The Bible depicts God in a way that leads to awe and worship. He is the king of the universe who is loving and merciful (Exodus 34:6–7). God is transcendent—yet He chooses to draw near to us. Worship, the natural response to God’s generosity, is central to who we are as human beings. In this episode, we discuss how to worship the Lord passionately, “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

Our guest is Yaron Cherniak, a Jerusalem-based musician, composer, and songwriter. He is also part of MIQEDEM, a messianic worship band. In this episode, we address topics including:

·     What Judaism teaches about worship

·     What worship looks like in Israel

·     How to balance performance and worship

·     How to cultivate a heart of worship

(light rhythmic music)

- Welcome to "Our Hope,"

a production of Chosen People Ministries.

On this podcast you will hear inspiring testimonies,

learn about Messianic apologetics,

and discover God's plan for Israel and you.

Wherever you're listening, we hope you lean in,

listen closely and be blessed.

(gentle music) (woman vocalizing)

I will give You thanks with all my heart;

I will sing praises to You before the gods.

I will bow down toward Your holy temple

And give thanks to Your name

for Your loving kindness and Your truth;

For You have magnified Your word according to all Your name.

On the day I called, You answered me;

You made me bold with strength in my soul.

Psalm 138:1-3.

What is worship?

In modern society, we might be used to defining worship

as the time we spend singing at church,

but is there more to it?

The Bible is filled with passages about this topic,

and we want to understand how worship was practiced

and expressed from the Old Covenant to the New.

In this episode, we have a special guest

joining us for the very first time.

Today, we are honored to feature Jerusalem-based performer,

composer, and songwriter, Yaron Cherniak!

He is also part

of the popular Messianic worship band, MIQEDEM.

We hope this episode will help you cultivate

a heart of worship.

I now introduce the host of "Our Hope" podcast, Abe Vazquez!

(gentle music)

- Shalom, and welcome back to "Our Hope."

I am excited to be back once again.

Unfortunately, I couldn't join last week,

but Nicole held it down, did an awesome job with Fiona

and that was a great conversation.

And so this week, you know, we're focusing on worship.

Might be a little bit odd

because I think everyone is so familiar with worship,

but it's always good to hear about worship

from the perspective of a musician, a songwriter,

because it's just, I don't know,

I'm a musician myself and it's just a different experience

because writing music, playing music,

there's such a connection that you have with God

when you're going through that process.

And it's, you know, different than, let's say,

just showing up on a Sunday morning, you know,

worshiping with your congregation and your church,

but you're actually living it.

You know, you're doing it each and every day.

And yes, there's different forms of worship,

but today we're really focusing on the musical worship.

And Nicole, you're a musician.

You sing, you play ukulele, right?

So, you're dabbling into the music side of things

and writing as well.

So today, as Nicole mentioned, we're speaking with Yaron

who is part of the band MIQEDEM,

and he's also performing and writing his own music.

And Yaron, I got to meet him a few years ago

when he came to New York with MIQEDEM,

and we did a worship concert in Manhattan.

And that was amazing.

Oh my gosh, that was probably one of the best events

we've ever done.

And so I've gotten to know Yaron over the years

and I'm just so glad he was willing to join us today.

And so Yaron Cherniak.

He is an Israeli composer, musicologist,

and the founder of Morasha foundation.

He is known as a multi-instrumentalist

and he plays some very unique instruments,

and he's also a songwriter, both in his solo career,

and as I mentioned, part of MIQEDEM

where he mainly composes scriptures from the Hebrew Bible.

So let's just introduce him!

Yaron, welcome to "Our Hope."

Thank you for joining us.

- Hey. Yeah, thank you for having me here.

It's a great pleasure.

And yeah, I remember it for good, like the time in New York.

We had such a blast having this concert

just next to the Central Park.

And I don't know,

I cannot not going back to those memories from there.

- Yeah. I mean, I remember that concert,

there were a lot of Jewish people coming to that.

It was just an awesome worship experience, you know,

to just hear music and hear worship in Hebrew.

I think that's what made it extra special.

If you don't know MIQEDEM, I suggest check 'em out.

They do some amazing, amazing songs

from the Hebrew scriptures all in Hebrew.

But yeah.

So, hey, whenever we have a first guest,

I have a special question.

Because I am such a foodie, I love food

and I'm always curious.

So what is your absolute favorite food

that if you were on a desert island,

you could eat every day?

- I'm not sure if my favorite food can be found

on an island, but perhaps yes, I'm a meat enthusiast

and I really like meat.

And I think my favorite dish of like beef meat

is roasted beef.

Basically just having it for a couple of hours, you know,

smoking it for like seven to nine hours, sometimes.

Smoked meat. So, yeah, meat basically.

And you can add some really nice rub on that,

like very thick rub around the meat, like of chili,

red chili, like spicy chili.

You can add even a shot of espresso,

which gives it a little bit, you know,

more funky taste or just ground pepper and raw salt.

And it's really delicious. I mean, yeah.

So I got hungry.

- That's awesome. So I have another question.

What is your favorite place in Israel?

- Hmm.

Recently I went a lot, like very often

to the north part of Israel, to the Golan,

and it's so beautiful, so beautiful.

- The Golan Heights, right?

- The Golan Heights. Yeah.

You can see the Hermon from there

and I know some beautiful springs you can visit

with 4x4 wheel.

And it's really nice. I love it.

I love the valley, the Hula Valley

just down the Golan Heights.

And I don't know, just very calm.

People are less stressed, you know?

So I love going there.

It's like two and a half hours drive,

and it's nothing compared to distances in the States,

but in Israel it's like a relatively it's like long drive.

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

That's awesome.

That's awesome. Can't wait to go back to Israel.

I know it's been super difficult with COVID,

and all the lockdowns

and then opening and lockdown and openings.

- Any plans?

- Hopefully. Well, yeah, we'll see.

Hopefully this summer.

Hopefully, I'll be able to go there and do some filming,

but don't know yet, you know,

we have to see how things are going,

but I will definitely be in touch.

- For sure. Yeah, totally.

- So let's jump into today's topic.

We're going to talk about worship

as we've been talking about since the intro,

what is worship to you?

And how would you define it?

- Wow, that's like a huge question,

especially because I studied musicology

and the minute you ask me that tons of like questions,

other questions are arising.

So what is worship to me?

I would say worship, if we don't use the word

in the context of the cultural context of this word,

this title, worship is 45 minutes

of singing together in a church,

or synagogue or congregation.

I would say worship is a very complex chain of events

that without having them in a some kind of order,

and it's hard to get to a place of worship,

worship for me, isn't just text that you just sing.

It can be also that,

as like in the Jewish kind of worship genres,

you have praises, you have Tishbohot, Hallel, Hodaya,

different kind of genres of worship in a way.

And they are all texts, obviously,

but they sometimes connected to time in the year,

a feast, a place.

So for me, worship, when I really get into this mode

of worshiping God,

there is something very complex that happened

in the inner part of my being, let's say.

There is some kind of a connection that is so deeper

than just singing or just playing

that you can even be quiet and still obviously worship God.

Something like that. I hope it makes sense.

- Yeah.

No, yeah.

What I hear you saying is that worship

is sort of a connector, you know, really connects things,

especially to God.

You know whether it's a feast

that the Jewish people are celebrating

or it's something culturally,

there's sort of a connection there, that worship,

just bridges us to God in a sense.

Is that fair to say?

- Exactly.

There is an article that my (indistinct),

so he wrote a book

about the connection of places and sounds,

and his approach to a song is like a sight,

song is kind of a sight,

and worshiping, think about it like 2,000 years ago,

when let's say a Jewish citizen or a guy

is going up towards Jerusalem from,

whatever, Caesarea, for example.

Now you have this process of walking the way.

In your imagination you start to see the people

you're going to meet in Jerusalem during the feast,

you start to hear the Levites in your mind,

you see the sacrifice and all that.

There are so many things involved in this act of worship.

And the reason I'm referring to a chain of events

is that in order for worship to activate something

inside of me, so I can connect with God,

there are different events that should happen,

and it's not only singing, you know.

So many times I was singing together with a crowd

or in the congregation, and nothing is really touching

or bringing you to this deep place that you know

you are standing in front of God, you know?

- Wow.

I love how you mentioned earlier, Yaron,

that there's different types of worship,

like the Hallels.

And we see that in the Psalms,

there's a lot of different types of worship songs

that people would've sung in ancient Israel.

Is there a portion of scripture in the Old Testament

that really expresses to you what worship is about?

- Yeah, so I think a verse that I really like,

and there are many for sure.

Also I think, generally speaking, worship is something

very essential in the Bible.

The longest book is Psalm, the book of Psalms,

and King David is so connected with playing,

with being a musician, with being a well performer.

And we know how while he was playing,

the King Saul, he was transforming from having bad spirit,

it was easing his pain or agony.

So we know music is something very essential in the Bible.

But I think there is a verse from book of Job 1:21,

and I can read that in English:

Naked I came from my mother's womb

and naked I will depart.

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away,

may the name of the Lord be praised.

Now that's very irregular portion or verse to read

in regard to worship.

But the reason, I think, I feel attached to this verse

is that the Bible basically teaches

what's the meaning of worship.

And the meaning of worship is to have a recognition element

of the superiority of God.

Doesn't matter what you go through.

It can be a celebration of life.

It can be joyfulness.

It could be a winning in a war.

But it could be also lamentations,

and it could be also in the midst of sadness,

of a disaster, of a tragedy, yeah.

And I think this is why I like this verse from Job,

that it kind of sums up what he's going through.

Like, yeah, I don't understand everything,

but I recognize God is supreme, is above all,

and he will go through the pain with God.

And I believe this is in a way act of worship

to recognize God as supreme to whatever you go through.

- Yeah, I mean, I think for many people,

when you think of worship, you instantly think of joy.

You instantly think of like, you know,

"Oh, I have to be happy

when I'm in sort of the act of worship,"

but worship can still happen in really tough times.

And we have a future episode coming up

talking about some of that,

about going through hardships in life

and still just honoring and worshiping God through that.

(soft music)

- We'll be right, right back.

(light cheerful music)

During these difficult times,

we know how hard it is to hold on to hope.

And we want you to know that Chosen People Ministries

is here for you.

If you have any prayer requests,

our prayer team is standing by to receive them.

You can submit your request at chosenpeople.com/pray

again, that's chosenpeople.com/pray.

- Shalom.

We are so glad you're joining us

on this episode of "Our Hope."

We created this podcast as a resource

for followers of Yeshua,

where they can learn more about Israel, the Bible,

and the Jewish community.

Together, we discuss messianic apologetics,

dive into Scripture,

and hear stories from Jewish believers in Jesus.

If you've enjoyed our podcast series,

please consider supporting us at ourhopepodcast.com/support.

You could also help us by sharing this podcast

on social media,

talking about it with your friends and family,

or by writing a review on Apple Podcasts.

We are so grateful for you,

and we hope this episode of "Our Hope"

is both enlightening and encouraging.

- So being a part of Israeli culture,

would you say you grew up

in a of religious sort of environment or?

- Sort of, like from my mother's side

my grandparents were religious,

from my father's side was more traditional.

So I experienced both worlds, I would say.

- So in, in both of those worlds,

what did Judaism teach about worship?

How did your fellow Jewish people engage in worship?

- I had a chance actually to experience

different kind of approaches to worship in Judaism

because when I came to faith, I had this,

how do you say, like, I used to go out to,

there was like a small hill, not far from my parents' house

next to like a forest.

And I used to hang out there.

I was like 17 years old when I came to faith.

So I used to go there and hang out, you know,

just being with God, you know, singing with my guitar

or praying, reading the Bible.

And then I met ultra orthodox people doing the same thing,

going out to this hill next to the forest, shouting to God.

There is a very strong tradition of contemplating

and worshiping outside in nature,

especially with the (indistinct) live community.

They tend to go out to shout to God

and singing Him loudly outside.

So, I was singing with them so much,

like so many times we spent time together,

me and my Orthodox friends.

And now when we talk about

the tradition of worship in Judaism,

this is such a huge topic because, you know, just...

There was a place in Cairo.

They found like tons of papers

from like the old Egyptian Jewish community.

Basically papers that were planned to be burned.

It's called Geniza.

So if you want to,

because it's written in the holy language, in Hebrew,

if you want to destroy a paper or something you wrote down,

there is a special place,

you put all the paper there and then they take the paper

and they burn it in a special way,

because it's a holy language.

So they found there tons of material about worship songs

from the fifth century, the fourth century.

So it's called the classic period of worship,

of Jewish worship.

In Hebrew, we call it (speaks in foreign language)

It comes from the word in Greek (speaks in foreign language)

which means creation or an art, basically.

So what I wanted to say is that there are thick books,

like researchers writing about it,

about the way the integrated worship in the prayer.

And to each prayer, for example,

if we take the 18 Jewish prayer yeah, Tefilat HaAmidah

where you have 18 blessings.

So to each blessing, there was a poem,

very long poem written to sing, for singing.

So worship was very essential for the Jewish community.

Of course, we know it from the temple,

and what King David established,

you know, the choirs of Levites and all of that.

But nowadays, we have some remnants of that,

for example, how in Shabbat, before Shabbat,

you have Hallel, you have portions of psalms that you read,

but then you have also Putim.

Putim are not considered to be,

you know, it's not from the Bible,

but it's based on the Bible, for example, Lecha Dodi.

This is not a must, you don't have to sing Lecha Dodi

before the entrance of Shabbat,

but this is a common tradition to do that.

- What does this sound like?

- Yeah?

(Yaron sings in foreign language)

- Something like that.

- That's awesome.

- It's Ashkenazi, melody is very Ashkenazi.

- Awesome.

- So I would say there are many genres in the Jewish prayer,

Jewish worship, there are different and genres.

It's very connected to time of the year, to the feast,

to the day during the week.

So music is, you know, it connects us

to some kind of associations with something.

If I will sing a poem or worship a poem in Passover

that actually normally we sing in Yom Kippur, for example,

it doesn't make sense, it doesn't have the right atmosphere,

it doesn't have the right connotations.

- So I'm just curious, is there a song

that you can play or sing for us right now?

Something connecting to the Hebrew scriptures?

I'm sure our listeners would love to hear something.

- For sure. Yeah.

Well, Tzadik, what is the numerical value

of Tzadik (speaks in foreign language).

So it's 70, I think, Psalm 70.

So the instrument I'm using, it's called Shurangiz,

it's a Persian instrument.

It's has skin on the surface of the instrument.

Of course, I'm using modus or scales from Persian music

with quarter notes, which is a little bit different

than Western scales.

(bright string music)

(Yaron sings in foreign language)

- That was awesome.

- The scale was a little bit low.

(all laughing)

- We couldn't tell.

- That was great.

- So you said that was Psalm 70.

- Yeah. Psalm 70, very irregular written.

I think it's 13:8, it's like 1, 2, 3, 4,

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,

maybe it's 11, and then goes to 7/8.

So yeah, I just try to follow the lyrics to let the verses

tell me what rhythm will be the best,

because 4/4 doesn't work all the time.

- Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, I mean, in my time playing music,

I guess my mentor has always said, you know,

"the meter should always respect the lyric."

- Yes.

- So sometimes the lyrics will tell you

how many beats need to be in the measure?

You know, it's not always, you know, 4/4, 4/4, 4/4, 4/4,

sometimes it's 5/4, sometimes it's 7/4.

Yeah. There's so many artists and people who honor that.

And I appreciate it.

So I'm so glad you do doing that. (laughs)

It's great. It's a good practice.

- Actually in MIQEDEM we have one, psalm,

I think psalm 115 or 16,

the rhythm is basically 9/8, then 7/8, 6/8, 5/8.

- Wow.

- Because the verse just,

that's the way he works and-

- There's no click track for that.

(all laughing)

That's awesome.

- So Yaron, as you were playing, I just remembered how,

because the gospel has gone out across the world,

we have people worshiping God in all countries,

incorporating all types of music, all types of instruments,

and each culture has their own unique stamp

on how they play and perform and how they worship.

What we like about MIQEDEM is that we get the Israeli music.

We also get some (indistinct) in there.

And as a Messianic Jewish believer, what would you say

there is something that other believers,

other followers of Jesus can learn about worship

from the Messianic Jewish community?

- I think the main thing,

besides just singing the verses as is

without adding any lyrics,

which makes the Bible accessible for people just to sing it,

I would say not to be afraid, as we mentioned now,

using different meters, different rhythms, different scales.

We like to add Middle Eastern scales to it.

It's like scales from Turkey, scales from Iraq,

Iranian vibes, you know.

And in the beginning it was like, oh, no, like it's a taboo.

It's like, no, like it should be major or minor.

But we found a way just to blend, merge these scales

from different traditional music cultures in worship.

And I think it makes it just richer.

- That's awesome.

Yaron, I have a question.

When you are writing music and you're reading scriptures

and you're getting inspiration, what is your process?

Talk to us a little bit about your process

in developing a song, composing a song based on scripture.

- Hmm. It's a good question.

There are verses, I carry them with me for many years,

and you know, you're waiting for the right composition

to fit those verses.

And like after years, there is nothing.

And sometimes something is like happening.

I like to describe it as like,

you're kind of picking the melody from the air.

Like you just grab the melody from the air

and it's just, boom, it's downloading.

It's like, you know, you become a channel in a way.

And then you know, I don't know why and how,

maybe it's kind of a subconscious process,

maybe because I know the verse by heart,

my mind is like working on the music while I'm sleeping.

It could be.

But I just know that this melody will work with the verse

I wished to compose for many years,

and it happened to me a couple of times.

But besides that, sometimes I like to, for example,

Psalm 67, the name of the Psalm in Hebrew,

it's Saz the name is (speaks in foreign language).

So I told to myself, yeah, I mean,

if the name is Saz,

which is the name of an instrument also,

let's try to compose it with an instrument.

And I just picked the instrument.

I picked like a scale and then I found a rhythm

that fit the whole chapter and just works.

So sometimes you get inspiration from the instruments.

I have different instruments in my room,

like Cretan lyra, which is a bow instrument,

the hurdy-gurdy, with a wheel.

Yeah, you know it already.

And the oud, and saz, and tar and and all of them.

So they resonate in a different way.

So the resonating of, resonation or how you say that,

like the way it resonates, it just influence you

and give you the inspiration for the melody.

So there are different processes

that I go through when I compose, yeah.

But my main passion is really traditional music cultures,

and old kind of worship genres and forms.

So I learn a lot, a lot, a lot of years,

I learned about Persian ancient music

and others like, Kurdish, Kurdish music.

They have melodies

that they claim to be 2,000 years old, for example.

So it's very fascinating.

And for me, I like to think that our ancestors,

they knew a little bit more about worship than us

and or about the music of worship.

So I like to be available and listen

to what they have to offer, you know, these music cultures.

- Yaron, we've been blessed to see you perform live

with music for the Mishpocha when you sent us the recording

that MIQEDEM did,

and we saw you play all these different instruments.

And I was talking with a friend the other day

about how the way we live stream services now

has changed the way we worship

or the format of our services.

And sometimes it affects even worship.

'Cause I remember when I served on a worship team,

I often got self-conscious

because I knew I was being recorded.

How do you find the balance

when you know you're going to be on a stage

or when you know you're going to be recorded,

how do you find that balance between performance in worship?

- So again, good question.

And I think with MIQEDEM, I often experience that,

that I need to make a shift in my heart, my brain,

and while I'm on stage, to remind myself, you know,

I'm here to serve, I'm here to serve the scriptures

and the meaning of what they're saying.

You know, those verses that we are singing.

So it's also important for me

to be in the right heart attitude.

And of course, it's not easy at all.

For example, if we are touring in the States,

I mean pre-COVID world reality,

when we toured the States for many weeks,

sometimes even one month, you're super tired.

You know, every day you do the same thing.

You go to another place after a long drive,

setting up the stage, sound check.

And then again, you play the songs,

you say hi to people afterwards,

you give them CDs, whatever, hugs and pictures and all that.

So it's really tiring in a way,

but it's something that I'm obviously responsible

to keep connected to this motion of worship.

Something I like to do when we tour, for example,

is to read, just to read verses from the Bible

when we are in the car, speaking about them.

So in a way, we need, it's really our responsibility

just to create this atmosphere of, you know,

we are here to serve the written word

and these worship songs.

Yeah.

- So as we sort of wrap up

and hopefully we can hear one more song,

I'm just curious how you would answer this question:

How can we as believers cultivate a heart of worship?

- Wow. (laughs)

So what helps me a lot is to take time in the morning,

quiet time, reminding myself, you know, to whom I belong,

who created me, who give me spirit

and also can take it away.

And reading the scriptures is really helping for me

and combining it in prayer.

Obviously you have different time,

different periods in your life.

You know, you pray less or more and you read less or more.

But recently, I just have this routine

of every morning having like coffee somewhere on the couch,

reading the Bible, reading a portion,

then praying for people.

And yeah, some quiet time just to relax your soul

in front of God.

I think it's educating the spirit and the mind,

you know, how to express worship, not only worship as being,

or worship as a mood you are in,

and not just the 45 minutes you sing in the congregation,

but walk it, walk the worship vibe daily.

Obviously, you know, big words.

I'm far from living it 100%, but that's my,

yeah, it's a goal

and it's something I'm working on, obviously.

- I love that.

My mentor also communicated to me and my other band mates,

you know, the definition of music to him,

music, not necessarily worship,

but music is sort of this combination of sound and silence.

And when I think of worship,

I sort of think of this same thing.

We sort of think worship, you know,

you have to be playing, playing, bang, bang, crash cymbals,

and you have to be really loud and praise God, you know,

and all of this, but worship can simply be just listening,

and it can be deeply moving and transforming as well.

So I love that response that you start your day in silence.

'Cause, you know, how can you connect with God

without hearing Him? - Yeah.

There is something I learned in one of the classes

in musicology that basically you can say

that music has nothing to do with the spiritual realm,

but yet you can also say that it has everything to do

with the spiritual realm.

Music is sound are basically, they're naked

or they have no meaning for themself.

If you take an interval, a chord, major chord of minor,

it doesn't say inside the wave of sound

that this is worship.

You can interpretate that in different ways.

It depends on the culture.

It depends on the context of you when you play that.

So I think it really helped me to refresh the way

of how I think about worship,

that it's not just a genre

and it's not just this type of behavior,

putting your hands up or whatever,

you know, that's also good.

I mean, sometimes humans, we need to be actively

to perform worship sometimes

and we need to move our body parts

and we need to stretch our hands.

It means something to us.

But examining again the meaning of sound help me a lot

to refresh the way I look at worship

and to go out of just a limited way of thinking about it.

- That's awesome.

Yaron, where can people find you

if they want to listen to your music

or just get connected with you?

- So I have my YouTube channel where I upload new stuff,

new videos and projects.

Also, you can follow and share content

from MIQEDEM's channel, and in Spotify.

My name is Yaron Cherniak on Spotify.

I try to upload some new stuff here and there.

- So you're working on new projects, I hope?

- Yeah. Yeah.

So I have this foundation that I just started.

It's called Morasha.

- What does it mean?

- It means heritage, basically.

- Oh, nice.

- And the goal of this initiative is to promote

and recreate old, ancient, traditional music genres

in the context of worship.

So I started a project

that's called in Farsi (speaks in foreign language),

which means "The Singing Birds to God" in Farsi.

I studied Farsi in the university for two years

as part of my research.

I have friends in Iran, they write poetry in Farsi,

in classical forms of poetry.

And I just record music in the background.

The idea is just to create worship music

that can access the heart of traditional cultures,

people in traditional cultures.

That's the idea.

- Do you have anything we can hear?

A sneak peek of something?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what you will hear is a reading, a declamation,

recitation of poetry in Farsi accompanied by me

playing the Persian tar, basically.

- Awesome. Let's take a listen.

(bright string music)

(woman recites in foreign language)

(peaceful music) (people murmuring)

In the book of Psalms, we see time and again

the honest emotions of a soul in anguish

that recommits to praising God

and acknowledging His worthiness.

That is the heart of worship.

It is a life committed to adoring God

and recognizing that everything else

pales in comparison to Him,

that no matter the circumstances,

we will choose to worship Him, simply because of who He is.

while it's important to gather together

and clap our hands and worship out loud,

worship goes much deeper

and extends far beyond any external act.

It is the adoration and commitment of a devoted heart.

If you've enjoyed this episode with Yaron,

please leave us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.

Let us know how this podcast has moved you.

You can also share it on social media

with your friends and family.

Thank you for listening

to this week's episode of "Our Hope,"

featuring Yaron Cherniak.

This episode was co-produced by Nicole Vacca and Grace Swee,

and written and edited by Grace Swee.

This episode was also made possible thanks to:

Dr. Mitch Glaser, Rachel Larsen,

Kieran Bautista, and Jann Bautista.

I'm Abe Vazquez. Until next time.

(gentle pensive music)

- Thanks for listening to "Our Hope."

If you like our show and want to know more,

check out ourhopepodcast.com or chosenpeople.com.

You can also support our podcast by giving today

at ourhopepodcast.com/support.

See you next time.