I'm Chris Bergwald. This is just to make sure you know, make sure you're in the right spot. I should turn around in case you want to leave, but it's the working genius. He's not leaving. I thought he was trying, as soon as I said working genius turned around and I'm out of here. So we're going to be talking about the working genius model today. But let's begin as soon as Shane has a seat there. Thanks Shane, appreciate that. With a prayer. In the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, amen. Come Holy Spirit, teach us to pray. Good and gracious God, we give thanks and praise for the gift of this day, for the gift of this conference, for the work that you have called us to do in your vineyard, for they pray that you would continue to open our minds and our hearts to the gifts that you have bestowed upon us, that would recognize the ways that you call us to put those gifts to work for your glory in the building of your kingdom. We ask that you would bless us throughout the week of this conference and as we return home, give us the joy and the zeal, the heart out of an evangelist. We ask this as we ask all things, the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. So I was doing all the talking with sister, to be fair. It wasn't her at all, it was all me. When I was telling her, we're here at Franciscan University of Stoumaville, which is my alma mater for my undergrad. But after I graduated from Stoumaville, so I tried to be ecumenical. I went to Stoumaville, Franciscan, and then I went to the Angelicum, which is run by the Dominicans in Rome. So Franciscans, then the Dominicans. I haven't studied any other graduate degrees yet, but maybe we'll see. But today is the 700th anniversary of the canonization of St. Thomas Aquinas. So for those who are inclined towards the Dominicans or St. Thomas in a particular way, it's a great day to celebrate him. In addition to St. Camus de Lellis, who gets probably a little bit forgotten by some of us who are excited about St. Thomas. But that's not what this workshop is about at all. We're gonna be talking about the working genius. So you should all have received, I think Peter, Peter, right, it's Peter? He's got that hand out in the back. I think you should all have it. Okay, great. So that just gives you a sense of where we're gonna be going. I shared this morning in the first workshop session for the Dawson official's track. Normally the Dawson official's track is really conversational. Normally we just try to take advantage of the wisdom and experience in the room and we'll still do that throughout the track. But because this is a model that's a little bit newer, there's gonna be a little bit more teaching or presenting on my part along with conversation. So what I wanted to do before we get too deep in, I just get a sense, has anybody, before you came, how many of you had heard of, just heard of the working genius model? Okay, a decent number. So what I'm gonna do today is give an overview of what the working genius model is, walk through it a little bit and then talk, excuse me, talk a little bit about how in the diocese of Sioux Falls where I'm at, how we're using this model to deepen the way that we as a department, the Department of Discipleship and Advancedization collaborate, but also the way that our parishes in a pastorate model that we've just moved towards, we're encouraging them to use it as well. I'm also gonna be inviting, so how many of you besides Baltimore are using the working genius? Oh, that's right, Ontario. Yeah, yeah, the Canadians. By the way, thanks for the smoke, appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, you guys, sir. I didn't just give you the smoke. That's true, that's true. So I'm gonna invite some other dioceses to talk about their experience a little bit. We have found the working genius model to be really effective in getting work done. Pat Lynchoni is not paying me anything. I'm not getting a kickback or commission. We've just become really passionate about this model in not only a diocesan office setting, but also in a parish pastorate context as a way to think through collaboration and productivity in the work of discipleship and evangelization. So the reason why I, when we were talking about this track for this year, so over a year ago, I think, we've been really excited about this model and I wanted to share it with anybody. So you might not be working in diocesan ministry, you might be some other role in a school or a parish, totally fine. I think this, I know this model can work anywhere. So what we're gonna do is I'm just gonna walk through as your handout indicates, just gonna walk through just introduction, the different six types of the genius talking on the back of your handout about the difference between working genius, competency, frustration, the three phases of work, and then those last few points we should be able to get to as well. But by way of introduction, what I wanna say just by way of introduction, in Sioux Falls, and we're not unique this way, but the way that we think about formation, discipleship formation, catechesis, however you wanna describe it, we use the lens of the four areas of formation that originally were applied to priestly formation. So back in 1991 to, jump on the second, JP2 wrote a post-cinetal apostolic exhortation called Pastoris d'Abovobis. And he there, again, it's a post-cinetal, this came from the work of a synod on priestly formation, seminary formation. JP2 identified four areas of formation for future priests, spiritual, intellectual, human and pastoral. We, a number of years ago in Sioux Falls, took that model and applied it just a formation in general for everybody, with one little tweak at the end, instead of pastoral, apostolic. So we talk about catechesis through the lens of those four areas of formation, spiritual, how to pray, intellectual, what does the church teach, doctrinal content, human formation, which I'll come back to in a minute, and then apostolic formation. So how we are all, by virtue of our baptism, called to be missionary disciples. So we look at catechesis from that particular lens, that model or that paradigm. The third one, human formation. So for me, this was probably 12-ish years ago, just thinking through more about how we do, we're doing formation through the lens of these four areas. And spiritual, intellectual, and apostolic were really clear to me, but human formation was the, a bit more for me, vague and nebulous. So one of our priests who now is my boss, for the Scott trainer, for the trainer has been a seminary rector in Denver at St. John, Viennese Seminary. Before that, he was a formator for them. He's nationally known for spiritual direction and just priestly formation in general. So I knew that Father Scott had really a good grasp of priestly formation, so I wanted to pick his brain to understand more what human formation was about. And so Father Scott, what is human formation? And I still remember, this is again like 12 years ago, said human formation is about not being weird. So human formation is about not being weird. Human formation is, so the way that it's described in the context of seminary formation, but I think it applies to all of us, is my humanity a bridge for other people to Christ or is it an obstacle? We all have our quirks. We're here in Steubenville. My wife is from Ohio. My sister-in-law lives here. Her husband, she teaches at Catholic Central in Steubenville. Her husband works for the university, so I've known them for almost 30 years. And years ago, Martina said to me, Chris, you're weird, like Martina, I'm not weird. Now, she meant in a loving way, but I do have quirks. I've definitely germane. My wife will tell you I'm weird in that sense, but I'm not so weird that I tend to be, I don't think, an obstacle for other people to encounter Christ. My humanity, my just christeness, is it an obstacle or is it a bridge for other people to encounter or to more deeply encounter Jesus Christ? So in the context of seminary formation, so father's here, he could give us all sorts of details, but it's as simple as, so I've got a teenage son. Carl, he's got a twin sister. Carl's one, the only boy's got four sisters, his twin sister and three others, so Carl is blessed among women. And we have to tell Carl, Carl, you need to shave. You need to shave. Carl, have you brushed your teeth? Carl, you know, just the things that teenage boys, when it comes to basic hygiene, we males don't think about usually at that age. We're a little oblivious, and because of that, our humanity can be an obstacle for others to encounter more deeply Jesus Christ. So for us, though, as more mature people, though, human formation is about not being weird. Human formation, so okay, I pressed Father's God in this. Okay, can you say a little bit more about that? Okay, so human formation is about my self-awareness, or self, yeah, self-awareness, self-knowledge, which leads to self-possession, which leads to self-gift. So we're all called to grow in knowledge of ourself, which allows us to grow in possession of ourself, to own ourself, which then allows us to give ourselves away. I can't fully give myself away. I can't give away what I don't possess. So if I want to, the law of the gift, if I want to give myself to others in love, I have to possess myself. In order to possess myself, I have to know myself. I have to be self-aware. So human formation, besides not being weird, being not weird, is also about growing in self-knowledge, or awareness, self-possession, so I can make an authentic gift of myself to God and to others. One really important point, for you, but especially, I mean, you're here at the St. John Bosco Conference, so I'll just put it this way. It's important that we know ourselves, that we see ourselves the way that Christ sees us. If I just look in the spiritual mirror, so to speak, what am I going to, what do we see when we look in the mirror? What are, for most of us, what are our eyes drawn to? The flaws. The warts, maybe the weight, we go to the flaws. And that's part of who we are, but they have to be seen in the context of what is my primary identity, beloved son or daughter of the father. You may have heard of the acronym RIM, R-I-M, Relationship Identity Mission. It's in the context of my relationship with God that I discover my authentic identity. And it's in the context of that identity that I discover what I'm called to do. The ordering is really important. It's out of the relationship with God that I find my identity. And it's out of my identity that I find my mission. As Americans, we're inclined to focus on the doing rather than the being, we've heard that many times. RIM addresses that. Mission is the final thing. It comes out of identity, which comes out of the relationship. What does this have to do with working genius? Well, the working genius model is one of many different kind of assessments that are out there that help us to grow in self-knowledge. Self-awareness. It's one that's particularly suited to collaboration with others. In our diocese, we've used and we've encouraged the use of Myers-Briggs type indicator, Clifton Strengths, my father Scott and I, just last December, we went through the week-long Clifton Strengths coaching training. There are all sorts of great, great assessments, integratories that are out there. This is one of them, but we found, I found that it does come at things from a way that's kind of unique, where it really is about your working genius, the way that you work, so the way that you collaborate with others. And Len Shoney, I'll get to the back story of the model in a minute, but he's really clear. This is not just work in the context of my day job. This is just getting stuff done. So the insights from the working genius model can also be applied in the context of a family. So there's a book, the six types of working genius. There's also a podcast, the working genius podcast. And many of those episodes in the early days of the podcast, we're actually talking about how you can apply this in the context of a marriage, or family life in general. So it's an assessment, a personnel inventory, but one specifically geared towards understanding how you work, how you work, and therefore how you can work with others. So what are the origins of this? Patrick Len Shoney is increasingly well known in Catholic circles. He's a co-founder of The Amazing Parish. I don't know the details of Pat's story. I know that he was raised Catholic. I think he's been a lifelong Catholic. May have had a deeper conversion to faith at some point, but he's been most well known sort of secularly as an organizational health consultant for Fortune 500 companies. And that was really how he sort of initially came into the Catholic world. He wanted to bring his expertise in helping leadership teams become more healthy and therefore more fruitful into the context of the church space, into the context of ministry in the Catholic church. So The Amazing Parish, but then just his work in general. The Five Behaviors a Healthy Team. He's got different books. The Five Disfunctions of a Team, Death by Meeting, just really excellent books. The Advantage is a book that sort of summarizes all of that, but that predates this particular model. So this is only about three years ago. Len Shoney and his team stumbled, if you will, on this model, Pat is his corporate consulting firm, the Table Group, people he loves and he loved the work they do, but he found himself going back and forth between filled with joy and being exasperated and frustrated. And one of his colleagues, they asked him, like, Pat, what's the deal? And actually he says, and he talks about this in the book, that led to a four hour meeting that was the origin of this model, the working genius model. And what he and his team found, and it was verified, it's been verified by thousands of people who have done the assessment. What they've originally found and what's been borne out by trial and error and results is that all of us are drawn to particular aspects of how work gets done. All of us are drawn to different phases of projects. And so we're drawn to some of them, others are like, well, we can do it, but we don't love it and others just drain us. We can do it, but it drains us. So that gets us to the six types. So I just wanna walk through the six types of working genius on the front of your page. So you can see there, by the way, and you made some of you already know this, but if you look at the first letter of each of the geniuses, the acronym is widget. And Pat says, they didn't do that on purpose. The only, I think, enablement, I think is the only when they were trying to name that fifth genius, they saw it was WIDG blank T. And enablement worked for them. Enablement, and I'll talk about this in more detail when we get there, but just to name it now, it kinda gets a bad name because when you think of enabling, you don't wanna be an enabler. It doesn't mean that in this context. Just like discernment means one thing in the Catholic world and something else in the working genius model. So there's a little bit of clarification that needs to happen, but widget, he says, we did not set out to map to create a cute acronym. It really just did sort of unfold. So when you're thinking of what are the steps, WIDGET are the six steps of any work that has to get done. So wonder invention, discernment, galvanizing, enablement and tenacity. What I'm gonna do is just briefly just drawing from Pat's own work, walk through each of these types and then we'll get into the rest of the outline. But again, this is about the way projects get done. So any project starts with somebody wondering. Boy, could we do this differently? Why do we do it this way? Is there maybe a better way to do that? The person with a genius of wonder is the one who poses the question. So here's how Pat explains this genius. The genius of wonder involves the ability to ponder and speculate and question the state of things. Asking the questions that provoke answers and action. People with this genius are naturally inclined to do these things. They find it easy to lose themselves in observing the world around them and wondering whether things shouldn't be different or whether there is untapped potential that should be tapped. So wonder is asking my favorite question. Spend my favorite question to my summary version since before I got to Steubenville before going back 30 years. The question that all little children ask before they get jaded and cynical. Why? Why do we do it this way? Many of us, the people who don't have, well, you just truck it along, we do things, but it's typically a person who has the genius of wonder who sort of will, for some of us who are just used to doing things a certain way, throw a wrench into things. Like, why do we do it so well? Just because that's what we do. Okay, but isn't there a better way? I don't know, no, no, shut up, I got stuff to do. Wonder, the person with the genius of wonder asks the question and they're wondering, could it be done differently? So this is my second genius, so I am a why person. I wonder, could we do it differently? But I'm not, gonna get to the next one here, I'm not somebody with the genius of invention. Invention as, well, it's the person who has all the ideas on how to answer the question. I don't have, in fact, that's one of my frustrations, I'll explain what that means in a minute. The point I'm trying to emphasize here is I am just the person who might ask why, even though I have no clue how to answer that question. I'm just the one who like, okay, why do we do it this way? Or, isn't there maybe a better way to do it? It's, no pun intended to hear. It's kind of a frustration for me that I don't have an answer to my own question, but that's the gift of collaboration. And frankly, for me, this is where this model is just so beautifully blends with Catholic ecclesiology, where the body of Christ, right, where the different members of the body play different roles. And this model just coincidentally corresponds to the reality of human nature and human community. To some have been given the gift of, to others have been given the gift of, so I, one of my gifts is to ask why, or could it be done differently? But I don't have the gift of coming up with the answer to that question. So, invention. The genius of invention is all about coming up with new ideas and solutions. People with this genius are drawn towards origination, creativity, and ingenuity in the truest sense of those words, even with little direction or context. Though every type is a genius, these are the people who are most often referred to as geniuses because many of their ideas seem to come out of thin air. So this is the person who can just brainstorm and loves to brainstorm all day. I had a former coworker, worked with him for many years, and he would say, I've got 100 ideas, and I would get annoyed. Really, 100, I would start to mock him a little bit. We were good friends, so I could mock him and tease him. I suppose you got 101 ideas for this too, huh? But he did. He was just naturally wired. He wouldn't necessarily, he didn't have the genius of wonder, but it didn't take much just to get him going with all sorts of different ideas. And he would say, the vast majority of people who have this genius recognize, most of these ideas are lousy. They won't work, but it's really easy for them to come up with ideas. These people are, they're definitely gifts in brainstorming meetings, where you're trying to come up with solutions. One of our parishes in our diocese, their staff, we've done some training with them on working genius, and they don't have anybody with the genius of invention, and it's really hard for them because they're really gifted staff, but they just struggle with coming up with solutions to problems that they've recognized. They've got all the other geniuses, but not invention. And that's on the back, genius gaps, and how do you fill them? But this can be a reality that sometimes, somebody, you're missing an inventor, and so you're like, well, can we do it differently? Well, maybe, but I don't know how. It's kind of the collective response. But somebody who has the gift of invention has, they thrive, they find joy in just brainstorming and coming up with ideas. But they're all, most of them, are not really optimal solutions, and that's why D is so important, discernment. Again, before I give you the definition, just to be clear, this is not discernment in the way that we think about in terms of Catholic spiritual theology, discerning what to do, Ignatian rules of discernment, or discernment in your vocation. There's obviously similarity, it's the same word, but it's got a much more basic everyday meaning in the context of the working genius model. The genius of discernment is related to instinct, intuition, and uncanny judgment. People with this genius have a natural ability to assess an idea or situation even without a lot of data or expertise. Using pattern recognition and gut feel, they're able to provide valuable advice and feedback around most subjects in a way that transcends their levels of specific knowledge or information. So my boss, Father Scott Trainor, who helpfully taught me that human formation is about not being weird, Father Scott has discernment. He can, again, without being necessarily an expert or having expertise level of knowledge, and he can pretty quickly, he has a gut sense of what the right path forward is. Of all the possible solutions, which one is the best for us in this circumstance right now? Father Scott has the gift of discernment. He, more often than not, can easily identify the right path forward. What is, of all these 101 ideas that somebody else may come up with, which is the right one to go forward? That's what the role of discernment is. That then leads us to galvanizing. So once the, so somebody is, okay, why do we do it this way? Or could we do it differently? Yeah, I've got a bunch of ideas. All right, this is the right idea. Now you need somebody who can galvanize. Now you need somebody who can rally the troops behind this idea. So this is how Len Shoney explains galvanizing. Galvanizing is about rallying, motivating, and provoking people to take action around an idea. People with this genius are naturally inclined to inspire and list others to get involved in an endeavor. They don't mind persuading people to rethink or change their plans in order to embark on something worthwhile. This is me. This is by far my top genius. Wonders number two, galvanizing is number one. And when I took the assessment and came to understand the model, yes, absolutely, that's me. Invention and discernment, I mentioned those for me personally. Those are two, they're both frustrations for me. I get frustrated pretty quickly. I've gotten better. I used to get frustrated really quickly when we would just sit around and brainstorm and brainstorm and brainstorm. I have no idea, no problem talking about ideas. I've got a doctorate in theology, but I want us to act. I want us, let's get it done. So what's the ideas been? I may have asked the question, but I didn't come up with the idea. Any of the ideas, possible ideas, I didn't figure out what the best idea was for us. But once we did, I'm the one who, hey, everybody let's go. So our Dassen staff in Sioux Falls, we're not real big. There's about 50 of us. I'm the party planner. I'm the one who organizes the Christmas party. I'm the one who rocks around the building for staff morning prayer in the morning, literally ringing a bell, call it a prayer. I'm the one who, hey, let's, everybody, let's go, whether it's as mundane or simple as a Christmas after party to rallying behind a bishop's vision, lifelong Catholic missionary deception through God's love. So a galvanizer is the one, once the idea has been chosen that we're going to move ahead with to answer the question initially posed, they're the one who rally the troops. They may not have had the idea. This is me. They might not have decided the idea, also me, but they don't just get behind the idea themselves. They, again, that word rally others around the idea. And it's people with the genius of enablement who respond to the galvanizer. So enablement in this sense is saying yes to the idea that's been chosen and yes to the galvanizer. Okay, so the genius of enablement involves providing people with support and assistance in the way that it's needed. People with this genius are adept at responding to the needs of others without conditions or restrictions. They are naturally inclined to help others accomplish their goals and often can anticipate what people might need before they even ask. Individuals with the genius of enablement are frequently unaware that this is a genius at all. So these are the people who just say, I'm in. I'm in. I'm willing to help out with this. They don't need to be convinced. They don't need to be cajoled. They're in. But the acronym is not widget. It's widget. So you can have the idea and people have been galvanized at the responding but somebody needs to get the project across the goal line. And that's what tenacity is all about. It's in the word. The genius of tenacity is about the satisfaction of pushing things across the finish line to completion. People with this genius are not only capable of but naturally inclined to finish projects and ensure that they are completed according to specification. They gain energy by pushing through obstacles and seeing the impact of their work. And they find joy in crossing tasks off their list and getting closure, getting things done. One of our team members, one of our colleagues is like, so I'm kind of in our building. I'm the poster child for galvanizing grace is the poster child for tenacity. Because great that thing about crossing things off list. She just leave me alone. Don't bug me. She's very pleasant. She's very nice. She's very kind. But she just likes to focus and get stuff done. She's great with people. So it's not like she's rude or anything like that. But she gets joy out of crossing things off the list. She gets frustrated when we start all sorts of things and never finish any of them. Many of us do. But those who have this genius in particular, this is where they find their joy. And that gets us to the whole idea of genius versus composing very serious frustration. So the way that one of the metaphors that Lencioni uses to explain this is like the idea of taking a thermos like this. If something is your genius, you can do it all day long. Just like a hot drink or a cold drink will stay hot or cold in a thermos. If you do something that's your genius, it brings you joy and you can do it till the cows come home.  And it's easy for you to do that. I love galvanizing. I love getting people on board. I'm convinced that given enough time and if you're open enough, I'll get you on board. I like to argue too, that's another story. So when somebody has their genius, with whatever their genius is, just like coffee in a thermos stays hot all day, you can do your genius all day. Competency is more like just a styrofoam cup. It'll keep it warm, but eventually it's going to cool off. So my competencies are tenacity and then enablement. I like crossing things off lists. I like getting things done. I can do that with relative ease. It doesn't bring me joy the way that galvanizing or wondering can, but I can do that. And I can get on board with decisions that are made, even if it's not the way that I do that. That's not too hard for me, but it doesn't give me life and bring joy the way that for me galvanizing and wonderment can. Frustration, take the styrofoam cup and poke a little hole in the bottom of it. I can do those things. I can invent and I can discern. I can do them. This model to be really clear, Lenchoni's really clear. Our experience very clear. This is not an excuse to avoid your frustrations. I can and sometimes just my role in our office. I need to brainstorm. I need to help discern what the right idea is. But it drains me. So sort of example of this, Father Scott trainer, our boss, Vicker for Lane Clergy Formation for our diocese. Father Scott can galvanize, but it's a frustration for him. So he can lead, we have, this is another Lenchoni thing. We have quarterly strategic meetings. He leads those meetings. He leads them really well. He leads them well. And by five o'clock, he's exhausted. I can lead a meeting really well. By five o'clock, I'm ready for the proverbial after party. So just because it's your frustration doesn't mean that you can't do it. Doesn't mean you can do it well. Not only are you able to do it, you can do it well. So that idea, you can learn how to do it, but it will drain you. So this is where one practical application of the model comes in. Knowing this, so knowing about myself using this language, knowing that invention and discernment are frustrations of mine has actually been helpful in meetings because I could recognize in the past that I can still feel it now, welling up within me the, or let's go out with it, let's just decide. So I can help galvanize. I have that desire to, my temptation is to short circuit, to cut short the brainstorming process of getting stuff done. I know that about myself now. So it allows me to actually engage in invention discernment until they get to their natural conclusion rather than cutting it off too quickly. So this is one way that we've found this to be really useful is just I can stop myself from doing that. The other way it's helpful is, well, it's another way to restate what I just said. It helps me, in my case, to avoid pulling meetings to my favorite genius. Okay, so we talk about this in the Diocese of Zufal, so even though this is being recorded, I'm safe telling you about our bishop. I feel safe telling you about our bishop, Bishop Donald the Groot, his geniuses are wonder and invention. He loves to ask the questions and come up with ideas. The shadow side of that is, I love you, Bishop. A decision might be made and Bishop inadvertently, because it's how he's wired. He wants to revisit a decision that's been made. He wants to pull things back by nature. He wants to pull things back to wonder and invention. For the galvanizer, again, I'm gonna exaggerate, Bishop, we already decided that. You can't do that, we've moved. What's that? The water's under the bridge, that whatever, the ship has sailed, Bishop. We've decided. Now, he knows this about himself now, so he's the same way. He feels that, yeah, but, nope. Okay, that's right, we decided. I'm on board. It's helpful at just the individual level. The other way this is helpful is by relying on these geniuses in the context of work. So this is kind of skipping down to some of the points below, especially at number five. The geniuses as required activities for any kind of team-based work. Use these, when you recognize, when you understand this model, you can lean on people, whatever their role is. If you're already familiar with Lanchoni's approach to organizations and teamwork, he advocates in certain contexts a half-hats-off approach. We are definitely adopting that when it comes to using the working genius model to get stuff done. We have administrative assistants who have great discernment. They're in the brainstorming sessions for high-level projects because they have a gift with others who also have the same genius for identifying the right course of action. It doesn't matter in the hierarchy, they're lower than somebody else. We're using, we're taking advantage of their genius to find the right solution to the problem. So leaning on recognizing, this is one of the number seven, work conversations, team maps, if you're a team, whether it be a department or a parish team, if they do the assessment, you can see where the gaps are or where they're not, but in the context of this point, that you can use people's geniuses at certain phases of the projects to get work done. So I just want to back up a little bit and we'll go through and then talk more about how different organizations have used this model. So the three phases of work, ideation, activation, and implementation. It's, there's three phases of work, each of which get two pairs of the, or two of the working geniuses. Ideation, posing the question, why? Or could we do it differently? And then, oh, here's all the ideas. So in the ideation phase, it's about posing the question and coming up with the ideas. Activation though, discernment and galvanizing. Lynchoni, what they found, most organizations inadvertently skip this step. And that's why they run into problems. So implementation is enablement and tenacity. So what many organizations, whether it be in the church world or secular world, what many organizations would do is, could we do it differently? Oh, I've got ideas. I'm on board. What, hold on, hold on. Is that the right idea? Is that the right discernment? And then the galvanizer, because I'm on board, the enablement people, the enablers, so to speak, I'm on board, but what about the others? Maybe the people who, it's harder for them to not do it their way. Discernment and galvanizing tend to get skipped over. So recognizing the importance of that activation stage or phase they found, and we found, is really important. Let's think through, let's discern what is the best idea. And then let's get everybody on board. Not just those who are ready to go, who will say yes, let's get everybody on board. Also in Lenchoni's world, the idea of healthy ideological conflict comes into play here. So let's hash it out. No, don't hold back, hats off. What do you think? Speak your mind. So you go through that, and that's where that discernment and then galvanizing can come in. Okay, so those are three phases of work in activation being one that's oftentimes missed. Number five, they're required activities for any team-based kind of work. I've already touched on that. Number six, genius gaps and filling them. So you might take, your team might take the assessment, your department or whatever it is, might take the assessment and you find, oh, as one of our parishes found, we don't have anybody with a genius of invention. There are different ways to address that, especially in the context of the church world, what we found and others have found to be helpful. So first of all, was there anybody who has the competency in this case of invention? So genius is great because with genius comes the joy, no joy, no genius or no genius, no joy, but if somebody has a competency, it may not fill them up, but they can do it without too much effort. So in the case of this particular parish, we looked at their team results, their team map. Okay, does anybody have invention as a competency? And there was somebody who had the invention as a competency. So we could look to them that parish leadership team could look to them to help with the brainstorming. The other thing in some organizations that will be done is actually enlisting help from other departments. Parish context, unless it's a huge parish staff, where you're talking about just a department, but in the context of the diocese, this is not the case in our team, but theoretically, if we lacked invention, we could, as needed, call on a colleague from another department to help. Who knows our work and that sort of thing? And then of course, ideally, you hire with invention in mind. Len Shoney does not say give the inventory as part of the hiring process, but you can interview to get at. And we do that. When we've interviewed the last several hires, we've asked questions which have been aimed at getting a sense of what their genius is. So we can fill out where maybe we're a little bit down in terms of the geniuses. And then finally, work conversations and team maps. So, I already give the example of brainstorming. In brainstorming, you want people who have the geniuses of wonder, invention, and also discernment. Decision-making, you definitely want discernment and galvanizing. I'm just going through this really quickly. Launching a product, you want the galvanizer, enablement, and tenacity. And then status review and problem solving. That's where, again, a galvanizer can be really helpful, along with enablement and tenacity as well. So that's just a quick example of how if you're depending on the kind of conversation or meeting you're having, you might want to rely on certain geniuses more than others. As I said at the beginning, I'm not being paid by Len Shoney. Anything to talk about this model, it just, I'm really excited about it. And I'm glad to hear that there are others who've been using it even more and longer, which just verifies our early experience of it. So I know I'd be happy to stick around. I'll be happy to stick around and answer your questions. I'm guessing others would as well. But because we're at time, we're going to close with a prayer and we'll be on our way. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. Glory be to the Father, into the Son, into the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and never shall be, world without end, amen. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Thanks everybody, God bless. Not the reason. Yeah, workinggenius.com, I think, is the website. But just Google it, you'll find it.


Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this new class, Lifestyle Evangelism. Before we go ahead, let me just introduce myself. My name is Paul and I'm in APC Mangalore. I'll be going through the subject, Lifestyle Evangelism. Throughout the subject, this subject is more of a practical subject, but it's also important to learn theory. So we will do theory, but since we are online, we'll also do a few practical sessions where we'll see how to share the Gospel with people around us. So let's start with an introduction. Now, we have the notes also available. The PDF has been uploaded, so you can go ahead and download it. And even as we carry along in this class, you can just track along as we continue with classes. So Lifestyle Evangelism. Evangelism is something that all of us are called to do. All of us, the Lord Jesus himself said, go and make disciples. In Matthew chapter 28, he said go and make disciples. So the whole commission was to evangelize. So this study will help us first to learn about how to evangelize, learn about giving the right defense for the Gospel. And two, we will also study on how to carry out evangelism in the right way. Because right now when we look around, there are people evangelizing in the wrong way. So we want to learn the right way. We want to learn the way that Christ taught us through the scriptures. So we'll get into the first topic. It is on page four. If you're following along, it's about sharing Jesus. Let's look at the necessity and urgency of sharing Jesus. Now, I'll keep teaching in between. If you have any questions, you can always put it on the chat or you can unmute and ask questions and we can answer them as well. So as I said, Matthew 28, Jesus has resurrected and he meets his disciples and he tells them very important. He tells them 28, 18 to 20. He said, go and make disciples out of people. So we are all called to witness about Jesus Christ. None of us can say, okay, I'm a pastor. So I don't let leave that job to the evangelist or none of us can say I'm a teacher. Let me just give me a classroom. I'll teach. I'm good at that. None of us can say I'm a worship leader. So I can just lead worship, give me a guitar or a keyboard. And no, we are all called to evangelize. We're all called to be a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, here's the thing. We all have different areas of gifts, different areas of service. We all have different abilities and capabilities, but we all are to witness to Jesus Christ in whatever capacity that we can. So this is the truth that we should be established in. We cannot say, okay, I'm working in the IT company. So I will leave the job of evangelization to the pastors and the prophets and all of that. All of us, all of us, we may be students in colleges, we may be homemakers, we are called to evangelize. So that is set in place. So we know that we are called to evangelize. Let's look at the necessity. So why should we witness? We saw that in Matthew 28, Jesus himself told the disciples go and witness, but let's look at a few points as to why we should witness about Jesus Christ.  There's this book where it writes that every human being in this world has a God-shaped vacuum in their heart, which means what? You can have all the money in the world, all the riches of the world. You can have everything that our hearts desire, but there is a God-shaped vacuum in each of our hearts that only God can fill. The Bible teaches us that we are sinners. Let's read Romans chapter 3 and verse 23. Can one of us please read that? Romans 3 and 23. For all have sinned and falls out of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation of his blood through faith. Yeah, thank you John. So we are all sinners. We are all sinners of whether they're born in a palace or whether they're born anywhere else, we are all sinners. And so we need a savior. When we look at the things that's happening in this world, people are looking for different means of comfort. I remember just speaking to a good friend of mine a couple of months back and he was saying, I've taken up yoga. I said, okay. I said, why? Because I want peace of mind. So there's so much, right? He knows about Jesus.  So everyone, all of us are sinners. So we need a savior to our sins separate us from God, right? Firstly, we need a savior. Our sins separate us from God. Three, Satan brings bondage into our lives. So that is why we need a savior, right? And when there is bondage, there is eternal separation from God.  Now, this may sound, you know, oh, Pastor, I already know this. This is the basics of Christianity. But here's the thing, you know, as we keep going on, we'll read about the two minute gospel in the four minute gospel. And the Bible says that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It's a simple gospel. There's no big things that you need to discuss. You don't need to know from Genesis to the revelations to share the gospel. It's a power of God. It's just a simple gospel which you and I can share. Finally, salvation is a complete gift that God is giving us. And that gift helps us to be free from sickness and diseases and Satan and all the things of the enemy. So every person needs a savior. Sometimes we feel it's happened to me, right? Once I became a believer, I always wanted to share the gospel with people. But I would see these rich people, you know, they've got everything in life. I wonder, okay, he's got everything. So just let's look at, let's go to the slums and do some street ministry or something. But then after some time, I realized that it's not so. Money does not fulfill, you know, the desires of our heart. No. So I'm reminded of this example. I read a book. I'm sure most of us may know Pete Sampras. He was a great tennis player, Wimbledon champion, seven-time Wimbledon champion. Now, as a young boy, all he wanted to do was win the Wimbledon, right? That's all his goal was. As a young boy, he didn't want anything else in life, right?  He wouldn't go anywhere. He would just get up in the morning, go for his practice, come back, eat healthy, no junk food. He dedicated his whole life towards tennis. Finally, he got into the Wimbledon. He won his first Wimbledon trophy and he writes, he writes, he goes back home, he puts it on his shelf that day or the next day and he looks at that trophy and he felt so empty that he wanted to commit suicide. All his life for that one, you know, Wimbledon championship. He looks at it after he wanted it and he said, I felt empty and he wanted to commit suicide. So every person in this world needs a savior. Let's go to point two. There's only one savior, right? And that is Jesus Christ, our Lord. Acts chapter four and verse 12. Can one of us please read that? Acts chapter four and verse 12. Salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. Thank you, Japhina. Let's also read first Timothy chapter two, verse five and six. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all to be desperate in real time. Amen. For there is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, right? So firstly we established the fact that every person needs a savior. Two, there's only one savior that is Jesus Christ, right? Now picture it this way.  But you know that there's one person who can save him.  There's a way for you out of this. There's a way for you to get healed. I'm sure all of us would do that, right? Even at, as 2020 started with COVID and the pandemic and all across, we saw that lies were just being lost and it was such a miserable time. But on the other side, we also saw some wonderful, wonderful testimonies of God's healing power, right, where people called upon the name of the Lord and Jesus himself brought restoration. And so while people are empty, while people are searching and while they are looking out for hope, you and I can bring this gospel of Jesus Christ to them, right?  Let me accept this. No, there's going to be persecution. There's going to be people who will, you know, turn away from the gospel and all of that. But this is the truth, right, where, you know, we can share this, that there is only one Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, right? Proverbs chapter 14 and verse 12, let's read that. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Yeah, thank you, brother. So here we see that when we look around us, there are the rich, there are the wealthy, there are the successful, but all of them are searching for purpose, for meaning and for direction. And this spiritual search can only be attained, you know, can be achieved through our Lord Jesus Christ, right? So we all have a testimony, right? I'm sure all of us have some kind of a testimony. None of us can say, oh no, I don't have a testimony, we all have a testimony. So we all can share, you know, what the Lord Jesus did for each one of us. Let's go to point three. Again, point three is God has commissioned us to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.  No, the Lord Jesus has commissioned us. So he's given us the authority. He's given us the power and he's saying, go, I have given you the authority, go and make disciples, right? Go and make disciples. I'm giving you the authority, right? It's like this. Imagine, you know, you're in your workplace and the CEO of your company says, you know what, I want you to go and start a new branch in this other city. Will you have any hesitations? You won't, right? You won't feel, okay, should I do this? What will they think? No. Say, hey, the CEO has told me, go and start this branch. Yeah, so I'm gonna go. You'll go with full authority. And if people come to stop, you'll say, no, I've got permissions. The CEO has given me the authority. So here's the authority and so I'm doing what he has told me to do. The same day Jesus has commissioned and given you and me the authority, right? Now, when he's given you and me the authority, it does not, you know, it does not mean that, you know, we don't prepare ourselves. You know, we have to prepare ourselves. And so he's given us the authority. He says, okay, go make disciples and we have to prepare ourselves for it, right? So Jesus also mentions many places in the scriptures. He says, it's not going to be easy. You've got to carry your cross. There's going to be difficulties. But through it all, my grace will be with you, right? So after the resurrection, when we read Matthew chapter 20, sorry Luke chapter 24, we won't read that whole passage. But in this passage, he looked 24, he resurrected from the dead and then the Lord Jesus goes, he meets his disciples and he tells them what is going to happen. And here's something interesting he does. He tells his disciples, look, I'm alive, first thing. Secondly, you remember the Old Testament, all that you read about the Old Testament, you see how I have fulfilled it, that the Messiah is going to be born, he will die, he will rise again and he will be the king of all kings. You see how I have, you know, fulfilled all those prophecies? So he shares all this with his disciples. Now, if we look at the Old Testament and see the messianic scriptures being fulfilled, it is to the point, to the date, you know, God is a perfect God. He's on time. He's never too late.  Written thousands of years before, thousands, thousands of years before. Now, when we look at it, it's so wonderful that those prophecies are fulfilled to the point. Isaiah writes about the cross, right? He writes the whole encounter, you know, by his stripes we are healed. He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement was upon him, right? So, Jesus, he tells his disciples, look, I died, I rose again, look, I fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies and now that you believe, go and make disciples. Have you ever wondered, you know, I always remember, you know, I always think of this, Peter and all the disciples, let's take Peter for example, he was so afraid. He said, okay, he was not doing at the cross when Jesus was dying and he said, okay, you know, he denied Jesus and he went away. He didn't want to do the ministry. But after the Lord Jesus, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the same Peter, right, who was fearful, who was afraid, who said, okay, I don't want to, you know, do this, the same Peter was standing in Jerusalem, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? What happened? What happened? The reality sunken, the anointing, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit came upon him and so if you and I are to be people who will evangelize, reach out to the gospel, we cannot do it on our own flesh. We can but if we do it in our own flesh, we may not see the fruit that we want to see, right?  The same commission has been passed to you and me. We need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, right? It could be just sharing the gospel with your friend, say, hey, I know this my friend for 10 years but may not have got an opportunity to share the gospel with him, yet you still need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, right? Let's read Matthew 28, 18 to 20. It's the same verse that I mentioned but I think we should read that so we'll get a clearer understanding. And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go there to admit disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that have commanded you and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. Amen. Amen. Thank you brother. So here we see that God is giving that commission, right? The Lord Jesus is giving that commission. Now here's an important thing. He says go and be witnesses, you know. The original Greek for witness is martyr, right? The original Greek for the word witness is martyr. So basically Jesus is saying, be ready to be a martyr for Jesus Christ, right? Now, don't be afraid, right? What I'm only saying is God has given us that power at anointing of the Holy Spirit to be willing to even be a martyr for the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? So you and I should know how to tell the truth to people. So as we go along each week, we will look at different ways to share the gospel, right? Different ways to share the gospel. Remember this, good news is not good news until it reaches somebody, right? Good news is not good news until it reaches the people who need to hear it, right? People will not know the truth until somebody tells them the truth, right? There's been plenty of examples where as a ministry and as a team, we have shared the gospel with many places. I can give you maybe one example here in the city of Mangalore where we were going out, we used to go on the streets and evangelize, you know, giving out tracks and there was this one person who came up to me and he said, I don't want you to share the gospel with anyone. So I said, why not? He said, no, because it's not the truth. You people are making money, you know, whatever reasons that he had, but I was going, I was almost walking away, but the Holy Spirit reminded me one thing. He said, I have commissioned you, right? I've commissioned you. So I said, no, I'm going to share the gospel and if you want to hear it, it'll be great if you can give me five minutes and he said, okay, tell me about your foreign Jesus or something he said and I was like, okay, I prayed. I said, God, please help me. And I began to share the gospel with him. Nothing, you know, very supernatural, nothing. I just said, see, we all are born sinners and sin has its consequences, but here's what Jesus did. Jesus came, God the Father, God came as a human being into this world as a man and he lived a perfect life, right? And he died on the cross for our sins. He resurrected again and one day we will be with him. As I was saying these things, I was thinking to myself, I don't think this guy is going to, you know, listen to me. I don't think he's even going to, you know, somewhere in my heart, but I said, no, the power of God is in the scripture. And as I finished, to my surprise, he was crying on the street. He was crying. He said, he said, I've never heard a message like this before. I just thought, you know, Jesus was somebody like who lived in some place. He never knew the truth about Jesus. So the point I'm trying to bring is people will not know the truth unless we tell them. People have a wrong understanding about who Jesus is, right? And so it's important that we share the truth. So now this person is in the church actively serving and his whole family is come to Christ now. So it was just a simple message, a simple message of who Jesus was and who Jesus is and what he can do in our lives, right? And as we go on from classes, we will also learn the different ways of sharing the Gospels. We will also do a few role plays later on. So that can help us as well. So let's read Romans 10, 8 to 15, a big chapter. Let's read that Romans 10, 8 to 15. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit. If the Spirit of God lives in you and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And is it Romans chapter 10, 8 to 15 or Romans chapter 8? Sorry, it's Romans chapter 10 verse 8 to 15. Okay, sorry. Romans 10, 8 to 15. But what does it say? The word is near you.  That is the word of faith we are proclaiming.   As the scripture says, anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one that they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? Amen. Thank you. So let me just pick up two points from this entire portion of scripture. One is in verse nine where it says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart, you will be saved. Confess with your mouth, believe in your heart, you will be saved. Now the second point, whoever believes in him will not be put to shame, meaning whoever believes in him, God will receive and the Lord will save them. Now these two points are very important. One, confess with your mouth, Jesus Christ is Lord and whoever, the word is whoever, so anybody in this world, it doesn't matter who, if they confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in their heart, they can be saved. So the reason we are doing this is to help us to put a good foundation. It's like if you're building a five-story building, you've got to go deep down. The foundation has to go really down. So even as you and I learn about evangelization, our roots or our foundations need to be strong. Because there will be people who will question us, there will be people who will question the authority of the scriptures and we cannot be tossed about. We need to be strong in the word. We can say, okay, this is what the word says and so this is what I'm going to believe and that's one. And two, we should understand our authority, what is our authority that we are standing on, standing on the authority of Jesus Christ. Today in this world, we see a lot of news around, very skeptical news. Some of it is fake news, some of them are real news, a lot of them are exaggerations. Now here's the thing. This news that you are sharing is not a news that comes on TV, but this news is the news that has been sent from God the Father. It is powerful. It is able to change people's lives. A lot of people have said, Jesus is a good man. I don't think Gnostic say that Jesus probably didn't die on the cross or there are many writers who wrote that Jesus was not on the cross. He sent his avatar on the cross. And I've encountered all these people who are skeptical about the truth. But here's the thing. This should not deter us from bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ. It should never. I'll just share this testimony of this. I'm sharing these testimonies so that all of us can be encouraged. Now I'm not sharing. There are times when I have also tried my best to share but hasn't gone through. But there are times when God has really ministered to people. And so this is one time, this young boy, probably about 22, 23 years old, he is an atheist and he said, I don't believe in God. I don't want God. How can God be true? How can it be that God through a woman and then suddenly when baby comes that baby is Jesus. And he started being very practical. He said, how can it be? 30 years old. He started some ministry. 33 years old he died.  Where is his blood? Very practical kind of thing. And these are genuine things that people will question, that people will ask. And so I began to share the gospel. I began to tell him about what the message of what Jesus did in our lives. He was just not interested. But one day I was praying and I was praying for him and I said, God, I think I should just move on, maybe share with somebody else. But the Holy Spirit reminded me saying, he's still coming to you. That means there's some emptiness in him. He still wants to hear from you. I said, yeah, he's still coming. If he was not interested, he wouldn't have come. So he used to come every week and began to share. I told him, see, this is what Jesus did. It took over more than six months. And after six months, he said, I think I should accept Jesus as my personal savior, six months of sharing the gospel and trying to teach him and trying to make him understand. And there are times when in two, three days, people have accepted Jesus. There are times people have accepted on the spot. So there will be many things that may happen. People may accept, people may not accept. But that does not stop us from bringing the gospel to people. Why? Because the gospel is the power of, it's not the power of men. It's not the power of the government. It's not the power of our nation. It is not the power of ourselves. It is the power of God unto salvation. So you picture it. All of you, just as you're sitting there, picture it. God has commissioned you with this word and he's saying it is a power of God. He's given the other power. And he's saying go and make disciples. Now along the way, right? We need to be wise. We need to prepare ourselves. We need to have a good spiritual life. We need to do all the spiritual responsibilities that we have to do. But remember the gospel is the power of God. It's a power of God.  That is good. It's good. But you can only just give two minutes of a message of the gospel and people's lives can be touched. Right? Yes. I think Radhana has raised her hand. Go ahead. You're on mute. You're on mute, Radhana. Sorry. You were on mute. Can you repeat that, please? Okay. By mistake. All right. It's fine. Okay. Any questions? Anything that you want to share? We can just move on. Okay. Let's move on. Now we all have understood this, right? We've understood that the gospel is a power of God. We have to. God has commissioned us. Don't wait to become a pastor. Don't wait to become a prophet. Right? You can start. You can start today. You can start after this call, right? Because God has given us the authority. He has commissioned us, right? Of course, there'll be inhibitions. We will learn about all that fear, doubt, all that we will learn about. But this is the foundation, right? This is the foundation that we stand on. And the foundation is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is really powerful. Amen? So let's look at the urgency. Why the sense of urgency, right? Why is it that, why can't we wait? You can't wait till I'm, let me wait till I'm 35. Then I will start my ministry.  Why this urgency? Why is it that we are saying, hey, we all have to go into it immediately. Now, let's look at a few points. First one, there is no second chance, right? There's no second chance. Maybe some of us may meet some people and then you may not meet them again, right? I remember this one time, I was traveling from Bangalore to Mangalore in a train and I had some work here. So in the train, it was a night journey. So it's 7 p.m. to early morning, about 6 a.m. we reach here. And so I just had dinner, everything ready to just get some rest, to go to sleep. Immediately, the Holy Spirit, you know, put something in my heart to go and share the gospel with this man. And when I saw this man, I knew he's not a believer. So just by looking, we could know that he's not a believer. So I said, God, it's late. Let's sleep. Let's look after this tomorrow. So we went to sleep. Didn't get sleep, obviously. Woke up at about one o'clock. This man is still sitting and looking out of the window. He's not sleeping. Then I knew he's waiting for me. So I got off and I began to sit and talk to him. And after speaking to him for about half an hour, you know, it was broken Hindi that I could speak as broken, broken Hindi. And I don't know what he understood. But he was saying, you know, pray for me, pray for me. He was coming to Mangalore to look out for a job. He had gone through many difficulties. He lost his wife through cancer. And he was just lost. His eyes showed everything. And I shared the gospel with him. And I remember the Lord just minister to him so powerfully. He slept. We prayed. He said the salvation prayer. And we went back to sleep. Morning, he woke up and he said, I will never forget this journey for the rest of my life. Why? Because if I hadn't met you, I don't know what would have happened. Now there is joy, there is peace in my heart. Even though I lost my wife, even though I'm going through these challenges, financial difficulties, there's peace in my heart. And now he's part of our church in Mangalore as well. So he's going back to his state. He's gone back to his state actually. He's not here anymore. But here's the thing. No second chances. Second Corinthians chapter four verse three and four. Could one of us read it, please? Second Corinthians chapter four verse three and four. But even if a gospel is wailed, it is wailed to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, less light of the gospel of the glory of Christ to his image of God should shine on them. Amen. Thank you, Divya. So when someone dies, they're crossing over to eternity, either with or without God. There's no middle place, right?  Let me just go check with the Father if you're able to come or no, no, no, no. It's either with or without God and there's no second chance. And so that's the urgency. There are people around us that are perishing and so there's an urgency. Now I'm not saying, quit your job, be careful. Remember, right? I'm not saying quit your job, go out on the streets and the whole day. No, no, there will come opportunities away, right? There will come opportunities. There will come times when God will very clearly give you opportunities, right? And we have to step out of our comfort zone. We'll look at that later on, how to overcome inhibitions. You have to step out. You know, sharing the gospel is an uncomfortable thing for some of us, right? People may not accept it. People may, oh, what will they think? Or, you know, why, what if they say, you know, I'm busy. I had all these inhibitions. What if they say, you know, I don't have time. Can you, can you tell me tomorrow? So all these things are there that comes up in our mind. But remember, there is an urgency, right? There's no second chance. Second point, time is running out. Matthew chapter 24 and verse 14. Could we read that, please? Matthew 24 and verse 14. Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Yes, thank you. So God's clock is ticking, right? Now I'm not making everyone scared saying what is this eschatology we're studying in times now. It's true. It's a fact that we all have to, you know, digest. It's true that we're coming towards the end of time. And even more so now with what is, when we look around what China is doing, China is already, China and Russia have joined forces, which is, you know, okay, I don't want to go into eschatology, but they've joined in forces to wage war against Israel. So these are signs of coming time, end times, right?   No, no, no, hell is real, right? It was an interesting thing. Jesus, there was this one time somebody came up to me and said, why are you preaching about hell, right? And they said you should only preach about the good things that Jesus did. Yes, we love to preach about all that, but there is a place, there is a time to also preach about, you know, things about eternity. Why?  So remember that time is running out. Let me give you this example. This is a wonderful example that I read many years back. David Brainhart was a young man in the early 1950s, sorry 1700s, David Brainhart, a young man, a very brilliant man, right?  But he did not really, he was not too deep in God's Word and all of that. He was just, okay, I'm a Christian.  And this happened for many years, but one, one certain time he was forced by his parents, you have to come to church.  And after that Sunday, as the, he began to listen to the message and the preacher was preaching about the gospel and what happens when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ. And there was a fire burning inside him where that moment, that day he, he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. He told his mother, I'm going to go and preach the gospel to the people around. He went on to preach more than 30,000 sermons. He went into the cold places. He went to the tribal Americans and he was 27 years old. He contracted tuberculosis.  And he did a wonderful, wonderful ministry. He passed away at the age of 27 or 28 of tuberculosis, but his mark in history still remains. I can go ahead and read it. David Brainard, the life of David Brainard. This book, a young man named John Wesley read this book, The Life of David Brainard. And John Wesley went on to do a greater ministry than David Brainard himself. So what am I, why am I giving this example? He felt that time is running out. People need to be saved. And so the same way, we are to, you know, be passionate about souls. Maybe some of us, we may not have that yet, but we can pray and ask God, God, give me the passion to win souls for your kingdom. Do not be ashamed of the gospel. Right? Romans 116, and we will close with this. Sorry, I've taken extra time. Romans 116. But I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvage him for everyone who believes, for the Jews first and also for the Greeks. Amen. Thank you, brother. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Now Paul is writing this to a Roman church, a church that is always, you know, believed in idol worship. They looked at the sun, the stars, they believed they were all gods. They looked at the rivers and they believed that God flows through it and all kinds of things. And Paul is writing to the Romans, and I'm sure the Romans would have felt, what is this message about Jesus who came, he died? It doesn't make sense. But I'm sure Paul is writing, you know, in his heart he would have felt, I am not ashamed of the gospel. You may think it's foolish. You may think it is something that doesn't make sense, but here's the thing. It is the power of God unto salvation. So you and I can witness this glorious, powerful Savior in our lives. Right? He's done it in our lives. We can go ahead and share it with the people around us. Amen. Amen. So we will pick up from next week. There's lots to learn, how to share, what are the inhibitions, how do we overcome our fears, you know, so lots to learn, so you can look forward to that. Right? Let's pray before we close. Father, we want to thank you for this time. We thank you, God, for your word, that is a life that is powerful, that is active, that is sharper than a two-edged sword, Lord. Lord, like what we read, you have commissioned us to share the gospel, to be a witness to the people around us. We just declare your power, your authority, your anointing upon each one of us, Lord. And as Paul writes to the Romans, he says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Let this be our message as well, O God, that we will not be ashamed of the gospel, but we will declare allowed what you have done for us, Lord. Help us to be the witness that you have called us to be, even as we go through the session each week, Lord. I pray your grace, your anointing upon each of us, especially on the students, Lord, that you will empower them to do what you have called them to do, God. We thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for joining. Let's catch up next week. Have a great week ahead. God bless you all.