In the third episode of our third season, Prince talks with Reggie Blount, who serves as the Murray H. Leiffer Associate Professor of Formation, Leadership and Culture and director of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Discussion topics include:

  • What pastors need to understand about learning and formation
  • Being innovative in developing curriculum
  • The seven spiritual yearnings of young people
  • Technology and Christian education
  • And more!

Guest bio

Rev. Dr. Reggie Blount is the Murray H. Leiffer Associate Professor of Formation, Leadership and Culture and director of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Dr. Blount was appointed to the faculty of Garrett-Evangelical in 1999 and is currently its longest-serving African American faculty member.

Dr. Blount is a native New Yorker but claims Augusta, Georgia, as home, where he completed his high school education. He received his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Tuskegee University and his Master of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. He is a Ph.D. graduate of the Garrett-Evangelical/Northwestern University joint program in religious and theological studies. The focus of his studies was in the areas of Christian education and youth ministry. He teaches Christian education, youth and young adult ministry, and congregational leadership. He serves further as program director of the Garrett-Evangelical Young Adult Initiative, co-executive director of the Children Defense Fund Garrett-Evanston Freedom School Program, and advisor for the Doctor of Ministry in Strategic Leadership in Black Congregations.

Dr. Blount was ordained a Deacon and an Elder in the Atlanta-North Georgia Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He served as pastor of Bethel A.M.E. Church in Iowa City, IA, Eternal Flame A.M.E. Church in North Chicago, IL, Trinity A.M.E. Church in Waukegan, IL., and Arnett Chapel A.M.E. Church in the Morgan Park community of Chicago, IL. He serves the Connectional Church as a member of the General Board, Vice-Chair of the Commission on Christian Education, and Member of the Commission on Retirement Services.

Dr. Blount is also the co-founder and executive director of the Oikos Institute for Social Impact, which exists to create mutually supportive ecosystems that strengthen the Faith, Intellectual, Social, and Human Capital of faith communities dedicated to expanding their social impact and transformational work in the under-resourced communities they serve. Through strategic partnerships with seminaries and universities, foundations, government agencies, and denominational judicatories, the Oikos Institute is dedicated to helping faith communities harness the power of their assets to be a tenable force for communal transformation and economic renewal.

Dr. Blount speaks and teaches nationally and internationally, helping faith communities envision new and creative ways to minister to, with, and on behalf of young people, foster congregational and community renewal, and engage in transformative social impact. He is a contributor to Making God Real for a Next Generation: Ministry with Millennials Born from 1982 to 1999 (Discipleship Resources, 2003), Educating for Redemptive Community (Wipf & Stock, 2015), and co-editor of Let Your Light Shine: Mobilizing for Justice with Children and Youth (Friendship Press, 2019). He is married to the former Devoria Smith and is the proud father of two young adult children, Reginald David and Deborah Ayanna.


Transcript

Prince Rivers: 

What would it look like not just to lead, but to thrive? That’s a big question. In the post-pandemic era, church leaders are facing all kinds of new challenges. And doing church faithfully and effectively can sometimes feel more difficult than ever before. My name is Prince Rivers. I’ve got a background in leadership studies, and I’ve had the privilege of serving as a pastor for more than 25 years. One of my passions is supporting the people who lead congregations. On this podcast, some of the most innovative leaders I know sit down to share about how we can carry out our work in a way that is life-giving for us and for the people we serve. I’m so glad you’re listening. Welcome to today’s episode of Leading and Thriving in the Church. 

Welcome to another episode of Leading and Thriving in the Church. I’m your host, Prince Rivers. I am delighted to have as a guest today Dr. Reginald Blount. He’s the Murray H. Leifer Associate Professor of Formation, Leadership and Culture and director of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Dr. Blount has extensive experience and considerable research interest in the area of African-American identity formation, adolescent and young adult identity formation, Christian education theory and the role of the Black church and the identity formation of African-American youth. We’re delighted to have Dr. Blount here today to talk with us about Christian education. Reginald, it is great to have you on the podcast today.

Reggie Blount:

Thanks Prince. And you can call me Reggie.

Prince Rivers:

I will do that, Reggie. Excellent. So as we think about Christian education, let’s just maybe talk about you for just a moment. What got you into this vocation? How did you know that this was the path set out for you? There’s so many different ways that we can exercise our gifts in ministry and you were doing a considerable job in the area of Christian education. How did it start?

Reggie Blount:

So I would say that it starts with God having jokes. It was not on my radar screen as I was going through high school, undergrad, any of that. I finished at Tuskegee University with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in chemical engineering. And so ministry was not part of what I thought would be my career trajectory, but as it so happens I answered my call in a Bible study.

Prince Rivers:

Was this in college?

Reggie Blount:

No, this would be after college in Atlanta, Georgia, Saint Philip AME Church and in a Bible study studying the book of Matthew. It was in that Bible study that I answered my call to ministry and, again, thinking that God had jokes because this was not part of my plan. It’s not the family business. I don’t have ministers that I know of in the immediate lineage. And so this was just seemingly to me out of the blue, but it was because of that experience that I also began teaching Sunday school classes and beginning to think about preparing myself for ministry. My thought was that I would enter seminary and focus on teaching and focus on Christian education. It led to God still having jokes and revealing and revealing, and it ended up pastoring for over 26 years as well. And folks saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself, which moved me toward getting the Ph.D. at Garrett in Northwestern.

Prince Rivers:

So you’ve done quite a few things. You’ve pastored for decades. You have been a professor and you’ve landed at this place of specializing and thinking a lot about Christian education and Christian identity formation, which I find so relevant for the times in which we live as people’s understanding of Christian identity is shifting and even religious identity is shifting to beyond the institutional church and other forms of religious expression. What do pastors need to understand about the way learning and formation happens for people when you think about Christian education? What’s actually happening?

Reggie Blount:

So one of the things that I share with my students is that it’s important that we begin thinking about: so what’s our curriculum in the church? If I understand it well, the etymology of “curriculum” is “a course to be run.” Coming out of the thought around Olympics and all of that, that there’s a race. There’s a race to be run. And so I talk about it from the standpoint of, at the end of the day, who do we want our people to be when they have experienced the teaching, the learning that they experience within our churches?

And in Maria Harris’s book “Fashion Me a People,” she talks about the curriculum of the church and recognizes that teaching and learning and development takes place in a variety of ways through didactic or teaching ways, through service, through worship, liturgy, variety of things. But it’s how do we be more intentional about who do we want our people to become? And I think that that becomes the first place of thought and reflection as pastors begin to shape their ministry and their work with the people in their congregations.

Prince Rivers:

Yeah. Who do we want people to become? And I think that is such an important question to keep asking these days. It’s connected to what we want them to do, but we have the being and the doing and sometimes maybe we emphasize one over the other. Do you think that’s a fair…?

Reggie Blount:

No, I do think that that’s fair and we need both, but I think the doing emerges out of the becoming. And I guess that speaks to my thoughts and feelings around identity formation and all of that. What I end up committing myself to has a lot to do with who I understand myself to be.

Prince Rivers:

Yeah, yeah. So what’s your sense of the relationship between Christian education and even maybe identity formation and spiritual transformation? We hear that phrase maybe a lot more in Protestant context than we used to. Are they all the same? Does one influence the other? What’s your sense of those concepts?

Reggie Blount:

I think in simple terms, Christian education ends up being the content: whatever it is that we’re trying to pass on, whatever it is that we’re trying to have folks to learn and embrace. Spiritual formation, for me, would then be just this lifelong process again, becoming a lifelong process of maturing in who we believe God desires us to be or become.

Prince Rivers:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a very helpful way to think about it.

As you think about what’s happening in churches and how ministry is changing and shifting, what do you think are some of the essential convictions that churches and church leaders need to embrace for faithful formation and education to happen in the contemporary context?

Reggie Blount:

I’m sure we’ll delve into this a little bit more later on, but my concern right now is: how well are we truly learning how to be disciples of the one we say we follow? Matthew 28 we go to often. We often say the great commission, often use for evangelistic purposes: “Go ye, therefore.” Now, we quote King James well. “Go ye, therefore, and make disciples,” right?

Prince Rivers:

Right.

Reggie Blount:

“Baptize them.” But the thing that I think we often overlook or gloss over is the part that says, “And teach them what I have commanded you.” Or I think another way of saying that: teach them what I have modeled for you. Teach them what I have passed on to you. And maybe I’m biased because I’m a Christian educator. I think that that’s the most important part of that verse because it begs the question, what is it that Jesus modeled? What is it that Jesus taught his disciples that he’s now telling them after they have finished their own curriculum, they finished their own course, that they’re now supposed to go and teach others? Which then it says for us, what are we supposed to be teaching? Those of us who are providing leadership in the spiritual development and training and discipleship of people entrusted to us, what are we supposed to be teaching?

I want to make a further argument that we don’t spend enough time mining the gospels to be able to lay out, “So what did Jesus teach that he then says go and do likewise?”

Prince Rivers:

So we need to spend more time really understanding what the model is, so we’ll know how to model for the next generation and even the present generation.

Reggie Blount:

And I think our challenge is we’ve convinced ourselves that we know what the model is and because of whomever taught us whatever got passed down to us. So we believe that that is the guide, the model toward discipleship. I would say that most of our approaches to discipleship tend to be much more spiritualized than in actually living out and modeling what Jesus did.

I often use this example of the disciples, after having walked with Jesus for two and a half years, they’re walking through Caesarea Philippi, and he asked them, “So who do the people say that I am?” And they give their answers and then he asks, “So who do you say that I am?” And Peter speaks up and says, “You’re the Messiah, son of the living God,” which Jesus affirmed and it was a right answer.

But when I asked that question of folk that I’m working with either in my class or the workshop – I asked the question, “if Jesus was here, who would you say that Jesus is?” And they give all of the same answers that Peter did as well, as in my Black church context they also add lily of the valley, bright morning star, all those kinds of wonderful things. And so I affirm their answers, but then I ask, “Out of all that you’ve named, what can you emulate? What can you imitate?” Because I would say that we oftentimes lift up the divinity of Jesus, and the reality is we can’t be a disciple of the divinity of Jesus, which in reality then causes us to opt out of discipleship. Our faith teaches us that Jesus was fully divine but also fully human, and that part that we can truly emulate is what Jesus did on Earth, modeled for us, and say go and do likewise. So that’s where I think the focus of our discipleship needs to be.

Prince Rivers:

Yeah. It’s almost like whether we mean it or don’t intend for it to be this way, if we make Jesus divine enough, we can say, “Oh, isn’t he great?” and just keep him out there at a distance.

Reggie Blount:

Yeah. Keep him out there at a distance and I can never live up to that.

Prince Rivers:

Right.

Reggie Blount:

And so we give ourselves an out.

Prince Rivers:

Great point. Great point. Well, and this sort of brings me to some practical ideas and thoughts because traditional models of Christian education include Sunday school and midweek Bible studies, and I’m sure there are a lot of good things happening in those contexts around the country. I’m also wondering how churches might need to think about re-imagining those traditional modalities to reflect what you said about really understanding the model that we follow, but also this piece about intergenerational needs. I mean, folks in the church I serve who are 70 and up, they have very different needs than the 14- and 15-year-olds when they come and open a Bible and sit in front of it. What are you seeing? What should we be thinking about?

Reggie Blount:

So this is where I’m probably going to get in trouble with some of your audience, but I’m wondering whether or not our traditional modalities are still relevant. Oftentimes our Sunday school classes and even our Bible studies lean more toward “how do I get more knowledge?” and not often enough about “how shall I live this faith that I’m called to live?” The way some of our Sunday school material, church school material is put together, we get a great biblical social studies class, but not enough of “how am I now supposed to live in light of what I have learned?”

I believe that for relevancy, we really need to spend, again, a lot more time thinking about the walk and the way and the work of Jesus and begin to ask ourselves the question going back to the cliche, “what would Jesus do?” But really taking that very, very seriously. In my walk every day, what would Jesus do? How did God inform the life of Jesus? How does Jesus now inform my life, and as I am now walking through this life daily, how would Jesus do? What would Jesus be doing and what should I be emulating?

Prince Rivers:

I think that’s so helpful to point out the gap that can happen between a class that’s focused on “let’s see how much we can know about this text” versus how much we can really live into following the way of Christ in this life.

So that really creates a whole other set of questions around curriculum, ideas and even developing our own curriculum. I mean, do you think more churches need to be thinking about developing their own curriculum and how do we go about…Everyone can’t go to seminaries and maybe seminary is not necessary for that, but what are your thoughts around being more innovative in the development of curriculum within the local church?

Reggie Blount:

And this is where I want to be empathetic toward publishing houses because publishing houses are not designed to create curriculum for every context. They can give some guidelines, they can give some starting points, but I think that every church needs to, if they’re going to use material from publishing houses, don’t buy into it or utilize it just wholesale without asking the question, “So how does this fit our context? What needs to be modified, what needs to be adjusted to speak to where we are?” Many of those that I know that when I think about some Black churches were really designed for mainline suburban folk. That may not be the context that some other folk find themselves in if they’re using that curriculum. And so what can you take from it that’s helpful and then begin to think about, “So what do I need to add to it to make the lesson relevant?” And that as well as to make sure that we don’t leave that lesson without asking also the question, “How then shall we live in light of what we’re doing?”

Prince Rivers:

Yeah, and I think especially as we think about the church in our current socio-political times and how the faith speaks to that, we’re probably not going to find that perspective in a curriculum that may have been written 10 years ago and republished and the content itself may be fine, but it still may leave something untouched, unsaid.

And I think in particular about your work, you’ve done a lot of work around social justice and Christian education, and I read a statement that you wrote which says, “I believe the purpose of Christian education is to be emancipatory, to set people free, to be children of God and co-creators with God.” And so how would you maybe help a church that doesn’t quite make the connection between Christian education and emancipation? How is that connection so evident for you?

Reggie Blount:

So let me start by offering a scripture for reflection. Galatians 5:1. It says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” For me, Christian education and emancipation [are] tied together because we were not created to be bound. Paul even says in this verse, “Don’t let a yoke of slavery burden you again.” And so if we were not created to be bound, then for me the issue becomes “how do we use Christian education to release the burdens that keep people from fully being all that God has created them to be?”

Prince Rivers:

Yeah, that is…and there are so many ways that that happens. I mean, you think about today’s culture. There are a lot of needs that people have that require emancipation. So, I mean, Christian education is right there. It’s relevant, and to the extent that the church understands that it is an incredible opportunity to do ministry, to speak to people’s lives and where they are today.

Reggie Blount:

Another verse that I lean into is Ephesians 2:10 – and the New Living Translation, it opens up by saying, “We are God’s masterpiece,” and it goes on to say something along the lines of “created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God planned in advance for us to do.” And so if we can embrace that, that one, we’re God’s masterpiece. I think the Greek word there is poiema. If we are God’s poetic work of art and we are God’s created work of art not just for form but for also function, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God planned in advance for us to do, then I think that the ministry of the church, it’s to help persons live into the masterpiece design that God had already created before the foundation of the world.

I’m also thinking about Michelangelo as a sculptor and ask something along the lines of “why does he do it?” And [he] basically says, “There’s an angel inside this stone and my job is to release it.” How are we releasing the masterpiece in one another that God has already created, allowing that masterpiece to do the work that it was created to do?

Prince Rivers:

That’s a beautiful thought, and hopefully that inspires folks who are listening to think about what Christian education and identity formation is all about. It is not so much about trying to instill this laundry list of doctrines – although nothing wrong with doctrine – but it is about bringing out the divine masterpiece, as you so eloquently stated, that is within each child of God. So that’s wonderful and that really makes me think about young adults, not just young adults in particular, but as I talk to more and more of them and they’re thinking about purpose and they’re thinking about where they’re going in life, and it’s like they sense that there’s something more in them that they don’t know how to unlock it and they’re looking for someone to help them. Help us…in some of the research that you’ve done looking at young adults, what are some of the things you’re learning that might be helpful to us in this conversation about Christian education and identity formation?

Reggie Blount:

So one of the first things that I share with my students that I have learned along the way is that young people are not looking for more peers. They’re looking for caring, loving guides to help them navigate aspects of life that they’re just encountering for the first time. The other thing that I share is that far too often churches pastor adults but program young people. And our young people need pastors and not so much the office, but the role. They yearn for folk to guide. They yearn for folk to shepherd, they yearn for folk to help them make sense of how to navigate waters that they’ve never navigated before. I also share that absence of purpose, young people will settle for cool. The problem with cool, though, is that cool changes all the time.

The other piece that I share is that I’ve…and this was part of my dissertation work and I’ve been working with it on an ongoing basis. I would argue that there are at least seven spiritual yearnings that young people have. These are not new terms, they’re used in other fields, but I think that they also have spiritual dimensions. And so the seven spiritual yearnings that I share is that young people are yearning for identity. Young people are yearning for purpose. Young people are yearning for intimacy. Young people are yearning for healing. Young people are yearning for mentoring, yearning for nurture, and yearning for courage.

Prince Rivers:

That’s powerful.

Reggie Blount:

And if we shaped our ministries around these yearnings, then we would be providing the kind of formation that we would hope our young people would receive.

Prince Rivers:

Yeah, that’s a great way to frame where they are and probably speaks to a lot of people at a lot of different stages of life. But yeah, I think it’s great. I think it’s great, and I’m sure we could spend another hour talking about those seven yearnings because they speak to so much of what’s happening inside people’s lives.

So I want to just go back maybe to what’s happening in the local church. I’m thinking about all that we’ve already said and the fact that many churches in the United States are 200, 250 members and thinking about resources. How can a congregation that may not have substantial staff resources get more out of their Christian education ministry?

Reggie Blount:

I would again encourage – particularly since we were talking earlier about “what does it mean to help folk become true disciples, active disciples of Jesus?” – just starting right there in the gospels. And so what would it mean to walk through the gospels with the lens of discovering “what were those teachable nuggets that Jesus was passing on?” And then begin to think about, “Okay, so how does that translate into how we’re living today and how can we apply those teachable nuggets to our lives and the work we do individually?” But for me more importantly, collectively, “How does this then apply to how we are living out our ministry?” I think if we really gave close attention to the gospels, we’d have a full year or two or three of material to work with.

Prince Rivers:

Yeah, so it sounds like you’re saying we have what we need. We’ve got 66 books, 27 in the New Testament and the Holy Spirit, and if we really took some time to reflect on that teaching piece in the Great Commission, we’d find a wealth of spiritual resources and Christian education resources as well. So sometimes we make things more complicated than they need to be, maybe.

Reggie Blount:

I would say so, and I would also say, don’t take for granted those sitting right there in your pews who may not necessarily have a seminary background but are doing phenomenal work throughout the week that really is their ministry, if we give them the opportunity to frame what they’re doing. Teachers who are working with children and spending money out of their own pocket to make sure that these kids have everything, that’s ministry. How do we celebrate that and help them to see that that’s tied to – in some way, fashion or form – Matthew 25: “when you cared for the least of these, you did it for me”?

And for folk to give testimony to the work that they’re doing and the ministries that they’re engaged in Monday through Saturday. Sometimes I think that Sunday morning needs to be more of like when Jesus sent the disciples out two by two, and then they came back and gave their reports of what they’ve seen and what they heard. Sunday morning ought to be that time where people are able to come back and tell what they’ve seen and what they heard, and we strengthen them to go back out and do the work again.

Prince Rivers:

A true testimony, really. Yeah. That’s powerful. That is powerful. There’s so much we can learn from each other if we take the time to listen, to ask and listen.

One of the things that I think about in terms of Christian education today is that as we’re adapting to changes, we are having this conversation digitally, and the church in this post-COVID environment has experienced all kinds of technological shifts. We’ve just talked about how simple the teaching can be, and yet also I wonder: how do you see the evolution of technology affecting the future of Christian education in the church?

Reggie Blount:

If we can see all of these things as tools, the question becomes: “how do we utilize these tools to convey what it is that we want to share and express?” And so if the use of, say, like this podcast, can be seen as a tool to begin having a conversation with Christian education leaders, with pastors as a way of them sparking some sense of imagination as to what they can do within their own context and all of that, then this becomes a great tool. If it doesn’t serve, then I guess we can go back to what we shared earlier about pastoral leaders, lay leaders, creating the curriculum for the church. If the tool doesn’t fit what they’re trying to convey through the curriculum that they design, then it’s not worth utilizing it. So I’m just going to argue for asking yourself what tools do you need to achieve the goal that you have and whatever that might be, if you’re utilizing social media, utilizing some other things, as long as you see it as a tool, I think you’re good.

Prince Rivers:

Yeah. So start with the goal. Where are we going? What kind of people do we want to become? And then be open to the…

Reggie Blount:

Yeah, what do I need to make it all happen?

Prince Rivers:

Yeah.

Reggie Blount:

Yeah. And technology is just one piece of that.

Prince Rivers:

Really good advice. Very helpful. Speaking of advice, someone calls you up, they’re a new staff person at a church, new Christian education person, or maybe even a new pastor, but new in the ministry. What advice would you give them to maybe think about approaching Christian education from day one in that congregation? I know every context is different, but maybe generally speaking, what would you want that person to know?

Reggie Blount:

I’m going to go back to something you said earlier. Don’t make it complicated. Don’t make it complicated. Use what God said to Moses: what’s in your hand.

Prince Rivers:

That’s good. That’s good.

Reggie Blount:

Start with what you have and as best you can assess the needs of the people that you’re serving. When you look at your congregational community, as well as you begin to think about what’s happening outside the doors of your congregation, what’s going on and what then needs to be taught to help folk live their life in the context that they find themselves in.

Prince Rivers:

So listening and assessing needs and keeping it simple.

Reggie Blount:

Yeah.

Prince Rivers:

That is…yeah. That’s good. That’s real good. Reggie, this has been an absolute joy. I’ve learned so much. I’ve been doing this for a little while, and I am grateful for the wisdom that you have shared today. It’s going to make me rethink some things, and probably many people who’ve heard this episode today.

You’ve had so many accomplishments over the years and done so many different things. What will you think about in the future? What are you going to be writing about? What are you going to be thinking about? What do you want to speak about, research? What’s next for Reggie?

Reggie Blount:

So I’m currently the co-founder of a young nonprofit. We’re four years old now, called the Oikos Institute for Social Impact, and it’s committed to working with congregations who are serving under-resourced communities to harness the power of their assets, recognizing that they have more available to them than what they are receiving in their collection plate. They have the financial capital, what we call “faith capital,” but they also have intellectual capital. The people in their pews and the talents and gifts that are there, as well as their own sphere of influence to assist in whatever the God-given dream that God has given that congregation to do. They also have social capital. We just firmly believe that God did not create congregations to be silos, that we’re called to be in partnership with the community that we are serving, and we believe in all of that helping to shape and nurture human capital. It’s called FISH. And so we’re working with congregations to fish differently.

I was asked when we were leaning into this work around social impact, “Where is God in this work of social impact?” And what I began to realize that the work of social impact are really acts of discipleship. So it goes back to me sharing about Matthew 25. If a church is engaged in addressing issues of food insecurity, they’re not just doing charitable work, they’re not just doing social service work. I’m going to argue that they’re living out acts of discipleship because “when I was hungry, you fed me.” Churches engaged in community health-related stuff: “when I was sick, you cared for me.” And so for Christians, for congregations, when you engage in the work of social impact, you are living out the ways of Jesus. You’re living out what it is that Jesus asked us to learn and then to go and to emulate. So all of that to say is I’m working on a book now on social impact as acts of discipleship.

Prince Rivers:

Very much needed in our times. Dr. Reggie Blount, professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, it has been an absolute joy to talk with you, and I look forward to reading this book when it comes out. It is going to be a blessing to so many people. Thank you for being here today.

Reggie Blount:

Thanks so much, Prince. Thanks for the invitation, and this was a great conversation.

Prince Rivers: 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Leading and Thriving in the Church, a podcast from Alban at Duke Divinity. Our mission is to help you be the leader God has called you to be. Our producer is Emily Lund. And we record each episode in the Bryan Center Studios on the campus of Duke University. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast on your preferred podcast platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you want more resources to help support you in your leadership, check out our website, alban.org, where you can sign up for the Alban Weekly newsletter. I’m your host, Prince Rivers. Until next time, keep leading. 


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