 Right. Welcome back. Sorry, Kennedy. I didn't see your question now because the reason is I project the notes so I don't get a beep or I'm not able to check the messages. So, all right, so here's a question from Kennedy. Do these cell groups meet in their leader's house or is it rotational among its members? What are the challenges in terms of space connectivity, refreshments and privacy? How do we handle 12 because this relatively a big number? Yeah. So, Kennedy, usually the life group leader, the life group meeting happens in the life group leader's house. Right now, sometimes the life group leader may say, you know, I have guests in my home or they may say, okay, you know, it's a little bit too much for me. Can we also split it out? Can we meet in other people's house? So, it's open, right? If they want to meet in other members' house also, it's open, right? So, that's not a problem. As long as the life group happens, right? So, it can, here at APC, it's usually the life group leader's house but there are times when they have met in other, within the life group, the life group members' house also, they have met, right? Because it's all around the same vicinity, according to the location, like the area that they stay is all same, very close by. So, yes, so to answer your first question, usually it happens in the leader's house but it can also happen in some of the members' house, right? That's an understanding between the life group itself. What are the challenges in terms of space, connectivity, refreshments or privacy, right? So, for example, there's a life group and there are, you know, maybe 12 people, right? And this life group member leader says, hey, my house is kind of small, not able to manage 12 people. So, not a problem. What we normally do is we will, you know, divide the group into two. So, we'll have a life group. This person will have six or seven people and then we'll raise up another leader either within the life group or we'll raise up a leader around that area or maybe from a different area also, somebody who's within our church, raise up another leader and we'll ask them to start, you know, to lead this life group. So, now you have six and six, right? So, in terms of space, you have, all right, six people, I think that should be a good number. In terms of connectivity, some of our life, all our life groups actually meet based on locations, different areas in Bangalore. So, we have North, South, East, West and then we have wards in each of these locations. So, what happens is we, you know, we make sure that people don't have to travel like 10 kilometers for a life for a study group, right? Maximum two, three kilometers and they're able to reach the life group. So, that answers connectivity. Refreshments. Now, this is something that we did mention when we have our life group leaders training. We tell the life group leaders, see, there's no compulsion of refreshments, right? If you feel you can't do it, it's all right. It's not, they're not, you know, we're not meeting for refreshments. Even a simple tea and biscuit is all right. Even if that can't be done, it's all right, right? So, we inform the life group leaders and that, you know, this is, this is not priority. But, you know, some of them just give tea, biscuits. Some of them have, some of the life groups after the life group, they have dinner and leave, right? Some of them just have tea. Some of them have a juice. So, all of that is there. It is important being hospitable to those who come to the life group. Yeah. So, basic refreshments, it shouldn't be too much. So, even when, there are times when some of them have come back to me and said, you know, I meet every week and every week giving refreshments is a little bit difficult for me. And it's completely understandable because there are 10, 12 people, right? So, it's going to cost them and every week they're meeting. So, I said to him, hey, don't worry. You don't have to do anything. And I also spoke to the life group members. I said, see, this is the thing. Every week refreshments, we may not have every week since. So, I hope that's alright. But over time, what happened was people who are coming for the life group, they started bringing snacks and, you know, some of them got to flask with some tea and, you know, that's alright. It's all just, you know, working together. And so, and in terms of privacy, this is again a challenge because there are times when we have life group leaders in their homes. They have their parents staying in one room. And then, you know, the maybe the in-laws are staying in another room. And it's hard, right? There's no privacy. So, we keep it open. We tell them, right? If you can't, as a life group leader, if you cannot host the life group in your house, please let us know. We can find somebody else who are willing to host the life group, host, meaning they are willing to open up their space, their home. But you will continue to be the life group leader because many times, you know, life group leaders or cell group leaders, they may have this feeling like, if I say, I'm not able to do this or I can't open up my house, what if I, what if they tell me not to be a life group leader anymore? Right? So, what we do is initially is we inform the life group in the training itself. We tell them everything. Feel free to get back to us just because, you know, the life group can't happen in your house. Doesn't mean you're not a life group leader. You're still a life group leader. And it's just that we're going to meet in another person's house. So, so they are also, you know, they're comforted. They know that, okay, because they really want to serve, right? So, Kennedy, these are things that we normally do. And we do this before the life group starts. So, even before the life group, the leader knows that if in case something, you know, I'm not able to have the life group in my house, I have the option of, you know, asking one of the life group members or I can contact my life group coordinator to, you know, help me with this. It doesn't mean that I will not be a life group leader. Two, the life group leader also knows that about refreshments. So, okay, if I'm not able to, I can always contact the life group coordinator and I can also inform the life group members. So, that is why the training is very important when you, when you, when you choose a life group leader, you need to explain to them all these things, right? Initially itself. So, their mind, they know, okay, these are things I can do. These are things I should not be doing. Kennedy, I hope that answers your question. Yeah, all right. All right. Yes, Christopher, go ahead. Oh, yes. Thank you, Pastor. I wanted to just find out with regards to the, you know, the actual, in the format of the, the life group meeting. There is some, you had mentioned about this, you know, like a sermon summary. Yeah. And I remember that they used to be on the, on the website, there used to be something called a five-minute summary. And that is, you know, that is used to, you know, to be able to provide the detail of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the sermon at a summary level. But I just wanted to, I was actually trying to do a search on this and I could not find it anywhere. So, just wanted to understand, is this actually provided to every cell group leader? Yeah. You know, before their meeting or, I mean, how is this done? Because it used to be there on the website available to everyone, but it's not there now. Okay. Sure. Sure. Thank you so much for that question, Christopher. Right. So, I'm just, as you were talking, I was just opening up the website. So what happens is, for example, we have this Sunday sermon, right? So the sermon notes are out. And if you go to the website, I hope you can share, let me just see if I can just pull up that just a minute, please. Right. So if you go to the sources, sermons, okay. So if you go to, on the website, apcwo.org slash sermons. So you have a list of sermons there. So last Sunday was plans, pursuits, and purposes, plans and pursuits. So there, if you go to notes, let me just project it for you. Let me see if I can download this and project. So go down. Okay. Hold on. Let me just download this and show this to you. Sorry. It's just opening this. Okay. Everyone can see this. Right. So this is last Sunday's sermon notes. And this usually comes up on Saturday. So the previous day, it will be on the website. Right. It was probably Saturday evening. It's already on the website. So this was a sermon that we preached last Sunday. So if you go down, this is a sermon notes. Right. If you go way down, you will get to this place. So end of the sermon here. And then you have life group study guide. Right. So in this life group study guide, you just put a few things here. The life group may commence with the time of word, prayer, worship, and fun activity. Listen to God's word. Read the following scripture references. They can read these. These are basically the verses that were there in the sermon. Then, you know, they can start off with worship, do all of that. And then here are your discussion questions. Question one. Let me highlight that. Discuss the example of a life plan in the template that was presented. Are there ways you can improve upon this template? Are there other ways to help write out a plan and pursue God's purposes that can be useful? So you can probably, you know, give them time, five minutes, 10 minutes. You can just write a few things. Like now the sermon was is more a practical sermon. Right. So it has these things of writing down. Then you have question two. Discuss the truth that seems to be paradoxical. How do we live out this practically when pursuing the God's purpose for our life? Then you got question three. Four factors we talked about. Discuss a few practical examples, how we can keep pressing towards the purposes of God as we navigate through. So you got the questions here. And then you got things like, you know, so obviously after each question, you'll leave it open to discussion. And we can share, each of them can share their thoughts, share their, you know, their inputs. And then if time permits, each one can take a few minutes to share fellowship by sharing with each other. Then you can encourage each other for praying and ministering to one another. So sometimes what you can do is you can, all of you who just hold hands play together, or you can just make groups of two, if there are 12 people, groups of two pray for each other. And then you can regroup together, pray together, pray for certain prayer points and close with Thanksgiving. So Christopher, this life group study material is available the previous day. So on the 21st Saturday, it will be, it was available. And so the life group leaders, all they have to do is download this and just go down the life group study guide, they can either take a print out, or they can just use their phones and just follow these three questions. So basically, you know, if you have these three questions with you, it's more than enough, right? So you know how to lead the life group. And these are the main questions within the life group. I hope that answers your question. Yes, I understand that part. But if you go one paragraph before that, you will see that there's a mention, or right in the beginning actually, it's mentioned that in that section called preparation. It says to prepare for the life group meeting, you can listen to the sermon key points, sermon somebody in five minutes. That's what I'm looking for. Where is that? Okay, okay. So that is the video. So what what we have is if we go to YouTube, so let me just see that. If you go to YouTube, I hope I have it here. Sure. So what happens is we usually have a, I don't know if it's out yet, but we can see the previous ones. We usually have a five minute kind of a four or five minute clipping of that sermon. I'm not sure if I can find it now. It's basically the sermon highlights. Right. So if you go on to YouTube, you should be able to find it there. So there are some videos, but some of them have not yet come out. So yes, Christopher, to answer your question, if you go on to YouTube, you can listen to the sermon key points. Basically, what the video editing team does is they, so we have the entire sermon, which is about like 15 minutes. So they take key points, do some editing and they have a five minute sermon highlights. So if you go to YouTube, I'm not sure if they've been doing it right now because I just went to YouTube. I didn't see last week's five minute highlights, but I do see some of in the year 2022 it is there are those two minute sermon highlights that are available. So that's something maybe I can talk to the media team and check with them as to if they are planning to restart that. But yes, we used to have that out of the entire sermon five minutes just to highlight the important points. You can listen to that and just to help you. So what I do encourage the live group leaders is listen to the whole sermon. It's only 45 minutes, 15 minutes. So listen to the whole sermon. You can make key points as well. So but to answer your question, that video, that five minute video is over the last few months from what I'm seeing on YouTube right now. We haven't been doing it, but I can check with the team and if I can get their feedback and get back to you on that. I hope that's okay Christopher. Yeah. Okay, Kennedy has another question. As a church, how to evaluate and monitor the developments of a cell group? Example SWOT or any other methods since you have mentioned a coordinator. Yeah. So some of the ways, you know, initially as a live group coordinator, what we used to do was we used to ask people to send in their feedback, send in their reports, right? So there was like weekly reporting and the reports had, okay, this is what we did. We were 10 people. We started with worship for five minutes. We did this, this, this. These are the questions we discussed on and we prayed and ministered to each other and we ended with prayer. Now, over time, what happened was, you know, those reports were, it was not a way to check to know the progress of the cell groups. So what we did was we opened a WhatsApp group, we would connect with each other. So as a live group coordinator, what I would do was I would call the live groups and I would ask them, hey, how did live group go? You know, once a month, I would just call, hey, how's your life group going? Anything, you know, is everything okay? Are the discussions good? Are people coming? Are people being ministered to? You know, you have any questions, feel free to call me, feel free to email me. We don't do the SWOT analysis. So because the SWOT analysis is, it's going to be really, you know, too much for the live group leaders. We want to make it very informal, but we also want to ensure that we are growing. So one of the main ways of, you know, is just by calling them, talking to them and we get to know. And sometimes what we also do is we visit the live groups and we see what's happening, right? Especially if it's a new live group, six, seven months or a few months old, we just go help out initially. So for example, last week, we started a live group in a certain area, but what happened was nobody was there. None of our church folks went to the live group. So the live group leader on Sunday met me and said, you know, we had prepared everything, but nobody came. So I just encouraged them. I said, don't worry. We did continue to talk to people and all of that. And over the week, we found out that there are two families who stay close by. So I just messaged them. I said, hey, why don't you, you know, connect with this live group? And I'm sure it's going to be a blessing. So they said, yes, we will definitely connect. So there needs to be this constant connection with the live group leaders. That's where the live group pastor or the live group coordinator has to do. He has to ensure that there's this one-on-one happening. People will register. They'll say online, I want to be part of this live group. So you call that person, you email them and say, hey, this is a live group that's closest to you. So there's this coordinating work that the live group coordinator has to do. So that's how we evaluate, we monitor live groups. And of course, sometimes if a live group is, if it's not growing and if it's still just two, three people, we encourage them to continue. But if the live group leader feels he or she wants to stop, we just tell them, hey, let us know. And if you want to stop, it's all right. So we don't take things personal. We don't say, oh, how can you stop God's work, all those things. Let's keep it open. So that's how we make sure that and overtime. So something that we are planning to do this year is since we are growing in live groups, we have many, many live groups. We want to have live group coordinators for North, South, East, West of Bangalore. So we have, so for example, eight live groups in the North of Bangalore, eight in the South of Bangalore, maybe seven or eight in East and West. So what we want to do is we want to have live group coordinators for each. So one person, one live group coordinator will look after those eight live groups, meaning he will oversee all of them. So that's something that we were planning to do this coming year and we're going to work on that. Okay, Abhinav says, a cell group is only for church believers or outside the church. So people from other churches can join, but here's what we tell our live group leaders in the training. People from other churches can join, but when they join, they must understand that APC has a vision and in APC, we discuss the Sunday sermon. And in APC, this is how we do the agenda. We follow the agenda. This is what we do as a live group. Now it's their choice if they want to come, but they cannot come and say, why you want to discuss this? Why you want to do this? Why not? They cannot do that, right? They may be from another church, very good church. Every church has its essence, right? They may say, hey, you know, what an art church we do like this. Why don't we try it here? You say no. So very important when people from other churches come, let them know, especially if they are already believers, let them know the first time they come. This is what we are doing. And if you're comfortable, you're free to come back. But this is how our live group is. This is how we will do it. This is how we've been doing it. This is how we do it. So they know that things will not change just because they have come. Yeah, so is that okay, Abinas? Yeah, okay. All right, shall we, any other question? Okay, so let's go to our notes. Sorry, I just checked the notes. All right, so you know, live group, especially the family life groups, what do we do with our children? Children are a problem or what are they? They will keep crying. Are they going to keep disturbing the meeting? Now, here's something that we can be motivated in. Presence of children and young people is the arrival of the next generation, right? So it is our, it's up to us. It's in our hands how we release them and do things for their life, for their futures, right? A lot of neighbors says there is no further excuse for delaying the equipping of every saint for the work of the ministry. And the word there is every saint which includes children and young people. Now, there are going to be challenges. Now, say a family comes to you, a life group, there's a three-year-old and a one-year-old. This is going to be challenges, right? Then another family may come with a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old, right? Now, here's what we must do. I'm going to give a few pointers. First one, don't underestimate the spiritual capabilities of children. Children are really, you know, they understand, especially the generation that we are living in now, they understand so clearly, right? And, you know, I was talking to my son, he's seven. He keeps asking me things about Trinity. And I asked him, what do you understand about Trinity? That's what he said. He said the Trinity is God in three persons. So I said, can you give me an example? And he was able to explain the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and what they are. He's seven years old. Now, it's not that I have thought, right? I have spoken to him. I keep, you know, playing these videos and all of it. But all of it, he's learned from children's church. Right? And I thought to myself, wow, children are able to understand spiritual truth so much. Right? So you and I have a responsibility for the next generation. We have to build our next generation. So we want our children to be discipled. How do we do that in a cell group? Some of the ways, some of the things that we can do firstly is if they are, you know, above, you can keep a, you know, certain number. You can say probably five or six years and above. They can be part of the worship. Right? They can be part of the worship. Two is if there are more than maybe three, four kids, you know, if you have a children's church team or a children's church pastor or anybody, you can, you know, get resources for them separately so that, you know, when we, you're having a life group, they can meet and one adult can, you know, just make sure that they are also, it's not like you bring crayons and colors and they keep coloring. No, they also are in a place where they learn God's word in that cell group. Right? So children below five, you can bring crayons and snacks and all that. That's okay. But children who are growing up next, six, seven, eight years old, nine years old, get them into the world. Get right resources. Right? Get them to, you know, you know, like what you do in a children's church, do the same thing for them there in a cell group. Let them know. Okay, you come do the declaration. These are points we're going to discuss on. Now, it need not be the Sunday sermon, obviously, because it may be something which they may not understand, but it can be something very important. Now, here comes the preparation. So for example, there are 12 in the life group and there are five children. So one person is in charge every week to minister to the children. So what that person must do is he or she must take up a topic, come up with two, three questions and basically lead the children. Now, there is a reason why we want children to be part of the worship and the prayer times. Why? Because they can learn just by observing. They can really learn by observing. And here's an example. You know, when we were in Mangalore, we were a small church about 50, 60 people, 40, 50, and then eventually we grew. And my little one, my first son, he was probably about three and a half, four years old. And every Sunday we used to come to church. It's a small church. So there's only about 50 or people, but we had a drum kit. And all he would do throughout the worship is sit and stare at the drummer. He would keep looking at the drummer. I didn't know. I didn't realize it because I'm leading worship or I'm probably doing something else. But he would sit in another place. It's right in front of the drummer and he'll keep watching him. He did that all through his four years old, all through five years old and six years old. Then the lockdown had come. So what happened was, that was my personal drum kit. So I brought it home thinking I will practice and develop myself during the lockdown. So I brought the drum kit home. I remember this boy, he was six years old. He sat on the drum kit and he started playing and I was shocked. I'm not saying this because he's my son and I'm bragging about it now. He started playing things that people play after two, three years of music classes. But he, tiny, couldn't reach the symbols. But he was really playing well. I took a video and I said, I said to him, how did you learn all of this? You don't have a drum kit. How did you learn? He said, I used to sit in front of the drummer. No, I've watched everything. And right now he plays for Children's Church and the church that we go to. But he's not gone for any classes. He's really good and all by observing. And the Children's Church keeps saying, they know the declaration by heart. They know how to pray. They know how to speak in tongues. They know how to minister to people, pray for people all by watching and learning. So during the ministry of the word, make sure that we don't look at children as, okay, oh, they may not understand. No, they understand. They know. The mistake that I made is I say, oh, the kids are small. They don't know. They understand. They really do. So keep somebody in charge. They can have one person each week, every time you meet for a certain group, one adult, make it exciting, make it meaningful where children will really get an opportunity to share and minister. And also here it says, give children the opportunity to stand and preach. Let them stand. Let them, all the stage fear and all those things that were there. Everything will go away. So give them opportunities. Make the whole life group creative, exciting, meaningful, and God focused. So it's not like, okay, children, because I remember there was this life group that I went to and there's this nine or 10 year old boy. There were two, three of them. And they were sitting in another room and they were playing Rubik's Cube. And, you know, those indoor games, chess and all of that. I remember saying, no, no, this is, I mean, they can do all that. But this is sad group. And we need to minister to them as well, right? They need to learn. They need to see. They need to grow. And so that's something that you can do. Now, this involves a lot of planning. But the moment you have two, three children, go ahead, do it. You never know, because, you know, five years, 10 years down the line, those kids will grow up as teens and youth and they'll remember, hey, when I was small, I used to go to the cell group. And as they're growing up, you know, it really will impact their lives. They'll be really able to stand on the truths of God's Word. Right? So you can think of that as well. Right. Let's get into this. The cell leader. And we have a life group leaders training. We'll just look at these two points and we'll close with today. Responsibilities of the cell group leader. Right? These are basic responsibilities. One, prepare for the cell group meetings, which means we saw those questions. Prepare for them, right? Prepare for the word. If you have additional pointers, you can add them, add additional questions if you'd like, in line with the Sunday sermon. Guide the discussions of the cell meeting. Right? So you are the leader and the mentor. So set a godly example. Very important. Right? Influence through your life context. Set a godly example. Now, why? Because people will see our life. Right? If we are talking rudely, we are talking adequately using, you know, offensive language or, you know, we're not setting a right example. Right? You are the leader. You are the mentor. Set a good example. Pray for the cell group members. Follow up with the individuals during the week, either by phone, email. Or you can visit them if they are okay with it. Now, we look at what's happening around us. Everyone are working Monday to Friday. So they may not prefer visits, but emails, phone call, WhatsApp, all these things makes connectivity very easy. Lead cell members in ministry and outreaches, like I said before, we have life groups that go to children's homes, life groups that go to destitute homes, old age homes. And so you can lead them, encouraging cell groups to evangelize. And these can be done, especially during Christmas and Easter and times, and even other times you can do that as well. Develop cell members into leaders. Get them to start their own cells. Don't keep them in the nest saying, oh, you belong here itself. No, when you can identify people who can become leaders, they develop them into leaders and release them. Sometimes you may feel, oh, man, there are 12 in my life group. These two are good leaders. They can become good leaders. But if they go, who will look after them? They do so much for my life group. Who will do this? Now, don't feel that God will bring people. God will raise up. You can raise up other people to do other things. So release them. And let's get them to start their cell groups. Now, ministering to the needs of cell groups, which means counseling, supporting. And then there are times when things may need additional help, additional counseling. So for example, there's a youth, he says, hey, I'm suicidal. Kind of depressed. Suicidal has been happening over a year. You can minister to them. But if you see that it's a constant thing, the wise thing to do is connect them to a professional Christian counselor because they will know how to deal with this. And don't say, no, you are part of my life group. Only I must minister to you or the church pastor. No, you must lead them to the right person, right counseling. If there's a couple that is going through bad time and it's leading to a divorce and you know it, if you feel you're not able to give that additional help, lead them to the pastor or lead them to the right counselors. By doing that, you're saving their marriage. It's not like I'm protecting my ego and saying, okay, no, I lonely minister, they have to come to me only. Right. Be open to helping going that additional step. Impart the vision of the church every week or every time you all meet to say, hey, you know, you can make it very informal. You don't have to say, this is the vision of the church. You can just say, hey, let's remember that as a church, this is what we want to do. This is our vision. This is the mission that we have. So you're just putting it across in the right way. Be accountable to your cell pastor and to the church. Now reports, as I said, we don't follow that, but if there are difficulties, if there are challenges, if there are questions that are there, the cell pastors must always be available. And as leaders, you can be accountable to the cell pastor. Right. Personal life and character. We'll talk about more on this, but just a few things. Be an example. Be a model. Leaders produce their own kind. If there's a leader who's always angry, offensive, and it's very likely that the leader that he will raise up will be the same. So remember that we must set the example. Have a passion. Plus have a passion for what you're doing. A passion who a cell group minister leader must be passionate about the vision of the cell group. Must be passionate about why he or she has the cell group and what impact they're making towards the body of Christ as a passion. Intense driving a conviction that demands action. Right. Every time that passion dies, you sense it's dying off, go back to the word and go back to God and say, God, refuel, re-energize. The Paul says, fan into flame. Right. So it's something that we must do. We can't say, oh, passion is not there now. We must fan into flame and say, God, but somewhere I feel the passion to read your word or to pray is going. It's not there like how it was before. We must fan into flame. Right. And finally, conviction as the leader is a cell that is full of life is led by a leader driven by conviction. Be convinced that your ministry to the 12 in the cell can make a difference in people's lives. Right. Don't feel that, oh, only 12. When will I become the pastor of a church or a thousand people? If that's God's calling you for, start with the 12. Be convicted that you can make a difference in 12 people's life. Then God can give you bigger things. Right. So we'll talk more about personal life and character in section 2. Right. So any questions? Any questions? Any thoughts you'd like to share or just close in prayer? Okay. Hope says in our church, we have 68 cell groups and 30 cell groups of children. Oh, thank you so much for sharing hope. Yes. That's wonderful. Involving children in cell groups are very important. Yes. Very true. Very true. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. All right. Let's close today. We'll meet next week and continue from where we stop. Let's also pray for Abinaz. He celebrates his birthday today. Let's just pray a blessing over his life. Right. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what we have learned today. I pray God that you will continue to impart, empower, equip us, Lord. Fill us with your Holy Spirit. Give us the passion, the zeal, the wisdom, Lord, to lead your people in the right way. Oh, God, Lord, help us, Lord. We need your Holy Spirit. We thank you. We thank you for that. Each one of us are called to minister, whether we are in ministry, whether we are in the workplace. We all are called to minister, Lord. Give us opportunities. Give us the grace that we need a lot to do this. So, Father, Lord, we thank you for what we have studied today, Lord. And we especially want to lift up Abinaz into your hands. Even as he celebrates his birthday today, God, we just speak your blessing over his life. We pray, God, that you will just continue to release your word, your revelations into his heart. That Lord, even as he steps into this new year, we just declare that you are able to do exceedingly and abundantly more than he can ask, think, or imagine by the power of your Holy Spirit that is working in and through his life. We thank you, Father, for the equipping that he is receiving and pray, Lord, that you will use him for your glory, your God. We pray for each and every student of God. Thank you for your grace, your wisdom, and your empowering over each of our lives, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We give you all the praise and glory. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen, amen. Amen. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a wonderful week ahead. We'll catch up next Tuesday. God bless.