed the car before we went of course, you've got to have a clean car before you see the car, kids, yeah, of course you do! Nice, nice. The vehicle itself Dave, can you talk through what exactly we have here? Well it's a 1965 Ford fair lane that was, had done a couple of bashes before we bought it, we bought it in 1995 and did our first bash in 1996, so she's three on the tree. We started off its life as a cocky's car in Stratford and then a cocky's car in Hunterville and then Barry Hitchings from HarperCollins bought it, took a couple of bashes in it, took it back to, put it back to a classic car and we persuaded him to sell it to us. We said we'd look after it, so we've tried to look after it the best we could for it. It certainly looks, it certainly looks wonderful Dave, over the years Bash Bakers have supplied the bashes with a great deal of its bread, do you want to talk about this year's sponsor? Well this year's sponsor is really a supporter, this year's, we didn't have a lot of sponsorship this year, we've actually done it ourselves, however I went, there's a bakery in Christchurch and I went to them and talked to them about it and I said give me your advertising, give me some logos and I'll put it on the car for you, so that's what we've done. Very nice. It's all free. Dave, on behalf of all the bashes it's really excellent to have you back along and certainly for the 21st Bash to you and the Hens and all the Drake community and in general. So mate thank you very much for coming on back and we really enjoy having you back along. Pleasure, pleasure to be here. Right. I'll be looking forward to that next one in the South Island. There you have it. David Drake, team captain of the Bash Bakers, back for the 25th year Bash. That's your Abasha, always Abasha. I'm Mark and this is the Profile.


Guys know my obsession with handbags and I started bringing my handbag obsession to my channel. So I'm going to show you the two handbags that have recently entered my collection from Kate Spade. Both of them are so cute and I'm really excited to show them with you. So when I picked up during the Kate Spade 25% off sale, I got a really good deal on it. It was a handbag I'd been eyeing for a while. The other one I got from the surprise Kate Spade website on a great, great discount and this one is really special because I also convinced like over a hundred of you to purchase this as well. Literally you guys, I was looking at my affiliate link dashboard and over a hundred of you ended up purchasing this handbag as well, which I mean, that's a lot for me. I've never had numbers like that's so crazy. And that purse actually was one of the reasons that I started talking about handbags more in my channel and sharing handbag sales with you guys because there's a pocket of you that also are addicted to handbags like me, but anyways, let's get into the first bag. It's going to be the one that I convinced over a hundred of you to buy. So I actually don't own a Wallet on chain and they had this on Kate Spade daily deals. So I thought this was a fabulous deal. I got it for only $59 and I thought it was so cute. It had so many colors. So I shared that with you guys and you guys apparently also thought it was cute. So I've had it for a couple weeks, but I've been waiting for this next bag to come in before I filmed a whole video. So this is the Gemma Wallet on chain. I actually didn't have a wallet on chain before and I thought that the style of this was so cute. It was so classically Kate Spade. So this was the perfect opportunity for me to jump on this because it's a style of bag that I didn't have and it's so, so cute and it was a phenomenal deal. So here's kind of a closer up of what the bag looks like. I guess it's more so a wallet than a bag, right? But I love that there is a chain that you can carry it by. But the selling factor for me on this is that the chain was detachable so I can put whatever chain that I want. I'm going to show you later on in this video another idea that I have to style this. So I did get this for $60, but right now it still is on sale for $79 and after having this for a couple weeks, I still think that that is a great price for this wallet on chain. Unfortunately, and this is my fault for telling you guys, most of the colors that this was available in are sold out. There was like a green, a white, and some other color that was so beautiful. So right now all that is left is the pink, which is the color that I opted for, and then the black, which is also really beautiful. I wish I picked up the green color. I'm kicking myself for not picking up another color, but I don't need another one. So let's go over the details of this. So as you can see, I love this little dainty detail right here where the flap opens. It is a button closure, and it says Kate Spade on the front. And in the back, I love this. There is even a slot for you to put something if you need it. I don't think my phone will fit here. I mean it's a wallet on chain. So I have the largest size iPhone though, so if you have a smaller size in a slim case, you'll probably be able to get it to fit, but not the case for me. And then when you open it, like I said, it has the snap button closure and it is hot pink on the inside. Really, really love it. And then you even have a pocket here. There's lots of pockets in this, and it really works like a true wallet. I love it. So there's a slot right here, and then you have six card slots here. There's a zip pocket in the center for you to put coins or anything important. And then towards the front, there's another slot with six more card slots. I don't know if this is so cute and it honestly is extremely functional. And like I said, the chain itself is also detachable. So you can actually just throw this in a bigger purse and use it as just a wallet. I love it. And I think it's even cuter in person.  I'm even staring at the black one now. The black one is not what I want because I just recently bought a black purse from YSL, but if they had it in the other colors, I definitely would pick this up even at the $80 price point. What I think is interesting is I feel like I can't quite pinpoint the finish of the chain handle. I think it's more silver, but in some ways I swear it looks gold. I'm more of a gold person, but I mean, I guess they're more silver. Can you tell me if you're familiar with kids fade? What finish is this? It's more silver, I would say, but there's like a hint of gold to it. So odd dimensions of this. If you need it's four point two five inches in height, seven point five inches in width and then one point two five inches in depth. The strap drop is 22 inches. You guys know I'm very petite, so I'll show you how it just looks on me. And then the material that it's made out of is smooth leather. Yeah, all in all, like I said, there's literally 12 credit card slots, lots of slip pockets and the exterior slip pocket on the front and the back. This does not come with a dust bag. In case you were curious, it just came in a small box like this. And then also in case you were wondering, yes, my phone does fit. Like I said, I have the largest size iPhone and there is plenty of room for more stuff like my keys and my cards can't fit like too much or too large of a wallet in here, especially if you're going to put your phone in here to just taking your cards out of your wallet and putting them in here.  I love this. OK, I'm going to take you to me trying this on for you. As you guys know, I'm very petite. I am only four, ten, four, eleven. So this is the drop of the chain on me. It really is not that bad. I'm not bothered by it at all, especially given how small the bag is itself. And let me go crossbody. And for me, I love small bags so that they don't overpower my body. But yeah, I think there's this drop of the chain is really nice. Do you like my ramen socks? And of course, since the chain does clip off, you can customize what chains you want to use, so I want to show you something. So this is actually how I plan on really wearing the bag. I don't even care about the change strap it came with. I ordered a set of these pearl handles for purses and it came in three different sizes, but I thought this pink bag would look so cute with the pearl strap. Now, I mean, the pearl strap is not the pumpiest. I'm not going to lie. But when the bag is so lightweight like this and small, it doesn't matter. And I just think this makes the bag even cuter. So this was my plan with the bag the whole time to put the pearls on it. And I think it makes it so much more girly and adorable. It also comes with a smaller strap so you can really have it nice and tiny or a longer pearl strap that you can wear as crossbody. So I will link that down for you as well. But I just think this style bag with the pearls is so freaking cute, right? OK, this is what I was most excited to show you how I actually plan on styling this purse. I'm obsessed. Seriously, do I need to buy the black one? You need to tell me now before it sells out. OK, yeah, could you tell how obsessed with this I am? I recommend it. I think it is a great price even right now, even though I did manage to get it cheaper, adorable. So I'm going to show you the next bag that I got. So I ordered this one last week. Kate Spade was having a 25 percent on sale. This is not their outlet website. This is just their regular website. And I have been eyeing this bag. The full price of it was one hundred ninety eight dollars. I actually had it on my wish list of bags that I wanted. Like I was willing to make full price for it. Then it went down to one thirty nine on the sale section. And so I was thinking about buying it for myself on my birthday. If I went to the mall or something. But then the 25 percent off sale happened. So it was an additional 25 percent off at the sale price. So I got it for one hundred and four dollars. So I got it for pretty much 50 percent off. This is the Smile Small Cross Body. So it came in the box today. I've already got all the papers and stuff off because I would have done it on boxing, but you have to unwrap all of the hardware and all of that. And it just takes too much time. And I just wanted to see since this is Kate Spade retail, it does come with a cute Kate Spade dust bag with the green draw strings. And it's just a pink Kate Spade dust bag, which I love. And here is the bag. I didn't even realize that this had a cross body option. So you know how the baguette style bags are really popular? Also, you know, the Prada bags, the re-editions are kind of like this as well. This is an interesting shape. It's different, but I wanted a bag that I could pop under my shoulders. And this comes in three colors. One is a red, a pink and this blue. I was going to get it in pink, but I just got that pink wallet on chain. So I decided to go for the blue and I thought it was a good deal. So this was my opportunity to get a color that I wouldn't normally get. And I think it's such a beautiful color. It's in the shade Morning Sky. So the sale is not going on right now, but you still can get this for $139. As you can see, it has the chain handle right here. Honestly, it's a little bigger than I thought it was going to be. I thought it would feel a little lighter and be a little bit smaller in person. But it definitely is a statement chain. That's for sure.  So I've already adjusted the cross body. It was kind of a pain in the butt because you have to like force it through the metal parts right here. And I haven't even yet got to secure this here because this is really, really tight to try and fit this. And there we go. But I do like that it is adjustable. So there are five notches here to get it to the length that you want. And I think it's really good on my length, the shortest one. And this is also removable as well. So you can use this as a shoulder bag, which I think is a really cute evening option, but you also have the cross body option. So the details on this is a pebbled leather, six inches in height, nine and a half inches in width and two inches in depth. The handle drop for the chain is seven inches and the strap drop is 22 inches. Again, it's that weird. Is this silver or is this gold? I think it's silver again. So it does have a pin mount logo and then it has a zip opening. And then here is the inside. So on the inside, we have three credit card slits and then it's just kind of an open well with a fabric lining. Does it fit my giant iPhone? I was worried. I didn't think it was going to. But it does just barely. There is hardly any room between the zipper and my phone, but it fits. Again, if you have a smaller phone, it is more likely going to fit comfortably. But even with my phone in here, it's just a height issue and it's not even an issue. It fits just perfectly, but we still have room for extra things as well. I love this color. I was worried that I wouldn't like it. But this is not typically my style of bags, but I wanted something different. I wanted a different color as well. I don't have anything like this in my purse collection. And I just thought it would be fun to try and style this. It's a little bit more trendy than what I'm used to. So I'm going to show you what it looks like. So here is the smile bag. It is so cute and I actually really do love this color.  So I'm really happy with the length of the crossbody. Normally crossbodies don't even go this short on me. So I think that's cute and I left the chain detailing here. But you can take it off because, honestly, I'm not that big of a fan of the chain. It's a little too chunky for me, but without the chain, it would look like this. Very simple and casual. And then here is what the purse looks like without the crossbody strap. So this is a look right here to use the chain strap. It's a little short, but it does fit under my shoulder nicely and comfortable. Oh, and by the way, you guys, I am not pregnant. Somebody always comments when I wear a billowy dress like this. I just like these kinds of dresses. They're comfy, but anyways, this actually is really cute as a shoulder bag. So I'm going to style it with a different chain, though, because this is cute, but I want to make it like a different look. You guys, Kate Spade purses are meant to have pearl straps. I feel like this instantly took it to the next notch. Now, something that I did notice, the D-ring is really thick on this purse. So I did have a hard time clipping on the pearl handle, but we got her done. And then you can also put on the strap that it came with and let the pearl hang. And that would also be super duper cute. Love it so much. One thing I also noticed about the smile is this chain is a little bit heavy. So just be aware of that. But I still think it is super duper cute. So those are both of my new handbags from Kate Spade. If you can't tell, I'm obsessed. This one right here, the Gemma, I mean, I would strongly suggest getting your hands on it if it's something of interest to you before it's gone for good. This is one of the cutest wallet on chains. I think that Kate Spade has. And it's the vibe, the aesthetic of Kate Spade, and it's really, really functional. For me, the smile is definitely something that is a little bit more trendy in my closet that I wanted to play with. But I'm really happy about this color. I can't wait to style it. I think this is a really cute statement, but still casual piece. And you can really style this to keep it super casual or, of course, to make it a little bit more trendy. So I'm very happy with both of my purchases. I will have both of these linked down below if you're interested, as well as the pearl handles, which will really help you change your look. Thank you guys so much for watching my handbag videos. I really, really appreciate it. I keep getting asked for a purse collection video. I will have one very soon. So my birthday is this weekend. Well, I don't know when this video is going live, but May 14th that weekend is my birthday, so we're going to the mall. So I might get a couple more purses before I fill my collection. I don't have a ginormous purse collection, but I've been going a little extra crazy or something. Anyways, thank you guys so much for liking this video and being subscribed to my channel and I will catch you guys in the next one. Bye, guys. Have a good one.