Awesome. Thank you. Last presentation of the day. And funnily enough, we started the conversations yesterday with an entrepreneur's perspective on design, and we're ending with a designer's perspective on entrepreneurship, so it's coming full circle. My name is Soeb Grewal. I lead a firm in Delhi called Bold. And I've been a designer for the majority of my professional life. But at the same time, I've been involved with entrepreneurship for the same amount of time, if not more. I started my first organization when I was still in college, and now I'm on my third startup of sorts. And often people ask me, Soeb, are you a designer or you're entrepreneur? And I bet you had a lot of trouble answering that question. It's taken me a lot of time to reconcile, what world do I live in? And I finally arrived at an answer that really makes sense to me. I think that I am a designer whose process and practice influences entrepreneurship. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. See, for me, creating a product, I mean, what does it mean to create a product? You're solving a problem for a user with a set of constraints. That may be context, manufacturing, ergonomics, materials. And at the same time, I think that designing a business is not too different. You're still trying to solve a problem. You're still trying to solve for a user set. It's just that the set of variables are changing and the scale is changing. You know, what are the qualities of a good designer or the qualities that you hear about a good designer? We're imaginative. We're highly curious. We always want to solve problems. We're not afraid to get our hands dirty. You know, if we need to get out in the field and make stuff happen, we can make it happen. If we need to get into the lab and start coding and wireframing, we can make that happen. We're highly empathetic and we're user-centered. And I think that I don't need to say that enough because that's been spoken about for the last two days. We're very resilient. And for those of you who've gone to design school like I have, I think design school kind of does that to you where they tear you apart and resilience just sort of comes with the practice. I also think that what we do really well is that we make meaning out of things. And technology without design lacks context. And that's what designers do. We make meaning and we add value on top of that. And we are used to working in very interdisciplinary and collaborative environments. Now, I could take designer out of this and put entrepreneur into this. And you can easily say that these are the qualities of good entrepreneur as well. So I personally think that designers can make very good entrepreneurs. And by this, I'm not speaking of myself, but I'm speaking of people I've seen who have run businesses, led businesses, created startups. And it's because designers and entrepreneurs are actually quite alike. And they're quite alike in how they tackle problems and how they look at the world and how they take a systemic approach to solving problems. There are tons of synergies and intersections between this. And it's not just my way of thinking. It's happening out there right now. Designers are creating great companies. You know, whether that's Joe Gebbia, industrial designer, turned startup founder, created Airbnb, Matthias Correa, graphic designer, turned entrepreneur, created Behance. And of course, these are global examples. But funnily enough, this is happening in our own backyard and we don't talk about it enough. Slide share, bookpad, function space now floats. All amazing companies that are creating global products, all venture-backed companies. Few of these have been acquired as well. And this is just a small number of these. But it's as much as VCs are sort of realizing that designers can be good founders and that there's an opportunity to back designer-led companies. Being a good designer is not enough. Much like being a good technologist is not enough. There's a certain set of challenges that come with our process and our practice and the environments that we've been in, that we have to sort of reconcile and get over. And I'm going to take you through a couple of these. And again, these have come through my own experience over the last five years. It's come from experience of other designer founders who I spoke to prior to this. Firstly, writing your own brief is really, really hard. And I know this sounds really simple, but it's not. I thought it was going to be super simple. I thought, you know, this is my first opportunity. I won't be told what to do. I'm not going to be told this is the challenge that you need to look at. But there are a lot of factors that you have to keep in consideration when you are writing a brief. You're looking at so many different outcomes or so many potential outcomes when writing a brief for your own business, which sort of says that a brief is almost akin to a business plan if you think about it. We designers, as I mentioned before, we're great makers. And we're really detail oriented. We want everything to be pixel perfect. But I think one of the previous speakers today also mentioned this that sometimes we get so caught up in the process of making that we don't know, that we lose sight of the other things that are going on around us, especially when you're a single founder or when you're leading a small team. And you need to be mindful of all the other factors which are not part of just the process of making. You need to be able to draw that line. This is probably the most controversial statement that I'm going to make. Think beyond the user. And I say this, not because you should abandon the user, but I think that thinking about the user comes very naturally to us. We are user centered people. We take a user centered approach. But there's so many other factors, market constraints, competition, revenue, business models, stuff that they're not traditionally taught in design school, stuff that we're not exposed to in traditional businesses, especially when you are a young designer making that leap, you have probably haven't had management experience before at a firm. So these are all things that you have to start considering other than the user as well. Design is not just the end product anymore. It's a small component, albeit a very powerful component that helps us solve the larger challenge at hand. So we need to move to a point where we're balancing the product aspect of what we're doing and the process aspect. And again, many of us have probably been used to setting up processes and taking a unique process at a company. But what we don't realize sometimes is that as much as our process is replicable, when we're creating a team, that process is driven by your personality and how you do things. Now it's up to you as you scale your organization, when you stop being the designer, and you start being the manager to think about how am I taking my way of thinking, or sort of critiquing my way of thinking, and creating a design culture for my organization and putting those processes and systems in place so that we can actually scale this. This is a very hard thing to cope with as well. And I've faced this personally, you won't be designing all the time. And that's really, really hard. Because that's what we love to do. That's what we're trained to do. What this means is that you probably won't have a portfolio at the end of the three years. But that's fine, your company's portfolio. You have to accept that there are multiple other parts of the business that you have to get used to.  And design, unfortunately, I've learned this the hard way cannot be applied everywhere. As much as we say the design process works everywhere, you can apply it to so many different things, I've done it in practice, it doesn't. But your creativity and your creative problem solving can apply in different places, you just need to be able to know where to balance those factors. Now, typically, if you ask any entrepreneur, what are you good at? And they'll say that I do a little bit of everything. Entrepreneurs tend to be generalists. We designers are, for the most part, specialists. And even though I come from a background of industrial design, where we'd like to say that we're the generalists of the design field, we have to be able to strike that balance and we have to be able to find the connection between being a designer, but at the same time, figuring out all of the other roles that it means to be an entrepreneur. I'm not saying being some sort of alphabet-shaped person, T-shaped or whatever, but it's being able to find when you stop being a designer and when you need to pick up all the other functions of the company. Sorry. Learn to love data. So, like I said, there's one thing we're not taught about in design school, business. We also have an inherent fear of numbers, whether we admit it or not. We don't like looking at data. We say our approach is a qualitative approach, but that's changing. Data is everywhere. We have to learn to love it. We have to learn to accept it, not because it's there, but because it actually really enriches our process. Learning about things like user churn, engagement metrics, it can help you design a much better product. Now, I think we designers are at a very, very exciting time. Design is being given the importance that it deserves in entrepreneurship. I think that we are moving beyond the point where design is just about the bells and whistles and a last mile consideration. People are realizing that design, especially startups, I'm not speaking for industry. We've heard a lot about that. Big startups are beginning to realize that design can be a phenomenal strategic advantage. And personally, having run a business, having built a business, having run a design business after that, I'm still very, very bullish on this. And that's why we started Bold. The whole idea behind Bold is that we want to fund design-led companies, design and designer-led companies, where design and data is at the core of what they're doing. So we're talking about startups founded by designers, much like you, who are trying to solve grand challenges and problems or maybe even just make people's lives easier and provide them with the support that they require. On the other side, we're helping other entrepreneurs who may not be designers, but think like designers, appreciate design, to help them build out their solutions to the point where they're ready to scale. Because at Bold, we think that this intersection between design, data and technology is actually the future of entrepreneurship. And what I mean by that is that where data is informing our decisions and technology is enabler, design adds profound meaning to whatever we're creating. And if startups understand that from the get-go, they have the possibility to let design or have design touch a million people or a million plus people. And that's the reason why we created Bold in the first place. We said, how can we make design ubiquitous in a country like ours? Of course, there are many other ways. But if good design stems from, is baked into products and services that many lay Indians are going to use, that's going to have a profound effect of how we as a culture start viewing, accepting and appreciating design.  Me saying this isn't enough. There's still a glass ceiling that designers have to break through. So I'm collaborating on a project led by a Norwegian designer named Christian Leborg, based out of Delhi, called Design Accompany, where we're basically creating a platform, or let me say he's creating a platform. I'm only helping with content, where designers can get resources in languages that they understand on how to create a business and how to create a company. And at the same time, entrepreneurs who want to understand design beyond the regular available toolkits and templates and everything online, but really understand how design can make a difference in what they're creating can turn to. And this is launching next week, so I'd keep an eye out for it. And it's not just us at Bold who are looking at it. There are many other people looking at this space. You know, there's the coalition in Delhi, which has started to help creative entrepreneurs and design entrepreneurs build and lead great companies. There's a designer fund in the valley that's been doing this for the last three years and is behind a lot of great companies like the Noun Project. So the gentleman who was in the panel before me said that no five billion or billion dollar company in India has built a great global product. As much as I disagree with that because I can give tons of examples of companies who have. In fact, some of the companies I mentioned have all created great global product. I'd still say that we should all take up that challenge and make it happen and build some stuff. Thank you.


Thank you, brothers. Thank you for praying. Good evening. Welcome back, everybody. Glad you're here. Turn with me to Colossians chapter three. Colossians chapter three. Last week, if you were with us on the Lord's Day evening service, we began discussing the regulative principle of worship. And so we had a very brief 30,000 foot overview, if you will, of that particular principle. And tonight we're going to flesh that out a bit more and then use a particular application of singing in Lord's church as an example. And so we'll look at that this evening more on the regulative principle and the regulative principle applied to music in our worship. We're going to do that from our text, Colossians chapter three and beginning in verse 12. In title of our sermon this evening, Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, the regulative principle in music in our worship. Colossians chapter three verses 12 through 17. So hear the word of God with me. Verse 12, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. This is the word of God, amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I'm very grateful to you Lord for blessing the privilege of coming back together as your people and considering your word together. And in particular this very needful and important subject concerning the regulative principle of worship. And I pray that we would be humble, have humble receptive hearts that we would receive with meekness the implanted word that we would understand what your word says about this very vital subject and that we would worship you as you've called us to worship you in spirit and in truth for your glory. Please Lord protect us from worldly philosophy and empty worldly wisdom that influences and corrupts the worship of many professing churches in our day today and help us Lord to be careful and faithful in regulating our worship according to your word and knowing that when we do that, we are worshiping you in the way that you have ordained that you should be worshiped. And we have great confidence in that Lord. That's the way that we want to worship you.  We want to hollow you in our eyes. As we draw near, we want to consider you as you've called us to consider you as holy and gives us great joy to be able to worship you. Great joy in the Lord Jesus Christ that as former sinners, blasphemers, insolent, proud, arrogant, wayward, selfish human beings, redeemed by the blood of the lamb, we now have access to worship the living God and by your spirit, I pray Lord that it would be spirit wrought, spirit filled, truth informed worship. We pray this for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of your name and his name we pray, amen. Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, the title of our sermon this evening from Colossians chapter three, be an example text that we'll reference here at the end of our sermon, but this sermon dealing with the regulative principle and in particular as an example, music in our worship. So last Lord's day, if you were with us last Sunday evening, we had the privilege of considering an introduction, a brief introduction to the regulative principle of worship. The regulative principle of worship is best summarized, I think by the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, where in chapter 22, article one, our confession states, the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself. I think that's a staggeringly important phrase to lay hold of. The acceptable way of worshiping God is instituted by himself and then so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in the holy scriptures. In other words, the only worship that is acceptable to God is that worship of God we find commanded or commended in scripture. It's called the regulative principle of worship. That which is not explicitly commanded by precept or commended by example is implicitly condemned in our worship. I mean, it's very, very important for us to understand this principle. That regulative principle of worship then is to be distinguished from what some have called a normative principle of worship. That normative principle asserting that if it's not expressly forbidden in scripture, then it's acceptable in our worship. And that opens up the worship of God to the imaginations and devices of sinful men. And as we saw last week, if that freedom is left to us, then all we can do is go astray and we don't wanna go astray in the worship of the living God. So then in consideration of this principle last week, we unpack the Lord's conversation with the woman at the well from John chapter four and first discussed the basis for the regulative principle of worship. That the proper and acceptable worship of God is grounded in and is to be founded upon those new covenant realities ushered in by the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ revealed those new covenant realities revealed through the New Testament scriptures. So our worship is to be regulated by the New Covenant, by the New Testament scriptures. We're not to regulate our worship then based upon the types and shadows of Old Testament forms and ceremonies and rituals and circumstances. Then having revealed the basis for the regulative principle of worship, John four helped to explain the purpose or the aim of the regulative principle. Verse 23, the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. So God is seeking worshipers. God is seeking worshipers and God is to be worshiped in the way that God has prescribed that he should be worshiped and that includes first worship in spirit. In other words, worship from a principle of life rather than through dead or heartless forms and rituals and types and shadows. Worship is not merely meant to be honoring him with our lips, but worship is to be from hearts that are near to him. Worship in spirit and worship in truth, worship that is informed by and in accord with the revealed will of God. All that makes perfect sense to us, doesn't it? It makes sense. It would seem unthinkable that anyone would actually object to that principle or find that principle objectionable. And besides, we would think, wouldn't we? Isn't all of life to be regulated by the scriptures? Isn't all of our life to be regulated by God's word? In the text that we briefly referenced this morning, Romans chapter 12, verse one, Paul says, "'Therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, "'present your bodies a living sacrifice, "'holy and acceptable to God, "'which is your reasonable letreia, your reasonable worship.'" Our varied lives are to be submitted to and regulated by the word of God. Besides, someone might say, you might hear someone say, there's to be no distinction between the secular and the sacred. You've heard that before, haven't you? There'd be no distinction between the secular and the sacred. You can't divide secular from sacred. Well, that statement isn't true. Is it? It may sound nice. And I understand the meaning or the intent behind that statement. When usually when somebody uses that statement, you can't divide the secular from the sacred. They're generally talking about vocation, what we do at work. When you go to work, you are to serve the Lord Jesus Christ on your job in the same way that when I go to work, I'm to serve the Lord Jesus Christ on my job. You see? In that sense, there may be no distinction between secular and sacred. But listen, the Bible all over the place makes a distinction between secular and sacred, right? Moses, come up here and see me. And when you stand on this ground, take your shoes off because this ground is holy. You see? That was the whole construction of the temple was to make a distinction between that which is common and that which is consecrated. That which is secular, so to speak. That which was sacred. We find examples of this principle all over the Bible. Good illustration of this very principle. And frankly, the regulative principle of worship at work is given to us in the Old Testament record of Nadav and Avihu. You remember that story from Leviticus chapter 10. I think with me for a moment, God had given explicit commands for how he was to be worshiped. God has been explaining in meticulous detail how they are to worship him. Nadav and Avihu didn't violate an explicit command of God concerning his worship. They didn't fail to do something in worship that God had commanded or commended. What did they do that got them in more than hot water? Nadav and Avihu went beyond the word of God and offered worship in a way, Leviticus chapter 10 verse one, which he had not commanded them. They went beyond the word of God in bringing worship to God. The Bible calls it profane. They offered profane fire. And in verse two, fire went out from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. God takes his worship very seriously, very seriously. We're not to go beyond God's word in our worship of God. And Nadav and Avihu are examples of that in the Old Testament. God stated the lesson for them in verse three of Leviticus 10 there, when he said, by those who come near to me, I must be regarded as holy. And before all the people, I must be glorified. So to regard God as holy and before all the people to glorify him means to worship God in the specific and explicit way in which God has directed to worship the Lord in a way that is acceptable. Genesis chapter four, for example, Cain's offering was not offered in a way that was acceptable to God. It wasn't offered in an acceptable form. In Exodus chapter 20, the first two commandments in the law give positive precepts related to God's worship. Exodus chapter 20, the incident with the golden calf teaches us that we may not worship God according to our own preferences or introduce foreign elements. Exodus chapter 25, the constant refrain regarding the worship of God and establishing worship among the people was that everything must be done according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain, God essentially telling Moses everything you're gonna do, everything that is to be done must be done according to the pattern that I show you, right? The pattern that I showed you on the mountain. First Samuel chapter 15, Saul decides to worship God in his own way without waiting on Samuel. So Saul took it upon himself to offer sacrifice and the kingdom is ripped from Saul and God reminds him to obey is better than sacrifice. Saul, you can imagine, right? Many people today, many people worship God in some misinformed, uninformed sense of zeal and because they believe that they're worshiping God with zeal that somehow that zeal makes that worship acceptable to God. God says no. To obey is better than sacrifice. You may think that you're offering the sacrifice of a heart for God or zeal for God or worship to God. God says to obey is better than sacrifice. The Lord himself rebukes the Pharisees for hypocritical worship that is according to the tradition of the elders. Paul rebukes self-made religion or will worship in Colossians chapter two verse 23. All of these are examples in scripture, just a few of many where God in particular, God regulates his worship. Of course there is a distinction between secular and sacred when it comes to our worship of God. So let me ask you then, considering this principle, is it sinful to participate in a drama club? Not necessarily, it may be, it depends, but not necessarily, it's not inherently sinful to participate in a drama club. But does that make it acceptable then to include drama in the worship services of the church? Why or why not? We'll talk about that. Is it sinful to listen to quote unquote secular music? Not necessarily, it may be. And I would say that, boy some of the music today and I'm sure I've not heard a fraction of it is abhorrently, abominably sinful. I can't think of enough adjectives to talk about how wickedly, disgustingly, deplorably, devastatingly sinful it is. But secular music in and of itself may not be sinful. But does that mean, does that mean then that it's acceptable to include secular quote unquote secular music in the quote unquote sacred assembly of God's people as they worship the Lord? No, no. The Bible makes strong distinctions between worship and the rest of life. The Bible makes strong distinctions between the corporate congregational worship, the assembly of the saints in the worship of God and the rest of life. And if you don't make that biblically informed distinction, then you go astray. And worship is corrupted. You end up then on a spectrum of error between two extremes, a spectrum of error between two extremes. Headed in one direction on that spectrum, someone thinks to themselves, well, anything goes. Anything goes. There's no distinction between secular and sacred. And for example, it's okay. If it's okay for a Christian to do in life, then it's acceptable in the church. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be. And then what you get is a very corrupt and very perverse culture that begins to flood into the worship of the church. And brothers and sisters, that's what we see all over the place today. This wicked and perverse culture has been allowed by many professing so-called churches that don't understand this principle. It's been allowed to flood into the church and corrupt the worship of God. You end up licentious in your worship, lawless, antinomian, and it is an abomination to God, unacceptable to God. Headed in the other direction on the spectrum, someone may think to themselves, well, if it's not acceptable in the church, then it can't be acceptable anywhere. And so you fall into legalism. Hymns sung by the corporate gathered assembly on a Sunday morning. And then if it's not acceptable in the church, it's not acceptable anywhere. You see the spectrum and then any amount of error between the two on that spectrum, the Lord makes a very clear distinction and so must we. So in thinking about that now, that informs again our understanding of the regulative principle of worship. How does then the regulative principle apply? In the time we have remaining, I wanna give you a way in which we should apply the regulative principle and the way to think about it. And then I wanna give you an example of the regulative principle applied, namely in the music employed in the worship of the Lord's church. So first then, consider with me a framework by which we may faithfully apply this principle. This framework I pray will be helpful to you. When we think about applying the regulative principle of worship, it's a great help to think in terms of elements, forms, and circumstances. Elements, forms, and circumstances. Elements are those parts of worship that are commanded by God. They're commanded by God. Forms concern the content of those elements and in circumstances deal with the way in which we employ those elements. Elements, forms, and circumstances. The first concern in the application of the regulative principle of worship is the prescription of the elements of our worship. These are the elements or the parts of our worship that are necessary to that worship which is commanded or commended by God's word. And a good explanation of these elements, again, found in the London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 22, article five now. Listen, the reading of the scriptures, preaching and hearing the word of God, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord as also the administration of baptism and the Lord's supper are all parts or elements you could say of religious worship of God to be performed in obedience to him with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear. Moreover, here's the heart with which we approach him in worship, solemn humiliation with fastings and thanksgivings upon special occasions ought to be used in a holy and religious manner. So what are those elements then prescribed by the scriptures that are here summarized by the confession of faith? One, the public reading of scriptures. Now you can write these texts down. I wanna give them to you. You can go in your own time. Take a look at these texts. These are representative texts where these required or commanded elements of worship are found. Public reading of scriptures from 1st Timothy, chapter four, verse 13. The preaching of God's word, 2nd Timothy, chapter four, verse two. The careful hearing of the word of God, Luke eight, verse 18. The singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Colossians, chapter three, verse 16. The ordinances of the church, including baptism, Matthew, chapter 28, verse 19, and the Lord's supper. First Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 26. The giving of tithes and offerings. First Corinthians, chapter 16, verses one and two. Corporate prayer, intercession, giving of thanks. 1st Timothy, chapter two, verse one. And we take warrant for an evangelism report from Acts, chapter 14, verse 27. All the elements of our worship are commanded by God through precept or commended by example in the word of God. That's where those elements come from, right? They're commanded by precept or commended by example in the word of God. So then, by way of application, if we think about just the elements then of our worship, do we see plays, skits, or drama as elements of worship? No, it really becomes dramatically clear, doesn't it, at that point? Right, really clear, dramatically clear.  That was accidental. No, we don't see plays or skits or drama as elements commanded or commended in scripture. No, right? So then, according to the regular principle of worship, any use of such things is implicitly condemned in our worship, why? Because God himself has not prescribed them. And if you add that to worship, you're making the very same mistake, that very costly mistake, that not of an avi who made, right? We are not to worship according to the imaginations or devices of men. Our worship is to be informed by the word of God. Do we see warrant anywhere in the Bible for interpretive dance? No. I don't see warrant for it in the Bible. Frankly, I personally think it's weird. So no, no, no. Interpretive dance is not instituted by God himself in his revealed word. Well, didn't David dance naked before the Lord? Yes, as they were transporting the ark of the covenant up a dirt road into Jerusalem, not during a worship service in the temple. So I tell you what, next time we have a parade bringing the ark up, you can dance naked to your heart's desire. No, no, no, no. What about any other? Listen, what about any other individual performance art? Any other, right? It becomes really clear. Like singing a solo, let's be honest with the text of scripture now. What about singing a solo? What about playing an instrument, a solo instrumental piece of music, performance art? Do we have any warrant from the Bible for solo performance art in the assembled, gathered, corporate worship of God's people? Do you see that anywhere in the Bible? No, not commanded or commended by example. It's just not there. There's simply no warrant for it in the Bible. The singing that takes place is corporate, and it's for the mutual edification of one another. That's Colossians chapter three we'll look at in a moment. So can you see then how, on one sense, intensely practical this is, and how, in another sense, how really clear, really clear and straightforward this is. Only those elements prescribed by God's word may be used in God's worship. Those are elements. What about forms then? Elements and then forms. Forms deals with the content of those elements. The form that the element takes. In other words, what passage are you reading? The element is the public reading of scripture. The form is what passage you're reading. What hymn are you singing? We're to sing to one another in songs, hymns and spiritual songs. What particular hymn are you going to sing this Lord's day? That's a form of the element. Do you see the connection? Right. The required element, for example, is the preaching of God's word. The form that that has taken for us on Sunday mornings is, for example, an exposition of Romans. The required element of worship is the corporate singing of Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. The form that that element takes will be the specific hymns that we've determined to sing on any given Lord's day. Are we allowed, even these forms, have to be regulated by God's word? Do they not? Elements, forms, circumstances must all be regulated by God's word. Are we allowed to sing hymns that contain bad theology? No. Are we allowed to sing hymns that speak a lie about who God is and what God does? No. We have no warrant in scripture to do that. Can I preach politics? No. No. Why? Because forms are regulated by God's word. Forms are regulated by God's word. The required element is the Lord's supper. Think with me. The form that that element takes is the passing of bread and the fruit of the vine. What's gotta be wine? They drank wine. They also didn't have refrigeration. What happens to the fruit of the vine when it's not refrigerated at ferment? Are we really gonna debate on the degree of fermentation that is required for those grapes as the form that the element must take? If you think so, if you think that we have to debate the degree of fermentation, in order for that form to be acceptable, then you and the Pharisees can figure that out. We're gonna be concentrating on what that type points to in the Lord's supper, what it's meant to point to, it is a type, okay? Elements and their forms. The final category by which we apply the regulative principle is circumstances. Circumstances are concerned with the way in which we employ those elements and forms. The way in which we employ elements and forms. Not a part of the worship itself. Circumstances are not the what of worship. Circumstances are the when, where, why, and how of worship, okay? Let me give you an example. The element is the public reading of scripture or the preaching of God's word. The form that that may take is Psalm 145. The circumstance may be the call to worship on Lord's Day services Sunday morning, 10 a.m., 3370 Snow Hill Road, you see? Forms, elements, forms, circumstances. All three of those, elements, forms, and circumstances are to be regulated by the word of God. But notice, notice with me. As we move from elements to forms to circumstances, there is less that is explicitly commanded or commended by scripture, and therefore, more liberty, if you will, in our decision-making. Follow me along with that now. As we move from elements to forms to circumstances, the less that we find in scripture explicitly commanded or commended, and the more liberty that may arise in our decision-making. For example, the required element is preaching. The required form is the word of God. But then we have the freedom, don't we, to choose the next topic or text? We have the freedom to do that. Now, is that just wildly, am I just, no. We don't have the freedom to do that. Everything should be done with wisdom. I gotta lost my place in the Bible now. Everything should be done with wisdom. Everything should be done decently and in order, so we're just not given wild liberty there. It's to be regulated by the word of God, but we do have more freedom than it comes to picking what we're gonna do, or, for example, how long we're going to preach. As long as that freedom is governed by faith, by wisdom, by love, for example, everything done decently and in order, that comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 40. Circumstance, for example, would extend to how many hymns that we sing. Circumstance would extend to the order of our service. We don't find a prescribed or commanded liturgy in the New Testament, so circumstance applies to our liturgy. Circumstance would involve or extend to how often we observe the Lord's Supper. The Lord Jesus Christ says as often as you do it. Do this in remembrance of me. There's no prescription for exactly how often that should be. Circumstance, but that's to be done with wisdom, right? There are reasons why you should be very intentional, very intentional about how often you observe the Lord's Supper. Circumstance would also include the use of instruments. What we mean by that in terms of circumstance is that instruments may be used, we believe under the regular principle, to aid or assist the singing of God's people, to aid or assist our corporate singing. Our concern should be that these circumstances in wisdom, in faith, and in love, aid our worship and not obscure, replace, supplant, or hinder our worship, right? That's the purpose of circumstances. For example, circumstance would be that we meet at 10 a.m. on the Lord's Day Sunday morning to worship. And it would be unwise, unwise for us to meet at 10 p.m. on the Lord's Day to worship. It would be against the command of scripture if we met on any other day at 10 a.m. Do you see how these fit together, right? Some things we have liberty with, some things we do not. So, in thinking about that then, elements, forms, and circumstances, let's apply this principle to music, music associated with our worship. Songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. First, singing and specifically congregational singing or corporate singing is an element of worship. An element of worship. Singing and worship is certainly a vital element in worship, very important, a required element, a commanded element, but singing isn't the main element, is it? We gotta be careful about how we prioritize these things. Many people today, when they look for a church, the very most important thing, the priority that they look for is the music, right? I'm going to this church for the music, for the entertainment value, if you will. And the most important factor for them is the music. And you see that in the way that the services are ordered, such in many churches today. There's an hour of singing, an hour of music, all kinds of hype, a lot of money spent on that production, and then 15 minutes of preaching, focused on a topic where the Bible's hardly even opened, and even sometimes that preaching has piano accompaniment. Have you ever been to a church that does that? Where half of what the preacher says behind the pulpit is sung, or has backup? No, it's, yeah, ungodly. Music is simply not the most important factor. It's not the most important element. You can count on eight fingers the number of texts in the New Testament that deal with our corporate singing, right? The most vital part of our worship from the New Testament is obviously the preaching of God's word, preaching of God's word. Paul makes that point in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14. The priority in Corinth wasn't to be tongues, or singing, or prophecy. Paul says, in the church, I would rather speak five words with my understanding that I may teach others also than 10,000 words in a tongue. What Paul is saying there is that the preaching of God's word has priority. So singing, singing though, is a required element in the Lord's church, but we have to put singing in its proper place, its proper perspective, its proper priority. Second then, when we consider singing as an element, congregational singing, consider the form then that that singing should take. One should be congregational. Teaching and admonishing one another. There should be between the members of the congregation, the assembled saints, a corporate nature to our singing, such that while we sing, we are teaching and admonishing, encouraging and edifying one another with our singing, right? If you stood near me when I sing, you may think that it's not very edifying. It's not the quality of my voice that we're talking about, right? What are we talking about? We're talking about the theology, the words, what is communicated. In other words, not particularly the music, although music is a very important aspect, obviously, of singing. You really can't sing without music, right? But we're talking about the theology of those Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Very, very important. So it should be congregational, teaching and admonishing one another, secondly, it should be Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. Now let's think about the first. It should be congregational. It's an interesting thought that applies here. I want us to consider for a moment. If you think about Old Covenant or Old Testament Israel, their worship, think about Old Covenant worship for a moment. Who were those under the Old Covenant who were commissioned as the choir in the worship of Israel? Who was it that was commissioned as the choir or as the musicians in the worship of Old Testament Israel? Was the Levites, the priests. Now think with me for a moment. The priests, as part of their mediatorial priestly role or function the Levites or the priests were commissioned to sing and to play musical instruments. That doesn't mean that in the Old Testament that's all that we see singing, right? That we see the song of Moses, Miriam saying, we see the song of Deborah and Barak and Judges, right? But the ones given a specific function, a specific role of singing as a part of their priestly duties was the Levites. In other words, they were to go to God in worship on behalf of the people and sing praises to God. That's interesting, isn't it? They were to intercede in prayer for the people. They were to offer sacrifices for the people, offer sacrifice of praise for the people. Some were commissioned to do so in song. It was a mediatorial role, a mediatorial function. The priests, the Levites were the ones who were consecrated, set apart to that task. That priesthood then went away at the coming of our great high priest, amen, who made sacrifice of himself once for all for the sins of his people. And now today then, think with me, under the new covenant, who are the priests? We are the believers, living stones, built one upon another into a holy temple, right? To proclaim the praises of him who rescued us out of darkness. We are the priests. We are therefore the ones who sing. You see the connection between the two? It's interesting, isn't it? So we wouldn't then have an appointed praise band, or worship team to do that for us, right? It wouldn't be right to have someone else do that for us. We wouldn't have a choir or soloists to lift up their voices for us or on behalf of us. In the worship of God, we are to be the ones who with access to the Father through Jesus Christ, our Lord, lift our voices in praise to him in the midst of the assembly. Interesting connection there with Old Testament worship. We have to be careful about pressing these old covenant forms into new covenant worship. When, especially when once there was a veil, wasn't there that separated us from the most holy place? Veil separated us. Now, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19, listen to this text from Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water and let us sing praises as a corporate body to his name. Not merely passively listening to the singing of others. Not passively appreciating the performance of others on behalf of the congregation, right? But the people of God actively singing the praises of God together. That doesn't negate the beauty of music in the worship of God that we can appreciate by listening to. What we're talking about here specifically is the corporate, gathered, assembled worship of God's people, right? We have to be careful in the way that that is ordered with respect to elements, forms, and circumstances. I've heard just absolutely beautiful. I have tons of songs, hymns on my phone downloaded to listen to. They're just absolutely beautiful, beautiful singing, beautiful choirs, beautiful music that is written and performed in praise and worship to God that would not be something that we would just simply listen to and appreciate during the worship, the corporate worship of God's people. First, the form of this element should be the corporate singing of God's people. Second, the form of this element should be Colossians 3 verse 16, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Third, the circumstances, the circumstances. With respect to the circumstances, the emphasis should be on singing and not on those circumstances which aid or assist in the singing. The emphasis should be on singing and not on musical instruments, right? There have been many over the years that in response really to what began with Rome, where in the music or the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church, music began to be used as a manipulative tool. And in response to instruments or instrumental music used as a manipulative tool by that false church of Rome, the reformers revolted against all of that and many began to hold a position that there is no place for musical instruments that all in the New Testament and that all singing should be acapella, right? Charles Spurgeon was one who held to that view. You may see that in some of Spurgeon's writings. Instruments, however, can be an aid or can assist in the singing of God's people. It would be considered a circumstance, something that is circumstantial to the what of worship, which is the singing that aids or helps or assists us in our singing as long as that circumstance of instruments does not supplant or replace or hinder the singing of God's people. That's one of the reasons why many of you know that we've chosen piano only in our church. It says that that particular circumstance of assisting instruments does not overwhelm, supplant, replace or hinder the corporate singing of God's people. And we want you to hear the singing of God's people and we want to encourage all of God's people to sing. And one of the things that we quickly found out when we went to piano only is that that was cultivated and encouraged by that, reducing the circumstances that once may have formerly overwhelmed our worship, our singing, right? It's also why the piano is in the back. It's another example of circumstance in our worship. And that's wanting to distance or distinguish from any thought of performance art whatsoever in the worship of God, right? Also, another circumstance associated with our singing circumstance should be the joyful, exuberant, enthusiastic singing of God's people, the energetic singing of God's people and even singing with beauty and excellence is a circumstance that could accompany, should accompany the singing of God's people. All these things are circumstances that we can pursue, circumstances that we should consider. We want to have our singing again, regulated by the word of God but with wisdom, faith and love done with excellence before the Lord. The time of the Reformation, those things were used as manipulative tools. Don't you see the same exact problem today, right? In those churches where the regulative principle is not upheld and not only singing but music or performance art, even movie clips and drama are considered to be elements of worship and put in those positions then what does that freedom do among God's people or those who profess to be God's people? What are we gonna do as fallible men when we have that kind of freedom? Calvin says we go astray. It's exactly what happens today and you see music in particular used as such an abhorrent manipulative tool in the part of what I believe to be false churches and satanic deception. What happens, right? You get false churches, preaching a false gospel, Bethel, we could use for an example, right? We could use that as an example and so they're teaching false theology, a horrible, deplorable, false gospel, terrible theology, they're leading people astray. But what happens? The music is such a draw that the music draws them in and then they sit there influenced by false teaching, right? So even Satan disguising himself as an angel of light draws in the masses through music through the godless entertainment, culture-driven, corrupted music of this world, draws in people, draws in the masses through that means and then places them squarely under false theology, false teaching, a false gospel that is able to damn their souls, you see? And it comes through the music. When we bring in anything into our worship, that is not regulated by the word of God, either elements, forms or circumstances that are contrary to God's word, not commanded or commended by God's word, not informed by God's word, what we're saying is that scripture is not enough. If we apply sola scriptura, we are saying that scripture is sufficient. Scripture is sufficient to regulate our worship. If we try to bring in elements that are not expressly, explicitly commanded or commended in the Bible, we're saying scripture is not sufficient. The scripture is certainly sufficient. The word of God is sufficient to regulate his own worship. And when we do that, when we faithfully apply this principle, we are protecting you, us from binding our consciences to that which is not in the Bible. So when people come in to worship and they're worshiping the Lord here, we don't need to induce or influence people to worship God in a way that is not directly in accord with his revealed word. And we don't need to bind anyone's conscience to worship God in that way that is not expressly, explicitly laid down in God's word. And by introducing elements into our worship of God, elements into the corporate gathered assembly of God's people that aren't regulated or aren't found explicitly in God's word, we're binding someone's conscience to worship God in the way that we've prescribed. And that is not good for anyone. It's sinful and shameful. And we're leading people in that sinful practice. And brothers and sisters, there are many professing churches doing that today. We don't want to. So in one sense, a faithful application of the regulative principle of worship protects the consciences of God's people. Also protects the unity of our body because we have a faithful, Bible driven framework by which we may apply God's word to God's worship. And so it protects our unity around these things. I know you indwelt by the spirit who love the Lord and you love his word. If you're convinced of something from the Bible, you believe it, amen. And that's what we want to do, right? That's what God's people do. And so it protects our unity in the sense that we can clearly and faithfully apply this principle to the way in which we worship and all of us together, even though we may have, there may be 250 different preferences for music, represented here on a Sunday morning or preferences related to any number of things, any number of things. But because the worship of God's people is regulated by the word of God, we can have complete unity on what we do and how we do it for the glory of God, right? Protects the consciences of God's people, protects the unity of our body. Private praise may and will vary. Private praise may and will vary. But when we come together, we gather around those things which God has prescribed in his word, amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you for the very clear, very helpful instruction that your word has provided with respect to your worship. Thank you, Lord, for not leaving that to the imaginations or devices of men because, Lord, you know, certainly we would go astray. And we praise you and thank you that when informed by your word and when done from a heart of love and affection and devotion to you, Lord, we can worship you in spirit and in truth. And through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ by virtue of our union with him, we have every reason to believe and expect that our worship is acceptable to you and pleasing in your sight. And we are grateful for that blessing because that from the heart, Lord, that's what we want to do. We want to offer you praise that glorifies you and is pleasing to you. Help us, Lord, to continue to do that. Help us to be faithful as we consider these things. Protect us from prideful self-will when it comes to these things. Protect us from those errors of this corrupt culture that the enemy would seek to leech into the body and help us to be faithful about holding those things at bay and help us, Lord, to worship you in the way that you've prescribed. We love you. We thank you, Lord, for the privilege, the pleasure, the blessing of worshiping you. And we look forward, Lord, to the worship of heaven and the worship of the assembled saints glorified singing praises to your name with Jesus Christ, our elder brother singing in our midst. We're very grateful to you for these things, Lord. Help us to live in sight of them in Jesus' name. Amen.


think in both cases certainly we weren't late which wasn't really an option in either of those but other big infrastructure projects we've managed successfully but they have to be done independently of government looking at 2050 we've got one chance at putting in any network because it will still be there in 2050 two chances at putting in generation like gas or wind or solar maybe three goes at boilers and end users but in that time we'll have five price controls seven UK parliaments and 35 UK energy ministers that's the run rate at the moment so I don't believe that we have a governance system at the moment that is capable of making the key decisions and although the tenure in position in Scotland is much longer than it has been in Westminster there's still an awful lot of these things that will be dependent on that so I think between the UK government and the Scottish government we need to put a governance system in place which will be long term independent and capable of delivering the massive programmes thank you and I think follow-up from Bill Bowman I thank you convener I think actually Gillian Martin has probably covered most of the things I was going to ask about in terms of engagement and changing behaviour what you seem to be saying is that that's a very important aspect and it has to start as soon as possible but we need to know where we're going before we start passing a message out or we get into one of your cul-de-sacs I think you referred to earlier just because the sat nav today says that's the best route it's maybe not based on the correct information so given the the timescales we have I mean how stretchy are they going to have to be do you think to to be realistic they need to be stretchy as I said for heat we need to recognise that in order to get into a 20-year delivery programme we need to prepare we can't say right we'll we need to start in the 2030s so we'll make the decision in December 2029 we need to prepare the path but it is eminently doable we've shown with major changes like the move from natural gas to natural gas from town gas that we're capable of that we've shown through major energy efficiency programmes that we've been able to get the run rate of measures at the right sort of level UK wide we're talking about 20 years 20 year programmes with converting about 20 000 properties a week so pro rate that for Scotland that's 2000 properties a week in Scotland over a 2025 year programme that we need to be decarbonising it's challenging but it's eminently doable as long as we prepare the way and make sure everything's in place for it to start which date were you talking about though the 2030 date yeah at the moment I think that the the we can be entirely consistent with climate change targets by rolling out the decarbonisation of homes following also the energy efficiency programmes and so on that we were talking about which can be started beforehand in that sort of timescale if we can start in 2025 in Scotland even better but I don't think that there's a false that there's a need to impose an overly challenging timescale as I said before because otherwise the the cost challenge will just become too difficult yeah so just as perhaps slightly disagree the objective for me is 2050 to have very very low carbon across scotland and I think we'd probably all agree on that and working backwards 2030 is or 2032 is just another milestone 2025 is another milestone here we are in 2017 and we've actually already started we've been doing this for five or 10 years so we're not about to start we're partway through we're finding that the problem is we've done some of the easy easier parts the problem becoming more complicated more interactive across horizontally if you like as well as the pathway we're going so we need that better long-term security of governance which will also help us inform to do the pilots to do the experiments so we can make the final decisions of some other things in 2025 we'll be making final decisions on yet more things in 2030 but it's that preparation along along the journey which is the I think Keith was also talking about so none of these intermediate dates matter in the sense of the final destination but we've got to tick them off progressively and we don't quite know which order they'll be ticked off with yet because we're still doing the work certainly and the 2032 target is absolutely challenging and I think he's absolutely right that it should be challenging because I think as an industry we need to have challenging targets to respond to them now I think that's by having that sort of challenge then that helps focus minds it helps focus attention in terms of addressing saying right how do we go about addressing these challenges but we shouldn't underestimate just how challenging that will be to get that full percentage so is it a chicken and egg situation or an inside out puzzle situation I don't know that it's I think we are starting we can see a path to to getting there I think that the Scottish government's commitment to the seat programme and the sort of recognition of the monies that are going to be necessary within that has been a very good start I agree I put I led the work across government and with the expert groups that put together the recommendations that turned into seat and my report was finished in January 2015 so I agree with one of the previous witnesses that it's a shame that we're still taking quite some time to get there but nonetheless I think it is a very strong commitment and I think that if you like that was the chicken or that was the egg we've got that and we now just need to build on that and put the necessary plans in place I think they're doable as long as there is the commitment and clearly as long as the funding does materialise for it right well thank you very much to all of our witnesses I'll suspend the session and we'll move into private session thank you very much


First of all, I'm Rain Leander. I am with Equinix Metal, yes, and I'm a developer advocate over there. I came from Red Hat. I used to have Fedora on my laptop, and I don't anymore. I even filled out Marie's poll. It said, what operating system are you using or something like that? And basically it's become macOS across the board, and I'm kind of sad. A friend of mine, Miss, reached out and he said, you know, there's this Fedora women's day, but also non-binary people are encouraged to apply as well. And would you apply? And I said, yes, I would love to. I miss Fedora. I really do. I still contribute. I'm still available. I still come in, but not as much as I would like to. And that was also one of the polls, is that it said, how much are you contributing or would you like to contribute more? And other, because I would like to contribute more, but also I have a lot going on. So I love you all, yes, love back. So my Fedora story is that I had a baby. I know, it doesn't make sense. Let me explain. I was with Red Hat. I live in the Netherlands. I've lived here for almost 10 years. And when I first got here, I was a technical account manager with Red Hat. And that means that from nine to five, you offer a specific phone number for specific accounts to call you directly for any of their support means. And that meant that when I had a child, which in the Netherlands means that you can go part-time if you choose, that I no longer could do that job of nine to five. And so because you also can't be fired, and also I don't think Red Hat, it's not the kind of company that would just fire you for this. But basically my job became to find a new job. And one of the things I did was I explored the things I've enjoyed in the past. So coding, speaking in public. I used to perform as a dancer, which is one of the reasons why I actually stand when I speak and dance sometimes. And I kind of just started exploring these avenues. And one of the things I did, which I highly recommend is if you are interested in getting started with technology or open source, you just wanna explore. And especially these days is that conferences tend to put their talks online. And so I knew that there was this conference called DevConf Check Republic. And I went and checked it out because it was my job to find a new job. So I was just exploring all these options. And one of the things is I started watching the different talks on DevConf. This was, I wanna say it was like 2016, 2015. Oh, it was a while ago. Yeah, exactly. DevConf.info slash CZ. And Matt had like the Matthew. I don't know Matthew's last name, Matthew Miller. Thank you. Matthew Miller was looking for a diversity advisory council to find Fedora's diversity advisor. I remember his talk, there was one point he was giving the talk and he was basically like, he goes, Fedora mostly looks like me. And that's not good.  And that was my, literally my first, not my first introduction to Fedora because after all I worked for Red Hat but there's kind of a long gap between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. And I had been in the rel world for a long, long time. So I was just starting to come and explore Fedora and the open source world because if you are over in support, if you're over in the enterprise product, you don't necessarily have that much time to actually explore open source things, which is sad, but it's starting to change over the past few years. This is a while ago. So I reach out to Matthew Miller. I'm like, hey, how can I help with that diversity advisor council? And he's like, great. And he sends me this article which I posted on my blog yesterday because it was like the first interaction I had with Fedora. It was this beautiful article that basically put Matthew Miller's reasons for wanting to start this. And I went, that's, yes. So I signed up for the council and there were a few of us. I will admit that I don't remember everyone who was on that council but I remember Tyler Golden was on there and just by joining this council and the process of us actually looking for someone and we found someone and they became the diversity advisor and wow, over the past six years, the language and the empathy around Fedora's community has just evolved in, like evolved beautifully just by miss reaching out and saying, hey, Fedora Women's Day, it's actually Fedora Women's and Non-Binary Day. And I went, so cool. There's been a lot more expansion in the past five years and that's beautiful. It's necessary. I still, whenever someone asks me for an example of an open source community who treats, let me say this differently, people will come to me and they'll ask me, I don't tech or I don't code. I'm not an engineer. Is there something I can do? And often I'm like, yes, of course. Obviously I'm like, yes, of course. You can be a community manager or developer advocate, but also you can write. You can be a lawyer and you can market. You can advocate. You can help people get started. You can give feedback on the docs, all kinds of stuff. And one of the projects that I always bring up, I'm like, check out Fedora Project because there's a website that was specifically set up. I don't even know if it's still there. I probably should have checked this first. But it basically says, it's basically a random website, or a random generator that says, hey, would you like to do this for Fedora? And you can go, not my thing? Or yes, definitely. And then it takes you to, yes, what can I do for Fedora? Yes. God, I love that. It's just brilliant because people who are intimidated by open source, especially by not being technical enough or thinking you're not technical enough because that's not the case, can go to whatcanidueforfedora.org and you can just look through all the different things that you can do for Fedora. Now, that said, have I helped Fedora since? Yes, but in very subtle and different alternative ways. I have earned my F cake badge, my cake badge twice. I wanna say Marie, you and I have got to get together for cake maybe virtually soon. So I can earn it three times. I advocate on behalf of Fedora quite often. And yes, that's awesome. There's a cake with the F cake, that's so cool. I'm a huge fan of icing. By the way, I did not answer the cake poll because I can't just choose one. And also like, if you just had yes as the answer, then yeah, then that would have been my favorite cake. But I'm still, Fedora still has my heart, even though it's no longer my operating system, literally on my laptop, which is kind of sad. There's actually a little bit of a push within Acronyx Metal because we've hired enough Linux people who are using Sentos or Fedora on their systems or Debian or Ubuntu. And they're saying, no, we don't wanna use Mac or Windows, we wanna use our Linux. And so there's a little bit of a rebellious group that you might know some people involved in that. But yeah, that's my Fedora story. Let me know if I can help you in any way because while I am technical, I do have engineering experience. I just finished a hackathon today, three hours ago where I built a website over a 48-hour period. It's fine. It's fine. Wow, that's impressive. Even if you are not technical, there's always spaces. There's always places to learn. So I have something for you. This is my own personal personal cake. I have, I don't, oh my gosh, I wish I could, you know what I've been imagining? Like being able to send flavors or smells to people because of COVID, like one of the things I like to do is like cook for people. So it's like, I can't do that. And part of that is the smells and the sensations. Anyway, I just got off track. What was I gonna say? T, you said you have something for me. I do have something for you. Let me think on that like one second because I totally got off track by thinking of, well, I guess I have a different question. I'll probably think of the other one before. I have other questions I thought of while you were talking. So I came up with this series with the help of the DNI team, the Women and Non-Binary Folks in Fedora. And previously to this year, it has been Fedora Women's Day. And there was not an inclusion, specific inclusion of non-binary folks. So this year we decided to go for that. And I'm excited about it. The DNI team was excited about it. And I see you here excited about it. But just to be frank, we only had one submission and that was your submission. So part of me says, okay, one in 14 is maybe not that, one in 13, whatever it might be is not horrible, but it's not good. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess what I wanna ask is like, how can Fedora be more welcoming to non-binary people or I have a feeling that they exist in our community but aren't necessarily willing to speak up? So how can we either make our community more welcoming to non-binary people or if they're ready here, how can we help them to raise their voices? So something that I qualify, qualify, qualify, I can't speak for it on behalf of an entire group of people but I will save my experience. And I have noticed that there are a huge percentage of non-binary people in the community management world, especially around tech, which I think is incredible. But I have noticed that within tech, that people who are non-binary tend to be quiet in the sense that it's hard, especially in tech, to have a target on your back for any reason, to be born with a uterus and then to say you're non-binary is very difficult in tech.  Probably, but I'm not gonna assume. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think there's some amount of, okay, well, that's a whole different topic. Go ahead. Yeah, and it's, I think also though, like non-binary and trans people are just, we're just starting to have safe spaces at all. And it's so new for all of us that like, I knew, I knew that I was non-binary when I was like, how long ago was this? This was in my early 20s, late teens. And it was because I was in a LARP, which is live action role play, if you don't know what a LARP is. It's where you actually, it's where you actually do the game. And I had been in the LARP for a while and one of, I was on plot and one of my other plot people, they came up to me and they go, hey, I'm writing a plot line about this character that is so ancient and so powerful and so old that they have evolved past gender. And so I need someone who's a little bit genderless to play someone for whom woman and man means nothing to them. And I was like, yeah, no problem, that sounds cool. Like that was my external. And on the inside, I was like, oh my God. And I had to say, am I an ancient one? No, I'm non-binary. Like it wasn't until a couple of years ago when people started saying, oh, this is called non-binary. And I was like, oh yes, now I have a word. I've got a word, this is my word. And I didn't start early coming out of the closet until a couple of years, until the word came about. So I think part of it is just figuring out that we're non-binary at all. And also there's a certain, there are a lot of women who don't wanna be women in tech. They just wanna be engineers. And I get that. And I feel like it's often the same for non-binary in tech or trans, you just wanna be your person. And I get it. I get it. The reason why I am screaming that I'm non-binary and that I'm screaming about mental illness and I'm screaming about in a polite, playful, warm way is because I know that there are people who aren't talking about these things, who think it's a problem and it's not. And I want to inspire everyone to be playfully involved to their comfort level. And that's why I, as soon as Misk reached out, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, let's do it. And then I admit, I completely forgot because stuff, and you can go read my blog if you haven't stuff. So I guess I'm kind of, what I'm taking from your response is that from here, since y'all are just kind of figuring things out, just inclusion. Inclusion, inclusion is exciting. But like, for example, if you hadn't been able to present here today and we were, it was something that we wanted to do but we weren't able to do. Sometimes you just like, you want diversity to be there but you don't know how to necessarily build it. And the point that you make though about people not being quite ready makes a lot of sense to me actually. And I thank you for your courage and your screams. I think it's important and that's one of the reasons why I'm here too. My work in Fedora and becoming like a louder voice and a louder voice and the year before I got this job it was our contributor conference and I got on the stage and I basically gave everyone a talking to. I was like, we need to be this and we need to do that and I came off the stage and someone was like, I knew when you gave that talk that you would be working for Fedora one day. And because I feel really passionately about it but beyond that, it's about slowly building the confidence to say those things out loud. And it's not something that I feel the need to do but I'm bisexual and I am a woman. I'm not, I identify as a woman but I'm bisexual and we don't have an LGBT group in Fedora. And I'm wondering if there's a community of people here who would want to kind of connect on that level. Yeah, so. There is. Yeah, exactly. There is. But it takes someone like us who's motivated and has the confidence to take that first step and say, hey, we're gonna do this thing because I think it's good. And it is good. And here we go. So, very cool. It is. I'm also, I'm also, yeah, like I'm a lot more underrepresented groups but I'm passing in so many ways that I definitely am sometimes like, am I ready to fight that hill?  You know what I'm saying? Depends on the day. Because, for example, yeah, exactly. How am I feeling? I'm also bisexual but I'm married to a man and so it seems like I'm a, you know, straight. Nope, nope. I gotta watch what I say with everybody. And I'm also a quarter Japanese.  Stop it. And it's those hills that you're not ready to die on per se, but they're there. And if someone stomps on your hill, then you'll kick back. But yeah, it's like the movie, if you build it, they will come. It's not always true. But in this case, it is one of those things that if you provide the community, if you are vocal about your acceptance and your inclusion, it will happen. This is the first year that you've rebranded, right? And Miss came out and came out full rebrand. We were like, let's make a series. Let's make a series and see if we can get, you know, some interest and I think that we do, you coming here shows that we do and continuing on and rebranding. We're actually thinking about rebranding into Fedora a week of diversity. So it would still be FWD and said it would be a week and it could involve a lot more different groups of people. So that is not approved. That is not approved by any means. We knew it, I approve. You're welcome. Definitely has to go through the DNI team and we got to work on rebuilding it in a way where everyone's gonna be real excited about it. But yeah, they've been wanting to break out of just this specific one, but this was a really good place for us to start. Because women make up 50% of the population and we have 10% women or something. I think it's 15% now, maybe? We're like... And you're not, this isn't the group that's done this where they went from a women's focus group within like OpenStack did the same thing where they went from being a women's group within OpenStack to being a diversity group within OpenStack. And I think it's beautiful.  Right, yeah. So I have a question, kind of personal question. You said you moved to the Netherlands 10 years ago. Where were you before that? Everywhere in the States. So I've lived in 13 states in the US and because my mom and her father were both military and so my mom grew up moving around all over the world. And then, so when she started, when she became an adult, she just started moving very easily to different places for job opportunities and whatnot and eventually went back to the Air Force. So I usually say it's military even though the first 13 years was just because she felt like it. But yeah, I've lived in 13 states in the US. That's impressive. Which was your favorite? It's a tie, don't judge me. It's a tie between Oregon and Texas. And here's, and there, if you know, if you're from the US, you're kind of like war. But if you're not from the US, it's because of Oregon and Texas. I was at those two states in very beautiful points in my life and built exceptional memories. I was never old enough to vote or anything else around being an adult in those two places. But yeah, incredible memories. It's one of the reasons why when, because rain isn't actually my birth name. It's a name that I got when I started dancing and I kept it and I used it for 20 years. And then when I got married, I legally changed my name. So now it is my legal name. But one of the reasons I love rain so much is because of Oregon. And the Netherlands rains way, way more than that. And I almost stopped. That first winter was kind of sketch. I was like, we're gonna, this is not working out. But yeah. I'm in Rochester, New York, right on the Lake Ontario. And we get lake effect. And it's like gray all the time, raining all the time. It's kind of like Seattle weather a little bit. But like colder and our winters are intense. Lots of snow and ice. So, good times. Yeah. Yay. So to answer the question that you had before the talk, which was how his COVID changed. I think it's not fair for me because I was with Red Hat until May, the end of May. And then June, I started with this new company and Aquinix Metal, they were doing a rebrand. They had just been acquired. They didn't have a developer relations group, employee until March of this year. And then from March to August, we hired 26 people, 24 people, right?  Like if I had a million dollars and could build, like if I had my own company and could like build and was like, I've decided we're going to do developer relations. The department that Aquinix Metal has is what I would do. And so it blows my mind that someone went, oh, that's a good idea. Let's do it. Cool. Cool. Cool. So you're transitioning into a new job so you don't feel like you can judge that well. No, like the COVID difference has been with the community has been, it's difficult to say because it's only been COVID with the community. And the community is so young and chaotic and like there's thousands of people, but it hasn't had a program of outreach. That's right. That's a program of at all. And so that's something that's we're implementing all these programs and it's all just building up. Best of luck. And I'm glad that you haven't, I'm glad that you haven't been feeling that in your job at least and you might be feeling it other places but not necessarily there. Okay. So one of the things that we're doing at Fedora Women's Day this year is we're making some content to chop up later and make some trailers and stuff like that. And we wrote the script. So the first part is you'll say the whole thing except for the example part, that's me. And then so how we're actually doing it is having people speak the first part in their native language. And then the second part in English but I found out today you're a native English speaker. So go ahead and speak. I cannot, I can say all of that in Dutch though. Do you want to say it in Dutch? We would love that. Sure. Okay. So go ahead and go ahead. Okay. Hello, my name is Reyn, Reichen in Ingolst, Toch. I am from Chronigin, Bajna. I am a native English speaker. I am, oh, what am I? I am non-binary because it's very new in the Netherlands. My pronouns are de, dem. And I speak Dutch and English and a bit of Japanese from my mother. I also understand Dutch and Spanish and yeah, a lot of others in the Netherlands in Ingolst is my erstal. And then the rest in Ingolst, in Ingolst. So now I'm in Dutch mode. We are from different countries. We speak different languages. We are of different cultures but Fedora unites us with open source. Oh, so true. You so much. I honestly haven't heard that much Dutch spoken in real life. So that was actually very interesting for me. I was like, it was almost like kind of like had some mashup of English words in there. How are you were throwing in English words? So is that part of Dutch language? Yeah, exactly. First of all, there's a language right next to Dutch called Friesen. And Friesen is the closest to English in the world. And so English, Friesen, Dutch, it's very close. And then also Dutch kind of steals from French and German and English as well. And so you'll hear, it's like your ear is drunk. Like if you could just squint slightly, you would understand it, but you're not quite. I honestly was not sure. Like if you were like transitioning back to English and I was like, okay, no, no, no, we're still in Dutch. Yeah. But that was really cool. I just wanna say thanks again for being here. I don't see any other questions in the chat, but I am so excited. Although this is that I should be dancing instead of. Yeah, the chat won't be on YouTube. So I think we should say reigns native languages dance. So the logical conclusion is to dance the text rather than speak it. It's just. Yeah, I just wanted to say thanks for taking time on your Saturday after half past and all that. And I'm really glad that like you and I could connect again in a while. And I hope to see you in real life one day and hopefully get a hug. Yes, at DevConf in a year, I'm sure. Yes, yeah.  I will see you soon. And everyone else on another session in 10 minutes. Bye guys. Bye.


The new Acer Aspire 5755G comes with some changes in the design as you can see here at the back of the display We have a new finish. It's kind of combination between matte and glossy. It's actually glossy, but the color the dark blue color Does not allow many fingerprints to be easily recognizable. So Kind of very interesting finish here we have the new Acer logo at the back and very nicely added Blue color here at both sides of the main body of the notebook, which is something new I would say that this is a pretty nice idea coming from the engineers of Acer and We have the standard pretty standard 15.6 inch Display glossy finish 1366 by 768 resolution Integrated webcam and a microphone very tight hinges and actually brand new keyboard Which I would say is absolutely absolutely nice to type on this time. We have a new design of the keyboard This is the chiclet style again like the previous series of Aspire we have Separated keys island type keyboard, but this time a little bit smaller and I would say it's a bit easier and more comfortable to type on Such kind of keyboard. So I personally prefer it. We have seen it in Aspire Eto series We have also the same touchpad we have seen from the Aspire series before the same finish the same multi-touch capabilities if you like it you're gonna like it again and We have also some very powerful performance capabilities. We have Intel Core i Three up to core i7 from the latest and the bridge platform of Intel We have also graphics from NVIDIA if we want to buy a notebook with such Dedicated video of course you can find them also with the integrated video of Intel, but the NVIDIA graphics This is the G-Force GD540M allows you to use one or two gigs of dedicated video run for this Graphics adapter together with the NVIDIA Optimus technology, which of course means easy and automatically switch between Dedicated and integrated video you can use up to four and a half hours with this Notebook between four and a half hours and one hour and a half two hours maybe depending on the power consumption of the notebook if we want to rely on serious amount of RAM also available up to eight gigs more than 700 gigs of hard drives. We can also use some very useful ports Like the HDMI port. We have three USB ports one of them 3.0 and also here at the front SD card reader, which is also very nice This is a notebook I would say very very appropriate for the people who'd like to use it at home or why not in the office It's stylish enough. It's powerful enough and if you want to find more information about it Follow us on laptop.bg


From San Francisco, extracting the signal from the noise, it's theCUBE, covering VMworld 2015. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem sponsors. And now your host, John Furrier. Day two at VMworld 2015 is Jim McHugh, who's the Vice President of Marketing at UCS, among other things, at Cisco. Welcome back, good to see you. We're in the director's seat, you looking good. I know, I'm pretty happy to be in the director's seat. We love chatting with you, Jim, for a couple of reasons. One, you're an industry veteran.   Getting, having a lot of fun. But more importantly, you manage probably one of the most dynamic parts of Cisco with UCS. You got a lot under your wheelhouse. Got big data, you got the data center. What's going on right now? You heard Pat Gelsing talking about this unified hybrid cloud. That means data centers will take much more of an important role in the public-private kind of integration, so what's the bottom line?  But reality, I think what people are really coming together and figuring out is it is compute, network, and storage together. And there's different approaches to that. There's software to find. There's all these different ways of looking at it, but it is the convergence of those three technologies that are important. And a lot of people are talking about compute resources, network resources, and storage resources. So whatever, how you look at it, those have to come together to solve the problem more and more for customers. So one of the things in Pat Gelsing's keynote was talking about asymmetric environments. You have unified as big word he had. Obviously, you guys have UCS unified as a part of your DNA. Also, talk about connected devices. Five billion people are going to be connected by 2025. The average devices per person this year is 2.9. Technically, it's round up to three. I got my watch here. It's a notification economy. It could be powered by something. What's going on in the software side of your business that's going to power that? And we're seeing things like Android, iOS, taking over Hollywood. You guys just announced a big deal with Apple, Fastlane.  What's going on? Well, I think what people are really actually getting to is that solutions now aren't just in the data center. So I'm a data center guy, but it is edge to data center, to cloud, and more and more a solution or an application doesn't live in just one of those locations. So you're actually having a lot of things that go on your mobile phone and everybody thinks that's the solution, but it's powered by stuff that's either in the cloud or the data center as well. So we have to design infrastructure to support all these needs going forward. And I think the really cool thing is, all that's going on is the amount of data that's being created off these devices and amount of activity people are doing with them that it's just going to really explode. And we think we're there. We think we're at this place where it's changed the world now, but we haven't even seen anything yet.  Oh, just when you're so cell phone, it's like crazy. So forever you guys have been a huge partner to CIOs from a network perspective. Five or six years ago, people thought you were crazy to get in the server business. It's low margin, it's commodity. Obviously taking market share number one in blade servers. Like how much has your conversation changed with CIOs now that you're touching the applications, you're part of their compute infrastructure, you're part of that data infrastructure? Well, I think you hit a head on. I mean, the reason why I think we got into the compute businesses, it touches the applications and everyone really knows the application is where the business outcomes are. So we can talk about everything we do in data center, we can talk about all the things we do, you know, from the server to the hypervisor, but it's when you get to the application that it's hitting the business outcomes that people need. So it's really essential that you make sure those are there, the uptime, the performance and that actually you can handle all the different form factors that are required for that. And by the way, we are number one now in Americas. We've actually left those other guys behind quite a bit. Well, let's take in those numbers a little bit later, but I want to get your take on Cisco historically for 10, 15 years ago.  You know, do we move up the stack? Do we go after adjacent markets? Well, chambers announced we go after adjacent markets. Hence the server leadership and then some of this integrated stuff you guys are doing, but moving up the stack is a very interesting proposition. We're a routing company, but now you guys are diversified. You went into adjacent markets, but big data is the hottest market on the planet right now. That is fundamental in all applications. You're running that piece of the business and what does that mean for you? You're doing a keynote at Strata and the big data NYC event that's going on in New York with Wikibon and SiliconANGLE in next month. So tie that together. Big data into the application into UCS. Well, the crazy thing is it's, if you think about Cisco and the world's data, I think we touch 85% of the world's data. It hits a Cisco device. And so what does that mean? Well, there's a whole side of big data that it's just about operation technologies. So how do you make your infrastructure more efficient? How do you collect the machine data? How do you do the machine to machine learning that actually can inform how you do your business decisions? That's a huge part of big data. And I personally spent all my other time on consumer-facing, outbound-facing sports, as you know. I'm obsessed with big data in sports and how the Tour de France had sensors on all the bikes and how baseball doesn't put sensors on anything, but actually we're using radar and video technology to analyze how fast that outfielder goes after the ball. To me, that's so cool. But the reality is we're saving companies a lot of money by taking what was infrastructure and turning it into a sensor, right? I mean, look, Wi-Fi, we're all here at Wi-Fi. We don't realize it, but they know where we all are collected. Our MAC addresses are saying, hey, we got a big crowd of people here and this place is actually more convenient. So we're constantly feeding information through the network and through these sensors that are going to perform great things for us. Okay, so I got to ask the consumerization of IT question because that's been kicked around for many, many years. We had one guest on startup yesterday doing wide area network stuff, Viptel, I think it's called, and essentially the company's infrastructure is still the old stodgy, and I want to say Cisco because you're in all the accounts so you kind of fall in that incumbent position. I want to have a user experience that's going to look like Netflix, it's going to look like Comcast, but I want SLAs, right? So I want the best of both worlds. I want the agileness of robust, diverse access and speed, but I want the SLAs. How are you guys delivering that and not locking the customers into the old stodgy networking paradigm? I mean, you're hearing it more and more. The companies are living in a bimodal world.  They have to be more robust. They have to be changing. I mean, we're changing our entire internal website and external because things are moving so quickly, right? So you got to actually be fast there and drive it. So if you think about, I mean, even what we heard yesterday, VMware is talking about doing really cool things in the area of Photon because new apps are coming on and they require new infrastructure. So everybody in the industry is right now saying, okay, from form factors to the software that's running the infrastructure software to how the applications are being developed, it's all changing. So we're all sitting here all calm, but we all know this world is changing fast and furious. Yeah, so obviously a big change at Cisco going on. John Chambers is no longer there. Chuck Robbins is there. First couple acquisitions he makes, software companies, he's talking to the Wall Street about deferred revenues in terms of software. Is Cisco, is the culture of Cisco becoming a software company? Is that the change that's happening? The world's becoming software. I mean, and yes, so definitely. I mean, where everybody looks at infrastructure, all the value in our infrastructure is the software. Let's just be honest, I mean, come on. From our networking and ACI and the value you get there, from UCS, which is honestly industry standard components and it's our service profiles and our ability to actually take these things, which are the equivalent, like I always say, it's the SIM card of your mobile phone, all the personality, but we do that in software. And that's why we were able to take over and actually dominate the blade market because of the software component. Yeah, we had a great crowd chat here yesterday at VMworld, the flash mob with the Cisco ACI team. And it's interesting, policy-based fill in the blank is everything now, so that's software-driven. We got a wrap, but I want to get your take on one topic that's near and dear to my heart, competing in this new era. You guys got great leadership with UCS, congratulations. You're out there marketing, leading the business efforts there. What's the secret in today's market? You've been extremely successful in marketing to solutions to customers in a dynamic environment.  What's your secret? So the secret is how you reach your customers is not the same. You don't just actually come out with your product, pull out your solution brief and put it out there. It's more about influencers today and it's reaching people that you can't reach through normal components. It is partnering with likes of SAP, VMware, NetApp, EMC and going into our big data partners, Cloudera, Platforms, Splunk and working with them to go to your customer because the customer doesn't want to hear just one side anymore. The customer wants to know that you actually understand why you're partnering with these people, what the solutions are you're doing together and what are the business outcomes you're going to deliver upon that. Social business, it's now collaboration is the new normal. Jim McHugh, Vice President of Cisco, UCS and other things, big data as well. This is theCUBE director set here live on the floor of the lobby of Moscone North in San Francisco. We'll be right back after this short break. Go.