Believe it or not, some of the most insightful modern philosophers were in the Navy on submarines. Those guys really know how to think deeply. I'm going to describe a fairly typical start to my workday. Let me know if any part of it seems familiar. I go to my desk, flip on my computer, and notice after it boots that I have an email sent late last night, something critical that requires my feedback so another team can move forward with a project. I start searching through some documentation to answer the question and my Microsoft Teams icon blinks in the corner of my screen with a message from a coworker wishing me good morning and asking if she can go ahead and order the parts I left in the McMaster car shopping cart. I type a quick response and go back to my search, just as another email chimes in my inbox. It's a company-wide reminder to enroll on the 401k plan by the end of the month. Nothing urgent, I'll look at it later. I find the relevant document and, as I wait for it to open, Teams blinks again with a confirmation from my coworker. While I'm reading and thinking about how to answer the email, my boss taps me on the shoulder to confirm that I saw it. This turns into a quick discussion about how the project is going and what sort of resources I might need to move forward. By the time the conversation is finished, I have three more emails, four more Teams messages, and I forgot to start reading the document from the beginning, trying to pick up my train of thought where it left off. Even if we discount the many engineered distractions lurking on our smartphones, many jobs involve a fair amount of interruption and distraction, just as a matter of course. The way most of us work is intensely collaborative, with many different channels for communication and synchronization, a structure that demands vigilance, responsiveness, and continuous prioritization, attention to and weighing of various signals and messages to determine which can be safely ignored, at least for the moment, and which require immediate action. If you ask computer scientist and productivity blogger Cal Newport, we don't bounce from slack to stand-up meeting to SMS because it's the best way to ensure the most fruitful application of labor. Quite the opposite. For Newport, the most important and productive work that happens in an office occurs in a state of intense, unbroken concentration. The frame of mind you might use to solve a particularly sticky math problem, or wrap your head around a challenging work of art, the sort of cognitive effort that would be spoiled if something were to distract you. Newport argues that, rather than leaning harder and harder into the frantic and insistent hive mind that characterizes modern office jobs, we should find a way to cultivate more of that state, what he calls deep work. Because as inconvenient as it might be for the work culture that we've grown accustomed to, it produces better results, both in terms of productive output, and individual satisfaction with one's work. He's collected a wide array of anecdotes about individuals whose adoption of deliberately slow-paced habits has resulted in profound creative or intellectual output, citing those cases as evidence of the power we might be leaving untapped with a frenetic hashtag rise and grind approach to productivity. Take Jun He, a mathematician at Princeton who has recently awarded the prestigious fields medal for his work in combinatorics. He says that he can only manage about three to four hours of focused mental effort a day. He splits those hours between writing lecture notes scheduling out his calendar and solving problems that have been impenetrable to the world's most brilliant mathematicians for more than 40 years. If you were to drop Ha into a standard 8-5 office job, it seems likely his three-hour timer would be exhausted rapidly by back-to-back meetings and urgent emails. Not to mention that being mostly useless for five hours out of his standard workday would probably single him out for a stern talking to by his manager. For anyone who works like Ha, a few hours of solitary concentrated effort per day might have the potential to wrench a field forward by a few decades. But there's no real place for that style of labor in a standard workplace, which suggests that we may be leaving an enormous well of Ha-shaped fields medal-worthy deep work totally untapped. Newport also cites a number of psychological studies that seem to support the idea that deep work might be the most effective way of applying cognitive effort to a given problem. For example, Sophie Leroy's research into the phenomenon of attention residue suggests that switching from one cognitive task to another is never a clean process. Some amount of brain power appears to lag behind the conscious effort to change contexts, remaining dedicated to the prior task, and leaving us a little less horsepower to focus on the new one. That sort of psychology seems to lend itself well to a single block of undistracted time, not so well to the distraction-rich multi-tasking environment of a modern office job. With all these hints at the untapped benefits of focused cognitive labor, you might wonder why we work the way we do. Is there any particular reason we don't see many companies encouraging their employees to be unreachable for some part of the day? Newport suggests that the way we currently structure work is mostly a historical accident. Nobody sat down and said, how should we assign tasks and communicate with each other to be most productive? I know. Let's bug each other constantly whenever we need anything. He posits that the emergence of the hive mind workplace was a path of least resistance thing. After all, deliberately developing systems and tools to minimize interruption of focused work takes time, effort, and a lot of experimentation. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of feedback loops between individuals and teams. For better or worse, email was a useful crutch that kind of got the job done for a price. Newport cites IBM's first foray into email in the 1980s. The nerds designed an email server to replace all internal phone calls and handwritten memos, and built it with enough capacity to handle that volume of information. Unfortunately, the first day it was active, the system collapsed because the rate of internal communication had increased by five times over that initial value. The hive mind work structure had evolved, and nobody was safe. Anyone with a huge number next to their inbox icon can attest that, on average, the ease with which email can be sent drastically overshadows its value in being read, and if Newport is to be believed, even that microsecond of stolen attention from an email notification is enough to interrupt immensely valuable focused work. He doesn't think email is the sole problem. It's just emblematic of the many myopic shortcomings we find in the workplace when it comes to deep work. The more general principle here should be familiar to anyone who's heard of Good Heart's Law. The most obvious proxies for useful work have become targets of behavior, leading to perversely unproductive norms that preclude any sort of deep work. For example, the speed of a reply is often taken as a proxy for how attentive or on the ball someone is. There's an assumption that substantial lag time between messages is the result of some oversight, or maybe even callous disregard. The pressure to be responsive incentivizes short surface level off-the-cuff responses. Nothing that would require thinking long and hard about the question, or wondering if there might be more meaningful and valuable responses that can't be formulated in a short window. Busyness is another good example. Concentrated cognitive effort very rarely looks like a flurry of bustling activity. Often it appears as a distinct lack of activity, or maybe some aimless task, like doodling or spinning in a chair. If you took a snapshot of a standard office, you probably wouldn't see anyone fiddling with a Rubik's Cube, or sitting with their feet kicked up, staring off into space. Contemplation is mostly invisible, and its value can be hard to quantify, so employers who are worried about employees slacking off may opt to dispel any appearance of idleness, just in case, as well as any potential of deep work. For Newport, it's easy to understand why we've adopted these sorts of norms. At least in a historical sense. He calls it the principle of least resistance. If it's not painfully obvious how a bad policy might affect a company's bottom line, if you don't have a discrete dollar amount of what's being wasted in comparison to some other system, companies will default to whatever process requires the least effort to implement, regardless of how much they might benefit in the long run from trying different approaches and seeing what works best. Emails were a rough-and-ready solution to synchronizing efforts across teams that didn't require any real foresight or planning to achieve that goal, so that's what we all ended up with. Without any regard for the damage constant email notifications might be doing to valuable focused work. Internal chat applications like Slack were attractive because they were a quicker and easier way to do the same thing, but that just meant that we could interrupt each other even more frequently with even less effort. Again, none of this was irrational in the moment. We needed a way to do a thing, we stumbled onto an answer, and we implemented it. But writ large, considering the potential value of deep work, we might have shot ourselves in the foot by failing to think of something better. Newport's observations suggest that, perhaps, if we really wanted to maximize our productivity and generate the greatest possible advances in fields where an ounce of insight is worth several tons of busy work, we should try to pry ourselves away from the buzzing hive mind model and adopt workplace practices that facilitate that state of deep contemplation. Maybe, instead of simply expecting people to be available at the drop of a hat, we could invest a little more energy in scheduling periods where we're available for questions, and more importantly, when we're not. Instead of casually CC'ing everyone tangentially involved with the project to make sure that they're in the loop, maybe we could use email more judiciously, picking and choosing exactly what sort of messages really need to be in someone's inbox and which would be less disruptive as scheduled phone calls or weekly summaries. Instead of looking for hustle and grindset in a fast-paced open plan office, maybe we should give people a little more space to reflect, daydream and think carefully about their work. And this probably goes without saying, but maybe we should collect every single server that's running some part of Twitter and drop them all into a volcano. Do you think Newport's theory of deep work rings true? Are you also considering adding an hour of isolated thinking time to your day? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to bubble, subscribe, and share. And don't stop thunking.


Okay, everyone welcome back Let's continue from where we left in your PDFs. We are at the bottom of page 33 page 51 for you guys in hard copy So we've just finished talking about vision and being a strong leader quite intensively Let's move on to the next section. It talks about a strong church a local church is a church where? There's a balance on emphasis on the word of God and on the spirit of God, okay, doctrine Okay, we are strengthened by the word and by the work of the Holy Spirit Acts chapter 20 was 32 acts 2032 Apostle Paul he writes the word of God builds us up Right.  You know from the foundations of it to the plan to the structure to the cement to the materials that you would choose to use Everything you would want to be you know the best like the strong irons You know iron bars and all of that you would want to have the best and so that's exactly the language That's being used here is that the word of God builds you Now it nurtures you it nourishes you it it you are growing it allows you to grow, right? It it creates a capacity in you in you to grow spiritually as well So that's what the word of God does and the Holy Spirit He strengthens us can someone read Ephesians chapter 3 verse 16 Or I'll read it for us Efficiencies chapter 3 verse 16 so it says that according to the riches of his glory, sorry, I'm okay So according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened By the power through his spirit in your inner being Okay strengthened with power through his spirit In your inner being You think about act chapter 2 on act chapter 1 when Jesus says you will when the Holy Spirit comes you will receive Yeah So he is power the spirit of God. He is raw power. I Heard Reynard Bonke. You heard a Reynard Bonke. He gives this a very simple example of a car Vehicle having power steering and manual steering. How many of you drive? Okay, so so how many of you know the difference between a manual steering and a power steering? Okay, so okay, basically Way back so Have you seen laury drivers when they're turning a truck they put on big those It's very heavy, you know because you need all your strength like I drove a manual nano Tata nano, you know, it was hard for me to turn the nano with the manual steering Because it's heavy you're feeling the weight of the vehicle the car imagine laury And then you see power steering All these Volvo buses and all sits and like, you know, just one finger, you know, it's like Make it look like it's a P.  It's a struggle We toil and sweat and whatnot, but Holy Spirit comes into the picture and he says okay Hey, hey, let me help you, you know, he comes and be you know, he's the wind in our sails He just pushes us, you know, either the everything that what we have to do So that's what efficiency 16 set talks about and let's actually read one more scripture Which we are very very familiar with it in efficiency 518 Efficiency 518 we all know this verse. It says do not be drunk with wine for that is debauchery But we filled with the Holy Spirit, right? We filled with the spirit So most of us Christians we follow the first commandment very very well first part of the commandments do not get drunk Holy Holy What about the second part of the commandment, right?  So that's what it's talking about a church that has a balanced teaching a good doctrine on the word of God and the spirit of God because there are churches there are What do I say? Certain streams of Christianity that emphasizes only on the one thing and forgets the other it's both ways Right, so we don't need to go into that So some of and as we do that there are five areas focus areas that gets strengthened or needs to be strengthened in any local church It's in the notes that the first thing talks about is evangelism Evangelism discipleship prayer and worship fellowship and equipping for ministry. Okay evangelism Going to all the world Right share the good news baptizing them bringing them in okay, so Evangelism has to be more than okay, what comes to your mind when you talk about evangelism What are the some of the different ways and how you evangelize? Sorry Giving the good news. Yeah, okay, so what have what are some of the methods you've seen? being used for this Thing called evangelism one-to-one, okay Right one-to-one. Yeah tracks. You don't see that nowadays much isn't it? Yeah Hmm straight evangelism Okay So one-to-one tracks straight evangelism evangelism crusades Which used to happen so much. We don't see that happening a lot nowadays evangelism crusades. It was huge, isn't it? and Then so yeah, we are in a time and age We were where we cannot just limit ourselves to these things, you know that used to happen Okay, street evangelism tracks And whatnot so before joining a PC. I was part of this organization called Christian vision Yes, he is that was a branch of it. That's you sometimes you would see me wearing a t-shirt called. Yes. He is so We had an app called. Yes. He is and The motto of the that organization or that ring of the organization was to Do evangelism but online? And so we had that app where we and we would create videos That you know like anything the Christian values and whatnot and at the end of it So the difference between a video on YouTube and the video on our app if this app was for Christians to share their faith It's like, you know, if you know someone who's struggling with anxiety or whatever different challenges we will make That idea of videos We will share it to them They will watch it the difference is at the end of that video. There's a prompt Would you like to get in touch with the team and talk more about it? And then the end goal was the end goal was to connect that person to a church a local church from wherever They are calling and so like that we've had people from all across India Connect right to us who would have watched the video who've gone through so many different things from people from every different background And then we were able to connect them to a local church from where they were calling So you think about evangelism We don't think about None of the answers was about online, but online evangelism is pretty huge now, isn't it? So you start thinking about different ways I know a friend who started a coffee shop and he started hiring all these, you know people Who could not afford, you know with great qualities of life and then he would train them how to make coffee And whatnot and in that process he would share with them About Jesus and all of you see there are so many different ways when you lean into God's heart He gives you strategy and he gives you a vision, right? How you can evangelize. So, you know Guess God is the same yesterday today and forever The principle remains the same, but the methods change and so for us to be updated It's very important You know to learn more about evangelism different ways to evangelize. It's very important because that's how your church will grow as well Isn't it? So one of the words in the first two words it says in that evangelism part It says we equip God's people equip is very important Because most of the times it's very simple for me to say all right Go and evangelize today. How? Where? What? Why? When? You see that all those philosophical journalistic questions will come into play, right? And so you equip them That's why we have a lifestyle evangelism That teaches us how to evangelize isn't it? So that's what is it doing? It's equipping us how to evangelize right so evangelism is important discipleship is crucial Discipleship was huge in during the time of Jesus's era in Galilee this This method of discipleship was born in this place called Galilee And no wonder Jesus made it his like you know headquarters for his ministry base, you know So discipleship was pretty The goal of a disciple was simple is that He would look exactly like his rabbi at the end of the course You can't be a disciple forever. There was a certain period of time, right? So again just a brief background a cultural background is In the Jewish system if you're a kid you will be put into Bible college at the age of two It starts from there two or three by the time you are eight, you know the entire Old Testament by heart It's called the Tanakh Not just the Torah Torah is the first five books It's Tanakh is a Tanakh is a mixture of Torah It's poetry and also the prophets So it's yeah, it's the whole of Old Testament. They know it by heart By the age of eight or nine Yeah, it's it's a Jewish thing Okay to everybody it's it's the first thing what they do is they join and I forget the Hebrew name for it It's so here's the thing. So once they graduate from that level, that's the first level or whatever, you know The next thing is the student has a choice that is One is to follow in the profession of the family So the family could have be a fisherman it could be you whatever of those days They could continue to follow into their family's profession or if they could afford They can go and approach a decide a rabbi and say can I be your disciple for the studies and Then the rabbi would gauge and think and and you know do an interview and then decide Okay, yeah, you're worthy to become my disciple. You can follow along with me. Did you hear what just said? Disciple would go to rabbi and say can I be your disciple? What did Jesus do? It's beautiful what Jesus did, right? And so the end of it is the goal is for us in our context in New Covenant is That we would look like Jesus that we would do, you know that we would sound like how he would sound that we would portray we would We use the word represent isn't it? It's simply being a re it's a representing right represent Jesus to the world in our in our Christ like character conduct and service We teach people how to live what I've got in everyday life, etc. Okay Pray and worship of course fellowship And then equipping for ministry Okay equipping for ministry. I want us to look at Let's go to Ephesians chapter 4. Please Okay, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 onwards and read it for us okay Efficient for verse 11 it says and he gave The Apostles the prophets the evangelists the shepherds and teachers. I'm reading from ESV. Okay He gave Apostles prophets evangelists shepherds or pastors or teachers Why in verse 12? To equip the saints Right to God's people for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. Okay See the progression of it. He gave all of these five-fold ministry To equip the saints that is us the people of God. Why so that the people of God will do the work of the ministry So what is happening? Everybody thinks the work of the ministry is responsibility of the pastors teachers Apostles Our responsibility is to equip the saints That's the mind of So equipping of ministry is very crucial and so it's it's a pretty big culture at least here in APC is Like, you know, there's a huge focus on equipping the church Why we do subjects like healing and deliverance and we keep emphasizing that everybody can do everybody can do Everybody can do and not just the pastors and you know, you know is for this sake Is that they would do the work of the ministry we equip them you go to the work of the ministry That's why this five-fold ministry has been given isn't it? So that's so all of these five-fold five different Areas that strengthens the local church or makes a strong church more stronger. Okay The next part is preparing for pulpit ministry Again, don't forget the title of this chapter. What makes a local church strong and so Part of that is talking about the pulpit ministry That means a person who's standing behind the pulpit and giving the word of God or whatever is being happening from the pulpit ministry Is not taken lightly Right you look at that opportunity you might not necessarily have a pulpit in front of you Okay, but you look at that opportunity as God given it's not some 30 40 minutes. Okay. I this is the next another Sunday thing It's a routine now. I'm just gonna you know speak out of inspiration with our preparation And then take a vacation, you know, so All right, so each opportunity that we have to stand behind the pulpit to minister God's word Must be done with the definite purpose and So some of the areas that pastor Arshish has put down and that what he focuses in how to The topics that he likes to cover in a year, which I'll share in just a second He focuses on these three areas, which is Christian life Which talks about teaching people how to live in the Christian life I for example developing in disciplines in prayer reading God's word walk of faith Etc and life skills teaching people how to live God's word in daily life situations Those are life skills and ministry Teaching people how to minister and serve others etc. So these are and then the topics can vary But it focuses our its birth or born out of these three main areas. Okay So, let me just share a screen This is just an insight Into the sound plan, can you all see that you can see now? Okay, all right, I forgot not all of you are online. Okay, you can see Okay, cool. Okay, I gave you Yeah, right. So that is the Sermon plan initial sermon plan that pastor put for the entire year. This is the pulpit plan, right? So he shares it with me so I can work on the worship team roster and plan the songs accordingly But you know in the notes if you see in Isaiah 46 and it says he knows the end from the beginning So, you know, you seek God not just for one Sunday sermon You seek God for the entire year See what he you know all the topics that he wants to give and if you go through this entire Plan or the sermon plan you will see all the three areas being You know addressed in a one-year sermon plan All of you are looking at this right? I if you wanted I'll share this plan with you later Yeah Yeah Yes. Now again, he's so he's the plan is here, right? No, he's moved around a few things like for example in the month of August We did a different series up. We are doing the series on Thessalonians this month Right. So he but you know an overall plan is there And then you can be flexible to move things around and whatnot. So taking pulpit ministry seriously That's what it is It keeps a strong Local church makes a strong local church and another thing what you all mentioned is And that this you know what talk about the pulpit ministry actually challenged me We had to plan for youth youth ministry You know is I had to have all the subject different topics for you I am very different, okay I deal life one day at a time Okay like Yeah, because tomorrow has its own troubles. Why you know I'm like that sometimes You know one Sunday at a time, okay maximum one month at a time Two months is beyond me One year is Yeah, I need like, you know Someone has to lay hands on me and Impart some wisdom and all so but they're challenged And what he said is true. You isn't it so but when you look at it in a year, how many Sundays are there? 53 54 Right and he said something that actually, you know made it look very different from a different perspective He said I have only 52 Sundays the where I can act 52 times like, you know, it's where I can actually impart something to equip my congregation All right, it's not one entire year when you look at it as a one big year 365 days It looks big, but when you bring it down to just 52 days And 52 days and one not it's not 52 days not 24 hours. I just have one now And so maybe 52 hours and that's very less Isn't it to What you want to accomplish everything in one year So, yeah, having a strong pulpit plan ministry is very important essential Yeah, yeah, so I have always had the flexibility to change things because so Yeah You know, I might or I can just make a list of all the topics that I want to cover And then, you know put it and then but you're leaning on God's guidance for every season Right and suddenly something might stand out. Okay. I feel like doing this Topic now because I feel like that's what God's doing in the season So let's do this and that's always happened. So and you and you also have to be flexible Can't be too rigid about it Yes Yes, have to be flexible Yeah, let's pulpit ministry And a church where people are of one heart and one mind Okay, can someone read that first Corinthians 110 in your notes if you will please First Corinthians 110 Now I plead with you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing and that There is no division among you But that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment Okay, and mark 325 And if a house is divided against itself the house cannot stand The church is known as the house of God Right the household of God And if there's division within it's it cannot stand, isn't it? So he's emphasizing to the church of Corinth So apostle paul has observed Some things in the church of Corinth and that he's wanting to address that There's no unity among them But he's encouraging, you know everybody to just be in the same mind and there's something about unity, isn't it? Again acts chapter 1 and 2 it says they were all gathered together in one accord And then the Holy Spirit fell Right there and time and time again in the Old Testament in first chronicles chapter 16 And so many other times we see where the priests blew their trumpet trumpet at once In one unity when they lifted up their voice in in as one Then the spirit of the Lord came the cloud of God came down And so Unity is huge that's what he mentioned, isn't it Francis? So unity in church that makes a strong local church and again that is just one point a big major point And you can work towards okay, how can I make my church be united? Right, it's very important How do I Help my congregation stay united be united And that's a question that you need to lean on lean into God's heart and get answers from But it's it's a very important thing to have Um the football team that I support is absolutely a mess. They only have united in their name Nothing is united about them at the moment It's so irritating Yeah Another important point is a church that is equipping And releasing people into their God appointed function or destiny is crucial, right? We are again going back to that scripture Ephesians 4 11 to 12, which we just read a couple of minutes ago Is you push the people into you know into the God God appointed calling or function you you recognize, you know, you say, okay, Anand has this Incredible quality of a teacher or whatever you equip and you encourage him and you release him Right, you don't immediately he's got he's got amazing talent I'm going to keep him right next to me forever and ever sign the contract right now He's like put it in his leg next 25 years. You're bound to my church. You break this contract. You have to pay me 25 lakhs Okay, so You know bonded label Uh You know, there's no point in holding the sand tight, isn't it? You kind of it will still continue to go out of your hand But there's some it's such a beauty in releasing people There's such joy in just watching the people you have nurtured that you have equipped are now doing the Lord's work Isn't it? There's such a beauty. There's such so much joy in that Jesus did that he could have you know Just said, okay, I'm going to change the world all by myself. Why did he have to choose 12 disciples? and then go Right. Um, and so equipping and releasing people into God's appointed function is very important And that's another quality of very good of a good leader is that you are able to discern As leaders, I'll tell you this I've experienced this in my life as leaders We have the privilege of seeing a bigger picture of a person's life Most of the times, you know, and the people the young people that I get to lead and whatnot Uh, why do I say, you know, when they ask me certain advice and whatnot, uh, it's like I guide them direct them Okay, no, this is not a good idea. What's not is because you see the bigger picture Okay, and hopefully the decision is coming from the right place is you want the best for them, isn't it? But as leaders, we have this incredible, um Privilege to see this bigger picture and and discern Right. You see the word discern is associated with the word wisdom When God talks to Solomon in his dream Solomon is talking back to God in his dream That's beyond me. Okay But Solomon doesn't ask for wisdom He actually asks help me to discern That I may lead people well God later translate. Okay, you don't know what you're asking for what you need is wisdom What you're asking for is actually wisdom You hear what I'm saying, right?  Okay Um, and then the next section is the a church that is relevant to the world it is in This is a very interesting topic A church that is relevant to the world that it is in. Okay question question time Is the church relevant For today's day and age that means do we need church in this day and age? Is it relevant? More than ever why Why is the church relevant? That's the first question. Yes. Okay Why is the church relevant? It's also for those online. Okay, please feel free. Yeah Because that's what God intended like we should know the God through preaching And somebody has to tell people about the word Um, and Jesus is coming back now. So all the more we have no time. Yeah Okay, Jesus is coming back soon. Jesus, please come back soon.  Yeah Why is the church relevant To correct and show the people like to show what is a Actually, what is life actually? So, you know one of the huge argument from the world today is Why do we have to follow a book that is so old? It's just another book that tells us how to live life how to do life It's not relevant to this day and age. It doesn't make sense. It's not contextually right That is the real argument Is Jesus relevant to this day and age? It's a very serious question to think You know and because I'm asking the question. Why is that's exactly what you will be asked By the world Why and how tell me Okay And so it's it's a point for us to all ponder. There's a scripture that is mentioned there first quarantine chapter nine Was 19 to 23 in your notes. I want to read from the message version. Okay This is apostle paul again. He's explaining How he's trying to be relevant to the audience that he's leading or that he is preaching to Right Um, so if you can go to the message version or find the message version online, you have the permission to use your phone Yeah first Corinthians chapter nine was 19 to 23 I'll I'll read it. Yeah Um, thank you nina john for sharing. It's called. Yeah It's called out body representing jesus christ absolutely vital to the point people to christ. Yeah Okay, first Corinthians chapter nine was 19 to 23 in the message version It says even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone That means he's saying he does not have to meet anyone's expectation There is no expectation set on him. Right. He's free of the demands and expectations of everyone I have voluntarily become a servant To any and all in order To reach a wide range of people I have voluntarily become a servant just so I can be relevant to a wide range of people.  I kept my bearings in christ But I entered their world and tried to experience things From their point of view I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead Those I meet in god save life I did all this because of the message. I didn't just want to talk about it. I want to be in on it Talk about a leader Okay, there was a you know, there's a global leadership summit that happens every year GLS it's called and One of the panel had to decide and define leadership in one word They were given some hours of time and they said Okay, if a leadership could be defined with one word It's the word Any idea take a guess No, one word that was used to define leadership by the span of it. Come on. Those are my wild guess servant What else? I beg your pardon accountable. No No, no slave. No problem Inspiration very close to happens But it's not the one What you say Influence Yeah So they came up a leader will always influence So leadership is not about position You can still not be have the title of a leader but influence the entire class It could be a bad thing or a good thing You can have good influence or you can have Bad influence Isn't it so what apostle paul is saying here is that I voluntarily stepped into their world But I did not conform to their ways. That means I did not I did not allow them to influence me What I try to do is influence them It's dangerous territory. If you're not strong in god, that's all Okay, I'm gonna look like them. I'm gonna do everything like them because I want to influence them The next thing you know is you're being influenced by them It's like a pastor dragged This pass on, you know You know what I'm saying So look at now the actual version In the notes first Corinthians nine 1923 says for though I am free from all men. I have made myself a servant to all That I might win the more And to the Jews I become became as a Jew That I might win Jews to those who are under the law that he's talking about the Gentiles As under the law that I might win those who are under the law Okay, and those who are without law as without law It's like almost like a tongue twister, isn't it like okay paul. What are you trying to see right now, you know um, but think about it Jews had their own way of living life Gentiles had their own ways of living life right imagine the I mean the knowledge and the wisdom that paul must have had and the strength Of the holy spirit that he must have had to have influence on all these different cultural Uh, you know people ethnicity and whatnot. Are you guys with me so far understanding following? Yeah, the point we are talking about was is the church relevant to the world and why and how can be uh You know be relevant to the world Okay salt and light All right, and just a couple more other points one last thing is a church that is raising up leaders I want to combine this point with the next one a church that is able to establish continuity, okay It's one one on the same. So uh, kind of a church that is raising up leaders and a church that is able to establish continuity, okay Galatians 2 9 it says and when james keifers and uh, john who seemed to be pillars Perceived the grace that had been given to me. They gave me and barnabas the right hand of fellowship That we should go to the Gentiles And that and they to be and and they to the circumcised that means They were raising up leaders.  They're equipping them Right and they're going out to minister to the work of the ministry And then the next point says and the church that is able to establish continuity So second Timothy 2 1 and 2 it says you therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in jesus christ And the things that you may have heard from me among many witnesses Commit these to the faithful men who will be able to teach others also So what is he saying is He's simply saying that your position there is not permanent That means It's not permanent Right very quickly. Let's just wait. Let me just find that verse is go to the book of numbers. I hope I It's the right verse Please be right. Okay. Let's go to numbers chapter 8 verse 25 very quickly Okay numbers 8 25 Okay numbers chapter 8 verse 25 it says and from the age of 50 years They shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. What is it talking about? They're talking about the levitical priests Okay, it says okay All right, you will be serving as priests. That means you will have a certain responsibility But when you hit 50 retire Your responsibilities will change and then younger men will come and take the place Okay, so it's biblical to have continuity like, you know, it's uh I'm gonna I started off as a senior pastor I'm gonna die as a senior pastor without any continuity after I die and go The church is going to perish. Nobody is going to be there. Uh, you know, there's no plan There's no plan of continuity, etc. Etc. Right and that is Not a mark of a strong local church Are you guys with me?  Okay. So what is going to happen when I'm gone? Right Are you all with me? Okay, so all of these points are Points for what makes a strong local church any thoughts or comments questions Possibly from the beginning part of this chapter Um, is vision and calling same vision and calling the same thing Is vision and the calling the same huh I think it kind of goes hand in hand, but It's the same but different. I don't know how to define it like I mean you can have a calling but have but still not have vision for example, I have a calling to I have I have a call to serve the youth for example How where? You know the vision So it's it seems so generic, isn't it like I have a calling for the worship ministry. I have a calling for healing ministry That's my calling. God has called me to do healing ministry Okay, so where's the vision? What what is the vision? What are you going to do? Where are you going to play, you know, set your base? How are you going to establish that ministry? So that's the vision part of it. So you can have a calling and still not have vision You know what I'm saying? Yes, many are called fewer chosen Having a calling and no vision but see you'll at least have a calling Right, so you know Okay, this is what I'm called to do and so now it is your responsibility to wait on God Okay, okay. Lord. You've called me to do this. I think most of us can relate to that, isn't it Lord You've called me for this What do you want me to do? Show me? How do I do this?  So you should go use the resources and start Or is it like I have to wait and God show me vision on how to do it Everything is given at that time, isn't it? So you have a calling and so again God tells you what to do You know What you can do and and there are other common things like what you just said like things that are common sense You know that you can that you can work on on yourself like to upskill yourself So, yeah Yeah Yeah, so yes And along the process that he will guide you know Um, so again when God calls Abraham God tells he's calling Abraham Right, he says Leave your father's house leave your land and go What does he say go To the place I will show you That means he didn't show Right But Abraham responded Right. He he left and he went not knowing where exactly but along the way he becomes very intimate with his walk with God. So, yeah So possibly would you call um The like we have the kairos and the chronos moment in our lives So would you call the kairos moment in our lives the vision and the chronos the calling No, I haven't complicated it so much So Every season it changes. Okay kairos and chronos. How many of you all know the difference? But what's the actual definition of chronos? Where does it come from the word? Yeah see Chronicles chronology comes from The word chronos, right? It's the actual time like what's you know in order Kairos is the divine time as you know, like what you are defining saying so Like I said, I haven't complicated like that um So, what do you want to know? Yeah Yeah No, it's it's chronos again is different, isn't it? So it's it's almost like the natural part of it like it's not connected Chronos is different kairos is different. That's where they are two different words Yeah Yeah, so that we are yeah, we are talking about one thing and we are it's very different things Yeah, it's Yeah But then okay, just to make you feel okay. So he might share some of the things with you in his right in the right time That could be your kairos moment If you want to know, right? So, yeah Yeah, thanks Nina kairos is the appointed time. Yeah Yeah Okay, we'll stop here and we'll continue having this discussion, but thank you for joining in everybody. God bless you Have a good one


Welcome to Jenkins documentation office hours, it is the 27th of January. And here are the topics we've got sorry that I hadn't assembled an agenda yet. News and a post to discuss chicote Africa ideas, including ideas opportunities in project management and test design so this is what we wanted to discuss with using up to see if these two ideas could be considered for addition to the chicote Africa project ideas. We talked them through in see the notes from the 24th. For more and will so we'll talk through them here. Are there other topics we'd like to add so is enough are there any topics you want to add. Not for me. Okay. And make any topics that you need to add. I don't think so. I need to talk to you separately but I'm in trouble on scripting. Okay, I'm happy to happy to help with with scripting. Absolutely. Okay, so, Zina, let's let's take on so in terms of news. Jenkins 2.332 is has been selected as the next baseline as the next LTS baseline. There are significant UI changes. And it will need early and extra effort on the upgrade guide and the change law. So that's a that's an activity will probably start maybe even as early as next, next office hours in this group. Okay. Mark create initial draft review with others. Oh, and then I guess I've got one other topic which is the chip for Java eight and of support, and that needs review comments, etc. Okay. And it covers all the all the news that I had. Oh, no way to say one more Jenkins 2.319.3 release candidate is is ready for test. And it needs a change log and upgrade guide. And those are both quite simple. Very little change between dot two and dot three. Any other news items I should add in. Okay, next topic then so Zina I'm behind I haven't yet posted the community Jenkins that IO topic. It will probably be tomorrow or later before I do just because I need to do some thinking organizing and structuring before I put it out there because it needs to describe ideas for various projects but one of the things I discussed on Tuesday in or Monday night late my time Tuesday morning India time was two more ideas for roles or opportunities that might be mentored and might be good for one or more of of the program participants one or more of the mentees. One was project and program management. And there the idea was, I would be the mentor, and we would have somebody shadow me or doing the kinds of things that I do during the mentoring activities to watch over how things are going and are the is everybody making progress etc. It's a little different. It's not really a software task at all. But you had mentioned earlier that you might be interested in things that were not strictly software development tasks. What's what's your, what's your sense of she code Africa's interest in that kind of one on one mentoring opportunity. Maybe think of something. I wish I could participate I would love to be that many. Okay, so, so it's, it would be okay if we propose that. Yes, included in our proposal. Yes, it's very key. All right, good okay so that's great so just have a little bit Elizabeth what to apply. And that, that's the kind of thing where shadow, having somebody shadow me, and basically work as work as do do much of the work that Mark tried to do last year. You know the scheduling meeting is that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But with this specific need to have any kind of technical background to be able to do this. Not well depends what we mean by technical background, able to use able to use Gmail confidently and able to use Google calendar confidently and able to use Google docs, Google docs confidently. Yes, those, those kind of things if we if we call those technical skills ability to spell get.  Right, but I, but I mean, I would, it's, you don't have to be a hard code coder or something, but you need to be understand the terminology a little bit software lifecycle and all of those things I would say. Yeah. This position. How about tools, do you use things like Julia, or is it just it's home. I know. Jenkins used used to have like a jury board or something where you create issues I don't think still active used to use them. They are and we do and there I would think not that they need the skills but they're willing to be mentored on them. Okay. All right. We come out of this project with more skills and they start right. Yeah, the idea there is, if, if they're not interested in developing those skills they'd be a bad fit. If they're interested in developing the skills they would be just fine as a fit so long as they don't so long as they're willing to develop the skills. Okay, this is really great. I'm really excited to hear this. So, so we'll, I've got to, I've got to assemble still some some some sort of an idea and and we are will begin actively recruiting mentors right now the just like last year the biggest worry is not getting funding for the program it's getting people who are willing to help with the mentoring exercises. Okay, good. The next idea was automated test design. And I'd say it's design and implementation actually so. So what we've got is there are many, many places that would benefit from more more automated test. They don't have, we don't have a mentor. And this is a relatively rare skill in open source. I'm sorry to say that it's kind of embarrassing to say it that there are, there aren't as many people who are actively focused on the software testing side is there are the software development side of open source. But there they are there aren't people who are skilled in testing there certainly are, but getting someone who is an attester and heavily focused on open source. I don't know many of them. Totally agree. So I would put it up there hey, if someone wants to offer their skills. But we would not staff it would not have that position without an assigned mentor. But I think I have an idea of someone I can speak to, to have people because the programs and partnership leading she could Africa is a software tester. And experience QA and I know she met us a couple of people and she knows people who are just starting out and also experience this piece. So I'll speak to her, if we could get people from there will be interested in getting into open source. Great. Okay. That would be fabulous. Yeah, so as Meg says we would love to have more software test skills. It's, it's, I consider it more difficult and more technically challenging. So it requires much of the knowledge the developer has, plus the ability to think about the things that might fail and could fail and all sorts of interesting. Great. Okay. So I have other questions on that so again my apologies that I'm on behind schedule on getting the post out. I hope to have it done by, by Friday end of day. So you should be able to see it by Monday. Do you have any other ideas of types of projects that would be particularly of interest to the she code Africa participants. So I think things like technical rights it also. I would love that. Yeah, I think we'll be able to get people also that are interested in going into technical writing. I think we have a channel for that. Yes we do. So. So I think at the end of the day the idea is, since we are not looking for people who are experienced in open source so to say the most important thing is, okay this skills you have. The public understanding is not like you're a complete beginner, and you are willing to put this skills to use in open source. So, since as young we are looking at it from we should be able to get people in all these areas. I know we have a couple of channels for different. So it's just to go to those dedicated channels and let them know that something like this is happening if they would like to participate. Great. All right. Okay so when I when I send out that when I make the post asking for mentors, I will, I will note that we won't, we won't create a role in our proposal without at least one mentor known for that role. So technical writing, for instance, much as I enjoy it, I'm not going to volunteer for it. So if Meg were to be available to mentor that would be great. Otherwise, we would probably not have it work out. So, but that's that's the kind or maybe I guess we could check with Meg and Kristen to see and maybe make Christian and Deraj if one of the three of them are willing to mentor. All right. Okay, great. Anything else on on she called Africa contribute on ideas. Nothing for me. All right, next topic then, and this one is very brief. I am creating a Jenkins enhancement proposal for the Java eight end of support by the Jenkins by Jenkins core. And so, Java eight was introduced in 2014, seven or eight years ago, and Java 11 was introduced in 2018, three years ago. And Oracle has declared that they will switch support mode of Java eight from their usual premier source support to the next level next year up beginning March of 2022. Other providers are providing are giving longer life for Java eight but Java eight and is coming. We're seeing that that a number of open source projects like for instance J get no longer are doing active development on the Java eight code, they're only doing it on Java 11. And so the project is now laying out a plan what will it take for us to make the switch to no longer deliver Jenkins run able to run on Java eight. And the, I'm going through this plan I'll send. I'll post a link to it and probably mentioned both of you just to invite you to, to read it and comment, because it's a big project and big projects benefit by having lots of eyes review their plans. All right, that sounds like it looks. It is you can imagine that removing a removing a major JDK from from support for a project is is enormous. And there'll be a lot of work to do. And including technical writing it could be a technical writing project. Oh, there. Yes, absolutely there is that well you can you can imagine all of the things for instance, the rollout plan includes things about. Hey, how do we roll it out on www.jankins.io what do we update on the various support pages, etc. This thing is still very much in in development, but the reality is there's lots and lots of things there are many many that we have to take before we're ready to say yes this has been a successful project. And I should just put a link to this draft in there. I haven't published it yet as a pull request because it's still very, very preliminary but my goal is to have a pull request ready for tomorrow's platform special interest group meeting so I've got a little less than 24 hours to finish the writing. Piece of cake. And that's, you know, nothing like writing immense plans that, yeah, lots, lots to think about and lots, lots for people to critique and help with and that's, that's the reason right what we need is we need a, a dartboard that people can use to throw darts at and propose, propose corrections. It's much easier for everybody if somebody has done initial thinking that they can then say oh no we should refine this and improve this. All right, anything any other topics for today. Okay, then I'm going to go ahead and call us done for today's session. We'll meet again Tuesday and then we'll meet again next Thursday. Hopefully by then we'll have more to talk about on community that Jenkins.io she code Africa, etc. Yeah, hopefully I'll be dropping the link to the form for project ideas also see. You could start feeling it. Very good. Excellent. Thank you Zenon. Thanks very, very much. Bye everybody. Bye.


A couple of holiday station employees in Baxter are being credited for preventing the spread of a gas pump fire. According to the Baxter Police Department, a 55 year old woman accidentally drove into a gas pump around 2 today and the pump caught on fire. The employees immediately hit the emergency shut off switch which prevented the incident from growing. The fire was quickly extinguished by the Brainerd fire department and it was contained to one pump on the east side of the store. No one was injured but the damages are estimated at $20,000 to $30,000. The Baxter Police Department says that they do not believe the driver was on her cell phone and no drugs or alcohol were in her system at the time. The woman does not face criminal charges for the incident. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.