Hey everybody, this is Tim at the Bible Project and this is a quick additional note before we jump

into the podcast episode for this week. Like you, I'm being inundated with news, updates, and

conversations about this novel coronavirus pandemic and it's really important that we all stay

informed so that we know what to do. But at the same time, probably like many of you, I have

crossed my own mental threshold for the amount of news that I should be consuming and I kind of

go crazy. I can feel my blood pressure and anxiety go up. And what I need to do is also remember that

I also still have a life and can and should think about other things. And that's probably true for

you too. And so we just wanted to say this out loud. I don't know if we needed to say it, but we

wanted to. We're going to continue with the podcast just to go on with our series on the parables of

Jesus. There'll be a different series after that coming in a month and a half or so. Not because

we don't think this crisis is important to think about and really think about deeply. But really

it's that John and I aren't the people to create that resource. There's so many good resources

and podcasts out there. What we want to offer is a chance to continue to deepen and become more

wise and how we read the Bible. And we believe that can give us really important shifts of perspective

in new ways to think about this whole crisis and the choices we're making as we go through it.

So that's one thing. One other quick thing, a reminder, John said this a couple of weeks ago,

for those of you who are a part of a local church community, we'd really want to encourage you to

stay connected to your local church online during this time. If they have the ability to put out

resources to participate in that, stay connected. Let's all remember to stay financially committed

to our local churches during this time. This is going to be devastating for many church

communities financially. And so let's remember our commitment to keep giving to our church, even though

we can't be there physically with the people of our church, we can online and we can financially

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