Prepareable of the Ritual Cat There once was a great monastery high up in the mountains of Tibet. One day, when the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery started making noise. So much noise, in fact, that it completely distracted them so the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice so that they could meditate in peace. Years later, when the teacher died, the practice of tying up the cat continued during their meditation sessions. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and was tied up during their meditations. Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treaties about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice. The parable of the Ritual Cat is a story about the questioning of authority and rituals. Today, there are endless number of rituals, beliefs, and ideas about the world that extend back into ancient times. But how many of these are actually our own and not someone else's that have been passed on to us? This parable highlights our attitude to authority and the ever-pervading belief that just because someone isn't expert in something doesn't mean that they're right 100% of the time. Logically speaking, the monks could have just let the cat out and shut the door when meditating, which would probably have been much better for the cat. But because their learned master made the decision, later monks attributed great significance to an event that they weren't even around to see or understand why. This parable reminds me of an old children's game, telephone, where you would whisper something into someone's ear and then the message would be passed along from one kid to the next. By the time it got to the last child, the message would generally be very different from how it was when it started. Perhaps this is how silly superstitions develop. You've probably heard the phrase, all myths have some element in truth, or there's no smoke without fire, which say that there's always a cause and origin story to our favorite myths, but over time they get distorted as they are passed from one generation to the next. Eventually, you'll have a generation of people who believe something entirely different from what it used to be. There's also something to be said for interpreting ancient traditions from a modern perspective. We should always remember that way back in the old days, when many of our legends and traditions developed, society was very different. Morality and social dynamics were considered differently, and people lived fundamentally different kinds of lives. Just because a tradition developed a thousand years ago, doesn't always mean that it will work today without going through, perhaps at least, a little bit of change. This story always makes me wonder how many seemingly spiritual or mystical traditions actually began as practical solutions to some everyday problem. A funny example is found in the British Iron Age, where for years archeologists thought the position of the door and entrance in roundhouses was because of some spiritual or mystical reason in their mythology. Linguists even spent years looking for symbolism with evil texts until someone had the very bright idea that by looking at where the central fire and livestock would have been in the village, most of the doors were just facing the other way to avoid the smell of the cows and the smoke from the fire. I think the most important takeaway from this parable then is to always question your beliefs and try to adapt them with the times. Always think about the reason you're doing things and if it makes sense to you. And while there is something to be said about experts who have devoted their lives to their field, remember to trust yourself as the highest authority in your own beliefs. I think a lot of us live our whole lives like this. We do this and that over and over without really thinking about the significance or meaning of it. And if we actually stopped to look at some of our traditions, we might see that someone or something always suffers from unnecessary superstitious behavior. Take black cats for example. There's a common superstition that if one crosses your path, it's often considered bad luck. But in parts of Europe and England, it's apparently good luck. How many black cats have missed out on adoption because people just thought they were unlucky? Ultimately, this story is far more about the failings of people than rituals, cats, or scholars.


Hey everyone, welcome to Higan Irruthil. So before we go and move to more content, more gameplay, I'd like to give you guys my honest first impressions based on my experience from the previous two CBTs up to now up to soft launch and what could be for global. So that is what we are going to be talking about and what it is now specifically, how the game has been, the evolution of CBT up to soft launch and more or less what I think we need more moving towards global. So as I established, I've been playing since CBT. This one, let's just have a few comments with what the game has first glance, first glance, what the game has been evolved or has evolved into. So far, the UI is kept simple. It's much simpler than before, not a lot much. And they have really taken out a lot of clicks in terms of where you want to go. It's very simple. You have adventure in Outland and the rest are down there. So it's it's much cleaner. The UI is much cleaner in terms of in terms of how fluid the game is the gameplay. I think it's the same as CBT as the last CBT or even better. Okay, so also let's go through some of the things that they have improved on this one. The missions, they've improved this one. I like the new mission type. And I also like how what they call this in terms of the shop as well. It's streamlined more. They hid most of it in the exchange in terms of your wish. Also, it's it's it's a bit streamlined more or less. And there's a pity counter ready. I don't remember a pity counter before. What else? This is at first glance. Okay, guys. So and also let us go through if you have inventory trophy, not that because these are just content that was just lying around here. The important content will be on your Outland and your adventure. So if you go to your roster, it's also cleaner. The interface is also cleaner. It's more simplified. I'm not sure if we can still you know, we can still tinker with equipment. But before there was a portion where we could upgrade equipment up until it adds to our stats. I'm not there yet. We still have to more or less look at it. I think yes, because I've seen different phases of the equipment, as you can see here. It actually changes in appearance a little bit. So hopefully we can still tinker with equipment moving forward. But it's not really a big deal. As long as the game strategy is actually enjoyable and challenging, I don't really have a, you know, a, you know, a problem with that one. So in terms of gameplay, let me just go through one of the gameplays here. Let us go to the ones that I cleared. And let's just enter it again. So more or less the gameplay for me is, is the core of this game. I wouldn't be playing this if I'm not interested in the game. It's for me, it's a bit unique. It's going to be deployment. Then it's not your usual turn based RPG. It gives you a lot of decisions in between. So I haven't adjusted my video settings yet at this point. So this is your gameplay. We just have to more or less deploy, check out your formation. Your formation is, is dependent is actually going to add up to your success in a battle. It's an auto chess style. So auto deployment, not auto deployment, you deploy, then they play out auto. Then once you're in a fight, once you're in a fight here, you can really do a lot because you have skills to deploy. You can actually put those in auto. Let's do this times too. You can actually do a lot here guys. There you go. I'm playing this better actually in my, in my mobile. I don't know why. Probably not optimized for a, for an emulator, but mobile, I don't have a problem. So far, it has been okay, let's do some auto here. But my point is you can really customize the outcome because you have skills, you have, you have ultimates here, and there you go. You can also do it auto play if you're not into that thing in terms of casting independently. So let's go out of here. More or less, the gameplay, the battle system is, is actually part grid play, part, what do you call this, action RPG. So, okay, so here we are. Okay, let's, let's go to the settings first. The settings by the way guys is here. So we have, let's do high FPS. As you can see, it's, it has been, it hasn't been tinkered with so far. And let's go back to settings. Okay, better, better. As I've said, it's not the game's fault. It was my fault that I didn't tinker with the settings. So again, the game is auto chess. It has a lot of complex things. It's challenging enough that you're gonna be looking for more. But it's not going to hamper or disappoint you because you can't progress through. Okay, so more or less for the soft launch, I'm expecting that there would be better or improvements for global. The only reason for me that they're stopping over for soft launch is that they think that there might be improvements for global or testing is out right now. And I hope they do because right now, I'm really happy with the game. I don't think there are problems with the game itself. It's going to be, it's going to boil down towards the developers on how they're going to support the game moving forward. I think that is the only downfall here. But as far as the gameplay, the game mechanics, the overall experience, I don't think I have a problem with the game. So are there changes subject for global? Hopefully there would be improvements. And the other one again I just want to reiterate is that it really depends on the devs moving forward on how they're going to support the game. How do they want to engage their player base? Because again, there are a lot of upcoming games coming out, notably Hongkai Star Rail. So for me, if players will be hooked here, there is a good chance that if they release global and players are happier with global before the release of Hongkai Star Rail, then they could probably be hooked here. So gameplay wise, overall, I would say 9 out of 10, probably some minor kinks to adjust. But as is, the game is very enjoyable and I don't really have a problem even for free to play. So I'll make another video on that. I'll do an account overview on what I have right now and what is free to play experience for day one. And that's it. So hope you guys are enjoying this game if you're playing already. And if you have not played this, I hope that you guys would try this out and probably share this with other players. Again, this game is one of probably the best games for this year if their momentum continues toward this global. So thank you very much guys for staying this far.  This is The Warden and I'm out of here.


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We looked at verse 25 where we saw that Stephen began to speak about the patriarchs. Now he's talking about Moses and he said how Moses was in a hurry to fulfill the promise of God but it didn't work out the way he desired.  And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting. He tried to reconcile them saying men, you are brethren, why do you wrong one another? Okay, so I think I went ahead of this verse verse 27 but he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away saying who made you a ruler and a judge over us?  Verse 29, then at this same Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian where he had two sons. So Moses seems to have rushed into God's purposes and when he saw that the hearts of the people, his own people who he was supposed to deliver, they were not ready yet because of his mistake. He had to kind of take a detour. So he goes up to the land of Midian but thank God for his grace that even when someone is off track, God still continues to provide and protect that all of us in this case Moses but God protected him. His call never went away from him. We know the rest of the story. Verse 30, and when 40 years had passed, wow, 40 years again, 40 years such a long time that Moses is walking with the Lord. And when 40 years had passed an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. So just when Moses is thinking God, it came into my heart when I was 40 years old but now here I am in the wilderness because of my own mistake. Have you forgotten your promise to me? But what's happening? It's in those moments where me and Moses was beginning to lose his grip on the promise of God that God encounters him in a fresh way. So an encounter in the wilderness. This is an entire sermon in itself so I don't want to make it a sermon but you see God is speaking through every word.  So what was he doing at that time? He was just doing his daily activities. We know that in Midian he was more like a shepherd. So he was taking care of his flocks. But at that time in the Mondayness of life God encounters him. So that's so beautiful to know that our God, we might just be having a normal day but it does not prevent God from encountering us in a powerful way even in a regular day of our lives. So it was 31. When Moses saw it he marveled at the sight and as he drew nearer to observe the voice of the Lord came to him.  And Moses trembled and died not ever. So the encounter which Moses had, God spoke to Abraham when he was not in the promised land. God was with Joseph when he was an agent. Now God is speaking to Moses in Midian. So the encounter is in a completely different place. God is reminding Moses of what he needs to do in and through his land verse 33. Then the Lord said to him, take your sandals off your feet for the place where you stand this holy ground verse 34. I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard that groaning and have come down to deliver them and now come. I will send you to Egypt. So finally the moment has come when God wants Moses to go and do the primary assignment for his life. And all these years what was happening? Preparation. Preparation was taking place. So God is encountering Moses and he said, I want you to go now. Now is the Cairo's moment. Now is the current time for you to step out.  So one other insight that we cannot hear is, our cries reach God. The children of Israel each of 400 years, they would have thought, God what happened? Can you not hear us? We are being oppressed. We want deliverance. We want you to redeem our losses. We want you to take away this destruction from us. And they might have thought that time is just passing by and God is not doing anything about our situation. But that's not the fact. What happens? We read here, God acknowledging. I have surely seen the oppression of my people. So God is a God who takes note of whatever we go through. Even our difficulties, our pains, our sorrows. God takes notice of that. I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are ignorant. I have heard the groaning. So he can see, he can hear. And when we call out to him, he hears it. He heard the groaning of the people. And this was the right moment that God picked to deliver. Now when God wants to bring deliverance, generally, what do we see in scripture? We see that God raises up a man. He raises up a woman. There was a time when you read the book of churches, you have people like Deborah, you have Gideon. God raised up people because there was a need for a leader to lead his people. And he made that possible. Similarly, you see, at this time, the people really needed a deliverer. God has chosen Moses and God has prepared Moses for all these years to become that deliverer for his people who were oppressed in Egypt. And little Moses had known how God wanted to do this. So God was with Moses and God encountered Moses in Median. Now verse 35. Now just think about this. There was an accusation about Stephen that he blasphemed God. Which part about God is untrue in what he is saying? He is saying the facts. This God that you are familiar with, the God of our fathers, this is how he spoke to our fathers. And he is giving God that due honor and respect. So which part about Moses is blasphemous in what he is saying? Actually, nothing. He is just stating historical religious facts. It's the Jews already know. So they can't capture anything that he is saying. What else does he want to say about Moses verse 35?  Is the one God said to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush? So he is saying, we know the story of Moses. Initially, he was rejected but he was the chosen one. He was the chosen one to lead the people. God encountered him in the wilderness and spoke to him there. Verse 36, he brought them out after he had shown wonders and signs of the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea adding the wilderness for 40 years. So finally through Moses' leadership with mighty signs and wonders, God delivered his people. Now, in what Stephen is saying, I already told us, he is giving them this perspective that it's not about finding God in a geographical location. We are familiar with that. But notice, he is slowly bringing the picture of Jesus. If you haven't noticed, he talked about Joseph who was rejected by his brothers. Bible scholars, that is not the best way of interpreting scripture. You can pick anything and you can say, I see something else in it. And it's the last type of preaching that we want to do using allegories and all that. But still, if you look at the life of Joseph, you could say that there is a type of Jesus in Joseph. Why? Because his own family rejected him. And isn't it the same story with Jesus? Jesus was rejected by his own people. The Jews rejected Jesus. Now, in talking of Moses, Stephen is bringing that same point for 35. Moses whom they rejected. So he's reminding the audience that, hey, we have a history of rejecting the man of God sent as a deliverer. Joseph was sent as a deliverer, but the Jews, his own family, what did they do? They reject. Okay, but thank God, somehow during famine, they were blessed because of Joseph. Because he was still kind hearted towards his people. Moses, he was rejected.  So, Moses, he was also rejected by his own people and he went into the wilderness, immediately. However, through his life, God delivered.  Who is the Messiah? After all, Joseph and Moses, they were all like shadows before the real deliverer, the real redeemer, who came to us in the person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, verse 37, this is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, God, your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear. So, notice how Peter preached? He always brought the subject of Jesus. This is good preaching. There is history, there is, you know, explaining, there is facts and figures, all of that is there. The central message, the central theme is to reveal Christ as Lord and that is what Stephen is doing. So, you know, if he was doing oboe politics course, I don't know how many marks his lecture would have given him. He has covered the people, Jesus Christ, the Lord. So, turning the hearts of the people towards God, right? He's not wasting a moment. Everything is coming to the central message, which is Jesus and he is talking about Jesus through Moses. So, now they can't reject. The listeners cannot reject this because they all know Moses. So, he is quoting Moses for them and he's saying, Moses who said to the children of Israel, so don't do what I'm telling you to do.  So, did Moses tell us there is going to be another person, a prophet like me? So, you know, you could imagine, you know, of the stature of Moses or even greater than Moses. From your brethren, so he will be a part of us, he will be Jewish. Him you shall hear. So, the, you know, the baby is going to be passed on to this key individual, prophet whom the Lord is going to raise up and you have to listen to him. You have to listen to that prophet. Verse 38, this is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us. So, he's explaining a little bit more about Moses and, you know, we know of this. Moses was in the wilderness, he had these encounters with God and he received the teachings of God. So, verse 39, whom our fathers would not obey but rejected and in their hearts, they turned back to Jinnah.  What did they do? They heard Moses out but their hearts were so far away from God. They were disobedient, they were complaining, they were, you know, people without faith, unbelief, no patience, such were the children of Israel. And they rejected and in their hearts, they turned back to Egypt saying to Aaron, make us gods to go before us as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt. We do not know what has become of him.  And, you know, that whole incident of when Moses went to speak with God and, you know, they made for themselves a calf to worship. So, it's like they rejected the prophet of God and they rejected God also, verse 41. And they made a calf in those days offered sacrifices to the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands, 42. Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets. Okay, so here there is a parallel. If you read of what Paul will write later to the book to the Romans, he says, or rather, you know, it's not later or anything because during this time when Luke was writing this, maybe Paul had already penned things out for the Roman church. But Romans 1, you know, when you read, we see there was 20 that the way God has handcrafted the handcraft of the sky, the way he is, the heavens, the way he has handcrafted this world. He says people do not have an excuse to not believe in God, right? So, there is a God and every human being's conscience tells them that that's what Romans 120 says. But later on in that passage, you see how even though people have that in the knowing, they want to do what they want to do it. So, later on in the passage, you read that God gives them their own choice. Okay, you want to worship other things, please go for it, no problem. So, he is using that same way of writing in verse 42, then God taught and gave them up to worship the host of heaven. Oh, what is God doing? He is just letting them go and saying, okay, I don't know the truth, but if you still want to do what you want to do, then, you know, it's amazing how God does not control people, how he does not impose, you know, how he does not, you know, as in a robotic way, take away our free will and say, no, you have to worship me. That is why salvation is a free gift, but those who believe, we are the ones who will walk in salvation. Those who believe, everyone who believes, does that mean some don't believe? Yes, unfortunately, but it's free, right? Free will is involved in receiving salvation or free will is involved in worshiping God. We cannot make anybody worship God. Okay, even God does not do that, he does not impose. So, the rejecting children of Israel, the complaining children of Israel, he just let them be and he said, okay, do whatever you want to do. And verse 42, the lack of part, did you offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during 40 years in the wilderness? O house of Israel, verse 43, you also took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your God, Remphan. Images which you made to worship and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. So, Stephen is reminding them of an attitude of irreverence which the children of Israel had towards God, towards the prophet Moses. Okay, so he's pointing out how they worshiped other gods and he mentions verse 43 is tabernacle of Moloch, God, Remphan. These are all Egyptian gods. So, just look at these people, right? The children of Israel, God showed them so many miracles, he protected them, he heard their cries, he delivered them out of Egypt. But as some preachers have said, they came out of Egypt but Egypt did not come out of them and they carried with them the traditions of Egypt. There was a tug on their heart for the gods of Egypt. They probably were familiar with certain gods and methods of worship and it just made them feel good and they subscribed to it even though they knew the living God. So, in a way what Stephen is saying is, we are not any different from what our fathers did. This part can be very offensive. So far, the council would have heard about thinking, okay, he's just narrating our scriptures but now, you know, this is hard for any listener, any Jewish listener who doesn't believe in Jesus. In verse 44, our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as he appointed instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. Which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles.  Verse 46, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. Verse 47, but Solomon built him a house. So, all this history is to explain how this temple has come about. So, encounters, then tabernacle in the wilderness, eventually Solomon built this house. Okay, so, now let's see what Stephen goes with it. Verse 48, however, the most high does not dwell in temples made with hands as the prophet says. Look at this, now he's making the hard-hitting point. Come on, God does not live in this space.  And he is substantiating it with an Old Testament scripture. So, he quotes as the prophet says, verses 49 and 50, heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool. What house will you build for me says the Lord? Or what is the place of my rest has my hand not made all these things. So, he is substantiating what the point he made with what the scriptures of the audience says. Okay, so, as all of us have witnessed, you know, it's a very, like, you know, it's very accurate in its narration and its content. So, the listeners cannot pick on him about accuracy. They cannot pick on him, you know, to prove what they have been saying so far that he's talking wrong things about certain writers. So, now, with this information before them, what is the council going to do? Okay, so, he's going to conclude, Stephen is now going to conclude his sermon verse 51. He says, you stiff-naked and uncircumcised in the heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did so to you. So, now, he's not trying to cover up. He's not trying to, you know, sugarcoat what he means. He's putting it down directly. He's saying, you people, you are stiff-naked, uncircumcised in heart and ears. That is to say that, you know, the religious spirit where on the outside, activity wise we are fine. But on the inside, you know, true heart, sincere commitment wise, we are so far away from God. So, he says uncircumcised in heart and ears and he says, you always resist the Holy Spirit. Now, that is an accusation he is making against the council and the unbelieving Jews as your fathers did. So do you. This statement is quite accurate, actually, because he just showed us how the children of Israel were disobedient. Verse 52, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute and they killed those who fought on the coming of the just one of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers. Verse 53, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it. Okay, so again, oops, what is that? Okay, there's some noise, I think. Thank you, whoever muted. All right, so we are seeing Stephen. Now you could say accused. And tell them that they are unbelieving, not just unbelieving, but he said you're walking in the footsteps of your fathers who have even killed and murdered the messengers. So what is it? Verse 53, it says, who have received the law by the direction of the angels. So what is direction of the angels receiving the law by the direction of the angels? So that what angels there, if you look it up in the Greek, it actually means messenger. So it is not that angels came and gave the law or anything like that, it's just messenger. God gave the law to his messenger, Moses. And similarly, God gave his word to his man whom he raised up men and women. And that is how he shared what was on his heart. But he said that the Jews have rejected so far what God has been doing. And not just that, they have even gone to the extent of killing the messengers. And there is a mention of Jesus here, though we have not heard the word that Jesus over here. We know that he quoted Moses where he said, Moses said that there will be another prophet, you hear him. So he's talking about Jesus and in verse 52, he says, photo in the coming of the just one. Who is that just one? Obviously the righteous one, the Lord Jesus Christ. So they got the point. So what is he trying to say? He's saying, ultimately he's saying, you did not believe Jesus. You did not and you are not believing messengers who are talking about Jesus. Okay, so such is the defense and the speech of Stephen. Once again, he's filled with the Holy Spirit. What did we see when it came to the apostles standing before the Sanhedrin, the council? They had boldness, isn't it? Boldness is one of the expressions of being filled with the Holy Spirit.  He's not trying to cover up anything. He's telling things as they are. Okay, maybe they needed to hear it this way. And so he's not politically right anymore to its end of his sermon and just gives it to them. So what is going to happen to Stephen?  When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart. You remember this cut to the heart? We saw it earlier in Acts chapter 2. But that cut to the heart led to a positive reaction. This cut to the heart is not leading to a positive reaction. They are cut to the heart and they gnashed at him with their teeth. That simply means grinding their teeth. Okay, why are they grinding their teeth? Verse 55, let's read further. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and said, look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. So I'll just read verse 57 and come back, verse 57. Then they cried out to the loud voice, stopped their ears and ran at him with what they got. So I told you, cut to the heart, gnashed at him with their teeth while in opposition, in anger, in rejection. Okay, they are grinding their teeth against Stephen. This was too much for them to take. And after all, this is some believer of that so-called gathering of Jesus followers. So it's okay, we can deal with this math. So that is their take. And they are very angry. They were cut to the heart, hit them hard, but their response is more of anger. And it's not of accepting the fact that they have rejected their own God who they talk about. But on the other side, what about Stephen? In a moment like this, when he's been cried and this gives us so much of comfort and confidence.  And it's almost like, you know, he is having a vision. He gazed into heaven, it says. So most likely, he's having a vision. He's looking into heaven. What does he see? He saw the glory of God. So heaven is filled with the glory of God. Stephen is seeing the glory of God. And he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So quite different from what we read about. Isn't it Colossians or Ephesians seated at the right hand of God? So Jesus is sitting over there. But in this case, strangely, Luke says that Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And Stephen said this, look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Now we might wonder, how did Luke come to know? Because Stephen said it. He said, I see heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. So Jesus was standing when Stephen had a vision of God. God is so gracious to give visions at a very difficult time. Even in the midst of a trial, what is happening?  And Stephen has a vision. Do you think a vision would have strengthened him at this point? Definitely. There could be all these human faces that are angry. And we see later on, they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their years.  But his spiritual eyes are seeing the glory of God. What do you think his heart would have been consumed with? He saw heaven open. He saw the glory of God. He saw the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. I feel that he would have been gripped with the scene of heaven much more than... Did he have fear looking at people shouting at him and all? Maybe he did. But I feel that he probably was more caught up in the scene of heaven and rejoiced in the scene of heaven. Verse 57 says, they were against him towards the end with one accord. Again, cut to the heart, one accord in a completely opposite way. One accord for the wrong things. So even the mob or the council is against... Not the mob yet, but the council is against him. Again, Stephen at this point was 58. And they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. So they had a practice of punishing blasphemers. Why was Stephen stoned? You know, it was a proof that he was blaspheming anything from their points. I don't think that came through from his speech. But you know, towards the end, he started telling them, you are stiff-necked and you have rejected. You have killed the prophets who spoke about the just one. Now, there was so much anger. I don't even know whether they wanted to wait and find a logical conclusion. What did he say? What should be done? They were just in outrage.  So there was no moment of pause. They just dragged him, cast him out of the city, it says, and stoned him. That was their way of punishing for some crimes. And in this case, blasphemy. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. So it seems like somebody was leading the killing of Stephen. For people to come and lay their clothes at the feet of a certain person, seems like that person was a leader. So once Stephen was killed, they laid down their clothes at the feet, not the clothes of Stephen, their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. So there was a young man named Saul who was leading the esteem against Stephen. Now, we all know who this Saul is. But notice Saul is in Acts 7 way before. We read about him in Acts 9 when he has an encounter on the road to Damascus. So what is the kind of person he is in Galatians? Paul talks about himself. He describes himself a little bit more. And in Philippians, in fact, he points this out. He points out that he was zealous. He was zealous for his religion all along. So here, Acts 7 verse 58 shows us how zealous he was. That he was one of those people who was proud to take down Stephen, a man who was accused of blasphemous against his God. So that is the first introduction of Saul for us in the book of Acts. And one more thing which we can register in our minds right now is, you remember we said that there was the synagogue of the Freedmen and then it had the regions over there, Alexandria and some other regions. So there is also the region of Silesia. So Paul, Saul is from the region of Silesia. So he could have been a member of the Sanhedrin from the region of Silesia. So just keep these details in your mind. We will look more into Paul's life as we go forward. So verse 59. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Anyone else who said receive my spirit? Zeus. Yeah, Jesus. So Jesus said, receive my spirit. And similarly, Saul is crying out to the Lord and he's saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Now I don't think I explained Jesus standing, isn't it? So in his vision, Stephen saw Jesus standing. Even later, we will see how Jesus talks to Saul, a persecutor. Jesus talks to him in his encounter. He says, why are you persecuting me? Jesus will say. So talking about persecution, you know, when God's people are persecuted, he takes it very personally. Jesus never said, we'll see later on in Acts 9, he never said, Saul, why are you persecuting my people? On that road to Damascus, he says, why are you persecuting me? So when God's people are persecuted, it's as if all that is happening to Jesus itself. You see, God takes it like that. Jesus takes it like that. Such comfort from that thought. And in this case, as Stephen saw heaven open, Jesus is not sitting.  The people who, we know that Stephen was martyred, but it's like Jesus standing up and giving a standing ovation to somebody who had run his race well and said, hey, you have fought a good fight.  You lived for your faith. And, you know, it's just like, it moves us, right? To think that Jesus would stand up to welcome a martyr. Okay, so that is the difference where Stephen is actually looking at Jesus saying, oh, well done, you've done a great job. Don't worry about the body.  You must fear the one who is able to destroy more than that spirit, right?  God has the ability. So our fear must be reverence and all must be towards that God and not so much about, you know, people and pleasing people. So God was looking at Stephen. Jesus was looking at Stephen and saying, you know, you have kept your reverence towards.  You've done what is the right. So Jesus was standing up and welcoming, in a sense, the martyr into his kingdom now. And it must have been such an encouragement for Stephen in his last moments to see the very Lord Jesus. Again, you know, we can talk so much about it. Maybe Stephen could have had a vision of the angels standing up and clapping or something like that. A crowd kept for him. But Jesus was standing. So it was God, you know, personally encouraging, commenting, applauding, welcoming.  And that is incredible. That is amazing. And of course, this whole troop of stoning Stephen, it was led by Saul. You've seen, he is one of those learned men from Cilicia, verse 59, and they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. So a little bit more about Stephen. So he is surrendering to God. And even in those moments, he says, okay, God, just receive my spirit. Maybe he recognized, okay, this is it, that he will not make it. Okay, he didn't say, Lord Jesus, heal me because maybe he just had that witness in his spirit that it's time for me to go to heaven. It's the end of my life. And verse 60, then knelt down and cried out for the loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. So as if all the description about Stephen was not enough for us to be saying, wow, what a man. The last verse here, he says, he knelt down. He didn't pray for himself. What did he say? He said with a loud voice, Lord, he prayed for the others. He said, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. So this shows us what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit to really, if he had spoken the sermons spitefully with bitterness in his heart towards the Jews. I don't think when he is breathing his last, he would say, God, don't charge them with this sin. He would have said, God, give them a very good punishment for what they have done. But just the way Jesus, forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do. A representative, what did Jesus say?  Isn't this being a witness for Christ in speech, in faith, in boldness, in deed, in compassion, in forgiveness? What else do we see in Stephen's life? We see wisdom, we see power. What a witness. This is Acts 1-8 in demonstration.  He just, he understands, okay, God, you are the receiver of my spirit. This is the end of my life. So he says, okay, Lord, receive my spirit and then finally, prayer of forgiveness for his persecutors. Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Okay, so the doctor Luke is saying that Stephen fell asleep in the New Testament. This is the language which is used for believers who die in Christ fell asleep because we will rise up again. So physical then is not permanent because of the redemption which we have received through the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is really hoping that Acts 8 and I was trying to go like a train but my train is not fast enough. I think I have to stop. It's almost 10.46 now. Maybe we can talk about what we have learned so far. Four minutes, any thoughts, comments, insights and then Acts 8. Hopefully, you know, next class onwards, this is going to get faster. So anything that you all want to add to what you've been talking about. Yes, Christopher. Oh, yes, so I just wanted to just go through the verse 748. However, the most high does not live in houses made by human hands. And I mean, does this mean that, you know, the churches that are built now, you know, should not have, you know, should not have idols, should not be, you know, very on it, should not be, you know, very, should not really, should not spend much money on it. And because God doesn't dwell there, he dwells, you know, everywhere basically. And yeah, I just wanted to get some view on that. So Christopher, like scripture is quite clear, even when we studied about the house of God, the body of Christ, we've seen how, and the temple, temple of God, we've seen how we are told that you are the temple or the people of God. We are the temple of God. And Jesus said that two or three are gathered in the midst of human being. So his presence is in the midst of the believers. So it's not so much about the physical building. Yes, the physical building is blessed by the presence of God, which comes when believers pray, they worship. And, you know, they invite God. Okay, so that is one point. Now, should much be done regarding the beauty of the places of worship, I think that is up to the people. If people want to make that place beautiful, then that's fine. That's okay. But that's not the primary focus. I don't know if I answered your question.  And some of these churches are also very, are really beautiful, you know, I mean, some of the churches even in, you know, in Europe and even churches in India. So I just wanted to understand should that be the practice, you know, now or should it just sort of, you know, be simple and. Okay, so, so if you're talking about this, this culture of having, you know, ornate churches, church buildings, people all that. You could say that some of that stems out of this belief that God lives there and it's a house of God. Okay, but we know that it's the people who actually make it the house of God. So yeah, that belief that only these physical buildings are where God lives that would not stand alone by itself. So yeah, there's no need to spend so much on just the external building anymore. Okay, sure. Thank you. And I think Tarun has a scripture here in the chat. It's for Christopher. Is it Tarun? I was just reading about Hall of Heaven Stones, which is the actually the Hall of the Sanhedrin. That's the only building which is built with. The Hall of Heaven Stones is like if you use some tools to cut the stones, it's called Heaven Stones. Now in Exodus, God makes it very clear when we build the temple, we have to pick up the natural stones and not use any tool on it. For example, if you use iron to cut the stones, it might carve into an image and that might lead to idolatry. That's the kind of detail that God was very keen on. And he writes in Exodus, it's clearly written that you should just use the stones in the shapes and sizes that we find naturally to build the temple and not try to even carve it. Likewise, there are like so many implications like if you, iron is actually used for weapons of war and iron is not supposed to be used on the stone. That's the kind of detailing that God went when it was, because temple is meant for peace and not for shortening the life which war was, but to extend the life. So you need to be very careful about idolatry when it comes to building the temple. So that's the verse I just wanted to read. Yeah, thanks, Tarun. Very interesting there. If you have any links, please do leave it on our screen page. We have for everyone. And because of the positive of time, I think we will wrap up here, but we can pick up a little bit more on this subject in the next session. Say we'll take up your question then. Okay, so thank you everyone. God bless. You have only eight minutes to connect to your next class. All the best to you. I'll see you next week. Have a great weekend. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Pastor.


Hi and welcome to the session. I am Shashi and I am going to help you with the following question. Question says, in a hurdle race, a player has to cross 10 hurdles. The probability that he will clear each hurdle is 5 upon 6. What is the probability that he will knock down fewer than 2 hurdles? Let's now start with the solution. Now we know repeated trials for crossing of hurdles are Bernoulli trials. We know Bernoulli trials are finite in number and they are independent. Also they have exactly 2 outcomes. Now let us assume that X denotes the number of hurdles knocked down by the player in 10 trials. We know he has to cross 10 hurdles. So total number of trials is equal to 10 only. Now we are given probability that player will clear each hurdle is equal to 5 upon 6. So the probability that player does not clear the hurdle is equal to 1 minus 5 upon 6 which is further equal to 1 upon 6. Now clearly we can see X has Bernoulli distribution with n is equal to 10 and p is equal to 1 upon 6. Therefore probability of X successes is equal to ncx multiplied by q raised to the power n minus x multiplied by p raised to the power x where x is equal to 0 to n. Now here we have n is equal to 10, p is equal to 1 upon 6 and q is equal to 1 minus p that is 1 minus 1 upon 6 or we can simply write q is equal to 5 upon 6. Now substituting corresponding values of n, p and q in this expression we get probability of X successes is equal to 10cx multiplied by q is equal to 5 upon 6 So here we can write 5 upon 6 raised to the power 10 minus x multiplied by p that is 1 upon 6 raised to the power x. Now we know probability of knocking down fewer than 2 hurdles is equal to probability of knocking down 0 hurdle plus probability of knocking down 1 hurdle or we can simply write probability of X less than 2 is equal to probability of X is equal to 0 plus probability of X is equal to 1. Now to find this probability or we can say to find probability for X is equal to 0 we will substitute 0 for X in this expression and we get 10c0 multiplied by 5 upon 6 raised to the power 10 minus 0 multiplied by 1 upon 6 raised to the power 0. We will write this plus sign as it is now we will substitute 1 for X in this expression to find this probability and we get 10c1 multiplied by 5 upon 6 raised to the power 10 minus 1 multiplied by 1 upon 6 raised to the power 1. Now simplifying further we get 5 upon 6 raised to the power 10 plus 10 multiplied by 5 upon 6 raised to the power 9 multiplied by 1 upon 6 Now 5 upon 6 is common in both of these terms so we can write 5 upon 6 whole raised to the power 9 multiplied by 5 upon 6 plus 10 upon 6 is equal to probability of X less than 2. Now this is further equal to 5 upon 6 raised to the power 9 multiplied by 15 upon 6 now we will cancel common factor 3 from numerator and denominator both and we get 5 upon 2 multiplied by 5 upon 6 whole raised to the power 9 is equal to probability of X less than 2 or we can write probability of X less than 2 is equal to 5 raised to the power 10 upon 2 multiplied by 6 raised to the power 9 so probability that the player will knock down fewer than 2 hurdles is equal to 5 raised to the power 10 upon 2 multiplied by 6 raised to the power 9 This is our required answer this completes the session hope you understood the solution take care and have a nice day.


It will start burning through, and then you can eat it. Like, the south has their own base? Yeah, the south, uh, that is, uh, Roanemi. Okay. So, like that. Rules. You stop. You work on the, uh, the bark again, and then try again. Fondue. Fondue. Like a little fondue. No, I'll try it, but I can find a pet of sausage. Full of fire to treat hypothermia. Yeah. So, or sanitized water, or melt snow. Yeah. Hey. Hey. Hey, sir. Am I good? Do I pass? Yeah. Okay. You can, uh, do it a couple of times. How was it? It was pretty good. Pretty good. Did you see the build? Yeah. Take you on the ski trip. Yeah. I would go. Nah, I don't. It's okay.


Okay, good morning, once again, everybody welcome back to our second lecture, BC314 on media and technology. We're just starting to talk a little bit about websites, websites for our church and ministry, how we can go about setting it up, just some thoughts, some guidance on it. So let's continue from where we paused and alright. So when you come to building the church website, what are some of the things you need to think about? So you think about what kind of website do you want to have and who are the people you're targeting? Do you want to have something that's very contemporary, that's very attractive, very fancy, do you want to stay with a classic look? What are you trying to do? So for us at APC, when we were thinking about this, and of course, our website's been there from, I think, I don't know, a long time ago, forget when, maybe from 2004 or something, it's been there. And then of course, it's gone through updates continuously. But anyway, our main motivation was we wanted, the way we are thinking about our website is actually a repository. That means we want people, when they think about our website, they say, hey, I need to go to their website because I'll find content that I'm looking for. So our website is not just a brochure for our church or ministry.  So that was our motivation that we're going to make it a website that provides content for believers all over the world. And we're going to provide it for free. Now, if you go to some church websites, to buy a book here to pay some money, to listen to buy, to download a sermon, $3, buy a book, $15, $20, something like that, people charge different things. But we said, no, we want our website to be a free repository of all our sermons, everything. So you'll find all of our books, all our sermons from 2004 till now, so about 20 years of sermons. Of course, in the early days, we only did audio recording, and then slowly we started having early days, 2004, it was only audio recording and sermon notes. We did not even have PowerPoints. And slowly after that, I don't know which year, but some of the years, you'll have audio recording, sermon notes, PowerPoints. Then slowly after that, you'll have videos. We started having videos. So it all came later on, but 20 years of content is available. And then, so all our sermons, the videos, other content that we added. So that was our motivation that we will make it a content repository of content, Christian content, sermons, books, whatever we have, make it available for free. Now, that was our motivation. Now, somebody else may say, well, I just want my website to be like a brochure. I just want to give some information about the ministry, about the church. It's mainly informational, that's fine. You can be content, you're providing resources. Sometimes people may use their website to raise support. You want to mobilize finances or volunteers, that may be something. Some people may want to use their website to sell products, like people come and shop for whatever people are selling, Christian books, music, other things. Or sometimes you can use your website to get action, register for conferences, register for events, register for various things. Now, our motivation was mainly content. Now, we do provide information. That means we do let people know a little bit about our church and things like that. And we do have some information on where people can support if they want to give. And also all the registrations for all our events also happen through our website. So we kind of do all this. But this is like our main goal was it should be the content. People should come for the content. So with that as your objective, once you define what do I want to do with my website, then you can decide whom you want to target. So our goal was let's keep it plain simple classic. So you don't find anything very fancy on our website. It's not some glossy look and feel. It's very simple. Here are all the menus, here are all the information. It's an old classic look. And that's intentional. We just want to make it easy for people to navigate the website. And then you can think about what people call as information architecture, how you want to lay out your site map, how you want to lay it out. Make it simple, make it very intuitive. So even a new person coming, they will know, okay, here's your homepage. If I want to know about the church, I go to the about section. If I'm a visitor, I go to the new visitor section. If I want to know about the events, I can go here. If I want to know what are people leading this church, I can go to the team page. If I want to know, I don't want to contact them. I should be able to get the information. So make it very intuitive. What is the information people are looking for? It should be very accessible. What are the things? So people are looking for what time of the Sunday church service. It should be accessible because they want to come to church. They should find that information. Or where is the church meeting? Which location? What is the address? They should be able to find that. So make it very simple, very easy to use. And then use colors and graphics that are very pleasant. And there should be no error, zero error in anything on the graphics. So if there's a spelling mistake somewhere, it makes it look bad. So have somebody check it. So we have a QA process that we try to make sure. Now and then sometimes some mistakes slip in, but we try to keep it clean. No spelling mistakes. Keep the content updated. So literally every day the website is being updated. Everything is being, all information is taken off contents. Because if it's old, people think like, oh, it's not been updated. I can't trust the other information on the website. So keep the content updated. If you have links on the website, it should all be working. And as I mentioned, it should be very easy to navigate the website. Some other useful things you can do is when people come to your website, try to get their contact information. So have a simple form, but they can just enter the name, email number, subscribe. Something very simple. Don't make it complicated. Give me a full first name, last name, grandfather's name. People don't have time to enter. Just something very simple. If you want to know more detail, they can subscribe. They can be added to your database and so on. Then of course you can connect to social media accounts, which are, if you have these accounts, we'll talk about these little data social media, make that, you know, link to that from your website. And then very importantly, optimize your website for search engines. So basically you have a website, but remember there are literally zillions of websites all over the world. And your website is one among so many.  And there's a way to do this. There's a way to do it. And so you can get the help of people who know how to do search engine optimization to make your, optimize your website for searchers. That means you use certain keywords. You know, what will people search for when they want to look for your website? So example, the way we talk through this is, okay, if somebody's in Bangalore, they will, what will they look for? They will look for spirit filled church Bangalore. Like if somebody wants to vote for spirit filled church, that's a spirit filled church. Or if somebody wants to go to a word based, I'm looking for a word based church in Bangalore. Or if somebody wants, you know, a charismatic church, let's say charismatic church Bangalore, or Pentecostal church Bangalore, whatever they're looking for, you know. So you think about these are the phrases people will search. So that phrase, those phrases must be in your website for your website to show up. So in all the content you do, you're very thoughtful about what words you're using in your website. And also important is your URLs, the links that you make in your website should also include those keywords, right? So somebody searching for online church, they should be able to find it. Or free Christian books they'll search, they'll find it. So you create, you optimize your website for these search phrases by including them in your URL. So that's another trick. Also make sure that you add your church locations to Google Business Listing. This is free. So just go to google.com slash business and you add your address of your church location, church office so that it'll show up on Google Maps. And it increases, you know, the chances of people finding you. And this is all for free. You don't have to pay for this. They just verify your address. And you add your church location, your church address. When people search, they should find you or your church office on Google Maps, et cetera. Just add it there. It's for free. They just verify your address. And another important thing to do is to cross-link. That means from other places on the internet, you should link back to your website. Somebody who understands search engine optimization will explain this to you. But basically, the more links you have linking back to your website, the ranking of your website goes up. So that means you'll be ranked higher. So you need to cross-link back to your website from other places. And you can use other directories, yellow pages and so on to link back. Now, in today's world, with the rise of artificial intelligence, the way search is happening is beginning to change. So we need to adapt to it. But this is all still valid. All of this will still work. And then one more thing is submit your website to Google Search Console. Again, this is free. You go to this URL, Google Search Console. Use your Gmail. Go there. And then you link your particular domain, your website domain. Submit it to Google Search Console. So that will happen. Google, what they call it is crawlers. It's their search engine. That's how they read. Basically, Google has software. They call it crawlers. It goes and reads everything on every website. Or almost everything on almost every website. So the crawler crawls through your website. It indexes every page, looking at all the content. And it links your page, indexes it. But if you submit here, then it will pick up your website, index the pages in your website. And that's what makes your website visible to other people when they search. And you can also, if you want to make your website accessible from other parts of the world, which you can do. So there will be people anywhere in the world who will search for certain key phrases they can find your website. And I'll show you that. And so that means your content then becomes visible anywhere in the world, in the English-speaking world, if your website is in English. Keep your website some basic things. Keep the content updated. Keep it increasing. And if you have a lot of content in your website, build search into your website also. And make it easy for people to find content by grouping it and so on. So let me just give you a little demo of what we have done. So let me go back to the browser and let me share the browser. So all this, we've been working on this. We keep working on this constantly. I just want you to see. Can you? Sorry, I forgot what I shared. Stop. Let me share my screen. Can you see my screen? The web browser? You can see just the web browser, right? Okay. Right now in Bangalore. So we'll do lots of different searches. So let's say, as I mentioned, somebody's searching, somebody comes to Bangalore or somebody's planning to come to Bangalore and they're looking for a spirit-filled church. So they would type spirit-filled church Bangalore, right? That's what they'll type in the search. And of course, Google does it search. It shows out some of the churches that these are churches that are listed on Google Maps. And then first in the list is All People's Church, right? So we've optimized our website to be number one. So if you did, you know, so you look at All People's Church and Bangalore Spirit-Filled, right? So this is important. You rank number one so that people can find you. And I'm not saying that everybody who sees it will come to church, but at least they find this church, right? So let's do something else. You know, suppose somebody wants to type a word-based church in Bangalore. What will they see? So they type word-based church and All People's Church is right on top, right? So again, we've optimized our website for people to find us here, right? Right on top. Or if people search for... Because that's what we want you to find us for. Charismatic church in Bangalore. Again, there are some other churches listed, but you'll find APC, you know, they're listed right on top. First in the search results page. That means we optimized our website for such searches. Now, you can also do other searches. Let me open a new browser window here. Suppose somebody wants to search for an online... online church. Yeah, online church. So here, again, you see we are listed. We are ranked number second. I think this is from the U.S. church. That's number one. We are number two here. Of course, the churches are localized. Life church is from the U.S. But APC is, you know, for this region in our local, we are number two in the search results. So it's been optimized for this search. Suppose somebody searches free Christian books. See, we've been optimized. Our website comes up even for free Christian books. APC, you know, there's another somebody else that's here, number one. But number two and number three are APC websites. So our website's been optimized for this search also. Okay. If you search for online Bible college, APC Bible college, number two. So you have some online Bible college. Somebody has one. Mori Bible Institute is in the U.S. But APC Bible college, number two in the search results. So you optimize our Bible college website for ranking on top, right, in the search. So this is how people are going to find you. If you optimize your website for these searches. Now, let me go to the U.S. So all these searches were happening as though I'm here based in Bangalore. So let me go to the U.S. Google.com slash geolocation is U.S. That means I'm changing my geolocation to U.S. That means I'm going to search now as though somebody would search in the U.S., right? So if somebody searches, and I'm just using some known searches. So if somebody's searching for a book called Minister in Healing and Deliverance, okay, they search. Look, APC comes up. So in the U.S., our website comes up for this title, Minister in Healing and Deliverance. This is our book. So if somebody's searching in the U.S., that's what they will see. So even in the U.S., our APC books and videos are being made visible, right? Like this you could, you know, search for, for example, we have a book called Code of Honor. I don't know if that will come up here, but let's see. Code of Honor. Okay, that's actually a movie. And yeah, there's our movies. Yeah, so it's like it's all powered by the movies. So let me go to New Zealand. Google.com, geolocation, New Zealand. So suppose somebody's searching in New Zealand. So now I'm searching as though I'm living in New Zealand. And here again, you know, you can search, for example, if I search, do the same search, Minister in Healing and Deliverance. Again, in New Zealand, if somebody searches for Healing, our APC website will come, our book will come first, right? So, so anywhere in the English-speaking world, our church website has been optimized to rank highly on certain things. It's not going to rank highly for everything, but certain, you know, based on the content we have, right, which is like the books we have or things that so on. So let's see and think of anything. Wonderful benefits of bringing in talents. So like there's a lot, I'm sure there's a lot of content on this. Let's see if the APC comes anywhere here. Okay, so APC comes here. See, even for this search topic, on the APC website is there on page one. So, you can search this way and you will find. So, just a little example where or if I search for free Bible college, I don't know if we'll come up for this. We do. So even for that free Bible college, APC is ranked number one. Number two is some Bible college practice. That must be in the U.S. Something, and this is one in India. But you see like APC Bible college is ranked second after this Christian leadership institute. So even for this, you know, so students will be searching for free Bible college or if people search for Bible colleges in India. I don't know. Okay, we are on the first page, but we are kind of, I don't know, six or seven below, but we come up on the first page and people search for Bible colleges in India. They'll find us. So, let me stop sharing. So this is the benefit of having a website and optimizing it so that when people search and literally, you know, if they search from anywhere in the world, they will find you. And they will use your content. So in some ways, we are able to actually serve people all over the world. So let me just show you. You know, we can track the traffic that comes from all over the world. Let me just show you quickly. At least last year's data. I think this year must be just getting started. So this is our analytics website. So that's actually connected. This thing is monitoring all our church websites, different websites. And so let's go to the dashboard. So, you know, this is telling us it's monitoring. You can see my screen. Yeah, the analytics. So this is, we're looking at APCWORG website. So you can see in the last 24 hours, we've had 4,256 visits. And you can see people from different parts of the world. There's somebody from the U.S. right now. And this is from Ethiopia. This is from somebody from Iraq. It's on our website right now. They've been on the website for the last 25 minutes. Somebody from Pakistan is on our website. A website Pakistan. This is from Nicaragua. This is Pakistan, India, U.S. So this is monitoring the church website. And it's telling us, you know what, so people actually downloading all these resources from our website. And you can look at the visitors. You know, so this is just for the last day. But let's see, for example, let's see for this current year, that means for this year, that means we are now in February 7th. So from Jan 1st till today, we've had almost 60,000 visits to our church website. And let's see the locations. They have come from almost all over the world. So just in this last month and a half, we have people from almost all over the world come. Of course, the highest is there from India. You've got quite a number from the United States, but almost every country. There are some countries which are white, which we haven't had any visits. But otherwise, from almost every part of the world, they've been visiting our website using our content. And if you look at 2023, if you say I want to look all of what happened in 2023 from Jan 1 to December 31, 2023. So for last year, for 2023, we've had about 337,000 visits from all over the world. And you see the distribution. Like almost every country in the world, people have been coming to the website and using it. So we are literally able to serve people all over the world through the website without having to pay any etiquette to go to any of these countries. People are coming and using these resources. And so let's just share that with you. Let me stop. And similarly, for our website, we can monitor what people are downloading. So all our books that we have, we can see through the admin console, we have a count of how many of these books have been downloaded. And we can see, literally, I forget what the number was, but let me try to remember this. Last year, we had 556,603, so almost half a million downloads of our PDFs of our books. So it's just keeping a count of that. So imagine, this is digitally. That means almost 500 plus, 150,000, almost half a million copies of our books were distributed online. That means it's not the print online. People have downloaded that many books from all over the world and they're making use of it. So in one way, our vision for our church website is being fulfilled. We wanted to make it a content repository and people are actually making use of those resources globally. There's only the books. Now, similarly, we can track the sermons, how many MP3s are being downloaded, how many people are listening to the videos. We can track all of that. These are real numbers, because they're coming to our website, downloading the books or downloading the sermon MP3s and making use of that. Any questions, any comments, any thoughts here? As far as websites are concerned, any questions you have about how can I build a website or whatever, anything that you've seen or discussed so far? It's very interesting, Pastor. Especially the analytics helps us to understand the reach and people being blessed. It's so wonderful to see, Pastor. Yeah, it's very encouraging. And especially, we share this back with our IT teams. You guys see all the work you're doing, how it is blessing people all over the world that people search. Some people may be searching for different things. They land on the website and they will start using the resources. Yeah. Okay, so we'll just do one more topic and then we will stop. We will just talk a little bit about email. So our next topic is about emails. We'll just do this and then we'll stop. So we talked about websites. That's one way to engage people. Another way is emails. Remember previously, you have to write letters, go to the post office, buy stamp, put stamp, stick it, post it if you want to contact people. But today, emails are so easy, so quick, we can connect with people. So it's so important to create a mailing list. That means you need to get people's email IDs. So right from the beginning, we used to start collecting email IDs. So of course with people's permission, please give us your email ID. We can keep you informed of what's happening in church. And it used to be manual. I remember still back in 2002, 3, 4, after Sunday, Monday will be my email day. I will manually send an email to 30 people saying, here is a sermon outline. Here, what is it? Then it became 100 people. Okay, manually click. I mean, not 100 times, but I'll put them in small batches and then send emails to keep them informed of those things. So just be all manual of those early years. And then after that, we automated the whole thing. So now I'll just show you. But email is a great way to keep people connected, inform them what's happening. And you can use it for many things, raising funds, updates, encouragement, so many things you can use email as well. But some things is, use it carefully, don't become a burden like every 10 minutes when email is coming down. So we have a rule that we follow. Maximum, we want to send out two emails, broadcast emails from the church to our congregation. Two plus one. That is no more than two emails in a week. The plus one is if there is a real need, maybe there's a funeral happening or something like that, then that's the plus one. But otherwise, the rule is, don't send more than two emails a week to the people. And people don't want to get bombarded with emails. So that's kind of what we follow because they shouldn't think we're just randomly sending emails. So first is, you know, build your email list. So we have now, you know, when we collect, we have a simple form to plan to the email to subscribe. So we have it on our church website. It goes into a mailing list. So I will share that with you a little later. And then so they can subscribe to weekly sermon emails or so on. And of course, we have to give them the option to unsubscribe anytime. Or there is a visitor form, FTV from online. They can enter their name, number. We also collect the mobile number if they would like to give it to us. And then, you know, we collect that information. So with their permission, basically, you're collecting the information. You're also, if you want to volunteer again, they're providing their mobile number, email, they sign up for whatever. So you have sign up forms, different forms on your website that you can use. And then you're collecting their email. And it goes into that particular list. So now it's kind of automated before I had to manually put it in various lists. But now it's on from our website. It goes to the email list. I'm not sure. So what now once you collect emails, you can send emails, do it regularly, but carefully don't overuse it. Use graphics and images, but they should be small size. So we don't want to, you know, burden people span with the usage data usage on their site. So keep your emails very succinct, short, error free. If you want to link back to your website or social media, you can do that. Keep your emails mobile friendly, because nowadays many people actually check their email on their mobile phone. So be mindful of it. It should show up nicely on their mobile phone as well. Use exciting subject lines, but keep it factual. Don't create some things not there, but the subject line should be interesting. So then only then they will read the email. Or limit yourself to one or two. We do two plus one. That's what we follow. And also segment them. That means you can have men, men, youths. So if you want to target your email, if you're having a men's conference, no point in sending that information to all the ladies. You only want it to go to the men. So you should be able to target your audience as and when needed. Past can send a note from time to time. It's good to send it on midweek, because Sunday they have heard the announcement. If you want to remind them, remind them around Wednesday, Thursday. If you send it on Monday, it's not. And then of course give people the option to unsubscribe. So we have what is called as an email list manager. That means we have a free open source software. It's called PHP list that we have set up, where we manage all our email IDs and through which we send the email. So you can set up the email there, press a button and it'll go to 20,000 people. So right now we have between 20 and 30,000 people and it's segmented. So we can always target. If you want to send only to people in Bangalore, we send it. If you want to send it to people in India, we send it. If you want to send it to Christian leaders, we can send it. If you want to send it to men or women or whatever. So it's segmented, but totally the whole database may have somewhere, I think a little over 20,000 some email IDs. If you want to send it to everyone, they can send it. So this list manager manages all of that for you and through this we can send it out to people. Just one last section and I'll stop. I will show you the email list manager later on when we talk about the software that we use. I'll show it to you. But this is what we use PHP list. It's free and you're hosting it and running it. I'll show this to you later. Internally, when you're communicating among between staff between people who are working in the organization, of course we prefer face-to-face communication, but if you cannot meet in person, send an email. You also use email to document conversations. Use short meaningful subject lines. Keep the content crisp and short. Don't write long essays. People don't have time to read. Be courteous. Use polite. Use please. Thank you. Use be polite in the emails. Be professional. Only when it's needed, you highlight or you underline. And be careful not to use bold and caps too much because it's emphasizing something that it may come across in a different way. So how do you write the email should be important. All right. So those are just some quick thoughts and emails we use. So in from APC, we have every Monday or Tuesday, we'll send out a sermon email that goes to several thousand people that we keeping them informed about the Sunday sermon and maybe one or two events that are happening that week. So that goes out every Monday, Tuesday to go out. I think goes to about 6,000 people. Just about the sermon. Encouraging them to listen to the sermon and so on. We call it Sunday sermon email. And then if there is a particular event happening, we will send a reminder, which will usually happen on Wednesday or Thursday. An email goes out. So basically those are the two kinds of emails that go out on a weekly basis. The second email may or may not happen. It just depends if there's an event or not. Or it could be an event, an announcement about an event coming up several weeks later. We will send an email out. The third email is an emergency email. If there's an emergency like a funeral or some other thing, I think then we will send. So one email will definitely go out the Sunday sermon email. The second email may happen. The third one is an emergency, which we don't normally... It doesn't go out a bit. Any questions about email communications? So remember, all of this began in a very small way. That means way back in the early 2000s, I just had like 30 email IDs. I used to manually send it. But now we use the mailing list server to send out thousands of emails. It's all automated. So you start small, start with what you have, and then you will grow into something like that. And you can get the help of IT people to manage things for you. So let's pause here. We'll continue this next week. I hope these are giving you some useful thoughts. And as your churches and your ministries are growing, you can start using these for your ministry. Can somebody close in prayer please? Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for the opportunity to learn and understand more about technology and what you have given us. We pray to God that you'll be able to continue to use it according to the wisdom that you've given. And we pray that you would help us to use this of God and help us to think strategically in every area of our ministry, Lord God. We thank you for this time. Thank you for this learning. We humble ourselves once again in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you, Lord. We'll be connecting again next week. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye.