Okay, here we are mark chapter 1 we're going to be looking at God's call to service We'll be seeing that in the second portion of our study, but we'll begin with verses 14 and 15 and I'll give you as I've done some introductory Comments as they like to develop a foundation a context and then we'll move into our study So reading at verse 14 14 and 15 mark chapter 1 Mark writes now after John was put in prison Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and Saying the time is fulfilled the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe in the gospel and So as I mentioned I'm going to give you a little context develop a foundation and move into our study And so here we are in the first chapter of the gospel of Mark and as we've seen by going through the first several verses Mark's style is not filled with details as you find in in other gospels His writing styles intended to condense various events into a few verses We saw this when he introduced John the Baptist and and as you'll notice as we looked at John the Baptist He actually avoided details About his birth and various things that are actually communicated to us in other gospels We know that Luke in other words dedicated much of chapter one to the life of John and and in his gospel And Matthew and John gave more information concerning John the Baptist But on the other hand when we looked at Mark's account of John the Baptist Well Mark's account was brief. He gave enough information to be acquainted with John, but he didn't give a lot of detail He did the same thing when he introduced Jesus to his to his readers. He wrote of Jesus as baptism he spoke of his anointing and In two verses he handled the temptation of Christ So it seems obvious that that mark intended to give brief Snapshots to his readers and and that would fit into his goal to present Jesus as being on the go that Jesus is busy all the time That scene as I mentioned to you that's seen by his use of the word immediately Which he uses quite often in verse 10. It says immediately Jesus came out of the water of baptism in verse 12 Immediately the spirit drove Jesus to the wilderness in verse 18 Immediately Simon and Andrew left their nets and followed Jesus in verses 19 20 21 28 and verse 42 the translators chose to use the word immediately in verses 29 30 and 43 The word immediately is replaced with as soon or at once and so he wanted to show Jesus on the move And that's what we see here So after speaking of Jesus's temptation he now introduces us to his teaching ministry and The events that we're looking at for those who take notes are actually occurring between six months to a year later Than what he had just reported To fill it in a little bit Jesus had been in the south in an area called Judea But mark bypassed that you see that ministry in John's gospel You see it in John chapter 2 verse 13 all the way to chapter 4 verse 3 And that records what Jesus did including the cleansing of the temple and John chapter 4 Well that records his ministry to the woman of Samaria, but but mark ignores that You see mark was led by the spirit to focus on the beginning of Jesus's preaching ministry And so he begins after John had been jailed for telling King Herod that he was in sin When you read concerning that we'll be looking at that in detail in later chapter But when you look concerning what had happened Herod who was the king at that time had had taken his brother Philip's wife her name was Herodias and and Was living in adultery and that resulted in in John being jailed You see John preached that it wasn't permissible for Herod to be married to this woman and there's basically two reasons why it was wrong Well, the first one is that Herod stole Herodias from his brother Philip while on a visit to Rome And Philip was half brother to Herod having the same father, but different mothers and that provoked John the Baptist to openly confront his sin We see it in Mark rather Matthew 14 verses 3 and 4 where it says Herod had laid hold of John and bound him put him in prison for the sake of Herodias his brother Philip's wife Because John had said to him it is not lawful for you to have her Now Matthew referred to Herodias in a way that you might want to note Matthew referred to Herodias as as his brother Philip's wife The Holy Spirit in other words did not allow Matthew to call Herodias his wife And this is because he was living in adultery You see to marry her he had to divorce his present wife and by marrying her he committed adultery In Mark chapter 10 we'll see this in verses 11 and 12 He says to them whoever shall put away his wife and marry another commits adultery against her If a woman shall put away her husband and be married to another she commits adultery What he had done he was presently married divorced on purpose to marry somebody else's wife and thus that's the sin of adultery But also Herodias. This is even even makes it even worse Herodias was the daughter of both Herod and Philip's half-brother Stobulus that made Herodias his niece and By marrying her he was guilty of another sin called incest In Leviticus 186 it says no one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations I'm the Lord and so when John Confronted Herod and we're gonna see this in detail when we get to the chapter that deals with this But when John confronted him Herod put him into prison Having a sin openly rebuked infuriated him the conviction Was immense. He was so angry with John that he wanted to execute him But at first he wouldn't Matthew 14 5 says although he wanted to put him to death He feared the multitude because they counted him as a prophet and So these are the small details that led up to the Imprisonment and the simple statement here John was put in prison when we get to to Mark chapter 6 we're gonna look at that in more detail but that's why John was put in prison and So it says again after John verse 14 was put in prison. Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and Now both Jesus and John had been ministering in the south and it was called Judah But Jesus now is going to the north The southern Jews considered northern Jews as Unsophisticated The fact was Jesus's ministry in the north was a comment It was a comment on the on what would be called the spiritual apostasy in the south Jerusalem was the center But it was filled with religious Corruption the corruption was so deep that it even affected the temple the Galilee which is in the north was actually more populated than the south and Because there was a way it's called the way of the sea a V. M. R. Is Coming from the Mediterranean and going up into Damascus Because of this road the V. M. R. Is there are many travelers who had crossed through the Galilee region And so because it was like a highway there were a lot of people for Jesus to minister to And so Jesus goes to the north and he's beginning to minister and notice how it says in verse 14 He came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God So Mark had told us that when Jesus was baptized He had been anointed by the Holy Spirit and the Spirit had driven him into the wilderness And that's where he had resisted the temptations of Satan So after resisting Satan he began his ministry now he returns to the north in Luke 4 14 and 15 It says Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and news about him spread through the whole countryside He was teaching in their synagogues and everyone praised him So he comes to Galilee and he's preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God He's moving from town to town village to village and he's preaching the message of salvation He's preaching what is called the kingdom of God Now preaching the gospel this is important and I want to develop this with you for a moment All of this is obviously it's scripture, but this is an important point preaching the gospel is part of God's way of bringing salvation to people When mark began his book He spoke of the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ and and I mentioned to you that in chapter 1 verse 1 That this was referring to what it's called the written gospel But here mark is referring to the spoken gospel the spoken gospel has been called the message of salvation the gospel The gospel is speaking the truth of god Especially as it concerns sin and judgment And jesus as he's preaching the gospel Is making it clear concerning how you can enter in to heaven And so he tells us in verse 15 Saying the time is fulfilled And the kingdom of god is at hand repent and believe in the gospel And so the gospel message speaks to the core of our problems in life It's a message that says that sin has destroyed us and man needs to turn from it We're living in a very confused air and I'll share a few things with you about this right now We're living in a very confused time We think that if we pass laws or do certain things that life is going to become better But the gospel message is the only message that reaches the heart of man The gospel message is a message that transforms us from the inside Laws rules regulations and things of that nature can have an impact But they're not necessarily a moral impact to make us into better people And most certainly aren't the kind of impact that's going to transform us to become kingdom citizens We should be concerning. We should be involved to whatever degree we're able to in in the concerns of the age I'm not saying that that the church is supposed to hide from these things But we need to understand that the only message that transforms a life is the gospel And that's what jesus came to preach the message of the gospel amen And the gospel speaks to the core it speaks to the inner person it speaks of our problems and life and gives us the solution It tells us that sin has destroyed us that sin has messed. It's not just martyrs. It has it has destroyed us It's ruined us And we need to understand that there is a solution and that solution is called the gospel of the good news Of jesus christ because sin has destroyed us. We are to repent. We're to turn from it Now i'll point this out and we're going to see this as we go through the gospel of john But but jesus was very direct sometimes we don't see him that way But jesus is very direct in his message in all But even in our day the directness and simplicity of the message is is very often Not regarded but the directness and simplicity of the message is really our model You see and i'm gonna say this and this couldn't be controversial to some But i'll say it this way. Hopefully it makes sense to you after Being a christian for 50 years and after pastor in this church next week for 40 40 years, I think I can speak with some experience and authority as I say this I'm not as a pastor called To constantly focus on the problems of our culture To make comments concerning it. I will I those of you who know me know that I do And i'm not called to specifically only deal with political issues Or promote political candidates That's not my call as a pastor. You don't come to hear me I would assume you don't come to hear me to tell you hear me tell you who you should vote for and all of that There are various ways you can discover those things for yourself watch the news read papers or whatever you do Read your news feed whatever way you get your information speak to your friends Read your bible That really informs you what is good what is not good what is right what is wrong that should inform us But you don't come here so that I can promote a political candidate And i'm not as a pastor called to devise ways to attract an audience I'm certainly not called to entertain bored to people because God knows i'm not entertaining and so I don't I don't intend to try and entertain those who are bored Let me tell you something that you need to hear and sometimes the church forgets this what a pastor is intended to do Is to proclaim a message that transforms people That's what i'm called to do. It's called the gospel. It's a message that calls for repentance And it's a message that provides the power to change And that change is not simply external. That's a change that occurs internally and it's the internal that actually Produces an external And it's not a message this gospel to be avoided. It's not a message to be changed It's a message to be taught clearly In 2nd Corinthians chapter 2 verse 17 paul said it like this He said unlike so many we do not peddle the word of god for profit The word peddle there in the original language means to transform it We don't change it in order to make it more attractive We don't peddle the word of god as some he said do he said on the contrary in christ We speak before god with sincerity as those sent from god That's what the minister is intended to do and that's been forgotten. I think by many in the church today There are many in the church who come to to a church service expecting something different than they receive They're not expecting a bible study They're expecting to be given answers for their culture or a political Candidate or something that tickles their ear. That's very true in many people's lives I understand some of it, but the bottom line is is the gospel transforms you It ought to be something that that we embrace because god can change it So not only does he change us, but he gives to us an entrance into heaven itself through the gospel I'm not going to go to heaven because I believe in a certain thing about my culture I'm not going to go to heaven because I voted for the right presidential candidate I go to heaven because Jesus christ saved me that comes through the gospel We need to understand that and we don't today There are many who don't understand that and we don't change it To make it something acceptable to people because the gospel makes the people acceptable to god And that's how it works So it remains a message that is a call to change. It's not to be changed itself You see again, it's the gospel that that changes lives transforms lives It's the one message that contains the power of god In first Corinthians 118 the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing But to us who are being saved it is the power of god And so the message is to be given clearly It's to be given with pure motives And any who gives such a message is to do so with integrity With a premier desire of pleasing god And first Thessalonians 2 3 and 4 it says For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives Nor are we trying to trick you On the contrary, we speak as those approved by god To be entrusted with the gospel We are not trying to please people but god who tests our heart Understand that christian you have been entrusted With the gospel Entrusted with the gospel some of us in this room were never trusted with anything I mean When I was learning to drive my dad had my dad let me drive his car my dad No, I'm gonna it's okay. I'm next month is my birthday. I'll turn 71 I'm not ashamed of my age. I'm glad I live this long, you know to be honest with you But some of you this is ancient history. So let me give you an ancient history My dad My dad, I don't know how much time I should take down you this story But I like to illustrate with stories forgive me if it bores you My dad used to drive chevries and fords. That's great. The great cars obviously obviously But because my dad found himself working on our Ford station wagon He had a 57 Ford station wagon with that phony wood He thought it was a woody. It was cheesy. But my dad My dad worked on saturdays and so Often just tuning up or fixing working on the engine. My dad got tired of that So in 1965 my dad decided He was going to buy a car that doesn't break down. Now again, you got to remember this is 65 So there was a car dealer just up the street from us that we could walk to And it had uh, you know various used cars my dad walked over there and my dad was a saver So he saved money until he could pay cash And so my dad walked to this particular place and I still remember him walking in and And as he walked in the salesman walks up to my dad and looks at my dad and says to him sir How can I help you and my dad says to him? I'm here to buy a car and he says oh he says uh and my dad said I see this it was an Actually, this the first one was a 60 a 60 cattle 60 Cadillac Bronze I still remember that as a big old boat. So this would have been 63 Because I got another anyway. This is 63. So the guy says my dad Oh Cadillac, huh? And he's looking at my dad dad was a truck driver. He was a plain man, you know He says you want to go and look at a Chevy. This is uh, this is a Cadillac and my dad had cash in his pocket And he says no, I don't want a Chevy. I've already had plenty chevies and ports And my dad bought his first Cadillac a 1960 Cadillac a big old boat of a car Well, he liked it so much. He bought another one in 65 and the second one was the 1963 Cadillac So my dad bought this 63 Cadillac And guess what I learned to drive on I learned to drive on a 60 63 Cadillac. I took my driving test in the 63 Cadillac It's like driving a yacht, you know, and it's a huge car make a wide turn in the small thing in the Cadillac And you know what I'm talking about And so now I've got my license and so I say to my dad dad Can I go and talk to my friends and you know, I got my license now And you can almost picture my dad as he pulls his keys out To hand it to me. He trusted me with his Cadillac And that's a big thing to trust a kid with right? I'd say it is his most Expensive car a nice car to give your keys of the car to a kid.  Please let this hit your heart today He said we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel The only message whereby a man or woman must believe in order to go to heaven He trusted you with it with you And some of us in this room were never trusted with anything We would hear the words. I don't trust you And good reason Because I blew up my dad's car, but that's another story life goes on You've been entrusted with the gospel It isn't a lightweight message It isn't to be changed altered peddled so that people come back So I can boast about how many people come to hear me speak It is a message that changes lives It is a message that forgives sins It's a message that settles in the heart It is a message from heaven itself And it calls for repentance Jesus has repent to repent. Meda nui is a change of mind To turn and change your direction through a change of mind. How do you enter into the kingdom? to the gospel And so for many the gospel message was even in that day was radical and it was offensive to our day it remains so And and and even though it is offensive God help us to never change it God help us to not transform it God help us to not gut it of its power God help us to be faithful in the proclamation of it You see when john was out there preaching he was preaching repent the kingdom of heaven is at hand That was offensive Then jesus said repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and for some it was offensive But for others it was water in a dry place It was the answer to their problem. I've been trying my hardest to be a good person I can't and jesus says you need to repent you need to receive this message because in that message is forgiveness of sins It's a transformed life And that's what he's saying in verse 15 the time is fulfilled the kingdom of god is at hand repent Believe in the gospel god is about to act in in the work of redemption the king has come It's time for people to receive him And his kingdom advances and as this kingdom advances keep this in mind if you take notes You might want to remember this his kingdom advances one soul at a time One soul at a time That may not sound like much, but that's a real important thing to think about it really is When our church began We would we saw two new people show up every week for a while there and And I told a friend of mine. I said, you know, I've noticed that that the lord is sat in a little bit here and a little bit there He said don't really I said, yeah, probably a couple people a week are showing up that hadn't That was a blessing. He goes so really I said, that's not very much. I said, well, it doesn't sound like much But when you have 52 weeks, that's over a hundred people When you have another that's another hundred No, the lord is moving But he always listen he always advances one soul at a time He touched you And your life touched somebody else When he touched me my life touched other people And the kingdom of god is that way. That's why we're not to to look at the day of small beginnings with any kind of Disregard because god begins in slow waves and and this is what we're seeing You see people must hear and receive salvation and then what they do is they tell others And that's what god has called all of us to do is tell others And so that's what we're going to see here as we move into verse 16 It goes on to say as he walked by the sea of galilee He saw simon and andrew his brother cast in net into the sea. They were fishermen Jesus said to them follow me. I will make you become fishers of men They immediately left their nets and followed him When he had gone a little farther from there He saw james the son of zebedee john his brother Who also were in the boat? Mending their nets and immediately he called them and they left their father zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and went After him the calling of these disciples God's call to service Notice here in verse 16 jesus who was walking by the shore. He sees these two men He sees simon and his brother andrew Now let me give you a little background to build to build this up. Jesus already knew them. He had met them a few months earlier andrew originally had been a disciple of john the baptist And andrew had been with john when when john saw jesus it's recorded in john 129 When john called jesus the lamb of god And so the next day andrew had left the baptist and attached himself to jesus After spending the day with him andrew went and got his brother peter In john 141 and 42 it says the first thing andrew did was to find his brother simon and tell him We found the messiah that is the christ And he brought him to jesus Jesus looked at him and said your simon son of john you'll be called sephus which went translated as peter The first thing he did is he went after following after john the baptist having jesus pointed out by john the baptist That's the lamb of god. He takes away the sin of the world. He spent the day with him Then he goes first thing and he grabs his brother First thing i did first thing i hope that you did when you got saved first thing i told my family first thing I got saved december 27 1970 I go into the den after getting saved came home went into the den Mom dad madeline becky. I love you praise the lord I walk into another room and my sister madeline and becky follow me and they say what's going on I share with them what had happened to me and my sister madeline first thing she did She told me this years later. She said she went to bed that night and said whatever you did for my brother Please do it for me and that's how my sister got saved And that's how my my mom and my dad got saved I shared the gospel with them Because I had been taught I had learned that the most selfish thing I could do is go to heaven alone And I wanted to bring others with me. And so I told my family the first thing you do is you tell your family And that's what he did. We have found him who is messiah We found jesus christ You tell your brother you tell your sister some in this room are saying no you don't know my brother I've told him before he wants to kill me Well, you know what there are plenty of ways to share with them and one of them is a transformed life And the other is waiting for the opportunity when the lord gives to you to share with them the reason your life has been transformed And sometimes you just love them so much. You're willing to have them angry at you for telling them the truth Because I told my dad that I said you're going to be the best man in hell if you don't give your heart to christ And that took a lot of boldness I didn't realize that I just loved him and sometimes love is simply speaking directly and that's what I did I love you.  You're going to come to faith in christ right now. You're going to receive jesus right now See and so you just have a heart. Please May the church wake up to this we've forgotten it in many ways How important it is To tell your family about jesus christ about what he can do and that's what he did And he brought his brother to christ It says we found the messiah we found christ He brought him to jesus and jesus looked at him and said you're simon son of john. You're going to be called sephus Which when translated His peter is the rock Well, andrew and peter were businessmen They had a partnership with james and john It would seem as you read about them and you go through the bible You'll see this that they were successful. They they obviously were well known by others You wouldn't know this at first glance, but when you read that peter owned a home in capernaum That tells you that he he made a good amount of money And when you know that john was actually known by the high priest of israel That tells you that he had a lot of pull also So these are people who are apparently well known by others successful But they're called now into permanent discipleship. They're now being called to follow him full time Jesus is giving them an invitation notice what it says in verse 17. He said to them follow me I will make you become fishers of men. He's calling them to service now In the time of christ rabbis would instruct people to follow their rules to follow their traditions I've done a whole study on on the mentoring process during that day. They would teach them They would teach you how they prayed they they would teach them the manner that they move their body when they prayed They they would teach them all these ins and outs They would mentor them and all and jesus is saying now I'm going to to train you in a different in the same and yet in a different way You see because a rabbis instructed people to follow rules and traditions But jesus isn't calling them to follow rules and traditions. He's not saying you need to follow my religious rituals He's saying I want you to abandon your personal dreams and I want you to abandon your careers and I want you to learn from me That emphasizes that jesus expected his men to love and follow him above everything else As his modern day followers we're not being immediately Commanded if you will to abandon careers What we are commanded to do is to place them above any other master Or anything we've pursued And in this calling we see that jesus intended his work To not just be a first century work in israel But to continue into the future You see the church was designed by god to continue past the first century and in selecting these fishermen He's creating a continuing work Because these men are going to be his building blocks for the work of the church on earth In Ephesians 2 19 and 20 Paul said consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens But fellow citizens with god's people members of god's household Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets With christ jesus himself as the chief cornerstone They were intended to impact their generation But that impact was supposed to continue into the future The church has been created to reveal how wonderful and loving the god of the universe is And the church has been created to shine as lights in a sin-darkened world And even though the devil attempts to destroy the work of god the devil cannot succeed Sometimes we think that he is he's he's reeking havoc. There's no doubt about it He knows his he knows that that his greatest enemies are believers. He knows that there's no doubt about that He knows that and sometimes we can get discouraged and we can say oh, he's going to win. He's going to win That's just not true That's not true at all. Jesus said it very clearly in matthew 16 18 He said i tell you that you are peter upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hades will not overcome it We are overcomers in christ and just because the world is shouting and trying to drown our voices out and it is We shine as lights in a very dark place And people are still hungry for the gospel of jesus christ What we need to understand is when jesus said upon this rock, I will build my church We need to know that the word church in in reference to a new creation a new community Is actually the greek word eclesia And the word eclesia speaks as a community called out ones is what it literally means They would use the word eclesia when it spoke of a synagogue or an assembly of people it would speak of a congregation But jesus is building an assembly of called out ones that are going to be his witnesses And as those called out of the world we influence the world to come to christ in first peter 2 9 The apostle said you are a chosen generation.  We're called by god to influence the world for jesus until he returns And we're to do that By the life we live in the message we give In titus 2 11 through 14 it says the grace of god that brings salvation has appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts We should live soberly Righteously godly in the present age looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great god and savior jesus christ Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed And purify for himself his own special people Zalas for good works. That's you Zalas for good works called out of darkness into his light Not giving into the temptations of the world to live as the world but to live differently And that's what we're called to do and that's what he was calling these men To and he says to them follow me Now it says again in verse 16 He saw simon and andrewis brother casting and ed into the sea They were fishermen I want you to notice something if you take notes you might want to note this and perhaps this may be speaking to somebody listening right now God's calling and timing may interrupt your life These men had an occupation and it would seem apparent that they were successful But jesus had different plans for them I've discovered and some of you have too that god has a way of interrupting our plans In order to bring us into his Jeremiah 29 11 i know the plans i have for you declares the lord plans to prosper you and not harm you Plans to give you hope in a future I've got plans for you You may have plans for yourself I was an assisting pastor in another congregation I told my wife It's obvious that i'm not called the minister here in this church I had been ordained as a pastor in 1979 I served on staff It was now 1981 And I came home on a monday night Because we used to have meetings pastor and the board and I Every monday night And I started coming home telling murray. It's time for us to move on. It's time for me to move on murray didn't want to Murray thought because the pastor was attacking me every every monday. I was getting personally attacked every monday Murray thought I was running from from a problem, and I wasn't I just knew this is not for me I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to move on And I know this will surprise you But I This happened for a little while and I finally came home and I teared up in front of her. I said it's killing me.   I don't have a job I have a friend of mine who is running. He was actually a manager over a Bread delivery service. I said, listen, I can get a job with him. I can still be delivering bread Maybe not the bread of life, but i'm still a bread deliverer She said no, you know that god has not called you there We said sometimes gods call to serve him Does not coincide with what you wanted to do You know, that's the truth If you just said out of all the places in the world to go and minister, where would you like to end up? chino no Ontario no No san lus abispo Or a place like that During the time when we started here, there were still a lot of flies in chino Some of you have been around for a long time. You know what I mean? All the dairies and everything you couldn't have a barbecue outside without having special guests the flies The mascot of chino was a fly for years. I mean, they're just flies everywhere So no, it's not, you know, hawaiians do not wake up on a saturday morning and say man I got to get to chino. They just don't do that. It's not the place you want to go But you know, sometimes the lords plans Interrupt your own Keep that in mind Sometimes the lords plans interrupt your own I was going to go to bible college Get my degree it took five years at that time Then I was going to go two years for a masters Then I was considering the possibility of doing a three-year thd program I had already eight years plus Planned out. This is what I'm going to do And the lord interrupted my plans and placed me here He has a way of putting you where you're supposed to be in his giant chess board He says this is where you're supposed to be right here These men had an occupation. They already were successful Obviously well known at least john was homeowner Peter was And yet he called them out of their comfort zone and he said i'm going to use you in a way you didn't even know You see god delights in using ordinary people that he may accomplish extraordinary things That's because when he does that no one can take the credit From him in first Corinthians chapter one twenty six and twenty seven Paul said brothers think of what you were when you were called Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential Not many were of noble birth But god chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise god chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong It's been said that god delights in building on the foundation of human impossibilities And that's what he was doing and so in verse 17 it very simply says follow me I will make you become fishers of men come after me when it says follow me or come after me Come after it speaks of an immediate reaction with no delay Come after me. Follow me. I'll make you become fishers of men And they understood immediately instead of using their nets are going to catch men The net they would use is a message that jesus was to give to them and notice in verse 18. They immediately left their nets and followed him There wasn't a hesitation. There wasn't an argument. They were ready to do so Charles virgin once said when christ calls us by his grace We ought not only to remember what we are But we ought to think of what he can make us into He takes you and he transforms you They didn't see themselves as the foundation of a new creation called the church But god did and he not only called them, but he equipped them to serve him So we're to follow him because he's developing us and transforming us And he's the one who fashions us into fishes of men.   I will make you become fishes of men Immediately verse 18 They left their nets and followed him when he had gone a little farther from there He saw james the son of zebedee and john his brother who also were in the boat mending their nets and immediately He called them and they left their father zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and went after him This was not a word to only one or two people. It was in reality. We're seeing this. It's a word to form The work what that was to be done Needed many to be involved in it Now he had said You're going to become fishes of men That obviously gave insight into the commission to preach the gospel Let's see. I don't want to get before I have some things I wanted to say but I'm adding this right now as I'm thinking Let me say this briefly and then I'll go back to my notes One of the worst things that the church has seen Over its history not recent history, but in the history of the church is this It's what used to be called and this is a word that older people will understand and younger people wouldn't have clue what I'm saying um, but we used to have A show called the lone ranger He was all by himself. He's the lone ranger and he had a An indian friend that he called tanto I used to think his name was don't know, but that's a different that's a different a different word Don't know means dumb But his name was tonal The lone ranger We're not called to be the lone ranger The worst thing that we can be is isolated That's why when they put people in prison in there either protecting them or because of problems they put them in solitary The worst thing that human being experiences is aloneness and I'm not giving a message on aloneness. I'm just illustrating it We have we have not been created to be alone. It is not good that a man should be alone is the first bad thing God ever said Relating to men it's not good That a man should be alone In ministry in life We need community We need a relationship when the holy spirit fell and created the church birth the church there were 120 waiting And from there they spilled out and ministered and the church began to grow It was a community looking at x chapter 2 42 through 47 You see the earmarks of the church because they remain steadfast and the apostles doctrine and prayer and the word and etc It was something that they had community in it's something to understand So I want to say this quickly because it's not my notes, but it's something I feel inspired to say at the moment You were not created to be by yourself You weren't And when America was isolated for as long as it's been it's not been good for America It's not good to be in your home locked in all the time by yourself It's a bad thing And people go nuts and they they get stirred we used to call it stirred crazy. They could crazy cabin fever. What do you want to call it? You need relationship and it is not the same when you're watching online It's not the same You're receiving the teaching But you're not receiving the community And that's not good You know, yeah, people are stinky sometimes, huh? Sometimes they say Reach your brother home. Please don't I mean Lazarus come forth.  I'm just saying this briefly Is if that's possible, but I'm trying I really am If you'd have told me when I first got saved That over the years the amount of people that I would come into contact with and some would become my dearest friend I wouldn't have believed you why because by nature I'm very shy People don't know that some of you may think if you see me may think that I'm kind of rude I can appear that way because I'm shy because I've always been intro I don't have I don't have skills That helps me to be friends with lots of people Forgive me. I'm just being real I don't I want them, but I don't That's why God gave me marie She does That's true And I can sit and I can listen And I can visit and I can talk I can do that But I'm uncomfortable Over the years the lord has been gracious To bring it to my life people who have helped me to come out of that I used to sit by myself as a little boy because my mom worked I was always by myself. I did not know how to have friends I did I'm not I'm trying to explain something to you to show you something It's what I'm trying to do. I'm not asking for sympathy or understanding I'm just trying to say that's who I am When I got saved I was brought into a family a community of people Who had like goals that I could learn from And they became many of them became extremely dear to me Extremely like brothers sisters That's called the church You yes, you you you You haven't been called to be alone And when god began his work He didn't just say, you know Peter we're going to build around you alone There was a community of of men like minded filled by the spirit God used To develop this new thing called the church And so he didn't call these four men To to just before He called these men to be a team I was talking to a very dear friend of mine just this last We a couple days ago Don McClure and Don was talking to me About this and we were visiting and he was saying, you know that he said I never realized That god would give me brothers that I love as deeply as I do That's what the genius genius of industries because How could you get a political zallot? And a tax gatherer And put him in the same group And actually accomplish things Because if you knew anything about the tax collectors and the zallots of the days of christ Then you would know that that would be like getting someone from the kukak kukaks clan and and and antifa And bringing them together And they actually united and worked together and loved each other. How's that work? How did that work for this guy who hated tax gatherers and the tax gatherer who could not stand the political zallots? How did that work? He gave him something greater. He gave him love by this shall all men know you are my disciples if you love one another That's what he gave them Their love was in christ and it gave them the ability to To to grow out of the things that separated them and it gave them the things that they could unite in do you see that? And he's got these four men now these four men already have community their business partners the four men that are mentioned here They actually already work together. They're business partners But what he does is he brings them and makes them a unit They're unified and and what they're going to do is they're going to go together to make He's making them fishers of men and they're going to go and reach people So I want to show you one more thing as we're about to close here That you might miss In verse 19 when it says when he had gone a little farther from there He saw james the son of zebedee john his brother Who also were in the boat notice the word mending? Mending their nets. I want to share something with you You go out and you preach the gospel you do it united the gospel of the kingdom transforms life Lives and and makes it possible for people to come into the kingdom of god That comes through the gospel it brings salvation And the preacher proclaims it But the gospel also does something why do we share the gospel of jesus with people? And it says in verse 19. He saw james and john Mending that word mending is a greek word that is repairing Preparing and restoring That's what the word mending they were mending their nets repairing their nets restoring their nets and preparing it for work They were repairing their nets. They were fixing terrors. They were preparing the nets for service The word mending is the same word found in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 11 and 12 When it speaks of equipping the saints for works of service In Ephesians 4 11 and 12 christ himself gave the apostle prophets evangelists the pastors and teachers To equip his people that word equip means to mend or to repair For works of service of that the body of christ may be built up The apostles were fishermen who were experts at mending nets They're now going to fish for people and bring healing to their broken lives And the way that they're going to do this is by caring for people and restoring them They're going to do this through the teaching of god's word which repairs them It says in psalm 147 3 he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds Every one of us needs to believe and understand that it is god's word that brings healing sympathy and compassion and empathy are helpers in bringing healing But it's god's word that brings healing to the broken You see scripture is so powerful it can transform you from the inside out In psalm 19 verse 7 the law of the lord is perfect when it says it's perfect It lacks nothing restoring the soul the law of the lord the word of god The word restoring speaks of refreshing or reviving the soul the essence of the inner person And it's it's saying here that any broken life can be transformed by the word of god When jesus ministered to the lost he first preached the gospel For within it is the power of god to save and transform In luke 418 it says the spirit of the lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor He sent me to proclaim release to the captives recovery of sight to the blind And to set free those who are oppressed and that's why christians especially pastor teachers are mending people by the teaching of god's word And it is a wrong thing for the pastor to stop teaching the word to just attract a crowd What we're here to do is mend broken lives and that comes through the gospel We have to understand that today because many have forgotten that Many have forgotten that Church is not a place of entertainment. It is a place of healing And when the word of god is rightly divided and applied by faith our lives are changed John sitting right here. I'll embarrass him for a moment. Why not? John can tell you his testimony. I see him and it comes to mind john. I knew john when he was six years old I've known i taught a bible study at his parents house his mother made marie in my wedding cake But john i hadn't seen him in years john went into drugs and the things that pertain to that put in jail He had all kinds of bad things that went on in his life I wasn't familiar with all I know is he came here was in lion tamers that you got right with conch He came here to church. I didn't even know john was here And he came to church here under lion tamers ministry. He got his life right with christ And now he sits here as a dear one to me a son in the faith and what happened. It's the word of god that transforms lives That's what it is You need to understand that some don't Some don't Oh, we have an empty church. We need to give something that'll bring them in. Let's have smoke and lights Let's do something smoke and lights did not heal people's broken hearts it doesn't A pastor who can juggle and preach at the same time may be entertaining but isn't doing much good A pastor who goes out with his sheep afterwards and drinks a little beer or wine with them to show them that He's just one of the guys is no good. You're not looking for a buddy.  And that's what we do We preach the gospel That's how it works. And that's what they're to do Preach the gospel but repair you have you have been repairing nets that are torn from service But you repair them so you make them ready for service How can you be made ready for service by the word of god? And that's part of the ministry that is forgotten very often That is part of the ministry that is neglected And leave everything behind guys Follow me And they did There was a missionary we all are familiar with if you've been a believer for a long time You may know this gem Elliott Gem Elliott lost his life in service to the lord as a missionary And he said this he is no fool Who gives what he cannot keep In order to gain that which he cannot lose preach the gospel live The gospel you have been saved to serve Father we ask that you would work in our lives What a precious precious thing it is to realize that when we finally do And I lift up this congregation father And I pray that we the church would actually never forget What our call is For those who are watching online I pray that you would speak to their hearts and awaken them perhaps what they've heard may be disturbing Many have already Turned off the computers. They don't want to hear this that others have remained and listened And I pray that you'd be with them I pray for this church That we would not fall prey To any technique that is intended to simply gather people to have Filled chairs but empty people I would pray that we would remain faithful to what you commissioned your men to do Repent for the kingdom of god is at hand And live repaired lives Even as our eyes are closed perhaps there are some right now You need to get right with the lord The spirit of god is telling you that you're broken and you need to get right with him You need to get right whether you're Not a saved person or whether you're a saved person who's just not living for christ Whatever the case may be. I want to pray for you And if you need to get right with the lord Right now, would you raise your hand? Let me pray for you right where you're at father You see these hands. You know the reason why they're being raised to you In jesus name. I ask that you would reach down touch everyone whose hand is up And move in them lord washing cleanse forgive and fill with your spirit Lord, I just ask that you would do that because it brings glory to you And for those watching online, I pray that you would speak to those who may be opening up right now to you And you would fill them with your presence lord various countries are watching I ask that you would just touch people in various countries So lord, we just come to you in faith down say god be merciful to me Forgive me fill me with your your holy spirit. I want to live for you. I'm sorry sent against you forgive me and use me Lord, I pray that you would do that because our our hearts are open to you now And I thank you for this and bless you You can put your hands down Jesus, I pray you continue to move in all of us in your name. Amen


I want to invite you to stand in the presence of the Lord as we sing together. Some of you may know this, if you do sing on out, if not, you'll catch on and simply go like this. My hope is bill less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust Baptist church in Shreveport, Louisiana, and often in the mornings we would wake up being reminded that Jesus is the one whom we follow, whom we look toward as our guide and as our savior and as our friend. And so we wake up in the morning with our mind stayed on Jesus. I can hear my grandmother, we called her Tutti. I can hear her voice singing in the morning saying, Woke up this morning with my mind and it was, stayed this morning with my mind and it was called Tenimus Espera, just because of Christ's resurrection, we can have hope. Because Christ came for us, can I get an amen? Because Christ came to enter in our journey because He broke the vision of new creation, where there is no death. Well as you are seated, I want to invite you that the Spirit would come. Thank you, Deandre. Welcome. Good morning. It will be another very good day. I look forward to being with you during this day as we continue our agenda. We will adjourn hopefully by the time certain that's pre-owned agenda. That is my intention, which means that I'm going to be moving us rapidly at times and which I try to do anyway, but I'll be doing that. I believe that Cheryl Murphy is going to be giving our prayer, so Cheryl, we gladly welcome you. Good morning. I feel as if the spirit of last night's worship service is still upon us. So as we settle in and begin the work at hand, let us pray. Almighty God, thank you for the gift of today. As we gather in this beautiful sanctuary surrounded by dear friends and colleagues, new friends and committed Christians, we thank you for this sacred time. Today we'll be blessed by the witness of wise and motivating speakers. We will be blessed by the leadership of our bishop and conference leaders. Be present with them that at all times we can see your work, hear your words, and experience your love stamped upon their hearts. Lord, we are grateful to you for the clergy that are serving the many churches in the North Texas communities. The call on their lives to be present and witnessing to all that you are and all that you do through them is the light of Jesus Christ. Lord, we lift up praises for the laity that have taken time from their personal and professional lives to be about the work of our conference. Without their witness, passion, and faithful service, your message would not reach the masses in our cities and communities. Lord may our work, our words, our witness glorify you today. May we be the people, the disciples you need for the holy work at hand. May your spirit be present in every breath, in every step, in every conversation. May your spirit be the witness that we are the hands and feet of Christ here and now. Lord, we lift ourselves to you this day and every day. And all God's people said, Amen.


That's my question today is global inequality really falling cut to the chase. This is the stylized fact that I'm going to question today This is one of many possible graphs showing showing exactly the same thing one construct construct from the data. What is it showing? Overall falls since about 1990 in global inequality global inequality is defined as pooling all people in the world forgetting where they live and constructing inequality measure on that distribution Falling since 1990 now important to note it was rising Back to a 1820 for a long-run trend increase. So that's a significant change What is driven at driving at a proper approximate reason was was Falling inequality between countries as you see here. I've given a decomposition. This is a decomposable inequality index Into between country and within country. So this is all well known in the literature But declining inequality between countries inequality within countries. It's not not Obvious entirely obvious there, but it is drifting upwards In the developing world alone. So taking out the rich world the picture is somewhat similar But it's got this interesting feature that it's starting to tick up That's the developing world only So clearly that's been driven by China passing through the mean For the developing world as a whole China for a long time was bringing down global inequality through the between-country component And now it's Increasing global inequality because of its its mean is above the mean for the developing world for the real thing Well, but you can kind of ignore that picture because I want to focus on the world as a whole Within some countries. We're seeing rising inequality somewhat dramatically It may be half of the developing world people think it's rising everywhere. It's not maybe a bit more than half an hour Indonesia is an interesting case because it was on a downward trend or stable for a long period Indonesia is now seeing rising inequality on a on a trend that will basically reach Brazil within 10 years. I'm not claiming that will happen There will be mitigating forces coming into play and there are some sign that they're already doing that but So you see the picture But the question today is this stylized fact robust to how we measure poverty inequality. That's a almost Freudian slip on my part I'm going to look at three things One thing I'm not going to do I'm going to stick to what I call it what others call the cosmopolitan approach I'm not going to say that foreigners are worth less than people within your country Right, I'm going to stick to a cosmopolitan approach which treats people as people wherever they may live And I'm going to do that as an ethical starting point I'm going to look at three things an easy one Lorentz dominance. Is this where we say inequality is falling in the world Do we have Lorentz dominance? Second what about relative absolute versus relative inequality and third and this is going to be the harder one What about relative deprivation? Lorentz dominance easy answer. We don't have Lorentz dominance We have intersection Lorentz curves over the long run and quite a most sub periods too In other words, if you have a sufficiently strong ethical aversion to inequality, you will say inequality is increasing What does sufficiently strong mean? If you know the Atkinson inequality measure, it means an Atkinson parameter over five. I think most people would say Answered in answering the question is the rising inequality of falling inequality robust They probably say reasonably robust in that case. It requires quite a high Atkinson parameter, but but duly noted It's not that we don't have Lorentz dominance. There are inequality measures, which will show an increase Absolute versus relative now. This is slightly more subtle we have an inequality measurement the scale independence axiom Multiplier all incomes by constant doesn't change the inequality measure The problem is most people don't seem to agree with that At least most students don't and here's a survey I did of nearly 400 students at Georgetown. It's a selected sample It's all the students who come to my course And it corroborates things that Frank Karl and me and others have found in the past A majority of people do not accept scale independence. In other words, if I show them distributions like this one two three two four six Majority a bit over 50 percent majority think the inequality is increased Actually, most the other axioms look fine the standard inequality axioms like the Pagood Dalton principle Where's that? That's this one here making a transfer from the Rich to the poor they they agree that's inequality Decreasing in that case, but it's really the scale independence axiom. That's contentious So let's see what happens if you relax it bang if instead I use the comms absolute genie index here, I've used numbers from Atkinson and Brandolini I've had constructed similar and more recent numbers same pattern Absolute genie index is rising globally Relax scale independence. What does that mean? It means that I'm going to measure inequality by the absolute gaps between the rich and the poor not the proportionate gaps Here's another way of looking at it the lack number Milanovic elephant graph This is a quote growth incidence curve for the world percentiles on the horizontal axis Proportionate changes on the vertical axis and you see this pattern of the much discussion of this has got a lot of Plane of literature in the media as well That's all relative. This is what the growth of what the elephant curve looks like in absolute terms Those are the absolute gains on the vertical axis against percentiles of the distribution It's massively absolute inequality increasing And we don't really know how how bad it is up here I'll come back to that at one aspect of this that's that's really striking to me is what's happening at the bottom Where you saw already in the developing world? It's not my very little progress right at the bottom of the distribution. We're seeing near zero gains at the bottom Rising absolute inequality another way of looking at it. This is a somewhat difficult measurement issue how to measure the lowest level of living in the world These are my estimates the blue line This is my estimate of the it's a weighted mean of all incomes below the poverty line with highest weight on the poorest people That that weighted mean is is pretty much constant. It's very small Increase and yet we've seen this dramatic increase in the growth rates in the developing world from roughly 2% to 4% Turning with a turning point around to the year 2000 Okay And this is the similar picture for Indonesia a little bit more progress for Indonesia and raising the floor Then for the developing world as a whole I want to go to this third issue, which is a bit more difficult When we think about when we measure in Income inequality from surveys we're making pretty strong assumptions about how we measure real income And they're obviously inadequacies and one of the inadequacies is is about the coverage and the time period a second is the time period The coverage of surveys in terms of time periods are typically relatively short So we're not capturing or getting a longer term view of living standards And and another aspect is is is the consumption of non-market goods if you get benefits in kind like Food stamps in the United States Those benefits in kind and not included in your income measure, so a number of well-known inadequacies in how we measure incomes I want to address those in a particular way Just to get a an in road into this question. It's not ideal, but it gives us a Quick answer to the robustness question. Well, the first point you could make is okay I may be cosmopolitan, but I can be nationalistic What does that mean that I care about relative deprivation within the country? I live in in the extreme case suppose I my real income or my welfare economic welfare depends only on my relative income That's an extremely nationalistic position if you take that position then obviously global inequality It's just average inequality across countries and we've seen already is rising Okay, so there we've got a non robustness obviously But wait a sec, who's now how could you think of own welfare depending only on relative income? It surely depends also on absolute level of income so I want to compass this within a Perspective that allows both negative and positive effects of mean income on your standard of living given your own income Now we always allow that mean income depend influences your standard of living through your own income But that if we assume it only matters through your own income. We're making quite a strong exclusion restriction Why because of the reasons they mentioned survey data are incomplete We've got missing aspects of income like benefits from in-kind benefits There are many other reasons to living in a richer country benefits you in many ways So relative deprivation the idea that I'm poorer if I'm living in a welfare sense I'm poorer if I'm living in a rich country at a given level of income because of relative Relative considerations working against that we have a lot of arguments which are just quite positive strong positive external effects Benefits of living in a richer country that aren't evident in the income measures we're using So let's encompass that within a very simple in a very simple way Log adjusted income is going to be log own income plus some weight attached to the mean income of the country you live in Now I want to ask I want to ask how robust are the statements we make about global inequality to the choice of alpha Now if you're a relative deprivation person some people argue this a If you're a relative deprivation person, you think alpha is minus one All that matters is your relative income in this case Logged it but you see the see that if I believe that living in a richer country gives me higher welfare for any of those reasons I mentioned you think alpha is positive If we look at subjective welfare, which is one of the few clues we've got and unfortunately most of the literature on subjective welfare is useless for this point of view Good for many points of view But useless this point of view because people either look at social at subjective welfare across countries Or they look at subjective welfare within countries if you do it within countries almost every time you'll find evidence of relative deprivation In other words people subjective welfare responds to their relative position That appears to be uncontentious now But what about national income? We can't with in-country good studies not going to help between country studies not going to help either We need studies which poor all people the world looking at their subjective welfare And then we look at whether national income matters to your own subjective welfare given your own income You do that you get a positive effect the alpha I'm going to just claim that you're going to have to believe me the alpha is Somewhere between point three and point five way way higher than minus one in other words with a National income matters to your welfare with an elasticity of About point three to point five But don't you don't have to believe me on that because I think you know we don't have a lot of evidence here So again, I'm going to be fairly encompassing Measures of inequality. Thanks Clive measures of inequality I'm going to naturally use if you see my my log specification. It's going to be obvious I'm going to want to use MLD mean log deviation We also know it has a lot of nice properties There's a beautiful paper by Frank Carl and Emmanuel Flecher on the properties MLD Very cute. Okay, so MLD. We've got standard properties MLD, but this time MLD is going to have a parameter alpha This thing somewhere between minus one and plus one Here's my step just within my ordinary MLD It's decomposable the same way and the MLD that you're probably used to is alpha equals zero The properties of the measure Well one obvious thing is that the within since we're essentially what we're doing is scaling up all incomes by a constant within a given country Obviously the within country component of inequality is not going to change Everything's going to be on the between country component The other thing is that you've got a strong monetistic property You can prove that this measure that I've shown you is increasing in alpha the higher level alpha the higher the MLD As long as the means vary across countries What do we find? Data galore Cut to the chase. This is the picture I've done it for between 1983 in 2012 This is alpha. This is global inequality So the answer to my question. Well, it's not robust Well, we knew that because I could always go to relative deprivation I could always argue that all I care about is relative deprivation which means it's non robust But the answer to this is saying you have to be essentially very very nationalistic You have to actually have an alpha less than minus point six Before you claim that the to global inequality is rising very robust the interval I talked about Was point three to point five now the other thing to note about this the magnitude of the effect One way of looking at it is we've got a lot of literature now on getting better better measures of incomes of the rich Suppose that I'm underestimating incomes of the rich That really they're double One percent. Let's take the top one percent and let's suppose that their incomes are actually double What I see in the data that would add point one to the global MLD That's like adding a tiny little weight on national income small positive weight. We're seeing We're seeing Really large impacts with the way you see that in the picture look at the zero for either year and look at the impact on MLD of Allowing for even small positive values of alpha This swamps the problems. We've been all worried about Just putting a small positive weight On national income in your welfare metric at given own income you get substantially larger global inequality, but still falling okay, conclusions The claim that global relative inequality to be falling is is is not robust, but the degree of Non robustness is important here. I think you need very high ethical aversion to inequality I would judge, but you know, that's we I don't have a any way of saying that your inequality aversion Isn't over point five over five in the Atkinson parameter. So that's entirely possible It's clearly not robust to relaxing scale independence big time not robust. So there it's clear Not robust to to allowing for a relative deprivation. That's clear but it requires an implausible degree of nationalism nationalistic measure that's we I believe quite Remarkably high to reverse the conclusion. Thank you


Petty Officer Dennis Van Zweeden is carrying on a family tradition. As a Navy CB deployed to Camp Leatherneck, his skills as a builder are put to use in many projects. Skills that were passed on to him by his stepfather. He was never one to hire anything done. If we had to do block work, we got to book out and learn how to do it by hand. I know I learned a lot from him. That's probably why I'm a builder today. The dedication and care that Petty Officer Van Zweeden uses in every job is a reflection of the hard work his father put forth in raising his family. Larry Damhoff served in the U.S. Army for six years during Vietnam, although he remained very humble about his service. He was in the military before he even married my mother, so he never really went into detail. Even when me and both of my brothers have been in the military also, he never went into any great detail of what he did. Damhoff passed away in 2010, and every year since, Petty Officer Van Zweeden has visited his grave site on his father's birthday. This year, however, his fellow CBs from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 15 helped to honor Damhoff's service by flying his funeral flag over their camp. It was only the second time that Van Zweeden has held his father's flag, and the ceremony was heartfelt and emotional. It's pretty hard, a little harder than I thought it would be. Just brought back a lot of memories. The lessons of his father have carried on through Petty Officer Van Zweeden in both construction and his military service. Staff Sergeant John Archquette, Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan.


Why not? Why not being tic-tac? I mean this is the largest conference that uses technology to talk about civic good and that is the heart of what we do. I come to tic-tac. It's my favourite conference of the year. Actually, it's the conversations that you have here are so inspiring. As we come to these meetings, we will go back with new ideas and new issues that we can look at in our country. It's a different calibre of conversation that you have at tic-tac. Everybody has similar motivations, everybody is doing similar research or similar work. This is the place where the civic tech community talks about research and evidence to the extent that it does. Always a place to meet very engaged and passionate people and to have concrete examples of what can be done. It's absolutely invaluable.


The 2020 Nebraska Book Awards will honor authors and publishers of books with a Nebraska connection published in 2019. Winning the award for non-fiction investigative journalism is a book which is the true story of small-town politics and community perseverance and of decent people and questionable choices. Zoo Nebraska, Dismantling of an American Dream by Carson Vaughn, published by Little A. My name is Carson Vaughn and I'm a freelance writer, journalist and author from Broken Bow, Nebraska. In the summer of 2009, I was driving down Highway 20 in Northeast Nebraska with my girlfriend and her mother when we passed through a royal, a town of maybe 70 people. At the time Northeast Nebraska was a corner of the state I knew relatively little about, and so you might imagine my surprise when they casually pointed to a few rusty old corn cribs on the edge of town and started talking about the shooting of three chimpanzees, a defunct roadside zoo, and some vague connection to Johnny Carson. Little did I know, I would spend the next decade piecing the full story back together. When I first began my reporting on Royal and Zoo Nebraska, I was a 21-year-old journalism student at UNL. When I finished, I was a 31-year-old full-time freelancer. In between, I completed a three-year MFA program in North Carolina, served as the nonfiction editor of the Ecotown Literary Journal, got married, got a dog, traveled the country for a year with said wife and said dog in a renovated camper trailer, served as communications director for a U.S. Senate campaign, interviewed a neo-Nazi for the Guardian, covered the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering for the New Yorker, filed dozens of stories for dozens of other publications, some that I've been dreaming about since I was a kid, and so much more. But never once in all that time was I able to shake the feeling that this tiny community in Northeast Nebraska and the roadside zoo that kept it on the map might reveal a valuable lesson not just about life in rural America or life in Nebraska, but the basic fundamentals of being human, lessons about dreaming big and falling short, about pettiness and pride and perseverance, lessons about community, or perhaps a lack thereof. It was my hope from the beginning that if I drilled deep enough into the bedrock of this community, I might tap into some of those universal themes that everyone can relate to. Or as Murray Santos put it, If you know and understand the story of your community, you will know and understand a great deal about the story of man anywhere. I like to think that receiving a Nebraska Book Award for nonfiction is at least partial recognition of that goal. And for that, I'm deeply grateful to the Nebraska Center for the Book and the Nebraska Library Commission. I'd also like to thank my parents, Mary and Jerry Vaughn, for their unwavering support of my work. I'd like to thank my wife, Mel Delman, for being my first reader and toughest editor. And last but certainly not least, the citizens of Royal Nebraska and the many real characters in this book for sharing your story with me. Congrats to all the other winners of this year's Nebraska Book Awards. And with that, I'll turn it over to the next presenter. Thank you. Winning for nonfiction, Nature Reference Book is a book which explores the history, geography, and geology of the plains and the birds that inhabit it. Great Plains Birds, Discover the Great Plains by Larkin Powell, published by Bison Books. I am Larkin Powell, professor at the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. And I want to thank the selection committee for the recognition for Great Plains Birds. Of course, I'm also grateful to the University of Nebraska Press and to Bison Books for their wonderful support during the writing and production process. This book is unique as it's part of a series of books on the Great Plains, which includes some previous winners of this award. Rick Edwards and Katie Nieland in UNL's Center for Great Plains Studies are responsible for the idea for the series, and they were my first contacts and a constant source of feedback for the content and the direction that I took. Katie is also responsible for the beautiful cover art. Great Plains Birds is not a bird identification book. Rather, it's an opportunity for me to share stories about the birds that live in our region. And even those that migrate through and thrill us with clouds of avian diversity in the spring and fall. I hope readers of the book will see why the Great Plains is a unique place to search for birds.  Very simply, how we use our landscapes affects birds, and we notice the presence or absence of birds around us. This book is also about little experiences in our lives that are facilitated by birds. And I'll end with this short reading about how birds help define sacred spaces on the plains. As the book begins, I share a story about a trip during my freshman year of college for which my father effectively kidnapped me from other possibilities that I had for a spring break. He took me from Iowa to Nebraska to see the St. Hill Crane migration. And we went to a blind in the morning and we watched the river and the cranes wake up and fly into the sky. Those two moments, the initial view of huddled gray forms in the twilight and bursts of flight into the sun are the money makers for the guides at the viewing blind. Those spectacular moments are why I return to the same river today with my family and friends. And those moments are why I soon forgot about my friends on the slopes of Colorado and the beaches of Texas on that crisp March morning in 1987. Only later did I learn that this display is one of the greatest secrets of the plains. Indeed, wildlife experts from around the world flock to the plat, while many Nebraskans and Great Plains residents will tell you that they have never taken the time to go see the cranes. As you explore the Great Plains, I invite you to plan for moments like this. Discover sacred places away from the bustle of humanity. Feel the power of nature under a flock of whirling snow geese or allow a western meadowlark to serenade you on a sunny, prairie slope. The Great Plains is a wonderful place to find surprises to call your own. The birds have stories to tell and some of those stories can be found in the pages of this book. But there are other stories that only the birds can tell you and the birds are out there waiting for you. Again, my thanks to the Nebraska Library Commission and I hope everyone can enjoy the birds and landscapes around you this week.