No more than 50%. Let's say 75%. Bit harsh. Let's go 80%. No, no, no. I got it. 95%. Because it's basically saying that amazing bar 5%, which isn't too cocky, I would say. 100%. Yeah, yeah, that makes a far more sense. Welcome to shag-tastic, Mr Tenantac. Hello, Piper. Give it to me.  What are you doing? Building. That was over 10 years ago. Are you on the booze? What if I am? Huh? Then what, Mr Physics? I've gotten myself into a dick-duck pit right now. She's so annoying, I just want to die. She keeps talking like a chav. I should probably go. She's saying it's worth it. Yeah, let's go, yeah. Just move on from her.  Milly Piper. I really want to shag how much. That's a show. I thought she'd be cheap. Who shall I go for next? Amelia Pond. I've got just the thing for her. Eggs. Are those things eggs? Really? Am I dead again or something? I'm sat right here.  Just because you're using a Scottish accent doesn't mean I want to date you. Yeah, but... I'm Scottish. Isn't that sexy? Can you stop talking to my wife and or girlfriend and or fiance please? Otherwise...  Look, if you stayed on the show when I came on the block then I would have loved a shag. But you ditched when I came on so absolutely not. But you know you're one Scottish. Ness? Just stop.  Okay, look, I am hotter than Rory the Plastic Dildo. She's just a minute. Oh, but she's just racist against the Scots. But she's not really Scottish. Nah, that's more like it. Oh, I like an older girl, Sarah Jane Smith. Canine, let me introduce you to Canine. Oh, those were the days. Sarah? Oh, Tennant, there was a woman that came by asking for you. It was Mrs. Moore. I don't know if you could help me with something, Ashley. Um, I got my other hand stuck in the sink. Oh, come on! I say, Rory, what is wrong with you? I thought it was a stranger trying to, you know, do inappropriate things to you. So I came running and twatted him over the head. And if it wasn't Tennant, what would you have done next? Oh, well, I would have... Steady on, old girl. Come on! Why does not it want a shag? It's me. Anything for a shag? Hello, Gribbins.  Well, we finished the show. Remember?  Can we sit somewhere like a cafe? Well, I think I need to take something. It's important. No! So what's wrong with you, cheeky sod? I did something, and it went wrong.  Oh, my word, David! But I thought you looked a change like your whole body's. Speaking of bodies...  What? Oh, sorry, I thought that's what you were implying. You miserable old son. All right, wait, wait, I'm lost. So you're dying? No, I was just saying that for the end of time reference. Ah, look, what I'm trying to say is that... I know what it's like to die.  Oh, fuck, it was cold. But I get it. You're suicidal. What? No, Cribbins!  Will you shag me? Yeah. I know where that is. You didn't even hear me, did you? I was daydreaming about the Dalek's shaft in me. I won't miss those days. Go again, though. Physics! Tenet was just saying he wants a shag! So you didn't hear me? Oh, we know. And we're here to tell him a thought. Thank you.


Welcome, everyone, to Simple Secrets to Great Client Relationships. It's such a joy, bigger thrill than I expected to be with you all in person again here in Portland. I'm Lily Berman, and I'm here with a consultancy called Palantir.net. I want to start by presencing how we'll spend the next 50 minutes together. First, we'll briefly have an introduction. You may be wondering who are you to tell me about client relationships, so I'll answer that question. And then the question, why are we here? Which is a bit re-presencing some of the things you might have seen on the conference website that encouraged you to come to this session, but just some kind of grounding truths that I think we all share about the work that we do. And then I'll speak briefly about how the rest of the time will be spent together. We'll spend most of the time digging into Simple Secrets to Great Client Relationships, as promised, when you're starting a relationship throughout the relationship, and especially when things get tough in that relationship. And then we'll close with what's next and save a little time for your questions. So hello, I'm Lily. I spent five years working in nonprofit marketing and fundraising before moving into the Drupal community about six years ago. I spent that time focused on account and project management, which is where I learned a lot of these secrets that I'm about to share with you, but I'm really excited to have just switched paths into being a senior UX and content strategist like I mentioned at Palantir.net. Outside of work, I'm a storyteller and connection builder. That means a lot of things. It's just, I feel like building connection is my purpose in life. And so outside of work as well, this is something that I'm really passionate about developing these skills. So just a little about me. So why are we here? You may think you're alone in these things, you're not. We all share, I think, these three fundamental truths about the work that we do. The first is, it's difficult to work on technical projects with non-technical clients, especially if you're a developer, but even if you're someone like me in the less technical realm of things, we understand a lot more about what's going on than the people that we work with. But they're the ones that have to make these important decisions about how the work is done. They're the ones that get to decide whether our work is good or bad. It's just hard to do. It's not a fault of you or where you work. It's just a truth about our work. I think the second piece is that our work doesn't live in best-case scenarios. We're not bakers who have a recipe for a perfect cake that always looks the same and then there's the cake and it looks the same and it was on time and on budget, especially if you're particularly agile in your organization. Things are changing all the time. What is done even look like. All of that is really hard to wrap our brains around and it's just prime for those difficult conversations of mismanaged expectations and misunderstandings. Then I think the third fundamental truth over our work is that building trust and affinity, which I think are two things that are foundational to great client relationships, are not always built into our process and they're not taught to us. We don't have a class in school about, we may have a class in school easily about writing code or managing projects, but we don't have a class about how you build connections with people and those kind of softer skills, which is part of why I wanted to build this whole session around that idea of teaching those skills. How is this going to work? I'm not going to tell you build affinity and trust by. I want this to be really valuable use of your time. This session won't be all about concrete observations, real stories and examples that you can then apply to your situation because you have a ton of different backgrounds and roles and experience and I don't want this to be valuable for one of you. I want it to be valuable for everyone and then practical and actionable advice. We'll have a series of these kind of secrets or themes and hopefully some of them will resonate with you and you can dig into those and bring that guidance into your work life after this session. Let's get into the meat of it. How do we build great client relationships? First, I recommend that you greet late night. When we are warm to people, we'll often find that they are warm back to us. I recommend that you greet your client like you already know and like them and then leave space for them to shape the conversation. We often find, I don't know if you feel this way, that I'm kind of watching the world like it's a movie, but we aren't. I can see you. You can see me. We're reacting to one another. When we open that space right at the beginning for that affinity to exist, then it will. I have a few examples from Jimmy Fallon and I was really intrigued by him at the start of the pandemic because he was at home zooming to other people who were at home, which is not that different from what I do at work. I was studying him. How does he do this? I'm going to play a few just the introductions and just look at what he's doing when he's saying hello. Maybe this works with the streaming and stuff. Oh, goodness. Yes, we can Google streaming. Okay. Well, other ones at least and see if we can get something going. You know it always works when you're doing the practice, right? Okay. Well, because this isn't working, I'm going to, I'm going to do it for you. So he says, Demi Lovato, hey pal, and she says hi. And he says, this is my only embarrassing, okay, he says Kate Hudson, I love you, it's been forever. How are you? And she's screening him warmly back and Kim Kardashian, same thing, he calls her pal. And he says, where are you? And she wants to talk about how Kylie's done her makeup and they want to talk about makeup. And then he talks to Taraji P. Henson about just sort of same thing, hello. And then she says, he says, you look great in red because her hair is red and he's wearing red and they're talking about red. And for me, it really stood out because they were, he was greeting everyone, like he knew them so well and like he was so excited to talk to them. And person after person after person that he was interviewing on that time, he spoke to them all the same. And I thought, either Jimmy Fallon is friends with every famous person that's ever existed or he just assumes that they're pals and greets them that way and lets them return back to that. And whatever they want to talk about next, he's there. He's there about the red colored hair. He's here about whatever people want to say. So how do you develop this skill? I recommend scheduling a quick happiness boost before a client meeting. I had a particularly challenging client to work with, so I got my team in the conference room five minutes before our call was going to begin so that we could watch 90s music videos. And so we started with Pump Up the Jam. I defy you to be unhappy on a call after watching that music video. It's delightful. And so you can do those little things to really authentically be grounded in what brings you joy so that you are being joyful authentically with that client. You can practice greeting people in the mirror. You may be moving your face in a weird way or doing something about like when you're greeting people. So just look at what you look like or take an opportunity like we are at right now at a conference to just greet different people different ways and see how they react to you. We're supposed to be networking anyway, so that's a great opportunity for that. So we're here to watch talk show interviews on YouTube. People like Jimmy Fallon are extremely practiced at this type of thing and also the fourth thing have a lot of improv training. So even taking an improv class, I think they're fun. Just do that kind of thing where you can practice being ready to adapt to whatever they bring to you next. And these slides will be here later so you can actually watch Jimmy Fallon do it himself instead of me pretend to be him. So the next piece is set and honor boundaries. that we are naturally attuned to do. I think that we think if we're always available, that's how we can build and create these great client relationships. But I think we build better bonds by setting and honoring boundaries that work for us. And I was lucky enough to be taught this secret by a friend who had been consulting for a long time before I even got into this world. He got an email from a client and he said, oh, I'll respond to that tomorrow. And I thought, tomorrow, like you saw it. Why won't you just show them that you care by responding this right away? And he said, if I respond right away, they're going to expect me to respond right away later. And I'm not someone who's always available and I don't want to show them that they can expect that from me all the time. And it just blew my mind because it's like, that's right. If you create that expectation that you're gonna respond to emails every 30 minutes at eight o'clock at night, that one time you don't could damage that client relationship when it wouldn't have if you didn't set that expectation in the first place. So I recommend making clients aware of your collaboration boundaries. This can be as easy as I live in Denver, so I could say, I like to work from 8.30 to five, mountain time, what time do you work in your time zone and open up a space for them to share their boundaries as well and create just sort of a mutual, we have a balance between our work life and our life outside of work that you both get to exist within. I also recommend scheduling non-emergency communication during your work hours. There's lots of great tools, Slack and Gmail, both do that now, and extra bonus, schedule it during their work hours. I live in the middle of the country, people work before me and after me in different places, so if my emails always land in their inbox during their work hours, that's an extra special bonus for them. And I got really into boundaries after I read this book, Essentialism by Greg McEwen. This is really like a side step from this session, it's a digression, but if you're interested in that world, I recommend that book. So now you've sort of set things up, what are you gonna do throughout the relationship? I recommend, I hope this video works because this one's really good, I recommend being their tour guide to their world, to our world rather. So for many clients, the world of Drupal projects is unfamiliar. Consider yourself their Drupal guide and make it your job to keep welcoming and orienting them to our world. I was thinking, oh, how can I show a really great example of a tour guide with this kind of analogy of orienting someone to a Drupal project? And I found this really great college campus tour and the first minute of it in particular, ah, look at this, it's working, okay. The first minute of it, I'm like so excited, okay. The first minute of it in particular is really good. Imagine that these two people are you and the person that they're talking to are your client and then we'll dig into the analogy more on the next slide. International Relations major. And I'm Erica Berry and I'm a senior economics major. Welcome to this tour, Pomona College. We're starting right here in Marston Quad, the beautiful green space at the heart of campus. It's the perfect place to show off our sunny Southern California weather. On warm sunny days, most days that is, you'll see a lot of students out here standing under all of the trees. Sometimes in fact, you'll see an entire class out here on the lawn. And since we're right at the center of campus, it's a great place to get oriented. Just at the edge of the Quad, you'll find Bridges Auditorium. That's where lots of big named speakers and entertainers Performers like Dave Matthews, Larry Wilmore and Taylor Swift. And on the other side of the Quad, we have our Carnegie building, one of many academic buildings in this part of campus. Look north and you'll find Smith Campus Center, the center of a lot of our social life. Beyond that lies North Campus where a lot of juniors and seniors live and past that lies the rest of the Paramount undergraduate colleges. So what did they do? That was so great. Let's dig into it a little further. Unless you know otherwise, assume your client is doing everything for the first time. So they're not saying, welcome back to the Quad. You know, they're assuming it's your first time on that campus. Maybe you don't even know what the weather is there. They're really welcoming you at the beginning. And even if your client has done Drupal projects before and they're such an expert, it's not something that they do every day. So their version of expert is probably different than ours. And there's also probably someone on their team that appreciates that more entry-level basic orientation. Then what they did really well was starting with what's immediately applicable and then zooming out. So that Quad is like, here we are in the kickoff meeting, right? And look around, these are the discovery things. And then as they zoom out, they're just telling you like over there that side of campus is where these types of things happen. And so that helps it not be too disorienting and overwhelming if you don't have, tell all the details about the QA phase, right? When you're at the start of the project. They use visuals really well. So I think that's really, I'm a visual learner myself. So when you're explaining something, that's such a great opportunity to show those diagrams and show orient people to where they are. Always translate jargon. I actually gave a whole conference session about that. I can link to you, but there's so much jargon that people in our industry don't even know is jargon. Like field was my big example. I had no idea what that was when I first started working in Drupal. And so even the, that what we consider the basics are really fresh and new to these people who aren't familiar. In-person tour guides of YouTube tour guide is different, but in-person, you'll find a tour guide leaves you space to ask questions. They're gonna show you this room and then they're gonna say any questions about this room before they move you to the next room. And if you've ever been on a tour and just had this question you had to ask, it's going to distract you and take you away from the tour. So do the same thing. Tell people, here's this first piece and give them space to think and ask questions. And to develop this skill and also because it's really fun, take a tour or watch a few online and think about what they're doing and how you can apply that to your work of being a Drupal tour guide. The next piece is be curious about their world. So maybe not such a secret, but something to really keep in mind as you're building that trust and affinity that your client inhabits a world that's unfamiliar to you and your interest in their world will help you build trust and a better project outcome. You're gonna start to see some slack screenshots because I wanted to give you some real examples to look at and this was the most tangible way for me to do it. So I had a client who has been anonymized who was having a baby and she thought, she was thinking, I asked her, what names are you thinking? And she said, we're thinking about Max. And so I brought it back up a few weeks later, did you settle on Max or are you still pondering? And she chose Max and there's a custom Giffy which are so fun to make of this little otter and how cute Max is. And she put a heart emoji. So not only did I ask her what her baby name was, I remembered it and I brought it back up again which is not news for building trust and affinity in the world but something I think we could remember more in our work lives to build trust and affinity with our clients. So ask your client questions and remember details. If you're not someone who remembers details easily, keep a note stock. You can say client A, person A, person B, person C and when they say, you say, how was your weekend? Oh, we went on a walk with our dog. Person A has a dog, that kind of thing. It's just really easy to keep those details top of mind when you return to the next conversation with them and use that doc or your memory to follow up on what you learn.   Do you wanna take a minute? And you're just sort of in their world curious about what's going on with them. And then these kind of quick wins to understand what's going on with their work life is setting up a Google alert if they work at a larger organization. If they're smaller, you could subscribe to their newsletter. For the, during the pandemic, I was working with a lot of nonprofits that were hosting virtual fundraisers. So I attended those and I talked to them about what I learned. So there's a lot you can do about being, getting into their world. The next piece is tangential but related. Let them be the expert. It's so easy for us to fall into this. I'm the Drupal expert. I know about your website, teacher and expert role and lose the ability to keep finding opportunities to learn from your client. And when they share their knowledge with you, make sure that you're honoring it with the respect it deserves. This is a random picture from Unsplash, but just a reminder for me to tell you this story that when I first started in Drupal, I started as a project coordinator. And this woman was hired to join my team and she was going to be the senior project manager and I was going to be supporting her on her projects. And so I immediately fell into this role of you're the teacher, you're the expert, I'm here to support you, I'm here to learn from you. And almost at the very first day, she said to me, I've never worked in Drupal before. How do you do this? How do you log into the site? How do you queue these tickets? And it immediately gave me this opportunity to learn from her, or her to learn from me. And I thought that that was an accident, but when we got to know each other and become closer friend colleagues, she said that was absolutely intentional and that whenever she mentors someone, she finds as quick as possible of an opportunity to learn from them so that it can become this mutual relationship. And I think this is so true for our clients as well. So whenever they put you in that role of I'm here to learn from you, I'm here to learn from you, you're just as much there to learn from them. They know so much more about their organization, for instance, than you do. So how do you develop this skill? I think one thing is to speak in your client's language.   Just sort of come into their world and use their jargon as much as you can. When they share insights, be openly interested. And sort of how do you communicate interest? Active listening so you can say, oh, you said that you are out for a conference next week. What is your conference about? What are you learning? Have you been before? Just ask them those ask questions and speak that back to them.  Just brainstorm for five minutes. What would be something interesting to learn from your client? It could be what kind of industry are they in? What city do they live in? Or something like that. And just have that list for yourself and plan those occasions to keep learning from them. This doesn't have to take a ton of time, but having that mutual relationship, I can tell you from personal experience, makes it a lot more comfortable to be with that expert and let them guide you along their path. The next piece is, the next secret is to connect beyond your role. When I first became kind of this work at a nine to five sort of professional type person, I thought that I had to be this neutral automaton of someone who was just always poised and always on topic and always efficient. And I think that that's a delusion. And I think people care, people build connections with people, not with sort of this perfect professional. So I recommend that you share aspects of your life outside of your work with your client. It will give them an opening to share aspects of their life with you. And then the more that you're connected as people, the stronger your relationship will be. So here are some more anonymized slack examples where I told a client that I was visiting family in Atlanta. So they said, are you getting to spend time with your niece? I said I was. I said, do you want to see this cute video of my niece? Cause I'm really proud of her. She is super cute singing to her. And so we had that connection and then that client shared more about their life with me. Or in the second example, I was visiting not far from here, if you're from Portland, the most amazing Airbnb, which is I think like two hours away from here. And the client was in the Northwest as well. So I shared the Airbnb with them. I shared this camping picture from Keep Lookout, which is also really close to here. And just had those real connection moments with them. So how do you develop this skill? Prepare a specific and concise anecdote to share about your weekend or whatever those questions you always get asked. Some teams say, oh, what are you going to do this weekend? What did you do last weekend? Those sort of things are a real opportunity for connection that I think get lost in these, oh, you know, stuff. How about you kind of, I think wasted responses. So if you're not comfortable kind of being open about your life, you can prepare on the side something that you are comfortable about sharing and it feels professional to you. Especially if you work remotely, just tell your client where you are if you're away from home. If your background is different. I live in Denver, which is a high desert. I was in Atlanta, which has really tall trees. And so I just said, hey, I'm in Atlanta visiting my family. That's why my background is different. So again, not crossing a professional boundary, but making you more of a whole round human. If you have the opportunity to meet your client for coffee, you can do so in person or you can also meet up with them in a virtual setting. If you're a developer on a team who works with clients that have a developer on their team, have a 15 minute social call where you talk about things that aren't code so that again, you can build that shared trust and affinity for when you need to work together on the actual project that you're working on. And then that sort of jokingly phrase, but slide into your clients, Slack DMs, there's a lot easier to be authentic and vulnerable one-on-one than it is in a group setting and just occasionally ask them some non-work questions. I put this article in here from the Muse to get you to give you some inspiration. The next piece is to make it fun. This is my personality, so there will be one later that says be authentic, but just know that, and you know this from your life outside of work, that we all gravitate toward people who are fun to be around and you have the opportunity to bring levity and play into your interactions with your client. And again, the anti-automaton professional person, it's a lot people drawn toward and want to spend time with people who are fun. So there's an example of a Slack chain where I said like, uh, I'm in Meeting City, how does Friday look? It's not the way that I would write a formal email, right? But even later on it said, I said that it's always nice to have fun meetings on Fridays, positioning that to them, even though what we were doing is talking about contracts, which is not a fun topic, we can set it up to make it a fun situation. Or that right example is just another small one of where my Google Calendar wasn't talking to their Outlook Calendar and so they had two identical meetings from me, so which one is the real meeting? It was called Client Name and Lily, so I put an exclamation point next to one of them and I said, the one that you keep is Client Name and Lily, exclamation point and so they deleted the other one and then at the end I said, we just need to decide if we're gonna keep our exclamation point and we kept it, cause why not, right? So then from there on, it was Client Name and Lily, exclamation point on our Google Calendars. So how do you develop this skill? Smile and joke when appropriate. I'm someone who loves a bad dad joke pun and so if I think of one, I will say it in a client meeting but when obviously not in a situation where something bad is happening, but day to day, I aim to smile, I aim to be laughing and joking with them because that's a great way to make them want to come to these meetings with you. Within reason, disclaimer, talk to your client like you talk to your friends. So it's, in that previous example, both of those things are something that are true and authentic to me and that's a great way to make it feel less formal with them and then it's really a quick one is to just use emojis or an informal communication style, especially somewhere like Slack. Emojis can show tone where a written word just doesn't have that same. You think that your tone is coming through and it's not so potentially rife with miscommunication. So emojis are great for that as well. Be authentic. We've been coming toward this one but I think it deserves to have its own space. We can all sense when people are being fake and it's one of the fastest ways to damage trust. So make sure to stay genuine in all of your client interactions. I'm gonna keep with the Jimmy Fallon example since we already started talking about him although we didn't get to see him talk but I thought this interview was really interesting commentary on what you would have seen earlier if you were able to see them. He said, I feel like the show is kind of perfect for me because I get to talk and have conversations and meet people. I'm a fan of pop. I love music. I love art. I love movies, TV, all that stuff. So I think, I haven't talked to him directly but he is excited to talk to all those people, right? He is excited to spend time with them and learn about their worlds and so I think that it is authentic what he's sharing. But more so what I wanted, why I wanted to share this example is Doc Shepard who is a podcaster. He has this podcast armchair expert. He's also an actor. But he's really interesting study of authenticity because he for instance relapsed in his substance abuse and had a whole podcast episode about that relapse. So he's sort of like very grounded in the way that he speaks to people in what's authentic to him. So he said, and listen, imagine that you're getting this compliment about the thing that you're really proud of about who you are, how it would feel for someone to say, of all of the comedians I've known, so few literally do it because they just love playing. I see in you this insatiable desire to play at all times which is so lovely by the way. It's why you're such a great performer. I can see that you're having fun and it's contagious. It's a gift and I'm glad you've always embraced it. Like wow, that's what he said back to what Debbie Fallon said. So really interesting models of authenticity. How do we build this? I think we can model authenticity by giving honest answers to again those questions that you're asked all the time like how are you in front of your client? It's so easy to just say I'm good, how are you good? And just waste a couple of words and move on with the conversation. But if you say something like, today's been a little tough but I think it's going to get better or I've had a great day. The sun is shining in Denver. How about you? Those sort of things it can be, it doesn't have to be exactly the whole truth about everything that you're going through but be a little more open and being authentic. I recommend speaking the why behind your actions and your perspectives with your client. So even things like, I think sometimes we just give them this perfect polished outcome but even saying I tried this thing and then I tried this thing and then this is why the solution is going to work best for you. Just sort of behind the scenes sharing, sharing your perspective can be really valuable. And then like Jimmy, like I guess Zach Shepard tell your client when you notice a contribution they've made and be specific about how that's impacted you. So even things like, this feedback was due Friday and you gave it to me Wednesday, thanks. Doesn't land the same way as, you gave that feedback to me two days early which meant that I got to do this, start this next piece sooner and now I feel really good much better about this timeline than I felt about this timeline that was already good and I feel so great about that. Thank you so much for doing that. So it just lands so much deeper when we tell people the why behind it. Then the next piece here is the disclaimer that we also have to adapt. So we have our authentic way of being, we have it all set up the way that really resonates for us and that works for us but the more we'll learn about our client the more that we'll learn about their collaboration style. And if there's a big gap between your styles and theirs it's possible that you need to adapt and meet them closer to where they are. I don't know if these videos will work. These are political examples because these are two people that Jimmy Fallon interviewed in March of 2020 not because of any particular leanings but I wanted to show you, I'm gonna see if this one will work. They're here to talk about kind of a dark subject so think about the difference between, hey pal, thanks so much for coming on the show which was what you would have heard if the other videos worked and... Senator Harris, thank you so much for being on the Tonight Show and coming back to us. I know these are very difficult times and you're very, very busy right now so I really, really appreciate this. Thank you, thank you so much for this. Thank you for coming. So there's no pal, I love ya, like how's the kids? It's very somber because it was appropriate for that moment so again with the Jimmy Fallon example we have our authentic ways of being but sometimes we need to adapt. And how do you know when? Well, I think the first thing is it's really important to avoid making assumptions about your new client before you meet them. You may be working with a law firm and everybody's wearing blazers and they look so put together but that doesn't mean that they don't wanna have fun and they don't want your normal, maybe more informal style if that's the way you work. So I say go in full authentic you and then notice how your client reacts. If there's any friction or negativity with the way they're reacting to your approach that's the time to start considering adapting. And I recommend the way you do that is to notice how they tend to collaborate so you have your ways of being, they have their ways of being. Begin to sort of study and notice that and then brainstorm solutions that work for you that can address any of that friction or negativity and then in that kind of experiment or scientific way try them out one by one and see where you all can meet in the middle. So now what do we do when things get tough? And it could be that you're already in a situation where things are already tough and you say great Lily it would have been great if I knew to be Jimmy Fallon 10 months ago but now we're in a really tricky situation with this client. What do we do? I think that this is valuable whether you have a strong relationship or whether it's potentially already weak or strained. Tell the truth. This is another one that I don't think we do all the time. We want to make things sound better than they are. We want to find a reason that's gonna be really palatable to a client but I think even when it's uncomfortable even when it's not what they want to hear tell your clients the truth and you'll be surprised by how much grace you're given when you can prove that you can be counted on for your honesty. So here's another random unsplash image to prompt another story. I was in a situation where I owned the client relationship and I asked my team do we have enough budget to finish design within the budget? And they said yes. And so I told the client we have enough budget to finish the design and budget. Great news. And then I went back to the team and they said oh, what we meant was we have enough budget to finish the things that we've already started but we can't finish design phase without doing all of this extra work. And it's gonna be thousands and thousands of dollars more for the client. And I was in a really uncomfortable position because I felt like I was being caught in a lie where I told them one thing because that's what I believed to be true but it wasn't true. So I was dreading this conversation and I get with the client and I say I told you that we were gonna be able to finish design and budget and it's not the case. We're gonna need X thousand more dollars to finish. There was a miscommunication within our team and I want you to know that I can be counted on to tell you the truth and that's what I thought to be true at the time. We'll figure this out. I have a couple options for you but I wanna give you some space to tell me how you're feeling. And this was kind of my one-on-one call with them and I was just bracing for the impact. Like they're going to be pissed but their response wasn't so gracious. They said, oh, it's fine, we get it. They were just on my side from the beginning. They found the extra budget, we moved on and the relationship stayed even more solid I think than if we hadn't have hit that bump. So how do you develop the skill? Commit to always telling your client the truth in parentheses but it doesn't have to be the whole truth. So I didn't say, X person on the team told me this and Y person on the team told me that and this is why I didn't get into the behind the scenes of it. I didn't throw anyone under the bus. If something's late because of five reasons you can tell your client one of those five reasons that maybe feels the most palatable but just make yourself someone and I think I would argue in life that just is someone who is telling the truth and people know that the words coming out of your mouth are true. I think it's incredibly more valuable than anything we get from kind of fibbing and stretching. The other thing is I modeled in that story but voice your inner monologue when you're delivering difficult news to your client. So if you don't want to be having a difficult conversation with them, tell them that. If you want to be someone that can be counted on for the truth, tell them that. I think we think a lot of times that people can hear what's in our head, this inner monologue that's in our head and they can't unless you tell them out loud. So that's something I think if you take one thing from the session and if you walk away and you forget everything else, tell the truth is the thing that I would leave you with. But the next piece I think is important too is to stay on your client's side. So it can be so tempting especially when they're not in the room to develop this us versus them mentality. Like this client is so ex. They always do why this, they become this kind of monster in the corner when they're not in the room because they're not there to give their perspective. So if you ever find that happening on your team, I recommend just standing squarely on your client's side. You can even say I'm being the client advocate, that's the role I'm playing. So if they were here, I think they would say something like this but it's so valuable to bring some much needed empathy and perspective to the situation. So how do you practice this? Try saying things to your clients like I can see how given this happened, you might feel this way. You're not saying that they're right.  If you really don't get their perspective, then this next bullet is for you. If you practice seeing things from your client's perspective and if you don't get it, ask them to share more. So they say, I really want this button to be blue and it's like, okay, I get that. Tell me more, I wanna really understand why you want this button to be blue. Oh, well, I went to this other website and it was really great and the button was blue. Oh, okay, that's really interesting. What else do you like about that website? Like, you're just getting in their world and keep asking questions until you understand it. They will feel heard and appreciate and acknowledge that you want to understand their perspective and then you also get to understand their perspective. So it's a bit of a win-win. This one also has a further reading side note book called Nonviolent Communication which is a really interesting world of communication which is tangential to this talk. So that's there for further investigation should you seek to do so. So what's next? We've gone through quite a few different secrets and ideas and examples throughout the lifecycle of a client relationship. I recommend studying connection. So we all have these ways that we're seeing people connect to one another all the time like going on a tour or watching a late night host or listening to a podcast. But if you really look at it and listen to it through the lens of how do I build better relationships with people that I'm working with or people in the world, it will really help you build these skills in ways that work for you. These are just a lot of things that I've noticed by the things that I see in my life but I'm sure there's other examples that will resonate with you as well in your world. And then I recommend practice and then practicing again and then practicing some more and just trying different things until they feel authentic. So it could be that you try one of these examples and it doesn't work for you. Try another one and it doesn't work. Just keep kind of going through and treat it more as a playful experiment than kind of this serious have to get it right the first time. You can also keep in touch and continue the conversation. I put my email address in my LinkedIn. After the session I'll hang out at our booth for a little while and I'm a great person to practice saying hello to if you like no stakes at all. So come by and say hi and continue the conversation but I've also saved some time here for some questions. So thank you so much for your time everyone. I appreciate it. Oh that's so hard. So the question just for the recording is in a bit of a tense situation with clients and the kind of salutation high has been removed from the email chains and it feels like it could be a bit of a dig but maybe it's not. I'm a really transparent person. I would tell them. I would get on a call especially if there's one person in particular or if there's someone on your team who has that role. I would just say hey I noticed that we stopped having salutations in the emails. I'm just curious why you know and just give that an opening. It could be that they are like it could be any number of things. I think I'm the worst too about coming up with all these situations in my head which is why I would just ask because everyone's different you know there's no I think there's no universal rule about how we draft those. But thank you for the question. Anybody else have a question? That's a great question. So just voicing it back around training and building this sort of connection oriented work personality a little more with people who don't necessarily lean that way. I think that practice is sort of a practice rounds the same way that you might practice a session before you give it at DrupalCon. I would recommend practicing difficult conversations with clients or saying hello to clients and sort of being their sounding board and being really generous with your feedback but also honest. So if you do a practice round and they are not coming across as very warm to you I would say that it doesn't feel that warm and what can we do in a way that's authentic to them. So that's what I would do is kind of be that sounding board especially if you are the more kind of naturally extroverted person on the team. Does that answer? Okay. Great. We have a couple of minutes. I tend to talk fast when I'm giving sessions. So thank you. You have a question? That's interesting. So the question was about being more casual with clients and what if you work in a place that's a little more buttoned up. I haven't encountered that situation which is nice but I think too there's sort of like what we do in these formal spaces like in a meeting room where the executives in the room and then there's how we are with people one-on-one and I would lean a little more informal in those spaces even if it was more buttoned up and I think that in my experience it just is so great for the client relationship and for the organization that I wouldn't imagine someone kind of coming at you for that. There's those spaces for informality often when you're speaking and it's not even in writing is a great space for that too. I think I saw a question over here. Yeah. Yeah so the question is about on-site meetings it's sort of we have this ability to connect virtually but is it I guess is it better to connect on-site? Is it still worth it? Was that kind of the question? I think it is one. I think it is at least once. So I think you can really strategically go and meet a client in person at the very beginning of a client relationship and make sure that you're getting some non-work FaceTime with them like go to dinner, those sort of things and in my experience that's held out through a whole relationship. I've never been at an agency where all of our clients were in person or we flew out a bunch of times to see them but even that one time can really solidify that but it's not needed obviously as we found out through the pandemic. Yeah. We have a couple more minutes if anyone else. Okay go ahead. Yeah. So how do you navigate the five minute early meeting? I set a separate meeting. So yeah it's just a meeting for the team and you can even call it like prep for X meeting so if people aren't in the room they don't know that what you're doing is watching a music video together. So yeah you can be sneaky about it. Yeah that's a really great question. So the question is what are some sort of the opposite simple secrets to bad client relationships I guess? Some common mistakes. I mean some of them are referenced in the talk so I think people aim to be professional and polished. They practice a bunch of times. They you know if they're giving a presentation to a client they're writing everything out and they're just reading all what they say so that kind of over-practiced I think is one I think when people I think bend over backwards for clients I think not having any boundaries and you're just sort of this like bending to their whim they don't really feel like they get to know you and you're not doing what works for you and I think kind of that inauthenticity piece that's the other one. So copying what other people are doing. So this is all sort of things that work for me in the way that I work but kind of to your point in question it wouldn't necessarily work for someone who has a different personality type. So if someone says oh Lily has great client relationship she says like hey girl at the start and they say that and it just sounds super inauthentic for their personality I think that's another big one that doesn't work and lying. I mean we think it doesn't feel like it's a big deal like oh this thing is late we're gonna tell them that we had this big emergency and that's why it's late and it doesn't feel like it's something that's you know as Cardinal Sin or whatever is lying but I think that it really does break down that connection whether they ever find out or not. So because we know we know that we lied to them so I think those are probably the big ones and it's not new that's all kind of similar to what I was saying so hopefully that felt like a valuable answer. Yeah sure can you speak to how to say no is the next question. I think I mean I just say no like that's the thing I think when they know that I think we have these ways of sort of making everything shiny and beautiful when it's not shiny and beautiful and if they know that when things are shiny you're gonna tell me they're shiny when they're not shiny you're gonna tell me they're not and when they wanna for instance I'm just gonna say they wanna add a new feature in before launch I'll just say I really wish that we could do that for you but unfortunately we're not going to be able to. We would love to see what works for the next phase or something. So I would give a little bit like voicing you're in a monologue is a good way to say no and I think having an alternative option that is not saying yes to something you can't say yes but also isn't just sort of putting a dot at the end of that sentence and moving on. Yeah, yeah that's great. I wanna summarize that for the recording so really and let me know if I'm inaccurately summarizing but there's this mutual respect that exists in a great client relationship and so sometimes saying no is honoring that respect and creating space for for instance if it's a task your team can't do finding another partner for them to do it or something like that. We have time for one more question is there I wanna honor your question unless there's someone who hasn't asked a question who really wants to. Going once, going twice. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, I love that. I'm just gonna super quick voice that back for the recording and so it's really like sometimes you apologize but then clients don't want to apologize and it's hard to kind of get that mutuality but saying you know today you tomorrow me and just creating this mutual grace with them. Does that honor your comment? Okay, thank you so much everyone. I really appreciate you being here. Have a great rest of day for coming. Thank you.


Hey, welcome back everybody and from the break we had a good time Got some water coffee tea Okay Thank you. Thank you. Welcome back Right. So let's just continue from where we left off, right? the act of worship that a woman Displayed was this beautiful It's just a beautiful beautiful act of worship, which will be remembered through the ages to come as well Okay So now when we just let's take a look at the notes page 25 in our notes There's a few pointers there's Says worshipers are givers Okay, worshipers are givers the expensive perfume cost about a year's wages that represented women's entire savings And we spoke about that right And then the second point is Brokenness and tears are true key elements in worship The woman's weeping was an outward manifestation of a heart that was deeply stirred before the Lord right deeply stood before the Lord which We don't know how badly she was weeping It just is weeping so we can we can either imagine that just a few tears rolling down Or she must have just been wailing and groaning You know As she was as she was doing this is crying uncontrollably Right. I'm not sure if anyone of has you know If you've been in a place where you've actually weaped or cried out without any control Right when we've lost some of our loved ones You've seen people, you know this cry and weep out of control, isn't it? So I am imagining that it's not just a gentle tear that's coming, you know, or we say crocodile tears That's not that's not what's happening there I'd like to imagine that she's just wailing her heart out a pouring her heart out, you know, it's crying Weeping, so that's what's happening there and The third point in our notes is The Greek word Proscunio means to kiss the hand towards that's another word for worship right proscunio means to kiss the hand towards to to Reverence or you're paying a homage by kissing the hand to bow to one cell to bow one's self in adoration so That that's another scene that is happening there is that this woman is just pouring out her adoration and all her devotion on Jesus and Point four there and the act of worship may attract attention or defamation from others When David danced before the Lord Mikhail despised him in her heart, you know that True worship sometimes will invoke the criticism of the spiritually barren But real worshipers are willing to pay the price Okay, we learned this in chapter one Of the course is that if we are not the recipient of worship It's not up to us to judge A person who is worshiping at whatever capacity that they are worshiping in Right if we are not the recipients so we shouldn't be You know judging others act of worship. So let let it be what they do is what it is I'm actually reminded of this Incredible story of a very well-known preacher and if I name that preacher you we will all probably know him He was at a conference, you know and towards the end people were getting prayed and one of the women got prayed and She was Laughing out of joy uncontrollably like laughing for a long time Right and then he thought to himself this preacher thought to himself. Okay. She is a little weird and crazy you know and And so this is person next to the preacher she leans towards the preacher and she tells him Do you know that she was a prostitute for 27 years today's the day she got delivered and free I mean a Very good reason for us to not judge another person's worship would be we we we don't know the battles every individual is facing We will never know isn't it? We will never know the battle the other person is fighting What not we will never know what most of the times what the other person is celebrating for Right, so we need to be careful with that a man It's a true worship may attract attention or deformation just like what she did She did not care like, you know, she walked right past through the group of people But her eyes was on the one thing Right. That was Jesus. She was she only cared about him She did not she could not care less about anybody else whose house it was Pharisees house, you know, no, she put her reputation on the line like she did not have any reputation Her reputation was negative But she put all all all down surrendered everything and she just went for it She just went for it because she saw that Jesus was worth it. Amen Finally in page 25 at the bottom The disciples had much head knowledge about worship Having sat at the feet of Jesus for so long, but it took a sinful woman who did not know the theology To emulate being a worshipper before those disciples Spiritual maturity does not exempt one from being a worshiper. Okay, I think we need to read that line again Spiritual maturity does not exempt one from being a worshiper In truth, there should be a greater responsibility on the elders and spiritually mature To worship the Lord and to be examples of worship to others Pastors and church leaders must respond to their divine duty of leading the saints to responsiveness in worship by setting an example By setting an example, amen This is one strange thing that happened just now Alexa responded Excuse me guys, this is very embarrassing. What do I do with that? No, Alexa just responded to me if you're laughing Oh Boy This is like only the second time that's happened. Okay And both the time it's happened when I was sharing And most of the time it doesn't recognize what I say it gives me wrong answers Oh dear what a way to conclude this series session up, okay, okay, let's just move on I hope everybody could take away something from the chapter, right? And just as a footnote, okay, if we were talking about rehab and Tamar Did you know the rehab is mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11 the chapter of faith. She's considered to be One of the heroes of faith That's amazing Please be careful not to put any personal tomatoes during this time. Yes, Divya I will not. Yeah, I don't put any reminders also Okay Imagine I did that personal reminders, of course Okay Awesome, okay Good. Hey, are you learning something? I hope that there's something that you could take away from the last session. Yeah Yes, everybody doing all right Thank you. Thank you Isaac. All right, yes. So now let's move on to the next chapter chapter 7 It is but if we just we do that does anybody have any questions or Does there anything that you want to share? There are no questions will go on. All right Chapter 7 I'm page 26 in your notes is all about Talks about entering the presence of God Okay, entering the presence of God It starts off we're saying the different manifest different manifestations of the presence of God point one being God is omnipresent His presence is everywhere all the time You know Matthew 1820 says we're two or three. I gathered he his name. He is there Okay, that is the only presence And then in point three the second Chronicles 5 chapter 13 and 14 talks about the cloud of glory Filling Solomon's temple and the singers and the musicians lift to their hearts in praise. Okay So when we talk about the presence of God, what is the first thing what what is the one of the most important thing that Comes to your mind when we talk about the presence of God. What does the presence of God mean to you? Come on guys. I'm coming down on that. Okay Holy Spirit. Yeah, all strange stuff has to happen today. Okay, I haven't coming down to earth It's a privilege to be in his presence, right? Yeah presence of God when we say that what does it mean to you? But that that is the question. What is the first thing that comes to your mind? Can I share? Yes, Divya.  Yeah, so That's I can't even comprehend the depth of his love To do that to just be mindful of my Nitty gritty, you know details of life. Yeah Thank you. Thanks, Divya Yeah, Rosalind anybody else subwoo Priya. What do you think about? What's the first thing that stands out when you think about the presence of God? Nikki, Dripika anybody John Anything else besides heaven coming down to earth? It's a good no I think as Divya was mentioning, it's it's more like Facility where we get to meet with the king of kings and When we call upon his name, he comes down with his power By all his grace not even considering What has happened in our life, but he manifests in his power And this has we discussed before with While heaven coming down to earth like with all the angels worshipping him the experience that we Get to realize when we see the face of God Yeah Thanks, John. Thank you Anybody else Hey Priya shares when I think about God's presence, it's me pouring myself to him. It's tears for me So the totally says communion with him. Okay presence of God is where we become one with God right, yeah, and I think I mean I I It's very dangerous for us as Christians to become very overly familiar with terms like this, isn't it? I Mean we use it all the time, you know, even if you're leading worship or in churches, you know His presence is your let's welcome the presence of God in our midst I mean we are seeing the truth, you know And we say that with all honesty and you know, genuineness But what I'm only trying to say is that it's we have to be very careful because we use that phrase so often in in, you know, a In our Christian circle, isn't it? You know, his presence is here. Let's welcome the presence of the Lord And there's so many songs about his presence Etc. Etc. But you know, I mean we just want to take things slow and just look at those words Individually when we look at the presence just the presence It's it simply means it That something is present Something or someone it's present. It's it's there with us, right in in your presence, right? It's there and now when we look at the presence of God It needs to add some weight, isn't it? That means the maker of the universe Right the Alpha and the Omega The father of lights the ancient of days from everlasting to everlasting. He is God Right I mean you see Read in Isaiah. He says okay. Look up to the heavens. Who created all of these The one who just parted the Red Sea with the blast of his nostrils The one who sustains the universe Isaiah again says in the span of his hands like about there the entire universe Is like right there he is present Right, uh, and one of the first example there in point one is God is omnipresence means his presence is everywhere all the time It's a classic. It's so easy for us to understand in this context because we are all Uh from different places. We started off today's session by you know, I was asking a couple of them Where are they from? Uh, you know, which town which city are they from? So we are we are connecting on this call from different places geographically physically And to know that he is there He is with you right there It's amazing, isn't it that he's present So he is omnipresent But then there are times where he manifests.  I mean if he was at home We would behave differently if he was not at home. We would behave differently Okay, how many of you guys have been there? Okay uh So when he was at home, even though we were in our room and he was in a different room Yeah We know that he's present his presence is there And then so if we make some noise or whatever, you know, do something that we were not supposed to do It's a very different feeling when he shows himself up in our room Isn't it then, you know, we are in trouble types Uh, you know, it's it's a similar situation. Uh, we're wherever we are, you know, for let's say we are in a cafe, you know, uh, you know A very well known person, you know, a celebrity whoever right who's in the same cafe Who's having a coffee in a different table, but you also happen to be there having coffee So, you know, the presence is that you are aware of the person's presence But the atmosphere changes when that person or that celebrity walks towards you and stands in front of you and says like, hey How are you? isn't it right so And And as the scripture says right in second chronicles 5 13 like in the as it's mentioned in the notes It says the cloud of glory This filling soloments temple right the cloud of glory. So that was simply means the shakana glory, which means the weight There's a weightiness to his presence. That's very Tangible, right? It's a cloud of heaviness of weight that would come and fill so Um, and so we need to understand this, isn't it? So he's present everywhere and there are times that he shows himself And towards the end of this session, hopefully Uh, we'll put across, uh, you know One key at least and how we can walk in the manifest presence of god in our lives Okay, um, let's move on. Um, the second point there talks about our approach towards this god's presence Now how do we approach this presence of god? Uh, you know, this mighty one this lofty one the holy one of israel, uh, there there's We need to approach you the reverence, isn't it? So and that's what the points there states Okay, we approach the presence of god and can either be through praise Or through worship, okay just to share some of the scriptures that's mentioned there for us is Some 100 verse 4 it says enter his gates with thanksgiving And his courts with praise enter his gates approach, right? Some 95 verse 2 Says let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with the song of praise Some 42 verse 4 says These things I remember as I pour out my soul How I would go with the strong and lead them in procession to the house of god with glad shouts and songs of praise And multitude keeping festival And uh, let's look at uh, uh, isiah chapter 30 isiah chapter 30 was 29 Isiah chapter 30 We've wasted in the chat section. I'll do that Yes, thank you for sharing that in the scripture Isaiah 30 29 says you shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept and gladness of heart As when one set out sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the lord To the rock of israel And finally this is one last quote And finally is one last scripture isiah 3510 says and the ransomed of the lord shall return and come to zion with singing Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads They shall obtain gladness with and joy and sorrow and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Okay, so those are just some of the key scriptures not the only ones some of the script scriptures talking about entering his Presence approaching the presence of god with praise with song which shouts of joy with with gladness right with with musical instruments We enter his kids with thanksgiving and his courts with praise man And the other one as mentioned is through worship First chronicles 16 29 it says Ascribe to the lord the glory due his name Bring an offering Okay, bring an offering and come before him Worship the lord in the splendor of his holiness Okay, bring an offering and come before him Uh in the previous chapter chapter 6 we read about i mean we learned about the difference between spiritual worship and fleshly worship And under spiritual worship. We see that god has called us to be his royal priesthood Isn't it? Yes, um, I hope I'm not going too fast, but In under spiritual worship. We learned that god calls us his royal priesthood now One of the important things that we need to know is that the priests Never went before god empty-handed They never went before him empty-handed And so no as we are called his royal priesthood. We need to know that we are ministers We are ministering unto the lord in his presence And now of course we don't have an offering what we go before him is with everything that we have with our hearts completely surrendered to him So we cannot go into his presence with uh, you know without offering without willing to offer up our hearts and so in surrender To him And then other scriptures.  Therefore, let your words be few Okay One one more scripture and we will kind of move on Let's uh, this one last scripture guys. I'm sorry for reading a lot of scriptures. Uh sam 132 verse 7 Sam 132 verse 7 it says let us go to his dwelling place Let us worship at his footstool Okay, let us work.  That's where god lives. That's where he dwells, right? So our approach to god's presence can either be through praise and through worship And so we've learned in detail about you know praise and worship in chapters Two three four and five right um So that goes on to say in the notes that there is uh, No Formula there is no right or wrong way It's only god's way, right? It may be different every time A worship leader must have a deeper prayer life and must cultivate Sensitivity to the spirit of god in order to discern the way of god for each service Okay, and I think that point just kind of highlights uh about us becoming over familiar with the way god works Right, okay. This is how we moved yesterday. So that's how he's going to move today Right, uh, and if you remember one of the definitions of worship, I'm not worship. We started off was Uh, but this person who says every definition is dangerous. Um, and you know Putting worship into a box is dangerous and you know putting god inside a box is very very dangerous saying This is how he will move You know every sunday or every day In uh in our lives it can be very tricky. So being sensitive to the spirit of god leaning in to listen Right leaning into listen to what he has to say um Is very important. So you know our prayers should be If we are leading worship or in general Let me say what you want me to say. Let me sing what you want me to sing. Let me speak what you want me to speak right is would be a good reminder of you know for For us to be on the right track Okay, so I hope you guys are with me so far um And then the third section of this chapter goes on to say the responsibility of ministering unto the lord is the responsibility of every worshipper Right a responsibility of ministering unto the lord is a responsibility of every worshipper. Why because we are all Uh, we are all a royal priesthood now. Okay. It's not just your pastor. Uh, you know your worship leader or your worship pastor Who is a priest and who is called to uh, you know who he's not some high priest He's the only one who has access to the presence of the lord to the throne of grace now It's all of us. We are his royal priesthood. Therefore It is all of our responsibility as well to minister unto the lord that was The priest had two primary responsibilities. His first primary priority was to minister unto him minister unto the lord And the second priority was to minister unto the people So our first priority as priests is to minister unto the lord first develop that communion With him that intimacy with him And out of the abundance of that your ministry towards people should flow Amen, uh, so we prepare ourselves for worship with prayer with word and confession We invest energy, uh, we we need to be self-motivated in our praise and worship Sam 103 says bless the lord. Oh my soul a intrinsic motivation as they call it We worship despite distractions. We worship all week long Um, so that is a call of a worshiper and it's so much in line with us developing uh, living becoming a worshiper right Um, another reminder from the second point of the third section. It says we prepare ourselves with worship with prayer word and confession It's interesting that it doesn't talk about Guitars or drums or learning the songs, uh, you know It says prayer You prepare for worship with prayer word and confession And um, you know the word of god is so important Yes or no Right, uh, you know in this day and age in this generation. Um, as I've mentioned, you know The topic and the subject of worship Uh has become so popular. Uh, you know, you don't really need to There's so much of teaching on worship rightly so and You know the people the the percentage of people telling that i'm passionate about worship Than prayer has increased in the last 15 to 20 years and And I want to just remind us of the importance of the word of god. Okay David as we all know was a passionate worshiper and if We cannot talk about worship on the subject of worship and not talk about david, isn't it? and so, um, you know and in second samuel I can I am not sure if I've shared this with you, but if I have please forgive me So in second samuel chapter six We see, uh, you know david is now Uh, you know the king of israel and juda right? He's He's been he's been anointed as king sol is gone. David defeats the philistines And in second samuel chapter six We see one of the first thing that david does Is to go and bring the ark of the covenant back into israel What he's doing is he's going to you know Bring the presence of god because the ark of the covenant was a symbol that the presence of god was with israel Right now david is fully passionate now. He is the king now He's fully passionate about bringing the presence of god Back into israel and he's doing the right thing He's just very passionate, but we all know what happens in second samuel chapter six Uh verse six it says When they when they came to the threshing floor of nekon Usa reached out and took hold of the ark of god because the oxen stumbled Right, so it tells us that the ark of the covenant was placed on a cart Are you guys with me? Yes, no maybe Okay, good. Thank you It's the oxen stumbled and uza kind of reached out and he dies. Okay the actual word there is he exploded I'm sorry. I'm laughing but But why am I trying to point this out is So david has become king Okay, he's a passionate worshiper. He has full passion for the presence of god And as a worshiper and he wants to bring the presence of god back into israel now Approximately about 400 and 430 years prior to this Okay, god tells something in the book of deuteronomy. Okay, please go with me to the book of deuteronomy in chapter 17 Deuteronomy chapter 17 Okay, tell me when you're there So it's important Okay, deuteronomy chapter 17 Okay, awesome I'm going to read for us from verse 14. Okay, just bear with me deuteronomy chapter 17 verse 14 onwards Once again, remember, this is about 400. Let's say 400 years before second Samuel chapter 6 Okay, it says when you enter the land the lord your god is giving you And have taken possession of it and settled in it and you say Let us set a king over us Like all the nations around us so The word of knowledge that god is giving prophetic is it's amazing. I mean he's god. He knows everything But to give something this instruction like this. He knew That 400 years from now that israel is going to ask a king. So he says when you will ask a king Okay, he's not say you might or you know says you say Let us set a king Over us like all the nations around us Be sure to appoint over you the king the lord your god chooses Okay, here we go. He must be from among your own brothers Do not place a foreigner over you one who is not One who is not a brother israelite that king Moreover must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to egypt to get more of them For the lord has told you you are not to go back You're not to go back that way again Verse 17 He must not take many wives For his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold verse 18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom He is he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law Taken from that of the priests who are levites It is to be with him and he is to read it all the days of his life So that he may learn to river the lord his god and follow carefully all the words of this law and the and these decrees And not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in israel Okay, so god is instructing Is giving us this command saying that okay when you eventually get a king. This is what the king is supposed to do I mean apart from having Dwellery gold and wives and whatnot one of the key thing god tells us the king Is to make a copy of the law that is the word Of god and keep with him And he is to read it Day and night meditate on it and more sometimes even read it in the prayer Read it in the presence of the priests Now something tells me that david did not do that Had he done that he would know from the law that it the ark of the covenant was supposed to be carried by The levites Isn't it And then david learns that from you know after you know, he goes back after uza dies He's angry with himself. He's angry that this happened and then he goes back and he learns he reads the word He studies the word and says okay the ark of the god of the covenant was not supposed to be care Put on an oxen or a cart. It's supposed to be carried by men who are levites who are from the tribe of levites And so this is just to emphasize the importance of just word of god if david had done that Maybe uza would have been alive You know, he didn't have to die the responsibility of a king royalty And now in the new covenant we are royal priesthood But that comes the importance of us Giving importance to the word of god as well. Isn't it guys? We can't just say, you know I'm passionate about worship worship worship. Oh, I love worship. I love worship. I love worship. I love worship And not say I don't like the word of god Amen, and so let the story of david be an important, uh, you know Remember reminder for us that in in this journey of worship as you go as we become worshiper We cannot forget the word of god Man your love for his word has to keep increasing And finally in this chapter it ends at the bottom with the sacrifice of praise And he grew starting 15 we've looked at that verse Many times talks about the fruit of your lips which is the sacrifice of praise and First peter chapter two verse five again, you know talks about how Uh, we are brought in to the royal priesthood of priest Through jesus christ Okay, uh, can we just uh Are you guys okay to read a couple more scriptures? Oh, you're all okay There's too many scriptures for today Yeah, I would I mean I just want to encourage and go back home and read the scriptures that's mentioned in the sacrifice of praise there, right? And so all of this is in subject of this chapter that's talking about entering the presence of god Right and the last section is talking about the sacrifice of praise Right, so there is a sacrifice that's involved in worship and in praise And uh And I'm just setting the tone before we go into the next chapter Where we will talk about the tabernacle of moses Before A first sacrifice was made right before any sacrifice was made. There's a scripture that says Uh, obedience Is better than sacrifice Isn't it Obedience is better than sacrifice And so one of the first thing that god accepted Expected of a mankind was obedience You know, uh, we see in genesis chapter two. Um, genesis chapter two I think Verse 11, I think I'm finding hard to okay Genesis chapter two someone was it says the lord commanded them not to eat They can eat from every other fruit except for that certain fruit And then coming down to a chapter three verse 11 We see that who told you that you were naked Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from So there is obedience associated with the law the commandment of the lord Right and then in the same chapter When we come genesis chapter three, I'm sorry and genesis chapter three was 21 it says The lord god made garments of skin For adam and his wife, uh and clothed them So god made his own first sacrifice And out of which we made to the skin and clothed them So before sacrifice, what was expected was obedience Right and and that is And it was And that was the only difference Between them adam and eve being in paradise and not being in paradise. I mean paradise as in the garden of union. That's the reference and so uh Okay, uh, I promise just one last scripture. Okay Let's go to exodus chapter 40 apologize guys Exodus chapter 40 Okay, I'm not going to read the entire scripture entire chapter Okay, that chapter starts off by saying Then the lord said to moses Okay, the lord said to moses and there's a set of instruction Look at let's go to verse 16 Okay, exodus 40 verse 16 It says moses did everything just as the lord commanded him Are you with me? Moses did everything just as the lord commanded him. Let's come down to verse 19 Then he spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering over the tent as the lord commanded him verse 20 A 21. I'm sorry verse 20. It says he took the testimony and placed it in the ark Verse 21 the last part it says as the lord commanded him and so If you read that chapter all the way down till Verse 33 All the way down till verse 33. It says moses did everything as the lord commanded him. That means moses obeyed Everything what the lord commanded him to do just as we saw in the garden of Eden first got got commanded them not to eat from the fruit And then they break that obi, you know They break that commandment and hence sacrifice comes in and but then looking at this chapter It says moses did everything that the lord commanded and then verse 34 pay attention Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the lord filled the tabernacle The manifestation of his presence Is happening in that place and so I want us to I want to leave us with this one thought today Uh Entering the presence of god beyond the sacrifice anything that you can we can offer and bring before him When we walk in obedience You will walk in the manifest presence of god All our lives Amen so I want to encourage us all with that word And leave us with that word today Thank you all for being very patient Um, let's just pray and we look close. Okay Father we thank you For this time. We thank you for this opportunity that you've given us to learn from your word Holy spirit. I pray that your everything that we heard will bear fruit in our lives Help us to be extravagant worshipers. Jesus. Holy spirit. Help us to see the worth the worthiness of Jesus And thank you for everything you are doing in our lives in Jesus name. I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen Amen guys. Thank you. I'll stop the recording now Thank you everybody for joining in