40 Burst results for "Seminars"
The Plant Movement Podcast
We're Digging Deep Into Nasir Acikgoz's Journey to the American Dream
"So talk to me you're you are from Turkey that you were telling me I'm from Turkey originally. How did you end up here? Well Right after college finishing undergraduate undergrad in Turkey in electronics engineering. Okay, I talked to my father You know father I said, you know, I just want to go to America United States. He said to me Okay, but why United States you want to learn English? Yes, I want to learn English, but there's England here, huh? Right here three hours away. Why do you want to go all the way to 12 hours with plane? I said, I love the American culture I left the American, you know American dream the the colleges their lifestyle and this was all in the this was in the 1996 okay when I graduated from my from college and I graduate college a little bit earlier I was nineteen nineteen and a half years. Wow. Yes, man. Thank you. I Started going to school like five and a half years old because they had that like a program there different programs at that time They allowed kids to to be the first graders. Yeah to accelerate. Yeah, I took advantage of that and Thank God I passed all the grades, you know, I never missed anything. So as a matter of fact, I'm a third year of college I told my dad this, you know, hey, I want to go to the United States, please, you know, would you will you support me? He's so what you told me Whatever you do son. I'm gonna support you. Mm -hmm. So right after college I started applying to college. I mean the you know, yeah colleges for MBA program Okay, because I said I want to do MBA. I want to do master's in business administration If you ask me why because it was the hit thing in Turkey at that time if you have your Engineering background. I mean undergrad and then you have the MBA all the companies all the corporate guys, you know They want you and especially from the United States, you know the MBA so I had two friends in Orlando Back then and I applied other states as well And one of the guys in Orlando called me, you know, he said look Nasir I know you're applying to other states. We have the house here. We have you know, the dorms everything Yeah, the dorms and everything and and we know people in the college will help you out and we love you come over We'll hang out, you know first I was hesitant I said, you know, I'm gonna go there instead of learning English right away And now we're gonna be hanging out Turkish people, you know, so I had that doubt Yeah, from my town, yes, we know their families my dad knows their dads and but my father told me look It's better to know someone there when you start off and then you don't like it you move somewhere else It's easy, you know easier. It breaks the ice. It breaks the ice So I said, okay, so they send me the application from it's called seminal community college. Okay, it's where the Seminoles India All speakers English all like, you know, and you didn't know any English at this point very very little you speak it Very well. Yeah, I practiced there so much, you know, they applied to college community college. I said, oh, it's a community college It's not a it's not a university and my friends told me look, you know, it's this little college close by to our house It doesn't matter if you call you you're just gonna learn English and here there's no Turkish people only there were some Latins like Puerto Ricans. Yeah, a lot of Puerto Ricans. You're in Orlando. Yeah, that's the Puerto Rican capital. Puerto Rican capital. Yes Back then it was like this 1996 1997. So I loved the idea. I said, okay, no problem So we I applied and they said, okay, no problem. You can start the English as a second language program. I started going there Yes, I was the only Turkish guy. So I had no option but to learn the language So I loved it. So I said, you know what? I'm just gonna stay here I'm not gonna move anywhere else and I started getting to know people Okay I had I met a lot of people there and we started hanging out even though our English all of our our English were a Little bit, you know, like it's off. Yeah, but still with hand gestures with moves and stuff like that You you manage you manage to engage So I finished English as a second language course, then I applied to UCF University of Santa, Florida Okay for the MBA program they accepted me, but they said I need to take a lot of prerequisite courses and I said, okay, and they gave me a list. It was like 12 courses I said, wow, it's too much and I gave you my transcripts guys, you know, I'm an I'm an engineer I mean, but they said hey, you didn't take financial accounting. You didn't take managerial accounting They saw me like economics macro economics micro economics all these courses, you know, you know, and they said You know, you have to take them, okay, so I don't want to say I lost another year year and a half No, you felt like it I felt like it at first but then I appreciate it because that taught me a lot because you're learning the fundamental of Economics financials actually the courses that I took financial and managerial accounting courses They teach you how to read your balance sheet of the company, which is great A lot of people are clueless to that exactly and I actually I'm doing my old balance sheets PNLs That's awesome. I'm looking at every month and I'm kind of you know Looking through it, even though my CPA looks at it almost every month But when he talks about something I already know or you already know So that's why I was like that time out to me like oh my god I'm gonna lose another one year and a half two years, but it ended up working out working out for me so I started MBA program right after I finished it and Study administration business administration, so you studied what you wanted to study when you were with your dad Yes telling them this is what I want to do exactly, okay One little detail I left off before before I got into UCF the first year when I was in seminar community college My roommate told me hey, let's apply for a green card lottery. Oh, I said, what is that? I'm like lottery also is we're gonna win money is like no it's it's called green card lottery I still didn't understand the concept and he told me look you're gonna apply a lot of people are applying and they Pick you and if you they pick you you can stay in this country and you get the residency Okay, I'm like you're kidding for me to get my student visa I have to go through so much so much and they're just gonna give me my green card and that's it over like, you know Yeah, that easy. It's like yes, that's easy. I'm like Let's apply. Let's apply and I'm thinking welcome to the United States. Welcome to American dream.
The Hobo CEO
Fresh update on "seminars" discussed on The Hobo CEO
"So from the age of zero to seven, we code in our belief systems. And those systems, if you think about it, the people that you're hanging out with is your parents. Now, in traditional family systems, the breadwinner is usually dad, right? Or the male figure of the family. And so we code in the systems based on dad and his belief systems around money. Now, mums are in there. They're definitely in there. And we need to be aware of them and aware of who we pattern into with our families and to keep it very basic. Generally, if you're first born, you pattern into dad, second born, mom, third born. I think it's back to dad. And then the fourth, it's a bit of a mixed bag. So with money and your mindset around money, you need to do an exercise, really. And if you want to just pause the podcast as you're listening. But this exercise is basically just write down all of those messages that you got. Was it, you know, money doesn't grow on trees or we never have enough. Or my husband came from poverty and in America and was on food stamps for a while when he was very, very young. And he was fine. Their family was fine as they got older. But when he was, and again, we code those systems in, right? And food stamps, they never had enough food. He's kind of a food hoarder now. Not hoarding, sorry. Just, you know, you know, there's some people out there that will feed a family and have leftovers and stuff. Curtis feeds to the point of everyone being fed, no leftovers. It's really sort of very controlled and structured and stuff. We feed our family, then there's so many leftovers. It's terrible. Oh, no, he would love your family. He'd come and eat the leftovers. That's the Italian in us. Yeah, exactly. So he's very structured in his food. You don't waste food. And a lot of people that went through the war, you know, our grandmothers and things like that have that same mentality. Anyway, that was a sidebar. But this is the system we code in. So, for example, Shay, the messages that you got around from Let's Start With Your Dad, what were they? They were, we never had any money. We wore plastic sandals to school and we had to walk 50 kilometres a day to get to school. He never talked so much about money, just that they didn't have any. And he's always said, oh, we don't have enough money. So all the messages, we can't afford that. We don't have enough money. That's too much. That sort of stuff. Yeah. And also, Mum controlled all the money. Like she managed it all. And I don't know whether that's because Dad's dyslexic, but Mum oversaw everything. So Dad kind of, he wasn't really attached to his money. It just went to Mum and Mum managed the household. Now Mum's not here. Dad's got to learn how to do everything really from scratch, even to how to use the computer. And now he's obsessed with Marketplace. But Mum kind of managed everything. But because Dad was self-employed, I remember going to the dole office with him during the recession and Mum counting coins to put petrol in the car so we could go to school. So we didn't grow up with a huge amount of money. But Mum came from a middle class, very middle class family. And so it was very, they were two very contrasting ways of looking at money. Yeah. It's extremely hard working. Okay. They were extremely hard working, but never made any money. No, Dad was very bad at business. And that's because he didn't know how to run a business. And his dyslexia, I think, played into that a lot. Well, he didn't like to look at money, right? So what was your granddaddy, your Dad's Dad like? Do you know? They were poor. They were also poor. Interesting. What did he do? They've all been carpenters, but they moved around a lot because my grandfather wasn't a very, he would rip people off. And so my Dad would get sucked into those type of scenarios where people would rip him off as well. So that was always challenging. And then my Dad's Mum's side, they were Japanese. So they were interned during World War Two. And then after the war, they were left on the side of the road with a tent and six children and no money. So it's deep. It's deep trauma, deep, deep money, belief issues that have come down or belief systems that have come down through your family. So they say in NLP, in a family of thieves, the one who does not steal feels guilt. OK, so our biggest thing when we're very, very young is to fit into our family because it's a basic survival technique. OK, and we code all sorts of weird things in. And there's the odd person that breaks out of that family system. But it is some it's kind of rare. And in many cases, it needs to be a conscious thing. So unconsciously, the one that does not steal. So if your family's full of thieves and a bit like, you know, your Dad's dodgy Dad and he probably was fighting against being dodgy his whole life or maybe doing the opposite of that, but still attracting dodgy people into his life and things like that. So it really is interesting to look back in our history and even talk to our parents about what they thought their parents money beliefs were and sort of the messages and the things that they know about your grandparents, if you obviously can speak with them. If not, you just do your best. So knowing that you've coded in to your system, it's so it's really hard coming back to the family. The one that does not steal feels guilt when we start to even in certain systems, when you start to earn money and you start to see success, which is what is happening with you Jay, you need to be very mindful of self-sabotage. So because unless you've worked on those systems and deconstructing them or changing the beliefs that you've coded in around your family and that it's okay to be wealthy because wealthy people can be philanthropic, they can, you know, would you agree that wealthy people have a better chance of changing the world than poor people? Definitely. Because while we're poor, we're struggling, while we're struggling, we're in that fight or we're in the basic needs kind of lowest level of and we're just trying to put food on the table and keep our family safe, right? So there's no room or capacity to, you know, be an activist, to donate money, to put money towards a cause that you don't have to do at all, but you can at least, you know, so gaining that kind of wealth and influence can actually make a bigger difference than staying struggling and staying poor. So, yeah, the first thing you need to identify is the belief system around your family, because more often than not, you're running the same system. And once we identify this, and sometimes it's super obvious to people, but most times they're like, because they don't want to be their parents when it comes to things like that. But you've probably married a similar version to mum or dad. And it might be that all the good points of mum or dad or it might be all like, my dad is a bit cheap, so is my husband. What the hell? Yeah, so, I mean, I look at him sometimes and I think, oh, that's the aspect of my mother that I've married. And so as we do more and more work on ourselves too, we start attracting the right parts of our parents into our life or the parts that are nurturing and help us to feel safe and whole. And hopefully not so much of the wrong parts that you're trying to heal. And anyway, that's a subject we can dive into another time. So the money beliefs. So we have this fabulous exercise in Fempreneur where you literally go into a therapy session with money to uncover the underlying belief systems that you have with money. And it can be pretty transformational. Would you agree, Jo? Yes, that's what stuck in my head. And that's when I went away and started reflecting on my parents. And my sister always said, I'm never going to live like we grew up. And she hasn't. She is extremely wealthy and her family, her nucleus is very, very wealthy. And she just had that mindset of, I'm never going to be like that. I will not steal. Yeah, she's like, in fact, she did the opposite. Yeah. And there are people out there that use that as motivation to never. And that was obviously something deep inside her that she probably coded in as a child. She saw their baby, she saw the poverty, she hated it. And she decided that that was never going to be her reality. And there you go. It was just a deep inherent instinct that she developed within herself, which I guess moves us to that in a way to that. So how do you uncoat once you, the biggest thing, Shay, is recognising your patterns. That's the hardest because they're really buried sometimes. We think it's one thing and then suddenly something else comes up and we're like, oh, OK, this is me. You know, your dad is, I always ignored money because maybe money felt like something dodgy to me, something that wasn't earned, but it was stolen. It was the thieves, right? So your dad perhaps didn't like focusing on money because he equated that with something that wasn't, you know, right. Who knows? I can't uncover that for him. And then because of that, it comes to the relationship with your parent generally, not just their belief system, but the relationship with your parent. So, yeah, once you've uncovered some of those beliefs, it's about then moving towards changing those beliefs. Changing your mindset and putting things in place that can help you to overcome that belief system. And some of it is kind of what you've done, which is surround yourself with people that believe different things and start to believe what they believe or start to work on believing what they believe. Now, this is working with, you know, therapists or specifically there's money therapists out there or, you know, people who are fantastic at NLP or, you know, even spiritual healers, reiki healers, things like that. You can start exploring that. I went through a year of spiritual change where I was like, no matter what comes up, I'm going to go find a spiritual solution for this. And that really helped me to just start uncovering and pulling back the layers and seeing, peeling back the onion without using traditional. I just decided I was going to do it differently. Even just mantras and recognising what you're thinking and actively changing those thoughts is just a simple step. But you've got to recognise it's there first. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, and it was through doing that section of the training that I started to, like I say to Daniel now, I don't want to be like my mum, taking money here to pay for that. And then I don't want to live like that. And so just acknowledging how we used to live and how some of those patterns have occurred in our life. But also when Daniel says, oh, we don't have any money. I go, actually, yes, we do. And then when I come to him, we go, oh, we've got no money. He says, Shay, yes, we do. So that's been good too, because we've been able to bounce off each other. And when those older habits are coming back in, like we'll sit down and say, well, actually, we've got a roof over our heads. We pay all our bills, we're doing this, we're doing this. A lot of people can't do what we're doing. And so we sit down together and reflect. And that's actually been really helpful as well. But everything I've learnt, it's really helpful. And everything I've learnt through the program, I take back to him and say, well, actually, we need to start practising saying this or showing my whiteboard with the financial goals. And he says, OK, so we're kind of on the same track. So there's little things we're putting in place to improve our money mindset and also just not, I don't want to pass that on to my daughter. So the first thing that I always say, as you know, is clean it up so your kids don't inherit it. Right. So that is clean it up in yourself so it doesn't get passed on. And if you can do the work pre-children, great. But most of us didn't, me included. But I do believe energetically it does flow down the line to a degree. And then also, if she can see you do, she begins to believe it. So the first probably thing, because people are going to be like, OK, I get this all the time. OK, the money, that's great. So I've worked out what my problem is. How do I change it? And that was beautiful. What you said is get into the grateful. So really thinking about, and I say at a lot of our seminars and stuff, right, look around you. You live in the first world. You're in the top half percent of one of the luckiest humans on the planet. Most of you would have a roof over your head, would not be starving, would be able to get a meal for yourself, because most girls, our events are at least at that place. And you live in one of the luckiest countries in the world, whether that be Australia or the US or UK. I mean, the health services, and I know the US has the problems, but really, if you need help, you can get it. We really are so, you know, first world problems, right? We're conditioned to believe that we should always want more, more, more, more, more. Fine, fine. But work out what feels right for you and then move towards that. In a real genuine way. So start first through just being grateful for where you are right now and what you do have. Like you said, your husband, you will literally sit down and be like, actually, we can afford that and we choose not to. So what I've often said to my husband, who's likes to say we can't, used to like, used to like to say we can't afford that or whatever, when we bloody well could, because I was making a lot of money, it's just conditioning, right? So it would be, we can, we choose not to, we can, but we choose not to. It's something that we don't want to do right now, or we choose to save instead. Or if it was something that we really, and this is back in the day before all the wealth and the rest of it. But if it was something that we wanted, we would focus on finding a way to get the money to make it happen. You know, so I had to be very careful of not sabotaging my success, especially in the start. Very careful, I'd make money and I'd get rid of it. I don't know if you've been through that where you make a lot of money, I would make a lot of money and then somehow I would get rid of it. And even energetically get rid of it. So a huge bill somewhere would come in and I'd be like, what the hell? I've just started making money and this huge bill has come in. So you really do, it's not just on a mental level, the mental level changes your energy, but you also, I believe, have to clean it up at an energetic kind of vibrational level. And I'm a bit spiritual and woo-woo like that. Actually, I'm a lot spiritual and woo-woo like that. So ask me because you don't come across as spiritual and woo-woo or at all.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from POA12 Aids in the Battle Put On The Armor A Manual for Spiritual Warfare w/ Dr. Paul Thigpen Ph.D. Discerning Hearts Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com, in cooperation with TAN Books, presents Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. Dr. Thickepen is an internationally known speaker, bestselling author, and award -winning journalist who has published 43 books in a wide variety of genres and subjects, including The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to End Times Fever, and The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, the book on which this series is based. In 2008, Dr. Thickepen was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to their National Advisory Council. He has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently in Catholic and secular media broadcasts and at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings. Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor.
WTOP 24 Hour News
Fresh update on "seminars" discussed on WTOP 24 Hour News
"Ashburn still at 49 and we're brought to you by Mervis Diamond Importers. Mervis means diamonds for the best quality and value. Nobody beats Mervis Diamonds. Visit Mervisdiamond Diamonds dot com. Still ahead on WTOP all sorts of things to do for the holiday things kick off this weekend also got some 80s music for Gen Xers. We'll check it all out at 651. doing business is a pleasure with a pallet barrel starch drive an automotive treasure get in your own garage for over 40 years Fair Oaks has believed lower prices and higher standards should be the norm I'm Melanie Funkhouser president of Fair Oaks right now get up to 20 % off in stock 23 Ram 1500 Sea dealer for details. Fair Oaks Chrysler Jeep Dodge and Ram online at Fair Oaks Motors dot com. Are you short on time but not on ambition University of Maryland global campus can help start by transferring up to 90 from previous coursework military or work experience and apply them towards a bachelor's degree plus our 100 % online and hybrid courses affordable tuition and personal advising helps ensure adults working like you have every opportunity to reach your goals now's the time to succeed again learn more at U M G C dot EDU certified to operate by Chevy. Ah tis the season to think selling about your home this is Dave Johnson and to start you connect with Jennifer Young, Jennifer Young Homes on Wednesday December 6, 630 another seller seminar online at
Awards Chatter
A highlight from 15 Authors of Titles on THR's List of the 100 Greatest Film Books of All Time
"Please welcome to the stage President and CEO of the American Film Institute, Bob Guzzale. Phone rings. It's Scott Feinberg from The Hollywood Reporter. He has an idea. And he's thinking about celebrating the 100 greatest film books of all time. I am immediately offended because top 100 movie lists are the AFI's real estate. But I did not say that to him. And the truth is I was just jealous because it was such and is such a good idea. And I thought anything AFI can do to help shine a proper light on this imperative work, well, we're in. But I did say to Scott, it's got to be A plus. It's no fake in this one. You have to have the most informed, the smartest jury. And he said, I got this. And he did. And today is a moment to celebrate that effort and the inspired writers who have brought history to life. Here to take his bow and to moderate the discussion, the executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter, Scott Feinberg. Now Scott is going to bring out the honorees today, but he has given me the gift of introducing you to the first. For he is the founder of the American Film Institute. He was there in the White House Rose Garden when President Lyndon Johnson first announced the creation of AFI. He was there to write the very words that define the Institute's national mandate. And he was there to lead the organization through its early years. And it was then that he planted the seeds for the AFI Center for Film Studies, now the AFI Conservatory. And it was then that he instituted the Harold Lloyd Master Seminar Series at AFI, so named because the seminar's first guest was Harold Lloyd. Across 50 years, these seminars have proved a rich historical record of the art form and have inspired several books on THR's 100 greatest list, including two of his. Conversations with the great movie makers of Hollywood's golden age and conversations at the American Film Institute with the great movie makers the next generation. Please welcome George Stevens Jr. Welcome George Stevens Jr. and we are excited to hear from you in just a second. Now joining you up here, please welcome the author of 2020's The Big Goodbye Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood and with Janine Basinger, 2022's Hollywood The Oral History, Sam Wasson. Next up is the author of 2016's Powerhouse, The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency, James Andrew Miller. Next up, we are going to have two authors coming to the stage because they are the co -authors of 1996's Hit and Run, How John Peters and Peter Goober Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood. Please welcome Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters. Next up, he is, as you will guess from the title, his name. He is from 1969 and for many years thereafter the author of Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide. Please welcome Leonard Maltin. Here we are. Welcome. Next, we have the author of 1998's The Last Mogul, Lou Osterman, MCA and the Hidden History of Hollywood, Dennis McDougall. Next, we have the author of 1977's The Making of the Wizard of Oz, Movie Magic and Studio Power in the Prime of MGM and the Miracle of Production number 1060. Please welcome Algene Harmetz. Next, he is the Czar of Noire, the author of Dark City, The Lost World of Film Noire from 1998. Please welcome Eddie Muller. He is the author of the 1996 book Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes, a guided tour across a decade of independent American cinema, John Pearson. From 1988, the book The Player. Please welcome Michael Tolkien. From 1989, the author of Goldwyn, a Biography, A. Scott Berg. She is the author of the 2006 book A Killer Life, How an Independent Film Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond, Christine Vachon. We're going to give an extra warm welcome to this gentleman because it is his birthday. Please join us in welcoming George Harrell's Hollywood Glamour Portraits 1925 to 1992 author from 2013, Mark A. Vieira. From 1999, the book Conversations with Wilder, the author Cameron Crowe. Ladies and gentlemen, take it in because this has never been seen before and I don't know if anyone will be lucky enough to gather this amazing group again in one place. I'm so grateful to all of you for making the time to be here. Many of you came from great distances and congratulations on your work being on this list chosen by 322 people from the industry. We're talking about filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, executives, David Zaslav and many others, authors including just about everybody up here plus many others, academics. You can see the whole list online but the point is it is a cross -section of the business. There have been versions of this list that were chosen by film critics. There have been versions by other constituencies but this reflects the taste of our global film community. So thank you again for being here and I want to also just quickly thank Bob Guzzale, Julie Goodwin and everyone at AFI not only for going through all the efforts to make today possible but also for their other lists that Bob referenced because were it not for the original AFI Top 100 list. I don't think I would be here in a career as a film journalist because that really made me fall in love with the movies in the way that I hope this list inspires many other people to check out these books and the others on the list. So thank you to them and to the folks at The Hollywood Reporter for supporting the list and Terry Press for helping us put everything together and all of you for being here. So the way this is going to work is we are going to go down this line a few minutes with each author about the origin and impact and revelations of their book and then we are going to have a looser group conversation afterwards but we're going to begin with Mr. Stevens Jr. These two books that you wrote drawing from the seminars that Bob referenced are you know just fascinating looks at generations of filmmakers who have spoken to students at the AFI, what you know they've shared about their lives, their careers, tips for filmmaking. I wonder if you can just talk about how early on, well again just a little bit more actually about how those seminars started because you were there at the beginning and when it occurred to you that they might make good books.
Dennis Prager Podcasts
Fresh update on "seminars" discussed on Dennis Prager Podcasts
"Hello, everybody. I'm Dennis Prager. I actually am not happy to bring you the following report from The Wall Street Journal, because I wrestle with an issue when I speak to you. How much lousy news can I bring to your attention? It is. It's the one thing I don't wrestle with anything in terms of, well, is what I'm about to say going to benefit me or just get more anger at me from the left, for example, or on occasion from people on the right? That I don't wrestle with. I pursue truth to the best of my ability and let the chips fall where they may, but I do wrestle with the question of your getting down. And I have a theory on that that I'd like to say before I read you the story. If you allow yourself to get depressed because of the current situation, then the bad guys win. I am as angered and saddened by so many of the things that are happening as anyone is. But I don't allow it to depress me because, among other reasons, A, I owe it to everybody in my life to be a pleasant companion. And depressed people are not pleasant companions. Number two, it gives the bad people a victory. If they can depress us, they win. So I'm going to read you this piece and I ask you to not get depressed. If you get angry, that's good. That's fine. Even better if you figure out a way to fight. So this is a sign of our times that in Evanston, Illinois, among other places, they are now in K-12 having, on occasion in some schools, separate classes for black students. As I have said for quite some time now, the only people who are in favor of all black dormitories and all black graduation exercises are the Ku Klux Klan and the left. The only systemic racism in the country comes from the left. But you don't hear that except from people like me. So here is the article in the Wall Street Journal. School leaders in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago, have been battling a sizable academic achievement gap between black, Latino, and white students for decades. So a few years ago, the school district decided to try something new at the high school classrooms voluntarily separated by race. Nearly 200 black and Latino students at Evanston Township High School signed up this year for math classes and a writing seminar intended for students of the same race, taught by a teacher of color. These optional so-called affinity classes. Affinity classes, I love that. You're black and I'm black, therefore we have instant affinity. Really? You don't have instant affinity based on values? You have it based on race? Why isn't that the purest form of racism that exists? Why is it not? I'd like somebody to call in and explain why that is not pure racism. Racial affinity. These optional so-called affinity classes are designed to address the achievement gap by making students feel more comfortable in class, district leaders have said, particularly in advanced placement courses that historically have enrolled few black and Latino students. So let me understand. Latino students. So that means a student of Mexican heritage, Latino comes from Latin America. So I want to understand something. You're telling me that a student whose parents came from Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, even Brazil, which is Portuguese speaking, not Spanish speaking. They have more affinity than the kid whose parents came from one of those countries and a kid whose parents came from Chicago. So that's what I'm supposed to believe. But Mexico and Ecuador and Brazil and Argentina don't have that much in common, whereas if you both grew up rooting for the Cubs or White Sox, you probably do have more in common. That's particularly, unfortunately, particularly bizarre. Unfortunately, I say because it is bizarre with regard to blacks. But in the realm of the bizarre, it is even more so with regard to Latino students. This is not the New York Times, so they don't say Latino. Does the New York Times still say Latino? Got to look that up. So listen to some of the educators, not a class of people that I have great respect for. So wait a minute. So they even have separate black classes that are not even academics. They are focused on leadership skills and creating a sense of belonging. You know how sick all of this is? You know how twisted this is, this progressive, another progressive sick idea? The whole point of public schools was to create a sense of belonging as an American. That's what your sense of belonging was to be. Not black, not white, not Latino, not Asian, not Pacific Islander, not indigenous, American. That was the goal of the public school. The public school is the opposite of what it was founded to be. The opposite. A sense of belonging. Wow. Create a sense of belonging based on race. That's a scary concept. This is the Wall Street Journal. It's the news section, not the opinion section. RSECs. Federal anti-discrimination laws prevent public schools from mandatorily separating students by race, but education lawyers say optional courses can comply with the law. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the punchline. A lot of times within our education system, black students are expected to conform to a white standard, said Dina Luna, who leads black student achievement initiatives in Minneapolis public schools. Wow. This is exactly what the Ku Klux Klan would say. Calculus has a white standard because whites, they say, are superior. And now we have a black activist, educator, progressive, saying what? Math classes have white standards. I thought the standards had nothing to do, nothing, with race. How is there a white standard in a pre-calculus class? I'm serious. I'd like to know. Well, the Oregon Education Department already announced that the notion that there are objectively accurate answers in math is white supremacist. Yeah. And people will still vote Democrat. We return. I'm reading to you a staggering statement, staggering statement inside a staggering column. White standard. I would give Dina Luna publicly, I don't know what it would take, $500, $1,000, I'm serious, to specify what the white standards are. You can't pay guests to come on a radio show. So I would give, I don't know, can I give it to her favorite charity? How to Hurt Blacks Incorporated? No, not even hurt, Demean. I think that's better. White standards. Wow. These are terms that are brand new in America. The district, this is in Minneapolis, offers middle and high school student initiative electives focused on African American history and social emotional support taught by teachers of color. Wow. That's going to really help young blacks get ahead in America. African American history, social emotional support, and teachers of color. Wow. I'm curious, do whites care if they have a teacher of color or a teacher who's white? So is it a white standard that it doesn't matter what color your teacher is, but it's a black standard that your teacher should be your color? Why isn't that an insult to blacks? I just, I'm missing something. Created in 2015 for black boys, the format has expanded to black girls and will soon expand to Latino students. That's right, Latino kids, your parents came from a Latin American country, and we're going to help you maintain a separate identity from American. Welcome to Evanston, Illinois and Minneapolis, Minnesota. In our spaces, you don't have to shed one ounce of yourself because everything about our space is rooted in blackness. Dina Luna said, wow. What exactly is blackness? What exactly is white standards? Are there black math standards, Dina Luna? Do you understand how despicable progressives are? Do you understand this? Most people don't because they don't want to confront it. They're despicable. They hurt people. They are ruining the country. Is this not an obvious example? Separate black kids to have an all-blackness experience. And that, I'm supposed to believe, is progressive. And liberals will vote for progressives all the time. The liberal agenda was integration. The progressive agenda is segregation. There's nothing progressives can do, not even support Hamas, that will change the liberal vote. Nothing. Nothing. It's astonishing. Max Eden, an education researcher at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said he believes affinity classes undermine the goal of the Civil Rights Act. Mr. Eden, that is what we would call an understatement, not a criticism. It's an affirmation of what you said, but I needed to note what an understatement it is. Integration is a positive social good, not among progressives. And the liberals who vote for them agree with you, but vote for them. We want students to be colorblind and to treat each other only on the basis of who they are as human beings. That's correct. That's what we want. That's the white standard, apparently. We don't give a damn about your race. That's conservative. Your race is everything. That's progressive. Get it? I told you earlier in the show, as I say every show, the gap between left and right is unbridgeable. We want you to be colorblind. That is correct. That is the liberal value. I have an article on the Internet, a column I wrote a couple of years ago. 32 questions you should ask your liberal relative or friend to find out if they're left or liberal. 32 questions. Take a look. I'm going to get you the name. It's not titled 32 questions. It may just be questions. Are you a liberal or a conservative? No, no, excuse me. Are you a liberal or a leftist quiz? Colorblind is liberal. Blackness is astonishing. The very word. Everything about our space is rooted in blackness. This is a Minneapolis educator. Somebody said our space is rooted in white. Well, I guess she believes all the other spaces are rooted in whiteness. Yeah? A squared plus B squared equals C squared is white, baby. It's a white idea. Weren't the Greeks the first to come up with that? Isn't it called the Pythagorean theorem, named after Pythagoras? Are Greeks white? That's a good question. Are Greeks white? I saw a picture of Hamas terrorists taking an Israeli on October 7th into captivity. You don't know who the Israeli is or who Hamas is. Racially, they were identical. I'm reading to you something that is so sick and now is normative, progressive thought. Black students in high schools should be separated and celebrate their blackness because there are white standards in the math classes and other classes. If this is not contemptuous of blacks, then my read of the human condition is truly defective. The article is in the Wall Street Journal. We'll put it up at Dennis Prager dot com. That blackness line really is going to resonate with me. Evanston, Illinois, Illinois, is taking the strategy one step further, offering courses for black and Latino students in core math classes, algebra two, pre-calculus and AP calculus, as well as an English seminar. Wouldn't you like to know how their algebra two class differs from a regular algebra two class, where people of all races attend? Since it's inconceivable to me even progressives will not change mathematical equations or algebraic equations to be specific, the only difference is the comfort level you will have with all blackness. But then that is an admission that the entire experiment in multiculturalism has failed. We cannot survive as one nation. We must separate. That's what you're saying. Since there can't be different algebraic equations in algebra two for black and Latino students. Oh boy, I feel like I represent this is a student who has taken one of these classes. It's called AXLE, A-X-L-E. They did a good one. Advancing excellence, lifting everyone. By the way, if they advance excellence, I think that's great. They lift everyone, I think that's great. Here's a black student who took an AXLE class in 2021. I feel like I represent me and not the whole black race in this AP class, said a student who took an AXLE class in 2021. It's a safe space. It's become normative safe space. You should see the movie I made with Adam Carolla, No Safe Spaces. In AP classes that are mostly white, I feel like if I answer wrong, I am representing all black kids. I stay quiet in those classes. Now that's a very interesting, that is a serious thought. That is not mockable. It is true that in any society, if you are known to be or visibly a member of a different group in some way, you do tend to represent the group. That is true. I was raised with that very, very strongly. As a Jewish kid in religious schools, I went to Orthodox Yeshivas until I was 19 years of age. We were told regularly how you behave will reflect on Judaism, on God, and if you're a religious Jew, how you behave reflects on God, not just on the Jews. Every religious person should think that way, by the way. How I behave reflects on God. When I think of the priests who abused boys, it was overwhelmingly boys, prepubescent or just at puberty, did they not realize that what they did reflected on God? So there is truth to what this young black kid said. I wish the marauding gangs who steal in retail operations, which are overwhelmingly black kids, I wish they felt, you know, it's not good for my fellow blacks. What I'm doing is not good. So what happens when the next global crisis strikes? Countries clamp down on exports, they stockpile, the prices of drugs rise, and the pharmaceutical shelves in America are empty. That's where the Wellness Company can help. The Wellness Company's Medical Emergency Kit holds eight life-saving medications that every American should keep in his or her home. If you have Tylenol, you should have this kit. The kit contains antibiotics, antivirals, and antiparasitics like amoxicillin, ivermectin, Z-Pak, and more. It also includes a 22-page guidebook with instructions on safe usage, from benign tick bites to extreme bioterror events. Every scenario is covered. Head to twc.health slash prager and grab your Medical Emergency Kit. That's twc.health slash prager. Code prager to save 10% at checkout. This is the emergency kit that you want to have on hand. Be safe, be prepared, and stay well. Kits are only available in the USA. Hi there, everybody. One of my favorite people I have on the line, David Horowitz, who's been a prophet in our age. His understanding of the left is unsurpassed, and he has warned about these matters all of his life. He has a new book out, which is essential reading, and I have already purchased it, by the way. Not only did I get a copy, but I purchased it myself as well. The Radical Mind, The Destructive Plans of the Woke Left. You should get it just for his dedication to his wife. It's so sweet, and I know how sincere it is. The crisis facing our nation, he writes in the beginning, is a crisis of faith. Faith in the Constitution that has shaped our destiny. Faith in individual freedom and accountability. Faith in the principle of equality before the law. Yes, well, I would add faith in Judeo-Christian values, and it's not an argument, it's just I fully subscribe to what he said. Well, David Horowitz, how are you? I never ask guests how they are, but I'm asking you. First of all, Dennis, I have to say how much I admire the work that you're doing. Especially these young spokesmen that you've developed who are so articulate and winning. It's one of the few hopes we have of saving this country. We're in a situation where our streets are filled with supporters of Hamas Nazis, openly calling for a second Holocaust of the Jews, virtually unimaginable only a few years ago. The prime responsibility rests with our corrupt universities and colleges, which is why Prager University is so important. But a heavy burden rests on the evil president of the United States, who's a criminal who hates America, and who has betrayed this country over and over again. And his party, the Democrat Party, if you remember, one of Trump's first acts when he became president was to try to put in place a plan that actually originated with Obama. Not to allow immigration from failed states who couldn't fit the people who would be immigrating to our country. So we wouldn't know. Since they were terrorist states, we wouldn't know who was bringing terrorists into our country. They called Trump a racist. I don't know if you agree with me, but I think there's going to be terrible violence and terrible tragedies ahead of us before any of this can be fixed. What will spark that violence? I don't know if you could be that specific in your prognostication, but I'm asking you. Well, let's see. A drug addict who redeemed himself on fentanyl ignited a movement. I'm speaking, of course, of George Floyd, a lifelong criminal. Inspired a movement that wrecked, torched 220 American cities, caused thousands of deaths, and mainly, of course, black deaths. It's all based on the hoax that America is a white supremacist state. One of the chapters of my new book, The Radical Mind, is about a war council. It's not my description. It's the description of the people who organized it. The war council in Flint, organized by the leaders of SBS, which was the largest left-wing campus movement at the time, calling for a war against white people and debating. They're the ones who came up with the charge of white supremacy, which is ridiculous about America. But they were actually discussed at the Flint War Council whether to kill white babies. This resonates with October 7th because white people were the problem, which was a Nazi idea in itself. To eliminate a race and solve the world's problems that way. It has an indigenous root. Of course, one of the leaders of the Weather Underground, which held the war council, was Bill Ayers, who was Obama's close political advisor. And probably co-authored, ghosted his autobiography. Unfortunately, this reflects the fact that these are deep-seated roots in our country, based in the political left. Let me just say one more thing about this. The left, one of the things I try to do in my book is explain to conservatives how the radical mind works. Why conservatives who are reasonable people and patriots are always befuddled by when they see what leftist causes are and what leftists say in defense of them. And their reaction is these people are crazy. They're out of touch with reality and so forth. All of which has a truth to it. But the main thing is that they're ideologues. So, for example, the other day when Chuck Schumer spoke about it very weakly, in my view, about anti-Semitism, he went over the history of the persecution of the Jews, which is thousands of years. And the Holocaust. And the persecution of Jews. And the founding of Israel. As though facts could affect these minds. The radical mind is untouched by facts. A radical looks at what's happening in the Middle East and says Israel is a colonial settler state and therefore we have to destroy it because it's oppressing people. We have to form that yet and these massacres are all part of our resistance and a fight for self-determination. All of this is completely detached from the reality of how Israel was created, let alone the reality of colonial settlerism, as it were. America is a colonial settler state because they hate America. And the cloyists, everybody is either descended from the cloyists or the settlers. The settlers themselves created the most progressive, most egalitarian, most inclusive, most tolerant society. And the greatest engine of prosperity in the history of the world. So if you are thinking of the facts, you would know that it's a good thing to be a colonial settler in some circumstances. And in some places it depends on what you do with it. Also, Israel doesn't occupy, and that's one of their cries, free Palestine and the Israeli occupation. There's not a square inch of territory that's part of Israel that was taken from an Arab, let alone a Palestinian. Palestinians didn't even exist in 1923. Alright, hold on there. We're going to take a quick break and the book is The Radical Mind by the inimitable David Horowitz. Hi everybody. Speaking to the dean of predictors of what's happening in America. He grew up in a communist, literally in a communist home. And because he thinks morally he rejected communism. And he understands the title of his book, The Radical Mind, brand new David Horowitz book up at dennisprager.com, The Destruction Plans of the Woke Left. So David, we're kindred spirits on this matter and people ask me all the time, so what is the end game of the left? We're not talking liberals, we're talking what you're talking about, the radical mind.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from POA11 Keep the Enemy Out of the Camp Put On The Armor A Manual for Spiritual Warfare w/Dr. Paul Thigpen Ph.D. Discerning Hears Catholic Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com, in cooperation with TAN Books, presents Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. Dr. Thickepen is an internationally known speaker, bestselling author, and award -winning journalist who has published 43 books in a wide variety of genres and subjects, including The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to End Times Fever, and The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, the book on which this series is based. In 2008, Dr. Thickepen was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to their National Advisory Council. He has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently in Catholic and secular media broadcasts and at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings. Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Paul, thanks for joining me. Chris, great to be here. God bless. Keep the enemy out of the camp. Boy, now that's solid spiritual advice, isn't it? Well, you know, if you're going to win, you just don't want to be opening the doors of your fortress to the enemy. You know, the Scripture talk about the Trojan Horse, that well -known story of how you had the Greeks besieging the city of Troy for years and years, and they couldn't get in, they couldn't get in. And the way they finally got in was by creating a very beautiful horse figure that was large enough for them to put troops inside and leaving it on the gates of the city and making it look like they had abandoned the fight. And the Trojans, the people of Troy, were so taken in by the beauty of it, and they thought, oh, this lovely gift, let's bring it in. And then overnight the Greeks came out and they were inside the city and they destroyed it. It's a great image. You know, it's from classical files, not from Scripture, but I think it's the perfect image of a spiritual reality that we can do all the defending we want to of this castle that is our soul, this fortress. But there's some things we can do that are kind of, you know, not too wise, not too smart, that will actually invite the enemy inside, where we're opening the door to him and saying, come on in. And those things we have to be aware of. It is a very powerful section, though it's a small one, in the Manual for Spiritual Warfare, because the focus on it is the actual direct battle. But those Trojan horses, as you say, as others may describe them as entry points, even demonic entry points, it's important that we identify those and guard against them, isn't it? It is because the temptation will be that the devil will tempt us to embrace what looks like a gift, you know, looks like a desirable thing. But despite the attractive appearance, it's a catastrophe waiting for an invitation to invade. So it's just so important because, I mean, some of the things we can talk about will actually just open the door to demonic activity in your life. It really is. I mean, it can begin with just even simple things, the images and the things we view with our eyes in areas, whether it's horrifically violent or even areas of pornography or pornographic material, that it doesn't have to be as explicit in the beginning. But it's like a slippery slope, isn't it? It is, in part because our memories are such powerful things that we allow the thing in and it doesn't go back out. It stays. It's like the Trojan horse that stays behind the doors. But also, when we get into certain, you know, addictive, destructive habits, the way we're hardwired given the fall now is that a little bit will satisfy for a while, but then it demands more. And so we give it a little more, a little more. And it's that slippery slope you're talking about that ends up, can start out with something so small, end up with something so powerful. It's that notion of the vice again, that it makes a rut in your soul so deep that it's almost impossible to get out of it. It can start very early in our lives, can it? I mean, the exposure to these Trojan horses can happen in the lives of children, maybe through the activities of parents, maybe just being left alone and exposed to things that seem harmless in the beginning. They do, I think, especially Ouija boards. I was very sad to hear that there was, for Christmas shopping this year, there was this great spike in the sale of Ouija boards that probably can be attributed, at least in part, to some recent movie about a Ouija board. And even though the movie portrayed the Ouija board as this portal into something demonic, it sparked still interest on the part of a lot of people. I had one when I was a kid. I regret that day, but we didn't realize it. But it was this fun little parlor game we thought that we brought right inside the fortress of our home, and it wasn't a good thing. So that kind of thing, or you've probably heard of the children's game Bloody Mary or those kinds of things. They may seem harmless. And some people may have done it and not exposed themselves, but it's happened too often. It's such a dangerous thing that we have to make sure that our children especially are not exposed to those. And what our kids watch in other homes, I remember when my daughter was about four, I was in grad school and we didn't even have television and we were so careful to make sure we knew that whatever went into her mind by way of a screen was something healthy. And she went to visit with a little friend one day and they were playing in the back of a room where the father was watching, not something pornographic, but something very graphically violent. And she happened to turn right at that moment and look at the screen and see a man stab another man. And it just terrified her. She'd never seen anything like it. And it took us the longest time to help her get healed of that. So it's a small thing, but we just have to be very vigilant with our children and with ourselves. Today, Paul, I mean, our children are exposed to graphic violence on a scale that we've never really have ever experienced maybe in human tradition. I know people will bring up in conversation what ancient Rome did, but considering how between video games, movies, television, is it any wonder that a violent surge can take over and plant itself in the hearts of our young as well as the old? And yeah, I mean, iPhones, you know, and pads and pods, we can bring it with us wherever we go. It's the kind of thing, you know, when I was a child, I only dreamed of that you would have a, you know, Dick Tracy wristwatch that would actually have a little TV on it or something. But we've basically got that now, you know, with the images that can be wherever we are. And so it's all that harder for parents to track what our kids are doing, kids sending texts back and forth to each other. You know, it just goes on and on. It's ubiquitous. What an assault on the family, an assault on our individual characters.
Crypto Altruism Podcast
Fresh update on "seminars" discussed on Crypto Altruism Podcast
"That was amazing. Thank you to the Endowment team so much for all their support and definitely head over to Endowment.org, that's E-N-D-A-O-M-E-N-T dot org to learn more about the incredible work that they're doing. For the seventh episode, we're excited to highlight the work of The Life You Can Save, a nonprofit making smart giving simple by curating a group of nonprofits that save or improve the most lives per dollar. They aim to create a world where everyone has an opportunity to build a better life and where there's no suffering or death due to extreme poverty. Today we welcome to the podcast John Behar, strategic advisor at The Life You Can Save. So let's dive right in. John, it is a pleasure to have you back here and this time on the Web3 nonprofit series within the Cryptoltrism podcast. So thanks for coming back. It's a pleasure to have you. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me back on the show. Yeah, I'm really excited. And for those listening and we're going to the last episode where you might've heard John was where we, we talked about a glow in the life you can save and how blockchain can help end extreme poverty. The focus of today's episode is really on The Life You Can Save's upcoming quadratic funding round, which is going to be coming out in a couple of days following the release of this episode. And we're also going to dig a bit deeper into The Life You Can Save and their philosophy and the kind of ethos behind their work more than we did in the previous episode. So I'm really looking forward to that. And, you know, to start things off, last time I asked you what your aha moment was around Web3 and this time I want to, you know, take a different approach. I want to hear about your story and how you ended up working in the nonprofit sector and got to where you are today with The Life You Can Save. Yeah, well, it's definitely been a roundabout journey, Drew. After college, I went to work in the hedge fund industry at Bridgewater Associates. I was doing risk management and portfolio optimization works, kind of standard finance bro stuff. I occasionally gave some money to charity, but I really only did that when I was asked and I put pretty much zero thought into where I was giving or how much I was giving. But very luckily, some of my colleagues at Bridgewater were taking a much smarter approach to the way that they gave. They started looking for information about where their gifts could do the most good. And then they were kind of surprised when they didn't find a whole lot of information available. So they started doing their own research. Pretty quickly, they realized that that was a full-time job and that's how the charity evaluator, GiveWell, got started. So it was really my first introduction to thinking critically about the nonprofit sector and I ended up joining GiveWell's board for a while. The idea of allocating scarce resources where they do the most good really clicked with me. Constrained optimization was really at the heart of my job at the time. And after about 10 years at Bridgewater, I realized that I was feeling burned out, no longer passionate about the work I was doing. So I decided to take some time off and figure out a new direction in life. And after about a year, I came up with the idea for philanthropic education workshops called Giving Games, where people would get real money and they could donate it to their choice of charities. And the idea was to get people thinking critically about where they should donate. And more importantly, what criteria they'd use to decide how to choose between different charities. So I wanted to show people just how powerful it can be to give in an intentional and informed way and to do so proactively rather than just giving in response to whatever solicitation comes around. So within the course of incubating that project, I got introduced to a co-founder of the Life You Can Save, which was just getting started as a nonprofit at the time. And we decided to make Giving Games a project of the Life You Can Save. And that was how I joined the team. That was back in 2013. Wow, that's so cool. That's such an interesting journey of how you got here and amazing. That's so interesting around the Giving Games. I hadn't heard about that. So sounds like a really cool project. And so you gave a brief intro to the Life You Can Save last time we spoke. Maybe for those that weren't listening on that episode, since this is a different series within the Cryptoltrism podcast, you might just give it a brief intro to the mission of the Life You Can Save. And then we're going to dig a bit deeper into the philosophy and stuff afterwards. Sure. The Life You Can Save's mission is to improve the lives of the roughly 700 million people who live below the international poverty line of just over $2 a day. And we do that by identifying outstanding nonprofits that do cost effective and evidence backed work to help the global poor. And then we raise funds and awareness for those charities that we recommend. So in places where extreme poverty is prevalent, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, there are often interventions that are proven to transform or even save lives in a very cost effective manner. And there's an evidence base that tells us what works. And what we really need to do is fund that stuff. And so the Life You Can Save's role is to help connect donors who want to have an impact with charities that are doing outstanding work. And we provide independent third party recommendations so that donors can get with confidence. They don't have to feel like they need to be personally responsible for evaluating every charity's marketing claims on their own. And then we also serve a role by calling attention to the philanthropic opportunities that are available in the global poverty space. Because most donors in rich countries, they can be familiar with the problems facing their own communities. But they're generally not aware that they could be saving children from dying of malaria or restoring a blind person sight through a very affordable cataract surgery. So we want to call attention to the fact that these things are going on in the world, even if you don't notice them when you're walking around your neighborhood. Very cool. Yeah, no, I love that. And I think about my experience in the nonprofit sector, too. You know, I've worked for a couple different organizations out on some boards, been an advisor for some organizations. And, you know, if you go to any nonprofit website, you're going to see like a very compelling message around like, you know, this is the impact of your dollars, it will have this profound impact addressing x issue, which is great, and sounds amazing. But obviously, the the effective efficacy of those interventions very much vary. And also the ability to prove the impact of them very much varies as well. Right. So I really appreciate the focus of the life you can save on a identifying, you know, those organizations that have those high impact initiatives that are also proven to be to be, you know, impactful, which is great. And, you know, I, the life you can save was founded by a well known philosopher and author, Peter Singer. And I've read several books of Peter Singer's, I remember actually reading some of his papers back in some classes of mine in my fourth year seminars in university quite a long time ago. So I'm quite familiar with his work. And, you know, he's also one of the leading influences behind effective altruism, which is a quite a popular concept over recent years. So can you tell me more about the origin story behind the life you can save and how it kind of came about? Yeah, the life you can save's origins actually stretch back more than 50 years when Peter Singer first published an essay called Famine, Affluence and Morality. That may have been one of the essays that you read. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So that's the that's the essay where he introduced the child in the pond thought experiment. So imagine this scenario, you're walking to work and you're nobody else around. So if this kid is going to get saved, you've got to be the one to do it. And you can save the child, but you don't have time to remove the nice clothes that you're wearing for work. They're going to be ruined if you go into the pond. So the question is, do you save the child? And I think that everybody listening to this podcast is thinking the same thing. Of course you do. It's very obviously the right thing to do. But where it gets trickier is when Peter points out that we also have the ability to save the lives of children who are dying of preventable diseases. We can't do so for free. But by donating to humanitarian causes, we can save those children. So if we think that we're ethically obligated to save the child who's drowning in the pond right in front of us, even if there's some cost to us to do so, doesn't that mean that we're also ethically obligated to save a child dying of a preventable disease halfway around the world? If we can do that without sacrificing something of equivalent importance. So this is just a really powerful thought experiment, despite being very simple. It's caused a lot of people to dramatically reevaluate their conception of what it means to live an ethical life. And Peter's presented this idea many, many times in his classes and his talks all over the place. And he's very familiar with the objections that tend to come up as people say. Well, how do we know that a charitable donation will really save a life? What if the charity is just wasting the money? Or other people will say that our moral obligation to somebody who's very close to us is different than what we have towards somebody who's very distant. So Peter eventually decided to write a book that would allow for a deeper dive into these issues and the child in the pond thought experiment and would give him the room to address all the objections that people will typically come up with. So that book was called The Life You Can Save and it came out in 2009. And one of the people who read that book was Charlie Bresler, who at that time was just wrapping up his tenure as president of the men's warehouse, the big apparel chain. So Charlie figured that marketing had helped the men's warehouse sell a lot of suits. So why not use marketing to spread the ideas of the life you can save and help create charities? So he reached out to Peter, suggested starting a nonprofit based around The Life You Can Save and offered to help get it off the ground. And that was back in late 2013. So we're right around the 10th anniversary of The Life You Can Save becoming a registered charity. And speaking of 10th anniversaries, I do want to call attention to the fact that to celebrate the book's 10th anniversary, we did release an updated edition of The Life You Can Save in late 2019. And Peter donated the rights. That means we're able to distribute free copies of the ebook and audiobook, both of which are available on our website. But the real origin of these ideas started with famine, affluence, and morality. And I think your listeners will probably appreciate that Peter commemorated the 50th The Life You Can Save. And it was purchased by Mick Hagen, a Web3 entrepreneur. He's currently working on Ripe Dow. So I think it's very cool that right now the famine, affluence, and morality NFT is sitting in a collection alongside a bunch of crypto punks. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah. I definitely remember the thought experiment of the child in the pond back in my ethics seminar and going through a lot of those kind of debates and debating those points and everything. So it definitely brings me back to my undergrad years. And it's really cool to see since then how that has really grown into this incredible movement, which is The Life You Can Save. And it's a really fascinating origin story. So I appreciate you sharing that. And hopefully, those listening in are having a little internal debate themselves right now in their heads about that thought experiment, because I think it's a really important one to go through. And so I'd love to now talk about effective altruism. Obviously, it's been kind of a buzzword that's seen as one of the, I guess, leading influences behind effective altruism. So what is effective altruism? And how can nonprofits use technologies like blockchain, AI, next generation technologies to become more effectively altruistic in their work? Yeah. Well, effective altruism is a community and social movement that promotes using evidence and reason to figure out how to do as much good as possible. So EAs tend to be highly cognizant of the fact that money, time, and other resources are very scarce. And so they try to use logic and evidence to determine where those scarce resources can benefit others as much as possible. And then it's not just an intellectual pursuit. It's also about putting that into practice. So in terms of how nonprofits can kind of pursue those tenants and use next generation technologies to do so, I think there are going to be some nonprofits that do work that is really fundamentally focused on blockchain or AI, but that's probably going to be a very small minority. For most nonprofits, I expect these technologies are going to be more about improving technology, improving productivity, I should say, and helping them do more with their limited resources. So nonprofits are chronically short on money and time, and technology is a great way to do more with less. And as an example from the Life You Can Save experience, we just started working with an organization called Give Momentum, which was actually founded by a bunch of effective altruists. And Give Momentum has built a suite of fundraising tools that any nonprofit can use. These tools are powered by AI, and they help us identify donors that we should talk to, personalize how we should communicate with them, and then optimize the requests that we're making. So this makes our fundraising team a lot more productive than they'd otherwise be. We can have more communication, better communication with our donors, because AI is doing a big chunk of the work for them. With respect to blockchain, I think the technology has a lot of potential to help charities be more transparent about how funds are used, and help them demonstrate evidence of impact. And both of these things are very much in line with effective altruist values and thinking. But my guess is that nonprofits really aren't going to be direct users of the technology very much. I think it's going to be more about intermediaries that emerge that build blockchain-based tools that nonprofits can use, similar to how Give Momentum is building AI tools that nonprofits can access. And honestly, I think the intermediaries are going to be more important in the blockchain space than with AI, simply because blockchain, UI, UX is generally pretty terrible. Right now, there are some of these Web3 intermediaries, but they're basically all focused from what I can tell on helping nonprofits accept crypto donations, which is a very logical place to start. But over time, I do think that we're going to see new intermediaries emerge that help nonprofits make more use of the underlying technology to be more productive in their core activities. Yeah, definitely. And I couldn't agree more. And I think that's important too, because I think a lot of folks listening in to some of these conversations around blockchain might be saying like, whoa, I don't have the capacity or the knowledge or the team to build my own solutions to the problem I'm trying to address on blockchain. I think that my message to them is that you don't have to. There are lots of great organizations out there that are trying to build these solutions that others can use. And so it could be for crypto philanthropy. I know that there's some projects working on like on-chain impact certificates to help nonprofits monitor and report their impacts to funders. There's organizations that are building infrastructure for decentralized governance that nonprofits can use to raise funds and to allocate funds to important initiatives. So I think you're spot on there. It'll probably come from those intermediaries. And I know intermediary is a dirty word in the Web3 space, but I think this context is about folks building these decentralized blockchain-based solutions that nonprofits can leverage for good. So yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And one thing that I'm really interested in, and this could fall in with one of those kind of intermediaries that are building these decentralized solutions is around Gitcoin. I understand that this giving season you are partnering with Gitcoin to run an independent quadratic funding round on their Gitcoin stack platform for your different cost funds. And so in the last episode featuring Colleen and John from Solar Foundation, there was a bit of an explanation for quadratic funding. So you don't have to worry about diving too much into that. But the recap on that is obviously it's a matching funds mechanism that allocates more funding to projects that receive more unique donations versus those that receive the larger amount of donations. So it puts more power in the hands of those that are smaller donors as opposed to those that can come and drop a million on something and swoop in and steal all the matching funds. So this is really great. I'm really excited about this. I know that Unicef did a quadratic funding round not too long ago, but as far as I know, you're one of the first nonprofits to really do this. So it's really groundbreaking. I think we'll set the stage for other nonprofits to hopefully leverage this technology. So can you tell me more about the funding round and the cost funds that will be benefiting? Yeah, we're super excited about this collaboration with Gitcoin. We've got a match pool of $25,000. They're going to match donations to our six cost funds. And these funds support outstanding charities that fight global poverty in different ways. So the match pool is going to be allocated using the quadratic funding algorithm that you mentioned. So the funds that receive the most donations in terms of donors, not a number of dollars, those are going to receive the largest portion of the match pool. And we're going to be running this round the entire month of December. So the cost funds that we're featuring are funds that save lives, transform lives, help women and girls, create economic opportunity, tackle climate change, and promote education for all. So these funds really run the gamut of interventions that will help people who are living in extreme poverty. And even though our money is multi-dimensional and life-saving interventions are just one piece of the puzzle. So it's also important to improve quality of life, whether that's through health interventions, economic empowerment, or access to education. It's also important to help historically underserved populations like women and girls. And then climate change is an issue that affects everybody, but it disproportionately affects people who live in extreme poverty. So there are just a lot of ways that you can help and you as a donor just need to pick your favorite. And if you are listening to this, I do hope that you'll contribute to this grant round. You'll be able to help multiple outstanding charities with a single donation. And you're going to be able to help your favorite cause receive a bigger share of the match pool through the Adratic funding algorithm. And then you're also going to show your support for nonprofits like The Life You Can Save using the Gitcoin infrastructure in creative ways. So we're very excited about this pilot and hope it's a big success. Sure. And I think, like I said, another great thing about this is I think that this will hopefully serve as a case study for the nonprofits. It could be like a nonprofit has 10 different programs that they want to fund and then folks can go in and vote for the ones that should receive the most funding and those sorts of things. It's a really cool way to engage the community in the allocation of funds. And it's like participatory budgeting in a sense almost. And so if I understand correctly, was it six cause funds? Yes, that's right. And so each of them will essentially have a page on the grants page on the grants explorer, which you can then go pick the one that you think deserves the most or multiple that deserve the most matching funds, donate a small amount or a large amount to signal your vote. And then the quadratic funding algorithm will look at which ones receive the most widespread community support in terms of the most unique donations. Is that correct? Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, that's very cool. And then that $25,000 is divvied up based on that. I love that. And I was doing some research on the cause funds and I find it super interesting. And I'm sure you can align with this from your work in the finance sector. I almost looked at them as like index funds in like a stock market. And that like you look at them, you open the cost and it's like, okay, 16% is this charity, 15% is this charity, 10% is this charity. And it kind of breaks it down in terms of like the weight similar to like an index fund would, which I thought was really cool. So do you mind telling me more about kind of the process behind the curation of cost funds and like the criteria used to select the best charities to include in these funds? Yeah, our recommendations are based on rigorous assessments by our research and evaluation team. And we also utilize other nonprofit evaluators like GiveWell, which I mentioned earlier and GivingGreen. And we also leverage collaboration with sector colleagues and different subject matter experts. So our recommendations are based on factors such as proven impact, cost effectiveness, transparency, sustainability, and room for more funding. So in practice, that means that number one, we're going to focus on urgent problems that have concrete solutions that don't get enough funding. Number two, we're going to use scientific evidence to identify the highest impact solutions to each problems. Then number three, we're going to find and rigorously screen high quality and cost-effective organizations that implement those solutions. So within a broad cause area, we try to establish a common metric that we can use to compare impact across organizations. So that could be the number of lives saved or the amount of income gained depending on the cost. We can then compare charities that work in that broad cause area based on how cost-effectively they're able to achieve that specific outcome. So when you're comparing charities that reduce mortality, you can look at how much it costs to save a certain number of lives. And then our cost funds are going to feature charities that offer outstanding cost-effectiveness in achieving the relevant outcome. Now, things get a lot trickier when you're trying to compare across cause areas. You might know that it costs X dollars to save a life and Y dollars to reduce carbon emissions by a certain amount, but then it's really not obvious how to make that trade-off. And attempts to make that trade-off are probably going to involve a lot of very subjective value judgments that reasonable people are going to disagree about. And that's one of the reasons why we offer a variety of cost funds in the first place. We've identified a bunch of important causes and outstanding organizations that work in those causes, but we let donors pick which cause or causes they think are most important. So that's the quick version of our process. If you want to do a deeper dive on how we select charities, we've published a charity evaluation framework on our website that's going to provide a lot more detail. Very cool. I love that. It's great because there are a lot of, similar to how there are people that want to invest in the broader stock market or a certain segment of the stock market, let's say, just like how they have tech-focused index funds or resource or energy ones. This is very cool in that there's people that want to support a certain cause, but just don't know which individual charities, or in the case of index funds, individual stocks to pick out. They don't want to do that, so they entrust other people to do that research for them and to evaluate those and put together that index of those funds within the cause fund. I absolutely love that. I think it's fascinating. It just makes it so much easier for folks to be able to support a cause they're passionate about without having to worry about which charity working within that cause to support. Yeah. We found that the donors really often have very strong feelings about which cause they want to support, even within the broad umbrella of global poverty. They also tend to like the idea of diversification and being able to support multiple organizations.
The Greg McAfee Show
THIS Is Why Greg Calls Ken Goodrich an HVAC Industry Titan
"Call you the Titan of the HVAC business world, just because you've done things so different than anyone else. But you've never been afraid to take advice. I mean, you've attended how many seminars throughout your career? Always willing to learn more. I mean, what, what does that say? And what, what does that tell our viewers on, you know, taking advice and listening to people that may know more than you? Well, let me tell you, when my go back to my original story, my origin story in, in one of those episodes, I was looking at trade magazine one night and I saw an active convention and I mean, I was at my last dollars, right? So I said, and, you know, it talked about networking and learning and, you know, you know, all the good stuff that these best practice groups bring. And it was in San Antonio. And I said, you know, I'm just going to go. So, you know, I took my last thousand bucks and went and I met some guys, older guys than me. I was probably, well, I was 26, 27 and started talking to them. And I wasn't afraid to ask advice. I guess that's another thing. So I would just ask, you know, and I didn't have any choice. So I had to get out of the hole. I had to find the answer. So I just started talking to them and they were open and sharing with me, invited me to lunch. And then, you know, after they started talking to me and figured out that I had a little bit to offer too, you know, we started to form some associations and groups. And that really taught me like, look, this is where I'm going to get the best information is these best practice groups where, you know, they have some written materials that I can use to implement on my own processes. But the most value is the fellowship that goes on between the members. Right. And, you know, you can find these guys are doing different things. And then the sharing that goes on. Hey, tell me how to run a sales department and I'll show you, you know, how I'm running my IQ program or something, you know, and that has really been one of my key learning methods is these conventions. And then I really have just really been a student of the industry. I got really interested in it, you know, talking about I really wanted out of the business and finding your passion. What I learned was your passion is something that you're good at. You know, if you get good at anything, it's going to be a passion because you're good at it and it gives you confidence. It gives you dopamine when you're doing it. And so I just got good at it. And the better I got at it, the more I applied myself because I wanted to be better. And I kept learning and kept learning. I went to Acca for a long time and then I joined Airtime 500. And 500, Airtime I was maybe in my mid 30s. And like, you know, every day, you know, they would have the big meetings, right? You know, you'd go to the seminars. I'd be there 45 minutes early and I would pick the front center seat. That was my seat, front center, I'm learning, I'm coming here to learn. And I would plan, okay, here's what the seminars things go to this one, this one, this one. Here's what I want to accomplish in this one. Here's what I want to accomplish in this one. Here's what I want to accomplish on the overall thing. I'm going to go to the trade show and vendors. I want to meet with this guy, this guy, and this guy. In other words, I'm going to invest the money and the time to go to these conventions. I'm going to plan it and I'm going to come away with something because it's so easy to go to those things and, you know, hang out at the bar at night, drink too much, miss the first meeting and then kind of half -ass the whole thing and hanging out with your buddies and really accomplish zero, right? Which is, which I see a lot of guys do. Yeah. So I just, that's how I learned. That's how I pulled it all together. And then the experiences that I had by selling my businesses six times, you know, and dealing with people who know things that I would never typically get exposed to, you know, like I said earlier, acquisitions and metrics and, you know, now I'm in the private equity world. We're dealing with big banking and big mergers and all kinds of stuff that, hey, sitting in an air conditioning shop, nobody would ever get the opportunity
WTOP 24 Hour News
Fresh update on "seminars" discussed on WTOP 24 Hour News
"This is Dave Johnson and to start you connect with Jennifer Young, Jennifer Young Homes on Wednesday December 6th 630 another seller seminar online at JenniferYoungHomes .com and that's where you go to reserve your your spot what about pricing your home in today's market and what's going on in today's market Jennifer actually tells me inventory down 30 percent that's fewer homes for buyers to choose from what about selling your home as is so many questions get them answered Wednesday December 6th at JenniferYoungHomes .com due to response Regency furniture spectacular Black Friday sale has been extended one final week take advantage of regency's biggest savings event of the year save 25 % off on all regency furniture groups plus
Dear Chiefs Podcast
Meet Megan Lautz: The Expert Bridging Nutrition & Fitness for First Responders
"Have Megan from rescue RD with us today to talk about all of those things that we mentioned before Megan Lautz is a registered dietitian and strength coach with a master's in sports nutrition Megan specializes in first responders tailoring nutrition to fit the unpredictable lifestyles She works full -time for Fairfax fire and rescue while a civilian Megan has strived to understand the challenges firefighters face when trying to stay healthy Megan is also the owner of rescue RD LLC Which provides nutrition seminars and coaching for first responders across the country. Okay, let's get into it Megan tell us your backstory what brought you into the nutrition world? Sure. So I'm Megan I am a registered dietitian that specializes in first responders and I to clarify am a civilian and I am also not a fire spouse I actually married my high school sweetheart and he's an IT guy so No Connection to the fire service like innately in my lifetime other than now working with them I got laid off from a corporate wellness job Which is where I thought I was gonna be for forever until Northrop Bremen said screw you kid and ended up Getting a job at an oc health clinic in Montgomery County, Maryland as a wellness manager And I was the dietitian and a trainer and fire just seemed to take really well to me So because I didn't understand the job I naturally was like, can you guys tell me what this job means? And then I can try and give you ideas for nutrition and fitness that are actually reasonable considering the job So some of the things that I really focused on was I took CPAT so that candidate physical abilities test It took me three times. I almost died, but I eventually passed it I've done 24 -hour shifts with some of the busier patients in the county, you know And lots of drills lots of being a pretend patient, you know Those kinds of things to just kind of understand the nature of the job so that I can then provide Nutrition tips that actually make sense and they're like, oh that's like not as hard as I thought it was gonna be So that we can actually maybe make an impact on first responder nutrition and fitness and this also extends to spouses as well So in Fairfax, I do a lot of nutrition coaching one -on -one both with first responders firefighters and police and then also their spouses And then I also do a lot of station visits and Like I'll try and go to drills or do presentations and that kind of thing So you work primarily with fire, but you also work with police. Yes. Yeah. Yes. They always come out of the woodwork So I was with Montgomery County fire and police and then I jumped the river to Fairfax fire in Virginia on the other side of DC and then after a year there they added police to my contract which it's kind of like the same Stuff you just have to use different language and different color schemes. So, you know color schemes. Yes red versus blue Oh Yeah, gosh like I mean I hyper focus like really bad So, I mean maybe I'm just insane which it is true But you know the the languages are a little bit different the shift styles are different that some of the challenges are different But for the most part the nutrition and fitness protocols and sleep protocols are similar It just helps some of its kind of chewed up and spit out for them. Tell me about the challenges that are Similar for police and fire. Yeah. Yeah, no time money No energy, right and and honestly, that's most people It's just I think exacerbated in fire and police because of the weird ship work and all of that You know a lot of eating out on the go Caffeine is typically overdone not trying to say that you shouldn't do it at all It's just it's overdone because of the lack of sleep a lot of sugar sweetened beverages just to stay awake Snacking grazing what else treats that the community drops off which then doesn't help the grazing So there's a lot of similarities, but you know roll call and lineup are different languages for the morning meetings It just helps if you say it in their language and then it it helps with comprehension I think and also like as a civilian it's like oh She's actually taken the time to understand what our jobs are and how to talk to us So that trust factor is kind of built in
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from POA10 Know Your Armor: The Virtues Put On The Armor A Manual for Spiritual Warfare w/Dr. Paul Thigpen Ph.D. Discerning Hears Catholic Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com, in cooperation with TAN Books, presents Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare with Dr. Paul Thickepen. Dr. Thickepen is an internationally known speaker, bestselling author, and award -winning journalist who has published 43 books in a wide variety of genres and subjects, including The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to End Times Fever, and The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, the book on which this series is based. In 2008, Dr. Thickepen was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to their National Advisory Council. He has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently in Catholic and secular media broadcasts and at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings. Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare with Dr. Paul Thickepen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor.
Postcards to the Universe with Melisa
Simon Luthi Tells Us Why Applied Neuro-Cellular Therapy Is the Future
"Want to ask you because this is what you, you really do is the applied neurocellular therapy. So what is that and how is it different from some of the other modalities? Yeah, it's really the future of medicine, the way that I would, would look at it, right? So I go back to the last category that I mentioned, uh, clients that I have that come to me that it just doesn't work and I was dumbfounded by it and I had to separate my ego from it, like, we want people to get better, right? I mean, they're selling the same money and I want them to walk out and you know, I kind of felt guilty when someone would say, Oh man, like, you know, it was a great session with you. Enjoyed it very much, but I'm still not any better. And so I've been researching a little bit of like, what is really happening of course, so the subconscious mind can say, yeah, you know, I'm going to come see this guy who doesn't, if it doesn't work, it doesn't hurt or we'll give it a try, you know, this is not the other end. Um, so what I wanted to do is I wanted to figure out a way to separate the, um, um, the failure body really from, uh, from kind of the brain structure, right? So the neuro path, their neurological pathways. Um, and because I, it was my theory that if I could separate kind of those pathways long enough that I could go deeper into either the physical body and, or some of the emotional things that would, uh, prevent this person from really getting, getting healthy. And if you think about, uh, you know, now drugs such as, or I shouldn't say drugs, the plant medicine, such as, uh, psilocybin that they, uh, having kind of a renaissance now, it does kind of that, you know, kind of inhibits some of those neurological pathways. So specifically, uh, around the applied neuro cell therapy, um, I use a hypnagogic lamp that you have to kind of picture this as a device that emits, um, stroboscope and led lights, uh, and it's, and it penetrates your pineal gland. So that's like your third eye or behind your third eye. Um, and it activates all of your alpha, beta, theta, Delta waves in your brain. And it's, uh, for those of you familiar with Joe dispenser, he had a, I think a seminar around the kaleidoscope and he had these big, beautiful kind of visions of his kaleidoscope and colors and things are changing. Um, and that's really what it does in your brain. So you're sitting or you're, you're laying on my table and you're going through kind of a 20 minute light, uh, therapy session where you're activating your own brain cells and your brain functions and your brain waves and something spectacular seems to happen afterwards. So it's, it's kind of around the 15 minutes to 20 minutes, um, time where you really go more in a trance state and you seem to be forgetting subconsciously again that you don't actually believe that this can help me and, and so I can then go in and go back with my, you know, regular train modalities. Uh, so a lot of it is, you know, dealing with my hands or with crystals or other, uh, other things and the fascinating part that about 80 or 90 % of the people that, uh, I couldn't have better and, or well afterwards. Um, and I find this just absolutely fascinating, right? So that apparently our subconscious mind plays a role in probably everything, right? Even if you think about you, you go through a surgery and you tell yourself, well, they tell me four months recovery, oh, this is going to be horrible, or you go in like, Hey, I'm going to be better than two months. I'm going to be super, super positive and you know, work on my body, give myself time to heal. And, uh, I would say in most cases that, that, uh, you know, it's a manifestation that you can do practically. How do you go into any kind of procedure?
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from POA9 Know your Weapons pt. 4 Put On The Armor A Manual for Spiritual Warfare w/Dr. Paul Thigpen Ph.D. Discerning Hears Catholic Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com, in cooperation with TAN Books, presents Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare with Dr. Paul Thickepen. Dr. Thickepen is an internationally known speaker, bestselling author, and award -winning journalist who has published 43 books in a wide variety of genres and subjects, including The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to End Times Fever, and The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, the book on which this series is based. In 2008, Dr. Thickepen was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to their National Advisory Council. He has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently in Catholic and secular media broadcasts and at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings. Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare with Dr. Paul Thickepen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor.
The Podcast On Podcasting
A highlight from Ep395: End Your Content Creation Struggles With These 4 AI Tools - Dino Cattaneo
"These tools are a lot more powerful, and as a matter of fact, a lot of the podcasting tools actually connect into the chat GPT engine to spit out the results. Most hosts never achieve the results they hoped for. They're falling short on listenership and monetization, meaning their message isn't being heard and their show ends up costing them money. This podcast was created to help you grow your listenership and make money while you're at it. Get ready to take notes. Here's your host, Adam Adams. What's up, podcaster? It's your host, Adam Adams. And about 70 -ish episodes ago, you guys had a really cool guy come on the podcast and you probably learned a lot from him. It's Dino Cattaneo, who was episode 331, basically talking about that your show needs to have goals and why does your show need to have goals? How do you track those? How do you track progress? We talked a little bit about that in episode 331. The link will be in the show notes. And guess what? There are some other links that are going to be in the show notes as well because today we're talking about AI, artificial intelligence. And Dino and I have been friends and connected for a while. He was a client for a short time as well, like a year and a half. I met him a couple of years ago at a conference and now we're hanging out again at this most recent conference. And while there, he was inspired by AI. And so there was a few different companies that were there. And I think he's also looked into other companies as well. And so what he's trying to figure out is how do we make our podcast easier? How do we make it more efficient? How do we make it just happen? And so he looked at Cap Show, podium, chat GBT and Memento. So all four of those links will be in the show notes as well. We're going to be talking about them now. Go back to episode 331 to learn more about Dino and which goals you need to have for your podcast, how to track it and why. And today we're talking about AI. Dino, how are you, my friend? I'm good, Adam. It's so good to see you. Very excited. We got to spend a lot of time together in Denver at the conference and it was very cool to be able to reconnect after two years and after all the work that we've done together. And yeah, so AI has been at the forefront for me in the past few months as it is for many podcasters and creative people. I think the world overall got a huge wake up of the course of the past year. It came into our life in a way that is maybe a little different. My wife is a songwriter and a songwriting professor. She taught for 20 years at Berklee College of Music. She left Berklee to fully dedicate her career to just the songwriting part, if you will, but is also teaching DevAster to stay to teach one of the online classes. And this class is a broader class on creative writing and they have assignments every week and they're writing assignments. And keep in mind, these are students who spend not a little amount of money to take a creative class to become better writers. And at some point, one of the students emailed my wife and told her that they felt that somebody else in the class was using chat GPT for the assignments. And it felt like a big betrayal in some ways. It felt like silly, if you will, on the part of somebody who's making that huge investment to become a better writer and then they're not really doing the work, which is how you become a writer. But it also sparked a big conversation for me, her and some of her songwriters and friends around what is an ethical use of AI, you know, as a creator. And on the other side, aside from being a podcaster and an executive coach, I'm a partner in a marketing agency and that's a conversation that we're having internally. What role is AI going to play for us? What is fair and what is not fair? What is the baseline that AI needs to set up for you if you're in the creativity business? And it turns out that this year, the conference had a really big series of tracks around AI. And I want to give another shout out, I think, to Culture & Code who was present at the conference and did a fabulous session the day before the conference started around the use of AI. Culture & Code also has a newsletter that talks about the use of AI and creativity. They're very sophisticated and they're one of the places where I go to learn myself. So if you're interested, it's cultureandcode, spelled U -R -E -A -N -D -C -O -D -E .io. And they have a thesis that John, who is the main person, used this parallel that really resonated with me. And he said that when people invented the camera and movies, they didn't invent them to just go do the theater and film a play, right? The fact that they had this new medium generated a whole series of additional creative uses where there was like the different angle cuts using special effects, et cetera. And his underlying theory, which I subscribe to to a certain extent, is that AI will do the same for creativity. We will get to a point where AI will be a tool that we use and will generate new level of creativity. There's other, I think, bigger issues because the reality is that AI eliminates a lot of the manual labor that goes into creative work. And there's certainly uses, if I think about my other world, which is the marketing world, if you think about when you're writing really tactical copy for acquisition creative, get an offer of 5%, get an offer of 10%. And you're testing it. And that, by the way, there was in that world, the using of data and simulated AI, even though it's not real AI, the use of data driven automation to optimize, to swap taxes already in place. But that's definitely a consideration. And someone else recently wrote about this is Rand Fishkin, founder of SparkToro, maybe known to your listeners more as one of the top four or five authority on SEO from the mid -2000s to now when he was working with Moz. And he said that basically what AI will do is replace the work of sort of the content factories that are just spitting out trite copy based on mechanical SEO rules. But what will never be replaced by AI is like the genuine great writing. So I came to the conference and I'm coming to you and your listeners, not as an expert, but as somebody who is smack in the middle of that journey, is trying to figure it out for himself, for a number of people that he works with. And I'm very happy to talk about the things that I discovered along the way. So let's do that. You looked into CapShow, Podium, Chad GPT and Memento. Well, my experimentation with AI started out probably a few months ago with Chad GPT. And Chad GPT has a free version, which is an older model. And then it has the paid version, which is the latest model. And they just announced an enterprise version. And then I also experimented just for fun for myself with MidJourney, which is an image generator. And so one thing I may butcher this, but one thing that made really clear what AI is to me and so that people can understand the term artificial intelligence in terms of what the technologies right now may be a little misleading, like AI is basically the of processing enormous amount of data, the finding relationships between these data, calculating probabilities. And so basically, if you think about you ask a question to AI, you give it a task. AI goes through all this data and sees what are the closest possible relationships and then spits out an answer. So I had that experience. I came to the conference. I tested CapShow because of Harry Duran from Fullcast, who told me he was using that. And actually, the second tool that I tried, which is Spodum, and I'll have some examples from them here. They were next to your booth. Oh, OK. Yeah, right next to me. Right next to you. And they were making the book. And so I tried that. There's another tool and I will have the name or I will send you the link before the episode if I don't manage to get the tool during the episode. That is a video tool. The reality overall is that this year AI is exploding and we're in a really, really early phase. And so you can go on Google and say text AI tools or best AI tools and you'll find a lot of tools. And one of the advantages of being in the phase right now is that everybody will have free trials. And so you can try the different tools and look at AI for podcasters, try the different tools and see what works for you. And in some ways, if you remember about 10 years ago when the social media management tools started coming out, right, Hootsuite, whatever the other tools were, you could get a subscription for $9 .99 because they were all in the land grab mode. They wanted to get customers. Now it's very hard to get a very good social media management tool for less than $49 .99. They've matured. The best tool have survived. A lot of tools have gone by the wayside. And AI is in that new frontier phase with the tools. Yeah. Another tool that I tried and I really like the CEO, David, is a tool called Memento and it's, I think, studio .memento .fm or memento .fm. And they found me actually in November of last year pitching me on LinkedIn because I had podcaster and so I was part of their beta Memento. The tool has evolved now. It's more sophisticated video editing tool. But at the time they took my episode, they basically just from the RSS feed and then they generated a transcription. They found like the five or six moments that they felt were most interesting in the episode. And then they gave me like five options of a video that has those moments already, different formatting, a tagline. So that's a lot of what the tools are doing now. Let me interrupt. I'm sensing what is the listener thinking right now? And I think they're like, well, what do each of these tools do? And if Dino's looked into them, how does he like them for that thing? So what does Capchio say that they do and how do you like them? What does Podium say that they do and how do you like them? Same thing with chat, GPT and Memento. What use do they have and for our listener who's a podcaster and like, is it good for that? What would you say if we went down that list? So the tools that you mentioned, Capchio, Podium, Memento, those are tools that are specifically targeted at podcasters. Chad GPT is one of the two or three dominant A .I. models like the BARD by Google. There's the one by Bing. And so what do you mean they're barred by Google? What is that? Google, they're basically an A .I. engine is one of the systems that have all the data and does the calculations and does the creative. So there's Chad GPT, which is from open A .I. is the one of the best known one. But Google has its own, which is called BARD, which you can join, which does similar things to Chad GPT. And then Bing has a tool. These tools are a lot more powerful. And as a matter of fact, a lot of the podcasting tools actually connect into the Chad GPT engine to spit out their results. But if you will, they put a layer on top of it. So I'm going to just stick to the podcasting tools and I'm going to talk about the use, which is the easiest, which is you have just recorded your episode. You need to do show notes. You want to create maybe social media posts from it. You want a transcription. You want to find the part that are more interesting. So all of these tools allow you to upload an episode. And then after a little bit of time, they give it to you. So I have tried that with Memento, as I mentioned in the past, when it was in the beta phase with CAPTCHA and with podium CAPTCHA. I found the interface very complicated in some ways. It doesn't give you the result immediately. It makes a transcription and then wants you to do edits. I tried the free version for two weeks and then it charged me when I went back this week to do the test with the episode that you and I were a part of. It had basically charged me, but it had erased my old files and I wasn't able to upload the file from our episode. So I can't speak to it. I don't want to be overly negative on the tool because I know that Harry Duran has been using it for a while and finds it very helpful. I probably didn't get enough time to figure out how it worked. But the reality is that when I tried podium, the output for me was a lot easier and faster to come through. So podium, you upload the episode and then it shoots two or three text files that you can download that have various things. So there's a highlights file, there's a show notes file, and then there's a transcription. And maybe something that may be helpful is I can go into the show notes from the episode that you and I did together episode 331 and just tell our listeners a little bit of the things that it said. Because to put that in context, imagine you're just dropping this into browser a and then about 10, 20 minutes later, you get all this out. So it starts with like episode keywords, podcasting, authentic leadership, listenership, content creation, refining questions, etc. Then it gives me title suggestions, exploring authentic leadership, meaningful content creation and client acquisition in podcasting. That's an example. This is the episode where you and I were talking about having goals, navigating the odyssey of podcasting, art of authentic leadership and content creation for podcasts, chasing success in podcasting through authenticity and creativity. The journey for authentic leadership to client acquisition in podcasts, mastering the art of podcasting, leadership content and client acquisition, exploring the power of authenticity and creativity in successful podcasting. So I will say real quick, I like a couple of those spit out maybe seven ideas, but I like a couple of them better than what my team ended up titling it. And that is the point. I think that this makes the heavy lifting faster because right now, if I have to come up with the title right now, instead of starting from scratch, I have the seven that I can look at. And none of them really works. But I can mix these two and create this one. And this is how I've been using it. I've done two episodes from my podcast, taking a look at the output from podium, and that's what I've been using it. What's really helpful is if I go, it gives me three different potential episode summaries with different flavors. Right. One says, prepare yourself for a journey into the heart of podcasting as we explore the heart of authentic leadership and help you navigate the path to success. This episode promises you the knowledge, the insights and the inspiration to grow your listenership, make money and stay true to your authenticity. Join me as I share my personal podcast journey ignited by the spark of Judy Fox and Rachel Cook evolving into an odyssey of regular content creation. Now, some of this is not really my voice, but re editing this or your voice for that matter, since it was your podcast. But re editing that podcast, right, we in the summary, creating maybe an intro. And then there's an alternative that says as you navigate the podcast world, hoping to make are you navigating the podcast world, hoping to make a mark? We've got insights from my own journey in this episode, right from the spark of inspiration from Judy Fox and Rachel Cook to regular content releases. So this is like a slightly different, more like I'm engaging the listener here. And another then alternative listening as we navigate the path of authentic leadership in podcasting, where most podcasters fall short of their goals. This episode takes you behind the scenes of my podcast journey, started from inspiration, blah, blah, blah. And they have I've read you the first paragraph from each example. Each one of the summaries is three paragraphs that I could take and probably get my notes done once again in a lot faster than it is. Right. And if you notice earlier, it talked about what were the main keywords, the keywords are put in the summaries in a way that would make sense for SEO. It does it. I love that. And I'm sorry that I'm cutting you off real quick. I'm very curious if it gives bullet points as well as the three paragraphs. So this is the summary episode chapters. So it comes up with four episode chapters, authentic leadership in podcasting, tips for creating meaningful podcasts and time, by the way. So it says twenty seven thirty finding the right clients being authentic. And then episode chapters with short key points. I just pick one in the middle. Thirty three fifty four. The importance of podcast editing, understand goals, determine resources, outsource podcast editing, invest in a professional editor for best listener experience, and then it has full summaries where you get a full paragraph. So if we go to the same point, important about editing, we explore the importance of understanding your goals for your podcast. And now this can help determine the amount of time and resources you're willing to commit to it. We learn why Dino Cattaneo chooses to outsource podcast editing and the cost of doing so. We also discover the value of investing in a professional editor in order to provide the best experience for your listeners. This is a very legit one paragraph summary of that part of the episode. Yeah, I like it. And as I said, and I love also that it leaves some of it up to the imagination. Like it's very good at not just giving the answer, but telling you what to listen for. Exactly. I think what you need to remember is that what we talked about, AI is really a statistical analysis of relationships and probabilities, right? So they transcribe the episode. They went through it and figure out like the most probable combination of how someone would use it is this. It doesn't have a voice right now, meaning a creative voice. So it's a little mechanical, but it allows you to just put in the time that you need to make it in your voice to make it more authentic to you. And it has all the information and the facts already collected for you. Yeah, it's really cool. So you mentioned earlier there was Cap Show. You said it was the interface was a little bit challenging for you. Yeah. It just wasn't more complicated than, for example, podium. The difference is that Cap Show, you need to walk through all the steps to create all the different things and give it direction. So in some ways, it's probably once you learn it, it's more powerful. Well, 100 percent on the fact that I did not invest the time into learning it. On the other side, the fact that my two episodes are gone and that yesterday I could not upload the episode, that's a technical fail. And then if you are all these tools, as I said, collect your episode and run it through an AI model. A lot of them use Chad GPT, but Chad GPT in itself is a very powerful tool for bigger content creation. So because AI is a statistical tool, the key thing is the prompt, right? You give the prompt, you tell AI, OK, create this for me. So write this for me for this audience in the voice of. So in Chad GPT, for instance, you can upload a bunch of pages of your writing and then say, this is the style of my writing. And so you can say, write a summary of this article in my voice. And then that's where you start getting into the more dark corners of the ethics, if you will, because technically I could go on GPT and say on Chad GPT and say, write a novel in the voice of Henry James, a novel that talks about this plot in the voice of Henry James. Yeah, I want to understand between Cap Show, Podium and Memento, which of those would you suggest or recommend to a listener who wanted to maybe offload some of the show notes, support social media and transcriptions? So I would say this. As I said, Henry has been very successful using Cap Show, so I don't want to discount them. I'm really enjoying what Podium is doing for me. And I also have a little bit of a bias, because at the conference I did spend time with the two founders of Podium, and I really like them. And I tend to form relationship. Memento, I will say that if I had the time to invest in really learning the new updates that they've done in the video editing, Memento is incredibly powerful. Just to give you an example, when I was in the beta phase and I don't have a TikTok account, but I just want to see what happened. So I open a TikTok account and then I literally just posted five text and graphic videos that Memento made for me just from the audio of my episode. So I went in and chose a template like literally seven minutes of work. And the first one that I posted got seven hundred and fifty views on a TikTok account that had zero followers and zero. And the quality is really good. So I would say this. These are only two of the tools. I've been happy with Podium, but we are really in a phase where I would advise people to explore. And I want to also mention something that is somebody that is not in the podcast world, but who I've known for about 15 years from the music world, from my world, managing my wife as a singer songwriter. Her name is Ariel Hyatt. She has something that's called cyber PR, and she was way ahead of the curve on digital marketing for artists. And she was explaining how artists should do social media way back in 2010. And now she's been very much ahead of the curve on the AI thing. And I'm going to look for the link. She has a four hour online class on how to use AI as a musician. And what I really like about that class is that she really knows her audience and she knows that musicians do not want to learn AI to do marketing. They just want to get the basics that they need to make their life easier. So this class is very simple. It teaches you everything that you need to do. And she has a number of platforms on it that she recommends. And so I think it's maybe I don't remember how much it is to enroll, but it's not very expensive. And it's definitely a great, great. I'm going to actually give you put the link in there. It's a great way to quickly understand what's going on, start playing around with things, because another really big part of AI is in doing the graphics, social media graphics, images, et cetera. And I can really help with that, too. So here is the link to cyber music PR. That's the home page on the front page. There is a webinar that talks about AI. And then somewhere in there, there will be the class they have, you know, and she has like 100 percent. They have a freebie where you can get 100 plus chat GPT prompts, which is a good way to start understanding what prompts are, how they work, because an exercise that we did in the culture code class was to come up with podcast a title and a podcast video promo using chat GPT and a video editing software. And so I have somewhere here I can share sort of like the example of the problems that you would give with judge GPT that kind of gives you an idea of how that works. And here I want to give credit once again to culture and code and the seminar they did. The three ingredients of a good prompt in chat GPT or in any AI tool is the goal. So what do you want to do the format? How do you want the output? And then has specific requests, you know, word count, include, exclude keywords, et cetera. So being example, this is how we did a podcast title. And this would be a persona. So act like a fiction podcast screenwriter. Write a five to seven words title for detective. So give me five, three word title options for a detective noir podcast that takes place in a small town in Louisiana. The audience are young adult females who like the Twilight book series. So as you can see, like when you're talking about creating things in AI, the details are really important. So I could go to chat GPT, which is just a general and say, you know, write me 10 tweets based on the transcript from my podcast that talks about leadership and practical steps to be a better leader and write them for Twitter, for an audience of senior executives. And so chat GPT would generate the tweets. Yeah, cool. And then you can take them and edit them. Yeah. And if you think about it, that's what what we were talking about. Rand was saying that it will take away the content factories. Right. Right now, when you hire one of these low cost services that are creating content for you, somebody is going and writing those 20 tweets. And it's instead you're using a tool. Yeah, I like it. Well, let's wrap it up real fast here. I've got a couple of links that are in the show notes. First and foremost, the link to episode 331 with Dino is in the show notes. Additionally, his coaching program, he is a business coach and the link to working with him is in the show notes as well. Any social media that Dino wanted you to have is down there. And then on top of that, links to Cap Show, Podium, Chat GPT and Memento are down there. And two other links that we will put in there. And it is cyber music dot com and PR music, cyber PR music dot com. And then the culture and code dot IO, that link will also be in the show notes. That way, anything that we talked about, you can easily find. So just scroll down. You can check that out and then just be able to find Dino wherever he is, wherever he is shared. Those links are down in the show notes already. And Dino will probably bring you back on. But this was fun. Like it was we'll call it more insightful because it's like I've been afraid of AI, not to the effect that I think it's going to take jobs and destroy the world. Although that might be true. I've been afraid of AI to the effect of like I don't know if I want to take that, be that pioneer, take the first step and learn it from scratch. So it's been really helpful to have your experience as you've been working with it prior to that conference and since that conference to be working with different ones and be able to share what they do. And there's a piece of feedback that I think is important for the listener. And that is at the end of this episode, the thing that you ought to be doing with AI is exploring different AI tools, not necessarily just going and picking the ones that we've shared here today, but exploring and seeing what they do, how they work, how the interface works for you and for your goals and the way that you work, which ones are complicated for you and easy for you. But with that said, CapShow is one that's really well known in the podcast space. I'm friends with the owner. And additionally, a lot of people say that they like it. Podium easier sounds to use and faster, and you don't have to figure out as much. And Memento is especially good for things like video podcasts and creating TikToks as well. Just with Instagram, real TikToks. Yes. Yeah, it's pretty fun. So all those links are down in the show notes. And you can also follow Dino there as well. This was a little bit longer episode, but the next episode is quite short. It is a solo episode that I queued up just for you who's listening with some information that I know that you need. And that's the next episode. So I would just jump over there. I'll see you on that episode. By the way, one way to ensure that you don't miss out on great content that we're producing on a regular basis is to make sure you're subscribed to the show. You need to be subscribed or following the Apple podcast or wherever you listen to it in order not to miss all of that. And before I let you go, I need to mention, because a lot of people are asking, do you help? Can you help me with this? And the answer is yes. My company actually does it. It's called Grow Your Show. And you can find that at growyourshow .com. Our clients, they call us the easy button for podcaster because they simply have to record their episode and they know that every single thing else is done for them. We sweat the hard stuff so you can be the star of your show. And if you would like help to make sure that we're editing and publishing and promoting and doing your social media, it's all in one place. And I think it's pretty affordable. You'll have to take a look for yourself. Just go to growyourshow .com and check us out. And by the way, I'll see you on the next episode.
Crypto News Alerts | Daily Bitcoin (BTC) & Cryptocurrency News
A highlight from 1429: Bitcoin $220,000 (Short Term) In Play - Max Keiser
"Say goodbye to your credit card rewards. Big -box retailers led by Walmart and Target are pushing for a bill in Congress to take away your hard -earned cash back and travel points to line their pockets. Senate Bill 1838 would enact harmful credit card routing mandates that would end credit card rewards as we know it. If you love your credit card rewards, visit HandsOffMyRewards .com and tell them to oppose credit card routing legislation paid for by the Electronic Payments Coalition. In today's show, I'll be breaking down the latest Bitcoin technical analysis and quoting the high priest of Bitcoin, Max Keiser. For world peace, let's have a day of Bitcoin. All the troubles you see, all the wars and hatred are caused by fiat money and central bankers. Bitcoin fixes this. Martyring yourself for fiat money is foolish. Get right with Satoshi and perfect money. Bitcoin preach. Also in today's show, long -term hodlers buy 1 .35 billion dollars worth BTC as the whales continue stacking. Also breaking news, Japanese yen -backed digital currency DCJPY to go live in July 2024. Also breaking news, Caroline Ellison's testimony shared that SBF bribed Chinese officials for 150 million dollars to unfreeze funds using Thai prostitutes. Not only that, but Caroline and Bankman freed conspired to keep Bitcoin under $20 ,000 by selling customer BTC. We'll also be breaking down USDR stablecoin, dpegs to $0 .53, as well as ARK's amended spot Bitcoin ETF filing is a good sign of future approval. I'm also going to be sharing with you Max Keiser's short -term price prediction for Bitcoin of $220 ,000 and quoting him here from a recent speech he gave at Pacific Bitcoin Conference. If you want to live in America, move to El Salvador. If you want the Constitution, a Bill of Rights, move to El Salvador. If you want to feel freedom of expression, move to El Salvador. That's the America. The Statue of Liberty is now a volcano and it's on the tropics and it's a guy named President Pukele running the joint and I suggest everyone who is feeling downtrodden and persecuted and not able to be who they really want to be to get the heck out of this ish hole and move to El Salvador, that's my recommendation to you. We'll also be taking a look at the overall crypto market, all this plus so much more in today's show. Yo what's good crypto fam? This is first and foremost a video show, so if you want the full premium experience with video, visit my youtube channel at cryptonewsalerts .net. Again that's cryptonewsalerts .net. Welcome everyone, this is podcast episode number 1429. I'm your host JV and today is October 12, 2023. Let's kick off today's show as we do each and every day with our market watch. Make sure to say hello in the live chat and at the end of the show I'll give everyone a shout out. How's that sound? As you can see here Bitcoin and all the major cryptos currently correcting and in the red and as you can see on coin market cap, the market cap is barely sitting above that 1 trillion dollar milestone which we have been at for quite some time. It's been pretty stagnant and the 24 hour volume is just above 24 billion with Bitcoin dominance at 49 .9 % and the Ether dominance at 17 .8 % and checking out the top 100 crypto gainers the past 24 hours. Loom is leading the pack up 13 % trading at 21 cents followed by FXS of 5 % trading at $5 .69 followed by Gala at roughly 4 % trading just under looks like or I'm sorry just above 1 .3 cents and checking out the top 100 crypto gainers of the past week you can see it's a mixture of gainers and losers with some of the top losers being Roon and RLB and the top gainer here FXS up over 5 % on the week and checking out the crypto greed and fear index we're currently rated a 45 in fear yesterday a 47 last week a 48 and last month a 30 in fear so there you have it fam how many of you are currently bullish on the king crypto and how many of you been taking advantage of this dip let me know put a BTFD in the comments right down below and where my long -term hodlers that make some noise don't be a stranger yeah I mean and with that being shared now let's dive into today's Bitcoin technical analysis and specifically check out the technicals according to trading view so we could switch it up a bit as you can see here we got Bitcoin currently sitting just above twenty six thousand six hundred dollars down point seven eight percent on the day now if we look at some of the technicals on the one day you can currently see there's literally 14 cell signals you got ten neutral signals and only two by signals now as we can see as far as oscillators are concerned there's one by signal one cell signal and nine which are neutral and when it comes to moving averages and those cell signals there's literally 13 of them right now with one neutral and only one by the one by for the moving average is the simple moving average and I mean that's pretty wild to say the least say goodbye to your credit card rewards big box retailers led by Walmart and Target are pushing for a bill in Congress to take away your hard -earned cash back and travel points to line their pockets Senate bill 1838 would enact harmful credit card routing mandates that would end credit card rewards as we know it if you love your credit card rewards visit hands off my rewards calm and tell them to oppose credit card routing legislation paid for by the electronic payments coalition now I want to discuss really quick a Bitcoin day max Kaiser came up with the idea to celebrate peace around the world especially with all the conflicts and the wars popping out you know left and right and I thought it was a great idea so I proposed this Bitcoin day be celebrated on 11 11 as 11 is a very special omen and a very significant when it comes to numerology 11 11 so here's what I had to share in response to what max shared so max's idea for world peace let's have a day of Bitcoin all the troubles you see all the wars and hatred are caused by fiat money and central bankers Bitcoin fixes this martyring yourself for fiat money is foolish get right with Satoshi and perfect money here was my response I wrote this last night I channeling the spirit of Satoshi declare 11 11 the official Bitcoin day moving forward which shall be celebrated globally Bitcoin equals peace and love Bitcoin the network and Bitcoin perfect money heals the world Bitcoin fixes things major problems such as war inflation poverty corruption famine enslavement and depopulation and that's just the tip of the iceberg or the melting ice cube as a cyber hornet named sailor once described fiat currency and also was the first to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet of a publicly traded company called micro strategy a high priest named max Kaiser along with a fairy godmother named Stacy Herbert introduced Bitcoin to the global stage in 2011 through the first international TV coverage of Bitcoin via the Kaiser report calling Bitcoin the biggest story of this decade as well as coining the phrase Bitcoin is the currency of the resistance and in 2021 president Bukele adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador liberating his people and country from fiat money priests and corruption of IMF and central banking cartels as a direct result of adopting Bitcoin as a legal tender Bukele transformed his country El Salvador from the most dangerous with the highest murder rate to now the safest in the Americas with the lowest murder rate now as Bitcoin game theory continues which countries will be next to liberate themselves from their fiat overlords let me know your thoughts in the comments below Bitcoin and the power of the centralization is changing the world putting the power back in the hands of the people 11 11 Bitcoin day so there you have it fam let me know your thoughts on celebrating peace around the world on Bitcoin day come 11 11 which is November 11th literally about a month out let me know if you want to celebrate with me and let's go change the world shall we and with that being shared fam and I'm anxious to read your comments regarding Bitcoin day now let's dive into our next story of the day and discuss the whales continue to huddle follow the smart money they say 1 .3 billion dollars being huddled by long -term buyers let's break this down a new report from glass note an on -chain analytical firm shared that Bitcoin huddlers are adding to their holdings these long -term Bitcoin investors as we know as huddlers don't appear to be phased by the recent volatility damn right according to on -chain data long -term huddlers have been rapidly amassing BTC adding more than 50 ,000 Bitcoin each month to their holdings and now a Bitcoin currently showing signs of slowing down as we're around that $27 ,000 level it seems that most the blame is for the persistent selling pressure as data shows whale investors seeing this opportunity to buy more BTC at a discount rather than to secure profits and according to glass notes huddle or net position change metric the long -term huddlers are purchasing an average of 50 ,000 BTC worth 1 .3 billion dollars at the current price every single month let that sink in fam another metric which is the long term huddler supply which measures the amount of the Bitcoin market cap and huddlers also reached an all -time high of fourteen point eight nine or five nine million BTC this means that seventy six percent of the total circulating supply has not moved in the past five months so congratulations all you long -term huddlers with the diamond hands consequently a roughly ninety five percent of the total Bitcoin supply has not moved in the past month that's freaking fantastic definitely a bullish indicator and to back up this data of increased accumulation we also have crypto analyst Ali Martinez sharing a chart from sentiment showing the whales purchasing around 20 ,000 Bitcoin since the beginning of October worth currently roughly five hundred and fifty million dollars so at this rate the number of Bitcoin vaulted by huddlers is poised to pass 50 ,000 Bitcoin in October this increased accumulation suggests that the long -term huddlers remain confident and bitcoins long -term potential and see this price correction as temporary so there you have it fam let me know if you agree or disagree and according to glass note only eleven and a half percent of the Bitcoin circulating supply change hands in the last three months indicating a prolonged and active period of on -chain activity that there are fewer transactions suggesting investors aren't willing to sell at the current price as the industry awaits the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs send it and let's go as you all know we've been waiting on this for quite some time in 2024 we're gonna get two of the most bullish catalyst you could anticipate and that's the Bitcoin having scheduled to take place in April 2024 roughly six months out along with the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States ushering trillions of dollars of that total addressable market into Bitcoin which will absolutely send Bitcoin to price discovery mode entering new all -time highs and that's right around the corner hence why the smart money continues to accumulate and with that being shared fam now let's break down our next breaking story of the day the Japanese yen back digital currency DC JP why to go live July 2024 that's right October 12th digital currency and electronic payments firm the current holdings published a white paper on its crypto project the DC JP why the organization intends to launch this coin July of 2024 right after the having and according to the white paper the DC JP why network will consist of the financial zone and the business zone the former will include banks minting deposit as digital currency on the blockchain a sign of the times right fam while the latter will be reserved for transactions the business zone will also provide space for issuing non fungible security and governance token now the leading issuer of DC JP why will be backed by deposits in the Japanese yen and it will be a Zora Bank a commercial entity with 19 domestic branches in Japan now in 2021 the current reported about a consortium of 70 Japanese companies that would participate in the DC JP why network and while the white paper doesn't mention any specific names of the network participants the current itself is backed by 35 shareholding companies with Japan post bank Mitsubishi and Dentsu group amongst them now the current will hold the seminar seminar in the white paper explaining the main points behind the project October 18th which is roughly next week this meeting will take place in Tokyo and won't be screened online now in May of this year the Bank of Japan released the results of the second phase of its central bank digital currency experiment that's right we know CBDCs it'll make a final decision on issuing a digital yen by 2026 so we all know it's coming through the pipeline fam right meanwhile Binance and Mitsubishi and UFJ trusts and banking corporations are exploring the issuance of Japanese yen and other foreign currency denominated stable coins in the country so there you have it pretty interesting to say the least a Japanese yen backed digital currency can you could you fathom a United States backed currency by Bitcoin because that's what RFK jr. is trying to do anyways fam now let's break down our next story of the day and discuss the latest of what's happening with Sam Bankman freed and Caroline Ellison and the ongoing saga cuz this you got to see it to believe it check this out fam Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman freed conspire to keep Bitcoin under 20 ,000 by selling customer BTC yeah that's right I mean you can't make this stuff up so did they really do this let's discuss it as you know Bitcoin failed to hit $100 ,000 during the 2021 bull market because defunct exchange FTX kept selling Bitcoin analysis claims and in an ex post Joe Burnett a senior product marketing manager at Bitcoin financial services firm Unchained joined voices arguing that FTX execs suppress the Bitcoin price strength I agree with this theory a hundred percent and I also feel Bitcoin could have likely hit a hundred thousand during that bull run but some shady mofos clearly enemies Bitcoin so as the trial of the former FTX CEO SPF continues new testimony paints the picture of market manipulation that's right Caroline Ellison this week the former CEO of affiliated firm Alameda Research reportedly told the court that SPF asked her to sell Bitcoin should the spot price breach $20 ,000 this was done using FTX customer funds which neither had the right to deploy now this brings in a question in my mind who instructed or ordered Sam Bankman free to dump all the Bitcoin coming in on the exchange once the price surpassed $20 ,000 could it have been collusion with unethical regulators like the chairman of the SEC Gary Gensler isn't that a great question what's your thoughts fam let me know in the comments right down below but wait there's more check it out reacting Burnett suggests that due to the scale of the operations involved the entire Bitcoin bull run could have been adversely affected quitting him here Alameda was insolvent even during the bull market it appears they used or borrowed FTX customer Bitcoin and other customer assets to buy Sam coins better known as FTT Solana and serum he wrote referring to reports that Ellison's firm had a negative value of 2 .7 billion dollars in 2021 quitting him here without this fake cell pressure maybe Bitcoin would have hit a hundred thousand dollars in 2021 what's your thoughts chat let me know and in the event Bitcoin still reached the all -time high of 69 ,000 in November but at the time predictions called for much larger numbers amongst those were the now popular stock the flow Bitcoin price model with Plan B is the anonymous creator of given a price target a Bitcoin hitting up to 288 ,000 during the current halving cycle the worst -case scenario he continued was 135 ,000 by December of 2021 and I'm sure you remember this infamous tweet shared June 20th 2021 he wrote Bitcoin is below 34 ,000 triggered by Elon's energy FUD in China's mining crackdown there's also a more fundamental reason that we see weakness in June and possibly July my worst -case scenario for 2021 according to the price on chain base is August greater than 47 ,000 September 43 ,000 October 63 ,000 November 98 ,000 in December greater than a hundred and thirty five thousand dollars per coin and as doge Cuban shared here I can't stop thinking about an alternate timeline where SPF is president of the United States which Caroline also revealed he had aspirations to become the president Bitcoin hitting a hundred thousand FTX token flipping BTC meat is illegal and the US and Nexus the Bahamas and all women above a three get deported Adam back wrote so that sounds to me more like SPF needs USD liquidity sell BTC but don't sell below 20 ,000 and not try to keep Bitcoin under 20 ,000 an example below 20 ,000 is ridiculously cheap weight or higher so there you have it fam and I mean again he's being she pointed out that he tried to bribe a Chinese official with a hundred and fifty million dollars to unfreeze his billion dollar fund and that he was using Thai prostitutes to do so I mean things just keep getting more and more interesting and the obviously the trial is going to continue but that is the gist of it it's just quite interesting to say the least and with that being shared fam now let's break down our next breaking story of the day and I wanted to throw this in here USD our stable coin has d peg from the dollar currently trading at 53 cents I'm just gonna share a little insights from here the real estate back stable coin USD are how many of you have heard of this let me know lost his peg to the US dollar after Russia redemptions caused the draining of liquid assets such as da I which is the stable coin on the etherium network from its Treasury its project team had revealed us dr backed by a mixture of cryptos and real estate holdings is issued by tangible protocol a decentralized finance project that seeks to tokenize housing and other real -world assets us dr is mostly traded on the pearl decentralized exchange which runs on polygon in the October 11 tweet explained tangible that over a short period of time all the liquid die from their us dr Treasury was redeemed leading to an accelerated drawdown of their market cap as quoting them here combined with the lack of die for redemption's panic selling ensued causing a deep egg so us dr experienced a flood of selling at around 11 30 a .m.
Postcards to the Universe with Melisa
Discover the Ancient World of Chakras with Sarah Bright
"I'm really excited to talk to my guest Sarah Bright today because we are going to learn more about the chakras. I know a little bit about them, but I'm excited to learn more. So Sarah Bright has been working in the fitness and wellness industry for almost two decades, helping thousands of people reach their health goals as a personal trainer and coach. She was a student of the chakras, an ancient philosophy that studies how our energetic world is related to our physical world. Sarah realized that the missing link in most people's wellness programming was the blending of emotional and mental health with physical health. In that moment, a chakra coach was born. Sarah is now the host of the podcast, Your Chakra Coach, and provides guidance and direction for thousands of people in over 50 countries each week, showing them how to expand their well -being and happiness. Sarah makes complicated philosophical systems like the chakras practical and usable in the modern world. She shares a mindfulness practice that actually work and bust myths about meditation with practices that can help relieve anxiety and teach people to create the life they want to live. For more, if you want to find out more about Sarah, go to her website, www .yourchakracoach .com. Welcome, Sarah. Thanks so much for coming to be here with me today. Thank you for having me, Melissa. I appreciate you so much. I'm so excited. Like I said, I wanted to learn, I want to learn more about the chakras. So what was the spark that got you interested? Sarah and I were talking just for a few minutes before we came onto the show, and she said, I'm not an expert. I'm still a student. I'm always learning about these ancient, you know, these ancient, what would you call them? Ancient what? Ancient philosophies, ancient techniques, ancient practices. Okay. Yeah. That's a good word. Those are good words. So what, what like sparked your interest? So when I was 19, I went to a theater conference of all things, and I really honestly don't remember why, but my friend and I wandered into this room where there was a seminar going on using about the chakra system to develop characters. Remember, it was a theater conference, so we were learning to be actors. And I was like, what's happening? I don't know what's going on. And we sat down, we sat down, we think we sat down on the floor. I don't know. And we just started listening to this woman discuss the seven main energy centers that we call the chakras that are the ones that you know of and have seen the rainbow pictures of. And as I was listening to her, I felt something just really deep inside of me that just felt like, oh, I am listening to something true that is important. And I think when people find certain practices, and it doesn't have to be the chakras, it could be anything. It just finds something that really sticks in your soul. And that was it for me. Now, that was a long time ago, because again, like I said, I was 19. You couldn't just like hop on the internet and go look it all up. There weren't even podcasts then, Melissa, that's how long I've been looking at this. So I had to go to a bookstore and buy an actual book. But it really just sparked my interest in learning more about this. I had absolutely no background in this. I came from a family where we didn't discuss that kinds of things. Yoga was considered the devil's handiwork. So you know, I really was not coming at this from a place of any knowledge. And it actually sort of a rebellious move on my part to start learning about something like this. But that sparked my interest. And I have continued to learn for all these decades. There's always more to learn. There's always texts to study. There's always new interpretations to discover. There's always new practical applications. So that was sort of my spark, but the system itself and how complicated and unique yet so practical it is, continues to spark my interest in learning every single day.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from POA8 Know your Weapons pt. 3 Put On The Armor A Manual for Spiritual Warfare w/Dr. Paul Thigpen Ph.D. Discerning Hears Catholic Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com, in cooperation with TAN Books, presents Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. Dr. Thickepen is an internationally known speaker, bestselling author, and award -winning journalist who has published 43 books in a wide variety of genres and subjects, including The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to End Times Fever, and The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, the book on which this series is based. In 2008, Dr. Thickepen was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to their National Advisory Council. He has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently in Catholic and secular media broadcasts and at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings. Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor.
SI Media Podcast
A highlight from Joe Buck and Troy Aikman
"I'm Mo Rocca and I'm excited to announce season four of my podcast Mobituaries. I've got a whole new bunch of stories to share with you about the most fascinating people and things who are no longer with us. From famous figures who died on the very same day to the things I wish would die, like buffets. Listen to Mobituaries with Mo Rocca on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome everyone to SI Media with Jimmy Trainor. Thank you so much for listening. We have an awesome episode this week. We have Joe Bock and Troy Aikman together followed by our weekly train of thought segment with his alakada, Joe and Troy entering year number, well not entering, they're in year number 22 together and they will top John Madden and Pat Sumrall for the longest broadcast crew in the NFL with 22 years together. So we discussed that and a variety of other topics. Talked to Joe about if he'll ever call baseball again. Got Troy's opinions on the tush push, what's going on with Bill Belichick, some broadcasting stuff, Tom Brady. So excellent, excellent stuff from Joe and Troy from ESPN. Monday Night Football. And then in train of thoughts, we read some mailbag questions. We're going to start doing that every week on the podcast. So check that out. Before we get to it, just a quick reminder, if you missed any recent episodes, go into the archives and check them out. We had Brian Curtis from The Ringer on last week, Andrew Marchand and the New York Post two weeks ago, Kevin Clark from ESPN three weeks ago. So if you missed any of those, check them out. Give them a listen, subscribe to SI Media with Jimmy Trainor and rate and review on Apple. All right, let's get to it. Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, followed by train of thoughts all right here, right now on SI Media with Jimmy Trainor. All right. Very excited. I've had them both separately many times on the podcast, but I have them together. The broadcast crew, the best broadcast crew in the NFL from ESPN, Monday Night Football. Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Joe, Troy, how are you guys doing? Good. We're good. I have a question already. You said the best broadcast crew in the NFL from ESPN's Monday Night Football. Was that the best broadcast crew in the NFL? And they're also from ESPN's Monday Night Football? Or is it just of all the people that ESPN has doing the NFL, we're the best group? Well, since you brought that up, then I'll just tell everyone that two weeks ago, I believe it was during the giant Seahawk game, I that tweeted Troy is so far and away the best analyst in the sport right now that the gap between him and number two is really wide. And Dan Arlovski actually replied to me on Twitter and was like, hey, you know, like what about me? So I did mean across the entire NFL. Anybody want to respond to that? Troy's just laughing away over there. Yeah. No, thank you for the compliment. It means a lot. It does. It does mean a lot. You know, it's kind of a funny thing. You know, you don't get most of the feedback you get is negative and it's people on Twitter and it's people that are ripping you and saying you're a moron. And, you know, to have somebody who watches this stuff and pays attention saying that is nothing that I take lightly. I think it's great. Thank you very much. Well, I appreciate that. We're going to get into all this stuff and it's your 22nd year together. And I want to talk about that. But I do listen and watch very carefully. So I heard something this past Monday night that I'd like to sort of maybe facilitate here on the pod where Joe you because I am a degenerate gambler. So anytime there's a bet involved my ears perk up. Joe, you offered Troy a hundred bucks if Troy could name four players on the Texas Rangers. I thought this would be the perfect time to see if Troy can do that and then you can pay him when you see him on Monday. Let's see. Pudge Rodriguez, Nolan Ryan, Alex Rodriguez. So no hundred bucks for Troy. No hundred bucks. I was the easiest bet I've ever made in my life. There you go. I love that moment, though. And I think that moment because Steve Ackles, our producer, who's phenomenal, clip that somebody had that on Twitter and sent that to us the next day kind of like, okay, love this for you two guys. And it is I think it does kind of speak to our relationship and it speaks to our friendship and it speaks to the fact that he came back with, you know, there was a time in October I didn't have to work with you. I was so happy that like I was I love that, that he came back at me. So it's that stuff is really fun and I think hopefully separates us. It was definitely a fun moment. You want to offer Troy 50 bucks if he can name one Texas Ranger? Yeah. No, I'm not doing that to him. I like him too much. I'm not going to do that to him. I mean, they advance. You got to now you got to learn one player on the team. Nate Evaldi. There you go. Like I said, you guys now, 22 years together, Madden and Summerall did 21. I know, I know, Troy, you are a huge, huge Madden guy. Yeah. Talk to me about it. Yeah. I know Madden sort of took you under his wing a little bit, right? A little bit, but it didn't, the friendship didn't initially start that way. You know, first of all, I was really fortunate in my career that when we got good, which happened relatively quickly, all things considered, Madden and Summerall, they were, they narrated my, the highlight reels of my career. So, you know, I'm, I'm really happy about that, but, but because of that, because they covered so many of our games, I became very close friends with them on a personal level. Pat lived just outside of Dallas. I spent time, you know, at holiday parties with him. I did a TV show with him while I was playing for two seasons, a weekly show. And then Madden got to know him, spent 4th of July's with him up in Northern California. And played golf with him. And so then when I retired and decided to go into broadcasting, I, yeah, I picked his brain a lot. And that first year we were together at Fox. And then one year later I was actually in Santa Barbara and he called me. That's how I got the news that he was leaving Fox and going to Monday night football that he called me and gave me the news and had little idea what that might mean to me. But that's when Joe and I and Chris Collinsworth got paired and moved up. But yeah, John was, he was a special friend as Pat was as well. And the fact that we're even mentioned in the same sentence with them because of our longevity, it means a lot. It's something that I'm really proud of. The worst thing you or any analyst could do is go into a broadcasting career and try to copy or imitate John Madden or be John Madden. So given that, what did you try to take from him though, when you started to do games? Well, the questions I had was just that there's a lot going on in the booth. And when you get into the booth as a player, straight from the field, it takes some time to figure out exactly what you're supposed to be looking at. Where, you know, I asked him those kinds of questions, like what do you focus on pre -snap? What are you looking at at the snap? And what I found is that, you know, he views it differently. One, because he was a coach, but also because he was a linebacker. So, you know, he views it more along the line of scrimmage. That's what he got into a lot of. Matt Millen, the same way. And then when I came into it, I was a unique analyst compared to what Fox had had at that time. And so I talked more bigger picture. I talked more from a quarterback perspective. And there was a resistance initially to where they said, hey, we need more offensive line play. And I said, well, if you need more offensive line play, then you got the wrong guy, because that's not what I do. And so everybody comes at it a little bit differently. But what John's advice was to me was, you know, hey, where your strength is right now is you're fresh off the field. You know what's happening. You know the players. Whereas his strength was that he knew television, and he had been broadcasting for a long time. So that then is what he leaned on more. And I agree. I don't try to be anybody. I mean, I do listen to all analysts. I know what I think is good and why it might be good. And with that, then you try to say, OK, yeah, maybe I should attack this in this way. But at the end of the day, I'm who I am. My personality is what it is. And I don't try to be John. And quite honestly, I think early on, there were a lot of analysts trying to be John Madden. And I understand it to a point, if he's the best, then everybody's kind of wanting to be that. But think I analysts now have been given a little bit more runway to be who they are. And I think that those analysts who have been able to do that, I think they've been better served. Joe, obviously, Troy was the player, now the broadcaster. You've been a broadcaster your whole life. So I would assume the 22 years together with Troy passing Madden in some role, longest tenured NFL broadcast crew, has special meaning to you, being in this business, with your dad being in this business, et cetera. Yeah. And I have personal ties to both guys. My dad was a broadcast partner to both. My dad did radio football with Pat. They were both at CBS for a long time. My dad was one of Madden's first TV partners. And I know John really liked my dad and obviously vice versa. So I always had that connection to John and to Pat when I would show up at the Fox Seminar. And I was down the list of play -by -play guys. So I do appreciate that fact. I am proud of the body of work that he and I have put together. You have to throw the first three years in there with Chris, too. And I think we're better now than we've ever been, which I think is the best part of it all. I honestly believe that. I think Troy's better than he's ever been. I think I'm more dialed in than I've ever been. Maybe that's without baseball and not kind of running on fumes during this particular month on the calendar. But to think, at least in my opinion, we're still growing and still getting better. And that, to me, is more exciting than milestones. When I was the youngest this and the youngest that, I just had to go do it. I didn't really get caught up in all that stuff. And at the end of the day, nobody really cares other than my family. So, you know, I'm proud of everything I've done with the other guy on this podcast. And I'm really proud of everything I've done with you, Jimmy, over the years. I feel like we've done some good work, too. We have. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to grill you later on some things. No, that's fine. I hope so. We've got some things to discuss. Just on your 22 years before we switched gears, did either of you have, it could be different, a moment, a game, a season where you felt like, we're really good, we're in a groove, this is working, this is kind of special? Like, when did you first feel that? I think right out of the gate, I knew it was pretty interesting. I think it was very different, obviously, with another person in there, being Chris, and Chris and Troy being very different people. And very different broadcasters. By the way, I think that's really the only time it kind of works, when the two analysts in a three -man booth are different. And that was certainly the case with Chris and Troy. But I never felt like we weren't in a good rhythm. I never felt like we were a bad listen. I do feel like once you get through your first Super Bowl and you come back around and you're lined up for the next year, and now Chris had moved on, and it was Troy and me, it didn't take long, that fourth year total, for us to get into an even better rhythm, because it was almost like the weight was off. The weights, the handicap was off. And that has nothing to do with Chris. It could have been anybody. But I think three -man booths are very hard. And when it was just the two of us, it became very easy to get into a rhythm together. And he knew when I stopped talking, it was his turn. I knew when he stopped talking, at some point it was my turn, as opposed to having another person in there. So I think I would say year four is when it felt like, okay, this is really good, I enjoy this, and hopefully it lasts for a while. Troy, you got anything on that? Yeah, no, I would basically agree. I don't think there was this moment when, hey, this is really good, or hey, this works. I know that I had been in a three -man booth my first year with Moose, and then three years following that with Chris. I mean, I knew four games into my career with Moose that three -man booth was tough, and it wasn't something that I really wanted to continue to do. So I was excited when it became a two -man booth. And you just control the broadcast a little bit more, and you're not scatter -shooting after every play and chasing a lot of different things. So that part of it was good. And I would just add this, Jimmy, and Joe and I have talked about it, and we've talked about it on other podcasts and with other writers, that when you get to 22 years, there's a lot of things that have gone well for you. I mean, there's other pairings that could have lasted that long as well, but it was not because of anything they could control. And there was changes made, or this network lost football, or whatever it might be, you know, or this guy wanted to retire. Joe and I came in, you know, we're roughly the same age. I'm a little bit older. But when I left for ESPN, there was no certainty that Joe was going to be able to get out of his contract, so there was a lot going on there. And I think that had Joe not wanted to come to ESPN or if I had not wanted Joe to work with Joe any longer, we both had equal opportunities to kind of take a stand and say, hey, this has been great for, you know, 20 years, but, you know, it's time to kind of move on. We could have very easily have done that. And I think the fact that we're still working together, it's one thing to say, hey, you really respect the guy and you're really close friends, but I think that both of us going to ESPN and continuing to work, you know, you really put an exclamation mark at the end of that. And it meant a lot to me. I mean, I can't even begin to tell you how much it's meant to me that Joe wanted to come and continue to work with me. And I think it's fair to say that it meant as much to him that I wanted to continue to work with him. And so if anything else, going to ESPN has only made our relationship that much stronger. The parallel is interesting because here you are passing Madden and Summerall, and Madden and Summerall, and you guys are the rare teams that stayed together at different networks. They were obviously at CBS for a million years. CBS loses the NFL. They went together to Fox. I'm sure, you know, NBC at the time who had the rights trying to get them or Monday Night Football, but they stayed together. And then here you guys are, Troy goes to ESPN. Joe wasn't there yet. It was Troy leaving first. And then you guys end up together. It's an interesting parallel to Madden and Summerall that you remain together. I mean, John ended up having other partners afterwards, but, you know, we work with Al Michaels, but it's an interesting - I'm pretty sure John ended up at every network. Yeah, he did, I think. You know, when it was all said and done. And yeah, I'm just as proud of that. And I do like that parallel that Pat and John stayed together and he and I stayed together. And it's just, this business is too weird and it's too tough at times who not knowing is standing next to you and what they're all about and what their motives are and if they've got your back. And, you know, to have that and to have the - forget the mechanics of the broadcast and the rhythm and all that stuff. We've got that down. That's baked in. But knowing, like, even that moment that we've already talked about where I know I can throw something at him. If I was working this year with Greg Olsen and I said that, I don't know if that's gonna piss him off. I don't know if he's gonna be like, hey, why are you trying to - But Troy one -upped me by ripping me saying there was a time when I didn't have to work with you in October. That's what I'm talking about. Like, I can give him trouble. He can give it back and be better at it than me. And that is like a great moment for us. It has nothing to do with me. Like, I genuinely root for Troy to be great. And I know he does for me. And that is what it's all about. And I would imagine with Madden and Summerall not having asked him this specifically, but they fit together so well because Jon was so big and such a big presence and a personality and a wham and, you know, kind of snot hanging off the face mask and all the other stuff. And Pat was the straight man. And we're not that, but we fit together on the air in a way that I think is genuinely pleasing to ears people's and sensibilities when they're listening to the game if they bother to listen to it that closely.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from POA7 Know Your Weapons pt. 2 Put On The Armor A Manual for Spiritual Warfare w/Dr. Paul Thigpen Ph.D. Discerning Hears Catholic Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com, in cooperation with TAN Books, presents Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. Dr. Thickepen is an internationally known speaker, bestselling author, and award -winning journalist who has published 43 books in a wide variety of genres and subjects, including The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to End Times Fever, and The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, the book on which this series is based. In 2008, Dr. Thickepen was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to their National Advisory Council. He has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently in Catholic and secular media broadcasts and at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings. Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor. Paul, as we were talking about the weapons that we have for spiritual warfare, the tremendous grace that's poured out upon us from the sacraments of the Church, that absolutely has to be a font that we draw from all the time, isn't it? It is. I mean, it's the grace of God comes to us in these. And the grace of God is what keeps us alive and protects us and strengthens us and transforms us and makes us into the kind of people who are more than conquerors. And so it is so very important that we frequent the sacraments and, as I've tried to do in the book, to kind of take each sacrament even and to understand what are the special graces for spiritual warfare in each one of the sacraments. Because each one of them has its own place, you know, its own role to play in the Christian life to make us more than conquerors in Christ. That is something that the Catholic really needs to rediscover in some ways when we even begin to think about the spiritual battle. As we've discussed in previous conversations, we don't always look at the spiritual life as something that is a battle, and yet that's truly what it is. And for those who have received that fullness, that full communion within the Church, that's something that we should be drawing from every day if we have the opportunity. It is. And when you start looking at what the saints have had to say about the sacraments in this regard, especially the fathers of the Church, they use military terminology to talk about, you know, many of the sacraments in ways we don't often think of it. I mean, if we could go ahead and start with the first one, baptism. It is a sacrament of liberation and deliverance from Satan and his realm. It's through this sacrament that, as St. Paul puts it in Colossians, God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. It's baptism as a special forces operation that rescues us from the enemy territory and brings us home. The reason I emphasize that, particularly for Catholics, is that sometimes in the spiritual warfare that we have, because it hasn't been taught or catechized, and maybe as effectively as it could have been, that often Catholics may, in this battle, turn to our Protestant brothers and sisters. We're also baptized Christians who also have that, you know, Christ dwells with them in them as well, but they will turn to them and the resources that they have developed over time in this spiritual battle and miss this incredible wellspring of grace that is in the sacraments.
Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life
A highlight from The Professors Disillusionment
"Welcome to Gospel in Life. This month we're looking at directional signposts through history that point us to Christ. All through the Old Testament from Genesis to Jonah, you see signs that point us to Jesus. Listen now to today's teaching from Tim Keller on Pointers to Christ. Verses 15 to 26. Then I thought in my heart, The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise? I said in my heart, This too is meaningless. For the wise man, like the fool, will not long be remembered. In days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise must die. So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things that I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days, his work is pain and grief. Even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God. For without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness. But to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after, the win. This is God's word. one Now, of the things that an awful lot of people have said is that Ecclesiastes is a great book. In chapter 97 of Moby Dick, I know it so well, Melville says the truest of all books is Ecclesiastes. Thomas Wolfe in a pretty well -known American novel, You Can't Go Home Again, he says, one of his characters says this, Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, the noblest, the wisest, the most powerful expression of humanity's life on earth, the highest flower of eloquence and truth. There's an awful lot of people who talk like that, say this is the best book in the Bible, this is the truest, this is the greatest. But I can almost guarantee you that none of them felt that way the first time, not the first time they read it. Because what you have when you first read Ecclesiastes, what you're struck with, is a teacher, a professor, as we'll see, in absolute despair. The very first verses, the first few lines of Ecclesiastes go like this, meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless. And of course, the passage I just read is just the same. And so you have someone in utter despair with the bleakest view of life, and the reason people generally get very confused when they read it, people who are believers, people who believe in God, people who have the traditional faith, they say, I'm confused because it seems like he's contradicting everything the rest of the Bible says. And people who don't believe or have trouble believing or who are not as believing, when they read it, I'll tell you what they say. What they say is, who needs this? They say, this guy is a professor, this is the kind of guy who drinks himself into a raise on the left bank talking about the meaninglessness of life, this is the kind of guy who makes these art films that, you know, are so bleak and terrible that play in obscure little corners of Greenwich Village. Of course, the world has people like that, but most of us aren't like that, we don't see life like that. Who needs this rant? Who needs this pessimism? Now, the reason why it's so confusing is because a couple of things are missed. The first thing is because people don't realize the instructional approach. We don't exactly know who wrote Ecclesiastes, I won't get into the debate, it's debatable that Solomon writes, it doesn't matter because in the very first line, he calls himself a teacher, a word that can mean a professor. And if you read Ecclesiastes, you'll realize that this man, and it's the only book like this in the Bible, this man is running a seminar. He's not lecturing, he's not preaching, like a good philosophy professor, he's running a seminar. He is making you think. He is goading you with questions. Ecclesiastes, unlike any other book of the Bible, is not pedagogy, it's andragogy. Pedagogy literally means child instruction, memorizing, wrote, you see, drill, spoon feeding. Andragogy is a word that means adult instruction. Goading, asking questions, getting people to look at their own foundations, discovering truth for themselves. That's one of the reasons why Ecclesiastes seems so odd. But the other reason it seems so odd is because people, I don't think notice, unless you look clearly and I'm going to try to show you this morning, that the teacher is looking at life all the time. He's always saying, I see, I see, I saw this, I looked at life and I saw this, but he looks at life in two different ways and he goes back and forth between them. Let me show you the first way he looks at life and the second way he looks at life. It'll teach us a great deal. The first way he looks at life, in the first view, let's say how he looks and what he sees and why he sees it. Now, the first way he looks at life is he looks at life under the sun. You notice how three times in this passage, verse 17, 20 and 22, he says, I found this meaningless under the sun. I saw all my work under the sun was meaningless. This is a term that's used 30 times in the book. This is a term that is not used anywhere else in the Old Testament, so it's clearly critical to and very important to the whole book. And what he means by this, almost all the commentators I've ever read agree, what he means by under the sun is life here and now considered in isolation from anything else. Life under the sun is, he says, I'm going to look at the world as if this life under the sun is all that there is. I'm not going to look at life above the sun. I'm not going to think about God or eternity or heaven or hell, see. I'm not going to think of anything beyond. I'm going to look at life as if this is the only life we have, at least the only life we know. You know Carl Sagan in the beginning of every one of his Cosmos PBS segments, in the very beginning you'd hear Carl Sagan's voice come on and he would say, the cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Now most people are not atheists in the strict sense like Carl Sagan. What Carl Sagan is saying is, this life, this world, there is no heaven, there is no hell, there is no eternity, okay? There is nothing but this life, life under the sun, there's nothing else. Most people aren't atheists. Most people would say, well, I believe in God, but the modern person says, I believe in God or something, but we can't know. We can't know God's will for sure. We can't know about the after. We can't be sure. And so essentially the modern person says, we have got to live life as if this is the only life we know. And the teacher says, deal. I'm going to look at life as if it's the only life we know. That's how he's looking at it. That's the first way he looks at it. I'm going to look at life under the sun. But what does he see? What he sees is absolute inconsequentiality. Now, he kind of looks at it in several ways. He notices the injustice. If you look down, he says, it's unjust. Some people work very, very hard and never enjoy the fruit of their labor, and other people who don't deserve it at all enjoy it. And then he says, and worse than that, it's possible that you could work very hard to accomplish something in life, and then when you die, not only don't you get it anymore, but some fool comes along and takes over, and next thing you know, everything you've worked for is gone. You build an institution. You establish a school of thought. You do some good deeds, and somebody else comes along afterwards and just ruins it. But you see, that all is just, those are all just symptoms. Because up in verse 15 and 16, he really gives you the bottom line. In verse 15 and 16, as I read, he says, the fate of the fool will overtake me also. He says, therefore, this is meaningless, for the wise like the fool will not long be remembered. Now what he's bringing out here is something, again, incredibly modern, but something he's trying to grab you by the scruff of the neck and show you. And we're going to talk about why, but for now, let's say the what. We'll talk about why he's doing this, but right now, let's say what he's looking at. And what he is saying is, a wise life, a wise action, or a foolish life, a foolish action, a compassionate life, a compassionate action, a cruel life, a vicious action. In the end, makes no difference at all. None at all. If it's really true that life under the sun is all there is, if it's really true that when we die, that's it, and eventually the solar system dies, in other words, eventually something will sweep everything away, civilization will all be swept away, it won't make a bit of difference how you've lived at all. And therefore, there is no way, if you realize that life under the sun is all there is, that you can say one action is more significant than another, because it makes no difference in the end at all. Now, that's very bleak, you say. And the question comes up, why, you know, we're all smart people, we walk around, why is it that the average person, and the average person in Western culture who shares the teacher's premise that this life is all we know, but they go on out there and they don't feel that life is meaningless, they don't say one thing is as insignificant as another, that everything is ridiculous, everything is meaningless and vain and futile, no. So why does he, and here's the reason why. He looks at the whole of life, the big picture, and we refuse to. The key is, take a look at this question that he brings out, I have been meditating on this question for some years, and I just saw something this week that I'd never seen before. Here's the question he asks, and he dares you to ask the question. He says, down here in verse 22, what does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? That's the question. Every word is significant. First of all, he says, assuming that this life is all there is, first of all, he says, what is the gain? What do you get? What is the difference? Now, why do you ask that question? Because he's really showing us that you ask that question about any individual piece of your life, do you not? If somebody says to you, I would like you to go to the corner of so -and -so place, and I would like you to stand there for an hour tomorrow, you would say, for what? Well, the person says, I don't want to tell you, I'd just like you to do it. And you say, no, no, no, no. I want to know what difference it'll make, what gain there will be, otherwise it's a waste of time. You would never do anything. If it made absolutely no difference at all, if nothing came of it at all, you'd never do anything. But the thing that, in other words, we look at every part of our life like that. But the reason that the teacher comes to despair, existential despair, is because he uses a little word in that question that is so critical, and that is the word all. What do you get from the whole of your life? And the reason the average person shares the teacher's premise but does not share the teacher's despair in this world, in this Western culture, is because we refuse to use the word all. See, the average person, I mean, there's probably a lot of people right here listening to this, and you're going to sit through the 30 minutes or whatever, but you would never sit through 30 minutes personally with somebody. If somebody sat down and said, well, what do you believe about life? And you said, well, I'm kind of an agnostic, I'm kind of a, I sort of believe in God in general, it might be true, but the one thing is all we know is that we're here, we don't really know for sure why we're here or where we're going or, you know, we can't be sure. Now, the person says, well, in that case, you must, you have to look at life and say that nothing means anything, that there's no right and wrong ultimately, there's no significance between one action over another, that no one action is more meaningful or more significant than the other. And you wouldn't stand for that. You would say, oh, give me this, I took philosophy 101, this meaning in life, so philosophers need this, philosophers ask the big questions. The average person, the average person lives for the daily things. Sure, I don't know, I'm an agnostic, but I'm optimistic about life, why? Because when I take a boat ride in Central Park, I feel good, it's meaningful. When I hug somebody I love, it's meaningful. When accomplish I something at work, it's meaningful. When I do a compassionate deed as opposed to a selfish deed, it's meaningful to me. I'm having a fine life. You can't throw all this on me, you can't put me back into philosophy class. Now, you know what you're doing? You're refusing to ask the word all. There was an old Mutt and Jeff cartoon some years ago. Remember Mutt and Jeff? And at one place, Mutt, Jeff comes up and there's Mutt, and right in the middle of a street, right in the middle of a, you know, a road, a street, he has built a very, very tall pile of stones, and at the top of the pile of stones, there's a lantern, and Jeff says to Mutt, oh, Mutt, why did you build this pile of stones? Oh, he says, that's easy, so I could put the lantern up there. So that it's up high so that it gives a lot of light. Oh, okay. Why did you put the lantern up there? Well, I want the lantern up there so the cars will see the pile of stones and they won't crash into it. Why did you put the pile of stones there for the car to crash into? Well, so that I could put the lantern up there. Now, what is he doing? It's very simple. He's finding meaning of one part in the meaning of another part, but he's refusing to ask the question, does the whole thing have any use, or is it just stupid? Why do you work? Usually, a person says, I'll tell you why I work, so that I can do things that I like to do. I have avocations, I've got hobbies, I've got leisure, I like travel. Why? Well, that really recharges my batteries. Why? So I can work. See, the lantern is for the stones, the stones are for the lantern, and if you refuse to stand back and say, but what is the whole thing for? What is the whole thing for? How do you know your whole life isn't stupid? That your whole life isn't pointless? How do you know your whole life is not just a very, very large stone lantern in the middle of a highway? How do you know this? Now, here's what the teacher is saying. The teacher is saying, grow up. This is not pedagogy, this is andragogy. Don't be an ostrich. Ask yourself the question. If you would never do one thing, if it made no difference at all, okay, it would be meaningless, it would be a waste of time, unless it made a difference. What difference does your whole life make? What are you living for? What difference does it all make? Now, the average person just does not want to hear this. I had a little conversation with somebody, by the way, I know very well, I'll get back to why I think this was a valid conversation, but it's a dangerous one. I had a conversation not too long with somebody I knew very, very well, and this person had just said, what he said was, he says, you know what, the way you know what's right and wrong is, there's no reasons for it, there's no way to know what's right and wrong, you just have to know what's right and wrong in your heart, and if you know in your heart, then it's right, and then you just need to do it, and that's how you live, that's how you find meaning in life. And I said, well then, what do you say to Hitler? He felt it real hard in his life, and he did it, so that was okay. Oh no, my friend said, well you know, he says, the trouble is, most of the people's hearts in the world know that what Hitler was doing was wrong, therefore it was wrong. And I said, well you know, up to 150 years ago, most of the hearts of the world thought slavery was just fine. Do you think slavery was just fine? No. Why not? And he just looked and he shrugged and he says, you know, these things are so complex, if you think about this, you'll just dig a hole. Now this is a person I knew a very long time, and it was very, very cordial. Now here's the question. The teacher is saying, when someone says, I don't need to ask this question, I don't need to ask this question, what you really are saying is, my optimistic agnosticism, and that's the worldview the teacher is trying to absolutely smash, my optimistic agnosticism will fall apart if I ask that question. It can't deal with that question. It is demolished by that question. It is absolutely inadequate to that question. Optimistic agnosticism. Life under the sun is all there is, but there's moral truth. There's human rights. There's human dignity. Listen, if your origin isn't significant, you come from nothing, and if your destiny is insignificant, you're going to nothing, have the guts to admit that your life is insignificant. And stop talking, as if, on the one hand, you feel like you can poke holes in other people's inconsistencies. You'll poke holes in Muslims who say, I believe in God, but then they do something wrong, or Christians who say, I believe in God, do something wrong. You'll poke holes in everybody else's inconsistency, but you won't look at your own. You know, Jean -Paul Sartre made a very interesting statement. His most famous essay was right after the war, 1946. He wrote his essay called Existentialism and Humanism, and this is what he said. He says, God does not exist, and we have to face all the consequences of this. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain kind of secular ethics which wants to abolish God with the least possible expense. The existentialist, indeed, thinks it is very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding any values disappears with God. There can be no a priori good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. So nowhere is it written that we must be honest. Nowhere is it written that we must not lie, because the fact is we're on a plane where there's only us, human beings. Dostoevsky said, if God didn't exist, everything would be permissible. That is the very starting point of existentialism. If God does not exist, there is nothing within or without that can legitimize any conduct. Now, you know what is very interesting to me? Sartre took this idea, life under the sun is all there is, and you know what he says? He says, don't talk to me in any way that says that you believe that one kind of conduct is more legitimate than any other kind. One of the things that's come out recently, he died in 1980, one of the things that's come out over the last few years is what a misogynist he was. Jean -Paul Sartre was very bad to women, the women he knew, and he was very misogynist, but you know what? Whenever I read the people who accept his premise about life, and then get very upset about it, if he was alive, he would rise up, and he was only 5 '2", so that's, he would rise up, and he would say, please. He would say, you want to be free. You want to say, I am free to do what I want to do. You want to be free. As far as I know, this life is all there is. I'm not controlled by eternity, by moral absence, by God. I want to be free. Then you have got to have the guts to accept the utter meaninglessness of all distinctions. You want to be free, fine, but you have to accept it. Meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless. Come on. You know, Christians look like real hard -nosed skeptics compared to a view that says, life under the sun is all there is, but I'm optimistic. I have meaning in life. I can enjoy things. I know some things are right, some things are wrong. I know it's better to be compassionate than to be violent. I know these things. Talk about blind faith. Talk about naive religiosity. why Now, is he doing this? Because he also tends to see life, the preacher, the teacher, the professor sees life in a different way. One of the biggest obstacles for people to believe in Christianity is that they think they already know all about it. But if we look at Jesus' encounters with various people during His life, we'll find some of our assumptions challenged. We see Him meeting people at the point of their big, unspoken questions. The Gospels are full of encounters that made a profound impact on those who spoke with Jesus. And in His book, Encounters with Jesus, Tim Keller explores how these encounters can still address our questions and doubts today. Encounters with Jesus is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life reach more people with the amazing love of Christ. Request your copy of Encounters with Jesus today when you give at GospelInLife .com slash give. That's GospelInLife .com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from POA6 Know your Weapons pt. 1 Put On The Armor A Manual for Spiritual Warfare w/Dr. Paul Thigpen Ph.D. Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts
"Discerninghearts .com, in cooperation with TAN Books, presents Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. Dr. Thickepen is an internationally known speaker, bestselling author, and award -winning journalist who has published 43 books in a wide variety of genres and subjects, including The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to End Times Fever, and The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, the book on which this series is based. In 2008, Dr. Thickepen was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to their National Advisory Council. He has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently in Catholic and secular media broadcasts and at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings. Put on the Armor, A Manual for Spiritual Warfare, with Dr. Paul Thickepen. I'm your host, Chris McGregor.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"He doesn't say, I'm sorry, he doesn't say, I was wrong, I don't care, I don't want an apology, I don't want an admission, I just want him to leave me alone, and so, you know, so that can be very effective, so that's real important, and again, remember that there's other people around that see what's going on. I was in a public park in Orlando, and we were at an event going, walking through, passing out tracks, and the police came, oh, you can't do this here, they surrounded us, you can't hand out that literature, and other people were watching, and people came up, I want to get what, what, give me one of those cards that, that they're telling you, you can't pass out, because they, you know, people get curious, and, but more important than that, they want to see how you're, they see how you're responding to the police, or to whatever situation you have, and, and sometimes it really makes an impression on them in a good way, so you can, you can choose to comply with the officer's commands, and then bring the issue either to city officials, or to the court, rather than be arrested, so, which if they're, if they won't back down, and they threaten to arrest you, then I would say, you know, you're done there, there's no reason to be arrested, it doesn't do anything extra for you, as far as your legal rights are concerned. If you choose to remain, and you are arrested, do not resist the officers in any way, okay, very important, you don't want to get, you know, they've got a bad, you know, first amendment violation against you, you don't want to give them a good resisting arrest, or, you know, some other problem. Also, know this, and I've, I've, I don't anymore, but I used to practice criminal law, and arrest very often is a violent event, okay, when if, even though you're a nice Christian, and you've never been in trouble before, when they decide they're going to arrest you, they don't have to say, would you please extend your is just take you down to the ground, and it may hurt, and it may injure you, and, you know, that, that comes with being arrested, there's no reason to be arrested, I know we have some brethren that consider it a badge of honor, that, oh, I got arrested for, for preaching, but, well, yeah, but you didn't have to, you know, you could have made the same point. What you can say when you're going to stop, so they don't escalate into an arrest. Well, you say, okay, I'm, all right, I'm done, you know, if you're saying you're going to arrest me, I believe you're violating my rights, but, you know, I'm not, I'm not willing to go to jail today, you know, I'll, you know, I'll talk to my attorney, and see you later, so, all right, so, and don't give them any legitimate reason to arrest you, you know, as you, first Peter says, you know, if you, if you suffer as a Christian, great, if you suffer as a wrongdoer, then, you know, that's not so good, so, so that's that. All right, this is our final section, and I'll just whip through this, it'll only take a couple minutes, taking it to the streets, choosing a location, it depends, the location is going to depend on what you're going to do, or what you want to do is going to determine what kind of location you want to go to, so what might be good for holding signs, and preaching may not be a good venue for tracts, so, you know, depending on, on, you know, traffic patterns, and pedestrian, etc., so you want to look for those kind of patterns, and, and, you know, adjust your methods accordingly, and, you know, look at, at competing uses, if there's other things going on in the area where you're going, again, we don't want to be interfering with other people's rights, we want, don't want to be obnoxious in what we're doing, we just want to get our message out. Okay, how to present yourselves, number one, personal hygiene, you would think that you don't have to mention this, but you do have to mention this, so, you know, brush your teeth, you know, be, be clean, wear appropriate clothing, a lot of us wear scripture shirts, or Jesus saved shirts, that's, that's great, you know, I do that, if you feel like, I know there's some people that feel like, if I'm going to be preaching, or I'm going to be representing the Lord, I should wear a shirt, and tie, and, and all that, or you may be in a community where they think, if you go out there with a Jesus saves t-shirt on, you're somehow being disrespectful, but if you go out there, dressed like this, then, then you're going to be more, you know, better received, you know, it's a, it's a personal, personal preference kind of thing, it's not a right or wrong thing, but you might want to give some, some thought to it, you know, how, how you're addressed. Attitude, as we talked about before, is extremely important, and then dealing with fear, you know, ask God for help, if, you know, especially, you know, the first time doing it, or the first few times doing it, it, you know, it's hard to, to get out there and, and take that first step sometimes, and so pray about it, the disciples prayed for boldness, and, you know, remember, it's not about you, we're not concerned about, you know, what people think of me, it's not even my message, it's the Lord's message, we're, you know, we're telling what the Bible says, so, you know, so don't, we don't need to take things personally, by the way, you know, even children can do this, it's, you know, anybody, anybody can do this, again, you know, think about it, if you're, if you're afraid, think about, well, what is it that I'm afraid of, you know, you're not going to get beaten and thrown in prison, like, like happened in the book of Acts, not, not here in America, you're not, and so, you know, just, just give some, some thought to that, and then trust God and do it, and I'll tell you, this is my experience, even after doing it for many years, when I go out on the street, if I'm going to lift up my voice and preach, there's, there's that little bit of trepidation, there's a little bit of butterflies in the, in the stomach before I get started, but I'll tell you this, that every time when I start out with the Bible says, yeah, once you've got that phrase out, all of that goes away, now all of, and it's not you, it's the Bible, you're just telling them what the you know, my friends, the Bible says, for God so loved the world, and you just, you just, and I'm telling you, it goes away right away, and you know, it does get easier with time, but the flesh never gets completely dead, so it's always an issue to a degree, and then I was like, you know, at the end, we go, you know, you, you go together, if you have a church van, or you carpool, or whatever, you go someplace to do some, some ministry, when you come back, everybody is just pumped up coming back, you know, I talked to this person, you know, they said this, they said that, and, and you know, just compare experiences, and it's, it's a blessing to, you know, to, to share that with one another, and, and encourage, encourage the church, encourage the body of believers, you know, it's a blessing. By the way, this is, this was at that Titusville Bacchus Festival, where the irate lady was, was, and, and these cops back here, they never gave us a second look, once, once I, once I dealt with them, and, and told them, look, we've already, we've already had a discussion about this, and we just had a great time there, and, but, but they were, they were still in the middle of dealing with the objectors, and we, we were going home, we're walking, you know, we're leaving at this point, they're, they're still dealing with aggravation, and we just had a great time, so anyway, so rejoice, praise God, pray together, thank the Lord, you know, I mean, it's just, doing public ministry is just such a, a boost to fellowship, and you know, we come together to worship, and we sing together, and we hear the sermons, and we shake hands, and how are you doing, and all that, and all of that is, is just, just, you know, kind of surface level, level, or a little bit, a little bit better than surface level, but you go out, and, and work together on public ministry, and all of a sudden, you have a deep bond, and a deep relationship with each other, it, it really is, you know, the, the best thing that, that can happen to a church, is for people to, to come together, and, and work together outside of the church doors, not just come in here, and, and worship together, so I encourage you to.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"If they, if the officer won't call a supervisor, you can call the police department and say, I'm having a problem with, with a police officer here, I'd like to request a supervisor to come to this location and they'll, they'll do that. You can do that? That won't, yeah, you can, that's, that is absolutely legal. I had, well, I had a police chief tell me at one time after we had dealt with, with their officers and he just had one time after other, the police chief kept saying, you know, you're right, the officer's wrong, we need to, we need to get it right and we'll retrain them, but we kept having problems and so the officer, the police chief told me, if they won't bring, if they won't have a supervisor come to your location, just dial 911 and ask for a supervisor to come to your location, which a few years later, I had a situation like that and they didn't call a supervisor, so I said, well, fine, I'll get a supervisor here and I dialed 911 and they told me, this is not an appropriate use of 911, this is, this is not what 911 is for, so you should have the, you should have the non-emergency number of the sheriff's department or the police department, so that, that police chief told me now he's the sheriff, so he's a good guy, actually, he's, he helped us a lot, but anyway, so once you, once you get with somebody that you can reason with, hopefully you'll be able to reason with them about your right of free speech and they'll know enough about it that they'll, they'll know to back off, this is extremely important, if a police officer is just, if they're not going to admit that you have the right to do what you want to do, you have to ask this question, do you intend to arrest me if I don't stop preaching, do you intend to arrest me if I don't stop witnessing or if I don't leave the area or whatever they're illegally telling you to do, you ask them, do you intend to arrest me if I don't do this, all right, it's extremely important to do that, and the reasons are, number one, you need to distinguish clearly between a command that the officer intends to enforce, which may violate your rights, if they're, if they're, they're trying to enforce a command that, that they are not allowed to enforce, then they're, then that, that shows that they're so it, or a, is it a mere suggestion or request, which if it's a suggestion or request, you can decline to abide by their suggestion or their request, and you can, you can decline that without penalty, so that's number one reason why you have to ask that question, you have to make it clear, because sometimes what happens is we get to this point, the Christian witness doesn't ask this question, they stop witnessing and they go home and they call me and I call the police chief or I call the city mayor or whatever, and, and then the response I get back was, well, you know, they, they weren't, that wasn't a command, they were just, they were just trying to, you know, resolve the situation, they were making a request, they didn't violate your client's rights by commanding them to do this, they, you know, so you have to distinguish is it a command or not, okay, and very often when you, when you ask that question, then they back off because they know that is a line drawn in the sand right there and they're not going to step over that line, okay, where they, if they're not sure that what they're telling you, they have the right to tell you, then all of a sudden you start hearing this, oh, well, no, I'm just, I'm just making a request, you know, it seems to me it's the Christian thing to do, those people complained about you, so why don't you just move two blocks down there and, you know, if you want to be Christian, then go ahead and, and do that, they use that kind of language, but now all of a sudden they're just making a request, well, if a police officer makes a request, you could say, no, thank you, I'm going to stay right here, you know, or you can, or you can go and do what they ask, but, you know, but, but then, then you're, you're not being, they're not violating your rights by asking you to move, they're, you know, so, if he says, yeah, that's the command, then say, okay, then I'll stop, make, you know, get their name, you know, hopefully have all this on video, and now you have grounds for a lawsuit against them, or we have grounds to go back to, you know, or to make a complaint against them with internal affairs, or we can, you know, go to the police chief, or, you know, say, look, you've got a problem here with this officer, is this your, is this your policy, or is this officer just, you know, doing something he's not supposed to do, and then you get the assurances from them, oh, they shouldn't have done that, we apologize, we'll give it to you in writing that you have the right to do this, so that if another officer makes the same mistake, you can tell them, or, I mean, I had, at one point, I had, I had a telephone number for the internal affairs sergeant for Daytona Beach Police Department, and saved my cell phone, because we had so many issues with the police, where they just didn't know what they were doing, and they kept violating our rights, and so, you know, you know, excuse me, I'm going to call Sergeant Pera, okay, and I dial Sergeant Pera, and he says, I explain what's going on, he says, put the officer on the phone, and I hand my phone to the police officer, and he hands the phone back, and he walks away.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"There's, it's not 100%, you know, I can't tell you with a, I mean, in certain jurisdictions, I can tell you 100% yes. Tennessee is in the Sixth Judicial Circuit. That's one of the circuits that has not decided specifically. So they haven't said no, but they haven't said yes yet either. So you know, I'm, that's, that's, you know, about the best I can tell you. There's a California, they're trying to force an eight foot boat, we had to, at least if you're going to photograph, you have to get eight foot down. Yeah, well that's, and that's, that one's been threatened. Okay, well, yeah, and that's, that's, you know, what we, what we want to do is, yeah, I agree, I think that you need to keep your distance, you don't, you don't want to, you can't do it if it's going to be interfering with them performing their duties. So sometimes you have a cop making an arrest, and someone's coming, you know, within a foot of the officer and holding a camera to, to his face while he's arresting somebody, and they're interfering. There's no reason for you to be that close, you just want to, you're having a discussion with, nobody's getting arrested, you're having a discussion with a police officer, and you're, you know, you're, there are certain things that you want to establish on the record when you're talking with them, and nobody has to be in their face. You can be five feet away, you can be 10 feet away, and recording the interaction, and getting on there what you need to, so, you know, we don't want to give them any, any legitimate reason to stop you from what you're doing, or to confiscate your camera, we, you know, if they're going to do something and violate your rights, we want it to be a very clear violation of your rights that, that's unjustified, we don't want it to be where you're giving them an excuse to do something, so, so anyway, the reasons we want to do the video recording is number one, it's, it's good evidence, if it's going to, if it's going to be something that comes into court, or even just something to deal with, you know, we have an interaction with a police officer on the street, and somebody's telling me about it, and so I call the city attorney, or I call the police chief, and I say, you know, well this is what is reported that's happened, and they say, well, I, you know, I haven't seen the police, let me see what the officer says, let me see the police report, and, you know, they're, they're not necessarily going to report things as it actually happened, but if you have a recording of it, then that's going to be, you know, better effort, evidence. Number two, officers tend to be more careful and more professional with you when they know that they're being recorded, and number three, in some states, it may not be legal to record secretly, and so let them, you can let them, either just do it openly, or let them know, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm recording this interaction, and you need to specifically ask, let's see what I got on here, so don't crowd on the officers, continue to give out tracks, remember to remain calm, you know, you're dealing with the officer, he's supposed to enforce the law, you can remind them, reassure them, you're not intending to break the law, if you have documentation like we talked about, go ahead and show it to them, that's why you're carrying it with you, is just in case you have an encounter like that, and then ask specifically what law are you being accused of violating, okay, that's, that's important, it lets them know that you're, that you're aware of your rights, and, you know, that you're not going to be bullied into giving up your free speech rights without legal justification, and it's important to determine the legal authority by which they're trying to suppress your right of free speech, so we want to know on what basis are they telling you to stop, they can't just say I don't like you doing this here, they have to have a legal reason, they have to have some, some authority, and that authority is a state law or a local ordinance that says, you know, what they're doing, so ask them for that, sometimes they don't have an answer for you, sometimes they'll give you an answer and you look up the ordinance and the ordinance doesn't say what they, what they say it says, we were passing out gospel tracts in Daytona Beach, and the city has an ordinance, as I said before, that says it's illegal to distribute literature in the city of Daytona Beach, unless you're handing it to a person that's willing to receive it, so we were out passing out gospel tracts, and police officers can't, you can't, you can't pass out literature here, we have an ordinance that says you can't pass out literature, well if you look at your ordinance, the ordinance says you can't pass out literature unless you're handing it to a person willing to receive it, so we took that, we made a copy of that ordinance and kept it in our pockets so that when they came and told us that they didn't know what they were talking about, we showed them that we knew what we were talking about, so anyway, so asking what law you're supposedly violating, you can ask for a supervisor to be sent to your location, and this is a very effective tool, and so remember this one, you can ask, and if you're not getting anywhere with the first officer, if they don't back off immediately, which sometimes they do when they realize you know what you're talking about and you're not going to be bullied, they'll just back off right away, but if they don't, ask for a supervisor, most, well I guess I can't say most, I know that there are many, probably most jurisdictions, most law enforcement agencies, if a citizen asks for a supervisor, that they are, that the officer is required to call a supervisor, he's violating department policy if he does not call a supervisor, meaning a sergeant or a lieutenant or somebody above, to come to your location and deal with it, and the reasons why you want to have a supervisor, the higher ranking officers have more experience, more education, they're more likely to understand the nuances of first amendment law, the rank and file police officers a lot of times don't have all of that information or all of that experience and they make mistakes, not only that, but they are trained, police officers are trained to, they call it, use a command voice, they come and they take charge of a situation and they start throwing their weight around and giving orders and telling people what to do, and most people will just go ahead and do what they said because number one, since they were a child, they've been told, you know, obey police officers, number two, they're just, they're stepping into that role of I'm taking charge of the situation and whether they had a gun and a badge or not, you know, somebody that tends to do that, usually most people are going to back off and let them know, but if you know that you have the right to do what you're doing and that they're making a mistake, you know, most of the time it's not that they're, that they hate the gospel or they hate Christians or they're trying to cause a problem for you, you know, most of the time, you know, they just don't understand and so, you know, we, my biggest job is just educating the officers and sometimes the city officials, you know, of what the First Amendment requires, but if you know that you have the right to do what you're doing, you don't have to be, you don't have to back off and back down when they, when they start bossing you around, you can say, sir, we have, we have a constitutional right to do this, well, you can't do this here, can I talk to your supervisor? And then the supervisor comes and the supervisor, when they come, they've been trained in conflict de-escalation, they've been trained in getting things calmed down and reasoning with people and there's reasons for, you know, I'm not saying that the frontline cops are bad or stupid or anything, I mean, there's reasons why they have to very often take charge of situations, but, you know, in a situation like this, you want to deal with somebody that you can reason with and a lot of times, we talk to the supervisor and the supervisor tells the other officer, they're okay, just leave them alone and then problem is solved and so, so that's, that's what we, that's what we want to do.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"Yeah. Okay. So, I believe Jake's gonna he's gonna finish up with the do and don't or how to handle the police encounters but while he's taking a little break, I'll just get this out of the way now. We are going to head down to tech and we have if you we we would love for everyone to come down if you're able to come down, we we we encourage you to do that. We have gospel signs over near the table. You can grab one of those and just get it back to us when when you're done and then also we have tracks out on the table and if you wanna just just grab a handful before before we leave, just take a handful because there will be a good bit of people there to get tracks out to a good bit. If you want a chair or need a chair, just let let let me know and I'll and I'll make sure we handle that so that you can have a place to sit and it is okay if you just wanna hold a sign, you can do that. If you just wanna give out gospel tracks, you can do that. If you just wanna come and just kinda shadow somebody, you can do that as well but we'd love to have you be able to get involved with that. The game starts at six o'clock. We should be we should leave here. We should leave here by 430. So when Jake finishes up, just you know, use the bathroom fellowship a little bit. Get your tracks. Get your signs but we should leave the church house at 430 so we can get over to tech get parked and then get ready, get prayed up and then get ready to go Alright, I did publish a handout on handling police encounters and and that's basically what we're gonna be going over in this section. So you know, again, remain calm, pray, don't get in the flesh, it's a lot easier said than done when you see a police officer heading your way and you're expecting that there's going to be some kind of some kind of conflict or controversy. It's hard to, you know, I know for me, I can feel my adrenaline come in on my heart starts beating faster and, and, you know, even if I know that I'm right, you know, if I think that he's going to cause a problem, you know, you start you start getting that fight or flight reaction, I guess. So so you know, it takes some some prayer and some thought. Can we put the lights Yes sir, similar in the bathroom. Oh, and those lights control the bathroom. Got it. Okay. Okay. So anyway, again, we want to we want to try not to get in the flesh while we're while we're dealing with dealing with the police. And you know, it's it's good to be polite and respectful when you're dealing with anybody, you know, in particular in dealing with the police. And I always I always say it's good to have one person dealing with the officers, one one spokesman, and a witness with a, you know, and with a video camera, you want to record the encounter with the police. And and then everybody else in the group can go ahead and continue doing what they're doing. We don't have you know, everybody gets curious and wants to know what's going on with the police. And if you don't say ahead of time, this is how we handle police situations, brothers so and so and brothers so and so are going to be dealing with the with the officers. And everybody else carry on, do do what you're doing, unless you're specifically ordered by the police to stop, but usually they'll come and they'll, they'll start, you know, inquiring and, and so, you know, we want people to, to go ahead and and get get things sort of under control. Don't crowd around the officers. We don't want them to get nervous. Is everybody out of the bathroom now? Yeah. Okay. So, you know, we don't want the officers to feel threatened. So so don't crowd around them. You know, it's a good idea to, as I said, to video record what's going on with the officers. Most jurisdictions have specifically stated that video recording of police when they're doing when they're in a public place doing their official duties that that is protected by the First Amendment, you have a First Amendment right to to record the police that the Supreme Court has not ruled on that specifically. And so we have 11 federal judicial circuits plus the DC Circuit Court, so there's 12 federal circuit courts and the way the federal law works is if the Supreme Court hasn't said what the rule is, each circuit Court of Appeals gets to decide what the rule is within their territorial jurisdiction. So every circuit court that has published an opinion on this has come to the same conclusion that you have, let me take that back. Every circuit court that has specifically ruled whether you have a right under the First Amendment to record the police or not has said yes, you do. But there are several circuit courts that have said we haven't ruled that hasn't been decided up to this point in this circuit. And so none of them have said the First Amendment does not protect your right to record the police. None of them has said that. Some of them, in fact, about half of them have said you do have the right to record the police under the First Amendment and the other half either haven't addressed it at all or when they've been asked to address it, they've said, well, we haven't said one way or the other yet and we're not deciding today. So, but there's good reason and you can, I have that other handout on the right to record police where I go into, you know, some detail about that. But, you know, you should be able to record the police. I believe it's protected, I believe that any court would say that it is protected under the First Amendment to do that, and I would do it, whether I'm in a jurisdiction where it's been decided or not, you know, I would go ahead and do that. How long are the cops telling you to put the camera on? Well, they, sir, I have a First Amendment right to keep this camera on, you know, you're a public officer in a public place performing your public duties, and, you know, I have, you know, the courts have said I have a right to do this.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"Okay, so handling police encounters, I guess before we get into that, do we have any other questions of what we've been through so far? We take, let's take a five minute break, and that way anybody needs to use the restroom can do that, and then we'll, we'll go through this, this last little bit. Does anybody come up and complain about a University demanding a riot bond, or a kind of a pay for security? I know that happens to, you know, political, political campaigns, so if somebody wants to show up at the University and they'll say, well, you need to, you need to earn $29,000 from the security, you need to do this, you need to do that. I'm trying to think of a guy's name, he's Jewish. He's like five foot six, he's a little bitty guy, scrawny, you know, he said, you're a threat to public order. Yeah, but anyway, I just wondered how, if anybody's ever challenged one of these things where it says, well, you have to, you have to post a bond, or come up with a big pile of money. Yeah, again, my, my research has, has been mostly in public, you know, traditional public venues, as opposed to college campuses, because that's, that's really kind of a different animal. I know that, you know, again, having, having to post a bond, having to jump through hoops before you can speak is a form of prior restraint, and, and they also have to be, you know, they have to be content neutral, they have to have sufficient guidelines for what they're doing, so they can't say, oh, we think your message is going to be unpopular, so you're going to have to post a huge bond, and somebody else that has a less controversial message, or a more popular message, then we're not going to require a bond from them, or not require so much, that, that that's, you know, the courts have said, and I can't quote you off the top of my head, but I know that's been looked at by the burden speech, based on the content of the speech, and sometimes they use those kind of schemes in order to do just that, and say, well, if you want to come here and, and give your message here, you're going to have to post more security than anybody else, because, you know, we, we think we're, we're not going to like that, and, and I know the courts have, have struck some of that down. Okay, he's had a situation where they'll go, and they will change the venue within a half hour of the start time, so they know they're going to be shouted down.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"We're not obligated to debate, you know, if somebody wants to talk about, you know, baptism or, or predestination or, you know, whatever, whatever their topic is, people are going to come up to you at some point and try to bring up these topics and you can, you know, you can say, you know what, I'll be happy to have this discussion with you, here's my email address or here's my telephone number and I'll do that with you, you know, some other time, but I, I've dedicated this time to preaching the gospel to the people out there, not to have a, a, you know, doctrinal debate with, you know, with other religious people and, you know, so you can, you can just defer that to another time or you could say, you know, that's just, that's just not what we're, we're here for, you know, you know, or you can go ahead and have the conversation. I'm just, I'm not saying don't have the conversation, go ahead and, and, you know, do what you want to and try to, you know, get the gospel to them, but, you know, all of these things, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to do that, but, you know, people want to ask about evolution, people want to say, you know, I'm, they just kind of declare their sin. First Timothy says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Sometimes they just declare their religion, you know, I'm Jewish, I'm Catholic, I'm Buddhist, you know, we get, nowadays we've got a lot of people will say, you know, I'm Muslim, which I doubt it, but, you know, that's what they claim, but the, the fact is, there's only one way to heaven, and that's Jesus Christ, and so, you know, Jesus died for, for everyone, he died for the sins of the whole world, and that's, you know, that we're here to let them know that, but they use that as a, as a defense, you know, I'm a good person, Bible says, no, we're not, you know, we're all sinners, there's not a just man upon the earth, which doeth good and sinneth not, we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, some people will say, I'm, I'm a good person, so I don't need it, or they say, I've sinned too much already, and I'm beyond, I'm beyond hope, I'm beyond saving, no, you're not, you know, the grace of God reaches to the, to the lowest sinner, so, so, you know, there, when we get the, the don't, don't judge, again, you don't have to get into a debate with everybody, but, you know, the fact is, the Bible tells us to judge righteously, and if you read Matthew chapter 7, which is the don't judge verse, if you read it in context, it's not saying we're not supposed to make judgments, I mean, you make judgments every, you couldn't cross the street if you didn't, couldn't make a judgment, you know, so we make judgments all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that, but again, we don't have to, we don't have to debate that with them, but, you know, that's, that's coming, and, you know, so we can, you know, and any of these, you know, why does God allow such and such, and a lot of times these questions, you can tell that they, they start out as somebody just coming to, let's, let's stump the Christian, let's just try to ask a question that's going to be too difficult for him to answer, and like I said, we're not obligated to, to answer all those questions, but what helps a lot of times, if you're willing to have the conversation with them, is to first say, say something like, you know, if this is a sincere question, I'll be glad to talk to you about it, but if you just want to argue, or you just want to mock, I'm not interested, I don't, I'm not interested in having the conversation, but if you're sincere, and sometimes they started out that they were mocking, but then you say that to them, and then all of a sudden they back on this, no, no, I really want to know, I'm interested, I really want to know, and you get the, you see the change in their demeanor, and now you can have a conversation with them, and, you know, just you show them respect, and, and you can, you can get some, get some, some exchange going, so, you know, and, and you can, you can give doctrinal answers to these, or you know, or you can, like I say, just defer them, and say, you know what, that, that's, these are, these are more in-depth questions, I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm here to try to just get the gospel out, I'll be glad to get your email, and we can talk about it further, you know, why are there so many religions, why are there so many bibles, you know, because Satan knows what he's doing, is the short answer to that, you know, that's Satan's work, there'll be hecklers, and again, don't, don't respond in kind, you know, we, we need to show some grace, we had a situation where we, we had a brother with us, and we were going down the street, and, and witnessing, and there was some teenage boy out there on the sidewalk, and he just went, you know, like that, to, to this brother that was preaching, and so he looked at him, he said, you won't do that when you stand before God, okay, I can, I can see, you know, maybe saying that once, and the kid said, yes I will, and he said, no you won't, he said, yes I will, he said, no you won't, and I said, yes I will, he said, no you want, and I'm thinking, brother, give it a rest, you know, that's, that's, that's not what we're, there's other people around that watch your conduct, and how you react to other people, and I don't know how many times we've been out there, and somebody has just been ridiculous, you know, they cuss at us, they, they, you know, yell stupid things at us, and, you know, and we respond, you know, with grace, or we don't respond verbally at all, and you know, just, just let it go, and then we have somebody come up to us from across the street, you know, I saw how you handled when that, that person was harassing you, and, you know, I appreciate, you know, how you responded, and, and, you know, what is it that you guys are out here trying to do, and you get, you get a good witness to somebody that was just a spectator to how you responded to somebody else being stupid, so, so we don't want to stoop to their level. Here's a favorite one for, for Christians who don't witness to ask you, or they claim they're Christians, and what, what good does it do, you know, meaning, you know, how many people have you had hit their knees, and, and asked the Lord to save them right out there on the sidewalk, and, you know, and the answer to that is we have seen that happen, but, you know, what good it does, again, if they want to have, you know, a mature, respectful conversation about it, it's Christians obeying the Lord, and doing what he told them to do, that does some good right there, you know, God likes to see his people. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, and this is a commandment for us to go out there and do it, so, so that does good. It does good to the church. It does good to the body of Christ for people to be active in this kind of a ministry, and I know that in my personal, in my personal walk with the Lord, going out there and engaging in, engaging the public in, in this ministry is, is something that, that it increases my, my understanding of what I read in the Bible. It increases my faith in, in God and in his word when I, I see, you know, what, what happens and how people respond when we, when we go out and obey his commands, and it's a blessing. I said earlier that, you know, it's a struggle with the flesh every time, or just about every, every time, you know, we have to, we have to deal with, the flesh doesn't want to do this, but we want to just, I don't think, I don't think there's ever been a time, and I can't tell you how many times we've been out doing public ministry, I don't think there's ever been a time where I have in any way regretted that I went and took that time to be involved in that outreach. It's always been a from it, even though you sacrificed a couple of hours in an evening that you could have been doing something else that, that wouldn't have been as, as profitable. It is, it is personally, spiritually profitable to the person who participates in it, and so that's more of the good that it does. Not that we have to defend that, you know, that's, you could just simply, simply say, this is, you know, this is what we're supposed to do, and we're doing it.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"For example, if somebody fell and injured themselves, would I be dealing with your company, or would I be dealing with the county, and they said, oh, that would be the county, the county, we, we, it's not our property, so I got from them that it was, that it was the county, and I also got an email from the county attorney's office that said that that is county property, and that, yes, we do have the right to pass out our literature there, and so in, you know, then when the police were called two or three more times over the next, you know, couple of years, we show them, look, this is, we know this is county property, I've got the email from the county attorney's office, and so then it, it saves a lot of argument if you, if you have what you need from them in documentation. Practical consideration, it's great to take kids out witnessing. In fact, kids have a great advantage, that cuteness factor, where they can hand a tract to somebody, where if you tried to hand them a tract, you know, no, I don't want that, but you, you know, your kid tries to hammer, oh, thank you, sweetie, and they take the gospel tract, and so it's great to take kids and have them participate in all of this, but make sure you supervise them, just an obvious, you know, practical thing, but we have to say all the obvious things, because not everybody thinks of it. Review guidelines with them, you know, have some, you know, have some, some rules, have some protocols, and say, look, this is, this is how we do things, and, you know, some of the things on this list are things that you might want to have. Bring cell phones so you can communicate one with another, in case anybody has a problem. This one, I think, is, you know, is a very good one. Don't go off alone, you know. If you have the ability to go in a group, or at least with one other person, do that. We had one young man, and we had wandered off from our group down the, down the boardwalk, and when he came back, he told us about how some girl had just thrown herself, thrown her arms around him, and was trying to be inappropriate with him, and he was all by himself, and if somebody said he had done something inappropriate, you know, where, where's somebody to, to say, hey, I was there, I saw the whole thing, that's not what happened. So, you know, I mean, that kind of thing doesn't happen much, but, you know, don't take unnecessary risks. At the same time, I'm not saying never go witnessing alone. Sometimes you're by yourself, and, you know, just be, be careful and responsible. I'm not saying that, that, you know, that it's wrong to do that, but especially if you're with a church group, you don't want anybody saying your church, your church group did something, or people from your church did something. If they were off by themselves, then, you know, who's to contradict whatever's being told about them, but, but so, especially when you're doing, as part of a church group, I would say, you know, don't, don't go off by yourself. That's probably obsolete. Bring a camera. If you're bringing cell phones, you probably have a camera with you, but in case you don't, anyway, you can call me, you know, from the, from the spot. I mean, don't call me late at night because I'm in bed, but, or I just want to answer the phone, but, you know, if you're, if you're having an issue with, with somebody, you know, that's part of what this ministry was designed for, was to, to help to talk people through problems that they're, that they're having, you know, in connection with, with trying to do some public ministry.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"So, so check the ordinances. It's good to contact city officials to let them know you're coming, let them know what you're doing. Don't ask permission. Never ask permission. If you ask a bureaucrat permission for something, they're going to say no, or they're going to say we'll get back to you, and then they're going to for a reason to say no, and we don't ask permission. We have a right to do what we're doing, but we want to give them a heads up, and it can be extremely helpful to, you know, to have that initial contact with the city. We went, the first time our church decided to go to an event that they had in Titusville, Florida. It was, it's called a Bacchus event, which was a Bacchus festival, which was some kind of wine tasting thing that they had, you know, and that they closed off some public streets downtown in Titusville, and they had this event, and there were vendors, and food booths, and all kinds of stuff there. We didn't care what it was for. We just wanted to get some gospel tracts out, so we went there. I contacted the city attorney's office ahead of time, and I said we're from the Bible Baptist Church in Deland. We're planning to come to this Bacchus festival. You know, I just wanted to let you know what it is that we're doing, and you know, we've had problems in other locations where we've, you know, we've run into trouble where we go to an event, and then somebody calls the police, and the police call. Police come and say, oh you can't do this here, and you know, we want to make sure that we're not going to be interfered with by the police, and the city attorney said, oh no, no, we've got, you know, we have a very well-trained, very professional police department where, you know, you don't have to worry about that, and you know, if there's any issue, here's lieutenant so-and-so's name, and gave me the name of a police lieutenant in case there was any issue. So we went to the Bacchus festival, and we started, actually we just stepped into the venue before we had really done anything, and some Gestapo lady that ran the thing, you know, was all over us, you can't do this here, this is our event, you know, blah blah blah, and you know, well we're, you know, we've already cleared this, we have a right to do this, it's a public venue, we're, you know, respectfully, we're going to do this here, well I'm going to call the police, well go ahead, call the police. So she called the police, and the police officer, you could see him coming, and just in his bearing, you know, the guy is like walking fast and sort of leaning forward and chest out, and you know, he's ready for conflict, and so he comes up, you know, who's in charge here, you know, and starts doing his whole thing, and I said, sir, we've already talked to the city attorney, we let her know this is what we're doing, she told us that Lieutenant so-and-so is, you know, knows, you know, so I gave the city attorney's name, I gave the lieutenant's name, I said, you know, this has already been cleared, and for the rest of the time that we were there, these two cops were dealing with the irate Gestapo lady, and she was just, and we were pleasantly and peacefully going about our business, handing out gospel tracts, and getting the word of God out, and the police left us completely alone, just because I had made that one phone call ahead of time, and if I hadn't, then it would have been a struggle to deal with them, but you know, again, don't ask permission, just let them, just say, I'm giving you a heads up, this is who we are, this is what we're doing, we've been trained by, you know, a first amendment lawyer, we understand our rights, we're not going to be, and give them some assurances, we're not going to be interfering with the festival, we're not going to be shouting anybody down, we're not going to be blockading anybody's business, we're just, you know, we're just here to do, to do what we're doing, so bring documentation with you if you have it, if you've got a copy of the ordinance, if you've got a copy of a letter, or an email, you know, again, we had, we have, there's a pedestrian bridge over a public highway that connects the bus station to a private shopping area that has restaurants, and movie theaters, and shops, and stuff in Daytona Beach, and it, we would go there, and we'd be in the pedestrian overpass, which is a great place to pass out tracks, because there's just continuously people funneling through there to go to the movie theater, and go to the restaurants, and we'd get tracks out there, we also were downstairs, we're out on the boardwalk, this is over in Daytona Beach, and there was a guy that was a janitor at the, at the, it's called the ocean walks shops, and he didn't like us being there for whatever reason, I don't know what his problem was, but he would, he would, or get the security guy to come over and tell us, you can't do this here, and then, you know, police are called, and everything, so, you know, and they claimed that this was their property, this, this overpass bridge that we were in, that they claimed that that was their private property, rather than county property, which didn't make sense to me, because how could they have a bridge over the highway, that it's their property? Anyway, so, so I, I, you know, I did two things, I contacted the county attorney's office, and I also contacted the management company for that business, and I said, you know, I'm an attorney into land, I just want to establish what, you know, who the owner is of this, you know, who owns and controls this pedestrian bridge over the highway.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"We had, there were, we have some funny stories in connection with, with this. One of them is, we had a guy that had a, had a store downtown and he did everything he could to, to oppose us. At one point he put these loud amplifiers outside of his store right there at the intersection downtown Deland. His store was on the corner and when we had people there, he just played blaring music, much louder than anything that we had done. And anyway, so there was at some point there was a city meeting and he came to the city council meeting and we, as always, when we get word of this, we go ahead and, and we fill the council chambers. So we, we did this same thing again. We had, you know, people came and we had, you know, families with, with little children. I mean, and we came in and we filled the benches and we had kids sitting on the floor and everybody was, was quiet and polite. They probably, you know, that probably freaked them out, you know, to some degree. How, how do we have these little kids and they're not bouncing off the walls and and this, and this guy was, you know, so we had people speaking against any restrictions that they might impose. And this, this shop owner went in and he was, he was giving his speech and, you know, these, these preachers are out there on the, on the street. They're there every Friday afternoon, shouting, Jesus saves. And when he yelled, Jesus saves, all of us in I don't think anybody even thought what they were doing. Somebody yelled, Jesus saves and Amen. And the mayor was pounding his gavel order. So that was a, that was a funny one. There was another one where they, a different meeting they had where they, where they had a bunch of different community leaders. We have a Stetson University is there in, in DeLand. And so, you know, they had somebody from Stetson University come to this meeting and they had some business owners come to the meeting and they invited me to the meeting and they were going to talk about, you know, what, you know, what can we do about the, let's have a dialogue about the street preaching. So they had this, this meeting all called together and whoever was running the meeting said, you know, well, we invited Jake Jackson. He's the attorney for the, for the church that does all this, you know, public preaching and stuff down here. And so, and I thought they were going to ask me questions and I was going to answer their questions, but they just handed me the microphone and say, okay, Jake, you know, tell us what you want to tell us. So I, I told them that, you know, we're, we're not trying to disrupt anybody's business. We're not trying to be obnoxious. You know, we're just trying to get the gospel out. And the reason is because, and then I told them why the gospel was important and I told them what the gospel is and you should, you should see these people around this big conference table. They were just squirming like they had ants in their pants. I mean, it was, it was, they, they were very uncomfortable. So you get all kinds of opportunities just by, just by being a part of the community and being, being aware of what's going on in the community. And sometimes you can head off problems before they, before they become big problems. We haven't had any objections to us since the green haired lady has been downtown for the past almost 10 years now.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"And so the, you know, the case went to court, this is in Washington, DC, so it went to federal court, and they, actually the district court said that the students didn't have a case against the city, but it went up on appeal, and the DC Circuit Court reversed and said, based on these facts as they come before the court, that they have a case based on selective enforcement under the First Amendment, that you can't, if you are in a similar situation, if you are similarly situated, is the legal term, to another group where they, the police or the city chooses to let the other group have a pass, but they don't give that to you because, you know, the other group has a different message, but your group has, you know, a message that's disfavored by the city, that the city has violated your rights. And so that's an example of selective enforcement. And then this is kind of a rare thing that I came across under my research, it's called an unconstitutional condition, and that's where the government imposes a situation where in order to exercise your First Amendment rights, that exercise of your First Amendment rights is conditioned upon you giving up some other rights, and the context was a, you know, some kind of big protest rally that they had, I think it was in Georgia somewhere. Anyway, they had this big rally, and I talk about it in the book, that they, and it was this big park that there's all kinds of public rallies and public events, but for this one particular event, the city imposed the restriction that yes, you can have your rally in this park, but everyone is going to have to go through a rally, and so basically you're giving up your Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure in order to exercise your First Amendment rights to attend the rally, and the court said they can't do that, if you can't have what they called it was an unconstitutional condition. So that's not something that we see come up very much at all, but you know, it's an interesting concept, and you know, one more tool for us to have in our bag, you know, for when there's a situation where speech is being restricted. So okay, so now we get to ways that you can challenge an unconstitutional policy. Sometimes you get a that there's going to be, this has happened to us in DeLand a few times, you know, we've had a street minister ministry there since 1985, and every Friday afternoon we have people that go downtown DeLand, stand on the street corners, hand out gospel tracts, hold scripture signs, do some public preaching for like an hour, hour and a half on Friday afternoon, and every once in a while we get the, we get the local merchants association gets together and decides that they want to pressure the city in order to make us, you know, put some restrictions on us because they don't, they don't like us down there doing that. So one thing you can do when, and so we heard that the city council was going to meet in order to consider some proposals for what laws, what ordinances can they enact in order to restrict us, you know, can they say we're going to make a free speech zone and put it in a park outside of the downtown area. I mean we, there's where the politicians go when they're campaigning for office, they're standing out there on those same street corners holding their campaign signs. So that's where we go because it's a good place for the, you know, to get our message out to the to the public, and so they were trying to come up with some way to appease these downtown merchants to get us out of their hair even though, you know, we're not burning down their businesses and we're not protesting them and we're not, you know, I mean it's just, it's just kind of unreasonable in my view how they, how they oppose us sometimes, but every few years it seems like, you know, they, they get a movement together to do that. So we found out that there was going to be a city council meeting and, and so we had over a hundred of us show up at the meeting, we had these, these stickers printed up. It says I support free speech and so you have a hundred people crowding into, actually it's probably more than a hundred, crowding into the city council chambers wearing a I support free speech sticker and we had several people speak against any proposal that's going to restrict our liberty of free speech in downtown DeLand and when it was time for the politicians on the city council to speak, you've never seen so much backpedaling. Nobody had any inclination at all to restrict free speech in downtown DeLand. We support the constitution, we support free speech, we, you know, nobody's going to do anything and so that was an effective way to deal with what could have been, you know, what they, what they were contemplating doing I'm confident would have been unconstitutional, but we didn't want to go through all kinds of court procedures to prove that we had a right to do something. We wanted them to leave us alone so we could be out on the street and do what we're doing. So, so that's, that's one way is just to, to, to have some political opposition to, to what they're, what they're proposing to do.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Public Evangelism & 1st Amendment Seminar - Part 2
"They look at, you know, what is the environment? What kind of forum are we in? Is it a traditional public forum or something that is where you would have less protection for your rights? And then the next thing they look at is, is the restriction on speech content -based or content neutral? Okay, so content neutral, typically like a noise ordinance, it'll say that you can't have, you can't make noise in a certain place at a certain time over a certain number of decibels, or sometimes they'll use, you know, unreasonably loud, you know, or something like that. And those kind of restrictions are content neutral most of the time, where it's not, depending on what is being spoken, it's just the manner that it's spoken, and you can have content neutral restrictions on the time, the place, or the manner of the speech. And then on the other hand, you may have content -based restrictions, which can either be viewpoint discrimination or topic discrimination. And, you know, a viewpoint discrimination is where a particular idea or a particular point of view is being prohibited, that's being selected for a restriction by government the policy or ordinance or whatever it is. And sometimes it'll have topic discrimination, where, for example, I'll give you an example, if they say, you know, you can't preach that Jesus is the only way to heaven, we're not going to allow you to do that. That would be viewpoint discrimination, okay, because they're taking a particular point of view and say, you can't say this, you can preach about Jesus, you can preach about Muhammad, you can preach about, you know, whatever you want, but we're not going to let you say that one religion is right and other religions are wrong. So that would be a viewpoint content -based discrimination. On the other hand, they may say, you know what, just don't talk about religion at all. You can talk about politics, you can talk about sports, you can talk about, you know, social issues, but leave religion out of it, okay. That is a content -based restriction. It's taking a whole topic, a whole, you know, area of ideas or of speech, and it's saying that that's off limits, whereas, you know, other things are allowed. In either case, whether it's viewpoint discrimination or topic discrimination, it is a form of censorship which violates the Constitution, usually, okay. If there is, if the court determines that there was content, a content -based restriction on speech, they apply what's called strict scrutiny when the court is looking at, you know, how to evaluate this law or the ordinance. The court applies this test, that it was necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it was narrowly drawn to achieve that end. Okay, that's a lot of legalese, a lot of legal terms, but what it's saying is it's very difficult for a law or an ordinance that restricts speech to pass this test. Once the court says this was a content -based restriction on speech, they're almost always going to say, therefore, it's unconstitutional because it can't meet the strict scrutiny test. A compelling state interest is a very strong state interest. Necessary is a very strong word and it has to be narrowly drawn to achieve that end, which means basically it's the restrictions that the state has imposed are the least amount of restriction that the state is not being any more restrictive than absolutely necessary in order to achieve that compelling state interest. And so the courts have said content -based restrictions on speech are presumptively unconstitutional, that they're almost always going to be held unconstitutional. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one example where it was, where a content -based restriction on speech was upheld, and that was in the case of, they had restrictions on political campaigning within a certain distance of a polling place on an election day. So you, once you get within whatever that zone was, I don't remember if it was 500 feet of a polling place or 200 feet, whatever it was, once you get within that zone of a polling place, you could not be in there with your campaign signs and your megaphones and your campaign speeches, and that is a content -based restriction. It's taking the whole topic of political speech and making it off limits just in that one location, and the court upheld that because another, you know, free speech of course is a very fundamental right, constitutional right that we have, but voting is also a very fundamental constitutional right that we have, and they felt that this was necessary in order to prevent voter fraud and voter intimidation, and they had a list of reasons why they said, we need to have just kind of a sterile zone around the polling places so that people could go there and not feel pressured or attacked or whatever the case may be. So that's very unusual for the court to say, okay, we've got a content -based restriction on speech and we're going to uphold it anyway. Almost all the time, if it's content -based, the court is going to strike it down, okay? If it's content -neutral, if it's not content -based, but it's content -neutral, such as a typical noise ordinance, then it has to, it's a different test. The court doesn't apply reasonable time, place, or manner restriction that is narrowly tailored to serve a significant state interest, and it leaves open ample alternative channels of communication. And again, that's a mouthful of legal terms, and I go into a lot more depth in this in the booklet. So, you know, if you pick up one of these booklets, there's, I have a section in there on content -based versus content -neutral restrictions, and we go into a lot more detail. And I not only, you know, I give statements of what the law is. I give you footnotes. There's hundreds of footnotes in this booklet, and I also give you examples at the close of just about every section. I give so the court in each of these cases is, when it talks about strict scrutiny or intermediate scrutiny, this, the court is scrutinizing the government's justification for making a law or an ordinance that restricts speech, and the government is on the defensive. If you're the government has to explain to the court what is its reason, what is the purpose, what is the interest that it's trying to serve, and convince the court that that is a significant enough interest or a compelling enough interest to justify restriction on speech. And then once the government says, okay, well, this is the goal that we're trying to accomplish with this restriction on our citizens' liberty, this is the goal that we're trying to accomplish, then the court looks at, okay, well, that's your goal. Now we analyze the law that you've made and determine, you know, does that law accomplish the goal within the framework of these various constitutional tests. So my purpose today is to not make you all legal experts on how this works, but I want you to have, you know, at least a basic understanding of some of these constitutional issues so that you can at least, when you come up against a restriction on your speech, that you'll have some idea, does this, you know, does this seem right or not? And I'll go into, you know, some other examples. But anyway, so that's how the intermediate scrutiny works. There are other constitutional challenges besides just, you know, whether they meet the strict scrutiny test or the intermediate scrutiny test. There are various other types of challenges. One is when there's a prior restraint on speech, which, again, is not, sometimes they're valid and sometimes they're unconstitutional, but the fact that there's been a prior restraint, such as they say you have to, you have to go get a permit in order to do whatever it is that you're doing. You have to get a permit to pass out literature or you have to get a permit to, you know, to gather together and have a street meeting or whatever it is that you're doing. That is a prior restraint. And if there's a prior restraint, then there are some restrictions that the court has imposed that the government has to meet certain restrictions in order for that prior restraint to be legal. And again, we go in, I'm just going to go through this part kind of quickly because it's, we go into a lot more detail in the booklet and I want to get to the more practical parts of the thing. But another avenue of attack for a restriction on speech is if it allows unbridled discretion to either the official that is granting or denying permission for something, or if it's unbridled discretion to, it gives unbridled discretion to a police officer in enforcing it. In other words, a law has to have some certainty to it. And you don't want to have a situation where somebody, a lot of times this comes up in a permit situation where the law doesn't give sufficient guidelines to the official that's granting or denying a permit. And so then the court says, well, that's unconstitutional because the official has unbridled discretion. If you have to go to the chief of police to get a permit to use amplification, and that ordinance says that, you know, here's how the chief of police is supposed to determine that, that, you know, based on, and then there's certain criteria, then, you know, that may be fine. But if it just says, you know, the police chief has to consider these five factors and any other factor that the chief of police feels is relevant, well, that gives the chief of police carte blanche to total say of whether to grant or deny something that invites censorship. It invites discrimination where the official can just say, well, no, I'm not granting to you, but I am going to grant to them. And there's no way to, you know, to tell whether they're exceeding their authority, you know, or violating any guidelines because there haven't been sufficient guidelines. So that's a problem when you have a permitting scheme like that or some other restriction that gives the official, you know, too much leeway as far as what to allow or not to allow. Another thing, and this is kind of related, you can have an ordinance that is too vague. It doesn't give sufficient description of what is being allowed or what is being restricted. And again, that causes a problem because, you know, somebody that's wanting to speak or exercise their free speech rights and they want to do so consistently with the law, if the law isn't clear on where the lines are, then the person may violate the law without intending to, or even more important to that from a constitutional point of view, the person may censor themselves and restrict what they say because they don't want to get, they want to be sure they don't go over the line. And so now they've got, you know, restrictions on what they're doing because the law was too vague. And so if it's too vague, it's unconstitutional. And a lot of times a vague, you can have a vague law and it also be overly broad. Or you can have an overbroad law that's not vague at all, but it's just, it's just overbroad. It restricts way too much speech than is necessary for the purpose that the government is trying to achieve. A law that's too broad is, I'll give an example. We had a noise ordinance in the city of DeLand that prohibited quote, loud, disturbing, and unnecessary noise. And we had a young man that was cited under that ordinance and his case came to court. So I said, I'll take care of it for you. And I filed a motion to dismiss the charge, claiming that the law was overly broad. And I think I said it was vague also.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"Sometimes you can have private property that actually is considered a traditional public forum, even though it's not public, it's private, you can have private property that is treated as a traditional public forum for First Amendment purposes, and basically, if you have a place that has a sidewalk that is part of a sidewalk that goes, you know, all along the, the street, and that's what, what people use to, and sometimes they'll be, they'll be designated, they'll be specifically an easement for public use, but even if there's not an easement, a formal written easement for public use, if you have a, a sidewalk that is on private property, but it functions as a public sidewalk, and it's indistinguishable from other public sidewalks, and it connects to other public sidewalks, the general rule is that that is also treated as a public sidewalk, but it, it gets complicated, it's not always so, but I just want you to know that, that it's not, for example, you have a, you have a shopping center, and out by the highway on the perimeter of the shopping center is a sidewalk that goes, you know, from one side to the other side, just crosses the whole front of the shopping center, then you have the parking lot, and then you have right in front of the stores, you have a sidewalk there in, right in front of the stores. That sidewalk in front of the stores is a private sidewalk, it's on private property, and it's not a public forum, but the sidewalk that's out by the road that connects to, you know, that goes for, you know, however many blocks in either direction, that's a public sidewalk, even if the private property owns the dirt under that sidewalk, it's still going to be counted as a, as a public sidewalk, and if you're, if you're out there holding a scripture sign by the highway, the manager of the store can't come out and say, you're not allowed to, to do this, and call the police, and have the police make you stop, you're on a public sidewalk, and you, you get to, you get to stay there. So, and this next, this next thing is probably one of the, the most important parts for us to understand is, is how specially permitted events work, and I have a handout on that specifically, evangelism at public festivals and events, and so usually you have events, they'll, they'll close down some streets, and they'll use the paved streets for, for festival booths to be, you know, displayed, and you know, things like that, or they'll, they'll take a park, and they'll designate the park for a weekend for an art show, or an antique car show, or whatever it is they've got going on, pumpkin festival, whatever, and, and typically what happens is some private organization will, will get a permit to use that property for their event, and, and the public is invited, and so thousands of people come there, and so we say, this is great, we've got thousands of people all gathered together in one place, let's go down there and pass out tracts and, and let people know about Jesus, and the problem is, the people that are running the event, they have it in their mind, well, we, we paid a fee, and we got a permit, this is our park for the weekend, and we don't want these other people there, this is our private property just for the weekend, and that's not the correct legal analysis, it's not their private property for the weekend, it's still a public park, and it's still a public venue if there's free access in and out of the, the park. Now if they put a gate around it, and put a fence around it, and you have to go through a gate and pay a fee or have a ticket to get in, then it, then it does become their private use, it's not a, it's not a traditional public forum for that event, it's, they, they get to exclude who they want to exclude, but most of these types of events that we go to, they don't do that, they, they invite everybody, they want everybody to come, and if there's a free flow in and out of the venue, then it's still a public venue, and you still have a right to go in there and pass out your literature there and hold signs, yes sir. What if they have that event not as, you know, free coming in, and not as, hey, this is for profit pay us, but what if they have where it's a donation accepted? I would say, I would say that, that that's, I'd have to, I'd probably have to research that. My gut reaction is, if they're letting people in, you don't have to have a ticket, you don't have to pay, you know, a fee to get in, then it's open to the public, yeah, because it's optional if you want to give money, right, yeah, right, right, yeah, so, yeah, now if somebody has rented a park, and a lot of times they'll do this, so they, they rent the park, and there's an amphitheater there, or they put up a stage, and they've got somebody making speeches, or somebody singing songs, or they've got something going on, that the people that have come there, you know, to take part in this thing, they're there to listen to what's, what's being spoken from that stage. If that's the case, you can still go in there and pass out tracts and stuff, but you can't disrupt their event. They have a First Amendment right to get their message out, and so you can't go in there with bullhorns and start preaching Bible verses while they're trying to make their speeches, or give their song. You can't, you can't drown them out. You have to allow them to do what, what they're there for, and so not only would it be again a bad, a bad testimony for you out there just being obnoxious, but also you don't have the right to, to prevent them from.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"So, also there's no right to freedom from speech, we hear that from the police a lot, or from people complaining about our street preaching, that yeah, we understand you have the right of free speech, but these other people that out here, that they don't want to hear it, they have a right to not hear it. Well, under the constitution, in a public venue, that's not true, okay, what the, what the Supreme Court has said is, if they're in a public place, and there's, somebody is presenting a message that they don't want to hear, they can walk away. If it's a sign that they don't want to read, they can look away, they, they don't have the right to make you not have your message out there in a public venue, there, they just have to, have to deal with it, and that's part of how our society works, it's part of how our democracy works, you know, the court talks about it in terms of our political system, that, you know, there has to be free exchange of ideas, there has to be open and vigorous debate in order for a democratic republic for people to, you know, to govern themselves and, and to have, have, you know, decisions made and that kind of thing, but it's not, it's not limited to, to political issues, and, and so anyway, the court protects, and by the way, it's not a, a Democrat versus Republican thing, I mean, a lot of these, of these first amendment decisions from the Supreme Court are unanimous decisions, or some of them are, you know, eight to one, or sometimes there'll be, there'll be a split in, in how the, the justices decide, they all came to the same conclusion, but they came there by different, by different means, some, some justices say, well, this is the proper legal analysis, and the other justices say, well, no, this is the proper legal analysis, but either way, they get to the same result that, that speech is protected, and that the government shouldn't have overstepped its bounds, so, so anyway, so there's no right to, to freedom from speech, but there, I need to say this also, there also have been situations where someone, the speaker is so aggressive and so obnoxious in their approach, that they go outside of protected speech, you know, you try to talk to somebody, offer them a gospel tract, they say no thank you, and they walk away, and you follow after them, you know, and you're like right on their shoulder, and you're continuing, just badgering them, and, you know, and, and being obnoxious to them, that's not, that's not the kind of, you know, you're out in a public place, you can proclaim your message, you don't get to, you know, to, to follow someone and shout in their ear that, you know, you really need this, or you're going to hell, that's, that's not, you know, that's not allowed, and if you do something, by the way, if you do something that, that crosses over into unprotected speech, if you are out there preaching the gospel, and in the course of preaching the gospel, you use fighting words, they can shut you down and say, you know, that this, you know, you're using fighting words, and even if is good, protected, appropriate speech, and ten percent is using fighting words, once you've crossed that line, and, and you're doing something that the, that the First Amendment doesn't protect, then the police are not wrong to make you stop, so you don't want to, you don't want to cross that line, and so, so we need to, we need to understand that, be respectful of that, so the next thing, after determining whether we're dealing with protected speech or not, is to determine whether we are in what the courts have called a traditional public forum, and that's where, that's where we usually will want to be when we're doing our ministry, we want to be in a traditional public forum, such as a public park, a public sidewalk, public streets, those are places which, traditionally, for hundreds of years, places where, where people in the community have gathered for social interaction, for exchange of ideas, for making announcements, whatever, that, you know, a, a place that, that has been a place where, you know, where ideas have been exchanged, that's a traditional public forum, and that's where our, where our First Amendment rights are, are the strongest.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"Do you ever have any experience with local law trying to limit the support on which you put your sign here in Tennessee, they have been known to get rid of signs because they have a substantial stick sign and they will charge you for carrying a stick or something for the purpose of going on, I mean it's, it's kind of a strange, I mean you can get, you can get charged for walking stick around here, but they really won't make it stay. Yeah, I've seen that like in Nashville where if you've got to go and carry the sign, maybe if it's a, if it's a rolled up cardboard suit, get away with it, but if it's a substantial wooden stick, they, they will try to disarm you, you're going to watch her say it, you're saying we don't want an income tax, they'll definitely try to get that, yeah, but that's one thing here in Tennessee, yeah, I've, I've, I've seen that argument made, I haven't, I don't have experience with, with an actual law or ordinance that said that it's illegal to carry a stick, I've had back in the Mount Dora Art Festival, that was one of things that, that the, the police came up with, oh that, that pole that your sign is on could be used as a weapon, and you know, and you see people have, you know, other sculptures and things that they bought at the art show that could be used as a weapon, but you know, so I, yeah, I don't, I don't, I'd have to see exactly how the ordinance is, is written and, and you know, and how it's, also not on how it's written, but also how it's enforced, so yeah, that, that could be problematic, yes sir, how about there's not important, it's just like saying that to you, yeah, well that's, we'll, we'll get into that in detail, we're going to, we're going to have a whole section on dealing with the police, and, and we have, I have some very specific guidelines for, for what to do, and I'll explain those to you as, as we get there, so anyway, so on the other hand, there is a constitutional concept called fighting words, and the, the definition of fighting words, this is from a United States Supreme Court decision, personally abusive epithets, which are inherently likely to provoke violent reaction, part of that quote is personally abusive epithets directed at an individual, or a group of individuals, okay, so in other words, an insult, you're calling somebody names, and, and it's, it's something so, so outrageous in our culture, that it's likely to produce, you know, provoke a violent reaction right away, that those are, those are fighting words, that is different than what you hear people talk about, hate speech, hate speech, actually under First Amendment law, there is not a, a constitutional concept of hate speech, the courts do not talk about hate speech, it is, it, there are, there are certain, certain types of speech that are not protected, fighting words is one of them, obscenity is another one, but hate speech, speech that somebody finds hateful or insulting, that is not, some people have argued that, oh that's, that's not protected by the First Amendment, you shouldn't be allowed to use hate speech, and, but that the, the Supreme Court has specifically said that speech that is hateful is still protected by the Constitution, and now, as a Christian, you, I can't think of any situation in which you would want to use hateful speech, you know, and certainly you can't think of any situation where you would want to use fighting words, but the thing is, what's hateful in one person's eyes is not hateful in another person's eyes, so you know, if, if you say, you know, that, that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and you know, Muhammad is a false way, and you know, whatever, you know, that people will say, well you're being hateful, and you shouldn't be allowed to say that, well you are allowed to say that, but you're not, you're not, you're not being hateful, but they just call it hateful, you know, and so, so the hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, and then another, another thing that they use sometimes to try to shut down a speaker is they say, well there's so many people here that, that are upset at what you're doing, or you haven't done anything, you know, you're not using fighting words, you're not, you're not inciting a riot, but yeah, and sometimes it's one other person, you know, somebody calls the police, they're, you know, they're down here, you know, trying to shove their religion down people's throats and, and you know, I don't want it, you know, they, they will try to, to shut you down, the legal concept, it's called a heckler's veto, where somebody that, somebody or a group of people that don't want to hear the message, they try to, they become loud, they become unruly, they try to shout you down, and the police come and they say, oh we've got a problem here, this is, you know, now we're, now we're on the verge of disturbing the peace, and so what they're not supposed to do is say, is to get the crowd under control, they're not supposed to, to say well, you know, this is, this is too unpopular of a message, so we're going to make you stop, the whole, one of the main ideas of the first amendment is that the government cannot stop you from expressing an idea that's going to do that, even if there's, you know, people that are, that are trying to shout us down.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"You have the, you have the same right to burn a gay flag that you do to burn an American flag, okay, so if they say, so if the city passed an ordinance that said nobody's allowed to burn a gay flag, that would be unconstitutional, now if the city passed an ordinance that said you can have no open fires in the city without a, without a permit or without certain conditions, then that would be a restriction on setting fires, it's not specifically a restriction on, on burning one flag or another, so you know, so that's kind of basic, that the First Amendment protects us primarily against government action, it doesn't, it doesn't protect us against private action, so you know, if you are on private property, the person that owns that private property has the most part, so if you decide that, you know, I've heard of some people, they'll take gospel tracts and they'll go through a store and they'll stick gospel tracts in the pockets of the clothes that are hanging on racks in the store, okay, if the people in the store don't want you to do that, it doesn't violate your free speech rights for them to say don't put gospel tracts in the pockets of our clothes that we're trying to sell, so you know, someone controlling private property for the most part has the right to, to you know, to say what, what can and cannot happen there, and there's exceptions to that, but, but that's a general rule, is that the, the First Amendment restricts government activity, government restrictions on your, on your speech, okay, so this is private property where we are right now, you're having a church service and somebody wants to come in and start protesting in the back of your church and saying something about gay rights or abortion or whatever, interrupting your church service, they don't have the right to do that here because this is private property and you have the right to exclude them and say that this is not what we're about, we're not, we're not allowing that here, and so you know, you, you have the right to control your, your property, so anyway, so that's the first thing and of course, signs, tracts and preaching are all really pure forms of speech and there are cases which I've got in the booklet, in case you think that each of those activities is protected by the First Amendment, sometimes someone will complain about the fact that you're standing on the sidewalk handing out literature or that you're preaching or displaying signs and, and they'll call the police and usually what happens when someone calls the police about someone that's evangelizing is the police come because when somebody calls the police they respond, even if from the very call itself they could tell, well this doesn't sound like a crime is being committed, they're still going to come out when somebody complains and sometimes they will try to, try to shoehorn your evangelistic activity into a disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct box because somebody's complained about it, but it is not sufficient for, for your preaching or evangelizing to be illegal, it's not sufficient that somebody didn't like it or somebody complained, that doesn't make it disorderly, that for, for disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct there has to be a clear and present danger of inciting an immediate breach of the peace, so yes sir.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"We can take a five-minute break, if anybody needs to use restroom, the first, first time I did this, I just kept going and going and going, and finally somebody raised their hands, and said, brother Jake, can we take a break? So this would be a good spot, I guess, if we want to just take, take five minutes, and anybody that needs to use a restroom, and, and if anybody has questions at this point, you know, I'll be glad to answer questions about what we've covered so far. Oh, and one thing I meant to mention at the beginning, I think everybody's got them, but we've got materials on the back table there, this booklet, Public Evangelism Under the First Amendment, we have a seminar outline, a case sheet on evangelism at public festivals and events, a handout on handling police encounters, which we'll go over that topic in a lot more detail later, and I also have a handout on the right to record police in public places, so, so up there, let me get a sip of water. Oh, and also another quick announcement, we are, we do have some, some food provided, which we're going to take a break at 1 30 to, to have that lunch together, so, thank you, brother Jimmy, for you all providing that for us, so. I'm curious, let me just get a show of hands, how many people have gone out and handed out gospel tracts or, or scripture signs or, or street preaching, anything like that, anybody have any experience with that? Okay, okay, all right, very good. So, okay, all right, very good, just, great, okay, all right, I think we have everybody back from the restrooms, so let's just go ahead and continue on now, we'll get into some of the constitutional issues, where's my lights girl, would you turn the lights out for me please? Thank you, all right, so first, let me say this to the start, the, the first amendment is in the federal constitution, it applies also to all the states, local government, state government, federal government, it applies to all of them, and when, when we have a right to free speech, what that means is that the government is limited in the laws or ordinances or policies that they can enact, that restrict speech, and, and there are, have been many, and they're all over the place, there's all kinds of, of laws and ordinances that do respect, restrict people's speech, they're not all unconstitutional, some of them are, are perfectly legitimate, constitutional reactions of government to govern the public, and some of them are unconstitutional, and they, they cross, cross the line, the lines that the, that the constitution draws, and when someone is, wants to, is challenging a, a restriction on speech, and, and we'll get into that later, how, I have a section specifically on how to challenge unconstitutional policies, but when, when someone is doing that, it goes into the court system, and the courts have a, a typical pattern that they look at in order to, you know, to, to kind of set the legal parameters and, and figure out how do we analyze whether this is, this, this law or ordinance or whatever it is, whether that is a legitimate government restriction, or whether it's an unconstitutional restriction on speech, and so the, the first thing they look at typically is, are we talking about speech that's protected by the constitution, and so, so that's, that's kind of a basic thing, there's all kinds of expressive activity, there's pure speech, which is like people speaking or, or the written word, and there's also actions that people take that are intended to convey a message, it's not pure speech, but, but it is, it is expressing an idea, an example of that is flag burning, okay, somebody may take the American flag or any other flag and set it on fire as, as part of a, a protest, they're trying to get some kind of message across, it's not, nobody's speaking, nobody's written any words, and yet that is communicative activity, and in fact that's something that the Supreme Court has said is protected by the First Amendment, there are, there are some actions that convey an idea that are going to be protected, and there are some actions that, that convey an idea, but that's not the main point of them, and that's part of what the, what the court deals with, yes sir? Say you burn a gay flag.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"So, you know, that's, that's something that, that you know that's going to happen when you go out there. Don't let any of those things bother you. You know, we need, we need to be Christ's representative, representative out there. We need to show, you know, the love and grace of God, and, and you know, not, not worry about those things. This lady right there, her name is Rowan. It's hard to see in this, in this light. She's got green hair. She, she has a sign proclaiming that she's a happy atheist. I can tell you, she's not really happy. She, she really isn't. She has been out there, this is downtown DeLand. She has been out there on the street corner every Friday afternoon for, what is it, nine years? Almost 10 years now. She's faithful to that, to that ministry, if you call it that. And so, here's her sign, no fear, no guilt, happy atheist, no God's needed. And, you know, and people have said to us, you know, it's too bad that, that atheist lady is down there. I don't think it's too bad that atheist lady is down there. I think it's good. You know, for one thing, if you have a stand selling bananas, and somebody sets up a stand next to you selling rotten bananas, there's a nice contrast there that you can see. Plus, you know, we've had over the years so many times that the local merchants have gotten together and tried to push the city council. You've got to try to do something about these, these preachers. They're, they're, they're ruining our downtown. We go down there for an hour and a half on Friday afternoons. That's it. And, and, and yet, you know, oh, they're destroying our businesses. They're, they're pushing old ladies in the streets. They'll say all kinds of things to try to get them to make us stop going down there and proclaiming the gospel because it's just, it's just offensive to them for, for whatever reason. But anyway, we've had people down there that, that would come out. We had, we had one group of people, they had these great big banners on a pole, big signs on a pole, and they would come out. When we were out there preaching, they would come out with these big banners, and one of them said, blah, blah, blah. And another one held a sign, a big tall sign, and it said yada, yada, yada. And that was their way of, of mocking, you know, what, what we were doing. We had, at one point, we had people that came out. They, they had, they made a little drum circle, and they were banging drums, and people came out with, with devil horns, and just kind of crazy stuff. And, you know, if somebody asked, asked me, what do you think about those people? Well, they have a right to be out here and proclaim whatever they want to proclaim, too. You know, I don't have anything against them. They, they need to be saved. But, you know, that's, that's all right. So, and, and let me say this also, that all these things are things that can get you in the flesh. All these things are things that, that, you know, you're out there, you know, why don't they know that I'm out here, you know, because God told me to be out here, and I'm giving them a message that's good for them, and they're not appreciating it. And, you know, and people get in the flesh over all these things, and probably even more than the ones that try to provoke you, the ones that ignore you. I just don't know how many times I've seen people out there passing out tracts, or preaching, or whatever, and people walk by, and sometimes they'll walk by, and they'll, they'll act like they don't, like they don't see you, and they don't hear you. They'll kind of look away a may I give you something good to read about Jesus? No response. Just walk by as if you didn't exist, you know, you know, it makes me want to say, you know, hablas ingles, you know, do you, did you not understand me? But anyway, so, but sometimes people will, they're, they're being, all these people are ignoring them, and the, and I've seen people decide, well, now I'm going to just go ahead and call out this one that just walked by ignoring me, and they'll call after them, and, and say something ugly to them, or say something real, you know, provoking to them, and that's not the way to conduct yourself. Don't get in the flesh, and, but it's something we need to think about, and something we need to pray about before we go that gives you trouble. So, so anyway, all right, and so, and don't confuse your role, which is to be a witness with the role of the Holy Ghost, which is to provide conviction. Second Timothy chapter two says, the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, and meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, which is, that's what's going on out there. They're mocking you, they're, they're, you know, ride by on their motorcycle, and they yell, you know, Satan rules, or, or whatever, just to try to, but they're opposing themselves, you know, they, they need this, and, and they don't know it, and it says, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, it's not our job to make somebody repent, it's our job to give them the, the, the Word of God, give them the information, and hopefully we will provoke somebody to repent, but, you know, we're supposed to be witnesses, and, you know, and we're not, we can't control how somebody responds, you know, God didn't just say, go out and, and save people's souls, you know, only the Lord can save people's souls, he told us to go out and give them the message, so that he could save them, so, so that's, that's the foundational part.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"seminars" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"But to my surprise, I found that the Bible wasn't like any other book that I'd ever read. It had, I don't know, and I was getting kind of goosebumps whenever I describe this, but it had a power to it that I just, that I just couldn't, couldn't explain or couldn't describe that, you know, I'm reading something that has, has a depth of reality to it that is, is not like anything else that you can pick up and read. And, and I still didn't get saved right away. But, you know, in course of time, it was actually a few years later that I called on the Lord to, to save me and forgive my sins. I put my trust in Him. I understood that, that, that Jesus died for my sins and He rose again. And, and that I needed to call on Him to, to be forgiven and to have a relationship with Him and to, and to become a Christian. And so, and so I did that. So I wanted to get that out of the way. First of all, just so you know that I am a Christian. And so praise the Lord. I thank Him for that. And so, but I didn't get saved till, till after law school. I graduated college. I ended up going to law school, got my law degree. And, and it was after my first child was born. And I was privileged to be present while, when he was born. And, and I just believed that I had just witnessed a miracle. That, you know, you, God is just so good and so wonderful and so powerful. And, and, you know, you see a baby come into the world. And, and so that, that touched my heart. And it wasn't long after that, that, that, that I called on the Lord. And, and there were many people along the way that, that helped me get to that, to that point. And so anyway, praise the Lord. I, how we got started with this Gospel Advocates ministry is, many years later, in 1994, we started going to the church that we attend now, which is the Bible Baptist Church in DeLand, Florida. And that church does a lot of public ministry. We go out on the public sidewalks. You know, we, we have somebody out there every Friday afternoon. We've, we're out there holding signs and passing out tracts and preaching. We go to the local parades and football games and events of all different kinds. We have, you know, just a lot of outreach ministry. That, that church has, has a strong emphasis on evangelism. And so, being involved in some of that evangelism, or the, we would have situations where we would run into difficulties. You know, we go to, I think the, the first one that really got me started on this was a nearby town called Mount Dora, Florida, has a big art festival. They block off the streets so that cars can't drive in that area. But the people are allowed in, you know, people walk in through, on the streets or on the sidewalks and come into this big park. And, and they've got all kinds of stuff going on there. And it draws thousands and thousands of people every day that, that it's open. And so, our church would go there to, to distribute literature and to preach. We had scripture signs that we would hold and, and, and of course, when you go to an event like that, the people who sponsored the event don't want you there, because this is their event. And they, you know, they got a permit and they, they think that, that they've essentially rented the park, which is legally not how that works. But anyway, so, so they didn't want us there. And so, they asked the police to come and tell us that we could not do that there. And that's what the police did. They said, you can't, you can't come in here through the, through the park grounds and hand out your literature to people in here, because this is a permitted event. And even though the public was invited, they told us we, we couldn't do that there. And, and they had a designated area, they called it a designated free speech area, and said, you can do your stuff over there. And so, we kind of debated with them. And, you know, we ended up talking with the chief of police, we talked with the city attorney, and it prompted me to do a lot of legal research to find out, you know, what, what rights do we have and what, you know, what is the city allowed to do or not allowed to do in terms of restricting us there. And, you know, and so we had that, we had many other situations, we have our, our town is just a few miles, about 15 or 20 miles from Daytona Beach. And we would have people every Saturday night, we go to Daytona Beach out to the boardwalk there, and pass out literature and stuff. And we had hassles from the Daytona Beach police, with trying to do our ministry there. So I had to, you know, do some research there and deal with the city attorney and the police chief with all of that. And, and, you know, and we got all of that straightened out. But we realized that that was, most churches don't have an attorney attending, at least most churches that are fundamental, you know, and that do, do some evangelistic outreach, you know, most of them don't have an attorney to, to kind of sort those things out with the officials. And so that was part of the reason for starting this ministry. Also, I had done over the course of a few years, I had done so much research, and I had to get the research organized. Because I know there was a case that said this, and there was a case that said that, and, and I had, I felt like I was starting over each time something came up. So I put it all together in organized form and, and, and ended up self publishing this booklet, Public Evangelism, under the First Amendment. And, you know, I understood how courts look at free speech issues and, and the different types of, of problems that come up with that as far as, you know, what restrictions are attempted to be imposed on people that want to exercise their free speech rights, not just evangelism, but, but anything, you know, political protests or, or, you know, all kinds of things, you know, the laws is, is the same for those as it is for evangelism. But, but I wrote this, you know, specifically focused on, on evangelism. And, and, you know, we would have because our pastor, he goes, is James Knox, he goes, he's well known around the country, he goes to many different churches, and he preaches in many different churches and revival meetings and that kind of thing. So there's a lot of other ministries that we are, that are familiar with us, and we're familiar with them, and they would be doing something and have a problem with the authorities with their evangelism, and they would call brother James, you know, well, what do we do with this kind of thing, and he would refer them to me, and I would try to answer their questions and help them, you know, just over the phone. And, and so we decided to, to form this, this ministry with the focus on number one, training, like we're doing today to help people understand what their rights are, to understand, you know, the some of the best approaches to how to handle doing evangelism in public and what kinds of things to look out for. So we do training, we do, you know, education, we, I distribute these booklets all over the country, you know, they're, I don't charge anything for them, I don't charge anything for the seminars, it's all, you know, it's a Christian ministry, and, you know, we, we are happy to go ahead and, and do that. So, so we have training, we have education, and then as needed, we have, you know, kind of intervention into a situation where I've had people from all over the country say, you know, we're trying to do this, and here's what, here's what the police are telling us, or here's, you know, some hassle that we're coming to. And, and so what I will do then is look up the local ordinances or whatever, you know, whatever is applicable, and I'll contact the, whoever the officials are, city manager or mayor or police chief or, you know, wherever the point of the problem is, I'll contact those people and just try to work through the problem with them. We don't go around the country filing lawsuits, that's not what my, not what this ministry is about. There are other Christian ministries that will do that, but I didn't see any other Christian ministries out there that are doing what we're doing, which is not, waiting for somebody's rights to be violated and then, and then bring a lawsuit. We're trying to help people avoid those problems to begin with, and try to work through them and, because what we're trying to do is get the gospel out. We want, we want people to hear the gospel, we want people to hear about Jesus Christ and the Word of God. And if, if you have been shut out of a venue because some public officials did something wrong, you can go ahead and say, all right, well, we're going to file a lawsuit. Well, now, instead of doing your evangelism in that venue, now you're involved in years of litigation to hopefully get, get to the right result. But what we want to do is get the people that want to be out there preaching the gospel, back out there preaching the gospel. And so, so we, we do that. I'm not licensed to practice law in any jurisdiction other than Florida, but when I had people in, you know, in Tennessee or, or North Carolina or Connecticut or wherever, call me with questions, I can, I can go ahead and try to talk them through it. And I've had people tell me, call me, and I've got my business cards back there. You take, take my business cards, that's my cell phone number on that card. And I've gotten calls from people saying, I'm out here on the street passing out tracks in front of this, you know, LGBT festival, and I've got a police officer right here telling me, I can't do this. Would you talk to him about it? And then they hand their phone to the police officer. And now I'm trying to find out, okay, well, what's going on? Why are you, you know, what is, what is the issue here? And try to, try to talk them through it. And sometimes we can solve the problem right there. And if we can, then the gospel continues to go out. And so, you know, so that's what we want to do is, is try to, you know, facilitate that. So, that's kind of the background. And, and so, what we're going to do here today, I'm going to start out with the biblical foundation for public evangelism. And, and hopefully that will be a blessing. And, and then we'll get into some of the, some of the constitutional and legal issues, and, and some of the real practical advice, practical aspects of some of the, do this and don't do that, to help, help keep you out of trouble. And, and, you know, again, what we want to do is, if somebody wants to be on the sidewalk, passing out tracts, or holding up a scripture sign, or preaching, we want them, we want them out there doing it. And, and so, we try to, try to help you avoid problems that can, that can get you shut down. So, and there will be several opportunities for asking questions also. So, so we'll, we'll get to that too. So, let me start with, let's get the lights. Thank you, Miss Hannah. All right. So, the first, first question is, is why evangelize in public? And first of all, we are commanded to evangelize. This is Jesus' words here, my boy works, go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. So, you know, the Lord wants His message out there in the world, and, and it's, you know, it's a command. So, we should, we should be willing to do that. It's also our purpose, as you read the Bible, it's Acts 1-8 says, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me. So, He calls us His witnesses. And so, if we're His witnesses, we need to testify. We need to, we need to go out, and you know, it doesn't mean you have to get a megaphone, and, and preach out loud. You can hand out gospel literature. You can talk to people one-on-one, you know, knock on doors, hold scripture signs, and, you know, there's lots of ways to, to get that message out, but we all should be concerned about, about doing that. And so, you know, and we don't all have to do that in public, but, you know, everyone who is a born again Christian should, should want to see other people become born again Christians, and, and be willing to take part in, in the Lord's ministry. So, every, another reason is, is because everyone has a need to be saved, right? There's none righteous, no, not one. Everyone needs to hear about the Savior. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to talk to, whether it's one-on-one, or multitudes like it is in this slide. You know, we want to let people know the gospel, because they need to hear it. You know, everyone has a need to be, to be saved, and also, they won't know if we don't tell them. By the way, this slide here, just to give you some background, this was in Daytona Beach. We were on our way to a NASCAR stadium, and traffic was backed up for, for miles. We, we got out, out of the van, and, and started walking to the, to the venue, because we were going to get there quicker walking than we would. But, but just a little caveat here, I would not recommend trying to stand in a highway median with scripture signs. We were just coming from one place to another, and just took the opportunity to do that. If the police came and said you couldn't do that there, they'd be right. So, you know, we want to, we do want to obey the law, you know. So anyway, so, you know, as the Bible says, you know, how shall they believe in whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher? And the thing is, they're not going to hear it, for the most part, from TV, or from Hollywood, or from the education system, or from, you know, big business, you know. I mean, if Christians don't tell people how to become a Christian, nobody else is going to tell them. And so, you know, and I mean, even churches, you know, there's, you can say, well, you know, they can, if they have, if they're curious, they can go into a church. Well, number one, maybe they're not curious now, but they would be if you handed them a gospel tract, or if you had a smile on your face, and, and held up a sign that told them that Jesus saved their soul. But even if they wander into a church, it's, you can't count on that church giving them the gospel and giving it in a biblically sound way. So those of us who know the truth, we need to be the ones to, to get out there and, and spread that message. So, all right. So then we get into what to preach and what not to preach. And what we're commanded to do is preach the gospel. And, you know, you have, this is a legal constitutional seminar, you have the right to preach anything you want to preach. But looking at it from the, from a biblical foundation of why should Christians want to go out there and evangelize, you know, the gospel is, is, is the power of God. So, you know, we want to let people know that, that Christ died and was buried and rose again, all of that for their sins. We preach the cross of Christ, repentance toward God, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. That's, that's the message that we're assigned to give. And there are other things that, that people do proclaim publicly, but, you know, we're not there to talk about politics or lifestyles or philosophies, pet doctrines, particular sins. What we want to do is, is preach the gospel. And, you know, I know there are, there are many people that go out and they have just particular things that, that they are riled up about, for lack of a better word, and that's what they preach. And it, you know, and it may be fornication, or it may be drunkenness, or it may be homosexuality, or whatever. And they, they go out and, and that's what they hit, and they hit it hard every time. And sometimes they never get to the gospel because they're just preaching against whatever it is they're preaching against. And the thing is, if you go out and you preach against drunkenness, for example, and you're successful in persuading the people that hearing you, that are hearing you, that, you know what, drinking is wrong. I should quit drinking. If they quit drinking, but they don't accept Christ as their Savior, they'll go to hell sober, but they're still going to hell, you know. They can, they can live as, as, as clean as, as a Mormon, but if they don't have the gospel and they don't believe it, then, you know, you haven't, you haven't done their soul any good. So, so, you know, they, then Christ sent us to preach the gospel, and that's what we should be doing. And my recommendation is, is primarily to preach the Word of God. The Bible gives these promises, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, and my word shall not return unto me void. And, you know, you can, you can preach a gospel message without ever quoting a Bible verse, but I recommend quoting some Bible verses while you're, while you're preaching. You know, even if you just start off with John 3 16, or you have one verse or two verses that you've memorized, you know, I'm not saying everything that comes out of your mouth needs to be a scripture verse, you know, preach the Word and, and we want to expound, we want to, we want to, you know, make sure that we're getting the understanding across, but as I said before, there, there really is power in the Word of God. And, and so, you know, that's, that's what we, that's what we want to preach. If you're preaching your opinion about something, well, everybody's got an opinion. And, you know, everybody has their ideas of morality, everybody has some kind of worldview that, that they adhere to. And, and that's just, that's, that's not what we're there for, you know, we want, we want to preach Christ Jesus, the Lord, okay, we want, we want people to know that, that that's, that that's, you know, what we're about. So, next, we get to how to preach. And I would say, to be a good Christian witness, you should be polite and respectful and honorable. You know, the Bible says, as much as Liath and you live peaceably with all men. You know, we see some of our brethren out there that, that do open air preaching that are, that are really rough. And, and it's, it's, it's really not necessary. The Gospel message is confrontational enough. Just the fact that you're letting people know that, that they are not as good as they may think they are, that they are, that they, you know, they are under condemnation because of their sin. That's kind of confrontational, but we don't have to be contentious when we, you know, confront them with that truth. And so, like the Bible says, to speak the truth in love, let your speech be all the way with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to, how you ought to answer every man. And, you know, so there's, there's no reason to, to be, to be ugly about it. And you're not going to, you know, you're not going to, what we're trying to do is, is reach men's hearts. We're trying to be persuasive. And if you're just going to be insulting to people, you're not likely to get very far with, with what you're trying to accomplish. But, you know, the Bible tells us that that's, you know, this is what our, what our attitude should be. So we want to obey the law. You know, the Bible tells us that we are to submit to every ordinance of man. And, you know, for, for our conscience sake, you know, we're supposed to be subject to the civil authorities that are, that are governing us. And, and it's a good testimony. You know, we want to, we want to do what's, what's right. I mean, even, you know, if you're, if you're out there with a Jesus saved shirt on, or you're carrying a scripture sign, and you're going to where you're going to be setting up to do your ministry, I wouldn't jaywalk. You know, I mean, I would, I would just, you know, try, try to, to, you know, to live as a good citizen and show that you have respect for the laws of the community. And, you know, and it's a, it's a good testimony, because, you know, you don't, you don't want people, you don't want to give people a reason to reject the gospel, because they see that your, your conduct doesn't, doesn't live up to, to, you know, the proper standards. So now, a lot of, you know, as you know, there's, in the Book of Acts, a couple of times where the, the disciples said to those that would forbid them to preach the gospel, they'd say, you know, we have to obey God rather than men, which is a favorite verse for rebellious Christians to take out of context. If, if you are ever in a situation where, in order to obey the Lord, you have to break the law, then you have, then you have that dilemma, and that may come into play. In this country, that's generally not going to happen. You can obey the law and obey the Lord's commands, you know, to, to get the gospel out. You know, it, nobody is, nobody's going to say it's illegal for you to preach the gospel, and that's, that's what the, the disciples were, were facing back there in Acts Chapter 4 and Acts Chapter 5. And so, you know, we, we don't have that, we don't have that problem in this country, and, you know, and if we do, then, then you got a choice to make, and, but it's, it's not, it's not an excuse for people just to reject, you know, all of, all of civil authority over them. You know, the Bible specifically says we're supposed to be subject to, to civil authority, and so, anyway, and then the next thing, and some of this practical how-to stuff, is we need to be appropriate to the, the setting, to where you are, you know, you're, when, when we go out to, to witness, one place we go to is not exactly like another place that we go to, and so we need to have, have some common sense. I'll give you an example. We had one very zealous young man in our church one time who, he parked his pickup truck on the, next to the curb, right by a restaurant that had an open sidewalk cafe, and he stood in the back of his pickup truck, and he preached loudly to these people that were trying to enjoy a meal together, and they couldn't have a quiet conversation among themselves because he was making so much noise. Now, it's great that he, that he wanted to go preach the gospel. It's great that he was coming up with, you know, innovative ways to, to, to try to do that, but we had to rein him in and say, brother, this is not appropriate. You know, it's, that's just obnoxious, and so, you know, we want to, we want to be appropriate to the setting. When, if you're, if you're preaching on the sidewalk to, to people that are in cars, my recommendation is that you preach to the stopped traffic. If they come and they pull up at a red light, then you preach to them while they're stopped at the red light, and then when the traffic is, is moving, you could preach to the other people that are stopped at the other red light, or you can, or you can be quiet, but if we're out there shouting at cars driving by, number one, they're not getting what you're, what you're preaching, and number two, you look like a lunatic. You know, I mean, it's just, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense, and these are not, you know, absolute, you know, hard and fast rules, but, but just, again, just be appropriate to the situation that you're in. Another one that, that I recommend is if you have several, several people preaching, you know, at the same intersection, you know, if we have, you know, a dozen people, and we have two or three at each corner, and my recommendation is preach one at a time. If somebody across the street from you is preaching, wait for them to get done, and then preach. We had, I, I did this, this program at a, at a church in Alabama one time, and they had these young preacher boys that were just ready to go, and, and so we got down to this downtown area, and they set up, and they were all within shouting distance of each other, and they all started preaching at the same time, and there's someone saying this, and someone was saying that, and it was confusion, you know. If, I mean, just look at it from the point of view of your intended audience. If you look at it from the point of view of someone that, that needs to hear the gospel, they come down here, and here's four different guys shouting at the same time. You know, it just, it just doesn't, it doesn't make sense, so, you know, we need to, you know, just kind of common sense stuff be, be appropriate to the setting, and then finally, we get to, in this, in this section, talking about the, the spirit, and the flesh, because your flesh does not want to do this. You know, I'll admit that my flesh does not want to do it. You know, I have to, have to purposely go out, and, and evangelize, because my flesh would rather do something else, or do nothing at all, or do something that's not going to have any possibility of, of, you know, of somebody frowning at me, and so we have to put down the flesh, and, and, you know, go by this, by the spirit, and so there are several, several things that I recommend in connection with this. One is to pray before you, before you go out there, before you meet the first person in the public, before you open your mouth, or pull out a gospel tract to hand to somebody. It's a good idea to pray. Pray for the Lord's blessing. Play, pray for His protection. Pray for Him to, to get your attitude right. Pray for Him to prepare the hearts of the, of the people that you're going to meet. It helps a lot to, to pray, and if you just go out there in the strength of your own flesh, then you're likely to get in the flesh, and, and make a mess of things. So, and I will say this, if you can't control your flesh, then stay home. Don't do it. You know, we have, we have people that, you know, one of our ministries in our local church, every Saturday night, we have a group that goes to the boardwalk in Daytona Beach to hand out tracts on the boardwalk. We do some preaching. We hold scripture signs, and there's lots and lots of people there. Most of them are very inappropriately dressed, and if that is something that is a problem for you, and, and you can't keep yourself from ogling somebody that doesn't have enough clothes on, then don't go there. Pick a different ministry, or you know, get that thing under control in your heart before, before you do that, and not just that, but, but you know, some people have a short temper, and you know, they get all riled up. You know, if somebody says something mean to you, somebody says something obnoxious, or ignorant, or they cuss at you, those things happen sometimes when we, when we go out in public and evangelize, and if your response is to, to shout back at them, and, and you know, try to put them in their place, and, and you have to get the last word, and, and you know, you're going to say mean things back to them. You know, you're not, you're not doing right, and you know, you have to get that under control before you decide you're going to go and, and do this, and remember that our purpose, it's, it's the gospel of grace and reconciliation, which is what these people need, and so if, so that if they don't respond to you in grace and kindness, it's because they need the Lord, and we're the ones that need to show that grace and kindness, and we're the ones that need to, you know, they need to be reconciled to the Lord just like we did, and so you know, we should have some, some compassion. Remember that you represent Jesus, you know, and, and you represent your local church, and you know, we want to maintain a good testimony, and remember that we're no better than they are. Hopefully our, our lifestyle and our conduct, conduct is better than, than most of the people we've run into, but you know, we're not, we're not better than they are. We're not, you know, they, we needed to be saved just like they needed to be saved, and you know, if it wasn't for the grace of God and Him keeping us, we, we wouldn't, we wouldn't, if you could lose it, you'd lose it, so, so you know, we, we should have a humble attitude, you know. Remember this is 1 John 1-8 is written to save Christians. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, so you know, it's, it's not like, you know, we're the, we're the wonderful spiritual people, and everybody else is, is dirty rotten sinners. It's, it's not like that at all. We, you know, we have to, we have to have that humility. Be prepared. Some will try to provoke you. Some will try to discourage you. I don't know how many times, you know, we've had people come up to us. They see what we're doing, and they say, I'm a Christian, but, and then they give their, their reasons why they think that we shouldn't be following the Lord's command, and, and be out there, and, and, you know, or, or other people that are not Christians. They'll say, well, you know, well, why aren't you, why aren't you feeding the, the poor? Why aren't you helping the, the homeless? You know, instead of being out here, you know, keep it in the church, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. Some will try to distract you. They'll come to you, and you know, and they'll, to get you off track, and some will try to argue with you. We get people that, that they have their pet doctrine, you know, and, and so they, you know, why aren't you telling these people they need to be baptized, or why aren't you, you know, whatever they, and, and all kinds of things. Many people in public will ignore you. You'll probably have more people walk by and ignore you than, than, than to say anything that's in any way contentious.