Okay, good morning and welcome to BC314, our class on media and technology in ministry. Can you all hear me okay? And see the video okay? It's all good? Okay. All right. Okay, and somebody please pray and we will get right into the class. Somebody could pray with us, please? Shrikmar? Yes, but... Please pray. Precious Father, we thank you and praise you Father God for this wonderful morning which are given to us. We give you all the glory, honor and praises, my King. Lord Master, as we come together, Father God, unto you we ask you, Father God, fill us with your wisdom, understanding and knowledge, and so that we can able to grasp everything what we are learning today. We can able to, Lord Master, receive every revelation, everything what is connected with this course of God, Master. We can able to receive it from your servant of Father God and we pray that, Father, Lord Master, be useful for building the church, building your kingdom of Father. We humble ourselves for Father God, we cover everything under the precious blood of Jesus. We give you all the glory, honor and praises in Jesus name be prayed. Amen. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. Alright, good morning. Welcome everyone. Yesterday we laid a little groundwork or foundation on two things. One, we said that, yes, we are all open to the idea of using contemporary tools and methods in communicating the word of God and ministering the people because of the obvious advantages that we have. But we also said, you know, there are certain guidelines that we need to observe and be mindful of as we use media and technology, engage with contemporary methods in ministry. Having given that background, we are now going to start getting into the details. We will talk about, you know, the ministry of the word. We'll talk about, you know, the venue and how the church setting itself has changed. And then we'll get into the actual media and technology parts over the course of the coming weeks. And so on. So today, our goal is to just discuss a little bit about the ministry of the word. How that has evolved over time. What we are seeing happen today in the world. And then we want to discuss, which is meaning we talk about it together on, you know, what are the pros and cons? What are the things we should be careful of, you know, as we minister the word to today's generation. And you also, you know, how to think about, let's say the generation that comes after us, you know, when you're ministering to the new generations that are rising. And obviously, there's going to be change in the methods and in the ways in which we communicate timeless truth. What are some things we have to be careful of? So we want to discuss that today. Let me go ahead and just share my screen and then hopefully we'll let's see if I'll be able to play some videos. I'm not too sure, but let's see if that's going to happen. All right, let's OK. So ministering the word. The way the word of God has is being ministered is has changed. And, you know, it's continuously changing, evolving or adapting to the times. Some of the things that we can notice right away is the length of the sermons, you know, the Apostle Paul. Can you all hear me and see the PDF? The Apostle Paul, you know, for example, this example in the Bible says in the book of Acts, he preached all night. And that's a pretty long sermon. You know, he preached through the night and I think the young man's name was Taikika. So somebody, he fell asleep, he fell off the window. So then, of course, you know, he was raised up from the dead. But think about this. Imagine a sermon that's going through the night. And that's a long sermon. Basically Paul says, hey, I'm going to talk to you, just listen. I just went on and on and on and on through the night. Now, if you look at the ministry of Jesus, he was preaching for three days. People were sitting and listening three days. Can you imagine being on the mountainside and Jesus speaking to them for three days?  But that was the intensity of the ministry that was taking place. And then over time, you know, things have become shorter. So think about during the times of the Puritans, 1400s, 1500s, sermons were typically one to three hours long. Then we had the revival preachers would preach for over an hour today. Generally, not saying all churches, but many churches. The typical preaching of the word would go for 30 to 45 minutes. And in some churches, it's down to 20 minutes. You know, I was actually shocked when in last year, last year in May, I was in May, I was just visiting the U.S. for visiting my daughter then. So we went to service and the service was exactly one hour. Start to finish exactly one hour. Everything was so precise. You know, started on time, so many minutes of worship, sermon exactly maybe 20 minutes, everything. So people came in, people are out in one hour. And I was like, I said, like, you know, here in Bangla, we take 45 minutes just to get warmed up and worship, you know, but it was so, you know, people came in, people moved out. And this was like a big church. So, you know, it's literally a couple of thousand people coming in, couple of thousand within one hour they leave out, except. And so it's interesting how, you know, the services are being run these days. And, you know, the sermon has to be just that much. That's all people can pay attention to. And it's over, you know.  And if people are willing to only give you 15 or 20 minutes to listen to the ministry of the word, how are they, how are we going to develop them spiritually, build them up spiritually? You know, it's something, it's a challenge. And think about, you know, what to do about it. But that's where we are. That's where in many churches, that's about all the time they give for the ministry of the word. Not only is there a change in the length of sermons, but there is also a change in the design of the sermon. And you'll find all kinds of variety of this. Typically, typically what used to happen would be a verse by verse exposition of the text. You know, you would take that, you would read the passage, explain it, and then you would bring out the exposition, the exegesis of the text, help people understand it, apply it, so on. And there was, you were starting with the text and then applying it to everyday life. But now there's been a shift. The shift is we start with everyday life. So we start with what people are going through and then we come to the Bible. So there's also a change in the way everything is being ministered. Before the Bible was to focus, this is what the Bible says. We start with the Bible and let's see how to apply it in your situation. Now it's, hey, here's a situation. This is what you're going through. Now let's see where the Bible fits in. So the whole approach has shifted. I'm not saying everybody's doing this. I'm just saying these are some of the trends we are seeing or that the changes that have taken place as people have tried to adapt the ministry of the word to contemporary times, to current times. Also, there is more, there's a change in the format. There is more of storytelling, lots of examples from everyday life. Sometimes there's plenty of jokes and those kinds of things. There is illustration. Sometimes you have dialogues, people sitting on the stage and having a conversation and that becoming this sermon and so on, so forth. And we are seeing that in churches today. And then another thing that we are seeing also is people using a lot of aids. There could be drama, there could be visual aids. And today, you know, we have slides. We have videos, all of those kinds of things being part of the whole communication of the word of God. I'm not saying all of these things are wrong. I'm just saying, you know, these are the things you're seeing happen. These are things we're observing in the ministry of the word. So, so much has changed.  The people listening to him didn't even have a physical Bible. They had nothing. All they had to do was sit and listen. Paul himself didn't have a physical Bible, right? Because they had scrolls, so Paul may have read the scrolls. But when he was standing in front of the people and talking, he couldn't be opening up to scrolls and, you know, quoting from the scrolls. That probably was not happening. So Paul was there. People were there and he just spoke. No aid, nothing, not even a physical Bible, nothing. Think about that. And then he preached for hours through the night. They all just sat and listened. So think about that. To think about a typical sermon today that may last for 20 minutes. There may be lots of jokes, stories. Everybody has a Bible. People may be watching, you know, listening, having their Bible on the phones and there is LED screens at the back. There's all kinds of graphics, maybe videos playing while the preacher is preaching. It has lasting maybe for 20 minutes. So contrast these two things, you know. It's a huge change from how things were happening to the way things are. Now, I just stuck in these two examples. I mean, very interesting. I don't know if I'm able to play this on the screen. Let me just try and see if that would be, they would just come through for us. They're kind of very interesting. If it works, it works. Otherwise, please forgive me. Let me do this. Can you, can you always hear it? And the pizza guy showing up at your hotel room tonight. Listen. OK. And he's got your pizza, but he doesn't have a box. He's just got it in his hand. And the cheese is oozing down all over his clothes. And it's falling all over the floor. And you don't know where that hand has been. You don't know what he's been doing with that. Come on, somebody. And can you imagine? You know the first question you would ask him, if he was standing there saying, hi, did you order this pepperoni pizza? The first question you would ask is, where is the box? Because I was expecting the product to come in a vessel. I was expecting the product to come in a box. Well, what I want you to understand is this box is only worth $0.39. It's not very valuable. But it takes on a tremendous importance and value because of what is placed in it. I want you to understand that, listen to me, the box does not give value to the product. It's the product that gives value to the box. We're just the vessel. And Christ is in us. And we shouldn't get puffed up when God starts using us. We're just the $0.39 box. What I'm preaching to you is, you don't have to be great. You don't have to be super good looking and look like a movie star. You don't have to be super talented. But you do have to be clean and you have to be empty. And if you'll just be clean and be empty, God says, if you'll give me a vessel, I'll give you a miracle. I'll give you my oil. I'll give you my purpose. I'll give you my will for your life. Can you imagine ordering a peak? OK. So did y'all get to see that? Yes, Father. OK. So what do you think about it? Well, I think, Pastor, based on what we're dealing with, every generation seems to be different. And Jesus, who told us to go preach and teach the Word of God, making disciples of all nations, he didn't give us a specific on how it should be done. But I think us being creative and never neglecting the place of the Holy Spirit in order to ensure that we pass across the message of the scriptures authentically and correctly, I think that's what has been shown here. He's speaking to teenagers and youth. I'm sure he won't talk to them the way he talks to adults. So he had to come to a level where he could simply bring up, pass across the intent of God's Word in a creative way that speaks to that generation or set of group of people, which I believe were teenagers and young people. So I think for us, what we can learn from this is that we shouldn't be rigid on one particular way and then be open to many ways, but never neglecting the place of the Holy Spirit. I think that's something very important. Good thoughts, good thoughts. Yeah, and I see the comments. Powerful, Prabhakar says. Good use of the proverb, Tarun says. Mengi, you want to say something? Thank you. Just to add to what they said, the level of understanding varies from place to place because of the information and human development. So we will preach in a village where they don't have access to internet, they don't have access to information, will definitely be different from how we preach in the city. They had message to be longer because you're trying to explain things. But in the city, people have access to information and the church, people basically know their Bible so it will be different. Yes. Yeah, and I see Sri Kumar's comment. Message delivered in a beautiful way. So this is just a very nice example. This was a very short clip, but very beautiful example where we are communicating timeless truth in a way that is contemporary. So obviously, that particular audience understands pizza and pizza box. Now, we cannot preach that like as Mengi was saying. We cannot take an example like this. Now we can't go out in a village where people have never seen a pizza. They don't know what a pizza is. And they would not relate to this kind of an example. But in that audience, this example is so powerful and it's communicating a biblical truth. The Bible uses the image of a vessel and God filling a VRMT vessels, God calls us to be clean vessels. And God fills us up. So the Bible uses that image. Now, we can use that image today, but using the pizza box was something that was and the pizza and the pizza box was something that connected very easily or readily to a modern audience. The modern audience may understand the vessel and God filling us up and being a clean vessel and being an empty vessel. They probably will understand it. But the pizza and the pizza box is something more closer to home. So this is an example of how communicating to a modern audience, using something that's very relevant to them or examples that are very relevant to them, things that they can relate to. And yet in and through that example, we are presenting God's truth, which in this particular case, he was saying, we need to be clean, we need to be empty, then God will fill us up. But he just used a wonderful example for that. There's another video there that I just put on that page, which is about Francis Chan and the rope. And so I just encourage you to go and have a look at it. And again, it's a very nice, very simple example, but something that the audience relates to. So like this, there's so many, let's just go back to the PDF. And there's so many ways in which, so this rope illustration, I'd encourage you to have a quick look at it. Just a short YouTube video. So there are so many ways that we can communicate God's word using contemporary methods, illustrations, et cetera, to our present day audience. Now, just a few more thoughts, and then we will discuss. So there's also a change in our target audiences, in the sense that there are people who are lost, meaning they don't know the gospel. Then there is the clipping of the saints, meaning this audience is they're already believers. Now, you need to equip them. And then there are people in between who are seeking, so on. So in an attempt to reach these seekers, back in the 1980s, 70s and 80s, and probably not in the 80s, these seeker-sensitive church services became very prominent. And these seeker-sensitive services were geared towards these people in between, who they're open, they're seeking, and we want to reach them. So now, what happened was the service was geared not the typical gospel crusade where you're preaching the gospel to the lost, not to discipling people, but it was geared towards those who are seeking. And so the whole service was geared to this target audience. And it was very effective, in the sense it helped a lot of seekers to come, hear the word of God, in a way that they could understand, and then move them into becoming believers, in Jesus Christ. So seeker to believer, that transition happened very nicely in these seeker-sensitive services. But because churches who adopted seeker-sensitive services were focused on that, which is moving a seeker to becoming a believer, they really could not cater to believers becoming disciples, or disciples being equipped to serve a minister. So that became a huge problem. So what happened? And if you look back in time, so between 1980s, somewhere in the mid-1980s, through to the early part of 2000, there were a lot of churches, of course, primarily the Christian church, and then churches around the world. What up to this seeker-sensitive model? And like we said, those services were effective in moving people from being seeker to believer. But at the end of 30 years, they realized that, hey, Biri, we have not succeeded in helping believers become disciples, and disciples becoming equipped to serve a ministry. So that was the drawback. Then the service was focused towards this kind of an audience. And then this is what happens. Actually, in the early 2000s, Willow Creek Church did a survey after 30 years of doing seeker-sensitive services. And they published a report. That means they did a survey among the people. Their own congregation. Their congregation had grown to more than 15,000 people, one of the larger churches in the US. And of course, many other churches were following that example, the model. But they did a survey among their own people, saying, you've been in church for so many years, and they've been doing that for 30 years now. Where are you spiritually? And the conclusion of that survey was, hey, we succeeded in this part, but we missed out in this whole area. We didn't disciple people effectively. We didn't equip them for ministry effectively. And so then they published that result, their survey. And then they reoriented themselves to emphasizing more on discipling and equipping. So the church has gone through that shift. The church went through that whole phase of the seeker-sensitive services. We have seen the result of it, what worked, what didn't work. But that's been a big learning experience as when the church intensely repositioned itself for our target audience. So that's something to keep in mind. Other things I just want to quickly go through, and then we'll get into some discussion is there have been changes in delivery styles. Whether you preach with the pulpit, without the pulpit, you engage the audience in various ways. You try to get the audience to interact with you, and so on. There's been a change in the preachers attire. And it's pretty obvious we went from very formal clergy attire to more business-type attire to now, in many places, there are absolutely casual attire in the delivery, in the ministry, and so on. And there is change in the physical place of preaching. We'll talk about that next week. That's taken place as well. We've gone from home groups to meeting in sacred places, like church buildings to other kinds of venues. So this whole transition has happened. Now, I am aware, as Maggie pointed out, that a lot of what we're talking about is focused on the urban church and the use of media and contemporary methods and technology for the urban church. We may not be seeing too much of this out in the rural areas, but things are still not so sophisticated, and so on. I understand what we're saying is primarily with the urban church. But with all of these changes that have taken place in the ministry of the word, in the change of the length of the sermons, change of the content of the sermons, change in the way it's being delivered, change in the way it's being, you know, the target people are being, you know, we've gone through that phase and the change of the way the person preaching interacts with the audience and the change of the way the attire, what they wear, when they come up to minister of the word, all of these changes, the questions we should ask is, you know, what are the good things? What are the negative things? And what are the things we should avoid? And, you know, we don't know how all of this is going to evolve in the next five, 10 years. We don't know where this is going to go. You know, there have been some examples online of virtual reality being used for church, where people come in. The congregation is meeting online. People are in avatar forms, sitting and quote, unquote, listening and they're interacting, their avatars are interacting and so on. And so people have carried it all that far. Yeah, we don't know what all people are going to try in the days to come, in the ministry of the word. But I want us to open up for a little bit of time and discussion. We are seeing all these changes happening in the ministry of the word of God. What are the pros and cons? What are the dangers we must avoid? What are the things we must take true to as we go about accommodating or adapting ourselves to the contemporary world? So just feel free to share your thoughts. Yeah, so, yeah, I see Roshan's comment in villages. We need to examples that they will relate to. That's true, different places, different examples. That's right. Okay, so let's just kind of take some time to discuss here. Now, there are all these changes that are happening in the ministry of the word. And we're talking about the urban church, as we are trying to relate to a changing world around us. What are the pros and cons? What are the things we should embrace? What are the things we must be very careful of? What are the dangers we must avoid? And also think about the future because we don't know how things are gonna change in the five, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, how the urban church is gonna change. But I think if we can keep some guidelines for ourselves, 15, 20 years from now, you know, you can make sure that we stay the course. So what are your thoughts? Go ahead, Maggie. Okay, thank you, sir. That was in the recent years, just in church adapting and adopting, I think, like cultures of the world, what pop culture is doing, taking it back into the church, it might seem good at the beginning. I think that's reading of stars and bombs and fire festivals and some churches here they do the color festival, which is Diwali. And so things like that, things that you should avoid bringing to the church because they're not broadly and things that we should adopt. And not adopt, but adapt to its technology. We should be able to keep up with technology because it will help us reach the gospel to the mass. But other things like cultural, cultural we should try to avoid. Thank you. So what Maggie is saying is, we have to be careful as we're adapting to the, you know, wherever we are ministering, things that are cultural, which are not, you know, supported by the word of God and so on, we have to be careful of, but at the same time, yeah, technology and media, which helps us communicate better, we can adapt. So I think Maggie is highlighting the fact that in our being relevant, we should be careful not to let culture, shape and influence what we are presenting. I also see Kennedy's comment, avoid being sensational, seeking a vanity, rating more due to technology that's been gathered by the word and the Holy Spirit, yeah. So avoid being sensational, don't focus on those kinds of things, good, but instead be dependent on the word and the Holy Spirit. Shrikumar, your thoughts? Shrikumar, you wanted to say something? Pastor, am I audible? Yes, go ahead. Okay, thank you, sir. I was saying this, sir, is creativity is good and adapting the technology is also good, but, you know, we should be more led by the Holy Spirit and we should be whichever platform or whichever technology we are using. Through that, we should see that, how much we are impacting the lives of the people and how much we can able to, you know, share that truth in the right way, that people should not take, you know, as the Bible says, they should not become more friendly to the world because that will be quite dangerous because the Bible very clearly says that the friend of the world is enemy to God. So even though we are adapting these things, but we should also tell the, because now all these technologies are common for everyone, but it is also, it's have its good effect and also it's have a bad effect also. So when we are adapting these things, we should also make the use of the people to be careful and so that they can able to know the truth and they should able to stick on the truth of God. That's what I want to share. Thank you, sir. Yeah, so while we adapt these or make use of these technologies and platforms, I think what Shri Kumar is saying is, you have to be careful that people shouldn't take that and then go off into some wrong area, you know, using that same platform, take an example, okay, we are using YouTube. Yeah, we're using it as a platform, wonderful. But that same platform has a lot of junk, things that people shouldn't be watching and so they should not misunderstand or misinterpret our use of that platform as a license to go into anything on the platform. So I guess that's a very valid point. Roshan, please go ahead. One of the things that is, I mean, we are currently seeing as well, that is with the advancement of media and technology. There are people who get comfortable thinking that they can only have services online and they start ignoring meeting one on one and face to face. So I think that needs to be emphasized through the tools that we use in media and technology that this is not the real service, it's just a platform to get God's word to you also and tell them to be part, you know, some church or some services because people, or even if our members are watching through online. There are some people as you said, as you mentioned that some are using avatar and all that. So they should not feel that this is the latest technology and this is how we meet and have church. So we have to emphasize on that as well. Thank you, Pastor. Right, right. So that personal fellowship, personal interaction, joining together is important while we use, you know, we are making this, it's a convenience, it's a tool we're using. Good. I see Kennedy's comment, do everything in truth and love based on the word. Good. Okay, let me just share a few more thoughts here, you know, in the current day ministry of the word, we are observing and this is something I have seen in one particular setting is that the preacher in their attempt to be very casual in preaching, preachers are actually using foul language. Yeah, it's very open. Now, what do you think will happen in the congregation? The congregation are also just, they're very comfortable using foul language, right? No.   And, but in their preaching, they have so much influence, not only in the physical congregation, even online, but, you know, they use very, you know, a very rough language and they're preaching. Now, people, the congregation loves, hey, the pastor is using these kinds of words and all that, but preaching. But what happens next is everybody in the congregation follows the pastor in that example. And it's just become so accepted in that kind, that particular setting of the Christian church, right? So I'm highlighting this because, look, we are ministering the word of God. It has to be handled with reverence. This is God's word. And then the preacher being so casual and so, you know, loose in the words has its effect on the congregation because people then think it's okay. They begin to do the same thing. And it's just results in, you know, both the preacher and the congregation not portraying something that's honorable before God. But it is happening and it's becoming more and more accepted in, you know, that segment of the Christian church. And that's a dangerous thing that, you know, we can observe and we should avoid.  Thank you, sir. Someone spoke in on about the avatar and the danger of that at people meeting online. I'll just, the subject came to my mind. So we as believers and preachers, we are not going to stop people from meeting online. I believe we should look what is the best way to assist those people because they all meet online anyway. So Facebook's making a plan for people to start the whole world to use avatar. So the best thing we can do, I believe, is to see how the church can adapt to that change and influence, be able to influence whatever happens in there. Because there will people be meeting online, churches will be meeting online, some churches. So what do you think? People who understand and go another way to be able to teach and keep them focused on Jesus. That's what I think. Good idea. I'll not tell you more. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thanks for sharing, Maggie. So basically what Maggie's saying is, look, we can't make this go away, right? We can't make the fact that there is this whole online community that people are going to meet online. We can't make it go away, of course. People are going to do that. But to the best we can, we engage them meaningfully. Those who are meeting online, engage them meaningfully in the online space and try to get the word of God into them in the online space. Because there will always be people engaging that way. And that's a good thought, good idea. Okay, so let me wrap up now with a few words here. So as we are relating to a contemporary world and adapting the ministry of the word to the audience that we are ministering to, which is acceptable. It's a something wrong with it. It's a good thing to do and maybe a necessary thing to do because we need to speak the language of the people. We need to minister to the word of God in a way that they can relate to and embrace. We need to differently use the channels and the mediums, the tools that they connect with. All of that is acceptable. Yes, maybe necessary. But while we do that, as ministers of the word, we have to be careful about our own personal example. In the way we preach, in the way we present ourselves and the way we carry ourselves because people are not only hearing what we're saying, they are watching who we are, how we speak, how we conduct ourselves. And that is also influencing them, their lives. So as ministers of the word, we have to be very careful in that respect. The second thing is we must, especially when we're ministering to believers, we must not dilute or compromise the ministry of the word, the content of the word. Like Paul writes repeatedly to Timothy, he says, teach sound doctrine. So sure, you use the tools that we have today. If you use the medium or the audio, the video, the slide presentation, and yeah, you engage all of that very nicely. Do the best you can with all of that. Very good use contemporary examples, very good. But while we do all that, sound doctrine, sound teaching must be brought into the lives of people. If the danger we must avoid is to leave out sound doctrine. If you leave out sound teaching of the word of God, while we are engaging with all this, we are preoccupied with all of these things, eventually the people will not be established in truth. They'll not be established in the word, right? So that's something we must be very conscious about.  That's fine. You're not going to argue on that. But what is being ministered to the people? In the ministry of the word, are you bringing sound doctrine to the church? That's important. Whether you use media or whatever, okay, all of that is fine. But make sure that people are established in the whole counsel of God. So if we are careful of these two things, the way I conduct myself, because that also impacts people and what I do communicate, I need to communicate sound teaching. Well, I use all of these things. So if we can keep these two as our guideposts in the ministry of the word, while we're adapting to, you know, whatever things are changing around us, I think, you know, we will do well. We will be able to continue to disciple people, continue to equip people, continue to nurture people. And that's the heart of God, right? The reason he has put us in the church is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the full measure of the stature of Christ. So as long as we're achieving that objective, we are free to use these tools and adapt and, you know, present. So all of that is fine. Is that okay? I hope all of us are in agreement with that. Next week, we will just talk a little bit about, you know, how the venues have changed and the way people are reaching out. We'll talk about satellite churches and how we're using technology to connect physical spaces. We'll just have a look at that. And then we'll begin to move into various aspects of media and technology, okay? God bless. Let's wrap up, let's pray together and we will dismiss. May I request somebody to close and pray please? Anyway, go close and pray. Precious Father, we thank you and praise you Father God. Just pray, thank you and praise you. Lord Master, for with this wonderful time, Father, we pray that Father God, the truth what we received today, Lord Master, let it align and let it lead our life for Father God. We pray that Father, we should not miss the truth of Father God, whatever we learned today, Father. And let we able to be, let we never compromise with that thing, but let we able to hold on it and Father God move ahead and Father God let those, let these truths of Father God, we can able to use it in our ministry, in our personal life of Father Master. We thank you and praise you Father God for strengthening us, to Lord Master to take the gospel to the different places, to using the different mediums so that Father, your kingdom can be glorified. All the glory on our end, praises belongs to you in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Thank you everyone. Have a nice weekend and Apple. We will meet again next week. God bless. Bye now. Thank you for your questions. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much. God bless. Thank you Master.


Live for you, we're joining you live and we're gonna have a great discussion today and I have my friend Nina, who is based in Mallorca but right now she's in the Grand Canaries and she's joining me and we're hoping to have a lively discussion today. Hi, Nina. Hi David, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, we're laughing because we've had something going on with the technology today but we're still going so very good. Well, yeah, it was a delight meeting you a few years ago in Mallorca. You drove a car and you came onto the other side of the island, the east side of the island where we were and we had our center over in Mallorca and so I thought I would come on with you today and it's always fascinating to hear about people's spiritual journey. So I know that initially you started off in yoga and you still use the yoga, the tool of yoga but also you've gotten much more into the emotions and shadow work maybe clearing away the thoughts and the beliefs and clearing away the emotions to bring about a healing. So maybe you can share a little bit about kind of where you started and from Germany you originally from Germany and then how you got and kind of evolved into this spiritual journey. Sure. Yeah, so it's five years ago actually that I have been in a place where I felt that I need a change and I just listened to myself and I received the invitation to go to Mallorca and yeah, miracles happened and I was listening to myself and it was the first time that I really gave myself the time to be alone with myself, to be completely distracted and I felt like I need to go to travel. I always wanted to travel and so I allowed myself to follow this in a calling and then I went on a world trip and I had done my second certification in yoga and then I felt like yeah, that's what I wanna do. I wanna share what I learned in retreats and I wanna work with people and I want to help people to heal and yeah, to share the journey together because I think that's all about it to connect with each other and to help each other on the way so that we can feel our essence. Yeah, and so I decided then back in the days, I think I was in Bali that I want to start with the holistic retreats and in the last few years I was able yeah, to learn more about yoga and then about Ayurveda, nutrition and everything what helps us to become more healthy and to become a one and nowadays I'm working as a holistic wellness coach and I offer help to people in need and I help people to transform their unwanted emotions and emotional pain and unwanted beliefs into joy so that they can feel their essence again and yeah, love, love inspired life. That's great, love inspired life, you're really like a life coach, a joy coach and people know that to be consistently joyful, wow, it takes a lot of clearing, a lot of emptying, a lot of opening up our hearts to let the spirit and the life kind of flow through us so right now do you do a little bit of a combination of maybe occasionally some retreats there either in Mallorca or I know you've been to Mexico, the East Coast of Mexico and then a lot of video calls, zoom calls with people who are kind of like sessions of just where you open up your heart and just are there as the presence of love to help facilitate people going through this kind of transformation or catharsis we could say. Yeah, that's true, yeah. Yeah, I have one-to-one sessions mostly online or in person depends on the need but yeah, I like to give space and to listen and to help with what I learned. It's beautiful. What was your experience in Mexico? I remember I was following along on Facebook when you came all the way across the ocean over there to the northern Eastern part of Mexico and was that your first time coming to Mexico? No, it's actually, now I was four times in Mexico already a couple of years ago. I received the invitation from an older man if I would like to help him to go to Mexico and push him in a wheelchair. So I received the invitation to stay there in an eco-resort for four weeks and I just pushed him in the wheelchair. During this time, I had the possibility to use the yoga for first day. So I had every day yoga there and my yoga teacher became a lovely friend for me and he asked me one day because he became sick if I would like to cover his yoga class and that was actually like the beginning and then I figured I would love to teach also in English and yeah, so we had also reunion over there and yeah, to be honest, I choose joy and I choose lies but I also found myself in a, how can I say in a situation during the pandemic in Mallorca where we were not allowed to offer, for example, yoga classes and I was also a bit worried but then I questioned myself, okay, what do I really want and what is not important for me? And I just heard always these words like Pachamama and Mexico came into my mind and I just went and that was the best decision ever because yeah, instead of following fear, I just follow to have trust and everything was unfolded, it was amazing. So I'm very grateful for everything what happened so far. And Mexico in general, I love the people, I think they're very generous and yeah, I met so great people over there and I think it's just a super beautiful, colorful, lovely plays and you have all the possibilities to connect with nature and with the shamanism, it's such a real rich culture over there so with the Temascal and all these possibilities, what you have there to do different cleanses, it was very transformational obviously. Yeah, yeah, that's funny. I received an invitation to go to Cancun and then one time to play Adele Carmen to like a kind of like an eco retreat center that was kind of out in nature and it was very, very beautiful and it was right before it was the February there in 2020 right before the pandemic really came in and I came back and over to Central Mexico where we have a center, La Casa de Milagros and then we were having so much healing, so much love and we were kind of people were laughing and hugging and sweating and then we put all the photos on Facebook and everybody said, are you social distancing in Mexico because it was at the very beginning, we were just having a natural healing experience not even that, but so that's beautiful because it sounds like that invitation to push this elderly man in a wheelchair and then the possibility to do yoga but then even more of a surrender to just thank you, hire self for having me here for letting me meet these wonderful people friendly, generous people and during the pandemic, it sounds like you were there and just trusting moment by moment like everyone was trying to do during the beginnings of the pandemic, yeah. Yeah, so my first time in Mexico was like four years or five years ago and I think, yeah, when we look back we can connect the thoughts from our lives the different steps and I think everything happens for a reason on our way. So, yes, it was a great time. So, what do you like about Mexico so much that you decided to create there, your retreat center? Well, I think, I mean, right away I was drawn to the people, I just met so many happy, friendly people and then I used to just go to Mexico over to the coast where you were and then on the other coast basically just to go and from my world travels I just wanted to be by the water and hear the ocean and just be by the sand and so mostly I went to pray and meditate Puerto Vallarta, sometimes mostly over Puerto Vallarta occasionally over to the other coast but then when I went there and I did a gathering there in Guadalajara I felt this like a strong swirl in my heart and I could feel like something was coming and I've been traveling around the world and Jesus had been telling me this curious phrase. He was talking about, he was saying it was like something to do with urban urban, some kind of an urban center or urban ministry, something like urban ministry and I thought, what does that even mean? Cause I'd been to all these cities, Paris and London and over to Beijing and Shanghai and on all the continents, six continents and so many cities, I said, what does urban ministry mean? And then when I was there in Guadalajara I felt like something like this is it and Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico so it's very urban. So I went a little bit to the north of it to a place called Lake Chapala and it was so beautiful, it was a lot of ex-patriots from Canada and the United States and I would go around in this little village called Ikehique with all these little dots on it for the eyes and the jays and then I felt this warm feeling in my heart and I felt like, there were Mexican people all over but they were speaking English in the village, in the restaurants, in the pub and I thought, this is like a little English center in the middle of a Spanish country. I said, this is very strange and then on my way I was gonna fly back to the United States. I, somebody had put a real estate, I was staying with a minister and his wife and somebody had put a real thick real estate book and I didn't know it but one friend of mine had said to another don't let David see that book. Please don't let David see that real estate book and then I saw it and I opened it up and I saw this house with a swimming pool and 17 palm trees and I said, that looks really good. I would like to visit it before I get on the plane. So I went to visit it and everything unfolded to be able to buy it as part of a non-profit as part of the ministry and it's just flourished. That was back around 2000, maybe 13. So here we are about nine years later and it's just flourishing and we've had to trim the palm trees a little bit. One of them came down in the wind but there's a lot of healing going on there, a lot of healing. So if you ever make it back to Mexico for your fifth time then you know you have a warm invitation to come over there to central Mexico. So you stay one month in November there so for the whole November or? Well, I go there, I'm gonna be there, yeah, for November and into the beginning of December till like December 5th, you know, so. And then, yeah, I think this is my first trip back there since, yeah, since last December, I was down there. I was down there for probably about two years or a little bit over two years, even got a residency card.  I live a very simple, non-possessive life but I wanted to go to Mexico and I wanted to be able to stay there. And so they sent me to the Mexican embassy in United States in Utah. And the first woman, she said, what do you own? And I said, what do I own? And she said, yeah, what do you do? What are your possessions and your bank accounts and all this and this? And I said, I don't know, I just, I live a simple life and she said, what? And you want to live in Mexico? You know, what are you just gonna let the government take care of you? I said, well, I just, she said, do you have anything? And I said, I have nonprofit organizations. There's a couple of nonprofits. She said, do you own them? And I thought, you know, you don't really own a nonprofit organization. So I said, she said, bring in some something, bring in statements, show something, show something. And I said, oh, so I told my friends, I said, she wants something. So they gather a stack of whatever they could find to try to make up something that looked like I'm a regular person. And then I went in there again with that and she said, okay, now go talk to the assistant director. I said, okay, great. So I went in and talked to the assistant director. She smiled, she laughed, she just looked at me and she said, I just have two questions for you. I said, oh, okay, here comes the interview. She said, one, do you like Mexico? I said, yes, I love Mexico. That's a tough one. I really, I love Mexico. I love the people, I like the people. I like the culture. I just really enjoy Mexico. I've been going there for some years and I like the water beaches and I told her that. So then number two, question number two, would you like to live in Mexico? And I said, yes, I would like to live. So she was like, perfect. Later I had a residence, a residence car for Mexico. And I was like, okay, this must be the urban ministry Jesus because I've never seen anything like that. So anyway, I'm a permanent resident in the United States and in Mexico. So I thought about it as well. Yeah, like that passport. And then I have a residency card. So there's definitely no problem. Yeah, it actually comes in handy when you wanna host somebody or whatever, you've got a residency card, you can just say, oh yeah, yeah, this is a friend of mine. And then they're more likely to get in. So it's worked out. Spirit has really, really given us a good life. Yeah, we can be very grateful. Yeah, we can be very grateful. It's actually amazing because I think whatever we started off in our life, we started listening to our intuitive self and then that was the big step. And then we started to get this prompts or these guidances and like you said, you can kind of see the patterns in your life. There's no accidents of who you meet and where you go. And I was saying the other day, I feel so grateful because I got to travel around to 49 out of the 50 states in the United States. And the only one I didn't go to, they invited me to Alaska, but I sent a friend of mine, Suzanne, to go up instead, cause I had something going on. But yesterday I was on Alaska Airlines. So I think the spirit's saying, don't forget about Alaska. And then I got to go to 44 countries around the world and on six continents and meet so many loving people like yourself that are just following their intuition and living their life based on their intuition instead of all the programming. Because yeah, when we really look at it, we see, I grew up in America and a lot of the programming, you grew up in Germany. I have a German last name and my grandfather's name was Heinrich Hermann Hofmeister. Heinrich Hermann Hofmeister. That's right. And so there's a lot of symbols that are tied in with Germany for sure. The people I meet and the places I go and I've enjoyed my times over in Munich and Berlin and gone to some beautiful places and met so many beautiful people in Germany. And then, yeah, meeting you down there in Mallorca, it was like, hmm, that was an interesting place for us to end up and you're still there. Well, yeah, I'm based, but I travel a lot. So I was more in Mexico now, I think. I was also in the US last year. I was also in Utah. Oh, really? Moab. Oh, wow, Moab, yeah. That's very beautiful, the arch. Incredible, yeah. Yeah, that's not too far from where I am. I'm kind of in rural Utah to the south of Salt Lake City. I'm a little bit southeast, and I think Moab's a little further to the south than that, but it's gorgeous for me when I go out to, even to go to get groceries or go to a town, the mountains and the valleys and I mean, right now it's fall over here, it's autumn. So the trees are all changing. So I just take a drive and the mountains have all this fire, either fire red or bright orange or now it's all bright yellow. Just beautiful, sharp yellow and evergreen trees, bright green and bright yellow. And I feel like that movie that Robin Williams was in called What Dreams May Come. But Annabelle Scorsese, you know, where it's kind of like he's in an artistic world because his wife, Annabelle, played by Annabelle Scorsese, she's an artist. So it's all these brilliant colors. And when I go to get groceries, that's the kind of scenery I have to look at for like two or three hours though. What are you talking about? You live with a dream. Yeah, it's like one of those screens, you know, screensavers that they have for driving through a screensaver, you know, where you're driving it. Whoa, whoa. Every five minutes, you know, lakes, blue lakes and sparkly yellow colors. It's so beautiful. Yeah. I love that. One of my favorite memories at that. Yeah. Just yesterday I went through the pictures because I took the plane, right? And mostly when we're on flight mode, we have the time to go through our pictures. Yeah. I love taking pictures. Yeah, yeah, I'm curious. Yeah, lovely. So you will go off and for hikes as well? Not so much, but I think I would like to. I've got my hiking shoes and I haven't been out as much. I mean, our monastery here in Utah is like 48 acres. So just when you walk around the monastery, you're kind of hiking all the time because it's quite a few acres. But we built these little domes that we made them out of foam. So they're very insulated for during the summer and during the winter. And we have like wooden cabins. And this past year, I mean, I've been at this monastery since about 2009. And all the buildings are wood. So they're very beautiful.  And then, but it takes a team to fix them up and stain them. And we have to pour your heart in. Like the old craftsmen, you have to really give your heart with the decks. And so now it's not like your typical monastery. I mean, most of the time people think of monastery, they think of monks and nuns and just praying all day and making fudge or cheese or something. We actually have two hot tubs at our monastery. People are like, hot tubs, whatever. But it's kind of fun in the winter to be out there and meditating with these beautiful canyon and beautiful skies and gorgeous surroundings.  Cause it's very quiet too. There's hardly ever a plane that flies over. So it's really pristinely quiet, which is good for a monastery. You know, we're going to train our mind to be still, but we like when it's, that's still. And we have a, we were kind of in the spring and we were saying, well, what could we do to fix the monastery up? And I said, well, maybe there's a canyon right here. It's a gorgeous canyon. Maybe we put a deck right on the canyon. And then it feels like you're out bended overlooking this huge canyon. You like on the edge of the grand canyon, just build a nice deck and I'll sit out there and give talks about enlightenment and self realization and everybody can see the view behind me while I'm talking. So we did that. And then we said, you know, we really are about oneness, but I said, why don't we try to be more in harmony with nature? So why don't we turn this kind of as into an eco center? And they said, what does that mean? I said, let's go green. So they said, go green. And I said, well, go green, go clean. Go green, be in harmony with nature and then go clean, clean your mind. Like give up all judgment and grievances and opinions. So for the last like five months we've been doing go green, go clean. Right out my window, there are solar panels. So that was one thing was installing solar panels and had to get a building permit and everything. So right now I'm speaking to you on solar power. We're kind of, it's a step to go a little bit off the grid of the city grid because we're way out here. So we have solar panels. We've been fixing up and insulating and kind of really giving tender loving care to the buildings and the places. So there were a little more in harmony with nature. And the goal I said is to be 100% in harmony with nature where we're just, we're using the sunshine for the energy. We're going to have some gutters on our buildings to collect the rainwater and put them into container tanks. So mother nature's giving us rain, sunshine and let's just live a simple life in harmony with nature here. And so we're kind of off the grid and we're just into prayer and meditation and laughing together, being together, being spontaneous, being playful and being our natural selves, that's the goal. Sounds perfect. Do you have also permaculture garden already over there? Not yet, no, we do have a greenhouse.  But we're out in what I think in the world would call high desert. So we have, it's very different from the Eastern part of the United States where I have a little peace house with green trees and everything. So there's not as much water out here but we tried growing things a little bit in the greenhouse and then we found, wow, the sun is so strong out here. It's great for solar energy but so we had to get a humidifier and vent, learn how to vent the things. So we're moving in that direction but if you know about permaculture, maybe you could come and give us a few pointers. We're, we would love to go in that direction too, yeah. I know of your people. Sure, I can give you some context. Oh, that's beautiful. We used to have these people in the United States. I think they're known all over the world. Have you ever heard of woofers, organic farmers? Yeah. I was just thinking about that as well. Yes. Yeah, I was, I've always studied different communities all around the world and visited many of them. So I was getting many ideas and I liked the idea of organic farmers that would kind of move around the world and just go to help you out. And sometimes if you need a little help with something else, they're happy to live and pitch in. So I've met some amazing woofers around the world just in holy encounters with them. So I try to stay open to ideas of anything that the spirit wants to bring in and just welcome it when it comes. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. Just one person wrote, I lived completely off the grid for 10 years. No hydro, no phone, no running water, no bills. Lovely. That's really going inward. Right. Yeah, right. Very simple. Ownful it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting when they were asking me, they said, so what is the goal? And I said, well, I said for me, go green is just to be like more eco-friendly. And I said, you know, our utility bills here in Utah are really not that high compared to other parts of the country. So it's not, we're not doing out of the sense of need or lack, but it's a sense of it just feels more in harmony. And as we move forward in the world with the seemingly scarce resources and water and electricity and everything, it just feels more natural to live a simple life. And I've always tried to live a simple life. And when I've talked to Jesus about it, Jesus will say, well, if you want the simplest life, the very simplest life, it's to be ego-free. He said, because he said it's your thoughts that are polluting your mind and it's your thoughts that are ego that makes everything complex. But he said, if you're ego-free, you can live anywhere, you can be with any people, you can be your joyful, happy, peaceful self and then it's not circumstance dependent. It doesn't depend on the environment or the people or the personalities. So I always tell people, yeah, that's my goal is simplicity, but to me simplicity is to be ego-free. So that was my goal my whole life was to just be, remember my true self, that was the goal. So true. How did, when did you started to live like that? Well, to decide, I wanna, I wanna, I mean, it's not a getting rid of the ego. It's more like to focus more on- On the spirit. More of a spirit. Yeah. Well, I think, I think I was in university. I was in university for 10 years and towards the later part of the university, like during the last two or three years of university, I started to feel something in my heart that was starting to like feel like activated or energized, like I was gonna be going in a whole different direction.  I actually have a friend here, Amelia, who I did one-on-one with from Bali and now she's here. She's here in Utah, the monastery. But I started to feel like, well, I feel called and I don't know what it is. And then I started to read some books and see some signs and symbols, to be more aligned with spirit and to transcend the ego to the extent that I'm willing to do that. So then I was telling a group up in Portland last, yesterday, I think it was the night before, maybe two nights ago, that I just started to hear this intuitive voice very clearly and it told me to take a travel. Like you've done a lot of traveling. I find that's a way to get out of the assumptions and the preferences that when you just live in a little box, then you tend to think only about the little box. So the spirit took me traveling for like the first trip was like five and a half weeks and then the second trip was about six weeks. But I was told just go west, drive west. And then I had to learn how to be intuitive because I was very analytical. I was in engineering and urban planning. I was very, very analytical. And the spirit was like saying, no, you need to be intuitive and learn to follow your inner self and do that. So I started doing that when I traveled. And then I didn't realize it, but the spirit had like two and a half decades of travel to really get me unhooked from the analytical mind. Like being really pulled away from it completely instead of trying to figure everything out, just be present and be intuitive. So that got me going. And then when the pandemic came, I really felt like right before the pandemic came, I heard Jesus saying again, two words. But before he got me to Mexico I sang urban ministry. And then he went here. This is what I meant. And then he was saying digital ministry. And so I said, digital, but I already do things online, but I didn't realize that the pandemic, I had no idea the zoom would explode and everybody would be indoors. But Jesus, even the November before the pandemic as he said, digital ministry. And I told everybody and they all said, what, what does that mean? And I said, I don't know. We'll find out these last couple of years we've found out what it meant. Wow. Impressive. So it's after a while, I just say, I just want to follow. I just want to listen and follow and trust, learn to trust. And yeah, that seems to be the way that it goes. Yeah, and travel is, I still have so much fun. I have fun meeting people on airplanes and in airports. And then when you land, you know, the people are just adorable. Everywhere you go, you find these adorable. They're like angels. They're just like- It's so true. It's so true. I met also the best people on the planes and all over the world. Yeah. Just yesterday, for example, was also very funny because I had the intuition to go to some to take the flight over Santiago de Composte instead of Madrid. And I mean, there were so many spiritual people there, right? Because it's the end of the hike. And I had a delay of five hours, four or five hours. So I had a lot of time there and different talks. And it was very interesting because they were able to share with me all their insights from their hike. So that was very unique. It's kind of a film. It was not really real for yesterday. Yeah, yeah. That's beautiful. I do find we learn a lot just by listening to people. You know, we're never where we are by accident, you know? And then people show up and they sit down and they start talking to you and they're so friendly. And I find people do open up with me a lot.  But they just feel like safe, I guess, to open up. And maybe that's just how it all works. You know, we just trust in spirit and we're there to listen and learn. And sometimes we talk and sometimes we just listen. Yeah. Yeah, it can be very heelsome. Yeah. But it's just to be there for them to listen. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm so grateful that you came on today. I knew we would just come on and have some fun. And I know you have friends from the United States and English speaking friends. So yeah, I'll send you the link and you can share it with them so they can see how much fun we have. We just come together and enjoy the moment. And for those of you watching, we actually, this is the first time I kept getting the message. It said your live stream has been interrupted or stopped or something. And I thought, that's never happened to me, but we persisted. And today, fourth time was a charm.  Maybe that's the lesson for today, never give up. Yeah, never give up. I have trust. Yes. So, well, if you ever take a trip to Mexico, please message me on Facebook Messenger. And I would love to host you there. And of course, now that I know you've just been to Utah too and Moab, that's very, very close to where I am. So you can come and check out our eco Go Green Monastery we have here in... It sounds lovely. Yeah, there's a lot of good hikes down by the river. Yeah, there's a lot of good hikes. I loved it, I loved it. Yeah, it's on my list. Very good, very good. I'm glad. It would be great to see you soon again. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you, bye-bye. Bye-bye.


Hi, hi everyone. Welcome to the session on Wikilev's Monuments. I'm Krishna and based in India. I'm talking to you on behalf of the international team of Wikilev's Monuments today. Some of you might have heard of Wikilev's Monuments. Some of you might have participated in it. Some of you might have involved in some form of organizing. This presentation is mainly oriented towards new teams or new countries that would like to set up and participate in Wikilev's Monuments out of the country. But it will also be helpful for anyone who is interested in Wikilev's Monuments in general, how the campaign works, what we are doing, what we are doing and the overall setup of it. So let's get started. So one of the missions, one of the missions, one of the primary missions is that we help to document all the cultural heritage, all the knowledge on Wikis, which is parallel to the overall mission of the Wikilev movement, which is that everyone can feel the same sort of knowledge. Whereas we have a specific mission, which is that all cultural heritage is documented on Wikimedia Commons or any other projects in any other form that is possible. So how do we do it? We have a photo competition, which is annual global federated and low barrier. So what do these mean? It's annual. So we have the campaign running for the past 10 years. It's been over a decade since it started. It happens every year annually in September and October. And sometimes we keep changing the campaign months due to different global events that is the pandemic, for example. And it's global. All countries are welcome to take part in the campaign. If you have a team, all countries are taken part of their own campaigns and run Wikilev's Monuments in their countries. It is federated. By federated, we mean that we have an international team which will talk more about the structure, which we only set the broad framework and make sure things are running and keep everything coordinated. But the core part of the campaign, which is running the campaigns nationally and getting the uploads and getting the winners at national levels that is done by national teams. And national teams are very free and flexible to have their own adjustments to the way they want to design things, the way they don't want to run the campaign, do the upgrades. It's all up to the national teams. So that makes it a very federated and distributed model. And it's low barrier because, just imagine, uploading Wikilev's Monuments has proven to be very friendly for newcomers who have not contributed previously to Wikilev's Viki media projects at all. So uploading a photograph is fairly easy than, for example, writing a whole article. And because we have a lot of things autofilled with the help of lists of monuments, it becomes a fairly easy and low barrier entry point into Wikimedia projects for newcomers. And of course, it's a photo competition that makes it fun. And that helps to write a lot of newcomers. So we have this whole campaign set up. And so why are we doing this? Of course, we have the main mission, which is, of course, we want to document all the cultural, build cultural heritage, and then increase contributions into Wikimedia projects, which is Wikimedia Commons, primarily Wikimedia Commons because it's a photo competition. But we can, a lot of people, they come to Wikimedia Commons, they upload the photographs, they get started with their contributions, but also migrate to other projects, such as Wikipedia or Wikidata, if they're interested in. And to keep engaging the local Wikimedia communities, this happens to outreach. So whenever a country organizes a big loads of monuments, they do a lot of activities, such as photo walks, workshops, which help in turn to keep our communities engaged and enhance them. So as I mentioned, it's a federated model. We have several countries taking part every year. This, like in the past few years, it's somewhere between 40 to 50. We're trying to improve this count this year and the next few years. So first year it was only one country and then it was Europe and then it went international from 2012. And so it doesn't necessarily mean that all countries, for example, if you participate this year that you have to participate again, it is up to the bandwidth of the national teams if they want to do it a certain year or not. Some countries do it every year, some alternate, some do it whenever they have the necessary bandwidth to organize the campaign. And a quick overview of the uploaders and newcomers we have. So the blue lines are the total uploaders and the red ones are the newcomers of them. And I was mentioning before that it's a low barrier competition and this definitely proves that it's low barrier because we have almost 60 to 70% of all our participants newcomers. We might have anywhere between 8,000 to 10,000, 15,000 uploaders and at least 67% of the one newcomers. So this is very interesting and exciting about week-long events. So that's a broad overview of what it is and how things are. So how does this work in the center of it? So we have the natural organizers who do the whole work of the campaign globally. Of course they directly interact with the participants at national level and with the support of the national teams, national entities such as NGOs or cultural organizations which help to promote different teams, have different partnerships with different entities such as UNESCO, other European or other cultural organizations at international and national level. And then we have our international team. So we'll talk more about the responsibility of the international team and the national teams. But what we try to do is set a broad framework that everyone can function within and have a fair participation among all countries. But it's quite flexible and we'll see more of that. So how do we share responsibilities? What does the international team do and what do you, like if you're signing up to be a national team, what responsibilities do you have? So the international team is the overall framework. The overall framework, it means when the campaign runs. For example, this year, it's September and October, when in doing before that it was just September and during the pandemic we thought it should, it's good to have some flexibility because the situation of the pandemic situation is different in different countries and organizers would like the flexibility to choose a month. That's most suitable for them. Supporting and onboarding new teams, if there are any issues with technical, non-technical, and helping new teams to set up campaigns. And we also do the development of Montage, which is the photo jewellery tool, which is used by big loss monuments, but also many other photo campaigns. And then the center notices, which are primary means of outreach for the campaign. And of course, the main work with the international jewellery and winners are then announcing the international winners. So that's what we thought of the broad global structures that help national teams and other entities to smoothly run their campaigns. So the national teams just set up things on common, such as the landing page and lists of monuments. You could also pick a data if you have the bandwidth and outreach at national level, securing funding for national prizes and the national jewellery and the winners. So that's how the roles and responsibilities are. And then this might detect some national team skills that help with some of the international tasks. And if you're interested, you can always join the international team. So that's broadly the responsibilities. Coming to the timeline, we have this, right now we have a preparation phase with setting up different things, getting the required funding and all those things. Some things happen prior to this, but this is where most of the preparation happens. And the next September to October, we have the national competitions, some of them different entities with different pay. But, and then we have the international jewellery submission deadline, which is 5th December. This is where, this is how the federated model works. So the national teams have their own national jewellery, get the top 10 national winners. So that there are 40 countries participating in the year. We have 10 from each. So for any measure, let's take an international jewellery, of which, again, then we run the international jewellery and the international winners. Suppose that more of the logistics of the private distribution and the reporting and all the things. So that's probably the timeline of how it looks. So now let's see how, if you're a new team or a new country that wants to participate, let's see how you can get started. So one of the first things that you'll need is a team. You need a team of at least three people to keep things running smoothly. Oftentimes, sometimes we have instances where people, there's one member, there are two people, but it's good to have three. So the body is not too much and one or two of the organizers. So you can share the responsibilities. So it's coordinating the work at large and then someone for outreach and setting up things on comments and one person to coordinate the jewellery. Those are the three broad areas. You can have more things like, but since you're getting started, these are some of the basics. And again, what I want to stress is that these are the basics that are required to set up, but you always do more. And yeah, it's limitless of what you can do in terms of outreach or other things that you want to experiment with. So the basic pages that are required on comments are the landing page. That's where whenever you have the central notice banner standing across Wikimedia projects, or whenever you use the clicks, they'll land on your page. Again, we have some suggested designs for the landing page, but you're free to experiment and design your own landing pages. Set up the basic category structure to gather the images to some maintenance if necessary and provide translations for the central notice banner in the upload wizard. If it's not in English and if you have other primary language in your country, you can provide translations for that. And then we have, so we were talking about big loss monuments being low barrier and one of the primary reasons why it's low barrier is, of course it's for top loading is easy, but we also make it more easier by having lists of monuments where participant can get a click, click on one of the monument and upload a picture and all the details will be auto filled in the wizard. So it offsets a lot of work of like entering details manually so that helps newcomers make this more exciting. If you don't have a list already, you could, some of the sources you could look for is, if you have government, most of the governments have a cultural heritage department, also you can look up on their site if they have a list of monuments for your country. It can also be some other governmental organizations, such as European, might have some less, like other countries, other organizations in your country, which might be listed. It can also be other, some sort of trustworthy source. It can be a new agency that publishes some research, researcher who publishes the list. So it can be any source, any curated source that is fine. And you can take those lists and put them on making media comments and we don't have to help you with putting that set up. And then there's a timeline. There's not much work to do here, but there's a small decision that you need to take, whether you want to organize the campaign in September or October. That's totally fine, but just try to remember that you can only have 30 days in either of those months, whether it is September or October. And once you do that, accordingly you can run the jury and submit the winners by 5th of December. So the jury, for the jury, it is important to have at least three jurors and it is mandatory to have three jurors because one person can be biased. The results can be biased. It's just one person, but two people, it's hard to break what if there is a time. And so three is a good number to start with. You can always have more, but three is minimum. You can use the montage tool, which is just another fairly simple user interface where you can vote on an image and tally all the results as we end to find the top winning images. And we can have three to five rounds, some initial filtering, more detailed voting, and the final top winning. And you can have more rounds if you have more images. So that's broadly the jury. The international team also has with setting up the montage for the campaigns every year. And of course, once the jury is over, you will come to the prizes. You can have, again, this is up to the national teams to choose how much they want to give the prizes. It can be one to five or 10 or maybe other kind of special categories. You can choose that. The funding of the prizes and also other outreach activities you might have. You can do micro grants, which does this by the international team. It's fairly simple. If your budget is low and you want to have a lightweight process, you can do micro grants. You can apply for a micro grant from the international team. But if you have more budget, more prizes, outreach activities that won't fit this budget, you can always apply to the Wikimedia Foundation's rapid funds. There might also be these are the two mainstream like primary sources, but you can also try with other affiliates. If they are in your region, if they already have annual plan and they're able to do some funding to your activities. And finally, those are the five steps that are basically required to keep things running, but you can also do more outreach. For example, these banners are by default there. They're run by the teams. You can also do social media promotions or have paid promotions and have a budget for it. You could also do activities such as photo walks. You might have heard of it. The group of people gather. They just go around the city, photograph things and upload them to Wikilos Monuments. Wikimedia Commons as part of Wikilos Monuments. And they can also do workshops for newcomers. So this is just some initial ideas. Again, you can always do more and have more ideas if you always welcome to try it out. And you can also always reach out to international team or other national organizers if you need any support or help with this thing set up. So just to recap, if you're a new team, you can create the basics that you need to cover up the team, have a list of monuments, decide on the timeline or gather a jury, see how much you want to give the prizes and secure funding for them and then do the necessary outreach to increase participation. We'll take questions at the end. We have a slot at the end to take questions. Thank you very much for attending the session. You can always reach out to these channels if you want to contact the international team here. You can also post on the public list where you also have other national organizers who would be happy to help and share their ideas with you. And there are social media channels if you want to follow. Yeah, that's it about Wikilev's monuments, just the basics. And we also have a session just to remind you if you would be interested, we also have a session about improving diversity, equity and inclusion in Wikilev's monuments. And also the photographic compass, which is the research that we facilitated last year with the help of an external researcher. It's happening on 14th August from 850 to 850 UTC. You can see it on the community program as well if you're interested in that. Great. Thank you and we can take any questions we have. Thank you. Thank you for watching our video. I would have actually expected Krishna to be here with me. I'm Sil, a Wikimedian from the Netherlands and on the international team since last year. Krishna apparently has some troubles with joining us today. But he'll be... There he is. Yes, we can. Krishna? Yes, we can hear you. There's a question that was raised during the video. What are some monuments that are most exciting to you? Could you share something on the topic? I don't have one monument that's most exciting. I mean, some of the monuments that I like in India are, for example, the Red Fort. I like forts mostly because there's a lot to explore in forts. So yeah, I think the category of forts is what I like the most. But I think that's more personal. Thanks. So for me actually in Wikilos monuments, it's not specifically the monument, but it is about movement in the image and how an image or a monument is still used or not used, maybe even. So in its environment to see all the surroundings, what is it now? What does it mean to the people living there? Yeah. So you might also be able to answer this better, but I think this depends on the country and the number of images that you might receive. So generally we have three to five rounds. The first round is, the first round we have more time because you might have to filter out a lot of images. The more advanced rounds that you go to, the time probably may less. So I think in a way between three to five hours a week for like a couple of months, I think that average commitment. And again, this depends on the number of images that you might receive for your country. I think you're very much correct. It also depends if you use the jury tool of montage that was actually mentioned by Lodewijk, F.E.S. Anders in the chat. But there are different tools out there and you can do it old fashioned way and just collecting them in a category that the jury will go through. But the jury has time until the 5th of December this year to come to that final top 10 that will be given to the Wikileaks Monuments International Jury. So it depends. The same question for the local team. What is expected time investment for a local team? What is your experience in that Krishna? The campaign running. I think if you have again a team of three to five like organizers in your country and that anywhere between five hours to 10 hours five to eight hours a week and this might spike in some because of the weeks of the campaign it can go as 10 hours per week. But it's generally, if you have, like I said, what I was mentioning also in the presentation if you have at least three to five members especially if you're a new country that is participating on a new team you could share that burden with different organizers. So yeah, and I would say three, five and eight depending on the time of the campaign and how many members do you have on your team? Yeah, I can agree. And also it depends. The first year you might want to take some more time because in the next years you'll have all that work already prepared. You'll have the list on either Wikipedia or Wikidata. So everything is available for you already and that first year it might take some more time but we're happy as the international team we're happy to help you and as long as you have volunteers and you have a nice team and you can work together we can make this work. Krishna, again a very nice question I think do the sources for the monument lists do they have to be published? Or could it be just a Google Drive document that people use as a source for their lists of monuments? Yeah, I think that's an interesting question I think that always comes up and there's also another question I'm seeing it on the etherpad about if we should only use government sources or if we can use more sources. So it doesn't necessarily need to be government sources always you could use a combination of the government sources and maybe if there's an NGO which publishes a heritage organization which verifies the monuments and they publish curated lists those can also be used or if it's also trustworthy source or something like that but yeah, we just need to make sure that there's no overlap or also make sure that the lists are not biased to a certain group of monuments sometimes we see in some countries this issue of certain lists are biased towards certain colonial monuments or other groups actually things if it can also be a Google Drive document I don't have a perfect answer for that I mean we don't suggest that you curate that list because you might miss on some monuments and it's hard to verify what the monument is and what not maybe you can yeah, it's good to have if it's a published source and if it's more like a peer reviewed source that's being used yeah, but the list itself does not have to be published online somewhere else as long as you have the list that is by some official organization it's okay, right? yeah, yeah, as long as it's from official I mean we can be flexible with both official the organization can be a government organization yeah but some sort of like it's reviewed by someone and who verifies that these are monuments yeah, okay question from about the chapters and organizing Wikileaks monuments if there is a chapter in your country do they have to be there when you as a volunteer, as a Wikimedia volunteer decide you want to organize Wikileaks monuments or can you just organize Wikileaks monuments with a group of friends Wikimedia, other Wikimedeans from your country yeah, I think that's definitely possible it doesn't necessarily need to be the chapter or the official affiliate always I mean if they are interested to organize that's great but it can also be other volunteers who are organizing and they can also seek support from the chapter if the chapter is not, if the chapter affiliate is not there it will lead on the campaign I think it would be good to just make sure that they're informed and they don't have any, like, don't be causing any conflicts there so yeah, if they are happy they're not taking up the campaign this year I think other volunteers can always run the campaign yeah, I agree chapters have a lot to do and if your local chapter does not have the bandwidth to support you and you think this is very important then please just go ahead and organize Wikileaks monuments I think yeah, do we have documentation about what is needed from a national organizer to organize Wikileaks monuments do we have any materials that people can use for support in helping organize Wikileaks monuments there is a link on comments where it has some basic information such as where to get the landing page put up the translation for upload result and the central notice I don't have the link handy right now but I'll share on chat before the session ends I have it open wait, let me finish it this is the link Krishna was talking about indeed, there are a few red links yet but also as an international team we're still getting organized and getting ready for the new year but at least this basic page and it's almost the same as the 2021 page there are not a lot of differences that we have for 2022 in comparison to last year a question that might be more difficult to answer is what are the steps to improve the integration of Wikileaks monuments and Wikidata Wikidata, sorry I'm not the best person to answer that but if someone is interested maybe we can connect with whoever is currently working on in that area yeah so Wikimedia Sweden is working on Wikileaks monuments and Wikidata and I am hoping there will be more information about that before we start on the 1st of September and remember Wikimedia Wikileaks monuments runs from the 1st of September until the 31st of October and you're free to choose whichever 30 to 31 days within that time period suits your competition national competition the best so there is leeway in that planning in that time who can apply for the grants I spoke about a couple of sources where you can apply for the grant one is the Wikileaks monuments international team if you're the team that is organizing Wikileaks monuments in your country and if your request is below 500 you're eligible to get the micro grant with us if you're going for a Wikimedia Foundation grant they have their own guidelines with the grants if you have a previous record like if you have a previous fund but I think the basic ones are you need to be a team like a team which is organizing Wikileaks monuments and being community good standing that is not blocked anywhere or have some sort of bans and I think also not any outstanding reports with the previous grants that you have taken from the Wikimedia Foundation I think that is correct is the criteria of monument age still used this year I don't remember don't recall us having a criteria for monument age do we no I don't think so yeah and I don't remember having used such a guideline no I think we don't look at how all the monument is as long as it's recognized as a monument by an official organization you're okay they're suitable monuments to be photographed for the competition do we have any more questions I think there is one when we have monuments on National Heritage list one is built one and isn't both eligible for international judging I don't know the latest one from do you see any more questions I don't I see the chat is still ongoing so I'm just gonna maybe we can pause for a bit and cause we we still have four minutes according to my counter in feed loop so maybe two more questions okay because of the two minutes lag that we have with feed loop and YouTube you might want to come to a close I think we will both be around Wikimania in several sessions there's also going to be the diversity equity and inclusion session on Sunday morning talking about inclusion in Wikilos monuments and also other photo competitions and I think we'll be around for more questions and more answers right Krishna yeah yeah I'm around and I'm yeah I'll also quickly share the contact email if you want to reach out to the team yep okay I think that's it from our side thanks a lot have a good Wikimania everyone thank you


What's going on guys, welcome back to another edition of the Fandal Hurry Up, you're with Justin Henry and today I'll be talking about the Cincinnati Bengals, top three options heading into the fantasy football season. We saw him last year get to the Super Bowl in real football, have an amazing year, but that was also a really strong fantasy season for them as well. We saw Jamar Chase, Joe Burrow, T Higgins, Joe Mixon, a number of fantasy options and I'm going to talk about my top three options heading into this year. First is going to be T Higgins and yes, T Higgins is being drafted right now as the top 15 wide receiver, especially in PPR formats and that's for good reason. We saw him last year had over 70 catches, over a thousand yards. He had six touchdowns and that was just in 14 games. And so we saw the emergence of Jamar Chase, but this did help T Higgins towards the end of last season. In a six game stretch, he had 400 yard games, which is a huge improvement on the first half of the year. And yes, it shows that he can still be productive, even as the number two, quote unquote, wide receiver for this team. He operates as more of a secondary wide receiver one. So T Higgins value shouldn't be shot in the dark and there is a lot more upside than it appears on the surface. I'm valuing T Higgins as the top 12 wide receiver in PPR formats and in standard leagues, he should be around the same, maybe top 15. So don't let him slip too far underdressed just because Jamar Chase is the top receiver there. Fantasy purpose wise, T Higgins is a good value in the top 15 pigs. An expert I want to talk about is Joe Mixon, who had an incredible year last year, finishes the top five running back in all formats. And I look for him to replicate that this season as well. The offensive line looks to be improved. His role seems to be a little bit more cemented in there. The team is expecting him to get a little bit more work in the passing game as well. So when I look at Joe Mixon, we've seen him have kind of a roller coaster start to his career, but now he's been cemented as a top 10 running back and being drafted as such. Even though he finishes the top five running back last year, I don't want to quite put him in there just yet because there's some upside of other backs that's in there. In there, you know, we're talking about Derek Henry's Christian McCaffrey's, the Jonathan Taylor's of the world. They carry a little bit more upside than Joe Mixon, but he has cemented his role in the top 10 running backs. Definitely somebody that you can get in a second, third round and get a tremendous value on. Last player I want to talk about is Jamar Chase, who is going as a top three to five wide receiver right now. And after historic rookie season has every reason to be going at that range, he had almost 1500 yards receiving. We some have 13 touchdowns receiving due to monster and a big play threat. He had two games last year over 200 yards, including in the finals for a lot of leagues. He had a game of 266 yards with three touchdowns to probably secure the bag for a lot of teams. So Jamar Chase definitely has the upside that you want to see and operating as the team's de facto wide receiver one. He will go through different matchups with tough cornerbacks, but I expect him to be a reliable source of fantasy points throughout the whole season, including the potential to be the wide receiver one overall if needed. So just know the big plays are there. He has the potential to win you a week, which is what you love to see in fantasy football. But for me, he is entrenched as a top five wide receiver right now with potential for a lot more. Let me know your guys thoughts in the comments. Obviously I didn't talk about Joe Burrow, but we know he's a dynamic quarterback as well. So feel free to draft away when it comes to Joe Burrow. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Take advantage of the offer below. We'll see you on the next hurry up.