Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage here in San Francisco for Google Next 2023. I'm John Furrier, your host, Rob Streche is with me. He's leading the CUBE analyst team. We have CUBE team coverage. Lisa Martin is here. Dustin Kirkland, contributing analyst. And our applause are out getting all the data for you and sharing that we're here live. It's been a third day. It's been a long, long couple of days where I have lots to unpack, been fun. A lot of great content. It's all about the data. AI has been all about data from day one. Now you start to see the jewels kind of flow out in the marketplace or the flowers starting to grow in the model garden that's coming from Google. Out of great cash here that goes back into the DNA of the data days in the CUBE. We've got Adam Wilson, Senior Vice President, General Manager of Alteryx, Analytics Cloud. Great to see you. Great to be here. Thanks for having me back again. We normally see you at trifecta, which we covered in depth, not bottom, Alteryx. First of all, great to see you. So trifecta joined Alteryx. Now you're running Alteryx Cloud. Take us through what you're doing right now. The changes with trifecta, Alteryx, and what your role is. Yeah, yeah. So about a year and a half ago, Alteryx acquired trifecta, and really trifecta's become the platform foundation for the entire Alteryx Analytics Cloud. So now everything that you're trying to do around analytics automation, around data quality, around prep and blend, around location intelligence, machine learning, AI, all of that now plugs into the trifecta infrastructure and gives everybody an integrated experience that allows them to complete their end-to-end journey. So it's exciting for us, coming from a startup environment, to really be part of a much bigger platform play, and to be able to tap into the 8,000 logos that use Alteryx today, and really the almost half a million users that are raving Alteryx fans, and we get to be a big part of bringing Cloud to all of them. And great success IPO for Alteryx. We've been around for the big data movement. You know, the big data, we go back to 2010 when we started theCUBE 13 years ago. It's been a great run to see the historical role. And we've been kind of waiting for that AI moment that's happening now, but there's been a lot of iterations around the data, the new data industry and old school analytics to kind of like cloud-based next generation cloud, data planes, control planes. Yeah, what's the big thing people should look at right now that I want to get a sense of where they are with data, where the market is, how they tie in their either legacy or new projects with data? What's the current state of the position of data? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's really interesting when we were chatting a little bit about this before the show, you know, there's a lot of discussion about what's going on at the infrastructure level, you know, GPUs and everything else that is going on there. And then there's also a lot of discussion about what's happening, you know, with the modeling and with the algorithms. But at the end of the day, if your data quality is bad, then your AI is probably worthless. And so I think everyone can't lose sight of the importance of data now more than ever before. And hopefully this creates a burning platform for organizations to start thinking about, like, not only how do I stitch my data together and harmonize it in the right ways that are going to allow me to, in the generative moment, like start to really tailor or customize and extend these foundation models, but how do I really kind of re-approach, you know, data quality in a meaningful way that's going to ensure that I'm getting, you know, good analytics and good predictions and good models and things that are coming out the other side. And I think you just can't lose sight of that piece in the middle, which is where a ton of heavy lifting needs to occur. And ultimately where I think a lot of this is going to be won or lost. That's a great point. I want to ask you the next question, which is, okay, in the past six months, so much has happened, you go back to last Thanksgiving, you know, Thanksgiving table last year was, you know, if you were a nerd, you're talking about open AI, if you were, and you got it in January. A couple months later, but look at just what's happened in the past six months. We'd like to say Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft. You kind of starting to see what's happening, what's out in the landscape for the market. There's going to be a lot of change. And so the operational impact will be huge for businesses. I mean, literally we think, and we've been saying in research on theCUBE, that the operations resets that need to go on while they're just trying to do digital transformation. So you got this innovator's opportunity and dilemma where, okay, I know I got to get to AI, it's going to come from the organic, it's going to come from the top, but I'm also in the middle of digital transformation anyway. Now I got AI, this is kind of causing some confusion.  Yeah, for sure. What's those conversations like? How should customers be thinking about that middle of transformation? And now I got the new architecture, I may have to rethink ops. Well, I think the good news is that a lot of that new infrastructure has built for some of the scale and agility that is going to leverage or be a sort of a necessary ingredient to what people are going to try to do with AI and ML. And so in a lot of the technology companies like Altrux are really embracing that and we're trying to provide a responsible approach to it too that addresses some of the concerns that come out of the Chief Information Security Officer or that come along with some of the governance questions that people have. I think there's a lot of excitement, there's a lot of energy, but there's also probably now emerging among the large enterprise is an equal amount of concern about things like vicarious liability and what is this going to mean if we start automating decisions now based on a lot of these algorithms and how do we do that responsibly? And so I think our approach has been to really take what's going on sort of in the wild and start to say like, hey for years we've connected to sort of all of the enterprise data. We know how to help extend and tailor a lot of what's going on in these foundation models. We can do it because of our split plane architecture where we have a control plane and we have a data plane. We can let you do that in your VPC so that it is secure and protected and then we can make that available to your users so that now you can start to democratize kind of even more fully with confidence. And I think that's always been part of our ethos and this is just a continuation of that same thing. It's funny, it's almost like everything's going enterprise not consumer. The data is an enterprise challenge. And I think that's the interesting thing because they have so many products here and I think one of the things and again what we were talking about before we got on is that that connective tissue between I land the data somewhere, I get it somewhere, I have to either ELT or ETL it to do that to make it usable. And that piece is a big part of what's been missing but you've been working with Google for a while on that like through a Google prep perspective which I found very interesting because you don't have a lot of partners that come on who actually have a co-branded product with them and you had some announcements as well too. Yeah well and so really the first time in the history the relationship that was established with Google around Google data prep was the first time in the history of Google Cloud that they'd ever put their brand on a third party technology. So we were quite honored to be selected as that solution. Now you have thousands of users, thousands of logos that are leveraging the technology. And a lot of it was I think a real desire to figure out like how do we, given all the infrastructure, given the databases, the engines, the APIs, all the great things that Google does, how do we create simple, powerful experiences that help people who are not necessarily structured programmers start building data products on their own and really starting to think about letting the people who know the data best do more of this work. And so we've now been in market with Google for almost six years with this product and today or yesterday at the show we announced an amplification of that relationship around Looker Data Studio. And so now there'll actually be a freemium version of Designer Cloud, which is the ultra solution for prepping and blending data that is going to be made available to Looker Data Studio customers so that they can connect to a broader variety of sources, things like Excel, which is very, very prevalent, but also that will allow them to structure, shape, blend, cleanse, transform data so that they can build reports and dashboards easier than ever before. And this is going to be something that will get into the hands of millions of monthly active users and we see this as completely transformational to what's going to be going on on the Looker side of the business. Yeah, and I think what it does is, and I'm saying that I've done some research on the data product side and data product management, what's coming in data engineering. We have kind of a talk track around actually the data developer and how the data developer is kind of a hybrid between the data engineer and data product manager and really building data. And I think this is where your product set seems to really hit, is how do you engineer the data, how do you build the data into a data product like you were saying. So it's usable as is. And I think that's where it's super interesting because I think a lot of people are saying, well, I just take all the data and I read it into my LLM and that's not to your point, that's garbage in, garbage out. We all know that from the OCS 101. I think, are you seeing that really the people and the processes are coming along and you're running into more data product managers and data engineering teams, is that like the persona that you're talking to a lot like every day? Yeah, absolutely. And I think what you're seeing from us is a lot of the heritage was going to the line of business, going to the end users who are data driven, data savvy professionals, but not necessarily structured programmers and we got started there. But then very quickly you realize that collaboration that needs to go on across technical and non-technical users. And so, Altrix as a platform has really evolved to be not just sort of no code, low code, but really code friendly. And making sure that that collaboration is facilitated because building out those data products now, most organizations see as the frontier for competition. They're going to compete on that as much as the goods and services that they make and provide. You know, Adam, I wrote up the comment earlier about enterprises being kind of complicated and consumers easier and everyone's consumerizing products. With the iPhone for this, if you think about what AI is doing, the demos they show here, the duet, it's like multiple apps talking first party data to each other. There's a complicated enterprise data architecture that needs to be in place to handle the addressability of the data and to manage the compliance and the legal aspects of it. So that used to be a blocker. But if you can build that in and let the data be viewed by the janitor and the CEO and the CFO, without any kind of data set changes, that's a game changer. And that's kind of where the market's going. So how do you guys fit into that kind of scenario? Because we're going to see more of that. Apps having native hooks into data. I guess called by code. Code just calls data and says, give me the data. I don't really want to get in the weeds on policy. It's already been set up or enabled. That's right. Well, and I think this is where the idea of a trusted platform becomes really, really important, right? Because you're going to go back to the technology providers that have been working with you for, in some cases, decades. And you're going to be saying like, listen, we're trying to figure out how to balance the excitement and the innovation that's happening right now with, again, doing it in a way that's kind of responsible and governed. Given that you're already the people helping me figure out my data challenges and figure out how to govern this stuff carefully, can you help me sort of jump into this in a way that I can feel sort of good about the direction that we're headed? And so a lot of these conversations in the last six months have just exploded within the customer base. They're coming back and saying, let's partner on this, because you're already touching all of the internal data and assets that we want to sort of bring to bear as we start thinking about LLMs and as we start thinking about Jenner. And I think as the proof in the pudding, as they say, shows can be visually looked at, oh, wow, that came from a net new use case because we changed some data things under the covers through UlcerX and others, and it's like, okay, cool. So that's going to be, I think, going to move the needle on the customer side. I have to ask you while you're here, because, again, in this market, when it's changed, it always got the advantage. You see some things, you guys have a good architecture. What's your secret sauce?  Deputy's doing great. Technology, what's under the hood? What's the secret sauce of the UlcerX cloud? Now you've got the mashup with trifac to UlcerX. What's going on that you could share without giving away the secret recipe? Yeah, no, no, no, it's a great question. I mean, I think first and foremost, the thing that impressed me the most when I hit the door and we came over was just the raving fans that truly see what UlcerX has done for them is transformative to their careers. So again, these are people who forever were being told be more data-driven and they're like, great, I will be if you can give me the data in a form that I can use it. Don't just tell me to be more data-driven and then you tell me I have to wait six months for somebody to add a table to a data warehouse, right? So really that sense of empowerment and that sense of change to me, like that rich feedback and that interaction and that community that's really been built up around UlcerX is just mind-blowing. I went to a conference when I first started it and I was talking to one of the community members and as he was gesturing, I noticed that his fingernails were painted and I was like, you got to tell me of what's going on here. He said, these are the icons for my favorite tools inside of UlcerX. I've painted them on my fingernails. So it literally is like raving. Catch who's your next and look at the jackets. Raving, raving fans, which I think is amazing. But if you kind of move beyond just the greatness of the community and what that's allowed UlcerX to do, you know, I would say when you think about cloud, I think one of the things that we really see as differentiating is the fact that we are an independent platform that interoperate. You know, we're not tied to a specific security model. We're not tied to a specific storage architecture. We're not tied to a specific execution environment. We provide interoperability across all of these environments and we do it in a way that increasingly for large enterprises takes into consideration the fact that they want SAS-like agility and characteristics, but they want to make sure that they always can control their data and they know what's happening with their data at any time. And so that split plane architecture that allows us to have the authoring and the design time and a lot of the exploration going on kind of in the cloud where we maintain that and can upgrade that literally every week. And at the same time, their data assets are staying in their world and it controlled and governed by them. That is an architecture and doing that across clouds and across infrastructure and across engines a very complex problem to solve. But it ensures that we're a decision that customers make that guarantee their other decisions are changeable. And that is a very powerful place to occupy in their architecture. For the folks watching out there that aren't altruist customers, when do they know and they need you? What's the symptom or is it, what's the use case or what, I mean, I'm probably different vectors in there from a client, it was just a standpoint, but they have a lot of pain, they need growth, there's a more enablement, what's the core reason to call you guys up and engage with altruists. Yeah, I mean the simplest example, just to show you how he quickly and easily it starts is I'm doing things in a spreadsheet and I need to automate them. Like that alone, as much as we can talk about big data, as much as we can talk about big data, the reality is that the world runs on files and there's more small data than big data, right? And so what we find is that the minute they start bumping into that as a challenge then we can help automate those analytics for them. Certainly then the value gets increased and enhanced dramatically the minute you start now talking about, well, what if the diversity explodes? What if the complexity explodes? What if I need to collaborate? What if I need to start doing more of this in a metadata driven way, like I mean all those things, once IT gets involved and says no, no, no, now we need to govern it, like scaling it up. Those are all the things that eventually, as organizations mature, we get to and those become key differentiators for us. But in the beginning, it's often very, very simple situations where it's like, let me take an existing business process that often is running on files and let me try to automate that in a governable data-driven way where I can start to take some of the repetitive, complex tasks out of what we're doing and in a moment like right now where everybody's in more with less, more with less, being able to make the machines do that work and to do that automation is incredibly productive and saves a lot of money. Adam, thanks so much for coming. Great to see you again. Yeah, yeah. And the final minute we have left, give it a pitch, what's the pitch to the customers? Why alter it? Yeah, yeah, well I guess the one thing I would say is that as they're thinking about the data challenges that they face right now, now more than ever before, being able to go in and build these data products in a self-service way, but in a way that really provides governance is crucial. And I think that as we move into now a generative moment and as we start to see what's happening there, Altrix has introduced a lot of capabilities under the umbrella of Aden, which is our brand for AI, ML and generative that's allowing us to go tackle the other two thirds as well. So if you think about a third of the work is doing it, a third of the work is packaging it and a third of the work is communicating it, a lot of what's happening with generative is allowing us to now automate the process of actually generating the insights and making sure that that can be sent out to all the key stakeholders so you can spend more time getting on with the actual execution than spending time actually sort of mired in the data. Yeah, looking at the customers, looking at the front of the business, Adam, great to have you on, congratulations on the trifect connection with Altrix and good to see you on theCUBE. Adam Wilson, SVP in General Manager, Altrix Cloud. I'm John Furrier, Rob Stretcher. We'll be back with more in the closeout to show day three of three days of live CUBE coverage. We'll be right back, stay with us. All right.


Hello, everyone. How was everyone? So, sort of scheduled, just was after working at my desk and no other reason, just decided to go live. So, here I am. So, I'll just wait a few minutes, see if anybody else wants to join us. But, yeah, Christmas is coming. Christmas is coming. Who in the heck is ready for Christmas? So, put in the chat box like where you are. So, like I know, like, am I talking to New Zealanders? Am I talking to Americans? Am I talking to people from Zimbabwe? So, let me know. Put it in the chat. Yeah, so let me know where you're joining me from. And yeah, this is a plan. I'm just working. Oh my gosh, so many meetings today. Like, I'm just like, oh my gosh. And so, yeah, it's about lunchtime. Oh, it's after one already. So, I've been meeting it too, but I just thought I'd come on here. Oh, hi from Christchurch. Thank you for joining. Yeah, so I just thought I'd come on here and say hi and see, like, what the heck? It's Christmas time. My day is going good. And I am like, haven't even thought about it. Oh, somebody from Wellington. It's beautiful in Wellington today, but I am sitting inside. I generally like to have lunch on my porch as you saw my last YouTube video. So, yeah, I should have just done my life out there, but you know, sometimes you just can't bother moving everything. So, I didn't. So, this is my office. I'm not too exciting. Hi from Telpo. I'm going there to Telpo next weekend. So, I just booked a lot of travel for some reason. I'm going to Queenstown this weekend for a couple of days randomly. And I just love Queenstown. Like, I love what I said, but I think I equally like Queenstown. So, and then I'm going to Telpo to do some work, both are work trips. But, you know, if you're going to work, at least I'm in Queenstown, right? So, that's my thing. Yes, I do miss away Christmas. I would love to be home for Christmas this year. We were hoping to, since we missed our, you know, a couple of July trips. And so, that's when we normally go back, because that's when it's nice in Wisconsin. And so, and yeah, so hopefully next July, hopefully, we can get there. So, post your questions. If you have questions for me, I'm happy to just do a Q&A. I just wanted to come up on here that in the description, ooh, Seattle. What time is it in Seattle? Hey, Siri, what time is it in Seattle? Four o'clock. So, let me just say this. Did you see what I just did? How easy is that? I cannot even, how many times when I'm talking to family members or friends or whatever, and they're like, oh, I can't figure out the time difference. Well, that's what you do. You just say, hey, yeah, 4 p.m. yesterday. It's Thursday here, so it's Wednesday in Seattle, but whatever, like, you know, more like the time, like, why did you call me at 3 a.m.? Yeah, because you just do this. It's not that hard. Sorry, a little bit of a rant there, yeah. Can you show me how to make eggnog? Yes, I will be doing, good one. I got, I started getting the stuff for it. I just have not had a second.  I'm not so busy. It's just like, you know, nobody can do anything without me. Does anybody else feel that way? Nobody can do anything without the mother. So, yeah, and you can find out whether, yes, I'm Siri as well. Sorry. So, yeah, eggnog, I'm going to do a TikTok video on that. So if you're not on my TikTok, then get on it. If you don't want to be on TikTok, just let me know. Awesome. It's fine. So if you're on Instagram, you can just private message me and I'll forward it to you. You can email me, whatever. We're not trying to be complicated. Yeah, so what other questions do you have? Oh, I just wanted to, okay. So I, because I'm live, I've just finished the video for Sunday. So I'll tell you what it is. A little sneak peek. So the video for this Sunday is, okay, so you know that they announced travel is opening up. And so I did a video on the top kind of things that I think you should bring if you're coming here, whether you're moving or visiting or whatever.   A lot of people think it's Americans, but it's not. So you guys help me out. So look at my 10 tips, give any tips. Like this is why this channel is so great. And also all of my social media, I find the same. You guys, I put stuff out there the way that I understand it and the New Zealanders clarify it. Maybe it's different in North Island or South Island or whatever it is. You guys are great at that. So thank you for that. And so definitely comment on the video for Sunday and just be like, dip, you know, am I wrong? Is there something that you think people should bring? I just, people read it and it's really helpful. And we're just trying to be helpful here. So anyway, my thing that I wanted to announce, and I put links in the description. So two things. Number one, I posted a survey and I've had tons of responses. So thank you for that. I'm doing a planning session tomorrow on 2022 videos, what we're going to do, meaning with my editor or whatever. And so the survey is telling me, what is it you like to see? I'm thinking about doing, you know, so quarters are opening. And so people need a lot of different information that maybe I've been talking about because now you can come here. So I've been thinking about, I could do a webinar for you. I could do some training. I just think that it would be helpful for people that don't live here, especially Americans, because I understand your frame of reference, kind of some cultural training. And man, somebody would have given me that one.  So it's not easy to gain it by coming here. And I just think that's really cool. But I kind of feel like something like that would need to be in coordination with other people here, because, you know, I don't know everything. But I am going to communicate and I'm a teacher. So we'll do something like that. Oh, the new US ambassador to New Zealand gave a press conference today. Oh, I have to watch that. I feel like I'm always outdated than news because coming to New Zealand 101. Oh, that's a good title. I really like that title. Oh, my gosh, that's good. You know, sometimes it's just so simple. So anyway, this week's videos, travel tips, click the link for the survey. If you want to give me feedback, if you don't, it doesn't matter. But, you know, it's just better if I don't just come up with everything that I think you want to know, because we're coming to that. So this is for you. I'm just didn't wasting my time at this event of interest to you. So for that. And then secondly, I found like the coolest website. I have been looking and looking and I arbitrarily found it on video actually a couple of days ago. And I'm like, what is that? How are they doing that? Because I don't know if you know this about me. So I'm a professor. I teach business, communication, marketing, digital marketing, communication company. I own many businesses. I have done, you know, I help people in communication. You need to know how to do something? I'm here to help you. If you had a difficult conversation and you need help, I'm here to help you. You know, just I'm here to help. Anyway, it's just that every stuff out there to help people, it just ends up being an enormous amount of work for me. So like edit someone's CV or the, the, the, and really like, I just, and I feel like I could explain it so much better by video because, you know, this is my preferable method of communication. I know it's not everybody, but it's mine. So, uh, yeah. So anyway, I found this website and you can literally, I just did it real cheap because it's Christmas and I don't know how they did it. Check out the link. I put it in the description. You can poke appointment with me, talk about things. It's cheap. And I can, so I can, you can do a, you can give me a video message or a text message and I can respond in video audio or text. Anyway, we'll try it. And I've just, I literally just put it up yesterday. I've had a couple already. It's fun. I can just literally like record and respond to you. So it's real personal. That's what I'm looking for. Love it. So check it out if you want to ask me a question. I'm doing the question. If you just want to ask me a question or you just want an opinion on something, that's for free right now. But I've limited because I'm not doing 100 responses, right? So I have limited, we're limited.  If you want to, like I have some zoom set up this afternoon, I'm excited about, but, but yeah, but if you just have some quick questions you want to answer, that's the way to do it because I can probably do it better that way. Anyway, stop talking about that. Hold on. Afternoon. Did I bring American decorations with me? That is such a good question. Why don't I think of these things?  And every year when we decorate the tree together, you know, you open the box, I don't have a lot, but you open the box of like, oh, do you remember this year? And do you remember that and do a little picture of them when they're four? And, you know, of course, I definitely ship ornaments. And you know what, for Thanksgiving, you know what we did with the activity, people could create a personalized ornament for me to put on my tree. Okay, can I make gumbo? I have never made that. I'm not from the south. I don't know. So I don't want to, I could try it, but I would need the expert has a CV template going out the window. No, no, no, I'm working. I know you guys look like don't have enough time.  A couple, I have a couple that I like that I just have it organized to put in a way where you could just purchase it, but I'll send that to you. If you book an appointment with me for the CV, I will send that to you. This is a good one. I made s'mores around the New Zealand campfire. Have I? No, because first of all, where am I getting crackers? The graham crackers. So I can get them at the American store, but guys, it's $25. It's too expensive for graham crackers. Okay, and then you got to get the American marshmallows because we only want that melt, right? And then, yeah, of course, Whitaker's chocolate will work or she's will do better all day long, but I am camping this Christmas. So there's some places you can have a camp on. And this is black. Camping in New Zealand is, I understand why we can't have a fire, but the fire is the central reason why camping is fun. The conversation, the only thing you can do in the dark or else you're going to bed it like so early. Yeah, there is a New Zealand biscuit that would, I would say the people have asked me this many times, but I would say that the digestive biscuit would be the most like a graham cracker. Hi from Auckland City. The weather in Wellington is stunning, but I'm inside. So that's nice, but talking with you, so that's fun. So yeah, how was it in Auckland? You guys getting it soon? Okay, so does everybody have their pass for tomorrow? So, you know, if you have an Apple phone, I don't know anything about the Android. I know I'm a sucker. I was like, I'm never getting an Apple phone. So here I am. It's literally like phone for dummy. So you can just put it right on your wallet, your vaccine pass, so that you can get into places tomorrow because otherwise you can't. I mean, I think you can get in like the groceries tomorrow, like I don't see you probably. I don't know, like, I feel like, I feel like a hundred people are confused. I feel like everybody's confused about this traffic light system because like, I just haven't sat down and read it. You know, I'm going to Orange. Can I travel? Hopefully I can travel between Orange because there's books in place. I'm not really thinking about it. I have my pass. I feel like the pass means I can go places. So, yeah. So it should be interesting when Auckland, when you can come out, what are you going to do when you come out? Girl guide cookies with what occurs is all good to go. Okay. Okay. First of all, girl guide cookies. That's a hard one. I mean, girl scout cookies, probably to Akili would sound weird, but let me tell you that the girl guide cookies do not compare to the amazing cookies that are girl scout cookies. When the girl scout girl comes to your door, it is a glorious day and it is hard to not buy 10 boxes. Hard. Most of the time she doesn't have that in her lap because I freeze them because who doesn't want a thin mint cookie in the middle of winter time? Okay. Do they last till Christmas? I always like to leave what they're going to and that's how I justify the 10 boxes, but they don't. Oh yeah, that would be annoying. I don't know. What's it going to be like tomorrow in New Zealand? Going to be interesting. I have a bunch of meetings downtown at restaurants, so hopefully we're all good. Hopefully everybody at meeting has a pass. You know, it's like, I don't know. Like, is it weird to ask that question? At first I was like, are we just assuming everybody has a pass? Are we putting it on people that don't have it to communicate that?  And so, again, this new variant, better not get in the way of things. Do I still have separate scouts for girls and boys in the US? Okay, Americans, respond to that. I believe so. I believe there's Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Let me know if that's not true. Because I have seen some recent pictures of my nephews at a Boy Scouts and it was just boys in there. But it may vary by state. You know, it is very difficult to talk about the US because it varies by state. So there's federal rules and state rules. And so, if I tried to be clear about what's happening in every state, I wouldn't say anything. Because nobody would listen that long for me to cover all 56. So anyway, so there's that. Oh, hello from so, wow, good morning. I guess it's morning there. I guess I can do that. Hey, what time is it? So that's okay. You've already watched me do that. We won't bore you with that again. So you know what video is coming out. If you haven't tried my American recipe book, I have that on sale for Christmas at 20% off. You know, of course, any of the consulting on my website, kiwiamericans.com. And then if you want to chat with me one on one, so I don't have that many spots available for that. The link is in the description. But check it out if you want to. You just want to ask me a couple of questions. Just do it that way. If you want to ask questions about moving here, or traveling here, there's an option for that as well. So it's cool. Check it out. We'll see if I like it. If I have time to respond to everybody. But yeah. So yeah, things are going good. Things are so busy this time of year. Like, I'm just going to Thanksgiving's over. Because as you know, I have 50 people here. Ooh, Sidney. G'day. G'day. Oh. Does anybody know what my favorite animal is? We'll just try to figure it out because the guy's supposed to have posted a little emoji of it. But I was like koalas, koalas. Aren't they not the cutest thing ever? When I was in Australia, guys, okay, here's my Australia story. So it was hard to see a koala in a while. So you have to go to these like reserves to see it. And I would, and I don't care. I just want to see them. And they're like, one of them was smuggling with their baby. Anyway, we, but we're a family that really likes to see things in the wild. And so we figured out some locations that are common for them.   And we scouted, you know, to see if we could see them in the wild, because that's just cool. And because we did like these wildlife parks that they were so cool up in Melbourne. And I was like, Oh, my goodness. Okay, sorry. Yeah. So I was like, okay, then no joke, because I have a huge family, and I was like, I can't throw a munch, I just can't afford a paper. I'm ready. We pulled into it. We were looking, looking, looking for like an hour. Then we're like, we're starving. Let's just pull over. Oh, let's go into this neighborhood. In this neighborhood, we ended up finding a little park bench and a little park was nice. You know, beautiful day.  And there's a koala bear in the tree, at a park in the, like, it was like a suburb neighborhood. I don't know how else to describe it. And it was so cute. And we just like freaked out. It was like, we're such a blessing really, because we were like, so cool. So we've actually seen a koala in there. I mean, how many of you have been to Australia? I like Australia, but anyway, so I better get going. I have a meeting at two, so definitely check out the links in my description. Check out whatever, ask me questions. I would love to hear your feedback on what you want to see for next year. And definitely check out the YouTube video this Sunday on the 10 things that I recommend that you bring.


What an epic day at Canada's Wonderland and in Toronto, so this is pretty rare for us to have this kind of an event happen But again in my previous video kudos to Canada's Wonderland and the police service for all that they did in protecting everyone So it was definitely a high police presence at Canada's Wonderland today police were inside the park outside the park every ounce of fence was being guarded and It was just and as you can see here They even put in more cinder blocks to protect people from like cars driving up onto the paths like we've seen in You know previous attacks unfortunately around the world. There were special response units on site There were what I'm guessing. I don't know too much SWAT units there as well in epic cars and As you can tell I don't know the terminology for any of that There were police officers with large guns instead of small guns again don't know the terminology or the types of weapons that they use But on a more serious note, it's just great to see that you know We're being protected in times of need and the park took it very seriously So thank you to them as well again in my previous video at no point did I feel unsafe in fact? I felt safer than I typically do Wonderland's got great security wet their front gate the metal detectors and everything so you know, you're safe in that sense going into the park and Yeah, just it was like Definitely like the border when entering the toll booth area There were police officers posted at the the tolls and you know, they'd look into your car and talk to you Which totally is fine. I'd rather that than anything bad happening better safe than sorry and Definitely like a large groups of police officers staged in various parts around the park So at every entry point including the employee entries fenced off gates that open only for employees and even just fenced off areas making sure no one jumps the fence or anything like that and It was just great to see and I at no point again You know what the threats coming in for Toronto and Canada's Wonderland in other locations. I did not feel safe at any point Um, so this is footage from city news Toronto So definitely go check them out. I'll link it down below for you to watch the actual news story Thanks for watching guys. Give the video like and subscribe if you haven't bye


Alright, here we are. Second Timothy, chapter 3. We'll read verses 10 and 11. I'll give you an introduction, as I normally do, develop it, and then we'll move into our study here in Second Timothy as we continue our verse-by-verse approach to the book of Second Timothy. So here we are in Second Timothy 3. We'll read verses 10 and 11 and get into our study. Paul writes, and he's writing to a young pastor named Timothy, and he says to him, But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra. What persecutions I endured, and out of them all, the Lord delivered me. Now in verses 2 through 7 here in chapter 3, Paul had outlined the conditions that would characterize what we call, what Scripture speaks of as being the last days. And as we looked at that together, let me refresh your memory for a moment. Now that he had made it clear to Timothy that in the last days, perilous times would come. And that's a guarantee. The point he's making is this is a certain thing. In the last days, perilous times will come. And I was sharing with you how that the word perilous can also be translated hard to bear or dangerous. Dangerous and extremely difficult times will be the earmark he was saying of the last days. And I mentioned to you last time we were together that though the conditions spoken of have existed throughout church history, as the end approaches, they will be more intense and extensive before Jesus returns. So Paul made it clear that the last days would be hard and difficult days to live in. And it won't be just because of lack of jobs. It's not going to be because of the high cost of living or of wars or natural disasters. They're going to be perilous because of the evil that will be increasing and being normalized. You see in some ways the conditions will exist because the church has been infiltrated with deception. The fruit of false and compromised doctrine is going to begin to produce spiritual weakness in the body of Christ. We need to remember that belief produces behavior. You actually act out what you believe. It's one thing for me to say I believe something. It's another thing for me to do something. And I've mentioned more than once, I'll repeat myself because this is important to remember. That the Greeks, which as the Greek way of thinking has actually influenced us to this day, but the Greeks during the time of the writing of the New Testament believed that knowledge was the accumulation of information.  But the Jews looked at it differently. The Jews looked at knowledge as being something that transformed your behavior. So there's an entire different way of thinking. One, the accumulation of knowledge. Two, the using of knowledge, which transforms you. So information for the Jew, information is to be assimilated. It's to be taken in. So assimilation is supposed to produce transformation. So information, assimilation equals transformation because my life is going to be changed by the things I believe. And I will do those things that I believe. That's why Jesus said, why do you call me a Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? That's why we are supposed to do what we're taught. And so Paul is making it very clear that in the last days there'll be an infiltration, that there will be people who are bringing in deceptive doctrines. And the church is going to be infected by that, and thus there'll be dangerous times because the church will lose its ability to discern. They're forgetting that belief produces behavior. And it's by the manner of life that one lives that true faith will always be evidenced over time because there are those who will take the word and immediately with joy receive it, but over time they go back to their old way of living. They never were converted. They simply were for a moment entertained by the truth that they were now beginning to absorb, listen to, but never really act upon. You know, the Bible teaches us very clearly that it's by our behavior that we demonstrate whether we know God or not. In Proverbs chapter 20 verse 11 it reads, even a child is known by his deeds whether what he does is pure and right. And so we have people who here in the United States who will go through school and will take certain tests and will get certain diplomas and we walk out saying we know something, but the Jewish person would say, well, during the time of Christ would say, well, you may have information, but I don't see that it's really made any difference in your life because information is supposed to produce transformation. So Jesus made it very clear that false doctrine will come in through false teachers and you have to be aware of the fact that infiltration will take place. It is especially true during the last days. In Matthew 7 Jesus said it like this in verses 15 through 20. He said beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, and inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore he said by their fruits you will know them. So Paul is warning Timothy concerning infiltration and he's speaking to him concerning the conditions of the last days and as he had said in chapter 3 verse 1 he had said in the last days perilous times will come. In the last days the church will continue being infiltrated. Instead of the fruit of the spirit the works of the flesh will be present. So with this in mind Paul begins to exhort Timothy and he's exhorting him to remain a faithful teacher. He's saying to Timothy you are to remain firm and faithful. You're steadfast in your doctrine. You see as a genuine teacher you need to remain firm. This is what Timothy has been doing. He has remained firm. He has been steadfast and that's why Paul can write but you have carefully followed my doctrine as we read here in verse 10. When he says but you that is as distinct from the false teachers. The false teachers have not carefully followed my doctrine but Timothy you have. You are sincere.  Timothy you have been a true son in the faith a genuine disciple. You see Paul is about to die as we get to the end of the book in chapter 4 he makes it very clear that he's awaiting his departure. So in a sense Paul could be saying to him you have seen the way I have lived and Timothy the way I have lived has prepared me to die. So continue using me as your example. I taught you how to live. Now let me teach you how to die. Use me as your model. We need models by the way today don't we? We need mentors. We need people who are up there doing the thing that God has called us to do. Amen for overwhelming applause. We do we need we need examples. It's one thing to try and explain to your child. This is before Velcro and everything else and zippers and all. It was one thing to teach your child verbally how to tie their shoes. It's another thing for them to learn how to do it. And the way they learn to do that is as you taught them holding their hands or whatever you did with those strings and you taught them how to tie. It's the things that we learn. Even the most basic things are very often modeled for us. They're taught to us. I can still remember as a young boy growing up that there were a lot of models for us. What it meant to be a man. A lot of models. And that went all the way back into, well forever it was traditionally that way. My dad for example when I was a little boy would take us to drive-ins because you could get the whole family in pretty cheaply right. So we went to the drive-in quite a bit.  My brother Frank wanted to sneak into the drive-in. For some reason he thought it would be a good thing to do. And he said daddy let me sneak in. They don't know how many kids you have. You can tell them that you have just the three. Let me hide so my dad said alright. Go ahead Frankie. So my brother hides. We had a station wagon and he was hiding behind the back seat. The driver's seat. And we put a blanket over him. And so he was kind of looking towards the door actually the window. And he was down like this with a blanket over him. So I still remember rolling up. And the guy said how many sir? And my dad said two adults three children.  He pulled the blanket off of my brother. And my brother's looking up at the guy. I'll never forget that. It was hilarious.  You know why did I tell you that? Well anyway we went to the drive-in together often. And at that time be surprised or not there were still role models that were portraying certain things. Guys like the John Waynes. We say how corny right? John and Wayne are you kidding me? That guy. Well one of the things that we need to remember is that he was a symbol. He was a symbol of masculinity. He was a big man. He was six foot five. He played for USC as a football player. And he's a big, big man. And what he was for a lot of young people was a model that you could be big and strong but you didn't have to be a bully. You could be big and strong and you can still be heroic. You could still stand up for the underdog. That's something we don't have today. Somewhere along the line we changed the hero into the anti-hero. So the ones that people look at today very often are not the good people at all. They're the bad ones who get away with things. What do you think made the Godfather such a hit? It's just that the bad guys got away with doing bad things in a way that made them look like a family. It was just odd how our society was transformed where we used to have in weekly programs corny classics now but they were part of the cultural norm. You know the father knows best. Try and imagine today a show where the father actually leads. Try and imagine in a comedy because that was a comedy. Try and imagine something like that. You don't have that anymore. And see so we have undermined role models in many ways. So young people don't necessarily have the same attachment to a heroic figure who does good anymore. So we need to recapture that. I believe that the church needs to have men who are men who can be used as examples of what a man is supposed to be. That's what we Christians are to do. And that's a very real statement because a lot of the men that I know, the younger men especially, are still wondering who are they and how do they lead. Well, we had mentors. We had people who were examples. And Paul is actually pointing to himself in that way. He's about to say that you can use me as your role model. Because Paul is the one who said imitate me in so far as I imitate Christ. I am somebody that you can look at and you can use as an example. We need to remember that Christianity is not taught as a subject, though its teachings can be listed. But genuine Christianity is learned. It's modeled, but it's learned as it's lived out in John 14. Jesus said it like this in verses 21 through 24. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father. And I will love him and manifest myself to him. Judas, not a scary it, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words. And the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. Christianity is lived out and it's actually learned as you live. And there are those who model that before us to help us to see what that means. So Paul used himself as an example. And he was using himself as an example of what a believer is to do. And that's how first century rabbis actually taught their students. You see, during the time of Christ, a disciple, if an individual wanted to be a disciple, well, a disciple decided to follow a certain teacher. He would memorize his words. He learned his way of ministry, imitated his life and character, and then he became like his master. He ultimately trained up his own disciples. Paul had already said that in verse 2 of chapter 2. He said, the things that you have heard from me, among many witnesses commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. So that's how they did it in that day. He used himself as an example of what a believer is to do.  And that's what he means in verse 10 when he says, but you have carefully followed my doctrine. You have followed my teachings.  You'll see this in a moment. When he says you have carefully followed, it reveals that Timothy followed his lead. And it's one of those ways of saying that you've followed completely in the same path. You have followed my teachings carefully. You've never moved off the trail. You have traveled with me and you've served with me and you've followed me step by step. You've heard my teachings.  You've taken note of my works. So he used Paul as his example and he was very careful not to move in a different direction and that's why he said, but you have carefully followed my doctrine. You have walked step by step. My footprints were here and there and you put your feet in each one of the footprints and you didn't veer off the path. You have carefully followed me. You've followed my doctrine. So you can use me as a model in contrast to false teachers. And as you have used me as a model, you are motivated to reject their teachings and to refute them because you've seen the real thing and you can wisely reject and you can separate yourself from the false teachers. So he begins to list what Timothy has faithfully followed. Notice with me as we look at this in verse 10 and into verse 11. He says, you have carefully followed my doctrine. The word doctrine speaks of his teachings. You have not veered from the path of my teachings concerning Jesus Christ and his message. You have consistently heard my teachings and you've done so from early youth and you can see that I have not changed my message. I never made my message any different. It's always been the same message. In 2 Corinthians, when Paul was writing to the church in Corinth in chapter 2 verse 17, this is what he said to them. He said, for we are not as so many peddling the word of God but as of sincerity but as from God we speak in the sight of God in Christ. We're not as so many peddling. It means to change for personal profit. We haven't taken God's word, changed it so that we somehow may benefit personally from it. We haven't peddled God's word. He said in Galatians chapter 1 verse 8, even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you then what we have preached to you let them be accursed. You have followed carefully my doctrine. My message concerning Jesus Christ and his gospel.  You have followed the example I've laid before you, the way that I've lived, the way that I have done what I have taught. You've seen how I live amongst people. You see my priorities. Timothy, you have seen my unselfish consecration. You have seen how that I have lived a consistently devoted life. You have witnessed this firsthand. In Acts 20 verse 18, when the Ephesian elders came to Paul and he was giving last instructions to them, it says that when they had come to him, he said to them, you know from the first day that I came to Asia in what manner I always lived amongst you. If you want to teach somebody and you want to have lessons that are going to be embraced, be consistent. Live out the things that you give out and do so consistently. A third thing you have seen is my purpose. You're aware of my driving force, the driving force that has kept me faithful to the message and my mission. You know my chief aim. You've heard me say it in various ways many times. In Philippians 1, Paul said it like this, at verse 21 he said, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. He made it his aim to preach the gospel according to Romans 15-20, not where Christ was named because he said I don't want to build on another man's foundation. When he was speaking to the Philippians again in chapter 3 in verse 13 and 14, he said this, he said, brother and I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Timothy, you know my chief aim. You know my purpose, the driving force that I've remained faithful to Christ in bringing his gospel to the world. He says a fourth thing. He says you have carefully followed my faith. You have followed my faith towards God, which results in salvation and abundant life. This faith that I have towards God has assured me of salvation. It's propelled me to preach to others, and it's the message that you've embraced yourself. And you've seen that. In 1st Timothy 1.15, Paul had said, this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. A fifth thing you've seen is my long suffering. Long suffering speaks of patients, patients with people, especially those who persecuted him. Timothy saw the way he responded. A sixth thing you have seen is my love, my love for the Lord, and my love towards people in general. And that's what motivated him in his ministry. And that's what motivates you in your Christianity. It's the love for God and it's the love for others. Jesus was asked the question, what is the great commandment in the law? He said the first is love, the Lord thy God with everything in you. And the second is like unto the first, love your neighbor as yourself. You can have a theoretical love for God and that's okay, but John would say, how can you say I love God, whom you have not seen and hate your brother, whom you do see? Because Christianity is not something like, I just theoretically love that someone up there, but Christianity actually wears shoes and walks amongst people. That's why God, who is loved, took upon himself human flesh so we could see love incarnate and learn what love actually does. We do that by looking at the life of Jesus Christ. So this love motivated him. It motivated him concerning all that he did in his ministry. In 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 11 and 12, he was speaking a very open-hearted word to the Corinthians. The Corinthians had been infiltrated by false teachers who had called into question the Apostle Paul's ministry. And if you read 2 Corinthians, which is his most open-hearted letter, if you read 2 Corinthians carefully and begin to note certain things, you're going to find that Paul is actually answering accusations that have been lodged against him by the people who have infiltrated the Corinthian church. The calling into question, so many things, you can find actually 20 or 21 specific responses to accusations in 2 Corinthians. And so he was very open-hearted with his church, a church he loved very much. And in 2 Corinthians 6, 11 and 12, he said to them, O Corinthians, we have spoken openly to you. Our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections. Corinthians, I have opened my heart up, Paul was saying. I have opened my heart up to you in such a way. I have opened it so widely that I have made a room for you in it. And all I'm asking, in return, is that you make it possible for me to enter into your life. In 2 Corinthians 12, 15, he said, I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls. This is something I think is very touching, coming from the heart of Paul. I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I'm loved. Timothy, you have seen. You have seen my life. You've seen these things, and you've seen my love for the Lord. You've seen my love for others. Timothy, you've seen my perseverance, the seventh thing. Perseverance is endurance under trying circumstances. You've seen how I have held fast and haven't released my faith, abandoning it. But I've stuck it out. You've seen my perseverance. In 1 Corinthians 4, 11 through 13, he began to speak concerning what he had gone through. And he says to the present hour, we both hunger and thirst. We are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure. Being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things until now. The word off-scouring speaks of the scrapings from a pan. When you've cooked something and the residue of whatever it is that you cooked is there on the lip of the pan or is burned into the pan and you scrape it off. That's called the off-scouring. He says that's what we are in this world where the off-scouring of all things until now. But you've seen my endurance. In verse 11 he gives an eighth thing. Timothy, the persecutions you're well aware of because throughout my ministry I have experienced persecution. Again, to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11, 23 to 28 he spoke of the false apostles and he said, are they ministers of Christ?  I am more. In labors, more abundant. In stripes, above measure. In prisons, more frequently. In deaths, often. From the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes, minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I've been in the deep. In journeys, often. In perils of waters. In perils of robbers. In perils of my own countrymen. In perils of the Gentiles. In perils in the city. In perils in the wilderness. In perils in the sea. In perils among false brethren. In weariness and toil. In sleeplessness often. In hunger and thirst. In fastings often. In cold and nakedness. Besides the other things what comes upon me daily. My deep concern for all the churches. You've seen me go through this as a model. A ninth thing you've seen in verse 11. The afflictions. The pain that I've endured for the sake of Jesus. Now when he says to him in persecutions and afflictions which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and Lystra what persecutions I endured and out of them all the Lord delivered me. That would be a reference to his first missionary journey. That's where Timothy actually had been saved. He mentions these cities Antioch, Iconium and Lystra. That's where he endured persecutions. It's recorded for us in Acts chapters 13 and 14. He says you're aware of these things. But he goes on to say in verse 11 but God delivered me out of all these persecutions and afflictions. God has faithfully delivered me. He's preserved me. See Paul knew that he was invulnerable until God decided it was time to take him home. And that's how he ministered. So as he's speaking concerning all of these things he gives to us a promise that all of us can mark and put in those little promise boxes that we have and then take it out and say what is it that you have for me today Lord? And we can read verse 12. All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Thank you for your promise Lord but I think I took the wrong one. I think this is my wife's promise for the day because who wants to claim such a promise? But that's the bottom line. Those who live in fellowship with the Lord will endure hardship. That's what God teaches us. Living in a time where people are actually surprised at that that's what's amazing to me today is that we're living in a time when Christians are actually surprised that this particular verse is becoming more real to us. The world that we live in has always had persecution. We know that. But many of us who are Christians really thought only of the persecuted churches being in another land perhaps in Eastern Europe or perhaps in Southeast Asia or in the Middle East. There's obviously plenty of opportunity for persecution in various places but Americans seem to be overly surprised at what has taken place here and in fact we're gaining right now incidents of persecution. As a matter of fact it would seem to be a safe statement to make that the church is under a lot of persecution even as I speak. There are laws that are being passed here in the state of California that are extremely anti-Christian in terms of the things that we believe and teach where your children are being mandated to learn certain subjects in school and that you have to go through certain things like sex ed and all that actually are saying that particular lifestyles that the church has taught against and the Bible strictly forbids that these lifestyles are wrong.  And we as parents, we as Christians have the responsibility of reading and understanding Scripture and we train our children up in the ways of the Lord. That's what we do. And so to get around your training what happens is there are mandates, laws that are passed that state that these particular subjects must be taught to your children and you can't opt out of them. And what we have done, and I'll say this in all honesty and I think we all know this, is the church has fallen asleep in the midst of a battle and we're awakening to the fact that we gave up so much territory that it's going to be difficult to somehow gain it back. And we have opportunities to exercise rights that we have. We can vote. We can say, I'd like this person to represent me. But many Christians stay away from the ballot box. They don't even vote. They don't go to city council meetings. They don't go to school board meetings. They don't do any of that.  It happened because the church was asleep at the wheel. That's how it happens. And we need to awaken to that because our kids are being stolen right now and those of you who are parents may not realize that, but it's true. And there are certain things that are being passed right now in California state legislature that are stating that certain books cannot be sold in bookstores. If we have a testimony, a book about somebody who was homosexual and came out of homosexuality and was saved and transformed and these are the things that you can do and I have a conference. It'll happen in the future because this is already moving in this direction right now that if we were to charge attendees then we actually could be fined and it's against the law because what has happened and what is happening is speech is being now clamped down on and you can't say things that you believe out of Scripture and that is happening right now. That is happening right now. And if you look at your representatives, those that are representing California and no, I'm not making a political speech. I'm trying to be practical, speaking about salt and light and what we're supposed to do. I'm not telling you who to vote for, though I would. I'm simply saying we don't even vote. Then we get mad about the life that we're living right now and how did this happen? It happened because millions of Christians don't vote, millions don't vote. So what we end up with is people who are representing others but not representing us and they're passing laws that restrict your rights because they don't hold fast to your rights because they're anti-Christ, they're anti-Christian.  They really do. And we're seeing that today, guys. We're seeing that in our day right now where it's going to become possible for a minister like myself to be arrested for just teaching the Bible. And see, what has happened is old people like me, they don't even go after. You've got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Why are we worried about you? You're nothing. You're old, you'll be gone.  This is true. You know this, don't you? If you don't know this, learn it. They get their minds. There are high school age and college age people right now who perhaps even in this room or who will hear what I'm saying who will actually get agitated and angry because they say that's not true when in fact you have been brainwashed and to believe that there's no such thing as real truth. There's only their opinion and if I really want to know truth I have to just go to Almighty Google and He'll teach me all I need to know because I have instant information now. I never studied. I never thought. I never prayed. I never prepared. I simply wrote the words. Somebody gave me their opinion. That becomes my opinion. I don't know how to defend these things. I just know how to spout them. And in spouting them, I can get others who spout them along with me and we will march around with little signs that say ban the guns and everybody sees, oh wow, don't get mad at them and be haters because these people really see there's violence but we'll never really talk about what makes violence violent.  We never talk about that because they don't. Do they? Do they? And now am I saying, oh let's go, no, I'm just saying if you ban guns, they kill with knives. That's what they're doing in England. If you ban guns, they just use knives. Guess what? If hatred and murder is in your heart, you will find a way to kill someone because it's a heart issue and these people, I have to be careful because I'm a pastor. I'm supposed to love. But it's just... Yeah, don't stir me up because it's just real. Listen, I have four kids. I have eight grandchildren. I was a kid. I'm a human being. I know nature. I know my nature and I know that sin is wrapped up in human nature. Rebellion is in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline drives it far from them. They have to be trained to do what is right, trained to do what is wrong because they learn... I'm sorry, trained to do what is right because they're already trained to do what is wrong. They're already trained. That's their nature. So we have to train them into righteousness. They need a new nature because the old nature is hellbound. Some men's sins are real evident. You know that there is sin. Just by the way they live, look at this guy. He's a drunk. The guy's doing drugs. He beats up his wife. She goes out on her husband. Those are evident sins but there are others that are hidden. They're dressed up in suits and ties and they pass laws and they say, we look righteous when in fact you're not. We're trying to get votes for the future. We'll give all kinds of promises to people and keep them... All right, this is going to be offensive. Forgive me in advance. We will keep them our slaves. They will depend on us for everything from housing to their welfare, to their food, to their education. We will make them dependent on us. If you don't see that, that's the fact. That's what's going on and our Christian voices are being stifled. Passers like me one day will be going to jail. Raul has stated he's ready to go and I will write him when he goes. You're my hero, Raul. Don't be surprised. Stop being surprised. Jesus promised it. If you live godly, you will suffer persecution.  You name it. That's what I am to some people, but not to God. To God, I'm supposed to be a voice in the wilderness. Make way for the Lord. Make a straight path for him. That's what God has called us to do.  Don't be surprised when you suffer persecution. It's not some strange thing in 1 Peter 4, 12 and 13, the Apostle said, Beloved, do not think it's strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you. As though some strange thing happened to you, rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings. That when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. He says in verse 13, evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Evil men and imposters, notice, will grow worse and worse. It'll be a time full of peril to the Christian faith and endurance. It will be a time causing pain and trouble. Why? Because evil men and imposters, deceivers, will rise up. In the last days, evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse. They proceed from worse to worse. They will deceive, and they're even more deceived themselves. We're living in the last days. We're witnessing this. Deception enters into Christian thought, believers, and they don't even recognize it. Let me use an old example, something that occurred years ago now when Mitch Romney was running for president. He had given a speech at the George Bush Presidential Library, and this is something Mitch Romney said. He said, there is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? Then he gave his answer. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism, but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree. So the fundamental question, what do you believe about Jesus Christ? His answer, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Savior of mankind. Now, many Christians would say so, do I? A certain well-known teacher was asked, are Mormons Christians? And he said, they believe Jesus Christ is their Savior, therefore they must be. Is that true? He pastors one of the largest churches in the United States. I won't mention Joel Osteen by name. It's something you could have read yourself. I'm not gossiping about him. But in Mormonism, Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer. In Mormonism, God has a physical body. In Mormonism, people exist as spirits before being born so that they can be exalted as gods and have their own planets. In Mormonism, Jesus is a God amongst other gods. And in Mormonism, the Bible is not a complete revelation. Do you believe those things? No, why don't you? Because the Scriptures teach against those things. You see? And many who profess Christ get upset when they hear somebody like me point those things out.  Yes, I am. Yes, I am.  I'm supposed to have discernment. Jesus said, judge righteous judgment and you do that through the Word of God. And so if these things are not so, they ought to be stated. And these things are not so. But Paul, when he was speaking to the Ephesian elders, said this in Acts 20, verse 29. He said, I know this, that after my departing shall Grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. In Galatians 1, 6 through 9, Paul said, I'm shocked that you are turning away so soon from God who in his love and mercy called you to share the eternal life he gives through Christ. He went on to say you are already following a different way that pretends to be the good news. But it's not the good news at all. You are being fooled by those who twist and change the truth concerning Christ. Let God's curse fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other message than the one we told you about. Even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed. I will say it again. If anyone preaches any other gospel than the one you welcome, let God's curse fall upon that person. That's Scripture. How did Mormonism start? The angel, Moroni. How did Islam start? They claimed Gabriel gave Muhammad revelation. He said even if an angel from heaven comes and gives a different gospel, let him be anathema. Let him be a curse. That's Scripture. That's not some angry old man in a pulpit. That's the Word of God. And that's what Paul is speaking about. The remedy to deception. Study God's Word regularly, systematically. Jesus said, going to the world, preach the gospel, command them to obey everything I have told you. In Acts 20, Paul said in verse 27, I have not shunned to declare to you all the counsel of God. You see, when pastors fail to teach the whole counsel, people are not equipped to discern error because the Word of God gives us ability to discern and to resist deception. So he says in verse 14, you, but you must continue in the things which you've learned and been assured of knowing from whom you have learned them. Continue to believe, Timothy. Continue to obey. Continue to teach these things as a faithful minister. Abide faithfully in the teachings of God's Word. You have not only learned, but you have been assured of these things. So you confidently cling to the truth in a personal way. You have been set free by the truth. And in verse 14, know from whom you learned them. You had a mother named Lois. You had a grandmother named Eunice.  You have a chain of faith to lean on. They prepared the soil of your heart for the gospel to be planted. They prepared you for the struggles that you would encounter. And I've been an example of one who overcomes. And your training that you've received prepared you to trust the message. Here's something for us as parents and grandparents. It's found in Proverbs 226. It's a very famous scripture. All of us have heard it. Train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. Make that your goal. Listen, and I'll say this. This is something that people get mad at.  I've been ministering in this particular church for almost 37 years. I've encountered many people you can imagine over the years. I've known people who have come and gone. I'm not somebody who puts a chain on someone and says, please stay. If someone is led by the Spirit to move on, God bless them as they go. I minister to those who are here. That's what I do. But at the same time, that doesn't mean I don't notice. Over the years, more than once, I've had conversations with people when I say, are you going to be in a church? I haven't seen you in a couple of weeks. Oh, I've been real busy. Are you going to be the midweek? Well, you know, I'm real busy. Really? What do you do? Well, my son plays soccer. Well, my daughter is playing softball. And so we have tourneys. We have to travel to Arizona, Nevada, whatever, and we have tournaments. And I say, oh, really? Yeah. And so they'll put their life into the children's recreation. And then when the child is 16, 17, 18 straight away, wants nothing to do with church, they get upset, they speak to me. I don't get it. What happened? Well, what happened is you said to them that sports was more important than salvation, that their future really was in their fun, and you never taught them that some things are learned with repetition, especially spiritual things, because the world is at war, because guess what? The world doesn't take a vacation. The world doesn't go out for recreation. The world is constantly opposed to the things of God. It's an onslaught. It's a wave that continues one after another. And instead of us preparing our children for life by being prepared ourselves, we send them out on a little rowboat of sports or whatever, and we say, I know you'll survive. And then when they go to college, should they go? And we say, we just want them to have a good education. The first thing they encounter will be professors who hate Christ and will pour into them their statistics and their opinions in their class. And within a year, that child comes back saying, I don't really believe anymore. Well, in fact, they probably never really did, because the parent never really did that much themselves. Be careful. You train up a child in the way you should go. That means you spend special effort. And you minister to them in the way of their personality, the direction that they're moving. And you find a way in the Lord how to direct their footsteps, because listen, the very end, the only thing you leave behind is your children, if you have them, your reputation, your legacy. My legacy is not this church. My legacy is my family. My legacy is my daughters, my sons, my eight grandchildren. That's my legacy. I'm hoping for more grandchildren. That's my legacy. What matters isn't that papa. They call me papa. Isn't that papa pastor to church? What matters is that papa loved Jesus. And that's what brings them to their trials. And papa loved the Lord in his word. I'm telling you, some aren't hearing me, but it's true. He says in verse 15, from infancy, from childhood, you have been taught the word. Your education was God-centered. You learned the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, according to Proverbs 1.7. Your mother knew that you were sinful from birth and needed to be directed, according to Psalm 51 verse 5. And because she loved you, she nurtured you in the ways of the Lord. The soil of your heart was prepared. The seed of the word produced salvation. And so how do we handle the persecution? He closes in verses 16 and 17, which really are a study in themselves that I'll just put together in a couple of minutes. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. Notice he says all scripture. All scripture as distinct from simply Old Testament writings. You see, during this period, the entire New Testament writings had not been collected. The recognition of the 27 New Testament books had yet to occur. The official gathering and recognizing of what is called New Testament canon did not occur until the Council of Hippo. The Council of Hippo was a council filled with real large men. It's in, I'm sorry, it was in modern Algeria and that took place in AD 393. And it was again recognized at the Council of Carthage or in Tunisia in 397. Now prior to these dates, the Old and New Testaments were recognized as inspired. First Timothy 5.18, the scripture says, do not muzzle the ox while it's treading out the grain and the worker deserves his wages. Well, when he says the scripture says in First Timothy 5.18, he's combining an Old Testament scripture, Deuteronomy 25.4 with the New Testament scripture, Luke 10.7. And so the Old and New Testaments were recognized as inspired. And the apostles themselves recognized their writings as authoritative as well as inspired. Authoritative Colossians 4.16, after this letter has been read to you, see that it is read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. Inspired, 2 Peter 3.16 says concerning Paul, Peter writes, he writes the same way in all his letters speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort as they do the other scriptures to their own destruction. So Paul speaks concerning that the scriptures are inspired. Inspiration literally means God breathed. Scripture owes its origin to the breath of God. It's an outpouring of God's life to man. In 2 Peter 1.20 and 21, the apostles said above all, you must understand that no prophecy as Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. It's inspired and it's profitable. It teaches when it says that it's profitable for teaching. Teaching speaks of provoking us to learn. It informs us about God and Jesus. He said it's profitable for rebuking. That means to correct error in understanding of Scripture or behavior. He says it's profitable for correcting. Which speaks of actually restoring someone to a right relationship with God. And it's profitable for training because by yielding to it and practicing it, you develop understanding. And the result for 17, that the man of God would be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Doctrine and example keep us strong in times of opposition and persecution. It is not simply Christians getting mad and Christians simply marching. It's in Christians actually living what God called them to live and being used as salt and used as light in this decaying and darkened world. Being willing to speak when nobody else will. Being willing to stand when everybody else falls. Being willing to hold fast when everybody else walks away. Be willing to be counted when other people desert. Here I am, said Martin Luther. Unless I can be refuted by Scripture and logic, I cannot, I will not recant. Here I stand. And I really believe that the church needs to take those words to heart today. Here I stand. Having done all, I will stand. Victorious in Jesus Christ because he is Lord. He is Savior and he transforms lives. So here we stand.


Thank you. So hi, I'm Karla Fribli. I'm academic technologies and seminaries librarian at Erlum College in Richmond, Indiana. Erlum is a small liberal arts college, and I'm the both a librarian, but I'm also the frontline Moodle support on my campus. So before I get started though, I Feel like we might all need a little bit of a spa moment. Okay, so maybe you're thinking about your choices Thinking about staying a little bit late last night at the with the open bar Maybe you're thinking twice about that second piece of key lime pie this morning So I'd like to give everyone a chance to center themselves and honor of our spa theme talk Can I get an oh Okay, well at least you're all now staring at me mostly so I'm going to be talking about promoting Moodle with massages running a spa themed faculty training So I'm curious How many of you have or currently offer workshops or training to your users or faculty? Okay, that's a good bit of you. How many of you have perhaps been Underwhelmed by the number of attendees or participation Okay, yeah, it happens How many of you would prefer to get involved at the design phase with your Faculty or instructors rather than reacting mid-semester to something crazy that they came up with that really isn't going to work out Okay, so I'm going to talk about a workshop model that We use that actually addresses all of those needs the model is a program called a course design spa and it's a I've offered it now at two different institutions that I've been at highly successful We typically have a wait list for this event where we actually have to turn the faculty away So if you're looking for a highly successful and highly popular model, this could be one that you use So how does it work? Course design spa. This is a one-day event that we plan and If you work with faculty or teachers or humans If you ask them something that they're always lacking something that often is missing is enough time So there's not enough time to do all the things they might want to sit down and talk with you But there are many competing things going on So this event is designed to literally give the gift of time The course design spa falls we usually schedule it a week or two before the semester begins And it's an open work day So we actually stole the idea from a writer's retreat that we used to run for faculty where It's a chance to just come in and focus on one thing forget about all those other things that you have going on in your life and focus on in this case course design so We invite faculty to come in work on their courses and then We coordinate and get lots of different support folks from around the campus to offer consultations. So we have Folks available to talk about instructional technology folks from the Campus Teaching Center folks from the library Disability services diversity and inclusion all of these folks come in and because of the spa they offer treatments basically consultations and conversations Continuing in the vein of the cheesy spa theme. We also Hire license massage therapists to come in and they offer 15 minute chair massages throughout the day kind of to sweeten the deal So I mentioned the cheesy spa language the the image that's on the screen there is Actually, one of my colleagues created a spot treatments brochure. So this offers the different types of help that you might be able to receive including Assignment exfoliation Things like that So it's a little silly, but embracing that theme actually gets people excited about the event I'm pleased to offer what I think is the second reference to choose your own adventure books from the conference But the whole day is actually structured as a choose your own adventure kind of day So what's nice about it from a planner is that I don't have to try to guess what's going to be Interesting to people when once they show up they can kind of decide how they want to structure the day So how does that work? We have them we have the faculty register in advance So they fill out a form saying that they're going to come We ask them a few questions about what they're going to be working on There's a little some tick boxes where they can express the kinds of help that they think they might be interested in But then when they come in The really the only structured part of the day is the introductions at the start of the day, so faculty come to the event and the different consultants offer Quick 30 to 60 second introduction and say this is who I am. This is how I might be able to help you So from there they can decide how they want to structure the day To enable that this is the piece of technology that we use to help faculty structure their days Yes, it's a giant whiteboard so For the giant whiteboard that we have the I know it's impossible to read from where you're sitting, but there are the column on the left lists all the different types of help that faculty might be able to get throughout the day whether it's instructional technology help or Librarian help and then the different columns are time blocks so they can sign up for oh I want to get help from this person at 11 Then I'm gonna sign up for this other thing at 12 15. It's helpful I think for both the participants to kind of plan out their day, but also it helps the consultants know Who they're gonna be working with when? So one of the examples on here The a participant named Dave for example he Signed up. He met first with somebody from the Office of Diversity and Inclusion talking about Issues within his classroom and then he moved from there at 11 15 to talking with the librarian about a research assignment and Then after that he had 1145 talked with somebody about the learning management system and how he could integrate that for a particular assignment Took a lunch break then actually worked on his own for a couple of hours before having an additional appointment in the afternoon So that was just how he chose to structure the day. I'd say on average faculty Sign up for maybe three to four Assignment or consultations of some type. So I've talked a little bit about how it works logistically But now I want to go into why this works. So I mentioned I've now done this Two different institutions. I know of Seven or eight different other schools that have launched their own versions So I think all together I've run about ten of these And I mentioned before that this is an event that we actually have a wait list for so if you ever are having Trouble getting people to attend something. This is something that we don't have to Lure them into attending. It's it's pretty popular So why from the faculty member faculty members perspective does this work? I already mentioned that it helps them carve out time, right? If you look at surveys of Higher education faculty at least that's Something that they never feel like they have enough of if you look at the number of hours a week per week that they're working They're actually working longer than their predecessors did 20 years ago So this actually Capitalizes on that need for time It also helps create a space where they can learn from each other. So You know again connecting to that lack of time They might think that they'd like might like to talk with other faculty about their teaching But it's hard to find this time and space for that. So this creates a space where they can do that Timing wise it also falls at a time When they're looking for this kind of information, so I'll share an example I mentioned that I know of seven or eight other institutions that have started running these since I Since we started talking about the idea So I had a colleague or I won't say what institution she was at but they Launched one of these at her institution and she was really excited to tell me that they're gonna be doing it So time passed next time I saw her I said, oh, hey, how did your course design spa go? She said oh Well, we only get it got a few sign-ups. So we ended up having to cancel it and I said oh no That's terrible. So I started getting more information from her and it turns out that they had tried to hold it in May immediately after classes had finished on her campus Which Emotionally physically that's not a time unfortunately when most faculty are ready to think about what's gonna happen next fall So when you're scheduling your events think about when's the best time for me to be trying to reach them When is this gonna be of most interest to them? Connected to that and understanding your users and what motivates them This is not marketed as a learn-about moodle day It might break our hearts that that's not the the hook that's gonna draw them in the door, but Framing it as a Time-saver for them and also something fun. I mean I may not be persuaded to come to an open work day But I might be persuaded to come to a spa day, right? So thinking about what might motivate your users So that's the piece as far as why it works for faculty and I'll go briefly into why it works for me as a Somebody that does faculty development and also campus partners that I work with so the biggest one is that it's pretty easy To partner with others on this kind of event So, you know, you could have seven or eight different departments that all are helping you out with this event And what you're asking from them is pretty minimal They for the most part just have to show up and they have easy access to talk with the faculty in-depth about their courses Without having to prepare a lot It is Something where you can get in at that design phase rather than trying to react to something later Or rather trying to get their attention Further down the line and last but not least it is a pretty cheap event to run So not to ignore that piece if you get enough sponsoring departments This is something where you each chip in a couple hundred bucks. It actually only costs Three or four hundred dollars for the massage therapist. So if you get enough sponsoring departments to work with you on this It's pretty cheap for everybody. So I've done enough of these now that There are some things that we've learned. I think it's sort of an iterative process where we change it every every time try something new one of the things that we Figured out from feedback pretty early on so we ask faculty and also the participating consultants to always fill out an evaluation form where they Share some information about their experience and one thing we heard a lot at first from faculty is that they really wanted more chances to Structured opportunities to talk with other faculty about teaching. So we got them all in that space But they needed a little bit of help Having those conversations with each other. So we switched Our we had lots of one-on-one conversations throughout the day we actually switched some of those into group sessions so rather than coming to me to Talk individually about something they might want to try to do in Moodle We switched that to a group session where we would all be talking about some kind of shared topic or where people would bring in their Questions and talk about it as a group Similarly in that same vein of creating structured spaces where collaboration and conversation could happen We something simple. We just switched to having a fixed lunch break. So everyone was forced to kind of stop and Stop what they were doing and talk with others and that helped read some more collaboration That's not to say that we've gotten everything right there's There's always something that I'm trying to figure out with this event. So one of the big ones for me is trying to figure out How this kind of event How we can reach distance faculty or faculty that may not be able to come to our Event we've tried different things like Streaming certain sessions or taking those one-on-one conversations and offering them over zoom or Skype or what have you and It hasn't really clicked yet. So there you know, you'll get a person that signs up for those kinds of things But so far that's something that we're kind of still figuring out Also with your something small that with a campus partner We had our Counseling center who wanted to participate and offer consultations. So they came and they were ready They were excited to talk to faculty about mental health issues on the campus and how they can navigate tricky situations in the classroom They are there all day and not a single person talked to them So, you're not always going to get everything right one of the things we did for that Campus partner is to actually switch from having them to be there the whole day to just give them a two-hour time block where they were there and one of those sessions was a group session so to kind of Hopefully enable Or and make it a little bit easier for them to participate. So I Think I'll stop there as we inch closer to lunch I'm happy to take questions now if this is something that you'd like to know more about I wrote an article about this a couple years ago So if it's something that you want to read more about or share it with other folks that on your campuses, there's a I'm a librarian. So there's a nice citation there for you But yeah, if you do end up offering one of these at your own campus, I would love to hear about it inevitably you will have some Magnificent ideal of idea that I would like to steal. So please do share if you end up doing one of these Another than that. I'll open it up to questions. Yeah What idea so the question is what ideas have instructors given me For the future So I mentioned building in more spaces for conversation among each other Sometimes it's just seeing the kinds of things that they're interesting and so one of the surprising things So Instructors or faculty often grumble about how their students have poor time management skills But in general humans have poor time management skills so one of the surprising things that was really has been really really popular are The folks that run our writing center They also they offer time management sessions for students where they can sit down with them and help them Map out the semester and figure out when they're gonna submit stuff. That was actually really popular with faculty. So Even you think that adults figure these things out magically But that was an area where a lot of faculty were really interested in sitting down with another person and men mapping out their Semester and figuring out how they can balance assignments and due dates and things like that. So So the question was about what physical space do we use? So both times that I've run these we we hold it in our campus library So if you're not friends with your librarians Time to become friends And it's a mix so for most of the individual conversations They'll just happen in a different Corners of the room. There are some folks that So for example our Office of Diversity and Inclusion sometimes they have conversations that can be It's helpful to have a private space for them So we do have some study rooms that we use for some kinds of conversations also the chair massages We have those in a private room because nobody wants to get Touched in front of a lot of other people. So Well, most people don't So yeah, it kind of depends on the space that you're using but Also for the group sessions we that's nice to have an enclosed space so that the sound just doesn't carry everywhere so think about the types of conversations that are going to be having and that the people will be having and then structure the Spaces around that Yeah, so the question is about waiting list how we decide for At my last institution it was sort of we noticed that there was most interest in Instructional technology help and also our teaching center teaching consultant help and we only had a certain number of those folks so we Based on the space size and also just how much support we thought we could really offer Since those were the slots that tended to tended to fill up first. We would cap it at 35 But that's gonna depend on your staffing and what you feel like you can manage So I think I'm at time. I am happy to answer more questions later. So come find me If you have them and other otherwise, thank you for your time