Week number two of Red Hot. Are you guys ready? Come on, let's put our hands together and welcome those who are online and at Portage. Welcome to Red Hot Week number two. Happy Mother's Day. Today is all about answering questions related to family, marriage, and relationships.  We had some doozies. And I just want to let everybody know if you would like to, all the services are different. So all the questions are different and we are archiving them all on our YouTube channel. If you didn't know it, we have a YouTube channel that has all things radiant and you can go there and watch all the Q and A. And that, you can find that it's radiant channel. If you go to YouTube, Punching Radiant Channel, has all kinds of resources there. Subscribe to it, follow with us and you can track along with all the questions. So if you haven't texted in your question, you can go ahead and do that. We'll try to get through as many as we can today. Let's take a look at what our first question is. What does godly pursuit of a lady look like? Where are these Proverbs 31, verse 10 ladies, unicorns hiding? Well, first of all, you're not gonna help yourself by calling them unicorns. Four-legged animals with a horn coming out of their foreheads, probably not gonna win one of them over for you. So I know one of them is at home. Her name is Jane Cummings. She is a godly Proverbs 31 wife of almost 27 years for me. And I just say happy Mother's Day. She's watching at home, she doesn't feel good today. She's got a little bit of a cold. And so, love you babe, happy Mother's Day. If you are looking for one, what does pursuit look like of a godly woman? Well, here's the thing. I tell a lot of people, if instead of looking for a godly person, whether it's a husband or a wife, work on becoming the one that somebody else is looking for. That is the key. You work on becoming a godly man. And what will happen is, you will attract a godly woman. And if, you know, we don't have a lot of control over what other people do, but we do have control over who we are. And I do really believe that when we put our focus on following after Jesus, that whole Matthew 733, that when you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then everything else that you need is gonna be added to you. I believe that means that God is sovereignly going to bring the right person to you. Or you're going to cross their paths. You're gonna intersect. And you're gonna notice one another. Let me tell you the best environment to find a godly person. It's in church. It's shocking to me how many people are surprised when they don't meet godly people at the night clubs. You know, I keep going to the bars. I can't find any godly people. Hello. Have you done math? One plus one equals? Yeah, one person in here. Pass the test. Thank you. And so if you wanna find godly people, don't go to places where you're gonna find environments that draw a compromise. And so I would say, number one, church is a great place. Number two, have godly friends. When you're pursuing Jesus, that means you're going to be in godly environments and you're gonna surround yourself with godly wise people. Well, here's what I know. Godly people are drawn to godly environments and godly people surround themselves with godly friends who know other godly friends, who know other godly friends. And so trust those that are around you. Also, trust mom and dad.  Listen, mom and dads know what they're doing. Can I get an amen in here? All right. And in addition to that, I know that there are some people that have utilized online dating. I think that probably in our day and age, there's a lot of that. I've heard some really good stories.  It's probably not the best site. But I've heard some people that have met some really awesome people because of the filtering process. The key is you have to trust in the Lord with all your heart. You have to trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your steps. I believe that wholeheartedly and so many Christian young people and singles give up or they dumb down or they compromise their standards because they give up hope.  So I've just got to lower my standards. Do not lower your standards, whatever you do. You focus on Jesus. I believe that in the right timing and the right place when you have the right people around you, you're going to intersect, you're gonna find them. But you have to look for those things. One of the things that we encouraged our kids to do was even when they were young, was to begin to start writing down qualities and characteristics that you're looking for in a person. That you're looking for in a person that you want to share the rest of your life with. And obviously, good looks and attraction, that's a big part of it. There has to be that piece, I get it. But if that's all, you're limiting it to or if you don't have a plan and you just kind of meet somebody and there's a physical attraction but you don't have other qualities and characteristics that are significant and important to you, then you'll find yourself enmeshed in a relationship by accident that then you begin to get soul ties attachment to, that you're not logically or objectively making decisions about the future of that relationship. So write down things like I want them to be godly. I want them to be a leader. I want them to be funny. I want them to enjoy these kinds of things. So that you know what you're praying for and pray with specificity. We prayed for our kids, still do, in specificity for each one of our kids' spouses. When we met Zach, only one of our kids was married, but when we met Zach, Jane and I had been praying for Zach for the entire life of our daughter, Ashley. We had been praying. We'd say, God, bring her a young man. Bring her a young man who enjoys the things she enjoys. That's a godly leader that has been at all these things. And you know, she went to a internship, kind of a discipleship internship on Colorado, and Zach and her caught eyes on the first day. Well, he was everything that she had been praying for. They had to wait one year before they could announce to each other their feelings for one another because of the internship program. And it's just awesome to see two godly people that have come together because they were very specific in what they were looking for. And because of that, God met that, God met that. If you'll take anything, if you'll take anyone, you'll get anyone. But write down a specific list of things that you're praying for and trust God, believe God, let him direct your steps. Okay, let's take another question. Why is it so important to wait for marriage to have sex? And this is from Richland. This is somebody in Richland to ask this question. Why is it so important to wait for marriage in order to have sex? Well, that's a great question. And it's a important question in the day that we live in because our culture is very sexualized and the way that we view sex in our secular humanistic Western mindset is we think that sex is recreational activity. We think of sex as pleasurable, which it is. We think of sex as recreational that you can kind of be with a whole bunch of people and it doesn't have implications. We kind of treat sex as like a game of twister.  And let's just, in our culture, we have friends with benefits.   And it's all based on this assumption that nothing else except physical activity is happening when you have sex. But that is not what the Bible teaches. That's not what God says about sex. In fact, that wasn't even God's intention. How many know that when human beings discovered sex, God was not shocked? Do you know that? God wasn't like, what in the world are they doing? I had no idea they'd do that. Whoa, turn your eyes, Gabriel. I mean, you don't need to see this. God, sex, was actually part of God's intentions. And that's why a woman's body and a man's body compliment one another. That's why when they come together, there's pleasure for both. That's why when they come together, there are children that are born or the potential for children and offspring to be born. And beyond that, that's the physical arena. The other part of it is that sex is God's bonding agent between two people. Neuroscience tells us this, that there are chemicals that are released in the brain physiologically when you have sex that actually bonds two individuals together. It actually makes a man be attracted and emotionally bonded to a woman and a woman bonded to a man. Here's what's interesting. I just read an article. There is a different hormone that is released when a man or a woman views pornography. It's not the same.  And why is that? It's because God said in the very beginning, the two shall become one flesh. And God has done that physically. He's done that emotionally and he does it spiritually. So first Corinthians, Paul says, do you not understand that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? And when you have sex, he says, flee sexual immorality because when you have sex, it's different than all other things. In fact, when we talk about sexual sin, Paul says this in first Corinthians six, the body is not meant for sexual immorality. When the Bible says and uses the term sexual immorality, it means any sexual activity outside of one man and one woman who are under the protective covering of a marriage covenant coming together in a bonding of one flesh called marriage. And then within the bonds of marriage, there's freedom, there's pleasure, there's liberty. But he says that the body is not for sexual immorality, but the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And then he goes on in the same chapter and he says this, he says in verse 18, flee from sexual immorality every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but sexual immorality sins against your own body. So actually sexual sin is actually different from all other kinds of sins because you're sinning against yourself and it actually is ramifications that affects you, body, soul, and spirit. And it goes on to say this, that when a man, this same chapter says that when you join yourself, in this case he says to a harlot or to a prostitute, which is the epitome of recreational sexual activity, it says don't you know that you become one with her? So here's what's happened, and here's what happens.   That means every issue that they have going on in their spirit, because now you become one with them, you contract. There are spiritual transmissions that take place during sex, so the good is transmitted, the bad is transmitted, as well as physical, and then there are soul ties in our emotions where we become bonded to that individual. And so it actually, it's meant for marriage, but yet when we share it with a whole bunch of people, what happens is we become bonded to those people and it creates physical insecurity, emotional insecurity, and physical attachment and oneness with them, and spiritual transference. You see the world doesn't know that, because the world believes in a two dimensional box where body, this is all that there is, and so if that's all that there is, then the emotions are just kind of a projection of other things, and spirit is mythology. But as Christians, as people believe in a creator God who has intentions behind everything that he does, we're called to live sexually pure. That doesn't mean we're supposed to be prudes. Do you know that years ago, Red Book, which was a woman's magazine, did a survey among women in America, now this is probably 20 years old now, but here's what it found. The most sexually fulfilled women in the United States were born again Christian women who were married. And there's a reason for that. And I would venture to say that the same is true with men. When there's one flesh and there's unity in a marriage built on the foundation of God's word, there's a lot of fun, there's a lot of freedom, there's a lot of experimentation, there's a lot of all that kind of stuff that can go on because we have a trust of covenant in marriage. And so if you're having sex outside of marriage, stop it, repent, let God clean your heart and give you a new sense of purity so that when you enter into marriage, you can be renewed and you can experience God's gift of sex just like you would have if you had never made those mistakes, okay? There we go. And you should clap there because that's good information. Thank you.  Well, let me answer that question this way. Number one, we need to distinguish between, when we use terms homosexual and transgender, specifically in the arena of homosexuality, we need to distinguish between those who are proclaiming, professing Christians and those who are not. Because when people are not, and they're not a Christian and they're living in these kind of lifestyles or they're identifying in a very specific way, according to their sexual preference or those kinds of things, then they fall under the category of what we all were before we were saved by Jesus, which is sinners. And Jesus was called a friend of sinners. And so we can be friends with those people. We can be kind to them. And our goal as Christians should be to help those people as well as any other people, as well as your heterosexual, promiscuous friends or any of those type of people that we wanna bring them to Jesus. Why? Because we realize that before and without Jesus we're all broken people who are trying to find our way through life, have a desire to know God and at some point are going to need to hear the gospel of salvation. And maybe God put you in proximity to their life to share that with them, okay? And so I, in high school, my best friend or one of my best friends, I should just say one of my best friends was a guy who is like four years older than I was and he struggled with homosexuality. He was a, sometimes he was trying to serve Jesus, other times he wasn't, but he was, for the majority of the time that we were friends all the way through my mid-20s, he was openly gay. He didn't wanna be, he struggled with it, but he was practicing it. And you know what? I had people, because I was pursuing ministry, I had people that's like, ooh, are you gay, Lee? I'm like, look, I don't struggle with that, but I'm not homophobic because I love people.  I had friends like that, but they were my friends and my goal was always to be Jesus to them, be kind to them, love them where they're at, but then point them in a better direction, okay? That's number one. Number two, if you have people in your life that name the name of Jesus and say I'm a Christian, but yet are practicing homosexuality, those kinds of things, then that's a different situation because there's a difference between having somebody who's a Christian, we have many of them at Radiant Church who struggle with same-sex attraction, but yet don't act on it because they know that the Bible teaches that the actions themselves are destructive, and you know what? I have the utmost respect for people that say, you know what, I have same-sex attraction or I'm gay, but yet I am a follower of Jesus and because of that, I know that God's word says that I can't act on that, and so I'm intentionally celibate for the sake of the kingdom of God. I love those people, I celebrate them, I honor them because they are exercising self-control for the sake of the kingdom of God. And we have many of those kinds of people in our church. The problem I have is that in our culture, we have taken our sexual activity and we've formed identities around them. You, listen to me, your identity is not based on what you do or don't do.   Who you are is you were created to be a child of God, to know God, and what you struggle with are temptations and all of us have different temptations. Now there are people who say, God made me this way, I'm gay, but I wanna serve Jesus, and so all the things in the Bible, God just has to deal with it, you're gonna have to deal with it because I'm practicing in it, this is just who I am. And the Bible says in 1 Corinthians, it says if you have somebody who's a brother and they are living sexually immoral, and that could not just be homosexuality, that could be heterosexuality. It could be somebody who you know who's claiming to be a Christian and living with somebody that they're not married to and sexually active. Or it could be somebody who's committing adultery, even though they claim to be a brother. It says that in those cases, we're supposed to Matthew 18 them, which is to go to them and gently confront them on their sin and then be willing to walk with them in repentance and to pray with them and to weep with them and to grieve with them and to help them and to aid them in any way that we can. But if they continually resist the conviction of the Holy Spirit and they reject God's word and they reject your friendship and they basically say, well, you either accept me the way that I am or we're not friends. In that case, they've made a decision that they're going to choose their sexual activity and preferences over following Jesus.  You can't do both at the same time. I can't go to the UP and to Chicago at the same time. I have to pick which direction I'm going to go in. And here's what Jesus said. Anyone who would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. Sometimes denying self is denying our temptations, denying our desires and denying old identities that the world tries to impose on us so that we can follow Jesus. And that applies to everybody across the board. Okay, that's how I would answer that question today. What does the Bible say about generational sin? Is this something that we deal with today? So generational sins, or in the Old Testament, what we refer to as generational iniquities is spoken of several different times and sometimes very directly and sometimes indirectly. Where it's spoken of directly is when it makes reference in the Ten Commandments. It says, for I visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the third and the fourth generation, but I visit my blessing on the righteous to a thousand generations. So here's what we know. We know that God's blessing and his desire to bless us generationally is much greater and stronger than his willingness or his desire to let a family iniquity or a ongoing familial sin to be passed down. It only goes to the third and fourth generation ultimately, but his blessing can go to a thousand generations. Here's what a, number one, difference between a sin and an iniquity. A sin is an action that you take that misses God's mark.  And another word for iniquity is pathway. So you have paths out in the woods that you walk because they've been trampled over so many times and now grass refuses to grow on them. That's a picture of what the word iniquity means. And what the Bible talks about generational iniquities is this, when you do something as a mom or as a dad in willful disobedience to God, it first of all becomes an iniquity on the inside of you. Which means it's a well-worn pattern and pathway of disobedience and rebellion. Here's what happens. That eventually becomes a character trait that when you have children, those same iniquities which are spiritual in nature can also be passed down to your kids. Here's, let me give you an example. Think of a alcoholic who refuses to get help and has embraced alcoholism and embraced it to the expense of his integrity and his family.  How many times do people growing up in that environment swear to themselves, I'm not going to be like dad? I vowed to myself, I'm never gonna do that.  Or maybe they don't take alcoholism as their sin, but they find some other sin that they equally create an iniquity to and it impacts our family in the same way. And you see those traits passed down. One of the examples that we see is sexual immorality. So think about this. Psalms says, David says that I was conceived in iniquity. I was conceived in sin. Many scholars believe that David was actually born out of a relationship that Jesse, his father had, was somebody other than his wife. So he was illegitimate. Here's what happens. David grows up, dad was an adulterer. What does David do when he sees Bathsheba on the roof? He commits adultery except now adultery escalates to becoming murder to cover it up. David then has several sons. One of them sees his half sister and lusts for her and he rapes her. Then the other brother gets mad about that and he murders that brother. Then David has another son named Solomon who becomes king. And instead of him just committing adultery once, he has 700 or he has 300 wives and 700 concubines, which are just sexual harems. So he has a thousand sexual partners and it leads to idolatry. He begins to worship foreign gods, which is the greatest sin in the Old Testament. So think about how it escalates from adultery to adultery murder to adultery and murder and incest to incest murder and adultery to polygamy and to promiscuity ultimately to idolatry. That's a picture of generational sins that escalate. How do we break them? Repentance, when we come to Jesus and we are saved and we recognize that we are carriers of seed forms, of family iniquities. We lay them at the foot of the cross and we repent on behalf of our family. We ask God to uproot those seeds out of our heart and to fill us with this Holy Spirit. And then we begin to renew our minds with the word of God, get God's thoughts into our heart. We begin to become conformed into the image of God as sons and daughters of God. And we allow the power of the bloodline in Jesus that we have to overpower the bloodline that we have in the natural. My dad divorced was a family iniquity in my family, not my grandparents, but my dad and several of my uncles and even beyond that. My dad was married and divorced three times. And so when I got married, I did not know how to be married. I was 21 years old when I got married. And I loved Jesus with all my heart. I loved Jane with all my heart, but I had massive insecurity about every time we would get in an argument, I thought Jane's gonna leave. And what was that? It was that family iniquity that was rising up. And I had to go to Jesus with that and go to my mentors about that. And I had to renew my mind about that in order for those seeds to get uprooted because here's what they would have grown into. They would have grown into full blown insecurity and decisions that would have ultimately become self fulfilling prophecies. And I'm grateful for the grace of God. So whatever you maybe are struggling with in your families, go to Jesus, let him uproot that and give you a brand new heart, okay? That's that, okay. Let's take another question. Rick at Portage. As the nuclear family has been attacked in the United States, where do you see culture going in the next 10 to 20 years? And how can we protect our families and best be salt and light to a confused world? Wow, I'm gonna take a drink for that one. Talk amongst yourselves. Let me just tackle the first part, nuclear family. Let me tell you why the nuclear family, and when we refer to a nuclear family, we're talking about mom and dad who have kids, family. That was God's original design for the family. And listen, before God created anything else, any other institution he didn't create, government he didn't create church, first thing he did was he created family, why? Because God created the human family on the earth in the garden to be his representative of his government and his image as it is in heaven. So family, husband and wife, in his image he created them male and female. Male and female come together and create a family. That family is the image bearer of God to the rest of God's creation. Because family is the image bearer of God and because the devil hates the image of God, that's why the family is under attack. You see in the Old Testament, the way that Satan attacked God's image was by causing God's people to worship other images. Those are called idols. And in the New Testament times, he's become more sophisticated. What he wants to do is he wants to mar and destroy and pervert the image of God in the earth. Why? Because he hates God. And every time he sees a family, he sees the earthly representation of God's image and God's government and God's rightful lordship over the earth. And so what does he do? He attacks it and he maligns it and he disfigures it. That's why we're seeing family under attack. It's a spiritual attack. I know we've got all kinds of anecdotal arguments and relationships and people that we know in schools and different things like this, but at the essence of it, let me tell you this. The battle against family is spiritual warfare as we approach the last days that we're living in.  It's gonna get worse. It's gonna get worse. It is going to, I don't know exactly where it's gonna go, but here's what I want you to know. It is impossible to raise kids as Christians in this culture on cruise control. You can't just do what you could maybe do 50 years ago and just raise your kids, take them to church, live your lives, listen to your country music and invest them in everything else. Put them in this and put them in that and attend church once a month and not really live your Christian life. As parents, your job is to number one model Jesus as Christ followers to your kids because they will follow who you are much further than they will follow what you say.  And if you're listening to your hip hop that's talking about hose and all kinds of other stuff and don't be surprised when you drop them off at youth group and you're just like, well, mom and dad aren't into this and they're just like the world. Mom and dads, our number one responsibility is reflect the image of God to our kids. Number two, it's to prioritize what's important to our kids. And you can't do that on cruise control.  And in the next 10, 20 years, here's what I wanna promise you. Listen to me. If you will not disciple your families and I'm talking to men and if you're not married and you're a single mother today then I'm talking to you but I'm talking to nuclear families this morning. Parents, moms, dads and specifically dads, if you will not disciple your kids, the world will. And when they are 18 years old, they will be fully devoted followers to hedonism and to the world and don't be shocked. Well, I took them to church. Yeah, well, I took my kids to Dunkin' Donuts but they're not glazed donuts.  Let me just say parents. If the loudest voice in your life is your music, it's pop culture, it's 24 hour news cycle, it's Netflix, Hulu in prime time, if it's ESPN, if those are the loudest, most influential voices in your life, if they get the most screen time in your life, you will become a disciple of those things instead of a disciple of Jesus. The greatest thing parents can do is be a person that is in the Word that prioritizes, as for me and my house, we are gonna serve the Lord. Come Saturday night or Sunday morning, we are in church. Youth group is a priority.  And then when your kids grow up, they'll be really good memorizers of the days when they played literally. But if you want your kids to grow up and love Jesus, put them in the environments where they're gonna see Jesus as a priority. When I was a youth pastor, I had so many parents that would show up in March and say, we'll see you in November because we got travel sports. Guess what?  But even if he does, do you want them to be a hedonistic professional athlete? Or do you want your kids growing up to know the priority for us in our household is God's word, it's God's house, it's God's people, and we put God first in our life. You do that, you got a good chance of raising godly kids. You don't do that, they'll be discipled by the world. So there you go. I know that you might just think, wow, gosh, she's just being so mad at me. No, I love you. I just want us to raise godly families. And by the way, we're working, Radiant Church is working on for the next couple of years. We're working on developing Radiant preschool because we want to create environments for young kids to be in a Christian environment more. And stay tuned, we have School of Ministry and some other things that are coming down the pike that we want to help partner with parents to help you pass on your faith to your kids. Okay, this is from online. How do you forgive and show honor to your parents when they abused, neglected, and then abandoned you? Wow, what a massive question. Number one, to whoever sent this question in and to whoever this question applies to, I just want to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what you went through. And I know that it's not always the exception. Here's what I know, is parents are imperfect, but I also know this, imperfection is not an excuse for abuse and neglect. And if you were neglected, you did not receive the love from a mother and a father that you were supposed to have. I want you to know that the Lord weeps with you because that was never his intention or his desire for you. And I also want you to know that I can relate to a certain degree. My dad took off when I was nine months old.  And also in that environment, my mom was a 20 year old mother, single living in the inner city of Pontiac, Michigan.  And I understand neglect, I understand abuse, I understand dysfunction. So to whoever asked that question, I want you to know you're not alone. I want you to know that not only do I and a lot of other people understand what you've gone through, but there is healing. God is bigger than the effects of sin. I've experienced healing, I've experienced forgiveness and you can too. Here's the key, is you've got to be willing to forgive those who harmed you. And forgiveness is not the equivalent of saying that what they did was okay. Actually, forgiveness doesn't just release who you're forgiving, it actually releases you from the pain and the memory and the emotional ramifications of those events. And so you have to forgive.  And in this case, sometimes it's our family who becomes our enemies, why? Because they harm us. How do you honor, though, parents in those situations? Well, that's a big question. I would say that in many cases, there will be an open door for you to go and have a conversation with your parents about what happened to you and how it affected you. And you have the right to do that. As long as it's safe, you have the right to do that. But you don't have to do that in order to forgive. You can go to the foot of the cross and say, Jesus, this happened to me. And you know what Jesus is gonna say to you? He's gonna say, I know, I was there. I was there when it happened and it broke my heart.    And when Jesus was on the cross, all of our sin was put on him. So he carried the shame and the weight that comes with sin. So Jesus is well acquainted as our high priest with our pain. Here's how you honor. You create boundaries where there are unhealthy relationships. And from the other side of those boundaries, you offer forgiveness and you offer grace. And to the degree that there is repentance and acknowledgement and to the degree that there is the admission and a desire for there to be repentance, that boundary can actually move closer in proximity to that relationship. To the degree that there is denial and there is danger and there is vulnerability, that means that boundary line has to move further back. But it doesn't mean that you allow your heart to get bitter because here's what happens. When we don't forgive somebody, it actually affects us far more than it affects them. Because what happens to our heart is it gets bitter and we make inner vows and we say, I will never ever be hurt again. And so what that means is I'm hardening my heart so that I can't feel. And it actually becomes a prison.  Why is that? Why won't God forgive you if you don't forgive? It's because the same mechanism that you use to forgive others is the same mechanism that you use to receive forgiveness. So think of it like the back door on your house. If you lock the back door, nobody can get in but you can't get out. And so if you don't forgive, you can't receive forgiveness and it hardens your heart. In many cases, people who've been through this are gonna need either a pastor to help you walk through that or you're gonna need a counselor to help you walk through the grief of that. And I would highly recommend to you that if you need to go back and you need to process some of the things that have happened to you, the Bible says there is safety in the multitude of counselors. Find a Christian biblical counselor, go to them. And if you need a recommendation, call a church. We have several. Several members in our church, they're professional counselors who can help walk you through that and help you receive healing from your heart. And again, we want you to know you're not alone. Jesus sees, Jesus knows, Jesus forgives, and Jesus heals. Would everybody stand up with me? Those are some great questions. Thank you so much for asking those questions this morning. Deep heartfelt questions. And I know that there are a lot more. We'll get through some more in the next service. I want everyone in this room to just bow their heads with me. And I want our prayer team though to move into place if they would, all of our care ministers and alter team if they would move into place. I know that that last question may have struck a chord with a lot of us because whether it was abuse or neglect or abandonment, I know that the greatest pain in life happens in the context of relationships. Just like the greatest joys of life happen in the context of relationships. The reality is that a lot of us in this place, a lot of us in this room at Portage as well, or online even, are carrying some baggage, carrying some wounds, carrying some unresolved stuff. And we've got a couple of choices of what we can do with that stuff. Number one, we can keep stuffing it, but eventually you're gonna run out of space and it's gonna overflow. It's gonna overflow in dysfunction, divorce, neglect, unhappiness, depression, anxiety, abuse, substance abuse. It's gonna overflow in lots of different. You keep stuffing it.  Or we surrender it. We surrender it and we ask for help. Here's what the Bible says. I cried out to the Lord in my trouble and he heard me from his holy mountain. See when we cry out to God, the promises that he hears us. The Bible says that God heard me in the day of salvation and he helped me. God wants to help. See we don't believe that life is just what happens to us. We believe that we serve a God who's transcendent and supernatural.  He's able to redeem it. He's able to restore us. He's able to heal our hearts. He's stronger than sin. He's stronger than dysfunction. He's stronger than what other people have done to us. What does it require? Humility on our part. Just say, God, I need you. Hear me. I'm broken, I'm hurt. My marriage is a mess. I'm struggling in my sexuality. I've got some things I need to let go of. I've got some things I need to repent of. Here's what I know that whenever we call out, God hears us and he helps us. And this morning, I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna pray over families. I'm gonna pray over individuals. And I believe that when we pray in the name of Jesus, things happen. Angels move. The tectonic plates of our lives shift. Deliverance occurs. But after I pray, I'm gonna invite, if you're here and you find yourself in a position where maybe there's something, you need help in your marriage. Or maybe you're just lonely. Or maybe you're carrying emotional baggage. Or maybe that last question was you.   Condemnation to isolate you. And he will deceive you into thinking that even God can't change you. Can't heal you. Can't reverse what's happened in your life. All of those things are demonic under all lies. Meant to keep you in chains as a prisoner. But today, Jesus steps into the room. Church, I want you to hear me. Jesus is in this room. It's not just answers from Jesus. Jesus is in this room. And wherever Jesus goes, he breaks chains of the enemy. Whatever room Jesus steps into, hope arrives. Salvation comes. Deliverance is possible. And he's here today. He's here in the midst of us. Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I will be there. And I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna dismiss. And if you are in that situation, I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna invite you to come and receive prayer. Because there's something that happens when we come together in unity, when we confess what we're struggling with, when we ask for help, when we humble ourselves, and brothers and sisters pray for us and over us, God meets us in that moment. That's where change begins to occur. It's supernatural, but it's God and he's here.  Today is the day of salvation. Come and receive prayer on this Mother's Day. Lord, today I pray right now in the name of Jesus. Eyes would be opened right now to see what's really going on in our life. Scales would fall off. I pray for hard hearts to become soft right now in the name of Jesus. I pray for those that are living under the veil of shame because of what they've done or what has happened to them that right now it be exposed with the goodness and the mercy of God. That there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And Lord, I pray that today would be a day of healing. It'd be a day of deliverance. It'd be a day of finding our brand new identity in Christ. It would be a day where the chains of sin and iniquities would be broken off of people's lives. And today we would walk in the freedom and the liberty that we have in Jesus, that Jesus you paid for on the cross. I pray that now I pray that today I pray that that would go with us and that we would be constantly reminded of the good God that we serve. Lord, I pray that as we pray prayers of faith at this altar today, that healing of marriages would take place, that dreams would come alive again, that prodigals would come home, that sexual sin would break off, that addictions would be broken off, that hearts would be shifted and changed, that forgiveness would be granted and that Jesus you would be glorified. We pray this in the matchless name of Jesus and everybody says amen and amen.


Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the last afternoon of the course. Two parts to this afternoon, first part I'll be showing you some very nice videos, recordings. These recordings have emerged from some of the meetings that we've had here on IIT campus. One is as recent as January of this year, where we had a national forum on air quality transport and health, where we had speakers from across the country and including some people from UK and this project is funded by British Council, so that's why we could have some of the friends from UK also visit us. There are two half an hour, about half an hour presentations, one on health issues and second one is on the national perspective of what's going on in India from the Central Pollution Control Board. And the third video is a little older, it's about five years old, when Sri Jairam Ramesh was the Minister of Environment and Forest and we had invited him to IIT campus because wanted to see if we could do some kind of a joint effort between IITs for environment. So the idea actually came one time I was going through the Gymkhana grounds and there's this huge display board over there, scoreboard and on top it said Inter IIT sports meet. And we've had Inter IIT sports meet, in fact last year we had the 50th, the Golden Jubilee of Inter IIT sports meets. So that is the only place where IITs I think do think something under one banner, other than JEE, the entrance exam. We thought maybe a good idea that we could get all the environmental faculty, colleagues from all the other department together and start presenting ourselves as a national resource for issues that would be required at a national level or at a state level. We'd gone to meet with Sri Jairam Ramesh for some other meeting and at that point in time I happened to mention to him and so he said he gave a certain date which was suitable for him. So we came back and then we actually had this meet where all the 7 at that point in time, 7 IITs had come and then he gave this talk to the public at large, so students at large. Of course I had another agenda in having him talk to the audience and the agenda was that Sri Jairam Ramesh, he himself is one of our alumni. He graduated from here I think in 1975, Mechanical Engineering. And so he also came back as an alumnus. And so he, after doing a BTEC in Mechanical Engineering, for him now to be the minister for environment and forest, it is an interesting career path. So one of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to let students glimpse of how you could actually choose a particular path provided you were committed to it. So I was hoping at least some people in the audience would get excited about it. So I'd like for that particular video to be shared, he finishes his talk and then after that he has an interaction with the audience. And I'm not going to have enough time to be able to show you the entire interaction. It's a 1 hour 27 minute video, I'll probably show you only about 40 minutes of it. And I'll give you the link and you can continue seeing the rest of it at your leisure. So I'll be quiet now, so there are 3 videos, first by Dr. Salvi, second by Dr. Gargawa and third by Sri Jairam Ramesh.


260 Bemidji High School students took the stage tonight for the school's 32nd annual Winter Choir Concert. The production has a reputation for putting audiences in the Christmas spirit. There were four choirs total, and they performed 20 songs in all. The show list included classics like Night of Silence and Deck the Halls, as well as other favorites like What Child and Make We Joy, the auditorium is constantly packed every year. We get a full house for this concert every year because I think people are in the mood for choir music and it is the end of the year. And it's wonderful for these kids because they get to share this music they've been working on for the past seven weeks with a large audience and it's just been a great tradition, a great way for a lot of people to get ready for their holiday break. Tomorrow the Bemidji Middle School will hit the BHS stage for their annual winter concert. That concert starts at seven. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


The people of Zambia voted in the UPND to form government in order to express the challenges that the PF government had had and not for them to be giving PF excuses. Literally everything that has happened over the last 16 months has been blamed on the previous government and yet it is UPND government. This to the CF shows that the UPND was not ready and is still not ready to govern. You cannot continue playing a blame game and calling SEVO7's names when they are the ones who tend up with large numbers to vote for you. 2. Mining Corruption That is our first quantum, ZCCM, IH and TAS. At a time when we are in an economic crisis, it is very unfortunate for the government to trade the 20% of the gold and shares we hold in the first quantum mine for royalties. This is akin to a person winning a lottery and giving the winning tickets to a stranger to go and redeem the prize and then asking the stranger to be supporting you with an upkeep allowance from the very process of the lottery. My jokes, that signifies diminished capacity to reason. We are at the verge of collapsing economically and instead of government fighting to increase its shareholding to at least 49% of this government, this government is seeking to sell off its shareholding in exchange for royalties of 3.1%. This is not just a bigger mentality of moving from having a place on the table and sharing the spoils to sitting back and getting hand-me-downs. Ironically, the logic at play is equally in total contravention of even the UPND 2021-2026 manifesto on page 11 bullet point number 5 under mining. It is a policy and plan to facilitate local ownership and increased participation of Zambian players in the industry. It is certain that the action the government wants to take is at variance with what the crafters of the UPND manifesto are in mind and more importantly, what the people of Zambia voted them for. Perhaps this explains why they are reluctant to bring this issue on the floor of parliament for further debate, to adduce that this was shared by PF shows a clear absence of leadership of impeachable proportion. It is a fact that ZCCMIH is a 20% shareholder in Kansai region in mind. It is also a fact that $2.8 billion was paid out to face quantum minerals and related parties. And it is also a fact that $750 million was placed in equally related parties without following governance and KMP's Treasury policy. It is a fact that the actions that this mining house has been engaged in has robbed the nation of billions of dollars that any leadership that does not have its hands less with corruption should have sought to recover rather than going round with a begging board seeking an IMF loan of $1.3 billion, which will end up being the space over three years. It is clearly, I mean this deal I will test one time, it is clearly showing you that the UPND government is not interested in fighting corruption from multinationals. They are rather interested in fighting corruption from politically inclined individuals.  These are jokes of the highest proportion that we have seen in this country. This first quantum ZCCMIH, high transaction is nothing but a scam. And I would like to call out the so-called ban to come clean and ensure that it stops this daylight robbery of national wealth. May I also call upon our corporate partners to take a keen interest in this transaction as we know that if this happened in their countries, whose directors would have been serving at least 20, 25-year jail sentence and is some jurisdiction, these two would have attracted a death penalty. Let us stop this reckless transaction that clearly points in the direction of a peasing election financiers. If it is wrong in the USA, if it is wrong in the UK and if it is wrong in China, and even wrong in Switzerland, then it should also be wrong in Zambia. No matter how low one's self-perception may be, this is wrong and it is criminal. I am asking the president on behalf of you, my colleagues in the past, to stop this criminal transaction. We are asking him to stop it before we start commissioning our investigators to look at the shell corporations that are benefiting from this heinous crime and help the citizens by addressing the challenges of Copani corporate minds and KCM, which are further causing a third strain on the people of the Copa belt. If Copani is not managed well, we may end up having another wrong issue in the forever, where the mind is flooded and we can no longer be able to carry out any mining activities. Please get your team to find a solution for the mind, Mr President, not using institutions that supported your campaigns over the years, but those that want to do general business and are ready to pay taxes, like any other investor. If they are able to pay taxes in Chile, they are asleep, and Tanzania. Why shouldn't they do the same in Zambia? Why? May I also say a warning on those involved in the SCCM-IH scam to come clean? And avoid the blood of the many Zambians falling on their hands, as this will cause untold hunger and in some extreme cases loss of life. And as they reflect, I encourage them to read Exodus 34 verse 7, in case they don't know the script, I can look it for them. The Lord visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children in the third and fourth generation. The further question to those entering into these deals, time is unequalising. You will soon be caught by the arm of the law and you may end up paying dearly when the UPND is voted out of office. Please take time to look at Tanzania and see how the left-person magu 400 mining houses that have perfected the art of tax evasion. You too will one day pay the price. I always tell my colleagues in the Central Committee, never be too friendly with the bed you are going to eat. There is nowhere you can fight corruption when you are always having cocktails with the mining corporations. How are you going to fight them because you are always eating cheese and caviar and all that kind of stuff with them? Chibae le shifi, all through and through. Three cost of living. One of the campaign messages that resonated well with the people of Zambia and caused them to move in their houses in favor of the UPND in the August 21 general election was a promise to the government was a promise to address the cost of living. Today, we are told that Zambia's charity is the best performing across the continent and that we have a single digit inflation and yet the cost of living keeps increasing. With the poor management of the pharma input support program it is projected that next year the situation will be even tougher for the common man to afford even a single meal a day. We have families that are rationing others eat today the others eat the following day it is happening here in the world where people are rationing meals if you have eaten lunch it means that you are in this house and you have to make sure you eat your lunch around 16, 17 hours that is happening but our leaders when we say this they are saying that we are just making it up they are just trying to make popular statements because for them now they have become they have to drink wine to have a bit of appetite but they are forgetting that thousands are languishing in poverty millions in this country are languishing in poverty and they don't have means in which to end their living so we want governments to address these and such agent issues and not them opt to give foreign large corporations the macron sessions while taxing their citizens into object poverty today a 25 kg bag of breakfast meal meal is going at over 170 kg and by this time next year this time next year it is projected to be around 250 kg just how many citizens will be able to afford it at that amount even factor in the scarcity of the commodity all into reduced supply in 2023 58 years after independence as a nation to fail to feed our citizens access to food is a basic right that each citizen must enjoy and is the duty of any responsible government to protect that rights farmer input support program it is clear that government has failed to provide leadership in the agriculture sector which is one of the pillars in the economic recovery plan as well as the 8th national development plan how does the so-called methodical government radically move from having farmers receive 8 by 50 kgs of petalizer per farmer to having 4 farmers sharing 1 bag of petalizer even in Unipi they were getting proper bags of petalizer as opposed to these jobs we are seeing in the nation we are facing a lot of problems what are they doing for 25 years in opposition what are they doing how does a leadership that claims to be profanly start distributing inputs a week after the rain have started falling how does a government that claims to have the interest of the people at heart just to wake up and emphasize the provision of legumes simply because they do not have enough followers in that province. How does the government that has morality and the sound leadership send its leaders senior advisor to start distributing fertilizer to chiefs at the night leaving out the subjects. This is what they were doing. They started giving out fertilizer to chiefs in eastern province giving out the subjects, giving because they had the paramount chief spoke. So in the night they began giving fertilizer to chiefs and then they continued playing games around. But if you give the chiefs only, they're the only ones ever in man. How does that translate in helping the small scale farmers? Pusha man sumunga vaso mbola. In shipping the small scale farmers have vaso mbola. Those are bad politics for UPLG. Those are bad politics, very progressive politics and they have to come to closure. The 2023 farmer input support program has been nothing but a total failure of the current administration. The process of allocating fertilizer distribution has been riddled with corruption of a grand scale. This is another area we would also like to call upon our corporate partners to take interest in. If there's an area where corruption has manifested, it's in the fertilizer deals. Why were they cancelled in tenders? It tender comes out they cancelled. They were cancelled because their friends were not winning the tender. They were not interested in farmers receiving fertilizer on time. They were interested in their friends receiving their cash on time and they are calling themselves leaders. They are calling themselves leaders. I would like to assure the farmers that our citizens first will share in your pain we feel your pain and would like to assure you that we know that over 70% of Zambia's employment is through the agriculture sector and therefore we treat you with respect to the same. Our solution to the issue of farmer input support program is to ensure that we capitalise nitrogen tenders of Zambia and introduce more fertiliser companies that will be able to support farmers increase the output and also create an enabling environment


Well Robinson safe Looking at those bodies wondering what happened to him it's cool Crappy went around any Lottie down. He's danger. He's danger. I mean he literally screamed at people Chop Okay So everybody on this side is taking care of I get these other flagpoles on the other side. Yeah Soup power ready.  Come here Dear god, I'm just hitting all the wrong things. He's looking right at me this drone All right, we're good Let's just scream like that I want to go over there, but I ain't going that room with that drone. Are you safe? Yes Is this game very easy not my opinion now? I'm on the normal difficulty and it feels normal So it doesn't feel very easy now and then they're coming Okay, I'm Jay time to go and just for the record guys the the chat filter. That's on It's twitches. It's not even mine But I do have rules.  I Do have a I have a no profanity rule But what the chat filters that's that's twitches auto mod Which I've yet to know how to turn off. It just does this thing So just those of you are curious if your chat messages get blocked or whatever. Oh Okay, all right, buddy. All right Let's get some bots out here We've you up. Oh Did you know Grand Central has the largest basement in New York City? You can fit half the Brooklyn Bridge down there.  I'll make them like they used to that's old school New York Gunshan for you I'm destroying the city That was kind of a waste. I see you Plan is to use the train can't let him get away train platform is open. That must be where he is Okay, so I don't need all that please getting away. Oh Here's this guy. Oh, you can't okay. It's a weird angle to fight down. Are you doing this? Hang off an old deck put some positive into its face Well, he just stole the oh, okay, so it works both ways he can give and he can take Yeah I'm gonna try to try a drone just for giggles. Okay. I missed time that Whoa Okay, that's the wrong button. That's why Okay. Oh jumped in ceiling. He's getting tired Why okay? Why do you change it up? Why you change it up chat? Why did you stop changing it up? I Get used to one thing. Do you do something different? Am I go to ceiling now like I don't know which one is going to ceiling or not? Okay, I see the difference now He's doing the guy all maneuver when you got to jump up in the air And I think the other one is a different kind of look Yeah, like that to early I Regret everything he's gonna starts. He's gonna start mixing them up soon. I forgot the button is X That's like that's that's the mom That's some kid and raw you right there. He just turns and looked at me. You were punching me. But by the way It didn't hurt wait for the QTE Wait for the QTE what buzz are you gonna tell me to press again? Yep, they're switching it up. They're mixing them up now. I did it wrong. There we go Oh wrong way. He takes so long with a wind up on that first one QT not dead, of course not No brakes No problem QT R2 L2 R2 L2. I've seen this scene before Yes, this is from the the Toby spider-man. Wait, it didn't work that time It makes me so happy to see that oh that poor terrain just He's alive, of course.  Just have him hang upside down to have like Rainbows and butterflies fly around them for eternity Look at his face.  All right, what's next? Hey, it's me. I don't know when you want to talk texting isn't talking Why what what happened to MJ? He's just like stepping to the ridiculously drama zone for some reason. I think it was the curry After the curry she got all crazy. Please say no, please say no Okay, okay What is there to figure out? What next? How do I feel? How much time do you have? Not much. Heroics for you means paperwork for me But I just wanted to say good job. Thanks, Yuri. I kind of needed that No, we haven't seen the green goblin Lee. I've been ignoring the city Time to get back to being a friendly neighborhood Spidey Whoops. I was looking at chat there. It's my excuse. I'm sticking to it Sadly it was not because one of their inmates got the chair Okay I've got two skill points, so I think we're gonna go with Chain finisher. No, it costs three. I'm saving for it Watching me play this It's a special game, let's just play that way Really well done We're on button over said a spider-man. There's another missing student latest MIA is Steve Hopkins What worries me about him is some guys from Tombstone's gang started dealing in his neighborhood recently Steve hated that It's a nice area, but he was too scared to do anything if he's corrupted He might go talk to doc doc and he's the one who get I gotta figure out where he is I don't know where the landmark is. I'll do that More recent pretty sure. This is the upper west side. I think I need to head north What can you tell me about Steve? I got all the taskmaster stuff. I got the Gang points of interest to do But um, I imagine they're telling me to do more of the side quest to unlock the name next main line If the game was over, I think it would we would run credits or something would tell me, you know First and last day Yeah, it was foreshadowing it sure was all right, there's trees where I gotta go like some greenhouses and trees and stuff It's probably over here. I see anything on a map yet. We're on the map. Oh I'm like flirting with like. Oh wow. I'm like outside the area So I need to go to upper west side, right? Yeah, I'm on the wrong side Yeah, we just had a Toby spider moment with the train They even acknowledge it. They were like he was like man that worked before he was trying to stop the train with his web like he did and Two Spider-Man two three out. I forgot which one The one where his mask comes off That was two. Yeah, but it's trend and hippie and It's trendy and hippie and and it's like popular opinion to hate on Toby, but I didn't I didn't hate those Spider-Man's I Saw areas of improvement, but I didn't hate them. There we go.  Maybe I can take some of them quietly. I press triangle. He jumped and just punched the guy I guess he was just he was too low. This is crazy Those guys are armed. Maybe I can take some of them quietly. Let's just do it this way You're in time out. Okay. I'm gonna go way over here Okay, so we got these guys here. You safe.  Oh, you're the guy I'm trying to say should lead with ease What they call tough love poor Steve? I always had a problem with those guys, but it's night. I wanted to kill them The ways I don't even want to think about Don't worry.  I think things are sort of under control Maybe I should put in some Peter Parker time at the lab Yep, there we go. We get to talk the doc talk the doc ox now Hopefully so where is this on the map so I can know in case I just want to go there It is No, that's breakthrough. That's the main mission I don't remember where the lab is error file not found I'm be honest with y'all though as a spider-man comic reader. I wasn't a fan of venom A lot of people like venom because he's venom, but I wasn't too fond of The fact that he's possibly not in this game doesn't upset me that much. Some people got mad about that though I doubt that we got decades worth of evidence on the big guy Not anymore evidence truck guy hit on the way to lock up Whatever was on those hard drives is as good as gum. Big willy isn't getting off that easy. I'll get those drives back Wow, I just don't make backups All processed evidence has RFID tracking tags applied. I should be able to find the hard drives if I track the tags Gotta move fast. I make fun of jamison, but his constant badmouthing. He really hits home with some people I mean fisk's men steal the drives from the cops and somehow that's my fault Well, the important thing is to make sure fisk doesn't get away with this Just in time. It doesn't look like they've wrecked the drives yet Just sitting there looking out time to ruin willy's welcome home party Uh, can I There we go I need the hot ground Anakin. Okay, what we got here? What is the situation gentle persons? I Don't have a they're getting smart. Nobody's staying above standing below a perch that can get to So It's going to be harder to get this sniper now And then I can get this guy though It happened again All right from I guess I'll just use I'll just use triangle because I use square Yes, yes Oh, I'm over here willy's welcome home party He's safe And he's danger That guy's probably probably safe. No, he's safe. All right, so we'll just Just do a triangle away Did you say who's there? I could probably get that guy from there Uh, let's make sure I got it on this Okay, we're gonna distract this guy And you're done. Okay Easy peasy lemon It's good easy This guy is safe that box is in the way. That's okay though


More and more of us want to make informed decisions about where our money goes when it comes to climate change. We want to do things like avoiding buying from companies that harm the environment. But to do that, we need the right information. This is where climate disclosures come in. It's all about transparency and making sure companies and institutions are clear about what climate change means for them. Disclosures help us take climate-related issues into account in the decisions we make every day. Here at the ECB, we recently published a couple of important documents. First, as banking supervisor we published our third report on the progress that banks have been making in becoming more transparent when it comes to climate. And second, for the first time, we published details of the carbon footprint of our monetary policy operations. You're listening to the ECB podcast, bringing you insights into the world of economics and central banking. My name is Katie Ranger. I'm very happy to welcome Frank Eldison back to the podcast. Frank, you're here again wearing your two hats. So as an executive board member and supervisory board vice chair, and that's because we'll be covering both monetary policy and banking supervision aspects of the topic. It's great to have you back. Thank you, Katie. I'm very glad to be back. Now in our conversation today, Frank, I want to talk about quite a few different things about climate disclosures. I want us to talk about what they are and why we need them at all, why they're helpful. But I also want to talk about why they matter for us as a central bank and what we're doing to help ensure transparency around climate impact and exposure. Let's start then with the basics. What are climate disclosures? Sure. Well, climate disclosures, I would say our data, our details, is information that organizations such as companies, institutions, banks publish. Publish about mainly two things. The effect that these organizations have on climate change and also the other way around. So the effect that climate change has on them. And you know, disclosures, it's a fancy word, but it can take many forms. So you can think of a report or a simple webpage or any kind of public communication. Okay. The important thing is that it's disclosed to the public, essentially. Exactly. Okay. And what do we need them for? Why are they helpful? Well, basically to get better informed decisions and for risk management. So let me elaborate a little bit on that. So better climate information helps all of us. So when I say all of us, I mean you as a consumer, me as a central banker, an investor, a business owner, non-governmental organizations, anyone practically to make more informed decisions. So I was thinking of an example to make that a little bit more, you know, down to earth. Think for example, and I think most of our listeners will recognize this. Think of nutrition labels on food. So people use this to make a choice between healthy and less healthy food. Now climate disclosures are actually much the same. So they help us understand which are the greener options and which are the non-green options. And if we all take notice of that information that we get, then, and that is of course the whole thinking behind it, then more money will flow into activities and technologies that are better for the environment. That's one thing. The other thing is that disclosures also help us to spot risks and risks of doing business with certain companies or of course, you know, in our purview banks. So for example, again, an example, a company with high green greenhouse gas emissions might run into trouble if new climate policies force that company to change its business practices. This is what we call a transition risk. Exactly. So one day the last coal mine will close.  So if you own shares in a company or if you lend to a company as a bank that is affected by these transition risks, as we indeed call them, then you might lose a lot of money. And disclosures, and this is the key point here, disclosures help you spot that risk before so that you can take your message before it's too late. Okay, so disclosures are important for a lot of different people in that sense. It's quite interesting what you were saying about the nutrition labels because in the UK now they have to put calories on menus and there's a new discussion about putting the climate impact of certain foods and some restaurants have actually started doing it and there are studies that say it's really helpful for people to choose the less carbon, the option on the menu that has a lesser carbon impact. I would certainly be guided by that. I can tell you if I saw that in a restaurant. Now, when it comes to disclosing climate information, we hear a lot about something called greenwashing and what this basically means is that companies also including banks disclose misleading information that makes their activities look greener than they really are. And by doing that, they also make their products seem more environmentally friendly to customers, so more attractive and they are often accused of this in the media. So given the risk of this and also given the reality that we hear in the media that this does happen, what exactly can we do to make sure that disclosures actually work, that we can trust them essentially? Right. Well, greenwashing is indeed a concern and I would say specifically because of the impact that it has. So if information that is disclosed claims that practices or activities are more environmentally friendly or sustainable than they actually are, or if they misrepresent how firms are managing their climate-related risks, then this will mislead customers and the wider market. And it's not just by the way just representing also, and all of us have heard those, you know, daring and visionary statements like, we will be pairs aligned by a certain day. They are often made without the proper plans in place to make sure that this will actually then be delivered upon, that this will actually happen. So they just say it, they put this nice big statement out there, but there's nothing or not enough behind it. Exactly. So the ambition is excellent. And I would say, you know, but it's crucial that organizations just don't just make green sounds, but that they act green, that they deliver, that they are as green as they pretend to be. Now, disclosures about climate risks influence the decisions of millions of people in the economy. So this is a real issue as investors become increasingly interested as they do in green finance and place more importance on climate and environmental concerns. And as climate change becomes more intense and widespread, we just, you know, we cannot afford to delay that green transition any longer, can we? Okay. So it's really time is of the essence, but what can we do then to help tackle this problem of greenwashing? Sure. Well, I think there's a number of key things that could help combat this or to put it more positively that can contribute greatly to sound and relevant disclosures. So I think earlier I said that disclosures can take many forms, but in terms of the actual content, they should actually not be different. So consistency and a mandatory global reporting standard for climate related disclosures is actually key. And let me just give you some examples here. So the financial stability board task force on climate related financial disclosures, it's a mouthful. TCFD for those who have, you know, looked into this a little bit more, but it's the task force of the financial stability board and has issued recommendations about a consistent approach for companies and banks. And having this global baseline, if you like, for disclosures will ensure that information on the impact of climate change is comparable and is consistent and can therefore be reliably taken into account for investment landing and insurance decisions. That's the point, isn't it? If it's not consistent, then, you know, you might have investors in Europe and investors in the U.S. with different levels of information and, you know, an investor who's working in both jurisdictions will not be able to have a clear picture of all of the options open to them. Exactly. So this is why these recommendations by the TCFD are so important. But also on the European level, we see very important developments here. So we have this, what we call the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive which actually requires companies to issue annual sustainability reports. And the European Sustainability Reporting Standards outline how and what information companies, but also banks and insurance companies, then need to report. So this is more of a requirement part here. Right, so you have this directive, you have reporting standards, and then the European Banking Authority, so sorry for throwing all these different fora at you, but it shows how much is going on right now and why this is such a topical issue. So the European Banking Authority has recently published Binding Climate Risk Disclosure Standards for Banks. And this will make it easier to compare banks across Europe. And then I talked a little bit about Europe, and I mentioned the TCFD, but further on the global level, there is the International Sustainability Standards Board. And that board is working on similar standards that would then apply beyond Europe and help make disclosures more comparable across different countries. So standards determining which economic activities are sustainable, which are green, are crucial for reliable, meaningful, and comparable disclosures. And actually there's another concept that I want to throw at you. The EU taxonomy is also a very good example of it, as is the future European Green Bond Standard, which will determine when such a label, when a bond can be called a green bond according to this European Green Bond Standard. But to be as impactful as possible, these standards shouldn't be ideally, of course, in the end, global and mandatory. And they will help to improve the quality and the availability of data on climate-related risks, which will also be useful for other companies and banks to use in their disclosures. So banks build on the disclosures by the real economy firms that are their clients, so they need to disclose, and then the banks need to disclose, and then this whole system ideally should be global and mandatory. So in a nutshell, everyone needs to do it, but they all need to do it in the same way as well? Yes, and we can't just stand by and wait for all these standards being developed. In the meantime, we all need to work with the tools and the information that we have to improve and expand on our disclosures and to keep pushing forward the green transition. And in this sense, patchy data is a good start. So saying it's not ideal yet is not an excuse for inaction. Okay, Frank, I want to zoom in on one of the groups that you've just been mentioning a bit there in your answer, and that's banks. Now, we supervise Europe's banks to make sure that they are safe and sound, and that's exactly why we want them to be aware of the climate-related risks that they are exposed to, like giving out a lot of loans to companies in carbon-intensive sectors or located in areas at risk from the effects of climate change. But we also want them to be transparent about them to their customers and investors, and this will help them avoid financial, operational, and even reputational risks. So it goes back to that risk management that you were talking about earlier. Now, Frank, as I mentioned in the introduction, we've just published our third report on the progress that banks have made in becoming more transparent when it comes to climate. Now, this report looked at disclosures for a total of 131 banks, and it looked at some key areas, including their business model, their strategy, governance, and how they manage that risk. So, Frank, what did we find? How are banks doing on this front? Okay, well, this is indeed the third consecutive year that we do this, and I think, you know, by now, I would say it's both a good news and a bad news story. The good news, and let me start there, is that banks are disclosing much more. So to make that very, very specific, in just one year, so compared to last year, the percentage of major banks disclosing their exposures to climate and environmental risks went from 36% to 86%. That's huge. That's a huge jump. That's a very significant jump. So that's the good news. But the quality of these disclosures is still lacking and not in line with what we expect from them as their supervisor. So, for example, whilst half of the banks provide information on the amount of emissions they finance through their business, in many cases, this information is still incomplete. It's unspecific, or it's not properly substantiated. And this needs to change. And there are new EU rules on climate disclosures. I just gave you some examples. And they will come into force this year. And right now, the information that banks are providing is not enough to comply with these new rules. And this is just one of the examples of the minimum standards I gave when we talked about the greenwashing. So, if needed, we will take the appropriate action as supervisor to ensure that banks comply. And the consequences of not complying with minimum transparency standards are only going to increase for banks. Because you already mentioned it a little bit. There are legal and reputational risks that start to emerge for banks as more and more clients, investors and other stakeholders and market participants want meaningful, comprehensive information on climate-related risks. And also, and this is key, corresponding, matching action by the banks. Okay, so you've published these results, but what about the banks themselves? What have you asked them to do about it? Right. You know, when we do such a review, what we then do is we go back to the banks individually, we inform them of our findings and we ask them, we told them to address these shortcomings. And we have also, and that is because we also feel we need to help. So as a supervisor, we look at all these banks and we look in the kitchen if you like of each of the banks and we are able to seek good practices. So in order to help, because in the end what we want is to move the whole banking system in the right direction, don't we? And so we seek good practices, we publish those. This is kind of like a living document, so we also look into future when we see better practices emerging, we will also publish those to help banks on the other hand. Okay, Frank, I want to turn the spotlight onto the other side of the ECB's work, which is your second hat that you have, I mentioned. In addition to supervising banks, it's also our job to ensure price stability. Now when we design the policies for carrying out that task, we need to take into account the effect that climate change has on the economy, but also the effects that our own operations might have on the climate transition and the risks that we are exposed to as a central bank. Now that's why in October of last year, 2022, we started shifting or in the jargon tilting our asset purchases towards issuers with a better climate performance. And here we've been looking at companies with lower greenhouse gas emissions, more ambitious carbon reduction targets and also better disclosures, which just goes to show how important that is. Now, Frank, to what extent are we ourselves actually disclosing the kind of information that we've been discussing and that's actually useful to us? Very good question, Katie. So we are making various contributions to support our efforts to align with the Paris-compatible transition path. So one of these actually began very recently in March of this year, 2023, when for the first time we published information about the carbon footprint and the exposures to climate risks of some of the assets that we hold. And when I say assets, I mean things like the corporate bonds that your system central banks bought in recent years as part of our monetary policy. So these disclosures give us a first picture of where we stand in the decarbonization of our portfolios. And they are really, I would say, an important piece of the puzzle in getting a clear view on our efforts to contribute to the fight against climate change and a key commitment of the climate change action plan that we agreed on and published in 2021. We'll certainly link to that in the show notes of the podcast. Now, this decarbonization that you talked about basically means making the portfolios less carbon intensive in terms of the emissions that they're linked to. So what have the disclosures actually shown? Well, this first set of disclosures shows, I would say, encouraging signs of progress. So for example, we see that what we call the carbon intensity of the companies that we buy bonds from has gradually declined over time. So this means that the emissions of these investments relative to their size have decreased. In other words, companies have become more carbon efficient with their activities. And together with our efforts to buy more bonds from better climate performance, so this is this tilting or shifting that you refer to in your question, Katie, this has had a clear impact on the carbon footprint of the investments by the central banks across the euro area. And the disclosures also show that since 2019, we have more than half the emissions from the large part of the investments that we make using our staff pension fund and increase the share of green bonds from what was actually only just 1% in 2019 to 13% in 2022. So we will be publishing these disclosures every year and over time include also some of the other assets that we hold. And, you know, they are very useful as they will help us steer the reduction of emissions of our assets holdings. To be very honest, now that we have announced that as of July we will no longer be reinvesting any maturing bonds, we will have to reassess what action we need to undertake to ensure alignment with the Paris compatible transition path, as President Le Gard also mentioned in the most recent press conference. By becoming more transparent about the climate impact of our investments and our holdings, we can and will contribute to paving a clearer pathway towards the cause of the Paris Agreement. Well, Frank, we've covered a lot of ground today, thank you once again for another fascinating conversation. It's always a pleasure to have you here on the podcast. Pleasure's mine. As you always know, before we wrap up, we ask our guests a question before they leave, and that's for a hot tip linked to the topic that we've been discussing today. So broadly speaking, transparency and climate change. Frank, have you thought of something? Yes, well, I had to think a little bit, because first I was hoping that I could find a song that I like that deals with transparency. But then I thought, you know, actually what we are talking about is not just transparency, but there's also honesty, isn't it? So then Billy Joel's honesty came to my mind. So that's one thing. But then I was also thinking, you know, I gave the speech last Friday, also climate related. And there there was one sentence I mentioned, which was that everyone within their mandate should do all he or she can to contribute to combating the between climate and environmental crises. So of course, us within our mandate as a central bank and a supervisor, but actually everyone. And then I was thinking, you know, you told me just before we started this conversation that, you know, the average age of the listeners is about 30. So I was thinking, there must be among the listeners, those who are now thinking about, you know, what is the children's books that I want to read to my children. And so actually my whole tip is the following, that whenever you buy children's books or ask them, you know, for the grandparents to give for your children's birthday, whatever, you can also think about, do they deal with these issues? Do they instill love for the climate and for the environment in children? Just a little bit like the nutritional things that we talked about or the, you know, the disclosure. So here you go. It's maybe a little bit of a long thought process, but it brought me back by, you know, the next generation and how we teach them how crucially and finally important the environment and the climate is. Well, you say it's a long thought process, but it's a very tangible and concrete thing that we can all do. So I think it's a perfect hot tip. Thank you so much, Frank. Thank you, Katie. Well, that brings us to the end of this episode. I want to thank Frank Eldersen, who sits on the ECB's executive board and is the vice chair of our supervisory board for joining the conversation today and sharing his thoughts. Listeners, be sure to check out the show notes for further reading on this topic. You've been listening to the ECB podcast with Katie Ranger. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. Until next time, thanks for listening.


Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Liz Wade. And I'm Adam Navas. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live. As I walk toward the mountain, I try to understand what has gone wrong. This does not help. I am in good shape. I have not run too fast. I ate and drank liquids. Normally I am great at knowing what my body can do. But today I have lost all desire. I do not have foot blisters, leg cramps, painful knees or any usual running problems. But my brain has gone away. It will not tell my legs to get going. I cannot explain this. I am only reporting. This was written by Ambi Burfit for Runners World magazine. He was writing about the Comrades Marathon. Many people consider this race to be the greatest running race in the world. But the Comrades Marathon is not only about professional runners. The Comrades Marathon celebrates normal people doing something amazing. Today's spotlight is on the Comrades Marathon. The Comrades Marathon began with Vic Clapham. During World War I, Clapham saw pain, death and struggle. From 1914 to 1918, he served in the South African Army. Many people think World War I happened only in Europe. But there was fighting in places like South Africa as well. Clapham saw a lot of suffering. But he also saw men come together and support each other. He was amazed by how the soldiers dealt with such difficult conditions. When the war ended, Clapham wanted to honor all the men who died. But he did not want to just build a statue. He wanted to test people's strength and courage. He decided to hold a running race. It would be a 56-mile run from the city of Peter Maritzburg to the city of Durban. He would be honoring the men he fought with, his comrades. So, he called it the Comrades Marathon. At first, he had trouble. Many people thought it would be too long and too difficult. Clapham disagreed. His comrades had been normal people. They had carried heavy equipment and marched all over Africa. And he believed that trained athletes could run 56 miles. So, the first Comrades Marathon was held on May 24, 1921. There were only 34 runners. The Comrades has been run every year since then, except during World War II. It has become more and more popular. Today, the Comrades must limit the number of runners. In 2019, only 25,000 could run in the race. The Comrades is not just any race. There are many traditions that set Comrades above other races. First, there is the distance. 56 miles is longer than two marathons. Running a marathon is amazing. Running two together? That's something special. Most races run the same direction every year, but not Comrades. One year, it goes from Peter Maritzburg to Durban. Then the next year, it goes the other way, from Durban back to Peter Maritzburg. You can run Comrades twice and have a different experience each time. Also, there are different colored race numbers, or bibs. Runners wear these bibs on their shirts. If you finish nine Comrades, you get a special yellow bib. If you finish more than 10, then you get a green bib. The number on this bib becomes yours forever. No one else will ever get that number. You have earned it. Finally, the race ends at 12 hours. When the clock gets close to 12 hours, the race director walks to the finish line. He stands with his back to the runners and watches the clock. As the time gets closer, the crowd goes wild. They cheer people to run faster. Runners must push themselves to finish. There are no excuses. 12 hours after the race began, the race director stops the race. The Comrades is over. Those who finish in 12 hours and one second will get nothing. No medal, no recognition, no record of their effort. However, Burfoot writes, There is something for the first non-finisher. He or she becomes an immediate hero. She is on television and on the front of every newspaper. To many South Africans, the Comrades runner who goes all that distance for nothing is more of a symbol than the winner. That is another great tradition. It is one I think we all can accept, even if we are not sure what it means. The Comrades shares this spirit in other ways, too. South Africa used to be governed by the laws of apartheid. Apartheid laws segregated or separated the people with dark skin from people with light skin. It was illegal for a person to marry someone with another skin color.  Life for non-white South Africans was very difficult under apartheid. In these conditions, the director of the Comrades Marathon wanted to make the race an international event. So, in 1975, the Comrades Marathon changed its rules. They said women could run with men. Black people could run with white people. And young people could run with old people. In a few years, many more black and female runners were running the Comrades Marathon. This was 20 years before the end of the apartheid laws. Is the Comrades Marathon the greatest foot race in the world? There are strong reasons to think so. The strongest reason is that Comrades is about something more than running, especially for South Africans. Writer Jacob Flamini explains, The Comrades is a way to tell the history of modern South Africa. Comrades tells us a lot about who we are and what we are able to do. It is a race started as a celebration of human ability. But it limited that celebration to only a few until the 1970s. Now it is a race that shows the best of what South Africa has to offer. By doing that, it permits South Africans to compete against the very best in the world. More importantly, the Comrades puts such mental and physical demands on its runners that differences of race, ethnicity, gender and class are meaningless.  Do you think Comrades is a good test of courage?  Tell us what you think. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at contact at spotlightenglish.com. You can also comment on Facebook at facebook.com slash spotlightradio. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash spotlightenglish1. The writer of this program was Adam Novus. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it on the Internet at www.spotlightenglish.com. This program is called The Greatest Foot Race. Visit our website to download our free official app for Android and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.