 Okay, the recording is on, once again, good morning everyone, thank you for connecting to this course, PC310 on church and ministry administration, you're going to get started on this course today, it's our first week this semester fall 2022 and yes I'm actually doing this course from home and so for the other course I would be in the college. All right, anyone want to pray, would like to just leave us in prayer and get started? Yes, all right please. Thank you and praise you for this wonderful morning which you recommend to us. Lord we surrender and dedicate our lives before you at least to the Father. Please prepare us so Father God so that we can be used by you Lord Master whatever we are going to listen and receive our Father. Let it be useful for Lord Master our spiritual edification and also let it edify our spirit man, let it increase our knowledge, wisdom and understanding of Father God. We humble ourselves before your presence and we come to a place of Lord Master attitude of receiving and we pray that Father fill each one of us Lord Master that if there is Master with your wisdom and understanding so that's why we can utilize these things whatever we are going to learn today. We cover everything under your precious Lord God, cover your servant of Father God, bless him that Father so that whatever he's going to speak let it be from the throne room of God. We give you all the glory God our Father prays. Since Jesus most holy and not just in my praise Amen. Amen. Thank you Shri Kuma. Yeah welcome everyone and we will get started now I have shared the two PDFs in the Google classroom. One is the overview of the course which we'll just go through so you'll get an idea of what we are going to cover in this course and then lesson one. What we will be doing in this course is as we go along I'll keep sharing the PDF for each lesson. I'm not putting the whole content out because I try to keep updating the content as we go along based on interactions and questions and so on. So I like to keep it a little bit fluid so that I adapt it to what is happening in the class. So I'll keep sharing the lesson notes as we keep going. Okay so yeah just one note. I just realized that I got your email but I did not reply to your email so I will remember to do that today. I'm sorry it's been a long time. I'll try it back to you and answer to your question. All right okay so let's get started. I'm going to share the PDF of what we're going to be covering. All right let's go here. Okay so course 310 church administration. I think all of you have downloaded the PDF. Now why are we doing a course like this? My church administration. The fact is that although the ministry we are doing is a spiritual ministry which is the ministry of the world and the spirit that whatever work we are doing needs to be backed up with good organization and administration so that when we combine the two that means we combine the spiritual ministry we are doing it's just the ministry of the world and the spirit to serve people. When we combine that with good organization, good administration then we can be very impactful for the kingdom of God and we can also serve many people. But what we have observed is and many of you may have also observed is that sometimes just because of a lack of good administration and management the ministry which is very good the spiritual side you know somebody would be very good in the ministry of the world in the anointing house one if they don't have good organizational backing you know support of administration and organization then the reach is not as great it is not that you know the gifting is not there it is there but they're not able to serve people and also what we have seen is that sometimes if the administration organization of the ministry breaks or falls apart it could impact the whole ministry and there are many examples of those kinds of things that you know we will talk about some of these as we go along. You know just one example that comes to my mind at this point was that of a powerful prayer ministry and this was in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s, 80s and 90s there was this man of God I'll just mention his name but just for you to know that I'm not making up a story but this man of his name is Larry Lee he I think he graduated from our Robert's University he was even I think the dean of our Robert's University at some point and then he went or he started a church called Church on the Rock in Rockwell, Texas and God had and he was a powerful man of prayer he had written you know I think at least two books on prayer one was could you not carry one hour and that book could you not carry one hour at that time in the late 80s 90s you know became like a very popular book on prayer could you not carry one of this challenging you know the church to pray at least an hour a day and I think he had another book also on prayer and you know God just invited his ministry and at one point Larry Lee throughout the United States they would pack stadiums full of people just to pray that was amazing you know it was not like a crusade or not like a concert for worship music but it was stadiums packed with people who came to pray for that city so it's like a prayer if you want to call it a prayer concert or a prayer movement really for the prayer movement and this was happening you know across many cities in the US it was just a wonderful move of God and so on and he had his church base church the local church in Rockwell, Texas now and the church was growing you know hundreds thousands of people were coming so very the ministry was just wonderful going but then I remember just one thing you know the offerings that were being collected you know in the church or in the ministry because it was money was not only coming from the congregant it was also coming from people who would send money and they found envelopes that were you know that were just thrown out I don't know how it happened but there was this discarding and the media some TV channel reported this thing you know look people are sending money but these envelopes are thrown out it's not being handled properly and so on I just you know and and then many you know TV stations reported that and but that one incident triggered the collapse of it just became a trigger that just brought down the whole ministry right so you know it wasn't largely as a man it wasn't his fault he was doing the ministry but the administration and the organization people are the people who are responsible for a lot of things I mean there's a big very big ministry so a lot of things are happening to whoever was in charge of managing you know the offering that's being sent the envelopes that they put in the office somewhere people were not doing their work properly and but you know that was publicized that was brought in you know exposed or it was brought into light and it just brought collapse of the whole ministry and it was it was very very sad because the man was such a wonderful man that he laid doing such wonderful ministry and something went wrong in the administration in the organization of the ministry that just brought everything down you know and of course when something had happened everybody points their finger at the man you know the person who's leading and so I'm just giving an example here so we must recognize the importance of organization and administration and especially when it comes to the church or Christian ministry because people are willingly contributing their offering the tithing offering the offerings the money they're willingly giving people are serving as volunteers many volunteers so they're willingly giving their time and their efforts in the ministry and so we have to be all the more very careful when it comes to organization and administration so what we're going to do in this course is you know just talk about the practical side of ministry I'm going to share with you things that we have we are doing at APC in Bangalore how we started the journey we made and how you know the organization grew and what is happening behind the scenes you don't see a lot of this but you know we talk about a lot of that and and then you know get into the details so basically talk about the importance of good administration or the objectives how do you form a legal entity the trust and the governance how what kind of organizational structure what a policy guidelines and standards you need to have systems and processes within the organization how do you manage people how do you create a good workplace culture how do you manage the money taking care of the legal side how do you plan and coordinate you know whatever you're doing various from the church service to various other ministries and how do you form ministry teams volunteer teams and then overall church culture executing projects how you can leverage technology and overall pursue excellence in what you're doing now this aspect of technology next semester we'll have a course on media and technology that we'll get into the details so this leveraging technology kind of be a little overview of you know how you can use technology but next semester we'll get into greater depth as we talk about media and technology that you can use in ministry right the assessment course grading is as usual as we've done in the past and I will you know there are a lot of good books on on the subject of administration I'm just trying to see one book that I can give you so I'm just I'll shortlist one and share that with you in the classroom and you can kind of read that if you want to read it the house of God which I think you've already gone through in your second year and that's also a useful book it doesn't have everything but I have some things that will be of use okay so we're going to get into lesson number one the importance of good administration any questions from anybody on about the course what we will be doing any parts here any questions now you know it's really interesting how people think about how people think about ministry just you know as recent as this week I received an email from somebody who was completely opposed to the idea of the church being an organization you know because right now we were doing a certain series on leadership and one of us on the film and I mentioned I think it was part two in the series on leadership I'm we're talking about competence and I mentioned you know the church is it's a spiritual body but it's also an organization you know that we have to be organized and so on and I made some comments on the church you know having being like a corporate an organization and so this person was upset and so he sent me an email saying you know he disagrees he does not agree with the idea that church should be organized or be like a corporate like the body and so on so yeah of course I don't respond to those emails but the point is there are people who don't like that idea that while the church is a spiritual body it is also a physical body a physical body you know this physical body is organized that means this physical body has certain parts that are in a certain place and they perform a certain function so it is very organized you know this physical body is not just you know this is a physical body you know it has to be treated in a physical way taken care of in a very physical way so the same thing with the physical side of the church it is an organization it you know it has to be addressed and looked at as an organization and it has to function well as an organization and you know feel free to share your thoughts as we go along I know you may agree you may disagree that's okay but we can you know we can discuss and and see you know how best to explain explain it let's let's get into lesson one any questions any problem everyone's okay so let's get into our first lesson on the importance of good administration now a lot of what I'm going to be sharing will come from a local church perspective right as we go further but everything we say applies even to just to a Christian organization that means if the ministry you're doing is not necessarily a local church maybe it is a youth ministry maybe it's music ministry maybe it's you know a ministry to women or it's a leadership minutes whatever a different kind of a Christian organization everything we say applies to that as well so even though I'm going to be speaking a lot from a local church administration organization perspective you can apply it to any kind of Christian ministry and the administration organization of any kind of Christian ministry so let's get started now why is good administration very important right why is it important now when you look at it from a this will be look at our biblical perspective and also from a simple practical perspective and then we'll answer we'll address some common objections that we hear you know from church people like I mentioned even other Christian leaders preachers and so on who don't like the church being considered and an organization from a biblical perspective you see that god is a god of order design organization and creativity so when you look at god he's not god of you know this order but in all his works right from you know you look at the single cell to this great big universe there is order you know um think they're organized it's not haphazard it's not unpredictable while there is great creativity yeah there is always freshness and newness yet there is order there is design there's organization so god does both so order design an organization does not have to be boring it does not have to be dull and dry it can actually flow together with newness freshness and creativity right so we see that in in the way god has created everything right in the midst of order design organization there is freshness there is you know we still stand in awe and amazed that you know wow you know the things around us and so god brings both together in the way he works so how much more should we think about his body the church or his work which is the ministry the church and the ministry like this that there will there has to be order design organization in the church in the ministry and yet there is freshness there is creativity there is inspiration that comes from the Holy Spirit and it just flows together yeah in what god does and another example we'll see we are all familiar with in 1st Corinthians 14 33 both this words but it'd be nice just to turn there and read it 1st Corinthians 14 33 anyone okay I'll read it please he said for god it's not god of confusion but of peace yeah so god is not the author of confusion and later on in verse 40 you know Paul sums up this chapter in that same chapter 1st Corinthians 14 40 he says that all things be done decently and in order so god is not the author of confusion that is something that's disorderly chaotic and but everything is done decently and in order so even in the context of the local church and how the church operates and functions there shouldn't be confusion it should be decent it should be in order now we can look at many other examples in the Bible you know if you're looking at the old testament when you think about Moses as a leader now Moses had a huge tough now he was doing ministry if you want to call it that right he was doing ministry what was his ministry his ministry was I have to lead these people from where they are in Egypt into the land of promise that the ministry god had given Moses and of course along the way and god used him to you know bring the 10 commandments and establish a covenant and you know bring so much of the revelation which we call the old testament through Moses but he so that was a spiritual side of his ministry but he also had a very practical side of his ministry which is physically practically he has to lead a nation of people from Egypt to Canaan Moses was a spiritual leader but he also had a very practical journey with the people and as you look at that journey how they went through Moses faced lots of problems with the people which is also today which today is also something we will all face we will face challenges with the people right so how did Moses handle it you see in Exodus the 18th chapter and again I'm just going to mention this you can you know read that chapter Moses is sitting from morning till evening to solve the problems that people are having so he's a spiritual leader he you know he's having a great encounter with God and you know God is giving him the commandments and God is giving him the law and you know God is appearing to him face to face and there is a pillar of cloud and there's a pillar of fire there's a cloud and a fire and it's amazing miracles but he also has to deal with all the practical issues of the people and it's not easy because so many people and there's so many problems so he's sitting from morning till evening counseling people solving problems etc and Jethro Moses father and law he sees what Moses says Moses you know if you if you do this you will kill yourself I mean you will die you can't handle this so what must you do you organize you organize you arrange leaders from among the people who will be responsible for groups of people the groups of fifty hundred etc you organize them and let the people take their problem to that leader that you have appointed if the leaders you know the leaders will be appointed if they can't solve the problem only those problems let it come to you so Jethro gives Moses it's wonderful advice and Moses actually organizes it you know so he appoints leaders he puts people in groups he appoints leaders and then says look from now on if you have a problem you take it to your leader and the leader should be able to help but if the leader doesn't then it comes to Moses when Moses steps in right and then in numbers chapter 11 so that was going on at one point and then you come to numbers chapter 11 where to Moses feels overwhelmed by the ministry right so the people are asking for meat and for water and food all the problems a practical problem he's doing spiritual ministry but there is a practical side to the whole journey and people are coming to him saying you know we need this food we need this water we need meat we need you know all this and Moses goes to God in numbers chapter 11 he says God I cannot handle this I cannot handle I can't do this how and now God gives him a solution and very interesting the solution again is organizing he says you pick 70 leaders that's a big number pick out 70 leaders and I will anoint these leaders and they are going to help you govern they are going to help you lead the people so what I want to point out here numbers from numbers 11 is God brought about this idea of being organized God anointed these people the 70 leaders who are going to help Moses practically in the ministry to take care of the people so God is not against organizing right God is not against administering so what is administration administration is this physical organizing of people and resources in order to administer whatever we are going to administer the people the care the counseling and the the word of God so on so God told Moses you organize like this and so Moses did that and they continued on in their journey so that's just you know one example where you can see in the Bible that there is spiritual ministry but there is a practical side and for the practical side it lead it needed organizing it needed that administration part in order for the people to not only receive spiritual ministry but to make their journey to what God wanted them in that same connection in number 10 you see God how detailed here in the book of numbers and how he wanted the people to be organized if you read those first 10 chapters of numbers what you what we will see is God organized the 12 tribes three tribes on each side of the tabernacle so the tabernacle was in the middle in the front side of the north side there were three tribes they had to put their camp there that tends there south side behind tabernacle three tribes and like that on the east side and on the west side on each side of the tabernacle three tribes that's where they had to pitch their tents so people couldn't just go and you know put a tent anywhere they wanted no this was God giving instructions this is how you must organize every tribe people had to you know put their tent according to the tribes then God said in order to move you have to move in camp a tribe by tribe and the leader would blow the trumpet and when the trumpet is blown then the tribe begins to move I'll just think about this this is organization this is administration way back in the book of numbers so God is doing something on the spiritual work where he is taking his people into their land of promise he's fulfilling his promise to Abraham he's giving the covenant through Moses so he's doing a spiritual work but along with that there is detailed administration organization happening in the practical day-to-day lives of the people as they're making their journey into the land of promise just one more it's a few more not one more few more when you look at the worship in the tabernacle right when both during the time of Moses and later on in the time of David the worship in the tabernacle was not haphazard everything was very organized in the tabernacle there were priests and the Levites that means there was you know two kinds of people two sets of people and each were given their particular task so you know when we when we think about it today we talk about roles and functions you know we'll talk about putting the right people to do the right things that happened right there back in the you know the book of Exodus and God told Moses to build the tabernacle there'll be priests who will do handle all the sacrifices of that and there'll be Levites these people will take care of the physical work that needed to be done in the tabernacle when you come into David's time as David as all of this progresses David sets up you know the tabernacle and in in first chronicles 25 you find even more administration and organization one David determined to decides to do is to have continuous prayer and worship and so he arranges this finger in groups of you know one hour slots each and they have groups of singers who come in they take their turns constantly so you see he wanted 24 hours prayer and worship to go from the tabernacle but he organized it so well and if you read that first chronicles 25 they were very skilled musicians and singers and worshipers but everybody was organized everybody was organized into one hour slot so you can imagine they would all show up do that one hour the next group comes they do that one hour next group comes another hour next group comes another and so there was continuous worship in the tabernacle there were hundreds of priests and Levites so I think the total count of people who were serving the tabernacle came to almost 8,000 people so he engaged so many people in order to make sure there was continuous prayer and worship in the tabernacle and it went on nonstop for 33 years that's amazing the kind of organization that was in place when you think about Nehemiah having to rebuild the walls here also it's just amazing if you look at how he all there's even the the the wealthy merchants they're all participated he put them in groups all around the wall city walls and as they were building some were building some were standing in guard and some were being like watchmen to alert the people and so each you know there were different teams as you if you want to call it that and they were doing their work so in a few if you study Nehemiah again you see a lot of organization in order to rebuild the wall and it was a spiritual assignment gotta put in his heart right um when you come into the New Testament it's the same thing uh let me pause and see if you have any questions before I get into the New Testament everybody's following with me any questions so far okay all right well okay and so now when we get into the New Testament okay thank you for your responses in the chat uh when you get to the New Testament right from the church in Jerusalem so the church in Jerusalem was birthed on the day of Pentecost Acts chapter 2 and that time there were the 12 apostles and then there were other disciples about 120 of them and then many thousands came to faith so the church was great and then by the time you come to Acts chapter 6 there are some problems um the uh there's a there's a problem and the problem is actually very funny it has to with food distribution right the Greek speaking Jews were having problems with the Hebrew speaking Jews they were Jews and there were the local Jews Hebrew speaking and there are problems with each other one felt that that they were not being given in our food and the food was being distributed they felt hey they're not treating us fairly now you know when you think about it it seems like a very silly thing you know it it has to do with food distribution one group is feeling they're not getting the same amount of food as the other group anyway but that was a problem how did the apostles solve that problem in Acts chapter 6 and all of us know this right they said you find out seven men seven or eight men I forget who are full of wisdom and full of the Holy Spirit and we will appoint these men to take care of the food distribution so if you look at it from our context they formed a team of people and they gave that team the responsibility to handle the food distribution so food distribution was one part of the ministry of the church but it was handled by a team so there is organization there and they were this team was doing the local church and by the time you come you know late to the end of the episode when you read in 1st Timothy chapter 3 when Paul is writing to Timothy about the local church he clearly demarcates two groups he talks about elders and then he talks about deacons so elders people responsible for the spiritual side of the ministry which is the ministry of the word and prayer and taking care of the spiritual things of the people and then deacons who would handle the the administration the running of the church so think about this way back in the 1st century AD as soon as the church had was taking on expression physical expression there was organization there were people who were responsible for the administration of the church the bible refers to them as deacons and you know in roman chapter 16 now let's turn there I think it's an interesting verse to read if you turn to be roman chapter 16 you read about this lady called Phoebe can can somebody read roman 16 1 and 2 please shall I read faster please go ahead Romans 16 1 and 2 I commend to you Phoebe our sister who is a servant of of the church in syncria that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of saints and assist her in whatever business she has need of you for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also now think about this right Paul is giving a word of recommendation for somebody this is a lady whose name is Phoebe and what has her worked in the church or for the church she is handling some sort of administration organization business of the church and Paul is saying you know when she comes make sure you you know give it all the support she needs I mean just putting in a simple you know English just give it all the support you need to help her whatever way she wants help because she is carrying out you know the business of the church and she's just being a blessing to many people you know so and that word is servant of the church she's a deacon she's a servant of the church so you see very clearly that there were people in the church who were called to function in the administration in the organizational side of the church so clearly Paul talks about elders and deacons and here in 2016 is a one particular person who is a deacon and he can give her all the support you know because she's she's helping many people so in the first century AD itself you can see organization in the church you can see people a pastor you or as a the leader of a spiritual minister you may be called to do the spiritual minister but you have to work together with people who are going to be doing the organization and administration of the church just like in this case you know Paul he's in a post he's a pastor I mean he's a prophet he's a teacher he's a evangelist at some point he served you know past in the church he planted for a brief period of time so he's doing spiritual ministry but he worked together with people who were deacons who were doing the business of the church the administration which is and we cannot escape that you know we will have to work and in fact for many of us we will have to do some of that work as well and especially in the early stages of the ministry you will have to do it you know you may not have the people around you or to do the administration part so you will have to do it yourself you know I remember in the early days and we started all people's church I would do everything you know I would write the account we had somebody would come and put it into the system I would you know send a thank you letter I would respond to the email it's just about everything you had to do yeah and later on you know as the work grows then you will have people join in who will handle various aspects of the ministry and even today you know one side I am involved in the spiritual side but a lot of my time also goes in overseeing the organization of the church you know surely at some point we'll get somebody who can handle the full organization of the church but until such time you know we I'm involved in a lot of these in the organization side as well to make sure things run well okay so we can't escape that it is part of what is what has to happen a couple of more scriptures from the New Testament side is we need to read Romans chapter 12 let's go there right then the book of Romans read this turn to chapter 12 please and you look at verses 4 through 8 Romans chapter 12 verses 4 through 8 could somebody read that please Romans 12 4 to 8 whereas we have many members in one body but all the members do not have the same function so we've been many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another having them gives differing according to the grace as given to us it has used them if prophecy let us prophecy in proportion to our faith or ministry let us use it in our spring he who teaches in teaching he who exhorts in exhortation he who gives with liberality he who leads with diligence he who shows mercy with cheerfulness thank you chris so uh here paul is telling us look the church is a body people have different the church has many members and it's many people but everyone has different functions and then he says let's all just serve according to the gift and the grace given to us and then he begins to mention some of these gifts prophecy and serving and teaching and encouraging and giving and then he also mentions leadership and mercy or compassion as function right so leadership for this one highlight one of them leadership is one of those functions that means you're going to be leading people so in the church god has put people with this function or with this ability with this grace to lead people right so the moment you talk about leadership then you all think of our teams or groups of people who are being led to do something for a purpose leadership lead people in order to accomplish something so you know depending on the team that team is led by somebody in order to fulfill a certain function okay let's look at one more verse before we go for the break let's go to first quarantine 12 28 12 and we're 28 somebody could read that correctly sir go ahead first quarantine 12 28 and god has appointed these in the church first apostles second prophets third teachers after that miracles then gifts of healings helps administrations varieties of tongues thank you thank you so you know we are all familiar with apostles and prophets and teachers miracles and gifts of healing but notice the next two there is helps and administration helps and administration so in the church god has put this helps administration so nobody can say now so help is basically somebody who helps in anything now you can have helpers helping the church just getting something done you know if they're doing the media that's helping they're doing the sound that's helping if they are you know handling communications replying to the email that's helping if they are you know answering the phone that's helping whatever you know you could have highly skilled helpers or general helpers or whatever so he said there are help and administration but notice it is god has appointed this in the church in the church god has called the people to be helpers and administrators now today if somebody says oh the church would not have administration excuse me right here in verse 28 it says god has put people to be helpers and administrators so you can't take administration out of the church you can't take the moment you have administration obviously it means that it's organization it means there's a structure it means there are systems and processes it means there's leadership there's teams there is activity all these things the moment that I helps in administration all these come in right so nobody can say administration is not of god organization is not of god because right here god has appointed people to be helpers and administrators in the church okay so I hope you are following me so far is it okay you with me any questions before we go for break Trigmar go ahead please I'm sorry just wanted to know from the uh from the of Corinthians 28 that now here he mentions that god has said some of the church for the postal second prophet and church teachers so these are actually the offices or the of what you call five about the five-fold ministry system so now I just want to know that why he mentioned the gift of healing and the diversity of things connected with this I can understand government can be also be a part of you know but also he mentioned miracles gift of healing and so I just want to know that yeah thank you very very good question very I think a very perceptive question the answer is the context what are we talking about in first Corinthians 12 the context is the functioning of the body so his focus in writing at this point while he's writing first Corinthians 12 is talking about the body and he's saying there are different members and they're doing different function so he is not demarcating offices and gifts but he's bringing them together like a mashup of this is how the body works so that's why verse 28 first Corinthians 12 28 is not a demarcation of here are the five offices here are the nine gifts and here are the believer's gift it's not a demarcation of that but it's a mashup meaning in the body you're going to have people doing all kinds of things so verse 28 is a mashup of various functions and activities and operations like he mentioned first Corinthians 12 6 7 8 he says there are diversity with operations there are diversities of ministries and there are diversities of gifts so verse 28 is like okay you know here are just here's an assortment of you know functions or offices and gifts and activities of functions taking place so he mentions certain things that we would call as offices apostle profit teacher evanches gifts of he then he mentions what we would refer to as gifts of the spirit gifts of healings workings of miracles diversities of tongues and then he mentions certain things that we would call as believers gift help administration it's a mashup of these things meaning to say that in the body say all of these things are operating yeah good good question all right so what we'll do is really go for a quick break welcome back and I will try to make the course exciting okay I don't know everybody's really quiet I hope you enjoy ministry administration and organization it is exciting but it's also very very challenging okay let's take a break we'll come back in 10 minutes and continue