I've always enjoyed the opportunity to take part in events where young people are eager to connect and communicate and in my former life as a member of the British Parliament I was frequently invited to speak to school and college students to talk about my role as an MP particularly in those first few years after my election as I was only a little older than some of the students. I was elected to Parliament as you've heard in 1997 at the age of 24. It was a time of great excitement with the election of a new Labour government led by Prime Minister Tony Blair after 18 years being in opposition to the Conservative Government since 1979 and the country was ready for change. I was incredibly proud to be part of that new dawn. I'd been involved in politics as you heard from an early age as I was always interested in my community and the world around me wondering how decisions were made by governments that could have such an impact on everyday lives and it seemed to me that too often those decisions fail to understand the reality of most people's lives and decisions were taken too far away without real accountability. I grew up in a family where politics was part of family life. My parents were involved in the Labour Party as local councillors and I was encouraged to understand more about the community in which I lived and how decisions were made unlike I think most other young people of my age. From the age of 13 I always took election day off school because it gave me an opportunity to be involved in politics at the heart of election campaigning and when my head teacher at the time approached my father and said to him this is not acceptable that you are taking your daughter out of school every day when there's an election for an election day once a year he said to her my daughter will learn the important aspect of being a citizen in this country and the responsibilities that that holds to vote and I have to say that I think that is absolutely true and far too often we do not invest in our young people to make sure that they understand how the system of democracy the system of government actually works. I believe that we gain so much from working together in our community from our common endeavours than we do alone and that society is an important structure to create fairness and opportunity for all. Sadly society is not always fair and far too many people don't get access to the basic necessities of life and the opportunity to be their best. My education studying law at university and qualifying as a solicitor confirmed to me that education is the key to opportunities for individuals but it's also the key for improving our communities. As you heard I spent 13 years in Parliament as an MP five of those years were in government as a minister in different roles including as a justice minister. One of the roles I held was as Vice Chamberlain to Her Majesty's household. It's a duty placed on a member of the government whips office and in that role I was required to write to Her Majesty the Queen every day to tell her about the activities in Parliament. It's a role that links the Royal Household to Parliament and on the occasion of the state opening when the Queen attends Parliament to make a speech. It's the duty of the Vice Chamberlain to be taken hostage by the palace as a guarantee of the safe return of the monarch. It's one of those strange parts of our tradition and heritage in British Parliament. But I do feel incredibly proud and privileged to have had that opportunity to serve my constituents in Watford and to serve my country. And we all have a part to play in this world and politics should not be something that's confined to those who seek power. Political power should be and is in democracy. It should rest with all of us. Our duty as citizens is to play our part and to take responsibility, to understand how things work, the decisions being made in our name and to hold to account through the ballot box, those who make those decisions. For those of you who like sports, perhaps I can use a bit of an analogy. Politics is like a game of football. You can stand on the sidelines and shout at the players telling them how to score the goals, or you can get on the pitch and be part of the team. And we can all be part of the team if we take a role at whatever level that we can. It might be voting, it might be standing for election, or it might be supporting others that do. One of the things that I miss as I look at all of you on the screen now during this period of lockdown and the pandemic is the opportunity to actually travel and to meet people. Travel helps to broaden the mind and outlook. And I've been very fortunate during my life to have been able to travel to many parts of the world, including to India and to many of the other countries that I see represented here today. Different cultures, backgrounds, experiences, they all help us to grow. And that's one of the reasons why I welcome this event of Pangea, the global village, as a recognition that there is so much that we can learn from each other. In doing so, we begin to learn that the challenges we face as humans have much in common, our love for our families, our desire for safety and good health, our ambition that our planet provides a sustainable environment for us all to prosper. Of course, our access to different resources, to levels of education and to the support of society can be factors that can impact on the achievements of those goals. But there would be few people who would not recognize these as common traits to our human life that is much more than just existence. So we have much in common as we might have done where we part of one Pangea. The challenges of the last year have emphasised that our world is very small and that we cannot insulate ourselves from things that happen in another country. In the UK, we have not only been dealing with the pandemic, but our decision to leave the EU, which took place on the 1st of January. I deeply regret the decision that the UK took to leave the EU, a democratic decision, but one that I wasn't in support of. But I hope that we maintain a way of working with other countries, both in the EU and beyond. We cannot be completely independent. And the challenges that we face globally, climate change, COVID, poverty are ones that require a collaborative response. The pandemic has changed so much of our lives and the way that we work. Our duty now is to find those changes that improve our lives. For example, as many businesses have moved to communicating through platforms such as Zoom, they recognise that the many hours and days they spent travelling across the world are no longer necessary to the same extent. They can still build relationships and businesses. It's a way to work towards their commitment of reducing their carbon footprint and saving costs. For many people, it will permanently change the way that they work with less time spent in an office or commuting and the potential for a better work-life balance. In some ways, we've seen our communities in the UK coming together, focused on defeating the virus, more people volunteering to help those who are required to stay at home. We've seen superb examples of innovation and collaborative working, companies supporting each other to deliver help because they recognise that life is harder for everyone. And of course, we only need to look at the pharmaceutical and science sector to see the levels of collaboration across so many different countries in so many different parts of the world that are helping to deliver successful vaccines. We just need to look, for example, at the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is already in use in the UK and in other countries. And we see that that's a company which has American, German, Turkish, all sorts of different countries involved in its successful collaboration. So we've also seen, not just in our working lives, but we've seen in our personal lives changes and the use of technology. For those families who've been unable to see each other for many months, the use of technology has been key to maintaining that personal contact. Having more time on our hands has often resulted in long forgotten contacts being resurrected with a call or a Zoom. These are the advantages from the pandemic. But the flip side of the coin may be that we become disconnected on a personal level. We no longer pick up the signals from other people that we might see if we were in the room with them in person, the conversations that we had with people on the margins of meetings or events, which allow us to really get to know and understand each others, those casual conversations that actually often tell us so much more. If I were to be visiting your school or organisation today in person, we would have the chance to talk individually, to socialise over lunch or dinner and in turn to understand each other a little better. So as we start to come out of the pandemic, we need to consider how we build those relationships in a new way. Of course, technology will continue to play a greater part than ever before. But we need to learn to collaborate with each other more successfully. The job that I do now as Chief Executive of the Institute for Collaborative Working and as you will already know, our Chairman is Lord Evans and he's a fantastic Chairman and a great support and champion for collaboration. At the Institute, our role is to promote the benefits that can be achieved through collaboration. The ICW was established 30 years ago to promote collaboration and partnering between businesses. We're a not-for-profit organisation and our members are our companies, organisations and individuals who recognise the value of collaboration and want to be part of a network of like-minded people where they can share and learn from each other. We've recently updated our vision, our mission to include a much wider scope that we want to be able to bring the benefits of collaboration to a wider part of our society, not just to businesses, but to organisations, to public sector and to government so that we can all benefit from understanding it. Our work has led to the creation of the first international standard for collaborative working. ISO 44001 and many companies globally are recognising that by adapting and adopting a more structured approach to collaborative working, they deliver better outcomes and value. We have a number of branches of the ICW around the world who are promoting the benefits of collaboration. And those principles are not simply about the way in which we work together, they are also about the attitudes and behaviours that we bring as individuals to the task of working together. I believe strongly that these are skills that we should be teaching our children and young people so that we can build better ways of working together in all aspects of our life. So if you'd like to know more about our work outside of today's event, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. Finally, I want to say what a fantastic opportunity this has been today to see so many of you, so many different places, how we can connect to each other and what a fantastic programme that you've all put together for this event. And by being here together, working together, you've already made that commitment to work together for the greater good. So may I wish you all here a very successful event and I hope that one day that many of us can meet in person to continue our journey of collaboration for the greater good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Claire, for sharing your thoughts and for sharing those words, you know, where you're appreciating us. I truly agree that I think we've just said the tone of understanding that children and youth have the power of collaborating for the greater good. And I'm sure by, you know, understanding that with each other, they will be able to achieve a lot more is the beginning of what we will see as that borderless world of opportunities. I'm quoting Gary here and, you know, referring to his line of actually exploring this borderless world of opportunities. Thank you so much, Claire. If anybody has any questions for our chief guest today in the Zoom meet or our audiences who are watching us live on Facebook, please feel free to put them on the chat or you can raise hands via Zoom. I'm sure Claire will be very happy to answer a few questions if you're having any. Yes, Shifali, please carry on. Yeah, hello, everyone. Thank you, Claire, for that wonderful and a phenomenal introductory speech. I have a small question for you. How do you see education in the light of politics and what is your idea when the merger happens? What an interesting question. I think that we need to make sure that our children and our young people are equipped with all sorts of skills for the future. And maths is important, English is important, geography is important, all of these things. But sometimes we forget that actually they need to know how to operate within their own communities and their societies. And we don't teach them some of those fundamental basics about how politics works, how democracies works and how they can have their voice and how they can make sure that they can communicate with other people and they can work together. And so education has got to be much wider than simply learning the books and the core subjects. And I think some schools, certainly I know in the UK, some schools are doing that, but I don't think we do it early enough and I don't think we embed it into our children's education early enough. And the consequences of that is that when they grow up and they need to understand the basic things about getting their voice heard, they don't know who to turn to. They don't know the difference between their local council and their MP. They don't know where responsibility sits. And because they're disenfranchised, it means they don't actually have a real voice. And therefore, because they feel turned off, they decide it's not worth voting because they don't understand what difference it's going to make. And that's actually in the end is what keeps people, particularly from some of our most disadvantaged communities in that same place, because they are not getting the chance to use their fundamental right to vote and to have their say because they don't really understand the structures and how it works. And that has got to change in this country and it's got to change in other countries. Yes, Lord Evans. Claire, I'd just like to thank you so much for a fantastic presentation. I was really thrilled to hear you talk about your background. Entering Parliament as the youngest member of Parliament was such a fantastic achievement. Claire, you have two children which are studying at home now. I wonder if you talk to everyone here about how you're finding that experience and the pros and cons as you see it. Well, I think it's tough time for any parents with children at home. I have a daughter who is 14 and a son who's 12. So in some ways I'm quite fortunate that they're not in that primary school age where they need me to be there actually teaching them and sitting with them all the time. They're very good at being quite disciplined and following the school lesson plan. And they are having lessons wherever they possibly can online the same as many other children. But it's really tough. They miss the social aspect. They miss their friends. They miss the opportunity to get out of the house and just go somewhere and have a purpose. And I think one of the things that we've often forgotten perhaps or maybe we haven't valued so much about education is that education isn't just the math and the English and the subject. It's everything else that comes with it, socialization. The recognition that there are things that my children won't learn from me but they'll learn from their friends. There are conversations that my children will have their friends that they won't have with me because that's part of life, isn't it? And I think that we're in a situation now where as a whole generation of young people and of children who potentially will be quite damaged by what's happened over the last year and what's happening potentially over the next few months our children won't be going back to school for many weeks or potentially months yet. And we need to find as a society a way to support them and to recognize what they've been through and to give something back to them. And I think part of that is to understand that we can never be in this situation again where children who don't have access to the internet, children who don't have access to technology are probably already disadvantaged in many aspects of their lives and we have just trebled or quadrupled or more those disadvantages and that isolation. And we have to do much more to tackle that and to understand that and to put more resource into it. So yes, it's been tough, although as I say, my children are very fortunate and they're pretty, not every day but they're quite self-motivated.  And my daughter is particularly keen on learning languages. So she set herself a task, a lockdown challenge which is to teach herself Mandarin. And that's her task at the moment. So I'm very pleased to encourage as much of that as possible. Again, another opportunity to learn to communicate. Given the fact that today's politics is based off polar opposite views, how do we make sure that the environment for collaboration always remains open? Claire, your thoughts on that? Well, I think one of the advantages that the international standard has brought is to provide a talking point, to provide a structure that we can follow. It's a bit of a root map to understand how to collaborate because it takes into account the sort of attitudes and behaviors that you need to have as individuals and as teams to be able to successfully collaborate. So I think that that is one of the ways in which we can understand better the value and the benefits of collaboration. It's an absolute delight. I agree with Lord Evans. I'm absolutely delighted to hear you speak this morning. I do remember you as a serving MP. I just want to heart back to the early days of Tony Blair and the mantra of education, education and education. And that spurred me on into leadership in my career. And these are the fantastic times. You and I, like Lord Evans, align very politically regarding Brexit, by the way. So look, come and visit my school and I'll show you around and lunch and dinner both thrown in if you like. I just wanted to say one thing about, you mentioned before about young people and how potentially damaged they've been through this dreadful experience of coping with pandemic. And we've worked so hard as a school and I'm sure everybody here today as leaders in education have worked immensely hard to keep re-engaging with young people at home, their families making sure they're safe, secure, as happy as they possibly can be in this awful situation. But I wanted to offer actually, and this is for everybody, how miserable teachers have been without the contact with young people. Even senior staff like myself with very small timetables. We've really missed those young people. And I want to say that to every student that's joined us today, that that's how we feel as staff. And as I wrote to parents yesterday and spoke very proudly about how passionate I am about, I get the earliest start possible for young people in however that can be, as long as we keep each other safe. And I just wanted to make that point to you. So we're just missing the kids as much as they're missing us and missing each other. Thanks very much. And you know, I think one of the challenges is that all the schools seem to be operating differently. And I think what we're not doing is my sense, is that we're not sharing best practice well enough about what's working and what's not working. I think one of the criticisms or the kind of feedback that my child has given is that she spends all day on the screen and she often feels she's being talked at, that the opportunities for the engagement because the class is a large 30 kids because of the distractions, means that there isn't that interaction. And I think that's hugely damaging because they're not getting enough opportunity to interact with other pupils, but also with the teachers. So best practice is, you know, if we can have more engagement with our teachers and we definitely want to see the teachers and I know the teachers want to see the kids. So we need to share some of that. Thank you. And it was really enlightening to hear you speak and I got a lot of amazing ideas and a lot of interesting issues that are going on around the world. So I wanted to ask you, in your opinion, what is the impact of politics on the world, on societies or as communities or on the masses of people? So let's say legislation goes wrong, that affects the lives of thousands of millions of people. So what's your opinion on the impact, on the huge impact that politics has on the world today? Well, I think politics is a fascinating subject.  But politics affects everything that we do. Its impact is immense. There isn't a single thing that we do in our lives that hasn't been influenced in some way by politics. The food that we eat has been determined about the regulations through legislation in parliaments. And that's determined by politics, where we can travel, what we can do, what we study at school, what our life is going to be like, what our health services provision will be. All of that is politics. And whichever view you take in politics, whether it's on the left of the spectrum or the right of the spectrum or somewhere around it, at least you are trying to shape the outcomes of a view. And debate is good because debate in politics is helping us all to understand really difficult issues sometimes and help to shape our views on them. So I think the impact of politics can be for good or for bad sometimes. Sometimes people's politics creates wars. It creates all sorts of damage. It creates genocide. It creates terrible things in our world. But it can also be for the good. And that's where we need young people to be focusing now. My question is that, why do you feel it's important for young people to socialize with people their own age? Oh, that's an interesting question. That's really interesting. Because I think you need to have a mixture. So some of the discussions that I have with my children, they say I'm old-fashioned. And I think I kind of remember me saying that to my parents because each generation has a different outlook on life and things that views that I might have been brought up with because society was slightly different even though, and the same would be David. David's views on things perhaps might have been slightly different when he was brought up with different generations. Inevitably, life moves on. People's understanding of things of life move on. And I think that you need to be able to share some of those views with people of your own generation with peers as well as being intergenerational. Because I think it helps you to build confidence and to build an understanding of your ability to communicate. So I'm quite certain that there are conversations that my kids would much rather have with their friends than they would with me. You talked about how you were just 24 when you took up one of the most important positions in your country. And my question is coming from the perspective of students often suffer from the imposter syndrome. Students who often struggle with the fear of being judged, the fear of inadequacy which is very common especially when you assume positions of importance at younger ages. We see a lot more leaders across the world. We have Sanaa Maareen of course in Finland, the Finnish PM, the prime minister who's also doing us proud at the age of 34. We have young leaders like Jacinda Ardern too. But there are a lot of cases of this sort where students when they take up positions often suffer from an imposter syndrome and are not sure about how to go about things. I'm sure you would have also faced some questions in your mind when you took up those important positions at 24. How did you deal with them? And what would you like to tell students who face these kinds of issues? Okay, so you can imagine in a parliament and in society being a young MP, there were many people who would question how I could possibly contribute or know about things at that age. And I think at the end of the day you cannot experience everything about life. I will not be male, I will not be black, I will not be Asian, I will not be so many different experiences or different lives. So the important thing is to be able to understand and have empathy and to be able to be a good communicator of those issues, to listen to people. And I think, I always just say it's not about how old you are or how young you are, it's about whether or not you can do the job. And in a parliament, which is meant to represent our country, we need people of all ages. I don't think it would be a good idea to have a parliament full of 24 year olds, but in the same way, I don't think it would be a good idea to have a parliament full of 70 year olds. We need to have a mix, we need to have a balance and we need to have men and we need to have women and we need to have people from all different walks of life and different backgrounds and different experiences because that's what our country is. And we need to be able to each of us bring our own experiences, but to be able to understand and to vocalise other peoples as well. So when you're young, I think it's about skills. And I go back to the issue of, what are we teaching our children in schools? Are we teaching them the skills that they need for life? And there are lots of ways in which we can do that, that build around the core curriculum. So how do we make sure that we have school councils, that we have representative bodies of students, that we have elections within those that encourage young people to come forward, to make speeches, to think about their ideas, to be able to communicate with other people and to express those ideas, to build that confidence. So schools are a huge part of young people's lives and formative parts. And we need to use all of those opportunities to develop those skills for the future. And then, it isn't then about imposterism, it's about making sure that they feel confident. And when they have those skills, they will feel confident. My question goes, we are from Brazil, we are from South America. And currently, as in many parts of the world, we are facing lots of different issues that we are dealing with in this pandemic. But one topic which has really led me to become more and more inclined into working with education is exactly something that you probably know a lot of, which is female presence in companies, as well as in politics. And my question to you would be, what can you tell our female students, young students, which are coming to become professionals in a very short period of time or in the coming years, what is one or a few important aspects of overcoming the traditional barriers that we as females, we face? And also to our male students, how can they best support our female public as well for students as well as parents? What can you tell us about your own experience? You were so young, you were only 24 years old when you joined the parliament. And that's a great winning for us. And I would love to hear that from you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I think that in politics and in business, if you have a family, you need to have support, have supportive families as well. If you, to do the things that you want to do sometimes, that helps, but not everybody's gonna be in that position where they've got somebody, a husband or a wife or a partner who is supportive or perhaps members of their family can help with children. But that's one thing that can help. But I think it's also about supporting each other. Business is not all about competition and networks of people who can share and support each other is really important. So I am a member of an organisation called Women on Boards which supports other women to let them know about vacancies and roles, but also to provide education and skills and learning opportunities as well. And to network, to share experiences, to be able to ring up and say to somebody, look, I've had this as a challenge. What would you do? And I think those sorts of things are really important to build those peer networks for young people. I think it's important to find mentors sometimes and to learn from others. I mean, I'm very fortunate. I've had some fantastic mentors in my life, one of whom, Lord Evans here, who's on our screen has been one of those. People who can support you and encourage you as well. And I think that that's an opportunity. And I think for other younger people and for women, it's about making sure that they speak up and that they're not frightened to say what they think, to build allies, not just with other women, but with men too, to campaign for fairness and equality because everybody wants to be treated fairly and equally. And we all have different points in our lives where that might come into play. And it isn't just mums who want to have flexible working times in businesses. Fathers want that too now and quite rightly so. And so building those alliances, looking at different things where we can adapt and be more flexible in how we work is really important to be able to bring people on board, I think.


I have a message today that came to me during the first service. So it's cooked inside, I had a different message prepared, some of you saw it on YouTube. But as we were worshiping in the first service, I felt to address something that I feel is happening in our church as well, in the spiritual life of many people here. And I want to speak into that. For those of you coming for the first time today, receive that for if you're coming from our church, this will also be for our church. And I want to title this message, when an eagle stirs up the nest. In Deuteronomy 32 verse 11, it says the following, as an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings. When a mother eagle gives birth to eagles, she puts them in a nest.   But they don't want to leave the nest because kids don't want to leave nests.  So maybe this message will help your parents to kick you out today in Jesus' name. So an eagle, what the eagle does is sometimes an eagle would fly over the nest, spread its wings, create a wind where all the feathers will fly out, all the leaves would fly out and the eaglets are left being poked by sharp thorns. So now they are crying out to the mama eagle, get me out. This is painful. This hurts. And now the mama eagle would take the eaglets, put them on her wings, soar and of course the eaglets are like, yeah, this is incredible, Sophie, you know, fly in the sky. This is amazing. But see, they were not created to be on mama's wings. So what she would do is she would fly to a place and she would drop them. And then they go from, our life was hard in the nest to incredible sky to, mom, why do you hate me? Why did you drop me? And of course they flopping, falling and yelling, probably crying, why did you do this? You'd love me if you would love me, you would love me. And right before they're about to hit the floor and smash themselves, eagle flies faster than they fall. Always remember, God is faster than you fall. She would come down straight and pick them up and do that exactly same thing. Drop them again. The goal isn't to punish them, the goal is to activate their wings. So they were never created. Eagles were not created to live in the nest. They were created to live in the sky. But sometimes you get so comfortable in the nest because there are so many feathers that God stirs some things up and things get painful and hard, difficult and challenging. The vicissitudes of life, the changes of life confuse us. Some of us get sick when the weather changes. We get, because our body is not adopting to, adapting to it. And so when everything changes, we're like, Lord, why did you take the feathers? But in reality, the Lord is preparing us not for the nest, but for the sky. So then we go for a short season of enjoying God's favor and God's blessings. But still we are living our life very much connected to our feelings, very much addicted to our mood, our happenings. And the Lord has to train us to live by faith, by once in a while dropping us. And I don't mean he forgets us, I mean where we stop feeling his presence. And we go through a spiritual, Christians call it spiritual dryness. And it's to develop us and in us something that God wants us to have. The ultimate goal is that your Christian life is not supposed to be lived in the nest. You are not a turkey.  You are not a chicken.  That means you don't belong in the barn. You belong in the sky. You belong, you're supposed to live by faith. You're supposed to soar.  It's within your DNA. It's not that it's what you want, it's what you were built for. Every chicken wants to probably fly. And a chicken cannot fly, it doesn't matter how many schools the chicken goes to.  But an eagle has it within its DNA, within its structure and ability to fly. And my friend, my God is an eagle and he makes eagles. He makes us in his image and likeness. He makes us like him to live by faith, to live in victory and to walk the walk of love. Amen. Amen. So what I want to present to you in the next few moments is this shift, I believe, is happening right now. Five things that we must embrace or we must be ready for in this shift. If you're taking notes, write this down. We will go to Judges chapter one and verse two, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise and go over this Jordan, you and all these people, to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Now verse eight, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you, be strong and be of good courage. Do not be afraid nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. The shift number one where God is taking you out of the nest is this, people will leave your life. One of those feathers that I'm describing are your friends, even some family members or a partner that you with, or it could be a ministry friend or someone even in the church. In our church it happened quite a few times and I can track it where the shift took place and the shift usually was connected with somebody leaving. When I was younger and somebody left the church, it freaked me out. I was always asking whether I do wrong and sometimes it's because I did something wrong. But usually what I want to encourage you with is sometimes God himself transitions people out of our life because he's getting us ready for a new season. The Bible says Moses died and the Lord came to Joshua and said, now enter the promise land.  You left them because it was not a right place for you, for your children. It was not safe for you, it was not safe for your children. A lot of times people will pronounce curses and they will say, you will never make it without me.  God's blessing is not connected to those who left you. It's connected to you and God's presence that stays with you. Moses was the guy.  Yet when Moses died, God tells Joshua, whatever you go, I will be with you. He didn't say whatever Moses went, that's what I went. God doesn't attach himself to people that left you. He attaches himself to you. And he says, the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe according to all that it says in it that you will make your way prosperous. This is encouragement to me, because if sometimes people will leave, it does not mean that God left, my destiny left, it simply means that God either removed the scaffolding because the wall has been built and God is preparing me for a new season that I'm about to step in. Amen? Some people come for a reason, some come for a season, and some come for a lifetime. Sometimes God removes people that are good, because He's about to bring people that are great for you. Those good people were not great for you. They were great for someone else, and God brings people that are great for you. Think of disciples. They were called to conquer the world for Jesus. But they couldn't step into their calling until Jesus left them. The Spirit of God came only after Jesus left. They couldn't have Jesus in flesh and the Holy Spirit. But Jesus leaves and He says, it's better that I leave, because the Spirit will come and now you will go into the calling that I really have for you to be fishers of men. So not every person that leaves is bad. Sometimes they're just not meant for the season that you are in. The reason why I'm speaking about this is because you will notice, and you probably have noticed even a shift at hungry Jen, and you will notice the shift in your own life where there will be a transition of some people. Now, this is not a moment right now to begin to say, who do I kick out on my life? No. What I'm saying is if somebody chooses to leave, don't run after them. Let them go.  There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. His name is Jesus. Develop a relationship with God. Lean on him and step into your new season. Advance forward. Don't retreat in Jesus' name. And everybody in the gym said, I love the fact that you guys said yes to the people in the gym. I love that. Number two, the second shift, and that is this. In Joshua chapter 5 verse 15, it says the following. Joshua 5 verse 12, I apologize. Then the manna seized on that day after they had eaten the produce of the land. And the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate food of the land of Canaan that year. The second transition, the second shift that happened, was that Israel did not have manna. God removed manna off of the menu. Now what was manna? Manna was a temporary provision from God, but it was not God's promise. God wants to provide for us financially. But please understand, God's dream for you is not so you make it. God's dream for you is so that you prosper. All right. God's promise for you is that you have overflow. Not just that you have barely enough. Manna was this thing that would fall from heaven like a dew. Every morning, Monday or Sunday through Friday, Israel would gather it and they would eat it. It would sustain them for 40 years. But God never promised them manna. He promised Abraham, not manna, but milk and honey, houses they didn't build, vineyards they didn't plant, and cities they didn't even build. So for 40 years, they live on this manna, they enter the promised land and something changes. Manna stops showing up. And this wasn't because God was punishing. It was because God was pushing them into a new season where now they will eat the produce of the land. There are men and women sitting in this sanctuary and in the gym under the sound of my voice who have a promise from God to run a business. But today, you are eating manna. You are being blessed by God. You're being provided by God. And you're experiencing the job you have is a miracle. It's an answer from God. It puts food on your table and you are grateful. And there are others that God shifts things in your life. And how does that happen sometimes is you lose the job. Company starts to cut people.  And instead of being offended and saying, God, why did you leave me? I'm here to remind you that job was never part of the dream that God gave you. It was part of God's provision and a miracle, but it was not part of God's promise and your destiny.  You're like, hey, man, I'm going to go give my letter of resignation tomorrow. I'm going to go after my dream. That is not my purpose. Well, my goal today is to encourage you to dream bigger than your current job. I want you to think outside of your nest and to think of the sky. I want you to think outside of the limits that you've been experiencing.  And that is great. But God's calling and blessing for you is not just for you to pay your bills, but for you to provide for other people so that one day you will have people working for you and that you will provide for their family by keeping them employed. There are people here.  If you have a lot of money, that means you're greedy. But see, when a Christian has a lot of money, they start businesses. And when they start businesses, they employ people. And when they employ people, they help people to provide for their needs. And when they have overflow, they will sponsor kingdom purposes and kingdom finances. They will help orphanages. They will help widows. They will build centers for God. They will sponsor school projects. And so what the devil does not want is for Christians to have money. You know who he wants to have money? Pimps and drug dealers. And people in the government who will take all of the money that we pay them through our taxes and funnel to spread garbage in our schools. And those people don't have this thinking, yeah, we shouldn't have enough money. We shouldn't have a lot of money. Why? It'll make us greedy. They are greedy. And the church is afraid to dream of having greater resources. What if I fall into greed? What if I fall into materialism? My friend, I want to break that fear off of you and to let you know it is God's will for you to prosper so that you can live with the purpose of raising your family, helping your children go to college so you can sponsor the projects God puts on your heart and so you can break the cycle of poverty in your family. Come on somebody in the gym. I can't hear you. Make some noise for God. So do not be surprised if God removes manna because he's preparing you for milk and honey. Come on somebody. In Psalm, the Bible says, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. In other words, I shall not lack. That's the stage of provision. It's when God provides for you and I believe God provides for us. The job I have is God's provision. So God is my source. The job is my resource. That's why I can get a paycheck from my employer and say, God, thank you. The employer's like, well, I gave you the, it came through you, but it came from him. He gave me the strength to work. He gave me the strength to show up to work and gave me the grace. So we're thankful to God for the provision because somebody say amen. Can you give God some praise for provision? The Lord is my shepherd I shall not lack. He makes me lay down at green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the ways of righteousness for his name's sake. So you're like, it's incredible. I'm being provided for, provided for, paying down my debts, putting some stuff into the retirement. I am paying off my house. I got my own car. This is great. I'm also being led by God. He makes me lay down at green pastures because I'm so stubborn. And he leads me in the still waters. He gives me peace. Life is great until verse four hits. Yay! Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, what just happened? What just happened? Which devil is attacking me? But sometimes it's not a devil. It's a shift in seasons where I walk through the valley, meaning I don't rent an apartment there. I keep walking. This is going to be temporary. Not only provision is temporary, but poverty is temporary as well. Meaning I walk through it and the Bible says, I fear no evil. That means looking into my future, I'm not expecting the devil to show up. I'm expecting God to show up. I walk through the difficult season of unemployment. I walk through the difficult season of maybe, you know, collectors are calling me and I can't make ends meet. Like God was here and seems like he left me. But the Bible says, for you are with me in the valley. You are with me in the unemployment. You are with me in the financial struggle. You are with me when I cannot make ends meet. You are with me. You didn't forsake me. It's not because God is punishing me. It's not because some kind of a demon is taking it. It's just sometimes part of life of going through stuff of the valley. Verse four ends and then comes verse five. And it says that you anoint my head with oil. That means God starts giving you new ideas.  That means that even though my situation doesn't change, I'm already eating from God's word and the devil is like, you're going to die, you're not going to make it. You're not going to make it.  Starve him to death by keep eating the word, keep eating the scriptures. Come on somebody. And he's, and you're not even paying attention. You're like breeding.  Have you ever been offended when somebody ignores you? It's time to give the devil a biggest black eye, just to ignore. He says you won't make it. He says you won't make it. And you just keep trusting God's word. You're eating in the presence of your enemy, but it doesn't end there. And the Bible says, and my cup runs over. So we started with my needs are met. I'm living in a beautiful, quiet Christian life. Hell broke loose. Where is God? I lost my job. But God says, I'm with you. God is beginning to give you new ideas.  God does not take trips in your past. He wants to take trip into your future. He doesn't want you to have your past again. He wants you to have a future he has for you. God is always moving forward, praying for the job you lost. Start praying for the job God has promised. To send that joker back, he wasn't going to promise for you. They used to be to come back. God was to take you to the cup. Come on, somebody. That's the shift number two. It's when God removes man because he's preparing milk and honey. Shift number three. And this one is when God raises the level of our consecration because the place you're walking into, you've never walked before. And we see this in Joshua chapter three and verse six. It says the following. Verse five, it says, sanctify yourselves. For tomorrow, the Lord will do wonders among you. But verse four, the end of the verse four says this. For you have not passed this way before. There are people here today. You've never owned your home yet, but you're about to. There are people here today you've never been married. You're about to enter. I feel that in my spirit. This year, into a season, you've never walked in before. And you may say, so how do I get ready? Yes, you need pre-marriage counseling. Yes, you need to help, you know, do all the stuff. But there's one thing the scripture tells us in verse, the next verse, the next verse says that sanctify yourselves for tomorrow. Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow. Somebody say tomorrow. Come on, those of you in the gym say tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will do wonders in your midst. A shift is taking place. And one of the ways that you know the shift is taking place where when God starts poking on your heart to raise the level of your commitment. Maybe you came to church regularly.  When you can, you come.  When the Lord begins to challenge you, hey, begin to pray every day. When the Lord begins to challenge you, hey, this whole giving thing, begin to practice giving. Oh, we announce the fast. The only thing I fast, the only thing I do fast is the fast food. I ain't gonna be fasting. That's for weirdo, that's for Jesus freaks.    What was permissible in the wilderness is not acceptable in the promised land. What was okay maybe in the seasons where you were complacent, God is getting you ready and he's saying, listen, that's no longer okay. Why? Because you are stepping into tomorrow that has miracles. See the difference between me and the boxer?  Somebody who's gonna box ain't gonna do that. It's not because they're legalistic. It's because they're in the preparation mode to fight something that most likely I'm gonna end up just watching. I don't want to watch somebody fight. I wanna be in the fight. But to be in the fight, you gotta stop eating the big Macs. To be in the fight, you gotta learn to increase your consecration. Not so you can be unbetter than you, I'm holier than you. Oh, look at how spiritual I am. No, no, no. It's so that I can be fit for the fight that I am gonna enter. So I'm gonna be prepared for the miracle God is taking me for tomorrow. Says the Lord, I will do wonders in your midst. Therefore, I look to my tomorrow with expectation because I have sown consecration. That's a good word right there. Somebody should tweet that. I look to my tomorrow with expectation because I have sown today my consecration, amen. Today's prayer is tomorrow's power. Today's purity is tomorrow's pleasure. Today's fasting is tomorrow's breakthrough. Today's giving is tomorrow's prosperity. Today's righteous living is tomorrow's richest spiritual wealth and spiritual glory. Don't be discouraged if you sow today and nothing comes today. For your sowing today is a preparation for what tomorrow comes. That's why I am with expectation looking into the tomorrow because I see the seeds we're planting today. I see the seeds of prayer and fasting and I know tomorrow is gonna be wonders and miracles and glory of God and dreams coming through. Red sea being split, dead bones coming alive. Marriage is being restored. Our conferences will touch people's lives. I am excited for the tomorrow of my family. I'm excited for the tomorrow of my marriage. I'm excited for the tomorrow of my health. But unfortunately, I do have to warn you. It works the other way as well. Today's flirting is tomorrow's fornication. Today's prayerlessness is tomorrow's powerlessness. Today's compromise is tomorrow's scandal. Today's messing around is tomorrow's bankruptcy. It's tomorrow's loss and defeat. In the story that I've read to you, there were two people whose stories were parallel. One was Rahab who was in Jericho. She was, her profession was not good. She was a prostitute.  She lived not in a good place. Yet she was hiding spies. At the same time, there was a man named Aiken who had a good thing going for him. He was a soldier in the army of God and he had a great future. But this boy decided to hide forbidden things and accursed things under his tent. And so it didn't look like anything at first. Hey, whatever, I'm just hiding some stuff. Nobody knows about it and nobody can find it. And it didn't look like anything that Rahab was just hiding spies. You know, it didn't change anything in her life. But see, her tomorrow was changed by whom she hid today. His tomorrow was changed by what he was hiding today. He lost his family. He lost his life. And he got churned into a fire and stones were thrown on him because of what he was hiding one day. Rahab, on the other hand, still kept her apartment. The Bible says when the wall fell in Jericho, her apartment stood. She saved her family. She actually ended up marrying one of the guys. So not only she got a salvation, she got herself a husband. Come on, Samar, that's like a full package. The girls' dreams, all of them came to pass. Tomorrow, but it wasn't right away. So let me ask you a question today. What are you hiding today? Because tomorrow is being determined right now by what you're hiding right now. After work, what do you do? Are you taking extra courses? On your weekends, what are you doing? Are you building something for your tomorrow or are you simply chillaxing?   Yet today, what about tomorrow? Today's dedication is tomorrow's destiny. But today's laziness is tomorrow's disaster. So I just wanted, for those of you who are here and you're living, you're living like the devil. Just nobody knows about it. I'm gonna give you a little bit of encouragement. The reason why God is not letting you get caught is because he's giving you chance to repent. He loves you so much, he doesn't wanna scandal. He doesn't want to see you broken. So the reason why your sins are not catching up, it's not because you're smart and because your sins are not dangerous. It's that God in heaven is postponing the harvest. As far as possible, he says, I'm gonna give him a chance to repent.  This tastes really good. This is awesome. This is not awesome. You're being fooled and God is merciful giving you a chance to repent. And for those of us, those of you in here who are giving, sacrificing, who are taking courses after work, who are literally improving yourself, getting yourself in shape, paying off the debt, you're literally living a life that you're not supposed to, but you're putting yourself through the grind. I'm gonna tell you something. The reason why God is not letting you have a reward right now is because, first of all, your reward is accumulating interest. And God is preparing you for the blessing that's about to hit your life so that blessing doesn't crush you. So for some, he is patient with you and there are people in this room, he is preparing you. Either way, it's a good news for both people. Whether you need to repent or you need to just be patient, I wanna invite you today to put value on your tomorrow by not messing up your today. Amen. Everybody in the gym, amen.  Number four, the fourth shift that I wanna introduce to you and that is this. In Joshua chapter four, verse seven, it says, and you shall answer them that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off and these stones shall be a memorial for the children of Israel forever. So the fourth shift that I want us to have. So not only we must remember, if somebody leaves our life, we should bless them, not to be stressed out about it. If we lose a job, we should be anchored in God, not to be discouraged. I'm not saying that you sit and collect welfare checks, but that you don't get, you don't collect depression, you don't collect stress, but you trust in God. The third thing that I mentioned is that while you're sitting today, be sowing into your future.  I mean, don't mess up your future by casual, careless, compromising. All of those decisions will end up in your future. And if you are making those decisions and you're not seeing any consequences and you think you got away with it, my friend, you did not get away with it.  But there's a fourth thing and this is huge and I've noticed this with people who experience a vicissitudes of life, transform changes in seasons and that is this. Let me give you the background story. Israel goes through Jordan River and God says, as you go through Jordan, I want you to take stones from Jordan and put those stones and make a memorial for you. So when your children one day says, what is this dad? You can tell them, oh, long time ago, God did a miracle for us and he pulled us out supernaturally that Jordan River split. God pretty much is saying to Israel, I want you to remember what I did and make memorials of what I did for you even for future generations. Now, I think this is very important for Israel for a few reasons. One of them is Israel had a chronic habit of complaining. Now, this is not just Israel's problem, it's the American's problem. It's not just America's problem. Hispanics also complain, Russians complain, humans complain. Now, this is the kind of the idea of complaining. Complaining usually comes from this. God is not doing something that he's supposed to be doing. He's not sending me a husband. He's not sending me a job. He's not improving my situation. He's not doing something. So what we do is we build these monuments for our own peril of all the rocks that God has not done. And he builds offense against God, anger, so we don't trust that we're angry with him. We're upset at God. So what God does for Israel in the Promised Land, he shatters that whole world and he says, I want you to do something. I want you to intentionally build a memorial of stones, of what I did for you in the Jordan River. Why? Because many of us forget things we should remember and we remember things we should forget. We remember our mistakes, but we don't remember God's miracles. We remember the mysteries of why certain things didn't happen that God didn't tell us why, but we don't remember the miracles. So guess what happens? We enter into a difficult season in our life and God doesn't speak anymore. We don't feel his presence anymore. We have these problems around us and we try to get this faith, you know, like positive attitude, positive outlook, you know, this inner strength to get through. And we're like, we're reading the Bible. You know, and sometimes people like, man, I'm just not getting anything out of it. We go to prayer. I'm just not, I feel like I'm not connecting with God. God isn't speaking. I'm gonna give you a secret. It's life changing. When the teacher does not speak in the classroom, it's not because the teacher is angry with you. It's because you're taking a test. So what do you do when you're taking a test? Well, one thing to do is when I did in school, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Johnson plays down. He doesn't come to me. He says, I was tired when the teacher spoke all the time, but now when I want the teacher to speak, the teacher doesn't speak. Why? Because I'm taking a test. What do you do when you're taking a test?  That's how you get the right answer to your quiz. Where do you get the faith when God doesn't speak? Remember every other time he has spoken. Where do you get the faith when you don't feel God moving and you feel like this is gonna be the end of you?   He delivered you out of that.  Remember when you lost your job before and God was there for you. He's gonna be there for you now. If he did it, then he will do it now. When David was facing Goliath, he didn't get a word from God. We don't hear that.  Nothing like that. You know where David got the faith that Goliath is gonna fall? Saul looked at David and says, how do you know you're gonna defeat him? He says, oh, let me tell you about few of my memorial stones. There was a situation with the lion. Lion's dead. Situation with the bear. The bear is dead. He says, this Goliath? This is gonna be the same thing. David extracted faith for his present battle from his previous victory. David extracted faith for his present struggle from his previous success that he had with God. From the previous move of God.  Remember what he did. Bless the Lord all my soul and forget not all of his benefits. How he forgives your sins. How he cleanses you. How he heals your diseases. How he crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. Delivered your life from destruction.  Wake up your memory. Some of you don't have a problem with faith. You have a problem with amnesia. You just forget things you should remember. But you always remember your mistakes. You always remember your sins. You always remember the stuff that God has put under the blood. Forget those things and begin to remember the faithfulness of God. The goodness of God. He is with you. Remember the prophetic words he gave you before. Come on somebody. Remember what God has done. Give God some praise. Come on everybody in the gym. Give God some praise right now if God has been faithful to you. And I know he has. If he has seen you through and I know he has. If he has answered your prayer before and I know he has. If God has came through for you before and I know he has. Give him some. And the last thing. The last thing is this. Israel. So not only they had to build memorials instead of monuments, but Israel when they entered the promised land. They had to fight for everything that God has promised. God didn't give them anything for free. God is not a Democrat and he does not run a social program. He does not write out welfare checks. And he asked us to fight. He asked us to fight. In the Egypt, Israel were delivered from Pharaoh. In the promised land, God delivered Philistines to them. In the promised land, God asked them to fight. God made them soldiers. I want to challenge you today when you enter into a new season. Even after you get delivered. This does not mean attacks will stop. It just means you will now have the power to stop them by the power of the word of God in the name of Jesus. People who get delivered usually have this common thing. Is they come back and they say, man, I am under a heavy attack. These demons are attacking me. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my voice. I feel it in my head. What do I do? Pastor, could you pray for me? And yes, we're going to pray right now. But what I want to encourage you today is to begin to exercise your authority as a Christian. Joshua went into the promised land and drove out the enemies. Begin to go into your own promised land and drive out fear.  Drive out evil spirits and begin to take possession of your land. You don't get what you promised. You get what you fight for. As Christians, we don't fight for victory. We fight from victory. But this idea that when I get demons I will no longer have any struggles. Demons will no longer come on the outside and give me thoughts. That is not scriptural. Demons will still be our problem. But if we submit to God and resist the devil, he will flee from us. Behold, I saw Satan fall, Jesus says. I give you the authority to tremble upon scorpions and snakes and serpents and nothing by no means will hurt you. Soon the God of peace will crush Satan from under your feet through the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. We can reign in life. God has blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth, fill the earth and have dominion over this earth.  A sister came to me after the first service and she says, I've been coming to church and thank you for teaching us this. She said, I went to a meeting yesterday and something, someone said something, it started to, I felt she's like something that got on me and followed me home. Like this like evil presence followed me home. And she's like, because I go to this church and I am taught how to fight, I am taught to be a soldier.  And so she's like, I, in my house, I outlawed, I sat in the room. Whatever this is, get off of me, go. And she's like, can I stop my foot like this as well? Just make sure that it's like crushed completely. And she's like, thank you so much for teaching us because she's like, this thing doesn't follow me anymore. Guys, God is building an army, not an audience. This is not a daycare. We're a boot camp. Okay, so for those of us, if you're just a brand new believer, that's completely not for you right now what I'm gonna say. But for the rest of us, grow up, churn from a snowflake to a soldier. Get a little bit anger. Get angry at the devil.  Stand your ground. Know that these sufferings come to everybody but you can conquer.  You're not mindful of the things of God but of the things of man. Jesus didn't just say, oh father, you see the devil is harassing me, daddy, Lord, he's bullying me, father. Could you just get the devil off of me? Jesus didn't do that, nor should you. Don't let the devil bully you. Rise up. If you had a nightmare, when you wake up in the morning, shake off the dust, go into your prayer, talk to the Father, say, Lord, whatever open door that I have had, please forgive me, devil and clean spirit in the name of Jesus. I commend you. Get out of my house. Go to my neighbor's house. I'm just kidding. Don't say that to the neighbor's house.  Don't fall when the enemy attacks you. This is not a moment like, oh, I need to just tell everybody to pray for me. That's okay if you're a brand new believer but there's many of you. Your sword is not dipped in blood. Spiritually speaking, your sword has never been on the neck of your enemy. That the enemy has to taste your sword. You gotta use it once in a while. You gotta use that thing once. I mean, how many sermons do we need before you will pull this sword out from your shears and begin to use it against the enemy? You come against the spirit of fear. You come against the spirit of present. Come on, hungry Jen is not a deliverance church. We are a dominion church. We are a victory church. We are a church that believes that Christians can have victory. Christians can walk in overcoming attitude in their lives. This idea that we all, I just need more deliverance. You know what I read the statistic? They said that 76% of US inmates wind up back in jail. I wonder if deliverance is the same thing for a lot of us as Christians. We get freed from something and instead of learning how to stand on our feet in God and handle these vicissitudes of life with God's word, what we do is we go back to the same place and we go back to the altar for the same very thing that you could stood your ground and tell that symptom that you got healed of a wrong house. You got healed of back pain. Three days later, the back pain came back instead of saying, oh, I didn't get healed. You can tell that back pain. We turn it to the center, meaning that's a wrong address. That, I was healed, get out. This doesn't belong in my body anymore. Or you can say, oh, yeah, that's fine. Oh, it's like some kind of praise report that it came back. Oh, pastor, you didn't have enough faith because it came back. Well, of course it will come back. Pharaoh came back after Israel get out of Egypt, but Israel didn't let the Pharaoh to drag them back into Egypt. They simply said, ba-ba, drown Pharaoh in the Red Sea. God will drown your Pharaoh in the Red Sea as well if you go forward. Come on, somebody, those of you in the gym. God will drown your fears if you will go forward. God will drown that depression if you don't give up. Rise up, almighty man of God. Rise up, almighty man, a woman of God. Rise up, a soldier of God. The enemy's afraid of you. Come on, somebody. Be bold in Jesus' name. Like a righteous lion in Jesus' mighty name.   We have a day care, but it's not here. It's for our children, adults, our soldiers. We're going to fight for our families. We're going to fight for our neighborhoods. We're going to fight for our schools. We're going to fight for our children. We're going to fight for our health. We're going to fight for our marriages. We're going to fight for our finances. Now, does that mean there is no room for us to come and receive prayer? Absolutely not the case. When you come here, you will come and we're going to pray with you. What I'm saying is when you go home, you pray for you. When you go home, you stand your ground. When you go home, don't just talk to God. If the enemy is attacking you, talk to the enemy.    Trust me.  When a tiny police officer pulls me over, I'm as scared as a Shaquille O'Neal police officer pulls me over, because it's not about their size. It's the authority and the badge they represent. So it doesn't matter how small you are.  What matters is the authority. You have the badge and you got them power. Hallelujah. Thanks for watching to this sermon. If this was a blessing to you, would you let me know in the comments below what stood out to you from this message? What are you taking home with you from this message? 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