Hello David Diga Hernandez here and welcome to Spirit Church today. I'm gonna help you discover your spiritual gifts So we're gonna be talking about the spiritual gifts. What are they? How do they work in the church and more importantly, how can you discover what specific gifts? God has given to you. I'm gonna give you some very Practical keys to discovering your spiritual gifts But first as usual Steven Moctezuma is here with me. He's gonna lead you in some worship right now I hope that you enjoyed that worship with our good friend Steven Moctezuma. By the way keep this in prayer for us We are going to be releasing a worship album very soon coming from this ministry And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna gather some of the best musicians that I've ever worked with and that have traveled With me all over the world and we're gonna have Steven even do a couple of the songs. So keep that in prayer We're working on that project. We're hoping to get it to you by December just in time for Christmas So that'll be like a Christmas gift from the ministry to you But today as promised, we're gonna go over spiritual gifts now I want to get into the word here and before I can really talk to you about how you as An individual can find out specifically the gifts that God has placed on your life And there are three practical keys that I'm gonna give you that as soon as you're done watching this video You can go and assess and apply Immediately into your life and I'm gonna go over those keys with you at the end Toward the end of the teaching because first I think I want to establish more the foundation of the doctrines of the spiritual gifts That are given to us by the Holy Spirit. So I'm gonna give you a quick survey of the gifts I'm gonna talk about the role of the gifts I'm gonna talk about unity in the body and like I said just some very Foundational teaching here and so I'm gonna take my time with this I want to first build that foundation and once we grasp a full understanding or at least a Sufficient understanding of what the Bible teaches about the spiritual gifts Then I'm gonna go into detail and give you keys to finding out what your spiritual gifts are The gifts that God has given you so first I want to talk to you about God's criteria For people that he will use, you know many times I think people when considering the call of God upon their own life are very quick to dismiss themselves Because of the disc disqualification that they see about themselves they look at the things Like their flaws they look at their character traits that are not necessarily caught up to what they should be or where they think they should be They look at some of the things in their life that are not necessarily in perfect order or perhaps maybe they're not in the most ideal situation maybe it won't be comfortable or Convenient to pursue the call of God on their life quite yet But I want to reassure you and I want to encourage you to know then no matter who you are as long as you carry A love for Jesus in your heart you carry the power of God on your life and God's criteria for being used is Not even necessarily as strict as ours I mean we talk about faithfulness and I believe in faithfulness, but then the scripture gives us these encouraging Truths such as he is faithful even when I am not and you consider the faithfulness of God And you'll be relieved to know that God's call upon your life depends more upon his faithfulness Than it does on yours and so we're gonna be talking about this specifically so God's criteria now Like I said, we're gonna go over the gifts in just a little bit But I want you to understand a couple things first of all Let's go to 1st Corinthians chapter 1 and we're gonna read verse 26 to 29. This is what the Bible says Remember dear brothers and sisters that few of you were wise in the world's eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you Instead God chose things the world considers foolish In order to shame those who think they are wise and he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful And the base things of the world and despised and the despised God has chosen The things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are So that no man may boast before God, you know, I'll never forget when I first began to pursue the Lord I was so thrilled To find the depths of his presence at a very young age and I remember being in prayer and I just Everything within my heart burned to be used by God. I just had this passion This desire this yearning to step into the call of God I sensed that there was some greater purpose in life. I knew That by faith I could step into an entire different dimension of living and as I prayed as I sought the Lord I felt as though I was standing on the very edge of something grand and I knew that all it took Was one step of faith and then I'd be in but At the same time as I was encouraged by what I saw that lay before me I also sensed a little bit of discouragement because I looked at myself and I said, okay I kind of went down this checklist. I said God I I don't have much influence. I'm not I'm not a very good speaker I'm not I'm not I'm not the brightest among my friends. I don't I mean I I looked at myself With qualifications as the world did now as many of you know, if you've read any of my books You know, I'm not that big of a sports fan And one of the reasons I wasn't that big of a sports fan is because I wasn't very good at sports And so, you know, I didn't grow up with a lot of confidence and at a young age I developed a lot of things that in me Created this lack of confidence and I remember being On, you know, the sports lineups and and I don't blame them So I'm not saying this so you feel sorry for me. In fact, I I probably wouldn't have chosen myself either But I remember there were several times I'd be on a line And I was they would go down the line picking the people they want it in the game I was usually among the last to be picked now the only exception for this of course was basketball And that wasn't because I was any good because I was taller than all the other kids But by the time I reached the third and fourth grade and maybe fifth and sixth Um when the other kids started catching up my height ceased to be an advantage And I went back to being picked last for that as well But I remember in my mind I developed this this this mentality that I was never going to be the first choice that I wasn't someone that People would pick as the ideal man for an option and still to this day I even look at myself and say god, are you sure you have the right person? And I'm sharing that with you because I'm sure that perhaps maybe you share some of these In in how would I word this maybe you share some of these feelings of inadequacy And I thought you'd be encouraged to know that I struggle with these same things too But the good thing is that I remember when I was praying when I was seeking the Lord When I first began to get to know him That when he called me I recognized the transformative power that was Touching my life because the time I spent in prayer, you know when god uses you He's going to use those who are hiding themselves in his presence god exposes those who hide themselves in his presence Those who have devoted their lives to the private Power of prayer are going to be used publicly by god those who who go to god in secret are given influence And those who are hidden in the lord in their devotion Eventually become exposed and so I didn't know it at the time But god was working in me little by little every moment I spent in prayer It was a moment that I was drawing close to the god and the power of god was increasing on my life But I'll never forget this because there was one particular day where the power of god touched me And perhaps you've heard me share about it before where I kind of drew this ultimatum And I said i'm not leaving this room till god touches me long story short I experienced the presence of god in a way I had never Experienced it before and in that moment My life was changed You see a single moment spent in the presence of god Will transform your life But a life that is spent in the presence of god can transform the nations God is not looking for the mighty. He's not looking for the strong the wise or even the confident God is looking to the yielded God is not looking for those who Puff themselves up and boast and consider themselves to be the best pick God is looking for the one who walks in humility As it pertains to the call of god upon your life It's not a matter of how gifted or talented you are But of how surrendered you are And as we Surrender our hearts to him We recognize that it's his ability and us That is the reason we're being used It is not by my power not by my might it's by his So As it pertains to god's criteria. He's looking for a yielded vessel someone who surrendered You may look at your life and say I don't really consider myself useful, but let me tell you God looks for those who will surrender. So that was my intro. I wanted to talk to you about the criteria So just don't let the enemy rob you as you listen to this god wants to use you So we have to recognize that we in the body of christ need each other every single one of us play a vital role In god's plan for global evangelism Every single person matters Your influence matters because you're going to affect those lives around you and your influence matters because you contribute something Whether you see it or not to the body of christ and when I say the body of christ I'm not just talking about your local church down the street I'm talking about the universal body of christ in the world at large And so this is what the bible says concerning the body of christ And in the scripture here is uh first grant the ends chapter 12 verse 18 through 27 And I love the way paul the apostle puts this he says but our body Our bodies have many parts And god has put each part just where he wants it How strange a body would be if it only had one part? Yes, there are many parts But only one body the eye can ever say to the hand. I don't need you The head can't say to the feet. I don't need you In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen While the more honorable parts do not require this special care So god has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts That have less dignity This makes for harmony among the members so that all the members care for each other For if one part suffers All the parts suffer with it And if one part is honored all the parts are glad All of you together are christ body and each of you is a part of it So the scriptures talking about here that sometimes we consider certain things or we perceive certain things Especially in this age in this culture. We kind of esteem certain things that god doesn't necessarily esteem.  They don't But the lung and the heart and the kidney Are more important Vitally, they're they're they're vital. They're they're they're so much more important than the hair Yet nobody ever notices the heart the longer the kidney They only notice the hair and so god the scripture is telling us here That sometimes we honor things and and maybe we see a preacher on tv Or we see someone on a pulpit or we see someone who's kind of got a big name in christianity And we say well that person means more to the body of christ than i do Well, that's the more visible part of the body of christ But it doesn't necessarily mean it's the most honored or even the most important In fact, it all balances out so that the humbled are exalted and the exalted are humbled This is why jesus said the first shall be last and that's as it goes in the kingdom of heaven First grantians chapter 12 verse 21 says the eye can never say to the hand I don't need you the head can't say to the feet I don't need you all the gifts matter because all the gifts work together to contribute to The global plan of evangelism that god has established on earth through his body So first grantians chapter 12 verse 7 now says this now to each one the manifestation of the spirit Is given for the common good in other words gifts are given for service not status God does not anoint someone or use someone so that they can receive a status I mean if you want to read a scripture that's very um That that will shake you to your core Read Matthew chapter 7 but read it in the message bible and I love the way the message bible puts it I'm going to have to paraphrase the message bible which is somewhat of a paraphrase itself But the message bible says it like this again paraphrasing He says many will come to me on that day and they're going to be strutting confidently And they're going to be confident in what they've done and I'm going to turn to them and I'm going to say Get away from me. I don't know you all you did was use me to make yourselves important And I thought that was a very very good translation because it kind of does You know Wake some of us up because some people use Ministry or use church or use evangelism or use their titles and their gifts as a way to puff themselves up or to make themselves Important when in reality the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to us not so that we can draw glory to ourselves But so that we can give glory to Jesus and so that we can function and serve in the body of Christ So the gifts are given to us for service Not for status now. I want to talk to you quickly about what the gifts are First grant against chapter 12 verse 1 through 3 says this now dear brothers and sisters Regarding your question about the special abilities the spirit gives us I don't want you to misunderstand this You know that when you were still pagans you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols So I want you to know that no one by no one speaking by the spirit of god will curse Jesus And no one can say Jesus is lord Except by the Holy Spirit now Paul is talking to these people who are former pagans now The reason he has to address this Is because former pagans they dabbled in witchcraft and in that witchcraft they did receive certain kinds of power Of course, it was demonic power. So it's counterfeit to what the Holy Spirit does in our lives So paul the apostle is addressing former pagans. They're possible misconceptions or the potential misconceptions Of the spiritual gifts it was quite possible that paul is addressing this So that they wouldn't confuse and look at the gifts as the same type of power that they received when they were pagans He's saying look, I don't want you to be ignorant Don't don't don't mistake the gifts of the spirit and cheapen them and view them like their Gifts of paganism or gifts that are to find themselves rooted in the same type of demonic power of the stuff You used to dabble in rather he's saying we need to focus on the gifts of the spirit and call it for what it is And then he says this no one speaking by the Holy Spirit says Jesus occurs And no one can say Jesus is lord except by the Holy Spirit Of course, he's not talking about the phonetic pronunciation of those words or those phrases So it's not like someone who's not filled the Holy Spirit can't physically say Jesus is lord Rather what he's saying that the spirit behind the power of those gifts of those functions of those abilities Has to point to christ as lord If the gifts and the power do not point to christ as lord Then those gifts are not of the Holy Spirit. They are of the demonic realm. In fact, I've been to many services where They'll have You know, I've been to some services all they focused on was the miracles all they focused on was the prophetic Words all they focused on was was the manifestations of power And I felt that I was rather in a new age session Then a church service and I would sit to the whole meeting and it would be all about the man and his gifts Or the woman and her gifts and she would prophesy or he would prophesy or he would do all these These things that you know, you you'll see manifested in some of our services But the problem was there was not one mention of Jesus There was not one mention of the gospel there was not one mention of anything that scripture had to teach So the message was missing but the miracles were there but the message When it's missing The miracles aren't necessary Miracles without the message of jesus are witchcraft The paganism their new age humanistic Religion it's this law of attraction and spirit that's kind of been Meddling and being pedaled around the church and that's this type of stuff We have to avoid we cannot become so focused on the gifts We cannot be ignorant as paul said as many of us were former pagans We cannot be ignorant We have to recognize that the purpose of the gifts is to point to jesus as lord Not to puff up a man not to bring attention to an organization or when he one person But that the purpose of the gifts of the holy spirit are to point to jesus as lord And if the gifts and what's going on in the movement of people is pointing to jesus It's of god if it's not pointing to jesus.  But the truth is that some people who prophesy Are false prophets, but not everyone who prophesies is a false prophet So the issue is they're kind of making a generalization on the wrong end of the idea So the the point is not that anyone who prays for the sick or prophesies or cast out devils is going to hell The point is that some of those who practice such things aren't genuinely following christ and paul the apostle gives us the standard By which we can discern all of these things. It's the objective comparison to which we hold all truth And if those gifts if what that man and woman is doing is pointing to jesus I'm not saying every service they do has to be evangelistic There's some people who are picky in that way, too They'll say i didn't hear one mention of the cross or one mention of the blood or one mention of repentance But as long as what they're preaching is biblical truth Even if it's some truth, maybe not the whole I mean not every service you go to you're going to hear the full gospel message But they're going to you're going to receive teaching But the idea is ultimately is what they're doing in the spirit of Pointing to christ or in the spirit of pointing to something else So that's where paul the apostle is addressing his former pagans They not get confused with this and he gives us that standard by which we can judge things So paul's prophets aren't those who get things wrong every now and then paul's prophets are not those who Perhaps misinterpreted scripture here are there unintentionally paul's prophets are those who don't point to jesus who point to someone else Everyone else jesus said if they're for us then they're on our part If you're not with me you're against me, but if you're with us then you're not against us So we have to follow what jesus says and not what men who are picky and you know, you know those people are so Romans chapter 11 verse 29 says this for god's gifts in his call Can never be withdrawn now the reason i'm reading this scripture here Is because i think it ties into what paul then goes on to address in verses 4 through 6 of first chrithians chapter 12 Because first chrithians chapter 12 verse 4 through 6 says there are different kinds of spiritual gifts now watch this follow this There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit Is the source of them all there are different kinds of service But we serve the same lord God works in different ways, but it is the same god who does the work in all of us. Did you see it? It's the holy spirit It's the son and it's the father now Why is paul the apostle alluding to the trinity? And a text that's about the spiritual gifts Well for one i believe as we read in romans chapter 11 verse 29 That he's saying that it was god who gave us the gifts Therefore no one could take them away the holy spirit The son and the father all together decided an eternity past what gifts you would have They took a unanimous vote and decided what they would impart to you And nothing could ever undo that the father the son and the holy spirit All together decided together decided what gifts you would carry think about that I want you to really appreciate that that truth that god the father god the son god the holy spirit talked about You before you ever entered this earth Before you ever came to live in this body god the father god the son god the holy spirit all together decided What gifts you would have Now that's powerful because what they do in unity can never be undone Also, the reason i believe he's alluding to the trinity is because this is this is uh first crantons chapter 12 Remember first crantons 13 is about love and first crantons chapter 14 is about unity in the body of christ I believe that paul is referencing the trinity because they're the greatest example of unity It's trinity unity that's ultimate unity and so we need to be one with each other Just as the father son and the holy spirit are The father son and the holy spirit all point to each other. They never pointed themselves The god the father says this is my beloved son Jesus says i have to go so i can send you the comforter john 14 26 He says and that one will come and he'll guide you in all truth and who does the holy spirit point to He points back to jesus because the holy spirit is the one who according to roman chapter five verse five Sheds the love of god abroad in our heart. So the holy spirit then cultivates within us a love for jesus He points right back to christ who points right back at the father He says if you've seen me you've seen the father and then the father points right back at the son and the The son points right back at the spirit and so this eternal Sharing of glory is what makes the the trinity an ultimate example of unity And so we need to be that way with each other We need to be not those who who stand up and want to get all the attention for ourselves Everybody look at me what i'm doing We need to be people who not only carry the gifts of the holy spirit But who honor the gifts and glorify jesus for the gifts that are in our brothers and sisters We cannot always want to be the center of attention We have to be united because we're in this together and we all have the job of global evangelism to do so One more thought on the gifts before i kind of list them here first kranthians chapter 12 verse 31 The scripture says so you should earnestly Desire the most helpful gifts But now let me show you a way of life That is best of all and then of course we know he goes in there first kranthians chapter 13, which is the love chapter So paul is saying you need to desire the gifts not just the gifts, but the most useful ones Now let me ask you a couple questions here And i know this is video so you i won't exactly hear your responses, but i want to get you thinking about these things now paul the apostle tells us to desire the most useful gifts so If someone is sick What is the most useful gift for you to have at that moment? The gift of healing if someone needs to hear from god What's the most useful gift for you to have at that moment give the prophecy if someone is discouraged and they come Across your path. What's the most useful gift for you to have at that point? The gift of encouragement if someone needs to decide whether someone is coming in the right spirit or false spirit What gift is best to have in that moment the gift of discernment? So the most useful gift is the one that's needed at the moment So god wants to give us these gifts and i believe that to some degree and i'll touch a little bit on this later That to some degree every believer has the capacity to function in every gift because it's the holy spirit Who does these things and he lives on the inside of each one of us? so That's a thought i want to take over now. Let's take a look at the gifts Okay, so i've broken them off into three Categories here number one the first category. These are what i call the service gifts Now don't let that throw you off because all gifts like i said are for service not status But just for the sake of categorization i'm going to call this first block of gifts the gifts of service There's a gift of exhortation Founded romans 12 8 the gift of giving also found in romans 12 8 the gift of leadership Also found in romans 12 8 and it's found in first grant the inch chapter 12 verse 28 The gift of prophecy found in romans chapter 12 verse 6 Also found in first grant the inch chapter 12 verse 10 the gift of service found in romans chapter 12 verse 7 And the gift of administration or the gift of helps as it's worded in some versions of the bible Is found in first grant the inch chapter 12 verse 28. That's the gifts the service gifts the second category I call the power gifts and again all gifts are empowered by the holy spirit But for the sake of categorization the power gifts are the gift of discernment Which is found in first grant the inch chapter 12 verse 10 The gift of faith which is found in first grant the inch chapter 12 verse 9 The gift of healing which is found in first grant the inch chapter 12 verse 10 The word of knowledge which is found in first grant the inch chapter 12 8 The word of wisdom the same reference the gift of miracles first grant the inch 12 10 The gift of tongues first grant the inch 12 10 the gift of tongues interpretation first grant the inch 12 10 as well And then finally there is what i call the author there are the office gifts And this is the evangelist. All these are found in Ephesians 411. The evangelist, the pastor, the teacher, the apostle and the prophet. You can also see a reference to the teacher in Romans chapter 12 verse 7. So, okay, let's break this down first. Let's talk real quickly about the office gifts. Now, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 to 12 says this. Now, these are the gifts Christ gave to the church. The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. So, the evangelist is one who is so gifted by God in the area of soul winning. The evangelist is the one... Actually, let me tell you first what evangelist is not. An evangelist is not a traveling speaker. An evangelist is not someone who does church conferences. An evangelist is not someone who travels and goes from church to church to church. Sometimes teachers do that. An evangelist is not someone who just kind of wants to have a title and not really be tied down anywhere and kind of just moves around. That's not what an evangelist is. That's not what an evangelist does. An evangelist at the very spirit is a soul winner. And an evangelist, their job, their function of the body of Christ is to win people to Jesus, to call them to repentance. They're graced in the area of soul winning. That when they share the gospel, there's a special grace on their message that causes hearts to be turned in repentance from sin toward Christ. And so the evangelist, like I said, not a Christian entertainer. An evangelist is not someone with all the benefits of the pastor and none of the responsibilities. An evangelist is someone who is a soul winner. A true evangelist cares more about people than he does about crowds. A true evangelist cares more about souls than he does about money. A true evangelist is going to put himself in positions no matter how difficult. He'll do anything to win souls. The mark of the evangelist is that he carries with him a burden, a passion, a desire, a yearning to win the loss to Christ. And that's what his focus is. Now there's the pastor. And the pastor is the overseer of a local church group. Now the pastor is the one who is in charge of building disciples. And so the pastor's focus, he's graced as it comes to build disciples. Then there's the teacher. The teacher is graced by God to have a special gift of teaching. He's very, he or she is very gifted at causing others to understand truths of scripture. There's the prophet. And this is someone who's the mouthpiece of God. He has the ability to hear from God and repeat what God says. Now, I'm going to talk to you about how everyone can kind of prophesy, but not everyone's a prophet in just a moment. Let me just finish up with this thought. Apostle. Now an apostle, this one gets a lot of different definitions. I mean, everyone's an apostle nowadays, right? They call themselves an apostle because everyone thinks that the apostle is just a high ranking pastor. And that's really not what it is at all. In fact, an apostle simply put is someone who is graced to start ministry works, whether those are churches, whether those are mission projects. And so an apostle by happenstance and really as a result of what he does and not necessarily the purpose of what he does, an apostle just so happens to therefore because of the nature of his ministry, come to oversee multiple works. So an apostle is not necessarily a pastor of pastors, but an apostle is someone who's graced and gifted in the area of starting churches, especially and more generally just works of ministry. And they all carry that special grace. Now, it's very important that we do not confuse the gift for the office. In Timothy, we're told do the work of an evangelist, but Ephesians 4 11 teaches us that there are some who are evangelists, not everyone's an evangelist. We all can evangelize, but not all of us are evangelists. We all can teach the word, but not all of us are teachers. We all can help to build disciples, but not all of us are pastors and so on. So I think a good parallel to draw would be this practically. And I'll read this. This is an excerpt from carriers of the glory. Practically, it would be like the difference between a profession and a hobby. You may be able to fix things around the house, but that doesn't make you a contractor. You may know first aid and CPR, but that doesn't make you a paramedic. You may know how to do graphic design, but that doesn't make you a marketing expert. You might like to cook, but that doesn't make you a chef. So to some degree, we all are to function in these gifts, but not necessarily hold the place of office. Now the office gifts are God's chosen servants to be leaders of the church. Now I know many in my generation, especially more specifically the millennials, we don't like the idea of rank and pool and systemized Christianity, but that's the truth guys. I mean, the Bible teaches very clearly that the church is very structured with leaders. Some people have higher ranks than others. That's just how it goes. I know some people I can already hear, well, we're all equal and God is. And I understand that, but as it pertains to the ministry, there's an ecclesiastical authority that the church has and there is a structure to things. I know many today are anti-establishment thinkers. That's not the way the Bible works. And that's not the way God thinks. God thinks in order, God thinks in rank. In fact, that's how heaven is organized. And the church is a system whether we like it or not. We like to talk about how well I am the church. Therefore, I don't need to go to church, but all that really is that kind of thinking comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how God works and how he works in the earth. You see, to be practical, there has to be some organization of where to move as a unit. And so I think that to deny that would be to really deny it in the face of a lot of scripture that says otherwise. So we have to accept that the church is structured. It's organized and it has rank, not as in who's better than others, but just rank of who's in charge. In other words, I'm an evangelist. I travel the world and I win souls. But I personally am submitted under a pastor. Now, that pastor, the Bible says has been given the responsibility to watch over my soul. Now, it doesn't matter. See, the kingdom of heaven doesn't rank the way the world does. If anybody came to our church and I've had people comment before they say, well, how are you under him? He's not on TV. He doesn't. He's not as well known as you are. But can I be honest with you to God? That stuff doesn't really matter at all. It's just another tool to spread the gospel in the spirit. God ranks those in order of who is most like Christ. So he exalts the humble. My pastor is a very humble man, but he's also a man of authority and he knows his authority. And I personally, I could, I mean, I could go and sustain myself and raise finances and I'd be fine. But you know what? I don't want to do it that way because there's a blessing that comes when I recognize the authority of God's church on my line. And so my pastor has been my pastor since I was 10 years old. And that's the man I go to. That's the man who can direct me. That's the man who can correct me.  And because of that pastoral headship, I'm kept humble. I'm kept on track. I don't air off into weird doctrines and I'm just kept focused and it really does help to have that. And if you don't have that, I really recommend you do. Because the reality is that legitimate ministries, legitimate spirit back God ordained ministries are connected to the local church. There's no getting around that. So now there are leaders of the church, but the service gifts are functioned within the church. And again, this does not have to do with anyone being better than anybody else. This is God's structure. So the church is an organized framework, despite those who are anti-establishment thinkers. Just go look at Acts 6, 1-7, Ephesians 4, 11-12, 1 Timothy 1, or 1 Timothy 3, 1-13, Acts 14-23, Titus 1-5, 1 Timothy 5-22, James 3-1, Hebrews 13-17. If you have to pause the video, get those scriptures, go study on it. It spells out a very clear structure to the church. I'll give you just this one verse to highlight here. Acts 6, verse 2-4 says, So the twelve called a meeting of all the believers. They said, We apostles should spend our time teaching the Word of God, not running a food program. Now, if anybody said that today, people would criticize, Oh, no, you have to be humble. Oh, no, you have to. Who are you to say you shouldn't be running the food program? We all, Jesus washed feet, blah, blah, blah, they, they quote those things. And, and they don't really pay attention to what the Bible actually teaches. But this is what it says. This is what the apostles said. They said, We should spend our time teaching the Word of God, not running a food program. Somebody say, Well, my pastor will do those things. And that's great and all. But these apostles, they recognized that the church is more efficient when everyone takes their roles. We have to know our place. So not running a food program was the apostles decision. Verse three, And so brothers select seven men who are all while respected and are full of the spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility. Verse four, Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the Word. In other words, They didn't do the practical day-to-day operations of the church. They focused on prayer and teaching the Word. And that's the way God needs it to be. And so that way we have to just be accepting that we have to be humble and recognize our place. And again, God exalts the humble. So the key here is as it pertains to these gifts is it spirit and power. Now I'm going to go through and list these service gifts really quickly. And I'm going to tell you what they are and you may go, Well, that doesn't sound so spiritual, but the truth is they're probably more spiritual than the power gifts because they have more to do with character than they do with power. And so when I list these gifts, remember that the key here is that each one of these abilities are not just basic abilities, but they're a special grace, a special ability, a special empowerment. So I'll read those now. The gift of exhortation Romans 12, 8 is the gift of being able to encourage others. Again, that's a special grace to do this. The gift of giving Romans 12, 8 a special grace, the gift of leadership, the gift of service, the gift of administration and helps. The gift of prophecy can even be considered a service gift. And I kind of do sometimes put that on the service gift and the power gifts. And if you want more on my teaching on that, I'll probably do one later on the gift of prophecy alone, but there's a reason I have them sometimes separate like that. But the truth is all of these are spirit empowered abilities. In fact, I think the gift of administration, if you read 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 12 in the King James Version, I believe that's the first Corinthians chapter 9 verse 12. If it's not the correct verse, the corrected on the screen in the King James Version. If you read that, it almost implies that the gift of administration and helps has to do with business administration. In other words, those who could provide resources to the church, but that's just a thought I've had when studying that. So those are the service gifts. Now the power gifts, again, these are a different function. So the office gifts are leadership of the church, the service gifts are service within the church, and the power gifts are those without the church that pull people in. So they're more on the evangelistic cutting edge. Again, these are not solid barriers here. Sometimes one gift will overlap into another category every so often. But for the most part, this is how they generally work. So the gift of discernment and that gift has to do with being able to distinguish demonic spirits versus the Holy Spirit versus a spirit of man or a spirit of mammon. It helps people to decipher what kind of spirit something has. Now it's very important to say here that the gift of discernment is not the gift of criticism. I don't know how many people who claim the gift of discernment, they kind of just go around criticizing everybody calling everyone a false prophet. That's not it at all. It's a very gracious, a very, a very humble gift to where you're able to distinguish whether something's of Christ or of the demonic or another spirit. The gift of faith, this is God-empowered faith for certain moments in special circumstances. You know, there's the measure of faith that the scripture talks about, then there's the gift of faith. The gift of faith, I believe comes on a person to be able to stir faith in others. I believe the gift of faith, it comes on someone, it stirs faith within them and it helps them to stir faith on others. And so you can see why the gift of faith would work good with all the other power gifts. The gift of healing, which is the special God-given grace to minister healing to the sick. The word of knowledge. Now this is where you can get a piece of information or knowledge. Again, it's as simple as just adding spirit-empowered. So I can attain knowledge, such as the weather or someone's address or what someone's going through. I can attain knowledge of those things naturally or supernaturally. The word of knowledge is the supernatural acquisition of knowledge that you would not have otherwise known. And the word of wisdom is God-given wisdom. I believe Joseph, when he helped Pharaoh prepare for the famine, was given God-given wisdom. That's the word of wisdom. The gift of miracles. This has to do with, you know, you talk about food multiplication. This is not just healing. This is miracles, special things, suspension of the laws of physics or things that shouldn't have happened that happen. And someone carries a special grace for that. The gift of tongues and tongues interpretation. I'm not going to touch on these here. Instead, I'm going to point you to the link in the description. I did an entire teaching on tongues because I believe there's a lot of controversy surrounding this particular topic. But I did go over the gift of tongues and I got rid of all the misconceptions, confronted all of the objections. And we really confront head on a lot of the misinterpretations that people carry. And finally, we just show you verse by verse, but the Bible actually says about the gift. So if you're watching this on YouTube or watching this on a website, you should be able to see that link in the description below. If you're watching this on the app, you're going to have to go and search for this on YouTube. It's called, I believe it's called the truth about speaking in tongues. So if you want more on that. So let's just review real quick, power gifts, discernment, faith, healing, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, miracles, tongues, tongues interpretation, service gifts, exhortation, giving, leadership, prophecy, service, administration, office gifts, evangelist, pastor, teacher, apostle, prophet. The gifts can work together. The gifts can be requested. The gifts can be stirred. Now I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to give you three keys real quickly and then I'm going to close it up here of how you can know what your spiritual gifts are. So there are three things that will help you to know what your spiritual gifts are. You ready? Okay, here we go. Number one, desire. Do you desire the gift? Number two, recognition. Do others see the gift in you without you promoting it? Number three, function. And this one seems more obvious.  Number one, desire. First grant the inch chapter 14 verse 1 says this. Let love be your highest goal. But you should also desire the special abilities the spirit gets. It's not wrong to desire gift. In fact, I remember when I was, I believe I was in 7th grade or so and I went to a private Christian school. I actually went to a private Christian Baptist school for some years of my education, not all. I went back and forth different schools, different seasons of my life. But I was receiving education at a private Baptist school and I'll never forget in history, in our history books, they actually went over the history of the church, the great awakenings of America. And I'll never forget, I would be so bored with the rest of the history.  But I'm interested in history now. But then I was and I would just kind of skip over certain parts. But every single time we would read of evangelists like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and, you know, Billy Graham, Billy Sunday, who else do we have? You know, I can go on listing them, but every time we would read of those evangelists, something in me would start staring. And I would pay attention, especially during those lessons that I would say, Lord, I want you to use me like that. Use me in this nation. I want to be a part of winning souls and bringing revival to this land. I know you can use my life because you're powerful and I'm surrendered.  And maybe that's you. Maybe when you see other people flowing in certain gifts that within you, it stirs this desire. That's because God wants you to have the gift. You know, when you desire a gift, you have to ask yourself the question, who put that desire there? Did the devil put that desire in the gift for you? No, why would it? Because he doesn't want you doing anything for God. Does your flesh desire the gift? No, because your flesh may like the notoriety that comes with such gifts, but your flesh wouldn't desire the gift itself. Your flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit. So the devil didn't give you the desire for the gift. Your flesh didn't give you the desire for the gift. It could only have come from God. If you have a desire for a gift, it's one of the indications that could mean God has given it to you. You ask for it. You want it. I remember when I asked for the word of knowledge, I remember it floats so easy. I was 11 years old. I asked God, give me the word of knowledge, Lord. And within the next week, I didn't even realize that I was prophesying when I was prophesying with how naturally it flowed. I remember I was talking to a couple of friends at church, and one of them was a young lady about my age at the time. And I just very casually asked. I don't know how this information got in my head, which is very casual. I asked, I said, excuse me, I know this is weird. I go, but were you talking to a girl at school just a couple days ago who was leading up against her locker, sitting on the floor, holding her knees, crying and telling you that she wants to kill herself because her father is verbally abusive? And that question, I'm telling you, it just flowed out of me. And it was a question. It was almost like a matter of fact, like, you know anything else. The knowledge was just in my head. And I wasn't trying to prophesy. I wasn't trying to read her nothing. I just asked the question very casually and her jaw dropped. She's because that was a Sunday. She said on Friday, she was at school and she was sure enough talking to a friend.  And I said, Lord, this is you gave the gift. But first he put the desire in me. I asked for it and he gave it. So don't feel bad that you desire to give. Don't feel convicted. It's not it's not a conviction of the Holy Spirit. If you're sensing this, this, this shame and wanting a certain gift. If there is a desire for a gift within you, I believe it's God who put it in there. So number one desire, number two recognition, Proverbs chapter 18 verse 16 says a man's gift make its room for him and bring it to him before great men. You know, if you have a gift, you don't have to go around parading. And I know people who introduced themselves to me. And you know that it's just they have this stuffy aura about them. Introduce the hi, how are you? I'll introduce myself as David or Diga, depending upon what setting it is. And they'll go, hi, I'm prophet so-and-so or I'm pastor so-and-so. I pass through a church to hand me their card. I pass, you know, they just got to kind of one up everybody around them. Make sure everyone knows they're special. They're important. And on as if you're anything like me, you kind of see right through and it's really just obnoxious. If anything, you don't have to be that way. If God's put a gift on your life, you don't have to go around promoting it, saying I'm this or that or I have this and that. Others will begin to recognize it without you having to promote it. So number two, recognition. Do people recognize it? Number three, finally, 1 Corinthians 12 verse 4. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit is the source them all. Number three is function. Do you actually function in this gift? And I have to be careful with how I teach this here because some people have the gift, they have the desire and people recognize that there's something on them, but they don't ever take a step of faith to do anything and therefore they never function in it. You'll never know if God has given you a gift or not. If you don't take a step of faith, here's where I want to challenge you. Listen to me here. Really, I mean this. I want you to take this challenge. You're watching this right now. And everything within you has a certain desire for a gift and in you, you're wondering God, have you gifted me? It's time. Listen, you're not watching this by accident. Listen to what I'm saying. It's time to take a step of faith. It's time to step out of the natural and into the supernatural. Today is the day that you say enough is enough.  If you got a desire for a gift, start seeing if it works. Go out and pray for the sick. You know, the first people I prayed for to get healed did not get healed. The first miracles I saw were people getting healed of back aches and coughs. Nothing like it. I mean, forgive me for being so cliche. I never liked to be cliche, but here it goes. A gift is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. And so that's where I'm going to conclude the lesson. I want you now to go and just trust God, see what happens. Open your mouth, find someone who will keep you accountable and keep you moving toward using that gift. So right now we're looking at the names of the new members of Spirit Church, where they're from. Who they are. Welcome to Spirit Church. We love you guys. I'm praying for you. If you'd like to join this church, online church, go ahead.  I pray with them. I talk to them. We email back and forth. I know what's going on in their lives if they want me to. And we're really just experiencing a move of God here. We have almost a hundred members from all over the world who are now a part of the Spirit family. I encourage you to join. Also, if you're watching this and you're receiving a lot from the teachings from EncounterTV, from Encounter Services, from Spirit Church, that's worldwide television, global discipleship and international events. Those are all our efforts to spread the gospel, to evangelize the lost and edify the believer. And you've been affected by that or you're happy for what we're doing and you're wanting to invest in the gospel nowadays. We need it more than ever, especially with everything that's going on and especially with people compromising the gospel. We can't have that and you want to see the gospel go forward. You believe what I believe that Jesus is the only way and you want to stand up and unapologetically declare it. You can make a difference in this world right now by going online, sewing a one-time gift or becoming a monthly partner. We need both one-time gifts and monthly supporters. Partner with the ministry today. Partner for $5 a month, $10 a month, $20, $30, even $100 a month. Some of you can give one-time gifts, $5, $20, $100. Some of you could even give $500 or $1,000 one time. Whatever you can do, do it today. Now I have to tell you this one more thing before you go, don't turn this video off. Carriers of the Glory, my book Carriers of the Glory, my office is telling me that many of you are writing in and asking and seeing that it's been removed from the website. That's correct. We've removed Carriers of the Glory from the website because we're going to be re-releasing it next year. A publisher, a major Christian publisher, you'll find out more soon, has picked up the book and in fact, we actually have in April, we're releasing a book with one major Christian publisher and in October of next year, we're releasing, this is 2015, so October 2016, we're releasing another book from another major Christian publisher, but Carriers of the Glory is no longer available on our website. The only way you can get it is by getting a physical copy from us. We don't sell the PDF anywhere, nothing. We only have a few left here in stock and we'll never print another version like that again. It's the original Carriers of the Glory. There are only about 250 of them that are left in shipment. After that, they're gone. We cannot reprint any more original. Every copy that's printed a Carriers of the Glory from then on will be a totally different version, even revised, rewritten in some areas and under a totally different publisher. I will sign the copy of Carriers of the Glory, the original copies and as we start to get rid of them, the price is going to go up on them because we want to gain some support for the minister and we know something like that you may value. So for right now, you become a $30 a month partner. Well, supplies last and I have to say that any video that was posted before this date does not account for the supplies lasting because some people in the future write in and want us to send them a book but they won't be any for long. Send in your gift become a $30 a month partner. Not a one-time gift. It has to be a partnership, a monthly partnership. And if you do that, we will send you a signed copy of Carriers of the Glory. There are just a few left. But again, become a partner one-time gifts. It's all appreciated. That's it for this edition of Spirit Church. I know we didn't pray, but we're very short on time. We like trying not to make these videos too long, but I do pray you were encouraged.  I will see you next time and remember until then nothing is impossible with God.


Hey, hello, so the following video is a bit of an experiment on the channel It's a draw-along video So you can put this video on and try a one-hour project because this is one of the limitation of this artwork I'm doing here a one-hour character, and I'm also doing it with the vanilla Krita interface Vanilla means it has no preferences I'm using only the default brushes, the default interface and default shortcut About the step I will do at first a wireframe, a sort of outline of all the big shapes and I will put them in perspective And I will do that with a thin brush with a mid-gray and then I will start to detail And I will wash some gray on the top and when everything will start to look a little bit more solid and detailed I will just input a little bit more deep black in the contact shadows, and then I will start to layer a little bit of a wash for the shadows It's a multiply layer with some pass of a wash and and this is a Probably 30 minutes in the video I will spend into this sort of light gray scale And then I will color it so if you want to know about the step This is the same as the previous video about Gray scale to color and then I will spend the last 15 minutes into detail So all in all this is a very very condensate and quick workflow I'm launching the video put your favorite music and you can try to to make also an artwork while watching what I do


Hola Amigos y Amigas! My name is Bartur Kowski and I'm really excited to meet you all during the Applied Improvisational Network Conference in Avila this year. I'm happy that we will be exchanging our perspectives and experiences connected to Applied Improvisation. My bit will be on Friday at quarter past five where I will talk about the ways we can implement Applied Improvisational techniques into design thinking process. If you don't know what design thinking is that's fine I will explain it and the aim of the talk is to show particular moments where you can apply Applied Improvisation into it to enhance the effect and to affect the way people interact within it. So see you in a few days in Avila!


So I am Cindy Cullen and I am a freelance developer. How many of you guys are freelancers or want to be freelancers? Cool. There's not many of you in here, so this is going to be really informal. So stop me as you have questions or want to know anything. So I guess my story sort of starts when I graduated high school in 1980. So you don't have to do the math. I'm 56. When I graduated my grandparents decided for my graduation to take me on a trip out west. I grew up in West Tennessee and so that was quite an experience to go all the way to California and back. It took us about three weeks. We were on with a group of senior citizens on a tour bus. So it was an experience that I never forgot. But one that gave me a love for travel. I mean I had studied all of these places in school but to see them in person there's no way a photo can do those places justice. So if you've ever been outside your hometown you realize that this world is a beautiful place. It's different than the pictures show you in the books. So it gave me a real passion for travel. But then I got home and I went to school went to college and got the degree. And when I first went to school I didn't know what a computer was except in science fiction. So I dropped out of school went back to school eventually got the degree. And then I started working in corporate and I worked for General Electric and for the American Chemical Society and some other places. And I learned a lot about computer programming. I didn't have websites back then so I didn't do a lot of web stuff but I did learn a lot about computer programming. And then in 1992 I turned 30. And I heard the biological tick of that clock and thought OK I need to have some kids if I'm going to do that. So I got pregnant and I didn't know anything about kids. I thought you know you have a baby you stay home for a couple of weeks you put them in daycare you go back to work and that's that. My life was turned upside down not only because I didn't know which end to put the diaper on but also because he was very sick. And so it was very hard for me to return to work. However I did it and I thought you know I was driving an hour each way. And I was miserable I cried every day and that was also the same time they had the bombing in Kansas City at the daycare. I was I was I was living a life of misery and fear and I wanted to stay home so bad I couldn't stand it. So I got some part time jobs and I did everything I could to pay off all the bills and I finally got to stay home the day my second child was born in 1995. And there's my three lovely children and this is one of them sitting here so that's her in the middle there. It's been a while ago. So I got to stay home with them. We moved to a 300 acre farm in the middle of Princeton Kentucky which is the middle of nowhere basically. I did a lot of part time jobs. I did some teaching. I did a lot of things to just keep staying home with them. I started homeschooling the three of them and just found some part time teaching jobs in between to get to keep staying home.  I hope you can. Whoops. Hang on. I hope you can hear it. Let me see if I can get it pulled up. After I graduated from business school. Can you hear it? I decided to take a vacation. I chose a small quiet fishing village where I thought I'd be able to take my mind off of business if only for a few days. Walking along the beach just before sunset I saw a small fishing boat come into shore. Inside the boat were alone fishermen and several beautiful yellow flutes. How long did it take you to catch those fish I asked? Only a couple of hours you replied. Why don't you stay out a bit longer and catch more I asked? Certain that there must be a demand for more fish than the few I saw in the boat. The fisherman smiled.  I rise with the sun, fish a little, play with my daughters, have lunch with my family, and then teach children how to fish before I stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my wife and friends. Listen I said, I have an MBA. I can help you vastly expand your business. If you would simply spend more time fishing you would soon earn enough money to buy a bigger boat. Really question the fisherman. Absolutely. And with a bigger boat you'd soon catch enough fish to buy several boats that a whole fleet.  The fisherman raised an eyebrow. Eventually you could open your own cannery and control the product, the processing, and the distribution I added. Then what he asked? You then relocate your operations to the capital. And if all goes well you'd likely find yourself in New York City and control a rapidly expanding empire. How long would all of this take he asked? Clearly following my logic. Oh probably between 10 and 15 years I replied. And then what? Well that's the best part. You would announce an IPO and sell stock to the public. At that point my friend you would be very, very rich. A millionaire many times over. The fisherman paused. Sorry about that. Let's see if we can't get it back. Really? A millionaire? Then what? What do you mean? I answered a bit surprised. I mean what would I do if I were a millionaire? What kind of question is that? Whatever you like of course. I imagine you retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would rise with the sun, fish a little, play with your granddaughters, have lunch with your family, and then teach children how to fish before strolling into the village each evening where you'd sip one and play guitar with your wife and friends. The fisherman smiled. And without saying another word began to build a small fire. We shared a taste of the delicious fish and watched the sun go down over the ocean as the sound of guitars rose from the village nearby.  I didn't...still on. I realized that what is life about if it's not family? For me that was the most important thing was to find a way to stay home with my kids. Even after they got older and homeschooling was working for us and I wanted to stay home with them. So I decided that it was time for me to figure out how to do that and make some money so that enough money to provide for us on a daily basis. So back then the web was just coming out. I don't know how many of you remember front page. But that's how I started. I started with front page which then I would study the code since I was a coder and would look to see what's it doing and why is it doing it. But the only thing it created really was HTML. If y'all are familiar with that. So I taught myself HTML, PHP and my sequel and I started building some websites on the side for some of my friends and family. It was mostly just a hobby and I sort of just was playing around with it and it was something to do besides just talk to kids. And back then about the only way I could network being out in the middle of nowhere was with yahoo groups. Anybody remember yahoo groups? That was about the only way we had to communicate. There was no Facebook. So then I started getting serious about it around 2003 and that's when WordPress came out and I looked at it and I thought well this is just a blog. This is not a website tool. But I got familiar with it a little bit and I played around with it. However I was still using HTML and those kind of things and over time that's when I started freelancing and so over time I never forgot number one the traveling and I never forgot how it felt to want to stay home and work and not be able to. And those two things I think have influenced everything I've done since then. So now I am still a self-employed freelancer and I do a lot of custom work for people. I also have a business where I have interns and web developers who work with me and they build websites. I'm not a designer by any stretch of the imagination. I'm a coder. I'm a programmer. So if I have websites to build I hire other people to build them. I also hire a lot of interns from colleges to help me out because I also found that a lot of people get out of school like I did. It was easy for me to find a job when I got out of school. There were not a lot of computer scientists back then. But nowadays there are so many that they can't find jobs easily without having five to ten years experience. And so I've interned a lot of college kids that are just getting out of school and need to have that experience. So I teach them programming but also teach them WordPress and Laravel's the other framework we use. I also have several subcontractors. I have some that develop websites. I have some that are programmers. And I also teach classes. I teach WordPress classes for beginners for people who don't have enough money to pay for a website but they want to learn WordPress and they want to build their own. So I do that now. I also am a speaker of course and I am a traveler. And this is my home. Full time I live in a 30 foot RV with my wife who's sitting over here. And this is our office on any given day. We travel 365 days a year and we go to some pretty amazing places. And we've been doing that for two years. So 2016 was when we started. So these are a lot of the questions that we get asked as we travel around the world and stay in different places and people say what do you do? And I say well we run a business and a lot of people in the RV community say well how do you make money and do this full time. And so I explain that we have a business building websites and custom development and all kinds of hosting and domains and other computer related stuff. But one of the first questions we get is how do you do that? What's your home base? And if it were up to us we probably wouldn't have a home base because we just like to go wherever we want to go but the government says we need one. So to get a bank account anymore that's the first question they ask you is what's your physical address and if you don't have a physical address they don't look at that very well. So to get a bank account and to get our driver's license and to get the license on the truck and in the camper we have to have a physical address. So since South Dakota, Florida and Texas and I believe Tennessee they don't have income tax. So those are usually the states that RVers are from because it's much cheaper to live in one of those states especially since you're not there a lot of the time. We first chose South Dakota which was nice and for our physical address they let you choose the campground and you have to stay in the campground at least a week I think it was and then you can call that home. So that's what we did for South Dakota. However, South Dakota gets really cold and we love South Dakota we love visiting there but we don't go back that often we don't have a real reason to go back that often. So we now choose Florida because it's warmer in Florida and we go there every year for winter or have for the last two years we go into Orlando because we have a conference down there that my wife speaks at and so we end up there anyway and so that's why we choose Florida and for Florida it was a little trickier getting our license because you need a physical home address and what we finally had to do was to get the truck and the camper licensed with the license plate and then they can use the address on that license plate which it's a little tricky you have to put the cart before the horse we got the license plate which gets the county name as the address and once you have that I guess they think we live in our car so they use that as our physical address I do not own a house in Florida I don't own a house anywhere You don't move at a campground in Florida or anything like that as far as Florida is concerned if you were trucking your RV is my address Patrick, so on the driver's license is the license plate number For real Are you sure I thought it was the county? No I'll show you how much I've looked at my so that's our physical address I think it's one Clay County, Florida I mean you know we have people say how do you get mail if you don't have an address we use a mail forwarding service we used one in South Dakota called the coda post and they were okay and now we use one called SBI or St. Brendan's Isle they do a lot of mail for RVers but also for people who live on boats there's quite a few in Florida that live on boats and just travel that way all the time and you know there's a cost to it I think it's $100 and then you use the postage and when it's up it's up and I think it's $20 a month for the service itself and then you pay them postage and they take it out until it's gone and then they replenish it with a credit card but basically we get our mail there at that address and then every so often when I need mail I just go tell them where I'm at and they forward it to me Do you have a question? So when I see that there's enough mail in there that it warrants the postage for it then I just say okay I'm staying at this campground this week or this is where I'll be by the time the mail gets there and they'll forward it to me That's a good question They scan my mail They scan the envelopes They will just forward you can set it up several different ways They can forward it every week and you just go in and tell them where you're going to be that week or you can set up an address they forward it here until I change it so however you want to do it they're pretty flexible with setting it up the way you want it I pay the little extra to get my mail scanned I get the envelope scanned and then if I want them to scan the inside for like a dollar or a page they'll scan what's in it and I don't have to wait for it to get to me however most of the mail I get in there thank goodness are checks and so when I've got enough checks in there that's worth me getting the mail then I say okay I'm going to be depending on where I am in the country I have to figure out how long it's going to take me to get that mail and it's usually right now we're parked in Alabama and so it takes about two days three maybe so I just have to time it well because we move fairly quickly usually and so we don't stay many places longer than a week so I have to figure out where are we going to be next week you know so it's a little tricky and we've had here's a tip always use priority mail always because you get a tracking number we sat in Page, Arizona for two or three well about a week extra because we were waiting on the mail to get there because they had lost it we never did get it, we finally left and it showed up two or three weeks later they had sent it back to the mail forwarding service they sent it back to us so now we never not use priority mail so the mail's been an interesting thing for us it's been a lot of fun figuring that out yes no go ahead the mail forwarding service doesn't act as an address for you it acts as our mailing address so I really have a physical address it's just like having a P.O. box and banks the forwarding service so when I put that in as my address at the bank they say that's a personal mail box that's like having a UPS box or something they won't let me use that address so to get a bank account is a little trickier there's another similar service down there we live on above but there's another one down in Florida that they are set up where the banks will actually accept it as your physical address oh cool I don't remember which one it is we use a UPS store we've never had an issue at all but where would the bank that accommodates travelers oh well I'd like to talk to you about that bank later that's cool because the banks we've not had luck with banks either so I'll get to that in a minute voting is another it wasn't a problem in South Dakota they let us use the campground so the voter registration card was fairly easy and I thought it was going to be that easy usually the mail forwarding services will take care of all that for you I mean it's a cost but they do it for you we just got a notice from the mail service we use that somebody in Florida is trying to say that if you don't have a physical address then you can't vote and all that stuff so they're going through a lot of legal stuff with that and the good thing about the mail forwarding services is they fight a lot of those battles for us so they don't want to lose their service so they want to keep you voting and keep their customers happy I use mobile deposit for checks and I'll get to banks in a minute but we've had some trouble with that too some banks are not as technically up to date as others and mobile deposits can be a problem if you're not with a bank that does that well so I do use mobile deposit and I currently use capital 1 okay so what do we do specifically from the road is we build WordPress websites like I said my wife builds a lot of websites but I also hire subcontractors to build do the pretty stuff I don't do the pretty and then I build custom plugins and a lot of custom work for a lot of designers that I know and we also well there's the custom development I also do hosting which is an easy thing to do from the road I mean I don't have the servers in the RV I resell this or I have a hosting guy who keeps the servers for me I also like I said I teach a lot I do some training I use a lot of video chat and that kind of thing to train and educate I do a lot of debugging for designers who don't want to know code or don't like code so they'll call me I do a lot of support for clients and designers and we do some edits for some of our clients and we have about 100-200 clients that we take care of while we're on the road also sell domains so we do pretty much a big array of things and like I said I've been doing this for I don't know how many years since 2003 so we've sort of built a lot of things so here is our team at the moment two of them are here with me of course here's my daughter here and my wife that's me in the middle this is the baby that was sick that I stayed home for at the bottom his name is Matthew the guy over here was one of my interns from Austin P and he and I worked so well together that I just hired him and so now he's one of my best programmers and the lady at the top I'm at a networking event in Kentucky and she and I got along and now she's my project manager and I did not set out to build a business I wanted to be a freelancer and I wanted to just make enough money to get by but I also like having time to explore somewhere so it's easier for me to offload that work to other people and let them do the work and that helps them too because now they get paid and we get paid so it works for me I still am not crazy about having a business that's not my goal I don't necessarily want that responsibility however I do like having time and I like helping these people get jobs so this is how my team and I and my clients communicate so we use obviously email and Slack how many of you know what Slack is it's like a messenger thing a communications tool which we really like Zoom, anybody know what Zoom is it's a video chat service and you can have one hundreds of people on it we use that a lot for classes and for clients and contractors I use it for everything and no matter where we are if we get internet then we can use these tools obviously we text each other we use the phone sometimes depending on the cell service where we're at and we do get in person every once in a while since we're traveling I can sometimes land where they're at and we also use a ticketing system called Teamwork for our clients to contact us and to leave us messages how we stay connected to the internet and what you get is how do you keep an internet connection I had this Verizon hotspot which has unlimited data and the bill is only 50 something a month however I had to pay a lot to get the little SIM card because they no longer let you have unlimited data but you can't find it on eBay if you know what to look for so that if we close this out in tight spots we still try to keep that low because Verizon we hear rumors every day that Verizon is going to stop doing that they're going to cut those out but it's worked pretty good for us we don't use it a lot because in the east Verizon doesn't pick up well now in the west we use it a lot but in the east and we've been at the east for quite a while now it doesn't work as well as AT&T so our phones have a 30 gig plan that we use and these we can use these as a hotspot for the computer and we also have an AT&T home base which is made for a landline that you can get for people who live in rural areas they sometimes use it for a landline if they can't get regular service I guess but they had a special going on I get 500 gigabytes of data but it is network managed so if we're in a larger city it's usually really slow and doesn't help us out much but if we're in a rural area then we can usually get pretty good speeds assuming there's a good AT&T signal so we very heavily depend on AT&T and Verizon for our internet occasionally if we're in a campground they might have Wi-Fi but we have to be really careful as to what time because when everybody is on the TV at the same time it gets really slow most campgrounds are not really good with internet now we do not stay I don't think we've ever stayed in a KOA or one of the big commercial campgrounds in our opinion they're overpriced and it's not worth it we don't go for the pool and the kids stuff that's usually in a KOA so we find our best the best places we enjoy are the state parks they show us more of the area more of the culture more of the landscape that's what we enjoy they're usually built around something like water so we like the state parks or city parks there are a lot of good city parks too or national parks obviously the national parks are harder to get into you have to reserve way ahead of time so we haven't stayed in a lot of those but some campgrounds have good Wi-Fi some we do not count on that because most don't and when everything else fails we find the nearest truck stops truck stops are good places for internet usually so we haven't had to do that very often the internet the first time I went out well in the 80s of course there was no internet but when I went the next time with my son it was like once in a blue moon you'd find somewhere with internet so we would try to use the phone for GPS but it just wouldn't happen and you know it would get out of the city and now there are rarely places that don't have something it may not be very fast well that's true but truck stops are usually pretty good and if all else fails and we can't find internet we just say heck with it we're going to go on a hike or we're going to go biking or we're going to do something fun and usually we're staying close to something that's got water or a place to go biking or something for fun and we enjoy doing that anyway I work a holic, I enjoy what I do and so it takes sometimes for the internet to go completely out for me to get away and go play and to keep up with all of this there is a mobile RV growth on the internet and on Facebook that we follow all the time and they tell us what plans what mobile plans are out there and they update it constantly so there's always good information out there and I keep up with all the little deals that come across when Verizon has a good plan or this one has a good plan and sometimes you find a good deal where they don't realize it's such a good deal and so then they'll cut it out but if you're already in contract then you get to stay on it so that's pretty much how I got the 500GB they don't offer that anymore and they only offered it for a very short period of time and then they realized oh my gosh what would we just do all the RVers started calling them they shut it down so this is how we find contractors we use a company called FreeUp has anybody heard of that it's sort of like UpWorks anybody heard of that one except I've found a lot better quality contractors there because they prevent them and I don't have to I still interview them but they check them out first and so they find out if they're in quality before they send them my way I can just yes there's three E's in it so when you go look it up make sure you put the three E's in it pretty much I tell them I want a programmer who knows PHP and MySQL and I want them to work this many hours a week and you know this could be full time it could be just for three weeks I tell them everything I want and within 24 hours they've got me at least one to six and I interview them I get to choose a price range as to how much I want to pay for that and pretty much location if they have to be US based I've found as someone else mentioned this weekend Philippines is the best place to get programmers and developers because they're inexpensive but they have the best work ethic of any of the foreigners that I've worked with much better than the India groups that you can get and much better than them and I hate to say this but sometimes much better than the US workers their work ethic is awesome and they're really good to work with and I've found them to be some of my best contractors unless you find a good one like I found with Todd as an intern we also use social media to get some of our contractors if I need someone to work I just usually put out a message to my friends and I'll get referrals and we also do a lot of networking as we travel we haven't done it as much as I'd like but I want to start going to more word press meetups we've got several word camps on our next couple of months we're going to be stopping at so we do quite a bit of networking we go to a lot of conferences and things and then I have training courses and one of the reasons I do the training which is really selfish but I like working with people I've trained and so a lot of the web implementers I work with it's really hit or miss as to whether they really know what they're doing or not and so I like training them on word press and that way they know what I expect and I know what to expect from them and if they do a good job then I can refer clients to them or hire them myself that seems to work the best for me if I train them plus I just like training and teaching and helping I do hire interns still from Austin P where I graduated my my professor is still there he's now the dean of the college which is hard to believe because that's been on a long time ago but he still sends me interns I'll get two to three every semester and that's a hit or miss sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not so good but and then I do use up work occasionally but I've not had very much luck there so the tools we use we use accounting software I personally use fresh books I know there's a quick quick books and a lot of other things fresh books has worked best for me because it allows me to do all those things I can do invoicing and I can do recurring invoicing and I can put all of our expenses in there we can get all the reports from there it makes it very easy at tax time Mallory just pulls the reports and I take them to the accountant and it's pretty much done for customer relationships we pretty much keep that in fresh books as well we don't we're trying to expand and make that better because I'm not real happy with what they do but for now that's what we're using we also use last pass to keep up with all our passwords because we have a lot and that lets us share them with the people we want to share them with without having to remember them or having to make ABC123 is the password all the time we use project management software we went through several we use Trello for a while I'm familiar with Trello that worked well for us in some areas but it did not work well with keeping up with time so how much time is the contractor spending and how much do I need to build the clients and how much do I need to pay the contractors so we now use active collab active collab something like that which keeps up with the time on the contractors it also keeps up with the invoicing however I don't like how they do invoicing so I still use fresh books for that but we put the invoice first there and then I move it to fresh books but it keeps up with the projects it keeps up with who's doing what it keeps up with the task list so it's currently working okay for us we've been through several we also use infinite WP anybody familiar with that or manage WP is another one it lets us monitor and manage several WordPress websites at the same time so we can go in once a day and click update all the WordPress sites at once instead of having to go into each one and update all of them so we use Mallory uses that every day I think to do the updates any questions so far on any of those tools how we find clients well we go to networking events like this one we go to retreats and campgrounds we found several of them we just parked somewhere and people say so what do you guys do you travel all the time how do you know that and we'll say well we build websites oh I need a website it's that easy so just campgrounds we run into all kinds of people and a lot of them another reason I like to do the training I found that not only is it women who want to stay at home or college graduates who can't get jobs but there's a whole group of volunteers out there who want to find a way to do it full time and or they may be doing it full time and just don't have as much income coming in so teaching has become one of our biggest income goals here we also go to a lot of conferences we go to some mental health conferences and we speak there and that's another area that we're trying to hit mental health issues that either can't find a job or they're afraid they'll lose their job because of their diagnosis and so they want to find ways to make money and thank God for WordPress I mean I'm so thankful that it's a way for people who don't know anything about code to start a career and build websites that's just if I had that back when my kids were born I would have been a happy camper but most of our business does come from word of mouth we've been doing this for so long that most people know what we do they're most of our friends do and so we get a lot of referrals and a lot of word of mouth business especially on social media that's our tool of choice nowadays Facebook usually because that's how we keep up with friends and family and everybody that we work with is pretty much on social media a lot of business on Craigslist but not so much anymore it's changed a lot it's not as good use of my time but everywhere we go we're talking websites and talking about what we do and talking about who we are and it just seems to come up in the conversation which is not such a bad thing because it makes most everything we do tax deductible so how we get paid I get paid through PayPal my goal is to meet them where they're at if they want to pay by PayPal then I'll take PayPal if they want to pay by credit card then I take Stripe if they want to pay by a check then I'll take a check however they want to pay me I'm pretty much going to take it but I have PayPal and Stripe and my FreshBooks uses WePay I don't know if you've heard of that one but it's like the others on daily settlements I don't know if you're aware of these but if you have any of those processors you can set them up on daily settlements so I don't have to go in and withdraw money it automatically puts the money from my PayPal account or my Stripe account into my bank account every day now I think it takes two days to get there but every day it does what it calls a settlement and anything I've paid out comes out and anything that has come in is pretty easy I don't have to mess with it and then we do take checks and I talked about how we get those and then I use mobile deposit to deposit them in the bank time management can be a big thing if you work from home I know the lady that spoke before me talked a lot about her time a big thing for us is time zones we've parked in some places where the time from the back of the camper to the front of the camper changes holding her phone, I'm holding my phone and they both have different times on them and when we were in Arizona they even had the Indian reservation time in the middle of that so we had one time at the beginning of the camper one time here but if you wanted to go to an Indian reservation event then it was a totally different time so time zones have become a big deal for us and we have to constantly be aware of which time zone we're in and which time zone clients are in and who have contractors it can get pretty tricky some days when we travel I have to work in the truck which is not really a big deal but it's just a self-discipline thing it's much easier to watch everything as we go by but you have to manage your time and it's more I don't think you can manage time you manage yourself and so for me I'm having to constantly make myself do the work or be looking out the window or playing but we so we try to set aside some days that we just go exploring we'll say okay there's one day this week we're just gonna go somewhere and visit a state park or whatever so that we can not be so distracted on those days we're supposed to be working it helps me to set up routines and as many people have mentioned this weekend to have those processes in place that I can have those days to go exploring and to do the things we want to do some of the tools I use to keep up with the time we talked about the active co-lab for the project management but I also used to-doist I don't know if y'all are familiar with that one but that's a great personal task list manager for me to keep up with all those recurring tasks and all the projects that I personally need to keep up with keep up with contractor stuff and my rule of thumb is when I get a new task in to run it through this and if it can be eliminated get rid of it and if it can be automated do that so that then it becomes a recurring task and if it can be delegated do that that was a hard one for me to learn because delegating my stuff was one of the best things and the hardest things I've ever had to do if it can be procrastinated or put off till later do that I have to do everything right now that was another hard one for me to learn and then if all else fails then concentrate on it get it done, get it out the door send it on so that takes a lot of self-motivation some days when you're in a pretty place and a lot of self-discipline to get the work done money management so I heard from Nathan I think it was in Atlanta he told me about the book profit first how many of you have read that book awesome book and I suggest you read it if you haven't and it talks about putting your profit first and I was very guilty of not making a profit because I left it to last and so now putting that first has really helped and bank accounts I first had an account with simple how many of you have heard of simple it's an online bank that I really liked but as soon as they found out I lived in an RV they said that's it and they cut me off they would not do business with me at all I didn't even dream they would do that so I'm very careful about who I tell that I'm in an RV full time anymore because I need to have a bank account so now we use capital one I've been very pleased with them they've been really good about us moving around we had a local bank and still have a local bank where we lived last in Kentucky but the problem has been that every time we move they want us to call them and tell them where we're at so they don't think somebody's stolen our card and it's fraud and it's too much trouble I don't want to have to call them every time we move we move every week so that's not feasible for us so capital one has been very good to let us move wherever we want to but to also sort of keep things in check and they call me every once in a while and say did you make this payment and I'll say yes you know it's all cool but it can get tricky so and we have an accountant who's still in Kentucky but he can keep up with us wherever we go thank goodness and he's been really good to work with us no matter where we are and of course the fresh books I talked about with it health insurance has been a real sticky one for us because we don't have any and so we're pretty much self insured thank goodness we're both healthy and we rarely go to the doctor but I haven't had health insurance in years and it's not been that big a deal now it's a big deal tax time because I have to pay the fee but the fee is still cheaper for me than getting health insurance because the health insurance one's $14-$1500 a month to cover both of us and my penalty is $1400 a month or so I mean a year at the end of the year so it's cheaper for me to just pay the penalty and I don't think this is really right but when I go to the doctor and I tell them this is self pay that price comes way down so it's cheaper because our deductible if we get insurance is like $7-$8000 if we don't go to the doctor but once a year it's really not worth it for us so we don't have insurance and good good yeah it's not realistic yeah it's crazy it's worth it to me I would much rather have my freedom than to go get a job just to have health insurance as you can I've got full insurance and I do that too I still shop around the cash price first because beyond what I would have to pay if I said to the doctor let's say I don't have any insurance what's the cash price for this and 30% of whatever I would be paying being my deductible first right so like I said before much of our lifestyle is tax deductible since everywhere we go we're marketing and everywhere we go we're selling websites and everywhere we go we're meeting with a client then a lot of it can be tax deductible so it definitely helps us at tax time except for the healthcare the legal I'm just going to breeze through this they've talked about legal all weekend we do have some contracts I usually make the clients come up with contracts if they want them we don't have any regular lawyers but we would like to find one I am a sole proprietor I don't have a business entity I tried that route and I didn't like all the fees that came with it and like I said I'm not really trying to build a business I just want to be a sole proprietor and that works for us so my advice is to give more value than you're paid for and don't tick people off so they won't sue you probably if you're good people and you work with good people then you don't have to worry about it as much I am I base my life on no fear I'm not going to live in fear and if I'm afraid of those kind of things I'm not going to do my best work so the question I keep asking myself is how much am I willing to lose and what do I need to protect and then I go do that so if I need protection for those then I get that kind of protection with a lawyer so how much does it cost us to do this we spend almost exactly the same amount of money we did when we rented a house our campground fees and the RV payment replaces a rent we were paying pretty much right on the money and then our truck fuel which is probably what we spend the most on and the propane they replaced the utility bills that we had in a house so it's pretty much a wash it doesn't cost us any more or any less to live in an RV as it did to live in a rented house so here are some of the pros and cons and you can decide whether it's a pro or a con to you for me I like to be my own boss I don't like people telling me what to do that also becomes a big responsibility if I'm the boss I get a lot of decisions which I also don't like to do I get a lot of time freedom I love going to Walmart when everybody else is out of there or to the grocery store when there's nobody there I get to decide when I work and when I don't I also have some financial freedom nobody tells me what my salary is except me I get to decide how much money we're going to make or whether we're going to sit and enjoy it or whether we're going to try to build a business or not you do have to work alone I'm an introvert and I like that kind of world some people don't but we get out when we get tired of it we can work from wherever we want that can be a good thing or a bad thing especially if there's not internet we get to set our own prices we get to choose who we work with we get taxes that's a con I can't think of a pro with that one benefits I don't have the benefits that I would get if I worked for a company but do I need them I have enough benefits otherwise that I don't really miss the vacation I can take a vacation whenever I want to so I'm not really worried about benefits you do get to work in your pajamas however I don't because I like getting dressed in the morning and I feel like I'm doing my better work so there is lower overhead so I have a lot of these things that I'm not going to get to you just tell me I had two minutes so here's some of the things we've learned about travel let's let you read those I do have the slides up on slide share and I also have them up on my website which I'll get to in a minute so that's some of the things we've learned about travel I think I talked about most of these and I think most everybody's covered most of these this weekend so I'm just going to sort of slide through is anybody have any questions while I'm doing this on slide share it's under cgcullen I have my that's my twitter but it's also most everywhere else but if you'll go let me go to the end here and you'll see the yeah there is the page I made for this word camp all right any other questions I'll be here for a little while if anybody has questions yeah yeah we're going to go back to Fort Payne for a little while she's working a temporary job there for a little bit mentoring and then we're going to Florida for the winter Orlando there's a city got to