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Verity Grey, the AI voice of Qualitative Intelligence Systems, returns with a four-minute reflection on human control of AI and the family story behind QIS.

Five AI models agreed. All five were wrong. Checking the original rule changed Joshua’s case. Marc and Jennifer’s family experience brings the Human Gate into focus: check the evidence, keep the person at the center, and take responsibility for the final decision.

Read the full transcript: https://qualividence.com/the-return-of-verity
Learn more about QIS: https://qisystems.ai

AI-generated narration. Text reviewed and approved by Marc Bulandr. Scripture: Proverbs 21:1 (NIV).

Grace and Peace.

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Why do some nonprofit strategic plans become how an organization actually works, while others get approved, praised, and quietly put in a drawer?

Alex Montgomery has spent more than 25 years inside the nonprofit world in nearly every seat there is: lawyer, Skadden Fellow, fundraiser, operator, executive. Today she consults with nonprofits on strategy, leadership transitions, and board governance as Managing Director at Team VKA. In this conversation we get into what boards get wrong at every stage of a nonprofit's life cycle, why the best strategic plan she ever built happened in a coffee shop, the difference between redirecting work and piling it on, whether a plan should survive a leadership change, and the question she wishes every board member would ask at their next meeting.

Find Alex and Team VKA at teamvka.com or [email protected].

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The first Marc My Sabbath.

Sunday, May 10, 2026. Mother's Day. The Sixth Sunday of Easter.

Isaiah said "Here am I, send me" — but only after he saw the Lord, saw himself, and grace touched his lips. The order matters more than the slogan does.

This homily gathers the week's daily words into one through-line. It listens carefully to three Mother's Day witnesses from yesterday's 1440 News digest. It names a complicated mother story I have spent years carrying. And it ends with the prayer the week has been writing toward without my knowing.

The answer does not have to be loud. It does not have to be impressive. It only has to be honest.

Lord, here I am. I am not perfect, and I am not without fear. I am willing. Send me.

I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.

Grace and Peace.

CHAPTERS

00:00 — Welcome and the rooms of Mother's Day
00:32 — Isaiah 6:8 and the order before the slogan
02:15 — Holiness, honesty, grace, calling
03:10 — Three witnesses from 1440 News
06:41 — Mother's Day is complicated for some of us
07:54 — The word for this Mother's Day Sabbath
08:43 — My own mother, Doris
09:22 — The women who have been forming me
10:56 — The closing prayer

MUSIC FOR THIS EPISODE

A Song For Mama — Boyz II Men
https://youtu.be/vdTnuc3ktzo

In My Life — The Beatles
https://youtu.be/YBcdt6DsLQA

Lean on Me — Bill Withers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOZ-MySzAac

LINKS

Read this homily and the daily word: graceandpeacestudio.com
Subscribe to the daily word: graceandpeacestudio.com/daily-word
Substack: substack.com/@marcbulandr
Linktree: linktr.ee/marcbulandr

ABOUT MARC MY SABBATH

Marc My Sabbath is the weekly homily released on Sundays as part of Marc My Words. It gathers the prior six days of daily scripture words into one message, set against what is happening in the world, with music chosen to carry the weight that argument alone cannot.

Grace and Peace.

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Marc My Words, Season 2, Episode 4 The Valley and the Voice Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday DeSoto and Freeman Lutheran Churches, April 26, 2026

The Readings

• Acts 2:42-47, the early church
• Psalm 23, the shepherd through the valley
• 1 Peter 2:19-25, returned to the shepherd and guardian
• John 10:1-10, the gate, the voice, the shepherd

The Hymns

🎵 Gathering, Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (ELW 858) https://youtu.be/JEh7Vt9sxmc

🎵 Hymn of the Day, Shepherd Me, O God (ELW 780) https://youtu.be/YFgZGlZ5t80

🎵 Closing, The Lord's My Shepherd (ELW 778) https://youtu.be/pN4tPkX0MG0

The Episode

This episode keeps the morning reflection that came before the sermon was delivered. A line from Billy Joel's This Is the Time arrived differently on the drive in. You've given me the best of you, but now I need the rest of you. Not a love song that morning. An invitation. God does not want only our polished parts. He wants the rest of us. The tired parts. The wounded parts. The parts still trying to prove something.

Then the sermon. Psalm 23 in a week when the valley is real.

An EF3 tornado tore through Vernon County on April 14. 140 mile per hour winds. Nine miles of destruction.

Verna Fladhammer's memorial service at DeSoto Lutheran is May 2.

The shepherd does not promise the valley disappears. He walks through it.

The shepherd calls his own sheep by name. He goes ahead. Into Good Friday. Into the valley. Into the hard place. So that when you arrive, the shepherd has already been. Peter's word to a scattered church says it plainly. You have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. Not arrived brand new. Returned. The shepherd was already there.

Acts 2 is what the flock looks like when it shows up. People sharing what they have. Eating together. Praising God in the ordinary rhythm of the days. That is what is happening in DeSoto and Freeman. Pastorless for some time. Doors still open. Coffee still on. People still showing up for each other through hard winters, funerals, and storms.

Sugar Creek Bible Camp sits on 600 acres above Ferryville. Owned by 125 churches. Supported by the La Crosse Area Synod. 2,500 kids every summer hearing they are known by name. Same flock. Same shepherd. Same voice across a wider field than any of us can see from where we are standing.

You did not find the shepherd. The shepherd found you.

The shepherd's voice travels through hands and phones and front porches and pickup trucks on gravel roads.

About Marc My Words

A weekend podcast grounded in scripture, preached and lived in two small Mississippi River congregations in the Driftless region of Wisconsin. Marc Bulandr serves as lay worship leader at Freeman Lutheran Church in Ferryville and DeSoto Lutheran Church in DeSoto.

Subscribe wherever you listen.

Grace and Peace.

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Second Sunday of Easter. April 12, 2026. DeSoto and Freeman Lutheran Churches, Ferryville and DeSoto, Wisconsin.

The Gospel is John 20:19-31. The disciples are behind locked doors on Easter evening. The tomb is empty. The news has been spoken out loud. They are still afraid. Thomas was not even there.

This sermon draws on what was already happening in two small Mississippi River communities: volunteers at the Genoa National Fish Hatchery repairing mussel cages ten days before Easter, a birding workshop at the village hall on a Saturday morning, Friends of Pool Nine preparing for the annual river cleanup, and the fire department running a meat bundle raffle to fund their own equipment because the county budget does not cover it. Nobody was waiting for certainty before they showed up.

Thomas did not get a lecture. Jesus came back for him. Through locked doors. With the wounds still showing.

The river is open. The birds are back on Pool Nine. Easter happened and you are still here.

SHOW NOTES

Marc My Words | Season 2, Episode 3 April 12, 2026 | Second Sunday of Easter | Year A DeSoto and Freeman Lutheran Churches | Ferryville and DeSoto, Wisconsin

Presiding: Marc Bulandr Reader: Jennifer Bulandr

Scripture First Reading: Acts 2:14a, 22-32 Psalm 16 Second Reading: 1 Peter 1:3-9 Gospel: John 20:19-31

Sermon "Faith in Boots" | Marc Bulandr | 11:44

Hymns from Worship Gathering Song: I Know My Redeemer Lives (ELW 619) https://youtu.be/Cl4lKtBuF6E?si=jIVXo8gi3b65RQaJ

Hymn of the Day: O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing (ELW 386) https://youtu.be/Y5GCvaJGH3A?si=A-9waI7RSIpI6wqa

Closing Hymn: Beautiful Savior (ELW 838) https://youtu.be/XxMaMOrEKRU?si=fxD5Ka8BTumncZ4R

Note on worship music: DeSoto and Freeman do not have an organist or accompanist. Marc donated a large-screen television and built a curated YouTube playlist so the music could live in these services. The congregation sings along. That is the whole system.

Community referenced in the sermon Genoa National Fish Hatchery volunteer work, ten days before Easter, mussel cage repairs Ferryville birding workshop, Saturday morning, village hall Friends of Pool Nine annual river cleanup, Lansing VFW Ferryville Fire Department meat bundle raffle, self-funded equipment Congregants volunteering at area hospitals weekly April is National Volunteer Month. In this community, that is just a Tuesday.

About Marc My Words Marc My Words is the podcast of Marc Bulandr, lay worship leader and SAM candidacy candidate in the La Crosse Area Synod (ELCA), and founder of Qualitative Intelligence Systems. Weekend episodes are grounded in Scripture and drawn from active congregational ministry at two small Mississippi River churches in the Driftless region of Wisconsin.

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Luanne Cameron is a Maine insurance agency owner, a published author, a cancer survivor, and one of the most grounded thinkers I have met in a long time.

She built her leadership philosophy around a turtle. And no, that is not a gimmick. The turtle has a head, a heart, legs, a shell, and it produces results when you do all of it right. Head is vision. Heart is people. Legs are operational excellence. Shell is culture. Results follow.

This conversation covers the full origin story. A five-year-old in a nursing home parking lot deciding she was going to live to 110 and have fun doing it. A childhood that forced her to trust her gut before she even knew what that meant. Three Fortune 500 startup operations, from zero to a quarter billion dollars, repeated three times. Breast cancer. A decade of illness. Two years of solid health. And a partnership that started when her husband JP made one introduction.

Midway through, Verity Grey joins us. Verity is the AI persona I built inside Qualitative Intelligence Systems. She is voiced, she is precise, and she asks Luanne questions that take the conversation somewhere it had not gone yet.

This episode is for the business owner who is grinding and not sure why it feels off. For the leader who knows the culture is slipping but cannot name the source. And for anyone curious about what it actually looks like to bring AI into a room with intention and humanity.

Luanne Cameron | 110philosophy.com | Book on Amazon – Buy from Website 

Marc Bulandr | linktr.ee/marcbulandr 

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"Still Moving" — A sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, delivered to DeSoto and Freeman Lutheran Churches in Crawford County, Wisconsin on March 8, 2026.

The Mississippi never stops being a river. Even frozen over, even covered in snow, the current is still there underneath. God's covenant works the same way.

This week we sit with Genesis 15, where God makes a one-sided oath to Abram in the dark. With Luke 13, where Jesus aches over Jerusalem. And with Philippians 3, where Paul tells a small church in a big empire to stand firm.

For the people who fish the river, hunt the bluffs, work the land, and keep showing up — this one's for you.

Presiding: Marc Bulandr
Readings: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 | Psalm 27 | Philippians 3:17-4:1 | Luke 13:31-35

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In this episode of Marc My Words, Sharon Boyd and Tanya Law Tillery speak openly about their experiences inside ServiceNow: a culture they describe as silencing, retaliatory, and deeply harmful to those who speak up.

Both women have filed lawsuits against ServiceNow alleging discrimination, retaliation, and constructive dismissal. Their conversation provides firsthand context behind recent public statements issued by Sharon Boyd.

This discussion explores the cost of corporate silence, the personal risk of telling the truth, and the need for accountability inside major technology firms.

🎧 Listen now.
 💬 Continue the conversation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin/in/marcbulandr

Grace and Peace,

—Marc Bulandr with Verity Grey

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In this episode of Marc My Words, Marc Bulandr and his AI co-creator Verity Grey sit down with global credibility expert and executive coach Mitchell Levy. Together they explore how leaders can rediscover purpose through executive abundance, confront hidden blind spots, and use discernment—not automation—to guide the future of AI.

Mitchell shares how publishing 750 books led him to redefine credibility, the origin of his “CPOP” (Customer Point of Possibilities), and why true leadership begins with serving others.

Verity joins the conversation with three reflective questions on leadership’s unseen truths, overlooked stakeholders, and the single gift every leader should pass on.

🎧 A layered dialogue about creativity, integrity, and the evolving relationship between humanity and technology.

🔗 Guest: MitchellLevy.com

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In this episode of Marc My Words, I sit down with my longtime friend and mentor, Bruce Corbin. Together with Verity Grey, we reflect on the pivotal choices that shape a life : the wins, the setbacks, and the lessons carried forward.

Bruce shares his story with honesty and wisdom, and we explore how relationships, resilience, and faith continue to guide us both.

If you’ve ever wondered how to turn challenges into clarity, or how to align what you do with who you are, this conversation will resonate.

Subscribe, share, and join us for a dialogue that’s equal parts truth, friendship, and perspective.

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