I would like to speak to you today about the theology of work. I have, in my preaching of a thousand sermons at Hungry Jen, this is probably a thousand sixtieth, have never preached on work. But today it's going to be the first time that I'm going to do that. And I believe it's a very important message. The reason being is because the first thing we meet about God in the Bible is not Savior, healer, or deliverer. We meet God as a worker. In fact, we meet God as a creator. So all of the creatives in here, and you take pride, even your Instagram says creator, you are reflecting the image of your creator. To some degree, all of us are hashtag creators. Because our God's nature, his first attribute that we saw in the Bible, wasn't out, healed. But let there be light, let there be waters. He is a worker. In fact, Genesis chapter two, verse two and three, it says the following. Verse two, on the seventh day, God had finished his work of creation. So he rested from all his work. I want you to see this, that God works. And then we see in Genesis one, God looks at his work. His work didn't give him a paycheck, but it gave him satisfaction. In Psalms, it says God's works praise God, meaning God's works declare God's nature. God's works brought him satisfaction. God didn't work so he can get paid. God worked so he can have satisfaction. He found joy, honor, and pride in his work. Looked back at his work and said, this is very good. Did something again, said, this is very good. This is very good. And God did that for six days. On the sixth day, you and I were created, and God said, this is very good. And our first day as humans on this planet was the day of God's rest. So first day we got in, we're like, what do we do? God says, relax, rest. And then after that, the Lord gives us work. Now for those of you who are maybe, there are some people who you are like, workaholics. You love work. You're going to love this message today. For those of you, you're soccer, meaning you just love to just, just like to enjoy, just like to chill through life. You're more like, man, easygoing, man, work, this is not for me, work, hashtag, struggle is real. I don't like that kind of stuff.  No work whatsoever. I'm looking forward to heaven because when I go to heaven, no work, work is a curse. I get you, but I do want to present you a God from the Bible. Our God, he's a worker. He hustles. Our God is a hard worker. In fact, this is what Jesus spoke of his father in John chapter five, verse 17. He says, my father is always working. Does anybody here have a dad who's always working? It's like always working. And Jesus says, and so am I.  We have to have balance and work. We have to have balance between work and rest. But I want you to see God from a different angle. Jesus says, my father is always working. And Jesus says, and so am I. In fact, 90% of Jesus's life on this earth was manual work. A work we would call not spiritual. A work we would call not dignified. In fact, Greco-Roman culture viewed manual, physical work with your hands as below human's dignity. But if you work sitting in the office, bossing people around, that is dignified. But being on the bottom of the food chain, working in the fields, working in the vineyards, or working with the manual work was not dignified. And I find it interesting that the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ, spends 90% of his life doing a work that Greco-Roman culture said is below dignity. Why? Because Jesus brought dignity back to work. God puts dignity back in work. Amen. I'm going to share with you three points and 47 sub points. 47 was an exaggeration. I'm just seeing if you're with me or not. Number one, God created man to work with him in the world. There's three, actually four types of work. Work against God, work without God, work for God, and work with God. Let's review. Work against God, Lucifer is an example. It's when you do something to oppose God. It doesn't end well, but some people still like to make attempts. Work without God. It's when you're doing something, you're putting hard effort into it. You don't see God's blessing in it. You don't sense God's grace in it, and you feel like you're in a treadmill. You're working hard, you're getting nowhere. Very difficult place to be in, and very challenging to place to be in. The third category is to work for God. At first, this is good. You're trying to do something for God, you're pleasing Him. It's a good place to be. But that is not where God created us to be. What God put us to be is for us to work with God. God made work, and made us not to work only for Him, but to work alongside with Him. For example, think of this. God made the garden, plants Adam in that garden, puts Adam in that garden, and says, I want you to take care of this garden. So God makes the garden Adam manages. God makes the animals, and Adam names them. So you see the collaboration.  No, God makes it, and says, Adam, I want you to name them. God didn't give Adam, hey, here's a lot of seeds, go make the garden. God makes the garden, and says, Adam, I want you to go and maintain the garden. So I want you to see that God who owns the heavens and the earth, and in Psalms it says this. The heavens belong to the Lord, but He has given the earth to all humanity. Think of this, God says, heavens are mine, I make the earth, and I'm giving the keys to the earth to the humans. I'm not gonna make tables, I'm gonna make trees, you make tables.  You're gonna discover gold, you are going to discover iron, you're gonna discover things, I put them in the ground, it's your job as my image barrier. You mirror me, I create, you're gonna make things as well, but I'll make it easier for you because I'll give you all the material and I'll give you the brains. God was created by God initially, not for a paycheck, but for a purpose. Adam did not need a paycheck. Adam ate from the garden. Adam lived in the garden. Adam didn't need a job, but he needed work. God did not create a job. He created for Adam work.  Work is what gives you a purpose. So even if you get to the point where you don't need money because your basic needs are taken care of, you still need work. Why? Because you're made in the image of a worker, to work on his created planet. If you stop working, you forfeit your purpose. And what the devil will offer to us instead of purpose is the pursuit of pleasure. Or what we call in America, pursuit of happiness. We don't live for happiness. We live for purpose. And happiness is the direct result of living on purpose. Are you with me? Be fruitful and multiply, God says, and to go and subdue the creation. I want you to see this is purpose. You and I have a purpose for existence. That's why you can have a job, get paid, have a medical insurance, have retirement benefits and everything, and feel that you have no meaning. Why? Job doesn't give you a meaning. Purpose does. Work does. You may say work and job is the same thing. Slightly different. Is what we need to do to take care of our needs. The work for which we were created, we need to do so we can fulfill our purpose. Adam didn't need a job, but he was created for work. Now, we are coworkers belonging to God. You are God's field, God's building, 1 Corinthians 3-9. That's why I work and struggle so hard, Paul says, depending on God's mighty power that works in me, Colossians 1-29. I want you to notice in the beginning, God made us to co-work with God. So I want you to think your view of you, change your view of work.   I get that. Your work, the reason you exist on this earth, no it's not.  You just need to change your attitude because you were created to create. Created to make things happen. You were made in God's image. Unlike an animal that you have in your house, a pet, who's driven by the basic drive for satisfaction of its physical needs. You are not driven just to satisfy food, lodging, and extra money for your family. You have something greater that's craving inside of you that came to you from your creator. And it's called a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose. And that's why God gives us work to fulfill both our basic necessities, to honor him and to fulfill that purpose. He wants us to work with him. Think of work, when I think of work, after this revelation, I started to change my attitude of work. Before I kind of saw that this is just me doing stuff for God. And it gets tiring when you do it for God. But if you do it with God, there's a pleasure in the reward that exists. And you see this as a strengthening of your relationship. My dad, he likes the electrical stuff. So every house that my dad built, the one especially he lived in, he ran electrical by himself. Now I am not an electrician.  But because my dad would pretty much buy the electrical wires, and then he would come and he would give us the tour and say, hey, I want you guys to run this many wires from this part of the house to that part of the house. And then he would give us the tools. Next thing that happens is that I got to know more about the electrical stuff by running the wires for my dad, actually with my dad. I would run him, he would connect them, and then the inspector would come and tell us to change a few things because of the way we ran them. And that is how I collaborated with my dad working on his house. Same thing happened on my house. I collaborated with him. When your God created the universe, you must understand, he is a grand master who knows everything about the universe. He oversees the whole universe, the planets.  Take care of the animals. I want you to take care of the nature. I want you to take care of all of this stuff. And I want you to make a lot of babies, populate this whole planet. Why? Because I want a lot of people like me everywhere managing things. I want you to store this and have a relationship with me. Why? Because I really know how to do this in my world. But in your world, I want you to do as I would do with me. That is the purpose of work. That's why. Every work is significant even if it doesn't change the world. A work does not have to be world changing to be valuable. I have different organs in my body who are not visible. They're still valuable. If I will use this terminology or because you can't see my lungs, therefore let me gut it out.  No. The things that you don't see are also very important. The things that are not visible are very valuable. Things don't have to change the world to be significant. Everything we do matters to God. Think about this. God didn't just make your spirit, your soul, and your mind. God made the trees. God made seas and oceans. We're not gnostics. Gnostics were the people who believed that the spirit is good. Physical matter is bad. Meaning we want to escape from this physical world and go into the spiritual realm.  But if you do things like you're cutting wood, you're taking care of a lawn, and I'm like that's not spiritual. That's not important because it's not dealing with your eternal relationship with God. But God didn't just make eternity. He made oceans. He made trees. He didn't just make your soul. He also made a park. He also made all that you see. Your God created that. It's so important that one day He will recreate that because it's important.  Your work matters because you're working on God's creation. You're stewarding God's planet.  This planet does not belong to atheists, agnostics, naysayers, and haters of God. It belongs to humanity that's in relationship with their Creator. And this planet is going to be remade. I'm going to jump to the end of my message, Tim, let's cut that out. This idea that all of this earth is going to be burned in fire, meaning this world's going to end. Why do we need to work? Why do we need to make it better? We have to get rid of this. The world is not coming to an end. That devil is coming to an end. Sin is coming to an end. The curse is coming to an end. I'm going to say one more theological word. This age is coming to an end. The Jewish eschatology, the end times, divided the world into two ages. This age and the age to come. And these two ages will be separated by the coming of the Lord. So this age is coming to an end. The world is not coming to an end. This world, this earth you are living in, one day will go through a heavy remodeling and God will make a new earth. But the Bible says we will be on this earth forever. Now remodeled, new bodies, new earth, maybe more space, some good stuff that's going to happen. There's going to be no night. But this idea that God is going to create this earth and then afterward like a ball tossed it out because of all this sin, that is not our God. Our God is into recycling. Remodeling. He created it, sin destroyed it. God will make it new. He will remodel it. This earth will be here and heaven will come down. And what happened in the garden, God's going to make it better in the new city called Jerusalem. Therefore, we don't live with this view, oh yeah, antichrist is coming, everything's going to go bad. So why bother? Antichrist is coming for a very short borrow time. He comes in and the Lord is going to kick him out. But God's children are going to inherit the earth, the Bible says. We will be on this earth. So even though we die, we come back with new bodies, God's going to make the earth renewed. Kind of like our building. You know, we bought the building on Edison and we are renewing it. It had like a lot of cubicles, totally took that out, raised the beams and now we're making it totally different, but the structure is the same. The new earth that God's going to make, it's going to be this earth. God's just going to remodel it completely and we're going to have resurrected bodies and we will have new work that we will do on this redeemed earth. Kind of excited. So for those of you who think, you know, Christians, we don't care about the planet, yes we do. Why? We were entrusted with it. We just don't think that the global warming is our biggest problem. Global sin is, I had to slip that in there. The founder of Forever 21, when talking about partnering with God in work, she said this, God told her that she should open a store and that if she would be successful. Tyson Foods Company employs 150 office chaplains to provide compassionate care to employees. I'm using these examples to portray people who take their work as partnership with God versus a work just to make a paycheck. We were entrusted to manage this planet, manage its resources and to rule and reign not over people, but with people over creation, to discover things that God deposited in this planet and God wants to do it with us. Chick-fil-A. Kathy believes that all franchise Chick-fil-A operations and their restaurants employees should have opportunity to rest, spend time with family and friends, worship if they choose to do so. That's why all Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed on Sunday. And this is what they say, it's part of our recipe for success. Mary Kay Ash, all of you ladies appreciate that kind of a business. As a founder of cosmetics, she contributed her company's success to the choice to, this is what she said, to take God as our partner. So I'm like, well, I didn't know God could be somebody's partner. He wants to partner with us in the very work he created us to do, to create, to make things happen. And she would take God as a partner, she says, God has blessed us because our motivation is right. He knows I want women to be beautiful creatures he created. After women's beauty, come on somebody, by putting all the fake stuff on them, amen. I mean, good stuff. See, my wife is not here, so I'm a little bit, a little bit unhinged. Hobby Lobby, honoring the Lord. This is actually Hobby Lobby's mission statement. It's like you typically put stuff in the mission state and they're less trigger words. And Hobby Lobby just absolutely triggers them with their mission statement. Being the Lord in all we do, by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles. We believe that it is by God's grace and provision that Hobby Lobby has endured. He has been faithful in the past. We trust him for our future. Now again, to be partnering with God doesn't mean you have to put Jesus on your bio and Instagram. That's not what I'm pursuing. What I'm pursuing is in our mind. We don't see our work as I'm doing this thing. God has nothing to do with it. Why? Because I'm just, you know, I have a plumbing company. I have an electrician company. I'm just a teacher in high school. I'm just teaching sports or I'm just doing videography, photography or I'm just doing the training online. I'm just running a sales business online. I'm in customer service. I'm a clerk.  This is not contributing in any way, shape and form to spiritual well-being of people. Don't ever think like that. Your God is not religious. He is the creator of heaven and in earth, invisible and visible, spiritual and physical. Your soul and your body. And he wants, he puts us here for that purpose. And we work with him in every facet and form. Amen. Now let's talk about the problem. Number two, sin entered the world and it right away entered workplace. It entered the workspace. In Genesis three, you see that when sin enters, it right away enters our home. Pain comes in the raising of children. For a lot of mothers, your workspace is your home. And God said, when sin entered our hearts, it entered the world. Guess the place it came to. It right away went to home, went to work. Sin went to work. Sin not only enters into the workspace at our home, it enters the workspace at the marketplace. The Bible says the men will work with the sweat of the brow. There will be futility, meaning a sense of like, is there a point to this? I'm tired. And no longer we work for satisfaction and purpose, now we have to work for a paycheck. The Bible says from the ground he will eat. That's not how God made us to be. God made us to eat from the garden. But when the sin comes, now this is the way that provides for us. The sin starts to mess everything with the workplace. Think about it. The first murder happened where? In the workplace. Genesis four, two brothers working at the field. And the first murder happens at the workplace.  This is God's, one of God's men. Sexual harassment enters the workplace. Joseph gets sexually harassed and accused. Guess where that happens in the workplace. No wonder why this author, Bob Black said this, no one should ever work. Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in the world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. How many of you want to say amen to that? No, he's a heathen, okay? So this is not the Bible.  You did the work, somebody got the credit. You work hard, your boss is getting brand new cars and you're not getting even the minimum wage. Jealousy, the envy, being made fun of, office drama, office temptations. These things are real. And the Bible is very honest that the sin that comes in the world, it right away comes into the workplace. So the workplace we have today is not how God intended it. It's broken by world. Now some of you may say, well, I'm going to get a job at the church. You know what the church has? That every workplace has people. And you know what people are? Broken. So as long as you have broken people, you will have a broken workplace. And it doesn't matter if the title of that company is the church of Jesus Christ. And it doesn't matter if your employer is Pastor Vlad as amazing as he is. He's a broken person. And if you walk into a perfect work environment, you're like, this is heaven on earth. That's only because it's your first week there. Because about the time that you are leaving that workplace, you said, this is predatory.  I'm leaving this toxic place and I'm getting in the journey. I'm going to sue every one of these people. Why?  Now what some of us think, well, I know what we need to do. We need to report it to the supervisor. We need to tell it to the higher authorities. We need to fix this thing 100%. And we're in America. We're really good at protesting. We're really good at making Facebook posts, thinking that our post is going to change the world. And we're really good at commenting because those with internet access now, everybody became an expert in every single thing because they can type really fast. Or because we can have a poster and walk around with posters and, you know, fight for social change. All of these are very important. I'm going to shock you today and offend some of you by letting you know that God's approach to the sin in the workplace is slightly different than what I'm comfortable with and most likely what you and I are comfortable with. Let's dive in. Point number three, we are not saved by good works. We are saved for good works. If you go with me to Ephesians in chapter two, verses eight, nine and ten, it says the following. For by grace you have been saved through faith. That not of yourself, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So we're created to work with God. We're not created to run around but naked on this earth. We're created to create and work with God in God's perfect universe and world.  It enters our home. It enters where we work and because of that jealousy, hatred, backbiting, retaliation, all of these feelings. People who are being deprived of proper pay, people who are being mistreated at workplace and this is still happening in the world today, including in the United States. God provides a solution. And God comes and His Son, Jesus Christ, He saves us through His finished work. So God works to get us saved. We get saved by grace, not by having rosaries or having praying for Virgin Mary. We're not getting saved by coming to church. We are saved by grace, somebody say amen. We're not saved by good works. Good works cannot save you. We are saved by grace. But I want you to notice right after that it says we are saved to do good works. Interesting. So God saves us. He heals the brokenness in us. He forgives our sin. He becomes our father. He becomes our savior.  Oh, you praise the Lord.  But God says, no, I'm giving you now an assignment again to do good works. If you don't bring the gospel into your workplace, you will miss God's work inside of you.  Now some of you think in the gospel like, oh, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not grabbing a megaphone coming to my workplace and repent. The end is near, cure code, scan if you want to be saved. That's not what I'm talking about. When I say to bring the gospel into the workplace, what I mean is look what Paul is telling to people who are not just marginalized. They are slaves. He says, slaves must always obey their masters and do their best to protest them. I mean, I'm sorry, to please them. They must not talk back or steal, but must show themselves to be entirely trustworthy and good. Then they will make the teaching about God, our Savior, attractive in every way. Now at first you're reading this, it triggers, you're like, excuse me, is Paul pro-slavery? No. Paul recognizes unjust institution of slavery. He recognizes the broken world that Christians find themselves in. And he recognizes that as Christians, we might not be able to change the whole system, but we can infect the system by being dissolved in whatever position we find ourselves in right now. Joseph did not change Egyptians position of slavery, but he thrived right in the middle of it being a slave. When the salt hits the food, it doesn't change the kitchen, but it savors the food and preserves the food. Paul's goal wasn't to make Christians protest everything in their world.  But first you're like, yeah, if I'm a slave, I'm no longer a slave, I'm going to be free from this. I hate this job, that's not fair. 100%. Totally not fair. This is totally wrong. It's totally unjust. But Paul says, so was your Savior dying on the cross. Totally not right and totally unjust and totally unfair and he did it for you.  Your Savior is not some high roller on a Bentley.  Now this love he had for you, you can carry into a place where you are not treated right. You are not being favored, liked, you're ignored, underappreciated. You did the work. Somebody took the credit. You feel like, man, this is just not fair, I'm not being treated right. This is not good. You're putting the gospel there and Paul says, you serve them. Don't talk back. Don't steal and be humble about it. You're like, but that's not fair. That's the gospel. A broken world needs the gospel. Not an opinion. What we think is we can change the world with our opinion. We can only change the world with the gospel. The reason some of us don't bring the gospel to change our work environment is the gospel never changed us. When you meet Jesus and you recognize, you nailed him to the cross. The most unfairest thing that has ever happened in the history of the world is how you and I rebelled against God and how he had mercy and let his son bleed and die. And the fact that somebody didn't like you in the workplace is easier pill to swallow because you exemplified the gospel because you experienced it. Paul doesn't expect Christians to be doormats.  And he does expect us to go into our workplace bringing the gospel. So when I feel jealous of another coworker who seems to get promoted, but I did the work on back end, the gospel kills the jealousy. When I feel like I am not being appreciated and nobody's watching, so I'm going to steal from my work. The gospel then comes and says, do not steal. Jesus died between two thieves.  When I noticed that there's late, they're cutting people off from work and my job, I hear rumors that they're saying they might sack me, meaning they might fire me. And I'm concerned for my future. The gospel comes in and says, don't be worried about your future. I will provide for you. So you're no longer afraid walking on eggshells in your workplace. What if they fire me? You know, one thing is that you were created to work. God will supply your needs and you live without fear. The gospel changes you hard, but they haven't given me a raise in 10 years. The gospel changes that as well. Because you're no longer working for a paycheck. You're now working for God. If you work as if God is your boss, you will receive not just a paycheck, but also a reward. Colossians three, 24, 25, work willingly at whatever you do. I'll find it interesting. The gospel, good news, doesn't focus on because this is our American approach. I remember when I was in high school, every single specialist I was finishing the senior year. The goal was make sure you find the job that you like. Make sure, I mean, what do I know about what I like? That changes every week. And that's why most of us change our majors four times. We don't know what we like. And then the things that I like, they don't pay good. So you have to find something that you like and then something that pays really good. And hopefully that's not illegal because there's some things I like. They're just illegal, you know, and like, man, I want to do that. But that's just, that's just not legal. All right, so it has to be legal. Something that I like and something that pays good. I mean, the options are very narrow.  Nobody's hiring. So guess what you end up doing? What you don't like. And I love that Paul doesn't say, hey, guys, make sure what you do, make sure what you do that you like it. Paul says, whatever you do. Can somebody say whatever? Can you turn to your neighbor and say, whatever you do? Stop obsessing with, make sure it matches your gifts. Whatever. What does God want me to do? Whatever. Oh, I'm going to fast and pray. Should I go to that job? And God says, simple, whatever. Your career is like a 10 lane highway. God says, depending on which lane you take, as long as it's headed in the right direction, meaning it pays, it's not illegal, and it helps other people. Whatever. Paul is not saying, make sure you do what you're passionate. Make sure you do what you're good at. He says, whatever you do, you do as though you were working for the Lord rather than for a paycheck. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward. Did you know that you can be double dipping? You can do one work and get two paychecks. One from your employer, it's always going to be less than what you deserve. And one from your master, it's always going to be more than what you deserve. Lord, help me. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the master you are serving is not Jose, but Jesus. Jesus Christ. Your master is not Bob. It's Christ. So think about this. What would happen if you would go to work tomorrow? I know you're punching numbers on Excel sheet. I'm just answering the phone call. I'm just cleaning the carpet. I'm just mowing the lawns. I'm just hanging the Christmas lights everywhere. I'm just opening the doors. I'm just a security guard. I mean, there is no promotion. There is no future in that. But God doesn't look. The gospel does not see work like that.  God says, do it as for me. Then he says, at the end of the day, you're not only getting a paycheck. God says, you're getting an inheritance, inheritance as a reward. That's why a lot of you are going to be blessed beyond your employment. Why? Because God is watching what you do. The gospel doesn't teach us. Make sure we get the most lucrative job. The gospel says, whatever job we do, we do it with all of our heart. And we remember not only the boss is watching, the king is watching. The boss has a paycheck. The king has an inheritance. And Lord knows I won both. An inheritance as your reward. When my wife was working in a post office, and she had a Mercedes from auction, but it was still Mercedes. And she comes out on Friday, she got her paycheck, and her manager said, well, you're rushing to the bank so you can cash this check to make payment on this Mercedes. She said, no, my Mercedes has paid off. He looks at her, he says, with part-time job? She says, and my wife, a little bit overconfident. And she says, this job is not providing for me. I'm just doing this because I have time. She's like, my, what I drive, what I wear is not, doesn't come from post office. She's like, it comes from my husband. I was like, babe, that's what's up. That's what's up, yeah. But honestly, that's how she lives, is that she does that work, but ultimately her provision doesn't come from her resource, which is the job. It comes from her source. I wonder what would happen if we would view our life like that? That we would give all the providing weight upon God and say, Lord, provide for me as for your daughter, as for your son, the single moms, provide for me, Lord, and I will do my best, all the work, as on to you. I will not come late and leave early and be on TikTok because nobody's watching. I'm going to do my work as though God is watching. He's keeping the record and I will do it with integrity. I will do it with honesty. I will do it hard working because my God is planning a reward. You're like, but Vlad, you don't understand. How will God give me that reward?  He also knows your routing number and your account number. God knows where you live. He knows the post office box that belongs to you. He knows how to surprise you. He knows how to send that inheritance your way. He knows how to protect you from things that will cost you money. He knows how to guide you where you will not make certain decisions that will completely empty your bank account.  God knows how to provide and protect. Trust him. The gospel. See, why the gospel is crazy is because it teaches me that my work has to be done with an eye toward obedience, not toward the paycheck. You know, when I was, I worked at the church since I was 16 until last year. So until December of last year, then in January, I felt on my heart that it's time to give my pay every month until we move into the new building. But somehow I feel like it's gonna be for the rest of my life. But at least right now I know strongly it's until I move into the new building, till we move into the new building. So for 20 years, I was employed at the church. Now for those of you who think that your tithing was paying for my salary, most of you were not here, so just relax. We had a government school that rented the facility. They actually pretty much paid for my salary. It was a small salary. I one time compared it. It was, I think it was about 50 cents above McDonald's because I was checking what my other options are. And so with my pay, so I had a lot of options actually. And for about seven to eight years, I never got a raise. And never asked for a raise because the church wasn't growing, so I felt guilty even receiving the pay that I was receiving, even though I was working 24 seven at the church. And it was, it's very, I don't know, brought me a lot of guilt working at the church because I almost felt like I was guilty for why the church wasn't growing because the church is paying for me, paying me and then it's not growing, but I was like God, you know, it's kind of your church, not my church. And my people are looking at me, I just feel funny. And it was just, I had a lot of emotional things that I needed to process.  And I remember I started to ask the Lord, I said, Lord, this is what changed. When I stopped looking at the church as my provider, I started to look at the church as a place where I serve and I work, and God is my provider. And the Lord started giving just the very basic thoughts and ideas. It first started with a property instead of buying a new car, I bought a property. It started to produce a little bit of cash flow and then we got married.  And I've noticed that within about a few years, my income started to almost double, but the same time, same thing was received from the church because the shift of, oh, the church is my provider, being mad at the church, being angry at my employment. And instead saying, Lord, I trust in you, activate these things that I have right here that you gave me called brains, help me to see what I don't see, give me some creative ideas. And Lord, I'm here, especially if I knew this is what I needed to do with work and there was just no way that I'm gonna get paid more, though I needed more. And so the Lord has a way of providing for you if we stop expecting our job to be our God, expect God to be our God, and allow God to stretch us and to help us to think outside of the box, something God is really good at doing. Amen. If you work like God is your boss, you'll receive not just a paycheck, but also every word. All legitimate work is an act of worship. There's no such a thing as secular or sacred work. Greco-Roman culture saw manual labor as beneath man's dignity, as I mentioned before, but Christianity presents Jesus as son of a carpenter and apostle Paul as a guy who makes tents. Martin Luther during Reformation really revolutionized work. He said, your work is very sacred matter. God delights in it and through it, he wants to bestow his blessings upon you. There's a guy named Robert Luterno. Robert Luterno was born in the Christian family in November 30th, 1888. He walked away from the Lord as a teenager, then at the age of 16, came back to Jesus, and then at the age of 30, recommitted his life to God, seriously recommitted his life to God. And during his recommitment to God, he of course wanted to give all of his life to God, like a lot of people do, and the best way he knew how is to be either a full-time missionary or a full-time pastor. He comes to his pastor and he says to his pastor, I want to give my whole life to the ministry, and his pastor being wise, he said, let's pray about it. Before you go full-time into ministry, let's pray about it. As one thing about this guy Robert that he had a fascination with is with big machines. He just loved metal and loved machinery. After some time when they prayed about it, Robert comes back to his pastor and both the pastor and Robert felt that Robert shouldn't be in a full-time ministry. Robert should be God's businessman. This metal obsession that he has is an indication that's what he should do with his living. In fact, Robert is known to have created, he's the maker of 300 inventions and had hundreds of patents in his lifetime. In fact, what happened with him is that he designed and built machines beyond the imagination of ordinary men. He introduced into the earth-moving and material-handling ministry the Robert Tire, which today is almost universally accepted. So if you see these big combines and these big machines today, they are used in war and they're used also in agriculture. Robert is the guy that created them. He started to create big machinery. In fact, he actually developed an oil rig for George Bush Sr. that was first used and Robert was a very honest man. He developed this rig, made this rig. They put it in the Gulf to extract oil. And Robert said this, I will not charge you any money if the machine doesn't work. And when the machine worked, of course he charged him really well and he started to produce all of these things, many patents. He developed a university to teach Christians how to be successful as businessmen.  As his income increased, he increased his giving. Toward the end of his life, his giving was 90% and he lived on 10%. In fact, I like two quotes, he has a lot of them. I'm gonna mention just two quotes. He says, I believe faith in the old-fashioned gospel that makes better mechanics, better accountants, better salesmen and better executives.  So this is the man who, instead of going to full-time ministry, he went to full-time ministry, it was just business. He helped Billy Graham with his crusades. He helped a lot of different ministries and nonprofit organizations and he loved, he did what he loved, which was big machinery and God used them in it. Don't think that the work that you do is not sacred, just because it's not directly connected to spiritually meeting needs of people. It's still important to God, amen. When you retire from your job, do not retire from your work. I'm gonna just hit on the retirement. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older that I'm starting to think about this now more. I don't think I've ever mentioned that in the church, but as I am looking at the Bible and I'm looking also, we have more and more people that are coming with gray hair and my hair is becoming more gray. I am looking toward that season. When I was younger, I looked forward to retire. And I think it's good to retire from a job, but don't ever retire from work. Priests were serving and at 50, that was the retirement age, but I find it interesting that the priests were told by God in Numbers 8, verse 26, after retirement, they may go fishing and get a trailer park, live in some kind of a trailer park and just simply disconnect from life. That's not what it says. After retirement, they may assist their fellow Levites by serving as guards at Tabernacle. That they may not, but they may not officiate in the service. This is how you must assign duties to the Levites. Fireproof your retirement. Excuse me, rustproof your retirement. Don't get rusty when you get old. Don't go fishing, go hunting. Meaning, stay active.   When your work is not finished, stay active. This doesn't mean you have to keep your nine to five. It simply means that even when you resign from that job, do not resign from living. Your body will stop working after a while. If all you do is eat chips, watch TV, and just simply just go fishing. You start hearing and talking to the fish. It won't be good. Stay active. Do something. Caleb at the age of 80 wanted to conquer a mountain. Anna stayed in the temple, old lady, and she was interceding and praying. See me and he, he took Jesus as an old man and says, God, you spoke to me that I will see your Messiah. Now that I see your Messiah, my job is complete.  Be like that. Don't be this person who simply look forwards. And so many of us, we look forward to retirement so that we don't work anymore. It's okay to look forward to retirement so we don't have a job anymore. But you were created in God's image.  Even if that work is your garden. Even if that work is taking care of your grandchildren. Even if that work is volunteering on Sunday.   Jesus says, my father always works. We rest and we work. When we go to heaven, we're not gonna be in the clouds singing 24 seven in an endless church service. We will manage cities. We will work. So do not resign from work when you retire from a job. Write something, create a blog. Volunteer, be involved, come to our church building and help us there do something. Stay active when you retire. Amen. Just wanted to help all the retirees cause you guys have a lot of free time and we need a lot of help. Just gonna slid that in there right there. Paul said, widows who self-indulge are dead even if she's alive. That's pretty strong words.  And when you retired, Paul says, this is not me, Paul says, you're dead. Meaning you're no longer living, you're existing. Some people die at 40, we bury them at 80. Live fully with the purpose.  You don't need to work anymore. And that's why because work was always about the job instead of the purpose. Now you're like, man, I don't have a purpose. Yes you do. The purpose is still the same. Just because you don't need to work for the paycheck, work for purpose. Work to fulfill your God divine given destiny on this planet. Do something, volunteer in such a way. We have people in our church who are at their old age, they're serving, answering the church phone call would come early for prayer, vacuum, help there and there, go meet with people, they stay active. Some of them are more active than the youth. And morning prayers, they're always there. I think it's because they also don't sleep at night. And so, but still they're there, pressing in and praying and all the kids are sleeping till like 10 o'clock.  Not the kids sleeping till 10 o'clock, but us being active and engaged in our old age. The Bible says in your old age, you'll be fruitful, you'll be fresh and you'll be flourishing. Not grumpy, whiny, complaining, every bone broken. Come on, I believe in our old age, we'll be like Caleb. We're like, I'm ready for a mountain. I'm ready to do another campus. I'm ready to do another service. I know some people are planning for a funeral, I'm planning for revival. Come on somebody. I see Sister Anne is happy, come on somebody. Be like Sister Anne, now that we wrapped this up. So what it has to preach about today, turn your job into work for God. Work with God, but also allow God to work in you at your work. Are you currently facing problems in your work? One of your employees is driving you crazy. What if your job, your employment is also God's work factory? What if God decided to use our workplace as a place to work on our character? You know you're stuck in there for 10 years.  Only about 300 something days of your whole life spending with friends.  They know how to get to the last nerve and pull that out. What if God uses that?  Never your fault. It's that person, that person and that person. But what if you would see that opportunity as God exposing the ugliness of our character so we're confronted with it and we take responsibility and work on it. Think of this, when you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror, you most likely do not see the perdy version of yourself. Hair, just like everything spiked. You don't go and look for a hammer and go, let me break the mirror. This mirror is lying to me every day. Lying, lying mirror, I break it, break it in the name of Jesus, I break it. No, you don't break the mirror, you fix the hair. The mirror is just showing you that your hair's messed up. You're not messed up, maybe just a little bit. The hair is very big messed up. So the mirror is showing you that, what if I were to say our workplace is a mirror that shows that we have attitude problems, jealousy problems, anger problems, impatience problems. With all of these stuff surfaces and instead of constantly blaming every single person, we take responsibility for our reactions and we say, I'm so sorry, I should have not acted this way. I'm so sorry. You know what, you're right, I am lazy. I've been showing up late all the time. We need to break the, can you pray for me right now? Now that's hoping that your employer will pray with you instead of fire you. Most of your employer, if you acknowledge that you are lazy and coming late, they will say, well, right up, number one. Tumor rides up and you're lost your job. Your issues at work could be a reflection of what God wants to work in your heart. Allow him to do so. Amen. Number three, God gives us special skills to build his kingdom. Exodus 31, two and three talks about God telling Israel and Moses to choose this man who had special skills. I find that interesting. I said, I have filled him with the spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, ability and expertise in all kinds of crafts.  Did you know the Holy Spirit isn't limited only to the gifts in the church? God wants you to use your gifts, not only to build a nice business company, or in place of employment. He wants to use them for his kingdom. Now this does not mean that every work at the church always have to be a volunteer free work, but it also means that God does want to involve us as Christians who feel sense of purpose in our work and who will give our work for God's kingdom. Number four, working is how we wait for Jesus' return. I mentioned that already. Martin Luther said, if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. We don't wait for the end of the world. The end of the age will come, but we work while we wait.  We go and make things that happen for God. And if Jesus is coming, if some of you will get this inside information that Jesus is arriving tonight at 8 p.m., the youth should still have friends giving. We should still go about our business. And if you would have a wedding to plant and to have tonight, you should still get married. Why? Because till the last moment the scripture teaches us we have to do work. We don't pause, we don't pack our bags. No, the Bible says we will leave everything behind, go there and then come back. So we work for the Lord. We don't look at what is happening in Israel and Jerusalem and Middle East and say, well, you know, maybe should we be building a church right now? Absolutely. Oh, look what's happening at the White House. Interest rates are high right now. Should we be involved in this? Absolutely. We're look at that. We continue to press in for God. And lastly, giving sacrificially is also a good work. Jesus said, let her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for me. Finally, I can come down just for a second. If you are here today and you've been coming to Hungary Jen for some time and have never served at Hungary Jen, I wanna invite you today to offer your skills and gifts on Sunday to serve God's house. You can serve one service, receive another service. There's a QR code right behind me. You can pull out your phone and just sign up today. Kids' zone needs help. Parking lot needs help. Other places needs help. You may say, why do you speak so plainly? Because a lot of times we can speak about, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah, and we're like, oh yeah, that was so good. That convicted me. What are you gonna do about it? Let's serve. Why is this important? We are ready to do three services on Sunday. And I think we need to with what's happening right now. We can't do it. Not because the anointing is not here, the building is not here. We don't have enough workers. Jesus says the harvest is plentiful. The problem is not with the harvest. It's too many people love to sit in God's house and very few people like to be thrust out into God's harvest. So I wanna have less people to be sitters and more people to be the ones who are being sent. Somebody say, let's do it. The second thing I wanna highlight, if you are here and you have a specialty in working with plumbing, electrical, underground work, and you may see it, oh, just the construction work. I'm always busy with that. This is a big deal for where we are at right now. In fact, in this next phase, everything is gonna move so fast. Tomorrow, a lot of the work is gonna be done. Nehemiah built a whole wall in 52 days and the whole book was written. But it was a construction wall. It wasn't spiritual stuff. It was just a wall, construction bricks and mortar. Yet it was spiritual work. Construction can be a spiritual work. We need help in that area. We will be hiring companies for a lot of things. But what if God sent you to this house and one of the things that you're gonna help us with this building is by contributing your work. For example, the family that's here right now from a different city that's gonna be serving for a week. We don't believe that every work is gonna be covered by volunteers, but we also don't want to not give opportunity to our church to step up and serve. In the lobby, the moment I finish the service, Paul is gonna be there. If you have some of those skills, and you're like, man, I would love to help once in a while. I have these skills. I have this company. I have these connections. Come up and talk to Paul. Let's make it happen. Make this about your home, not just that church. Let's make this about our home in Jesus' name. Amen? And lastly, his next Sunday is going to be our generosity Sunday service. So once a year we do that where we pray what the Lord will have us to bring above our tithing. All of us do that. And so if you're part of this church, if it's your first time, you can ignore it, everything that I'm about to say. But if it's your home, we wanna ask you to prayerfully consider with your spouse to pray this week what the Lord will have you bring. Whether it's one time the best gift or a 12 month commitment of a partnership. And next Sunday, we're gonna bring that. Our goal is we wanna reach those $650,000 by the end of this year. So that the Lord will provide for that. We know that the Lord doesn't provide without his people. And so he will involve us in doing that. So just prayerfully consider, there's no pressure. We're not desperate and we're not in need. This is God's project and God will take care of it. If God brought the people, he will bring the finances. But the way God brought people, how did you guys come?  No, somebody texted you, somebody texted him, somebody called him. How does God provide? Sometimes it's the same way. A pastor gets up, makes an appeal, we all participate, we pray about what God gives us and we bring that and we see the Lord move. And then when we move to that facility, not only we don't have to get stuck in the traffic for 40 minutes, but it's gonna be beautiful, glorious, more people will come to know Jesus and greater things will happen. Amen. For watching this sermon, if this was a blessing to you, would you let me know in the comments below what stood out to you from this message? What are you taking home with you from this message? Also, if you enjoyed these messages, would you help us and hit thumbs up to this video and subscribe to our channel so you can get new videos every single week delivered to you on your YouTube app. If you go to hungryjen.com forward slash sermons, you'll actually be able to download the transcript, the notes and the quotes of this sermon and the rest of all of our sermons free of charge. Until next time.


2000 that I first got my exposure to these things and it was well in 2001 the term agile was coined and I've been using them since the since they were a thing and I want to tell you it's gone horribly sideways the people don't use them quite right so I want to bust down to some basics and as as always if you've seen me present before I've got too much to present so I'll edit a little bit on the fly because I'd very much like you guys to get the get some practice creating a story map so I'm gonna favor doing versus versus just talking now a few people have asked me I've got a workshop running on on Friday and Saturday and if you're in that workshop yes everything I say here I will repeat Thursday and Friday so I've told a couple people that I don't come to this because if you're in that workshop you're gonna get it already I'm gonna do this in a little bit of a weird style because I want to control my deck and there may be times I want to draw a picture here so I've got this desktop thing to do that let's break this down we've got three parts to this I want to talk about what stories are and art and why they're such a simple thing and why such a simple thing can be so complicated I want to talk about what a story map is because that's the way I like to work with stories and we might be blending a little bit of two and three because maybe the best way to learn about a story map is for you guys to create one and we'll have to go through the process to create it so let's start from the beginning here did anybody read that Dilbert cartoon while I didn't have a slide up so you could read it but the if you look at the URL on that the date is 2003 I believe January of 2003 which means the authors or Scott Adams Scott Adams okay yeah get my hitchhiker's guide Adams and this as I transpose those it means it you know he knew in 2002 what these things were the story thing is not a new idea it's a fairly old idea and the the story thing came from this guy Kent Beck Kent in the late 90s was looking at at process and was looking for things that were going wrong so if you treated the process that you work with like a product the thing that you're making and you want your process to work better you look for problems or things you can fix and one of the things he latched on to is the way we transfer information to each other the way we write things down as requirements and hand them over to each other now there are a number of problems with that but one of the bigger problems is it well it just doesn't work I have to show you some examples of how written instructions don't work these are silly and they may not completely translate well these are examples there's a blog out there and if you want to waste a lot of your time go visit a blog called cake wrecks and there's a lot of it's it's silly if there's a lot of oddly decorated cakes but one of the underlying themes is misinterpreted instructions now if you see a few of you smiling so you can tell you tell how those instructions were misinterpreted obviously underneath was misspelled wrong but they've just written exactly what was there sometimes people just don't pay attention and just really aren't following the instructions this one's a little bit tougher to detect you see the problem there where the decorator went wrong anybody got it the stuff on the right side is telling you how the left side should have been done now you might think we could solve this problem by doing documents electronically pop perhaps it's handwriting and other things more specification so we might put those documents on a USB drive and hand those to the cake decorator who will then go to work decorating the cake this is a cake decorator that didn't look at the document but duplicated the USB drive on the cake there's just straight up reading the words and not paying attention there's the misinterpretation of non-functional requirements I don't know if that's going to kill me if I have a nuts allergy or not and then just not paying attention now these are funny but this is a fairly old story I just isn't India working on sending out an orbiter in Mars and that's trying to go on right now is that correct so there's a lesson to be learned here this is when the United States did it and the United States created a Mars orbiter and before I don't know what the to look up exactly how many millions of dollars were spent on this thing the thing headed off to Mars and just when it came time to to enter and start orbiting Mars and instead it crashed directly into Mars there was apparently some software written by ground crews and one group of people writing software were using the metric system and another group of people were using the imperial system and it'd been well documented but well somewhere it got lost in translation and that kind of mistake cost a lot so that's not so funny now Kent's idea was simple now one of the things that's happened is the original idea has sort of gotten lost in translation over the last decade so I had to have a little bit of a conversation with Kent back and forth and just pulling this out of my email I said Kent where did you get this idea and he said you know what I was thinking of was the way users can sometimes tell stories about the cool new things that their software does for instance I type in the zip code and it automatically fills in the city and state without me having to touch a button I think that was the example that triggered the idea if you can tell stories about what the software does and generate energy and interest and vision in your listeners mind then why not tell stories stories are called stories because they're meant to be told if I had a I'm tired of the question how do I write good stories because the point is the reason they're named this is they're supposed to be told and it's it's not a way to write better requirements because the the fundamental principle here is that the way we write them doesn't work so the idea was simple first off I've got to organize a lot of things that I want and I need to basically just write what I want on a card doesn't matter what you write on a car just write some stuff on a card and then I get together with somebody who can build something and we have a conversation it's through that conversation that we tell our story that the person building understands who's using it and what they're doing and what's expected to see and and together they kind of work out what should be built and the developers starts to work out what how they can build it now there's a I should have done a show of hands here how many people in the room work with user stories right now today that's a lot yet I'm going back to basics here to remedial I'm sure you've all heard this card conversation confirmation some of you have heard that mantra first off that's let me I'm going to hit it again because well it goes like this you you write a card and you have this conversation now the person coming into the conversation has an idea of what they want and because it's a conversation they explain it to the other person who then listens closely and forms an idea in their head of what that person wants now it's a conversation so that person can then ask questions and they realize the idea I've gotten what you said isn't right and they start having a conversation and through that conversation they arrive at some shared understanding of what they want now if you're watching the slides closely you'll notice that the shared understanding that happens in that conversation isn't the same thing as the person who wrote the card came in with if your goal is to write perfect stories that have all the details in them and get it right then you're not using stories right the goal is for us to get together and actually learn something and it's that collaboration between the builder the maker and the one who needs something that has the real power this is not another way to specify things now agile processes take a big hit for we don't write down anything the truth is you write down a buckets anybody using agile development knows that you write down a ton but what's and you might come into this conversation with a ton written down already but you use this to point and discuss and change and I work with UI designers who will come in with the UI but you have to sort of expected to get marked up and changed and and well expect change but at the end we're driving to the answer to the question how will what exactly are we going to build how will I confirm that we've done it so that's that confirmation part it's an agreement between us that we okay we're on the same page and this is how I'm going to check to see if it's done now the over time we've evolved the best way of doing that is writing acceptance tests or acceptance criteria or story tests and well the answer to the question what will I check to confirm this is done now I believe that there's not three seas there's five seas the next one is actually constructing or building this thing and then after that well we've got to you know show the story at that sprint review thing but the truth is the blue guy did not build it for the green guy they built it for these other people and these other people have to look at it and we have lots and lots of conversations and here's where it gets really ugly we usually find out it wasn't the right thing and how we then change it is by writing a card and it's a cycle my friend Alistair Coburn said for every story you put in the backlog or for everything you need you should put three in the backlog and I said well what do you mean Alistair he said well just write the thing you need on a card and then put in two more I said well what I write on the second ones and this is the other two cards Alistair said it doesn't matter and I said I can't just write nothing on them and he said well if you have to write something on the first card put what you want on the second card put fix the first card and on the third card put fix the second card if you're not going around this cycle a few times you're not learning and well you don't get it right the first time that's not the goal so you don't get it right going into the conversation and even when you agree you don't get it right afterwards those are hard pills to swallow but unfortunately they're a bit true the point is that well this is about conversation and well the idea is fairly simple but simple doesn't mean easy let's not go back to this the idea is simple but there's well you can already smell and you already experience tons of things that go wrong basically people don't have conversations about the right things now I'm gonna spin quickly through a model I use yesterday and this is the model that frames my thinking always when I'm building software I'm building software not to build something but to create a benefit and I draw this now and later model a lot see how fast I can spin through it here the world we start with thinking about the world now and we see people in the world that are unhappy that are confused or frustrated and we get ideas about what to build now I might call those those could be products or features or enhancements to features we've got we might eventually start call you know specify them and call them specifications and at some point in time we'll call them our requirements now remember that requirements are just what we call our great ideas to solve people's problems now we go through some development process agile or not and at the end we end up with a delivery and what we hope is true later is that those people that we identified with problems are now happy they're not happy because because we delivered this stuff they're happy because they start using it and their life gets better and not everyone's as happy and some people you just can't please now everything between that idea and that delivery that's output that's the junk we measure with velocity that's the stuff we put in burn down charts and it's just stuff but what we want is what happens afterwards but we what we want our outcomes and those outcomes are measured by how people behave differently as a consequence of using that software how do they work differently how is it better than they used to work are they happier and oh what changes now some changes if I deliver a piece of software I can right away start to observe people and measure outcomes if I'm delivering some e-commerce sort of software and I make some changes and I observe that more people look at more products and they buy more I can observe that right away but if my goals were bigger I'm trying to change my position in the marketplace or improve customer satisfaction I don't measure that the day after I deliver something that takes longer the word I'll use for that is is impact your job in software development is not to deliver more software your job is to deliver less software your job is to minimize that output and maximize outcome I want to let's pound that in here output is what we build outcome is what we actually want and the stories we write are about the future they're about outcome and well what went wrong with stories is people started going into these conversations and they started well delivering specifications they started describing what to build and the listener to that conversation all they can do is take a lot of notes and ask questions about what to build and well they can't offer any better ideas or better solutions so now somebody came up with the clever idea that look we need to get people talking about the right thing so let's get them to talk about who what and why so the template as a type of as a kind of person a user I want some something so that I can turn that frown upside down so that I can get some benefit that template is made to build is made to help us have the right conversation now people make the mistake of thinking that that template is the story it's not the story in fact one of the important things about a story is that I have a crisp sharp title one that I can refer to in conversation one that I can point to and say I'm working on that such-and-so story do not fill your backlog full of these as I want to so that statements because well you know what happens at a stand-up meeting everybody will start to refer start to refer to story number 128 and that's no longer communicating it anything at all no one knows what we're talking about and give it a short title and you might use that template to help derive the right conversation now well it's there's the problem with people not talking about the right things but there's problems with people not talking at all what goes wrong with that template is people think okay I just have to write them in that template and then I am done that's it I can hand those off the same way I used to handle handoff requirements let's see if I've got these slides in the right order now I I love and hate that template I see Dave standing in the back of the room or sitting back there and I saw him speak earlier last night and I think you might share my opinion on this now I want to make a quick point about the way we learn to do things isn't the way we the way we really do it is anyone in the room a skier yeah I'm in India I suppose are there any skiers here I live close to a ski resort is anybody here learned to ski before yeah how did you learn to ski say you took a class and uh well did they teach you that move called a snow plow yeah that's what my kids are learned they learned pizza and french fries and the goal of the snow plow is to learn how to feel stable on slippery snow going downhill you don't learn the snow plow to get really good at snow plow there is no olympic snow plow event and and the best skiers do not snow plow through those moguls they stop it that template is a snow plow and it's critically important to use to learn but once you get it once you realize that the point is having a good conversation stop it it's embarrassing all of us it's you can't snow plow and call yourself a professional what you need are really strong conversations about who's using the product and there's a lot of subtlety about that because there's often different kinds of people using the same product what they're trying to accomplish and why they're trying to accomplish it and not just why they're trying to accomplish it but why we as a business want them to be using the software to accomplish it but it's more complicated than that there's a lot more to talk about than just who what and why it's not as simple as these two people talking to each other it's not just a user and developer we've got product managers and business analysts and testers and user experience people and project managers and they all want to have different conversations they want to have conversations about well if i'm a product manager what is the chunk that gives me some sort of return on investment or benefit in the market and and if i'm a ba i need to understand technical details what goes on under the scenes that in what are the business rules that drive this thing and the and if i'm a tester i need to understand boundary conditions and how to break it and where it's likely to break if i'm a ux person i certainly don't want you telling me what the ui looks like it's my job to design that i need to know who's using it what they're trying to accomplish it so that i can then do the ui if i'm a project manager all those details are interesting but i need to know if there are dependencies how long this is going to take if it started and and where it is in progress it's a lot of conversations and it's a lot more conversations than well the original idea is i would just flip the card to the back and i would write acceptance criteria on it but it's going to take a freaking huge card to hold all this information uh does anybody old enough to remember when libraries used to have card catalogs in them so uh for those that are young there that's a weird device uh like a record player but uh you used to go into a library there was a card catalog i'd look at the up the card and i'd pull out the card it would say the name of the book and a little bit about it but i knew that that card was not a book the book is somewhere else on the shelf and it's got lots of chapters and a ton of information story cards and the tokens we use are like that but your information is going to be in rally it's going to to be in confluence it's in some wiki some documents someplace or collected as information on the wall in the most informal situations that's great now that's one complication but we got the size problem a size always matters now if i'm having a conversation that's well it's user size if i'm a user expressing things as a need that's fairly straightforward i know what a need size is but then some developer says hey that's an epic it's way too big it it has to be small enough to fit into a sprint oh that's uh smaller than i need actually and uh well what's the ideal size for a story to to go into a sprint or an iteration did i hear anything did i hear a couple third of a third of a sprint i hear a third of a sprint i when i started with this stuff it could be bigger could be smaller but you hear a couple days but the point is it's well isn't associated with need size it's associated with development time and i hear a couple days to develop is ideal and hey if i'm a business leader uh that's not even interesting to me what's interesting for me to talk about are features and stuff i put in milestones and i'm certainly not interested in those little two-day things and um kind of a little bit more interesting well interesting things that make a difference to me is a business and well there are different right sizes for stories and for conversations now that's that's another tough thing now the truth is there's lots of right sizes and stories go through a journey if you picture yourself looking down the neck of a funnel and in that funnel is the smallest i'm gonna think of that as a development cycle and uh out the outer edge of the funnel that's the release cycle and my stories of i've got to pour them into this funnel and they've got to go down and turn into software and well my the things i write down may start as big capabilities or features uh big opportunities and i've and i've got a way to they won't even fit in the funnel i've got to have a lot of conversation and in those conversations i need to break those stories down into smaller size small enough that i can decide which one's going to a first release which one's going to a second release and in those conversations i might add more details and then once i've identified which one's going to a first release i can pop those into the funnel and have more conversations and add more information now if anyone's a business analyst or a product owner you know that you go through lots of conversations you add a lot more to your stories you might bring them into a workshop or a grooming session and you show the stories and all the acceptance criteria and how many of you have heard that story's too big and yeah at least a couple uh so it's those stories that you've got to break down into even smaller stories and it's those smallest stories that are right sized that shuttle through that through that sprint iteration across the Kanban board and it's those stories that are pile up as done or potentially shippable software it's it's those stories that well we're supposed to be actually showing these to end users but end users really aren't so interested in your cool new checkbox they're interested in things that support their work user-sized things so we kind of have to let a few of these pile up into chunks that i can validate with real people and it's those chunks that i then kind of that eventually pool up into big things that i can release that's the journey that stories go through and the best stake i see most people doing is trying to break them down to that tiny size to begin with anybody aware of the old Atari game asteroids anybody know that you played that game uh well in that game there's a little spaceship in the middle and there's these big rocks kind of moving around your job is to shoot those big rocks and they break down into smaller rocks shoot those smaller rocks they break down into even smaller rocks and then you shoot those now the bad thing about asteroids is when you the big rocks are big slow moving rocks but when you shoot them they break down down down into smaller rocks that are moved faster shoot them again they break down to even smaller rocks that move really fast a bad asteroid strategy is to break down all your big rocks into small rocks right away because they will crush you and kill you.  Don't do that. In fact, one of the things you can do with stories is if you've got a lot of little ones, you can actually roll them back up into big ones. You can't do that in asteroids, unfortunately, but you can with stories. Keep your backlog low. That works a little bit better and know that this is a natural progressive refinement thing that goes on inside your pipeline. Now, I promise to talk about the story mapping thing. I'm having too much fun and taking too long, but I've got to talk about one more problem and multiple people talk to me about, okay, great, I see this breakdown thing, but developers tell me and I know I can't break them down any smaller. I'll tell you what I told someone earlier is that it's a skill. It takes practice and it's kind of hard. Trust me, if you keep doing it, it'll get better, but I want you to think of cake. If this metaphor works for me, it might fall apart for you, but let's say I had a wedding and Indian weddings are much bigger affairs than they are in the U.S., but is a big wedding cake ever served here? Sometimes it's a big affair in the U.S. and they're big things and if I was going to make a big thing, a big wedding cake, and I was going to bake that, I would normally break that down into a recipe, which is for a big cake, lots of flour, lots of sugar, lots of eggs, lots of milk, and steps for beating things and baking things. Now, that's good, but your job with stories, the trick to breaking them down is to break them down into little cakes, cupcakes, and those little cupcakes have a similar recipe, just less. A little sugar, a little flour, a little water, things like that, and, well, that's the skill that's hard, breaking cakes down into cupcakes, and it's these, it's cakes that are stories, it's these things that we refer to as tasks or delivery tasks, so if you think of your developers as, well, they're the bakers, they're the, you put cakes and backlogs and those sprint backlogs or those tasks, those are filled with recipes and cooking steps, things like that. Now, we've got a lot of challenges working with stories and I need to talk about this story map thing. Stories are built for discussions or for telling stories and if we're trying to tell a story about a whole product, it's, and we don't know how big it is and we need to break it down, then that's what a story map is for. Start building a story map when you've got a problem that you need to better understand. We'll have a discussion that starts not just at exactly what to build because remember we got to talk about who, what, and why, we start with the big why. Why are we building this product feature thing and we can set some goals about what success is? We can talk about who, talk about the users who use something and then we say, okay, well, let's paint a picture the same way Kent said and let's tell a story about what they do step by step by step. At first they do this and then this and then this and then this and then this and we can tell that story step by step and then we can break that story down into all the details. Well, if they're going to do that in the first step, well, what do we need the software to be able to do? What other things could they have done? What goes wrong?  And by map I mean a simple two-dimensional structure. It's everything above that that, well, it isn't, well, you can think of them as the bigger stories or context or other things, but that's the big who, what, and why for everything else. And well, those bigger stories at the top get referred to as a backbone. They provide structure for the map. Now, that's what a map looks like. We've got a lot of people in the back of the room. Does anybody want to build one of these things? Trust me that I can walk you through building one in 15 minutes. This is going to be tough. There's a lot of people in the back and we need some table space. So I'm going to grab, I'm going to grab some just a few sticky notes. There's only sticky notes on the front here. So some people in the back need to move forward onto the, into the front. And you could steal a few sticky notes from these tables. And if you want to just hang back and watch what happens, that's okay too. But you should come forward and join these people. Give this a shot. So all the tables should have them on. And we're going to do this really fast. Now I'm hoping people have pens because sticky notes without pens or there's pencils on the table really stinks. All right, the best way, story maps are for telling stories. I need everybody to tell a story and I want to teach you some concepts of what goes into a story map as we go here. The best way to do this is to actually tell a story about something you've already done, something you've already experienced. Raise this just a little bit, see if that works. How many people woke up this morning? At least half, that's good. I want you to think back to the moment that you woke up this morning. And we're going to do a very quick silent brainstorming thing because we need to populate this story map with lots of things people do. So if you think to the minute you woke up this morning, until, well, if we just talk about the minute we woke up and tell, I need a better pen, I'll get one during the break here. Until we left our home or hotel room. What I want you to do is write down everything you did between those two steps. So if I think back to me, the first thing I did was hit snooze. Actually, I did that twice and from then on I got up and went to the toilet and it goes on from there. You're all going to need probably 20 or so sticky notes and you need to write as fast as you possibly can. Go. If you're in the back and not participating, you might grab a sheet of paper and just actually write a list. It might, it'll help you get the same concepts down. I will tell people that to finish this activity takes exactly the length of the time of the song Kung Fu Fighting. I don't have speakers, so you can't hear it. So it's for me. Verbs? Okay. Verbs are important. It's difficult to tell stories about what people do without verbs. These particular short verb phrases that we naturally speak in or talk about are what I'm going to call or not what I call, what lots of other people call user tasks. Now tasks is a tricky word in agile development because we use that to say what developers do to make software. But these are what you do to get out, to reach that goal of getting out of the door in the morning. Now, do a quick scan count. Did anybody get more than 10 written? Do anybody more than 15 written? Anybody? I give people, yeah, a few. So why would some people write more tasks than other people? And you got to shout loud. More detail? More granular? Yeah, you guys know all the answers. What else? More post-its? You had more post-its? You didn't run out of post-its? You do multitasking? Well, let me, I'm going to fill in for you to go fast here. Lots of people talked and yeah, that's, I can't hear two things at once. That's bad. You had more time actually, yeah. So if you have more time, if you get up earlier, you can do more. Now, this may come as a shock to you, but people are different and they do things differently. If anyone has children, I guarantee you have more tasks than other people who don't. If you have pets, it might be similar. If you have more time, it might be similar. If you have a little bit of a dedication to an exercise or workout regimen, it might be similar. If you've got an annoying job, you probably have tasks for checking email and other things like that that others may not. But basically, there are differences among people. Now let's pick apart this more detail thing, Mr. Coburn for talking about the goal level of these tasks. Now, he talks about, he uses a C level metaphor to talk about what's in the middle as functional level and he'll annotate those with ocean waves because that's at C level. A functional level task is something I would do with a reasonable expectation that I would complete it before moving on to something else. Like take a shower is one of those.  You finish it, but taking a shower decomposes down to adjusting water temperature and washing hair and washing body and because people are different, my wife has these tasks with some loofah of mitt thing and I don't have those tasks and I don't use cream rinse, I'll admit it and things like that, we're different and oftentimes the difference are in those subtasks and Alistair will annotate those with a fish and then above that, it might be summary level tasks and Alistair will annotate those with a kite but those functional level tasks are the ones that matter. For designing software or thinking about users meeting their goals or actually getting a value or benefit, they've gotta complete something that's functional. Once they complete something that's functional, if it's crap, then you can modify things underneath it to make it better, but if they can't complete something functional, then it doesn't matter. All right, now let's see how fast we can do these next couple steps here. Here's the, all of you at a table have done this and what we need to do is organize these into a model that shows what you did and basically if you organize these tasks into a flow from things you did early, early to things you did late, you'll end up with sort of a left to right flow and this would be easy if you were doing this all by yourself but I want a map that shows how people get ready in the morning in the same way you want a map that talks about how people use your software, not just one person uses your software so we've gotta merge these together. This means you're all gonna have to merge yours into one left to right flow and this is going to be a problem because people did things in different orders, some people did things that other people didn't do and there will be arguments about what order to place things in. Fortunately, I have a simple remedy for that and that's to shut up, no talking. Organize these things left to right, put them in a flow, you might find that some people have subtasks or similar things, you could stack them and if you don't agree with where someone put it, you can move it and if they disagree with you, they can move it back but you'll find this goes easier than you think. So organize these on the tables left to right. If you're in the back, you might pop up and watch what these guys do and go. Just have a minute or so, get these things left to right as fast as you can. If you talk less, it'll go faster. Just for now, I'm gonna blow my time box really bad if I don't stop you, so I have to conclude this and show a few pictures. All right, all together, I wanna tell you that the order things are left to right is what I'm going to call a narrative flow. It's the order I tell the story and people will say, hey Jeff, the world doesn't work that way. I have this process where I do step A and then I come to this decision point and I could do step C or step D. How do you show that in a story map, Mr. Smart Guy? And I say, well, I just do A, C and D. Why do I do C and D? And I say, well, why do you do that? Why do you put it in that order? And I say, I didn't put it in that order, you did. You told me I do A and then I could do C or D. All that connective tissue between stories like I could do A and then C or D, all those extra words come out of your mouth. They're not, this isn't UML. This does not replace UML. It doesn't replace use cases. It doesn't replace any other modeling mechanism. Arrange these in the order you would tell the story and if there's ands and ors and other kinds of conjunctions, let them come out of your mouth and if you need to, draw a UML model. Now, that's what narrative flow is and you'll find that if people did, what you see top to bottom are, well, details and variations, alternative ways that other people do things. See if we can get a couple more steps in this and then I can conclude a little bit. If you read across that map left to right, you'll find that, well, it's fairly long but you'll find that there's some natural chunks or breaks in it. You'll often find if you're doing, talking about real work that people do in a house that oftentimes when you move from room to room, there's a break. So like you might find all that stuff about getting out of bed is here and there's some stuff about getting cleaned up and ready and some stuff about making breakfast. Take another color of sticky notes or you could use whatever color you've got. By the way, in a pad of sticky notes, not many people know this, you get two shapes. You get a square and a diamond, free. Wherever you see a group of things that look together at the beginning of that group, put a sticky note and then put another sticky note. So I could say all these things are about getting myself out of bed and all these things are about cleaning myself up. Mark it with sticky notes and I will tell you that you need to write something on this. And you need to keep these verbs also. But really, you only got a minute. Mark them fast, decide fast. It's gonna be, don't argue about it. Make sense? Go. You gotta shout out, read me the top, just the big things at the top. Taking care of health, family time, getting ready for conference. Just those three. Anybody else finish? Can you read what you've got across the top? Wake up, what was the first one? Next one? Freshen up. Check. Check work, okay. News. Pack up, okay. Eat and drink. Leave. Okay, so there's kind of different levels of things there. They rolled up at a higher level, you rolled up at a lower level. Does that flow sound familiar or right enough? So what's interesting is if you stay in narrative flow, we can go up a level and there's still a narrative flow. Still tells a big story, so I don't have to read all those other little stories. The term I'll use for these, that's a user-centric term, is an activity. Activities are things that people do with lots of tasks that they may do in oftentimes many order and omit some and keep some. Now we could go to town on this story map and I could ask you to fill this in with tasks that you do on other days. And I could ask, I could play what about with you? What about when things go wrong? What about, well, when you're, my daughter didn't do her homework and I've got to hurry fast stop what I'm doing and help her do that or my wife is sick and I've got to take kids to school and other sorts of things. And I could fill these in. I could also say, well, what about, what if my morning could be better? What are the things I would do to make it really good? I would exercise, I'd make a better breakfast. I'd get up early, I'd read a little bit. I could put all those things in and really fatten this map up. And we want to do that because we want to think of everything we could do. We're not, we're gonna do one quick last step and that's to plan. I want you to, maybe most people might have a first task in there of turning off their alarm or something like that. Pretend that task didn't happen because your alarm did not go off.  You need to get out of the house as fast as you possibly can. I want you to look at all those tasks and I want you to move everything, just keep things at the top that you would do and move everything down that you would not do if you had to get out of the house in just a few minutes. Now you have to satisfy everyone at the table. I see men often skipping the shower stage and saying I could just apply extra deodorant and women not being okay with that. You might have to write more tasks for things that you would do in that situation. Just take a minute, just quickly shovel things down and see what you have left in that top slice. That conversation about all the details and all the acceptance criteria. If we're thinking about value and benefit we've got to have stories at whole product or whole feature, we've got to tell stories at whole product and whole feature levels. My first goal is to understand that thing, understand who, what, and why. Not for this little tiny thing, but for the thing that has value. Then once I understand it, I get the whole flow, I want to then explore details and options and all those what abouts and then I want to plan. I want to say gosh, to be feasible for us to deliver this on time, I need to focus on a specific user, a set of users and some specific context and let's slice this up into what are useful releases and then I need to carry those things into this routine sprinting cycle of having more detailed conversations then I want to write all that acceptance criteria and really dive into details but that's when I'm delivering. Story mapping is for breaking down big ideas and big features and helping me figure out what the minimal viable release is for those features. Helping me have big conversations. Now that first understanding starts with framing the product with what's that product, who is it for and why and I'll often build simple lightweight personas to describe those. I'll often name product goals and even go so far as to name metrics for those. The next thing is to imagine that product's use and tell a big story left to right.  They start by writing cards that give us that narrative flow. That big left to right green stripe is the first people do this and then this and then this and the thing is we love to work top down but sometimes our head doesn't naturally think in activities so they add the activities in later to make it easier to read and sort of summarize things that kind of all go together and then they start moving forward to talking about details and fattening this thing up, adding lots of what abouts and we could do this and it would be better if we did this. They're making a next version of existing product and they're looking at this product they don't like very much now and they're writing stories about it and you can see this thing is getting fatter and fatter. People will ask me, what is the difference between those bright green cards and the other light green cards in the middle of that thing? There's no difference, they just ran out of one kind of card but it's a signal that they've been telling the story over and over and rewriting it and ripping it up. Just cards, just rip them up and make sure the story still tells right. That's the important thing, those short titles and these nice titles work like that. Now that's one way to do it but I work with other people that say, gosh it works better for me to think about the user interface first and sketch UI and a storyboard and then I can lay that out and then break things down underneath that and well it's once I've got that that I can do this exploration phase, this breaking things down and think about other, this is where I pull a lot of other people into this map to help me do this. These people are having a, this is a real story conversation. That guy talking is the finance manager of a bank. He's interested and engaged because this is a story about his life.  It is something that's important and the guy writing a sticky note is actually not writing a story so much. He's writing down a problem that he has that they want to figure out what to do about with a story. Now, advance ahead, it's that same map and by now they've fattened it up. You can see that it's fairly big and there's a lot of things we can do with that map but here's where the real power of this kind of structure comes in. This is the same group at a company called Globo and this is a map when I first encountered this group of people. I'm running a couple of minutes over. The person with the next presentation, where'd he go? Is he in here? Yeah, there you are.  We'll see if I can wrap up here. But this is the punchline for me. When I came into the room, there were three teams working together on a revision of this big content management system and they all had their respective backlogs on paper and they were arguing and I said, guys, you've got three different teams and it's a big project and you've divided up this work and you can't figure out how to start and proceed but this is one product. To get value, you each have to deliver something and you can't imagine it and plan this so get it on the wall and they did and they were happy. I came back a couple of days later and they were sad and I said, well, what's wrong? And they said, we can't possibly deliver all of this on time and I said, well, how long's it gonna take you to do this? And they said, a year or more, which is how developers say two years and I said, gosh, I know your CEO and he won't tolerate anything that takes longer than a few months and they said, yeah, we need this to go live for Brazilian elections and that's in four months.  If we say, what do we need to go live successfully for Brazilian elections, what would that be? And they thought, well, what does it mean to go live successfully for Brazilian elections? Well, we probably just need to do the news website and maybe a couple of these political blogs and we just need things that give us these animated real-time charting stuff and let's focus on that. So they add tape lines in here and they go to work moving stories up and down and they slice this map up into what our successful release is. Where everything above that line is what they need to go live for Brazilian elections, all those yellow stories and what's written on that orange thing out there, that's that goal. That's what success means for this release which is going live for Brazilian elections and getting the outcomes they want for that. Now, everything else lays it out there in a roadmap of other releases. We've not talked about all those details with story maps, with stories, we've not figured out acceptance criteria, we've just talked enough to start to imagine this product and start to make a first sensible break of things. I'm gonna do one last thing and we're gonna wrap this up. Well, I always have to do this demonstration because it's meaningful and maybe I can do this, maybe not. Yeah, start getting set up here. Cory, if I were to, this may be a big feature, a big new product and if I release this, I get all this business benefit. But when I look at it, it's gonna take me too long to release. So my first layer of planning is to sort of break it down into smaller chunks that each have some value or benefit. And it's those chunks that I use to make change for that big story and those may be a series of incremental releases.  So let's focus on this first release because I can build that first and I know that it has value. But I need small things that I can deliver in every single sprint. And each one of these that I build that adds to this product and builds this up.  What is the value of this versus that? If you ask a business stakeholder, which one do you need first? They're gonna say, fuck, I don't know. I need them all. The way you prioritize these is by building the thing that you can learn from first that you can validate assumptions first and learn fastest from first. Those are the ones that you have all those detailed story conversations on. And I wanted you to see this transition, this flow from big stories to little stories and how we prioritize for value at release time versus how we prioritize for value later. I'll leave you with this. That first off, these stories are for telling stories. You've got to be able to imagine users using things. If you can't imagine it, you can't build it. And a story map is about, well, seeing the whole structure, the big thing. And it's about seeing the whole tree and seeing the whole product and not about piling things up in a leaf bag and tossing them away at people. That's that. Thanks for staying longer for the people that could and let's get to the next thing.