Well, good morning everyone. It is a joy to be with you. I am thrilled to be back here in Steubenville. As Scott said, being here was a great joy and a blessing. And you heard Scott's not only been a great mentor and friend and really just an elder brother in the Lord, but he was also the best man at my wedding. And I met my wife here at Steubenville. So it's just such a joy to be here, to go down to the port and pray at that little chapel, and it just brings back a lot of great memories. So it's a joy to be here. I want to begin in prayer. That way, at least you can say he began well. So in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Gracious, loving Father in heaven, you have confirmed your prophetic word from of old, in Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Help us follow the light of that prophetic word with deeper faith, and allow us, Lord, by your grace and the gifts of the Spirit, to be your prophetic witnesses in a world darkened by error and falsehood. Help us to shine your light. And, Lord, to do that enlighten our minds by the grace of your Spirit in order to encendle in our hearts a deeper love for you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. Well, I love the topic that Scott put out for this conference on the prophetic word, and my talk right now is going to be Jesus as prophet. Now, I'm going to not, I'm going to talk about this Jesus as a prophet in a little bit different way than you've heard. We've heard a lot about Jesus as the object of prophecy, that is the Old Testament being fulfilled in Christ, in his life, in his words, in his deeds. But I'm going to now take us that next step and look at Jesus as a prophet. Jesus speaks prophecies that will be fulfilled outside of the New Testament. And we're going to look at Jesus as the subject of prophecy, that is, Jesus as prophet. And the prophecy I'm going to look at in particular, and there's many, but the one I want to focus on is his prophecy about Peter. Now, Christ, as Saint Augustine said, is the head of the church, but the church is the body. And so, prophecy relates to the head, that is Jesus Christ, but it also relates to the church, which is Jesus' body. And so, we're going to look at Peter and the church as the object of prophecy, both in the Old and in the New, and afterwards in the life of the church. And I think what that'll do is give us a sense that the church isn't simply something that follows after Jesus, but that the church follows from Jesus' divine will and mission. And that will be an important distinction, because today, many people think of the church as organized religion that's not that great, flawed with all kinds of sinners and scandals. And yet, the church, in spite of our sins, has a divine vocation and foundation. And that is what this prophetic word that I want to follow, this thread, illustrates and demonstrates, which will confirm our faith and show us and remind us, hopefully, of our divine vocation as the church. So I'm going to follow this theme of Jesus speaking about the sign of Jonah and how that's going to relate to Peter. But before I do that, I want to start with an Old Testament passage that talks about the importance of prophecy for faith, because there is a predictive element to prophecy, although it doesn't exhaust the meaning of prophecy. And that predictive element is unique, because as God will say through the prophet Isaiah, who can declare a thing before it happens, but God alone. And when we see prophecies spoken and fulfilled, only God can do that. Only God can do that. And so one of the themes throughout the second half of Isaiah, starting in Isaiah 40, verse 18 and following, is this theme of who is like the Lord God of Israel? The gods of the nations are no gods, they're idols, because what distinguishes the God of Israel from all other gods and idols, from all other wise men and women, is that God foretells an event before it even happens. And so I'll just pick up that thread in two passages now. One is from Isaiah 41, verse 26 and 27. And God says, who declared it from the beginning that we might know and before time that we might say he is right? There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words, but I first have declared and declared it to Zion and I have given it to Jerusalem to be a herald of good tidings. So God declares what he is going to do beforehand, and who does he declare it to? Zion, Jerusalem, in other words the people of God, the church. And that's why the people of God is to be a herald of good tidings, basar in Hebrew, which means euangelion in Greek, good news, gospel, right? So the good news before it is an event is predicated and foretold by God. Now all journalists compete with one another to break a story. And the best news companies are those who have breaking news. Well guess what? You have to break the news after the news has happened, unless you're God. You kind of have the early scoop. And this is what God says over and over again in these early chapters in the 40s of Isaiah. And in chapter 42, verse 8 he says, I am the Lord, that is my name, my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to graven images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and the new things I now declare. Before they spring forth, I tell you of them. I tell you of them. Now Saint Jerome said that Isaiah was the fifth gospel because it describes so detailed in such a precise and powerful way the life of Jesus Christ. It is striking to read the Word of Isaiah and to see the life of Jesus is to have your faith confirmed. But there's more. But this gives us the principles. Before something takes place, I, I declare it. Now I want to turn to Jesus as a prophet because Jesus as a prophet won't be simply like a prophet like Isaiah. Because Jesus himself will speak in the first person, predicting things. In other words, Jesus will take the voice of Yahweh. And just as Yahweh declared things beforehand in the Old Testament foretelling the new, Jesus himself in the New Testament will foretell and predict what will happen in the new covenant era in the life of the church. He will foretell. Now one of the things he foretells is the destruction of the temple. Which again seems impossible even to his disciples to foretell that the greatest building structure ever built is going to be cast down one stone upon another. And that happens exactly 40 years after Jesus predicts it. In 70 AD the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Fulfillment. But there's another prophecy of Jesus that I think is even bigger and more audacious. And that is his prophecy about Peter. And to talk about that prophecy I want to take us to Matthew 16. And I'm going to take us to a couple passages that you've heard a lot. Peter gets the keys of the kingdom, but I'm not going to talk about the keys because you know about that story. I'm going to talk about a small thread that prophetically foretells Peter's destiny and the destiny of the Catholic Church. But let's start with the beginning of chapter 16 because the Pharisees and the Sadducees have gathered together and they've asked Jesus for a sign. Show us a sign that we may believe. And Jesus' response in verse 4 is rather stunning. A bit politically incorrect you might say. He says a sign an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign. Ouch. Right? Wow. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given this generation except the sign of Jonah. Now first off let's just reflect on what does it mean? I was always taken aback by an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign. That always kind of arrests me because I like signs. Right? But reflecting on that, why is it that an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign? Well first off, those who are adulterous are not pure in heart. And Jesus already earlier said in the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 that the pure in heart shall see God. And here they have show us a sign, but Jesus says you don't even read the signs of the times. In other words, this adulterous sinful generation doesn't see the signs that Jesus is manifesting. Why don't they see it? Because they're an adulterous generation. Because of their impurity they can't discern in the interior the movements of the Spirit and the voice of God. And so they're blind even to the external signs. They can't see in the external events the true meaning of what God the Father is doing in the life of Christ. So what sign can Jesus show them who are blinded by their impurity and their passions? By their sin. Sin blinds us. In fact, that's one of the major themes of Isaiah 40 through 45 is how Israel is blind and deaf because their hardness of heart. So how do we see and hear? How do we discern these signs? Well the one sign that will be irrefutable to these blind and deaf and hard-hearted folk will be the sign of Jonah. And Jesus here leaves the crowd. He goes into the boat with the disciples. And then later on in verse 13 he comes to Bethsaida and he heads up from Bethsaida up to Caesarea Philippi. And as he goes up the valley of the Hula Valley which goes from Bethsaida straight north to Caesarea Philippi. And this is in the district of Philip, the brother of Herod Antipater, the two sons, two of the surviving sons of Herod the Great. And as he goes up the Hula Valley there's a road that goes down that valley that follows the Jordan River. And they're following all the way up to the district of Caesarea Philippi where the Jordan River has its source. And as they're going up Jesus asks them a question. Who do people say the Son of Man is? And then you get the first Gallup poll on Jesus. Right? Some say a prophet. Some say John the Baptist come back from the dead. 15% undecided. Right? And of course the Gallup poll completely wrong. And then Jesus turns the question says who do you say that I am? And Peter pipes up and Peter says you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now the meaning of Peter's answer struck me when I first went to Israel. And I had studied summer there at Hebrew University to take my couple of crash courses in Hebrew. And when I got up to Caesarea Philippi I was excited because I heard that there's a big rock and that there's a great abyss of a cave right where this happened. And when I got there being as Saint Jerome says in the fifth gospel opened my eyes in a way that study and reading passages about this couldn't do. Because I saw that there wasn't one rock but there was a cliff. And right along this cliff there was a cave, a small cave from which a spring came that was the font of the Jordan River. But that cave wasn't a great abyss. It went down about 10 feet. So I was like wow that was a little bit of a disappointment. But then I realized that in Jesus' day they wouldn't have seen the cave because there was a big building in front of the cave and that building is in ruins now but I had read about that town of Caesarea Philippi and the archaeology and I reflected on it and all of a sudden it dawned on me the significance of what Peter said because there was a big, big building there. In fact it was the pride of Philip's territory. Philip put on his coins after his second coin and his second coin that he meant it on all of his coins had the image of this building on every coin he did after his first. And what was that building? His father built it, Herod the Great. Because in 20 BC Caesar Augustus visited that territory and he gave that territory as a gift to Herod the Great. And Herod the Great was so grateful to his great Roman patron Caesar that he built a temple in honor of Caesar Augustus in Caesarea Philippi naming the town after Caesar as well. And there was this great temple and in the temple was a statue of the goddess Rome and Caesar Augustus. Two pagan statues, idols, to the Roman imperial cult. And of course the Roman imperial cult had started about seven years earlier in 27 BC when the Roman senate voted Caesar Augustus as Augustus and gave him the title Augustus which means one worthy of worship. Because he had taken the title Son of God because he got the Roman senate to vote that his uncle Julius was a god, his adopted father. And the Roman senate didn't think that Julius was a god but they said he's dead so what difference does it make? So they voted him a god. And Augustus who was the most savvy politician of the ancient world got the Roman senate to vote his adopted father a god and then after they did that he said well guess what that makes me? Son of God. And he took that title and he put it on his coins. Devephilius son of God. Temples then were erected in honor of him one of which was erected in Caesarea Philippi. Now Jesus takes his disciples up to the district of Caesarea Philippi and he asks the question who do you say that I am? And as they get to the district of Caesarea Philippi what would they see? It dawned on me standing there that the dominant building was the temple to Caesar Augustus. And what does Peter say looking at that temple standing in this district and in the city outskirts? What does Peter say? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now living God is interesting and I know from my studies that living is a modifier used in the Old Testament and used by Jews to show that the God of Israel is a true and living God unlike the idols that are carved and made of wood and stone and gold. They have eyes but they don't see, they have ears but they don't hear as Isaiah says, Isaiah 45 and 44. So the point is living is always a modifier for God when there's a contra distinction to pagan idols. So Peter uses the term living God, why? Because there's pagan idols at hand, idols that worship Caesar and the imperial cult that worship Caesar as a Son of God.  We, you are the Son of a living God, Rome and its emperor is the Son of a dead God. Wow, do you see the difference between a living God and a dead God between Jesus and Caesar? And Jesus, I believe, asked this question prophetically, not when he's down in Jerusalem, not when he's in Galilee but when he's up at Caesarea Philippi. That's when he asks the question to the disciples and Peter professes in the face of the Roman imperial cult that Jesus is the true Son of God, not Caesar. That is why Jesus asked the question there before the temple because Jesus knows prophetically the mission he's going to have for Peter, to send Peter ultimately to Rome, to send him to evangelize the Roman Empire where the fastest growing religion in the first century is the Roman imperial cult, the worship of Caesar as the Son of God. And he's going to send his disciples out and Peter to proclaim a different Lord and a different Son of God in the face of Rome. And Jesus knows that that will lead to persecution and hostility but here Peter makes the profession in the face of the imperial cult. That will be prophetic of Peter's destiny but there's more. And I want to look at the phrases that are used here. Of course Peter professes, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you Simon Barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven. Notice Peter's perception of who Jesus is comes interiorly from the Father. Peter has the purity of heart to see and hear God. Unlike the scribes and the Sadducees and the Pharisees at the beginning who look for outward signs but can't discern and hear the voice of the Father. Notice that Peter stands in contradiction to the leadership at the beginning of the chapter. Now notice by the way that Jesus said no sign would be given but the sign of Jonah and Matthew a master storyteller here leaves it open to what the sign of Jonah means but then just a little bit later in the story later in the chapter Jesus says to Peter, blessed are you Simon Barjona. Here we have the name Jonah again. What does that mean? Well I used to read this thinking that well Simon Barjona that Jonah was the name of Peter's father but I was wrong because we know from the Gospel of John the name of Peter's father and it's not Jonah. What's the Peter's father's name? It's John in the Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 42 when Jesus first meets Peter he says so you are Simon son of John. You will be called Caphos, Rock and the Aramaic and then later on in John 21 verse 15 Jesus at the charcoal fire after the resurrection Peter comes in from fishing and Jesus says to Peter, Simon son of John do you love me more than these and he says it again in verse 16 Simon son of John and he says it again in verse 17 Simon son of John so clearly the father of Peter is John and Jonah is not a shortened form of John. Yehanon when it's shortened is Yehanai so Jonah is not the shortened form and Jonah is an extraordinarily rare name for Jews believe it or not. Now there's the prophet Jonah but there's very few Jews named Jonah in fact you could go in the Old Testament era all we know is Jonah who's named Jonah and then if you look even up to 300 years from the first century all of Second Temple Judaism 300 years after Peter we don't know of a single Jewish male named Jonah the only Jews that we know named Jonah two of them are females because Jonah Jonah means dove in Hebrew and I guess a lot of Jewish men did not want to name their their sons dove so Jonah is an extraordinary rare name and so when and notice what we get in the gospel of Matthew in the Greek it preserves the original phrasing of Peter in the Aramaic or of the words of Jesus to Peter in Aramaic blessed are you Simon bar which is the Aramaic word for son Simon bar Jonah bar Jonah why bar Jonah son of Jonah because Peter will be a son of Jonah now we know that the sign of Jonah relates to Jesus because in Matthew 12 Jesus said a greater than Jonah is here referring to himself so Jesus is the new Jonah but guess what Peter gets associated closely with Jesus the church is always close to Christ so Jesus will be the new Jonah but Peter and the church will be the bar Jonah the son of Jonah what does that mean bar Jonah well let's think about that when we know that Jesus as he says and other times will be like the like Jonah was in the belly of the well for three days and three nights the belly of the fish so will the son of man be in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights and rise referring to the resurrection but there's more to the story of Jonah and this is where Peter comes in Peter will compliment and fit Jesus is the head the church is the body together there's the fullness of the picture as Augustine says now Jonah was a prophet sent by God to Nineveh the capital of the enemy of Israel and Jonah was a prophet from Galilee which is interesting and unique now later on in John chapter 7 I think it's around verse 42 the Pharisees say how could Jesus be a prophet no prophet has arisen out of Galilee actually there was Jonah so they don't know their Bible very well so Peter is from Galilee like Jonah and Jesus is calling Peter to a prophetic mission he will be a bar Jonah a disciple in the spirit of the prophet Jonah and Jonah sent to Nineveh and Nineveh is the capital the enemy of Israel and God says I want you to preach repentance unless I destroy them and Jonah thinks about this okay that's our enemy God's going to destroy him unless I preach I think I'm going to go in a different direction so Peter heads off the opposite direction of Nineveh which is to the east he heads west and he goes to a town called what Joppa where he gets a boat and he heads west as far west as he can in the Mediterranean to get as fast and as far as possible away from Nineveh now that's interesting because that's the only time in the Old Testament that the town Joppa has mentioned but we find Joppa in the story of Acts and who's in Joppa in Acts 9 Peter the bar Jonah now you have to think about that so let's turn to Acts chapter 9 and see what happens there now there's two stories that happen first in Laita which is in the outskirts of Joppa where Peter heals a paralytic named Aeneas and he rises him up who could not walk which is an echo to the resurrection and then he goes to Joppa because a disciple who's famous for her acts of charity and her almsgiving has died and of course her name is Tabitha which or Dorcas and they call they asked Peter to come and Peter comes and her body has been washed and laid out in the upper room and then Peter goes up there and he sends everybody out Peter prays and what happens he says Tabitha rise and she opened her eyes and when she saw Peter she sat up and he gave her his hand and lifted her up then calling the saints in the widows he presented her alive and it became known throughout all of Joppa and many believed in the Lord and he stayed in Joppa for many days with Simon a tanner so notice we get resurrection which is a theme of Jonah Jonah three days in the belly of the well will be a sign of Jesus's resurrection Peter as a bar Jonah now is showing the sign of Jesus by raising up the paralytic but even more than that raising up the dead woman Dorcas right so we see resurrection and rising and then the next story in chapter 12 chapter 12 well actually chapter 10 I want to start with chapter 10 we're at Caesarea Meritima another city on the coast where Herod the great built a temple to Caesar Augustus on the seaport and there there's a Roman centurion Cornelius who's known for his almsgiving and his prayers he's a godfarer he believes in Judaism even though he's a Gentile and he's stationed there at Caesarea and Cornelius is praying and an angel appears to him and says go send to Joppa for one Simon Peter who's staying at the house of a man named Simon the tanner send for him so Cornelius sends a couple of his soldiers down to Joppa so then by the end of the next day Peter is there and in the midst of the story of Cornelius we have a vision that Peter has as he's in Joppa and Peter has this vision of a great sheet and in that sheet are all these unclean animals for Jews and he hears a voice from heaven saying kill and eat in other words eat uncosher food and Peter says Lord I've never eaten uncosher food before and then God has to say it again slaughter and eat and Peter says again no no I I've never eaten anything uncosher in my life and then God has to say it a third time Peter's a little thick now the word for sheet by the way Othone in the Greek means a sale now that's significant because that's a hint because Peter's having this vision of Gentiles being made clean by Christ's death and resurrection in Joppa the very place where Jonah took a ship with Gentiles in a boat heading west and Jonah's prophetic mission was not to Israel but to the Gentiles and not just to any Gentiles but to the enemy the very enemy of Israel and there there's a sheet a ship sail with all this unclean food and Peter sees this vision and then at the end of the vision God says someone's coming at the door go with them and then all of a sudden there's a knock on the door there's Roman soldiers that would cause a bit of a panic and they're looking for Peter panic but Peter's calm because he's got the word from the Lord to go with them so Peter goes with them up to Caesarea to the household of Cornelius and the next day he's presented before Cornelius and Cornelius says you know I had this vision I was told to send for you and the Lord asked me to send for you so please tell us you have a word from the Lord a message and so Peter begins to preach and Peter says uh you know he's amazed by this and he says I perceive that God shows no partiality between Gentile and Jew now right and so uh he says in verse 34 of Acts 10 truly I perceive that God shows no partiality but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable you know the word which he sent to Israel preaching the good news of peace by Jesus Christ he is the Lord of all a title by the way used for Caesar notice Peter is unafraid to use the great acclaims of Caesar that show forth his divinity to claim divinity for Jesus he is the Lord of all the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea beginning with Galilee and Peter gives him and he Peter gives him the whole story of Jesus and then they see that the spirit has fallen upon Cornelius in his household and Peter says can water be kept from baptizing them and so the first Gentiles are baptized the first Gentiles are baptized right there at the end of chapter 10 of Acts now in chapter 11 Peter goes back and tells the crowds in Jerusalem everyone's astonished that Gentiles are now going to be included in the people of God and baptized and received the Holy Spirit which is the prophetic promise to Israel that Israel's sons and daughters and Joel would prophesy and be given the gifts of the spirit but now we see that God's liberality knows no bounds the spirit will be given to the Gentiles as well now what's significant is in chapter 12 Peter gets arrested maybe this word of Gentiles really upsets the Jews so much that they go to Herod Agrippa the successor of Herod Antipater and Herod Agrippa arrests Peter and throws them in jail and the angel of the Lord comes at night as you know that story and even though there's many many soldiers even though Peter's chained to them they all fall asleep the angel takes Peter out they go to the house of John Mark where the community's gathered and they give thanks and praise and it's an exciting escape but they know Peter is hunted so then we're told in Acts 12 verse 7 that Peter goes to another place now it's odd that Luke who loves to tell you about geography and location throughout the story of Acts Luke is always saying and then they went from there to you know Joppa to Lida to you know back to Jerusalem he's always giving you geographical details I think Luke who was a physician and a scholar loved maps he's one of those map nerds right and he loved geography in place but here he doesn't tell us a place that's extraordinarily odd for Luke why doesn't he tell us where Peter went well Saint Jerome and the tradition all says there's a reason why he doesn't name the place because Peter's a wanted man and the place he goes to is Rome the capital that's where the tradition picks up so tradition picks up from Scripture that Peter goes to Rome but I would say I know I want to pick up with the tradition but I want to show that the tradition is rooted and confirmed by the word of God in the scriptures we have a couple clues that Peter goes to Rome in the scriptures for example in 1st Corinthians we're told that there's divisions and rivalry in Corinth in the church and Paul says look some are saying that they're from the party of Peter others are with the party of Paul but notice how could there be a party of Peter in Corinth well we know that some of the Christians in Corinth came from Rome when Claudius had an edict against the Jews and all Jews and Jewish Christians had to leave Rome in 49 AD and a couple of those Christians were Aquila and Priscilla they worked in Rome and then had to move to Corinth and so we know that there's this Peter party what does it mean the Peter party Priscilla and Aquila were probably baptized and evangelized by Peter so you have the group that belongs to Peter and it seems to belong with who is baptized by who seems to be part of the factions as as Paul describes it in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 18 and following but there's other elements in Paul's letter to the Romans he mentions that he wants to go to Rome not to lay a foundation where another man has built reference to Peter being in Rome before him but he wants to go to Rome on his way to Spain to new mission ground right so in Romans 15 there seems to be a reference to Peter already being ahead of Paul in Rome but then let's take the Roman tradition in Rome there's a church that I love to go to when I do pilgrimage there that's built over a first century home where Peter lived in Rome according to tradition and it's the church of Santa Pudenziana now senator pudins was one of the hundreds of Roman senators at the time one of the 400 one of 400 Roman senators and the early Christian tradition says that pudins became a Christian and that he received Peter and he hosted Peter now when people go to Rome they always go to St. Peter's Basilica which is where Peter died he spent maybe an hour breathing there no one goes to the church where he lived it did his ministry in Rome which is Santa Pudenziana's which is just down the hill and a short walk from St. Mary majors now the fascinating thing about this church it's a gem a hidden gem you go in there and it has the oldest mosaic of any church in Rome that is not Byzantine mosaic but it's Roman ask mosaic dating to about 390 and the artists had been to the holy land because the artist in the mosaic shows all the churches of St Helena that she had built after the conversion of her son Constantine and it shows all these churches in the holy land but the more important thing it shows is all the disciples the 12 apostles in Roman senatorial togas because the church is built over the house of senator pudenz and you can do a scabby tour and see the ruins below now the fascinating thing about those ruins below is that they found a brick and they dated that brick to the first century all that brick of the foundation so it was a first century home of a wealthy roman and we know in the second century the roman baths of this estate were turned into a baptistry with ancient christian mosaics so we know in the early second century this was a christian hub of activity but they found a brick from the first century with a name pudenz and that was the custom when you built a house to put the name of the builder at the foundation and in the corner you would print that you would put the name and burn it into the brick and i've seen that brick and i've touched it with the name pudenz now i was giving a teaching there years ago and i had a great italian guide with me asked her who had a doctorate in art history and history and she had been a guide her whole life and i was describing this and she got him from my group she goes but this is just a tradition we don't really know if pudenz was a christian it's just a tradition and this is unfortunately how a lot of people now view tradition with great skepticism but i said no ester it's not just a tradition that pudenz was a christian and hosted peter we have a first century source that mentions pudenz as a christian she said no no no no no no i've i've studied here i got a doctorate i've guided here i know the pastor here there's no no there's there's no evidence that pudenz was a christian i said no no ester i i've got it with me i've got a first century source that mentions pudenz as a christian and she's like no way i said i opened up my bible to 2nd timothy chapter 4 verse 21 paul writing from roam in captivity sends a letter to timothy his right hand man is an emphasis and paul knows his end is at hand so he writes to timothy for him to come back to roam now timothy had been with paul earlier in roam and paul's first visit to roam but now at the end of his life with nero's persecution paul writes to timothy and he says make every effort to come before winter because he can't sail around greece in the winter in the Mediterranean it's too dangerous make every effort to come before winter and then he says and ubalus sends greetings to you as does pudenz and linus and claudia now that's an interesting group of roman christians linus you ever hear that name besides snoopy where does linus come in he's the second pope he's the second pope and as pope you gotta host the church you gotta have a big house he's a roman aristocrat who's a convert linus the second pope and who's mentioned right before linus pudenz the roman senator who is a christian who hosted peter and paul whose house and home became the center of activity in roam now how would peter get to know a roman senator how would he do that that's the question and it dawned on me thinking and reflecting on this and praying about this that all of a sudden it hit me ax chapter 10 gives us the clue it gives us the answer i believe ax chapter 10 peter meets a very important roman who's a roman aristocrat who's a very powerful wealthy roman he's not just a roman centurion but remember he's famous in all of israel for his almsgiving he was a very wealthy man in fact julian the apostate mentions that the christians exaggerate their influence on roman aristocrats because there's only two major aristocrats who became christians surges paulos and cornelius so even julian the apostate gives witness that cornelius was of the equestrian rank and of a high roman family now cornelius hosts peter because peter baptizes him by god's providence and peter baptizes his disciples cornelius peter is in jerusalem he has to flee after he escapes from prison thanks to god and he goes to another place well where would he go he would go to cesaria because he has a friend there who's powerful and influential cornelius and what does cornelius do cornelius is from guess where luke tells you cornelius is from the italian cohort a little detail in other words cornelius is from rome and we know that he's a godfare so what that means is cornelius who is from rome wealthy and powerful a roman officer probably beginning his career up the ranks and he wants to be stationed in the in palestine and in the holy land because he believes in judaism he was a godfare in rome and we know that the jewish population of rome was very significant and that they proselytized many wealthy romans in fact cistero says has any roman not been proselytized by a jew so cornelius was a godfaring roman aristocrat and i suggest to you that when peter goes up to cesaria flipi or cesaria maritima to cornelius wanted as a wanted man and a death sentence by herod agrippa cornelius says i'll send you to rome on the next ship and i'm going to send you with a letter of recommendation to my friend pudins that you have to meet and all of a sudden scripture takes us right up to the point of tradition and they fit together scripture and tradition fit together hand and glove now i believe peter then goes to rome cornelius sends him along and then when he gets there he meets pudins thanks to cornelius pudins probably also was a godfarer he hears the word of god he converts and he becomes the center of activity for the christian faith growing in rome and it grows quickly in rome so quickly in rome that nero can scapegoat the christians see them as a threat and does a major persecution so that's how peter gets to in fact pudinsiana the church is named after senator pudins daughter pudinsiana who because she's a powerful roman aristocratic family of a senator can bury the dead christians that nero persecutes and she's protected and in that church is a system where they buried many of the first martyrs under nero but there's more to the story because now we find peter in rome and that that fulfills the tradition shows us the history of christianity shows us that jesus's prophetic prophecy was fulfilled because jesus said back in caesarea felipi the city in palestine named for caesar with the temple to caesar where peter professes you are the christ the son of the living god and jesus says blessed are you simon bar jonah because jesus is saying to peter peter you are going to be a prophet like jonah and i'm sending you not just to the gentiles but i'm sending you to the capital of the enemy of israel like jonah and you are going to preach at the capital of the enemy of israel and they are going to repent and believe and cornelius who's from rome and pudins who's in rome become the first fruits the first of the new neneva to be converted at the preaching of the new jonah and that is why in the catacombs there's over 300 images of the prophet jonah being swallowed by the belly of the well and in all the earlier burial places one of the most popular and favorite images of the early christians is the prophet jonah because jonah being thrown out of the belly of the well naked signifies divinity for the greeks and romans nakedness but now this new nakedness signifies new birth of baptism because the christians would be naked when they stripped for full immersion and that nakedness of baptism shows us the new birth of resurrection so jonah coming out of the belly of the well became an emblem of baptism and death and resurrection and it became a popular image but not only a popular image when they found the tomb of peter at the end of world war two there was two images from the early early second century probably some of the oldest images of christian art next to the tomb of peter and one of those images was a man fishing and two fish with a line and of course that's peter the fisherman and then the other image was a man being thrown out of a boat with a great big monster fish swallowing him up and that's jonah because the early christians knew that death and resurrection was a sign of jonah and jesus was the new jonah but peter was the bar jonah and this imagery of jonah was most popular in Rome you don't find in other cities and other places of christian worship and christian fellowship as much and predominantly as its dominates in Rome why does the image of jonah dominate in Rome because those pagan romans who were converts to christianity knew that they were the new ninova and that peter sent to them was the new jonah and they knew that that church was a witness because it's a remarkable prophecy of jesus it's a ridiculous prophecy that the capital of Rome was going to convert for jesus to say that and all document in all four gospels in the first century that Rome would convert is ridiculous prophecy and it's irrefutable no historian no scholar in the world can contradict the historicity of jesus predicting this in the first century and it's fulfilled by the fourth century the church in Rome knew that they were witnesses to jonah and so in the sistine chapel the greatest catholic artist of all time michael angelo as he does the chapel for the pope and as he designs it the largest of the seven prophets the largest figure of all the sistine chapel is the prophet jonah because michael angelo went to the catacombs and he studied early christian art and he was also on a bible study with a cardinal some thought he was at protestant tendencies because he was in a bible study but when the cardinal is leading the bible study it's kind of hard to think that right so here's the image jonah looking back over the ceiling and jonah has the fish and jonah is the largest figure why because it's death and resurrection which is the heart of the gospel and the call for repentance which is the heart of the gospel and as he's looking up jonah's kind of admiring michael angelo's sistine chapel you could look at it that way but michael angelo isn't that vain jonah's looking at the sistine chapel he's looking at salvation history from genesis all the way through and he's seeing god's plan of salvation prophetically fulfilled and what's more if you look at where jonah is he looks like he's about to slip off and fall down and he's on the southeast corner of the chapel and on that southern part there's one place right below jonah liturgically situated and where is jonah liturgically situated in the chapel he is right over the chair of peter michael angelo knew his story now esther i want to end with just this last minute esther when she didn't believe about this when i explained the story of pudin's being a christian and since second timothy she was blown away and she went through a deep conversion and six months later one of my uh one of our faculty who was with me who was studying in rome ben acres ran into her on a bus in rome and she said oh how is tim the biblicist dr tim the biblicist that's the italian word for scripture scholar and he's always he's doing fine she says oh please tell dr tim that since his trip i went out after his trip and i bought a bible for the first time in my life and i've been reading it every day since and it's changed my life my friends she had a doctorate and she's a catholic in rome and she didn't know the catholic story from scripture to tradition from jesus to peter the sign of jonah but she discovered it and her heart came afire and she went back to the word of god and she read the tradition in a different way and that's what michael angelo painted on the ceiling and that is our story we have to regain our catholic story because the prophecy confirms your faith so that you can be witnesses to the good news of jesus christ that is what god the father has called you here this weekend for this week that you may hear and have faith and not fear in an isaia 44 verse seven and eight god says i am he who calls things from the beginning i foretell them that you may not be afraid amen let's conclude him for father son holy spirit amen lord god you have made clear you have declared beforehand what you would do both in the old for the new and the new for the now give us faith lord a faith that gives us courage to be your witnesses to know our catholic story and to proclaim it to the world we pray this in jesus christ our lord amen


This is the animation minute As always it's not a job, so your tip of suit is looking for a bunch of positions including CG animators Haven Studios is looking for a senior animator to join the team a bunch of positions here including for animators and motion capture editors ILM Singapore is looking for animators No more robots is hiring as well including 3d animator frictional games is also looking for people including an animator position Brownback films recruiting a bunch of people including 3d animator switching over from jobs to news This is regards. What do you think about AI a kind of interesting look if you put in human illusion if that was the prompt was That is still pretty interesting to watch anyway, and switch over to three animation Clinis ores another piece here always squishy always cute then this is pretty cool here You got your Chinese ink painting style over the animation. That's pretty cool. Look nice animation, too This is super cute. I love it cute and simple. I love that turn and that crack me up. It's great sure, but sweet Chunky tech to the animation. Come on. So satisfying to watch. These are cool. Hold on make it bigger love that It's cool. Nice colors. That is cool. Love all these. These are super cute, too Cute designs. Look at that. Super cute, and there's one more in full-screen glory. Very cute Less cute bit more creepy scary, but awesome. Look at these designs Super super cool Very cool Would love to animate that guy switching over to kind of a game thing just quickly here Does he an update for flight of Nova as it says here? It's very cool I love space sim type of stuff with tech here can go forward and see all that stuff pretty neat Just wanted to include that that is cool. Come on. So you've had it to pixels. It's cool. I like it Speaking of which that's cool, too Cool designs nice colors. These are bonkers. I love it. That is for Ninja Turtles You know, you can show me all the best VR and 3d and 8k whatever, but these are sweet I like it. I like pixel art, but if you follow my image, you know that I do come on. Look at these So cute. Love it. That is pretty bonkers. It's a lot of work That's very cool. That has really nice snappy animation. Come on. Two defects are cool, too Very neat and that's what at least moon scars as it says here This looks pretty cool. Got to check out the whole thing But make sure to listen to it as well the sound design is very delicious And that is that in a mission minute, you can find it every Monday every week on my channel


It's just wicked. That's the only way to explain it. It's just the best car I've ever driven. It's a car that really inspires you to want to drive it fast. Six ride in over Brow in two, six left.


Good afternoon everybody Welcome. Thank you for coming along. This is the session if this isn't what you're expecting Then feel free to wonder but if it is then for the next 45 minutes I'm going to talk about some of my experiences with teams healthy and otherwise and some of the things I've learned along the way It's also going to be some of the key slides retweeted by we are convivio. That's the Twitter Handle there. So if there's any points you particularly want to pick up on they could well be on there And then the video will be live on the Drupal com website at the end of the session within a couple of hours And this is part of the being human track I first of all want to just take a moment to congratulate the Drupal Association for having this track and to thank Emma Who ran this track so brilliantly? It's a really great addition to Drupal and a really good part of improving the culture that we have in the community and the companies and I want to talk a little bit about what I mean by healthy teams. I don't mean perfection That there just isn't any such thing in teams where you have a group of human beings Working together towards something. We are sadly all imperfect creatures Healthy teams are about recognizing that and replacing it instead with this kind of approach Instead of constantly expecting perfection what we expect from team members is listening understanding thinking forgiveness and learning This culture is really important But it's really hard Really hard. There's probably not one single person in this room including me who is perfect at that But let me let me remind you. It's not about perfection This is what we're working towards Now if this was a TED talk or I was a kind of top management consultant or something this would have a handy acronym Unfortunately, I'm not so the acronym is Lutful so remember that if you can but listening understanding thinking forgiveness and learning are what's key Now those are kind of the underlying principles But the steps towards healthy teams that we're going to work through today are these I'm going to have to go Pretty quickly as you can tell but we're going to talk about leadership. We're going to talk about purpose being real people self-managing Education problem solving pulse and momentum in a team and continuously improving These are some of the elements that make up the idea of healthy teams Let's start with leadership. This is how it used to be Very traditional company. You've got the leader at the top You've got some of the senior staff and they manage the teams and Instructions come down Reporting goes up and that works perfectly, doesn't it? You mean that doesn't work perfectly, of course it doesn't this was devised in the 1920s for Manufacturing where they developed this idea of the production line. It was revolutionary It was changing business people just needed to do repetitive tasks Same thing it again and again and products would roll out and all management had to do was sit at the top and perfect those bits the process and tell the low paid low skilled people down at the bottom do that do that do that do that Do that faster do more of that do that faster And that's all that needed to happen there and then they would monitor the statistics going up But the organizations that we run aren't production lines They're just not that kind of business The organizations that we run are creative teams What we hire people for are their skills and their experience Not their ability to constantly and rapidly repeat exactly the same thing minute to minute hour to hour day to day This management structure no longer works for creative teams And the pain we feel in this industry is in large part down to trying to force creative work into this management structure Instead management is more like this these days leadership and What that means is we've got this this is the organization or our team and I want to make clear Actually in win this session, but I'm not just talking about company leadership here. I'm talking about team leadership This could be on projects and the leadership isn't down to only one person all of the time And I'll come on to that in a moment But what you have here is the team or the organization as the one big circle And you've got the client on the outside who's coming along to this team and saying hey I've got problems can you help me with them and the whole team is providing the solutions back? Now who in an organization like this is? Closest to the client who knows most about what the client problem is and what the client's circumstances are It's the people on the perimeter the people doing the day-to-day work with clients who know the most And if we've hired smart people grown-up people Responsible people caring people Then we should just get out of their way and let them do what they need to do and That perimeter is the closest point to the client and we need to have as many decisions happening there as possible But on the other hand the organization needs some glue the organization needs to be held together This perimeter needs to be defined You know what is our organization and what isn't it? And that's part of the role of leadership But leadership is also there for coaching development support and so on So just like you have a client on the perimeter coming with problems and solutions You have the team here who may have questions and want answers or they may have feedback or ideas to change the organization And sometimes they request help from the leadership from the center of the organization. It's not the top. It's the center But other times because leadership isn't the job of any one person People need to move into that center and that can be anyone in the organization And that can be for a project basis.  It can be a very small level, but it makes a real difference So once you have leadership you need purpose And that's one of the key jobs of the leader is helping the team define what the organization is and what its purpose is and One of the things that we've developed for building up our small little organization and team is This idea of a pyramid of purpose and it's the things that build up in the layers You don't have to have exactly this number on each level But it's roughly that you're probably more like to have values And I'm sure we've all in organization seen this kind of defining the values and how we're going to work together It's collaboration or whatever it is. Those will be specific to your organization Working up towards purpose on the top, but there's a couple of things I'm going to pick out here about how to define them And remember this applies not just to the whole organization, but also to project teams So think about this as something you could perhaps sit down on a big project and work through with clients all as one team Your team the clients team round one table Collaborating on defining this and then reviewing it every few sprints. How are we doing on this? Now the values are the way the organization behaves and the team members within it behave the motivations are And I think it's important to get to the underlying thing of why we're doing this So the values of the way we behave the motivation is why we're doing this and when we were defining our little organization This is what we came up with for the four motivations These were the things why we were going to go to work every day Why we were going to do the projects we were doing? And we can sense check ourselves against this on a regular basis to see how we are doing in this direction But understanding that motivation is key and also surfacing it because if you don't have this conversation You end up with people in the organization with different motivations If when you're bringing people together you have this discussion You will find that someone says oh actually I don't want that I just want to get paid go home watch telly or I just want to I'm only earning money to save up So I can do a round-the-world trip or whatever it is. So it's a it's worth having this conversation Really important So these are the motivations why we're doing what we're doing Then you build up to the focus now you may ask at first. How can you have three focuses? But focus is a triangulation because successful organizations have such a key focus on what it is That they are going to do that it can be so precisely specified by triangulation points So by focusing on this and that and that this is where we're aiming Sometimes this bit is really difficult to describe. It's really difficult to capture But if you can think of three things to focus in on one might be a sector that you're going to work in One might be a way in which you're going to work one might be a technology or an approach to work So those three things can really help you find that center point So bringing it back together you end up with this pyramid building up and then your ambitions So if these are our focuses and this is the way we'll behave and this is why we're doing it What are our big ambitions and there are two here because it's good to have an external ambition and an internal ambition So, you know, how do we want to change the outside world? How do we want to improve things there and what are we going to do there? What's our big ambition and it could could be something massive or it could be something achievable in the next few years and Internally, what's our ambition for our organization for our team or for our project team? What are the ambitions there and then those mount up so that on top you have this core purpose What is the one thing that your organization can be the best in the world? and really really focused on and for your projects Why are you doing this? What is the big? overriding purpose It's really important to have that discussion. This is how we did it for ours Small print, but the slides will be up later on and you can see just how we built up from the bottom And we're actually leaving the top two for now because we're going through a full branding exercise and those we wanted to define Through a process of evolution. We didn't want to just sit in a meeting room and say Yeah, that's what they're going to be. We want to discover them through conversations with clients and so on So that's what we've defined there So that's purpose So you have leadership you have purpose The next you need to allow people to be real people and That in so many organizations is very difficult Particularly if you're in a very large corporate and you're a small project team It can be very difficult to get your team to be real or for you yourself to be real and What does it mean? I mean first of all you've got to be open and frank You've got to be able to raise those problems things that you're unhappy about things you think are wrong You've got to just say what's on your mind. You've also got to be free to be weird I think that's an important part particularly in creative teams It's okay to be a bit weird. It's okay to express yourself and be a bit random And if you look around some healthy organizations, you find some really weird people and they're great. I like the weird people Hopefully they like me being weird too, but it doesn't always and so you then need to get to know each other properly I'll talk a bit more about this in a moment But it's not enough just to you know when you bring a team together or an organization together or recruit someone onto a Team just go. Oh, hi. Yeah, this is Frank. This is Sue tease over there Kitchens there etc etc. That's not enough. You need to get to know each other properly Then you need to appreciate the differences and those differences are vital because a team is You know really is the sum of its parts and you want as many Differences brought to the team as possible diversity is so important and within that equality is good Sameness is bad quality does not equal sameness Okay, equality cause everyone being treated fairly everyone having equal opportunities You should not try and force everyone to be exactly the same And that's not just in terms of their skill set or their clothes or whatever it is It's in terms of the way they express themselves the things that make them happy and unhappy You have to allow that to come through and value that for what it brings to the team Then sharing thoughts and feelings. I know soft stuff, but it's Drupal con It's the being human track. This is vital and too often in the tech industry It's like no just got to get it done. Don't talk about how you feel. Whatever it is Just got to get it done And actually what you can surface here is some really important stuff here when people are feeling a bit unhappy about something It's often a precursor to a bigger problem. That's coming down the line Different people have different gut feels different radars And if they're a bit unhappy if they want to share that that can be really important The success of the project and the success of the organization I remember this thing we talked about the start the culture of listening understanding thinking Forgiveness and learning practice what you preach take that back to your team and just think all the time How can I listen more to what's going on in the team? How can I make sure that I'm understanding different people's viewpoints? How can I I'm gonna take myself away and have some quiet time to think and reflect on that maybe read around it or Try and understand it more and then forgiveness because remember that thing there is no perfection So there'll be times you get really wound up with someone on your team. That is Normal sameness bad And it's it's going it's natural to get annoyed So what you do is you express that and you look for ways that you can come to a forgiveness of each other And make that work and then all the time what can you learn? What can you improve in your team and in the organization? So I want to talk a little bit more about getting to know each other properly and in our team when we first got together One of the first things we did Was to just pair up and have a conversation about what kind of person we are what mattered to us what we liked What we didn't and then we drew each other This is me So I have a beard a small beard. I like to write have the pen and paper and I'm not a morning person So I'm in my dressing gown So that was a brief expression, but it was just a fun way of getting the conversation going But it was the precursor to doing something a little bit more which was a bit of a map of what are our work skills and this is someone else in the team prepared mine and Talking amongst themselves. It's well. What is what's he good at? What's he not so good at how we're going to do use those skills within the team and that's a starting point Just mapping out what are people's strengths and weaknesses and so on what are they good at and what are their specialisms? But I want to take that a bit further And we haven't done it yet But I want to take it further in something called personal mapping and if you Google you can find out lots of other people's personal maps It's a common thing, but it's essentially like a mind map where you get to know somebody through Talking with them and mapping out a mind map of what they're like So, you know talk about their life dreams and goals talk about their work skills interests and goals talk about their leisure and personal interests You know who knows some new recruit comes in and you show them the existing teams Personal maps and get them to map out theirs is one of the first tasks. You go. Oh, right. You like so and so too Are we like this? Why didn't you come and join in with that and you just instantly help people become a more cohesive team What do they love and hate? What's their style of working? You know, there's all sorts of little weird niggles that people have about I hate it when people do this or I love it When people do that and what more can you think of so maybe with your team? One of the takeaways is to go back and think about doing this kind of personal map How could you express yourself and make it so that people can get to know each other? Through talking about their interests and what motivates them and so on because it all adds up towards allowing people to be Real people and that is really important So you got leadership you've got purpose You've got real people on the team who you're allowing to be real people Then you need to set them a bit freer and it's self managing.  I presume, you know, but um The thing is then why do you put so much micromanagement in an organization? Why do you tie their hands with so many rules and forms and whatever else? Why do you make them get permission for even the tiniest of things? set them free Create a culture of self managing and what you'll find is an organization that takes Responsibility team members that take responsibility for supporting each other for looking after each other and it bonds a team together So tightly that they can weather even the largest of problems because they are addressing them together Now how do you do this? Well, first of all, you plan everything together There's not the concept of the leader going and sitting in a darkened room and going right What am I going to tell everyone to do? That just doesn't work. You plan together and you plan very openly Transparency of key information is important because if you're going to expect people to make decisions Like about when they're going to take holiday how much holiday they're going to take what expenses They're going to spend on what conferences to go to what they're going to buy for the team What they're going to buy for the client what they're going to do Etc. Then they need to have the information at their fingertips that you would have as a leader if you were making the same decision That means Opening up the finances the team should know what's going on. How can you make some kind of dashboard available? Means opening up other key data Pipeline things like that. What can you open up about to make your organization very transparent radically transparent? Because that will also bind the team together Then this is often the most difficult one making problems very visible and solving them together It's a very human thing when something's going wrong or There's some kind of big stress in the organization to kind of put it under the carpet and go well I'm sure it'll be right in a month or two.  I bet it just grows that way You have to make problems visible amongst the team and solve them together because you have the power of these multiple brains and Different backgrounds different experiences and you can make the most of that in your organization if you allow it to be free and the team solve problems together and then Put you know take all the decisions that a manager of making an organization How can you make those decisions by peer review instead? Why do you need to manage your ways? Why do you have to wait for someone to be available to get permission for this that or the other? So one of the really powerful things to do is say look for something. That's a really small expense. Just sort it out yourself. It's fine It's absolutely fine. You know just sort it out, but for something bigger talk to any sensible colleague Any sensible colleague and if they approve then that's it because as long as they know the key information They can make key decisions and They have to have that available to them. So peer review is something we find works really well That's also partnered with the buddy system for support and growth. So whenever any anyone joins We buddy them together with somebody and they then Take time on a regular basis every couple of weeks to just talk stuff over How are things going? What have you been working on? What have you learned this week? What's a problem that you're facing and a regular basis and if something comes up? They can talk about it then one-on-one and it's just a very safe place where you can just vent if you need to or Boast if you want to and just have someone who understands you and has worked with you for a while and can make it happen Then another important thing is working out loud If you're going to be a self-managing team Everybody needs to know what everyone else is doing because otherwise you're in the dark So everyone all the time whenever they're starting on you know Do doing a particular feature or issue or something in a meeting whatever? Just be chatting about it in the chat channel Just have one place where people know they can go and find out whatever is going on in the organization Work out loud say what you're working on say when you finish say what's going well and just the maximum communication possible Micro-management kills self-management and teams and So many agencies have got into this Overdoing time tracking and it's a whole different subject, but really agencies shouldn't be selling by the hour these days It's just not a productive way of working, but so many of them have these incredibly Over-the-top time tracking systems where it's in six-minute blocks or it's this or it's 15-minute blocks And you've got all these categories you've got to choose from and so on and it drives people nuts It's it really drives people nuts how can you free them up from that and Still have that relationship with clients and be selling by the days or be selling the value or by the sprints or whatever and Release people from this time tracking burden So that's self-managing and communications is the next thing and I mentioned it briefly there but it's Really really key to consider communications actively Too often in organizations. They kind of happen passively You know, it's just oh, yeah that meeting happen and this will happen and blah blah blah and you don't really think through What your communications are at all and have the principles and you don't make the most of them I know it's all too easy And so in person on on the wall is a really key thing if you are going to get together and this is vital Even for distributed teams. We're a distributed team But we get together for a whole day every two weeks and we just co-work together Sometimes we have a workshop session together whatever it is, but every two weeks. We're together if you're in the same office It's even easier, but you have these kind of sessions where either you're doing a retrospective Or you're doing a planning for the next quarter or whatever it is Do it on the wall make it very visual make it active have people moving around And as well as being very visual for in-person meetings have some core principles What are? Your core principles for meetings You know, are they defined do people know what to do? For us it's things like showing up on time is late Because if you should meetings at four you show up at four then you've got a bit of time getting a laptop open Etc. Etc. Show up in time for the meeting to start at four You can get all the chit-chat out of the way first have a coffee, etc On time is late Then also every meeting has to have someone who's leading it even if it's you know, just a team thing Someone is leading the meeting making sure that there's a structure making sure there's a time box Making sure the meeting is productive Make sure different people are getting their chance for their voices and there's other meeting culture things as well Meeting principles, but what would yours be perhaps you as a team could define What your meeting principles are how are you going to make meetings better for everybody? Because all too often in agencies. I hear people say I've got to go to another meeting.  We meet with clients. We meet with each other That's where we catch up on information. That's where we share things. That's where we make key decisions and we plan Meetings are key to what we do not an annoyance that gets in the way. So make them work In terms of other forms of communication that we've covered in person also virtual meetings Has anyone ever had that Google Hangouts thing of your microphone's not working. Can you hear me? Do you know I can't hear you still try another browser? Everyone has that Skype or hangouts or whatever it is So have the same principles start early get that figured out have everyone have the same headset or Speaker or something like that. What are the things that you can do that will just make virtual meetings work better for you I've even done things where I take an iPad along to a meeting where one person is going to be on a virtual meeting and Put them at the end of the table in an actual place So that people turn speak to them and they can have a person's eye view of the meeting And just think what can you do to make a virtual meeting more productive as well? One of the things we do is because we're a distributed team we put more effort into this But you can do the same in an office too is the tea break culture Maybe it's just an English thing, but we like tea breaks You know, it's good to have a cup of tea and a biscuit and it's a great chance just to Relax with your team relax with your colleagues catch up talk about other stuff And that's where serendipity happens when you've got a couple of people get together and have a cup of tea So we're distributed so or free range as we call it actually It's and we just say in the chat channel. Hey, I'm gonna put the kettle on Does anyone fancy a tea break in five minutes and we just get on for the length of our cup of tea Have a chat and a catch-up and it really helps that team spirit really helps bonding together and On that note chat channels whether it's you know slack hip chat skype whatever you used chat to others Think about how you do it. How can you make it more effective? What are the principles that you're going to do there because having a healthy team that constant day-to-day? Communication is key to it and so do it consciously Mindfully rather than just doing our randomly whatever I feel like Key one for us is eating together We're a company that's all about kind of good food good times getting around a table together But actually it's really important for human beings generally particularly when you're celebrating something or there's a big milestone Whatever it is get together whether it's just lunch or dinner and hey tech industry We could try something other than pizza Revolutionary you know get imaginative and do something nice I've had you know team round to mind cooked dinner that kind of thing So do whatever it is that works for your company and your culture, but get together share a meal talk about stuff And that leads on to this final one appreciating and celebrating It's not just enough to just do the same thing day in day out and you know just on to the next on to the next on to the next You have to take that time to stop Recognize what people are doing appreciate it and actually thank them One of the things that my colleague Joe Baker came up with is you know what these days all that comes through the postbox is bills Wouldn't it be nice every now and then just to get a thank-you card or something? So one of the things that we've started doing ad hoc as no sort of schedule is just when something good happens Just get a card send a card and say thanks And you know how nice it is in the morning to pick that up for the doormat and just go oh Someone actually went to one of those old thoughts old-style postboxes It's better than an email and just think of what you can do for appreciation and celebration So you've got all of those elements leading towards problem-solving Spoiler alert there will always be problems. Remember that thing. I said at the beginning. There's no perfection. There really isn't Even in a team that's worked together well for a long time Problems will come up problems will come up day to day. That is what we do. We are problem solvers So we need to do it within our own teams as well as for the clients. So if there are going to be always problems Why do we tend to wait until they come up and then just randomly go? Oh and generally when it's too late Oh god, we've got to do something about it must have a meeting What you should be thinking about is how can we actively seek out those problems at an early stage? And what are we going to have as a framework for dealing with them? So these are the seven steps and First of all you have to actively gather problems It's not just enough to wait until something comes up as a big problem You have to actually actively gather it And that means perhaps you have regular meetings Maybe you're having retrospectives and you're gathering problems that come up there Maybe you have in your weekly team meeting what problems have we encountered this week and raise those Maybe it comes out of the buddy system and this isn't just problems in the way the team works It can be really small things like you know, we need a better way of You know holding this kind of meeting or you know We find that it's really difficult to get this client to do retrospectives or whatever it is Raise it as a problem then you study it you look into it Well, what might be the root causes of this you dig down into it then you generate multiple ideas Well, how could we address those root causes you select a couple of ideas that look likely you test them You then review those tests and what's worked you adopt as your standard practice across the organization So if you think about this, that's just the agile process, isn't it? You're just working through you're looking at what's going on your planning your testing stuff out You're prototyping and you're learning and then you're adopting it and deploying it to production So that's all part of building towards a pulse and a momentum in the organization Because it's not enough just to have that cycle of projects you also feel that you need to build somewhere And I don't know if you've ever felt in your agency that it just feels like it's that relentless Oh, we've finished this project for this client now We've got to go into this project for this client now. We've got to go into this project for this client But how is the organization developing? How is the team? Developing through that it feels Relentless it feels like you're on a treadmill and you know, where is the end in sight? So if you can have a pulse to your business and that feeling of momentum It can feel like your organization is making more progress and maybe it already is but people just don't recognize But that pulse so one of the things that we take as an approach is we work on a quarterly basis and at the beginning of each Quarter we define what our big rocks are Now as anyone I've seen the talk by Stephen Covey about where he puts different rocks in a jar Don't know if anyone has but what he does he takes a couple of two jars and he's got a pile of big rocks Pile of smaller rocks and a pile of gravel What he shows is that if you start with the gravel all the little small jobs that need doing all the little Bits and pieces and you put that gravel in the jar and then you take the medium-sized rocks and then you put them in the Jar Then you come to put the bigger rocks in and there isn't room Because you know it's all kind of packed compacted together But if you start with the big rocks put those in they all fit in the medium-sized rocks They all fit in and they fall among the big rocks and then the gravel and it pours in amongst all the cracks All the little jobs fit in amongst everything else So if you don't take those big rocks and put them into your planning first For your team or your organization, then they don't happen. They don't get done You don't get that feeling of forward motion of momentum So we start each quarter with the big rocks. What are the you know, we tend to have about three things What are the three things that must happen this quarter to make us feel that our business has momentum and And we make sure those are done in the quarter and we have a monthly review of all of those What actions have been done towards them? What need to be done? What can we schedule in? So that is the pulse It's the quarterly to monthly and then that falls down to a weekly thing We have management Mondays where a couple of us get together and just work through all the smaller tasks So it's big rocks smaller rocks gravel you work through that pulse. What is your organizational pulse? What keeps things ticking? What is that momentum that you can build up to go forward because if a team feels that it has that momentum? It feels like it can do Anything and that is a key thing of a healthy team that feeling of wow together. We can do anything We can overcome any problem and that comes from that feeling of momentum and then that follows on to Continuously improving now you'll know about this from the agile process And I'm sure many of us do it on projects. You have that retrospective Every couple of sprints or maybe you know, maybe if you're good every sprint so many projects don't know and very few agencies do them for themselves When was the last time you've got everybody together and you just did a complete retrospective of how of the last three months gone? What problems have we had? What can we learn from them? When was that time and if it wasn't recently when could you shed let's schedule it for again? Because just like an agile process you want to continually learn from everybody and have everybody feeding in Ideas for improvement feeding in problems that came up and continuously improving the organization Now on this I'd really recommend a book. It's by the founder of Pixar And in it he just it's called creativity ink and in it he describes their notes process in the creative industry There's a lot of delicate people which of course in tech were much much tougher as an industry, aren't we? Okay in work, there's a lot of delicate people all of us are delicate to some degree and so giving feedback and Asking people to improve is tough. It is really tough So Pixar have developed their notes process and principles and if you Google that you can find out a bit more as well But they have a notes day on a regular basis where they get together and do that not just for the films But for the way the organization runs and Having a notes day or a notes afternoon or whatever you can do will really help to continuously improve your organization So these are some of the key points that we've considered there Leadership purpose allowing people to be real people Self-managing set people free communication constantly Problem-solving expect the problems welcome the problems because they are your chance to improve pulse and momentum and then continuously improving I Mentioned earlier this concept of if you want to change the organization Be the change That's really important because there'll be people in this room who aren't the CEO of the organization or aren't the leader of their team But that doesn't mean that you can't bring about change in your team in your organization and steer it towards a healthier approach Everybody in the organization as we discussed here Can move to the center at some point even if they put that hat on themselves quietly and never say I am now a leader They could just get people together for a meet-up What if you started getting people together for a you know better project teams meet up and sharing Experiences and you started filtering out these ideas and other ideas to your organization just through a peer group meet-up It's not you know big serious thing But it's a demonstration of leadership to organize that and bring those people together and seed those ideas in the organization What are the things that you could do in order to make that happen within your team? So step to the center and take on some leadership mantle There's a couple of points. I want to make in general about organizations that lead to unhealthy culture Our people are our greatest asset You hear that said don't you?  You can't do that We are creative organizations that come together and work and we have to realize that this is the way things are now Our organizational team is simply us all of us Choosing to work together for a shared purpose Now we covered this thing of shared purpose I'm a little earlier on but it is absolutely key the there has to be alignment if you go one person saying I want a fancy new house and that's all I care about and other people saying we want to build an organization We want to be part of for a long time Things fail things fall down. You have to get people together for that shared purpose and The choosing word is really important here, too because it's something we have to come to terms with in our industry is That good talent Can move anywhere at the drop of a hat People are choosing to work together And if you don't consider them in what you're doing in your organization If you don't put them at the heart of decisions if you don't work openly transparently collaboratively with them They will choose to do something else and they can That perimeter that I showed around the organization that circle That is not a wall That is not hard solid line It's not a line that cannot be crossed It's a dotted line. It's temporary You've brought people together like magnetism to work on something that they believe in in a way that they believe in They can choose to be there and you can appreciate that or not And if you don't that circle changes shape and teams move elsewhere So that's really important that choosing word and that shared purpose word are absolutely key So in wrapping up what I want to say is there are sprints on Friday and There's a lot of things there that are code traditionally But it's not all code and if we're going to build this kind of shared purpose and healthy teams We ain't need to understand what's going on amongst all teams But we need people there who are interested in the way that teams work and working on those kind of issues How can we bring together people together around stuff? How can we manage core contributions better or module development? So even if you're not a coder there will be things that you can do at these sprints and it's really important to go to those the other thing to mention is There's feedback on the sessions We want to know what you think of all of the sessions you go to it's really important for the Drupal Association to know What to schedule in future years and as this is the first year of this track the being human track We really want to know what do you think of the sessions on this? Is this a useful track? Are you learning things to take away? And if you want to follow us on Twitter We're blogging about a lot of this as well as we have our journey from very small startup We're blogging very transparent in opening and sharing a lot of these tools And I'll share some of these notes and slides as well. So feel free to follow or the blog or on Twitter Now it is half past four. There's 15 minutes left of the session. We have an audience Q&A Mike I can't promise great answers to every question But we can have a discussion and we can see who has the great answers in the room because that's one of the key things That's center person doesn't have all the answers They just create the right structure the right place for the the magic to happen That's the key part of their job So consider me at the center of that circle for now creating the right space not providing all the answers So we have time some questions if you'd like to line up on this microphone here If you have questions you'd like to ask please feel free and we can put them out to the room No, I see Regarding openness and transparency. What's your opinion about sharing wages? What the staff earns and and how much people should should increase on a yearly base or Decisions on that doing together with the staff. What's your opinion about that? That's a great question because it comes down to real deep-seated cultural issues a lot of the time And also different laws in different countries about opening up that data We've chosen to be very open with it and you know my team members know what I'm paid and what each other's paid And we like that openness But we're a relatively small team How it works when you scale up is a more difficult question. I've seen salary certainly be a divisive issue before When it wasn't opened up at the right times So yeah, it can be I think with everything if you try and put a lid on things You know, what's the reason we don't want people to know what what people are paid If your CEO has been paid something that he doesn't want the rest of the company to know about There should probably be alarm bells ringing there But how do you do that because then how do you explain what the journey is up through pay? And one of the things we've really got to solve in our industry is how do you have career progression in very flat Organizations and so you've got to find other ways for people to be earning more and that's through their professional development So they can move on to higher day rates. That's through more specialism through supporting teams in their specialism But very often It's not about moving into management positions or leadership positions because they're not the right people for those all the time So how do you I think it's good to open it up because it then has forces that conversation about how we going to Ensure people's professional development takes them up that pay scale Without cramming them into jobs that they don't want to do and might not be right for If you want to read more widely about this buffer is famous for having blogged about this very openly You know buffer the Twitter sharing app their blog is great If you search for buffer open salaries or something You'll find their blog post and they share everything and what they they have is a formula for the way that salaries are calculated So that it's very open and egalitarian for calculating the stuff But maybe you know you could take first step create that formula which is based on you know We will look at market salaries and we'll wait based on experience and we'll wait based on day rate and so on That can be a key thing One of the key things I talked about sometime is the rule of thirds It's like in restaurants When you buy a meal a third of what you pay for the food goes on actual ingredients a Third is on the people that prepare it and bring it to your table and a third towards goes towards general overheads and profit So that rule of thirds is in the restaurant trade and it's a very you know well known thing But in our industry again You know it's roughly about a third that will go on the salaries a third of people's day rates goes on salaries A third goes into the organization in professional development and all the tools and so on and a third to other overheads and Profit so yeah, you can open up a formula and then maybe that could be a step towards opening up more widely But I tend to be in favor of being pretty open about it Okay, next question Hi, it sounds good with The healthy and diverse team, but doesn't it mean that you have to Say no to talent that you That you can't bring on to the team if you want to maintain the health and you want to maintain the culture even though You're talking about diversity. I mean there's a clash or Yeah, there can be because talent isn't just about what you can do at the keyboard With code or design or report writing or sales pitch writing or whatever Talent is kind of a deeper thing also encompasses your communication skills your ability to work in teams with others and so on and You have to recognize and bring on individuals that are right for that culture in your team And if they're not then you have to have that conversation and it may be that they leave themselves It may be that you have that conversation and you work out ways that they can try and fit in and if not Move them out of the organization. But yeah, you will sometimes have to say no to talent I've had to do it really talented people who perhaps were very very lacking on the communication side And we primarily hire for communication skills. There isn't a member of our team I wouldn't put solo in a meeting with this CEO of an enormous client That's so important to us because that ability to communicate with each other with clients and so on is Makes a real difference. So, yeah You you have to find what is our kind of person, but that is not about their Genetic characteristics or anything. It's not about their background or any of that It's about their skills and they're fit with the culture So you choose on fit with the culture and everybody has an equal opportunity to try and fit him in that culture But okay next question. Would you care to come through to the mic because it's good it's being recorded and Is going to be put out later on so we've been asked to bring everyone up to this mic Well, I could go around Jerry Springer style. I mean that kind of appealed If you don't track times, how do you then see if a project runs over budget? Okay, so If you're using agile then you're working in sprints and you know at the end of each sprint Well, I'd get a different client Unless it's a very small project I mean there are certain small budget projects that it's fine not to use agile file But for larger projects, I mean the UK government published a report yesterday one of their government agencies Has adopted agile and in the last two years have delivered something like I'm trying off the top of my head to think I think it's my eight successful live projects and the previous ten years. They're delivered to that had succeeded And you know, they've just seen this change momentum and transparency and visibility And it doesn't this have to be about all about just scrum Let's not get religious about it, but it's agile principles about openness transparency Collaboration regular, you know check-ins regular planning rather than big planning big delivery big ah Which tended to tip five projects before Okay, but like could you like say an example? You know, I imagine you have a team of five people they all work remote You don't know what they're doing or we have what you see in the sprint board or whatever, right? Yeah, sure You don't know if they spend now four hours on it or eight hours on it and you know And how what is and billing in the end if you want to send a bill you need to somehow say okay We spent X hours on your project and here's your bill So what we do is we work in sprints and people are booked on to sprints when a project's starting It might be sort of 10 two-week sprints or something for a team of five And at the beginning of that project you're agreeing the teams and their presence and so on and at the end of each sprint All it is is person days And so it's a much Looser way if you've got a very short project hourly is probably going to be what you have to do But for anything bigger we encourage this move towards sprint thinking And at the very least person days and all that matters is someone was booked on something It's you know, it's not something where the client suddenly says. Oh, yeah. Yeah marketing department Haven't got the brand guidelines yet.  You can't do that kind of thing because you have a team approach so that kind of Agile process that kind of sprint base really helps you get out of that hourly culture which is punishing for everybody and doesn't deliver real value and you monitor progress instead through the delivery of story points And in fact, there's even a culture. There's a really interesting thread if you look up hash no estimates and Google it as well There's a site that supports the hashtag and there's a really interesting culture round It's a waste of time to estimate at all because you know, it's always wrong, isn't it because we're doing really complex stuff It's almost impossible to know the solution at the beginning the entire solution and how long it'll take So recognize that and just try and get things to roughly the same size and study the number of things that go through the system But if otherwise if they're different size stories You can do rough story pointing and you can then look at the velocity that you deliver through a project And that helps get that team away from that curse of micromanagement and time-tracking. Okay, next question Just one of the if you've got any sort of thoughts or advice for we're a very small company for people. We've just gone distributed and It's working pretty well with the communications or you know Is kind of working well and everything and we're all generally fairly pleased with it one Sort of issue. I'm looking to the future is taking on new members of staff Now we're not we're not a particularly wealthy company. So, you know, we're not gonna be we're not gonna be in a position to sort of hire Venues or anything. So if I was to take on an experienced member of staff I don't think that would be too much of a problem because they might work distributed before, you know You might have a couple face-to-face meetings with them in a cafe and then they're away they go but what about somebody inexperienced or a junior or Are there any anything that I could possibly do? It's a challenge that all distributed teams face In fact, it's even a problem in other organizations because you know, even if you're in the same office people are busy They've got their own jobs to do so bringing in junior staff is something that's often done Very badly in our industry. It's kind of like, oh, here's your induction day. Good. Do this. Good. Do that You know, here's an email and go to lunch with them done That kind of thing and we really need to look at better on boarding for particularly junior staff But if you doing that in a distributed environment, I think the face-to-face time is so valuable to those who are new And young in the industry and so it could be a question of just pairing them up with someone who lives not too far away And maybe that pair could meet up in a cafe two days a week for the first few weeks What can you do there? And also, you know, maybe a few of you could meet up once a month or something and just support them through that And otherwise the next best fallback is have someone just have a daily 15-minute hangout with them How you're doing what you're doing there and checking in with them on chat regularly You just need to be very present very active. So they're not sitting there at home going Nobody's talking to me. What do I do next? I don't want to make a fool of myself by saying something in the chat Oh, what do I do? So you've got to really support them through it because they it will be very stressful for them So do it remotely or in person however you can but do it very mindfully think of what are they thinking now? What might they be worrying about? How can we help them through that? There's no perfect answer. I'm afraid remember that slide with perfection cross out. There you go Thanks for a great session We're a Norwegian company with eight eight nine people and we're looking to grow to the double size within the two three couple of years Could you just elaborate on? Where you were when you started this process and where you're now and where you're going in terms of scaling and how you're gonna Do that? Sure. Yeah, we're pretty young company and would come out of a very difficult situation for the team You know had gone off in different, you know Come from all sorts different directions but decided to link up and So we started and on day one we blogged so you can look at our blog and just think what we were thinking day one And we wrote about that kind of stuff and we're sharing weekly throughout throughout the process So we've got to the stage now where there's seven of us And we work together regularly We're on you know, few of us on different projects and so on so we have to work to actively keep that Cohesion even on such a small team when it's distributed and we're growing not going for huge growth What we're doing is partnering with other agencies to deliver larger projects and the bit that we specialize in is the kind of the Consultancy and the project guidance through a process sort of a program management approach And we support a small team of other agencies to deliver very big projects like that by providing that wrapper That allows them to work with enterprise clients And we're very selective about those partners that we take on so we know they can deliver those projects So we'd rather than growing really big what we're seeking to do is get the best in the industry So rather than be a supermarket we're a group of local independent traders who are owner managed a passionate about what they do have well Trained well supported staff and so on and that's kind of a different approach that we're taking now But yeah, that growth is hard. You'll find that getting into double digits is a really tough phase And then the next thing you'll hit is somewhere around about 30 and we've said We probably don't want to grow beyond about 25 30 people because that's them You know, that makes it easy to just get together regularly and to do things regularly and you know Growing when you're at that level and if you decide not to grow beyond that what you do is you look for the higher value Projects you look for the better clients you get more selective and you put some limit on the organization That's a good thing from agile as well. You've got the concept in Kanban and so on of this work in progress limit And that's really really helpful in delivering projects It's also really really helpful in delivering successful organizations You look for the highest value thing to do all the time the best client to work with you Don't just take on every project you can get to grow bigger And I think it's important to be to think about what direction do you want to go? Do you want to be really big or do you want to be kind of owner managed a real team feeling and consider what the culture is? that you want to maintain But always I favor higher value go for the higher day rates go for the projects that are more fun more exciting Be selective reject most RFPs one of my colleagues yesterday One of our overheard at convivio things was these RFPs were going to need to get a bigger bin Because we're really selective and there's some really bad RFPs out there that we get sent and so on so You've just got when you're small you can afford to be really selective and just take on things that are absolute Remember the three points of focus once you've got that figured out You know you can reject anything that isn't at the triangulation of those and that will define your organization saying no Will define what your team is like and what your organization is like that know is very very powerful Okay, thank you very much for the question. We have reached the end of our time slot. So I'd just like to say thank you very much I'm Steve Parks from convivio. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Thank you very much