 Okay, the recording is started. Let's just take a moment to pray and then we will proceed with our class. I'd like to invite somebody to please pray with us together as a class and then we will get started. Anyone can pray please. I'll pray. Let me pray. Go ahead. Glory to you, Lord Jesus, for what you say. Lord, as we are going to learn your living world, Lord, let your spirit empower us, Lord, and keep us fresh, revelation as we keep praising the ones to finish life, Lord. So, Lord, let us all experience the goodness of you as we sink to your powerful world, Lord, even today. So, Lord, I pray in absent law, Father, give us your heart to understand better law, Father, and I pray for all the students in the past. Okay, thank you. Aaron's line must have dropped. All right. Father, we thank you. Bless this time together in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Good morning, everyone. I think while Aaron was praying, her line may have dropped, so I'm sure Aaron will connect back. Welcome, everyone, to the class. So, this week in this course, welcome back, Aaron. We finished your prayer and we said amen. Okay. So, yeah, not a problem. Not a problem. All right. So, this week in our course on church and ministry administration, we are talking about a very important area, which is human resource management, which is learning how to manage people and we are focused mainly on church staff. Next week, I mean, after this class, hopefully we'll finish everything today. The next week, we will look at another side, which is volunteer management, that is, which is again an important part of a church or a Christian ministry because a lot of people who serve would be serving, a good number of people serve as volunteers. How do we work with them and so on? Okay. So, let me go back to the notes for this lecture. So, we quickly review and move forward. Right. So, in talking about church staff, human resource management, we said, you know, we have staff, we have consultants, we have volunteers. So, volunteer management, we will talk about it in the next chapter, next class. We are mainly dealing with staff and most of what we see on staff will also apply to consultants, but consultants, you know, work a little differently. They pay, they are paid hourly and they, and some majors do it on a work basis. Things that they finish, we pay them. Right. So, taking care of our own staff is important and I think some of the things we are sharing here are important for Christian organizations, churches, and it will be useful, you know, for people to make, you know, include them in the way they run the church or the ministry. Quickly to review, we talked about the hiring process. How do you hire the right people? And that's very important because you need the right people, the right places to, you know, for the organization to be able to do what they're working, what we're working towards. Right. So, we talked about having role descriptions, clearly defining what you need, what the person fulfilling that role should be able to do. We talked about having an interview process. That means a formal way of bringing somebody into the organization. Like we said, sometimes what happens is, you know, people are passed a message, tell somebody, hey, just come and start working or come and join. So, there's no formal interview process and then later on, you know, things go bad in FX relationships and also in order to avoid that. If you do a formal process, it makes sure that you're putting the right people in the right place. You know, and I was just sharing some things on how we do the interview. There's just some practical things, basically to ask different questions to, you know, to find out, you know, certain areas of the person that you're interviewing, some of the red flags and so on. Right. And then we said that, yeah, so sometimes you may do reference checks. You know, you call the, especially if there are people you don't know, then you would call the references that they've given, maybe their pastor or their previous employer just to ask, you know, how they did. Then once that is done, you need to put everything down as a formal offer letter. And we've given you samples for many of these things. Also give them the staff guidelines so that they know what is expected and employee orientation, getting them ready to start work. So, let's go into the other parts of managing employees. We started talking about employee compensation. We went through some of these statements here. Why it is important to pay people well, because then they can focus on their work and not be concerned about their finances and their money situation. Otherwise, if people are very concerned about their money situation, then they really cannot do a good job at their work. Right. But how do you determine that? On what basis do you determine the pay? Of course, there are a lot of factors that go into it. Of course, it depends on what the organization can afford. So, as the organization has the capacity to pay, then you're able to give people a little bit more. But then you also look at all of these other things like the skills, the responsibilities, the leadership, the performance, are they personally growing and their commitment to the organization, the experience that they bring. All these things are factors that you take into account when you decide on the salary of a person. But ultimately, you want to be fair. So, you want to be fair to everybody in the organization. So, everybody in the organization is looked upon through the same criteria that we have listed here. And based on that, you determine the pay. Some of the other things that we do as a church and which, you know, as a Christian ministry, you can consider doing is giving some other benefits to the employees. One thing that we do is we provide health insurance. Now, when you buy health insurance as a group, that means all the staff and their families are covered. Family members are covered. So, you know, it's a benefit you can provide for the staff and their families. Another thing that we do is also here we call it as employee provident fund. That means, again, this is determined by the government. They say that, you know, the government decides how much each employee contributes and how much the organization contributes towards the employees provident fund or what we call as retirement savings. It's for the future after they cross 60. They can take that money out. Generally, sometimes they can take it out earlier if they wanted for other, you know, emergency reasons or whatever. But so, you can contribute towards those retirement savings. You can provide leaves paid time off, which we call as vacation or there's also sick leave and there is emergency leave. So, we have paid times off. So, we have about 11 days, which are public holidays. And then we have for a new person who's joining, for less than two years, we give three weeks paid off and after two years, we give four weeks paid off. And then we also have five days of sick leave and five days of emergency leave, something like that. So, we have said, okay, so these are all the days in the course of a calendar year, you get these, which is a benefit so that they can, you know, refresh themselves or attend to personal things. Provide opportunities for learning and development. We'll talk about some of those things. And also a bonus. And of course, a bonus also depends on how the organization is doing. If the organization has money, then at the end of the year or whatever, whenever the organization decides once a year to give an extra amount to the staff, the employees. So, these are just benefits. These are things that make people feel happy that, you know, they are working. The organization organization is doing something to take care of them. And of course, all of these are equally available to every staff. So, all everybody receives, every staff receives that. Now, of course, when you're working for a Christian organization, like a church or a Christian ministry, there are also some intangible benefits that can be given, right? One is involvement, the benefit is your involvement kingdom work. So, that gives a lot of meaning to the staff. I'm actually doing something that is serving the cause of God's kingdom. So, that's a very powerful benefit. We also give opportunity for missions. So, I mean, the last two years we have not had missions, but before that, missions. That means traveling and ministering outside around our country. So, every staff can take one, can do one fully paid mission strip. That means the church will pay for their travel to be part of the missions once a year. So, they can choose, you know, the mission coordinator will plan out those missions. And then they can choose to be part of the missions. But of course, they have to contribute meaningfully on the missions strip. I mean, they have to do something as part of the missions. And then they go. So, we give them give opportunity. If they want to go on more, they can use their vacation leaves or some ministry leaves and go on mission trips. There's also the, you know, this whole thing about job security. Of course, this is dependent on performance. You know, if a person is doing well, you know, and the organization is doing well, then you have a secure job. That means nobody's going to take the job away from you because you're doing well and the organization is doing well. Other benefit is growth opportunity. That means you can grow. You can grow professionally. You can grow in your role. You can grow in the different opportunities, the kinds of work that is being done. So the different ways of different opportunities for growth. Also, we provide, you know, as an organization, you can provide a good workplace culture. We will talk about culture in a different chapter, you know, so that the work culture is something that that makes, you know, makes it fun. It makes it enjoyable to be part of the organization. And we'll talk about how to, you know, define that culture, how to create that culture and so on. So workplace culture is also a very important, intangible benefit. People enjoy that. Okay, I can work here, work with good people, etc. Some other thing would also be the brand. So if you're working for an organization that has a good name, so example, either a church or a Christian ministry that is well recognized in the Christian community, then you have a brand and it's nice to say I'm working for such and such an organization. And people, you know, immediately respect that and they appreciate that. So there's a brand recognition, so to speak. And then there is also the quality of life, which means hopefully, you know, people have time to do things outside of work with respect to their personal interests or their family, travel, whatever they may be interested in. So these are intangible benefits. You know, the work doesn't consume the whole life, but the work is there, but they have plenty of time for, you know, things that they enjoy doing. So these are other benefits that, you know, a Christian organization can provide for its people. And we have to constantly look at these things so that make sure that, you know, these things are actually happening. So I will just quickly go through this and then, you know, go through these various aspects of human resource management, then we'll have time for some discussion towards the end. Now let's talk about employee management. That means it's one thing to, you know, have a team of people working together in the organization. But, you know, how do we keep them motivated? How do we take care of them? How do we, you know, make sure that everybody enjoys the work? That's important. And, you know, to treat people well and etc. So some thoughts along those lines. I think somebody's trying to come in. Let me just check. Daryl, okay, Daryl's coming. Okay, Neelam. All right, can you let them know? Neelam can join. Aaron is joined. Okay. Yeah, usually when I shift, okay, Neelam is coming. Usually when I shift to a PDF, this auto admit doesn't work. So people get stuck outside the class. All right, I'm going back to the PDF now. All right. So we're talking about employee management here. How do we, you know, what are some things we can do to keep people excited about the work that they can give their best, they can be creative, they can be passionate, they can do extra things whenever it's needed, so on. Right, so here are some things. I'm not saying this is a complete list, but these are some common, generally commonly understood things behind employee motivation, staff motivation, right. First of all, you need to provide meaningful work. The work should, they should see meaning in their work. It shouldn't be just, you know, a boring thing that is a meaningless thing. So meaningful work. They have room to make choices, make decisions. So then that's you're empowering them in their sphere, in their role, within their role. They're making their decisions, choices. That's also very good. We have work that is matching their competencies, right. So what they're good at, you need to put them there. And if you put somebody in a role where they don't have the skills, then it can be very frustrating for them. It can be sometimes overwhelming for them. And, you know, so it can be very discouraging. So, you know, you provide work that matches their competencies. You also provide work that stretches them, you know, that's all. It makes them learn new things. It makes them develop new skills or gives them new challenges in their area. So that's always a good motivator for people that say, I am growing. I'm learning something new. What I'm doing, I'm taking up a new challenge, things like that. Another motivator is to highlight progress. Hey, you've made progress. You've, you know, you've done, done, you know, what, what you couldn't do last year you're doing now. And this wonderful, you highlight it within the team or you appreciate people within the team for the progress they've made. On a larger scale, you can think of engaging people and decision making. So, you know, again, this can be done at the team level or it can be done as a, as a group level. Now at APC, our staff, like I said, is still a small group. We only have about 25 people. So it's easy, you know, when we call for a staff meeting, everybody can participate. Everybody can be involved in, you know, general decision making. And also in smaller teams. So, you know, in their own teams, whatever they are doing, they can be involved in making those decisions. So that, that also encourages people, empowers people, providing positive reinforcement. When somebody does a good job, you, you know, tell them, hey, nice, nice job, or you just appreciate them. Thank them. That keeps people motivated. So you're giving them reinforcement. And if you also appreciate people visibly, you know, that also is a good thing. Like you send an email to everybody saying, Hey, this was done, or this team did this, or that team, you know, was, did this project, whatever. You know, so there's a visible appreciation within the organization for the contributions by teams or by individuals. And that keeps people motivated. Ability to trust the team. And of course, when the team develops the competencies that they need, and they're doing good work, you can just let them go and, you know, keep, let them do their work. So when they feel trusted, that also is very empowering. You can coach with feedback. So, you know, we will provide feedback and help them work on things and develop things. And so that the coaching part also motivates people and helps them give out their best. And then providing inspirational leadership. So, and they see their own leaders doing stuff that is bigger and bigger than them. Then they say, Well, we can also do it. And it inspires them. So these are some of the common things that is, you know, that that goes to motivating people. And we need to think about these things within our organizations, so that, you know, we can, we can intentionally do these things. You know, so for instance, in the, in for our pastors, you know, and I'm going back a few years, when some of our pastors were new, starting out, I would give feedback about their sermons. Now, of course, it was between me and them. So nobody else would know. But that's okay, you preach today, then I'll sit and listen. Then I'll give feedback. You know, this was, this can be done better, that can be done better. So there was like, you know, a personal coaching happening feedback being given. And of course, now most of them are all mature already. So even when I do give feedback, it will be, you know, on just on the finer details, but most of them by now are mature in their ministry in what they do. But in the early days, there was a lot of, you know, feedback being given and that helped them grow, you know, develop. Today, there's another baby, we're coaching the team, the pastoral team is, you know, we do these mentoring hours on Thursdays, now with all the Bible, with the Bible college students. So it's just an open time and people come and ask questions. So that is actually a coaching time even for the pastors, our faculty, because, you know, you have to answer questions impromptu, that means you don't have time to prepare. Somebody, some students asking questions you have to answer. So initially, I was handling most of it and then slowly I said, okay, you know, getting others, you know, you do it, you do it. And then sometimes I have to give feedback after the session, you know, saying, okay, here's additional information that could be shared on that question and so on. So what's happening is we're constantly helping them develop in their pastoral role, in their ministry role. And, you know, at some point, they will be very good in what they're doing. But these are different ways you can motivate people who are staff for working, so on. At the same time, we have to address demotivators, you know, what negatively affects people, right? Here are, again, a few common things. One is employee turnover. So if in an organization, people are constantly leaving the organization, employees are leaving, it can have a negative impact on other people. Now, as a church organization, one of the things is, for us, of course, there are people who leave for various reasons, you know, and one of the reasons is that they would want to go and pursue their own ministry. So over the years, we've had a lot of people who worked with us. At some point, they would say, okay, I want to go and start my ministry. I want to go and start a church somewhere or, you know, and we never stop them, we encourage them. So from that perspective, we do have at least every year, maybe one person will leave, they want to go and start something. And we don't stop it, you know, we don't prevent them from stepping out and going. Of course, we recognize that every time somebody leaves the organization, it does have kind of a demotivating effect on the rest. Because they were like, oh, you know, somebody's gone, somebody's left, why did they leave? Why couldn't they stay? But then we also have to look from a perspective that they are pursuing something they want to pursue. And we shouldn't stop it. So we just release them, bless them and let them go. And sometimes we may even help them start their ministry, you know, wherever they're going. So, but keep in mind that people leaving an organization does have some sort of a demotivating effect on the organization itself. Then of course, there is workplace culture. You know, if the culture is very toxic, if it's very too much pressure, too much workload, I've already mentioned that here, but if the culture, the work environment is not good, it can be very demotivating for people. Part of it has to do with relationships, part of it has to do with how people work. So we will be doing, we'll be having a full chapter on workplace culture, organizational culture, but that is very important to make sure you have a healthy workplace culture. We'll talk about that in detail. Sometimes reorganization can be a demotivator. If you move people, you know, across, and sometimes we may need to do it. We have done it. We need to reorganize. We have to move people from, you know, different roles and all that. That could have a demotivating effect. And so that has to be managed well, but sometimes it is very necessary if there is a need to rearrange, you know, or redesign our systems and processes. Too much workload can be demotivating. Sometimes personal challenges that they are going through can impact their work and that has to be dealt with separately. I'll quickly run through a few other things that we do all in the under employee management, some things we can do. One is making sure that people enjoy the work. So most of the time, this is done informally. That means as you're talking to people, hey, you're enjoying your work. How's it going? So in an informal way, you're gauging if they like their work. What can we do? You know, what would you like to do? What are your interests? So that's a very informal way, but it's a very important way. Usually the informal way is much better than the formal way because in a formal questionnaire, people usually don't have the opportunity to say what they want to say. But in an informal conversation, hey, how are you doing? How's work? So they will say, and I want to do this. I'm thinking about it. So just keeping a pulse on how people happy in the organization is important. It gives you ideas on how you can make things better for them while they work. The other thing we do is we tell people, you know, what we tell is we tell people to do their own evaluation and plan for the next year, set their own goals, and then we review that once a year. Usually this happens in November, December of the year. Now, of course, the plan from 2019 to 2020, you know, those two years now have been disrupted because of the pandemic. So we are not holding people to whatever they had put down in the document because a lot of factors affected what could be done. But otherwise, what happens is we tell people in November, December to plan for the next year in their areas of ministry. They review the previous year, they plan for the next year, and I've given the sample document. They themselves write down, okay, that's what I'm planning to do. And then we have a meeting. We can update or revise the plan. And then the following year, when the year is happening, we just, you know, on a monthly basis or an informal basis, we keep track of what is happening. For me, with the pastors, I would meet with the pastors once a month just to review what's happening. And then again, we have a six month review and then review in December. That's at a pastor's level. For most of the staff, it'll be just a review at the end of the year, while their team, immediate team leaders are reviewing, you know, on a monthly basis. But the point is, they are able to plan. They are able to review. And then based on that, the planning, you know, at the end of the year, we can decide their bonus, we can decide their increment for the following year and so on. You know, so this is something that happens. Regular review meetings happen. Maybe it could be informal, how are things going? Has this been done? How things progress? Or I, before the pandemic, I used to meet with our pastors, each one, each pastor, one on one for one hour every month. But I will review with the pastor, the associate pastors, what is going on in the areas of ministry and also with the ministry leaders, what is happening with their ministry and so on. So we should do it in a regular monthly review meeting. But, you know, the last two years that we've kind of let that go simply because, you know, we don't have the opportunity to do the things that we would normally do. So we've not been doing it now. We'll resume it once things get back to normal. Now, so another part of, you know, just working with people, employee management is handling underperforming employees. So this is a challenge simply because in a Christian organization, you know, people obviously want to be, they expect, okay, you have grace, you have to give me grace and, you know, they expect that you have to be loving, you have to be kind, gentle, all of that, which is fine, which is true. But at the same time, you know, if people are not performing, then you have to address it because it will be affecting other things that are happening in the organization. So as a, you know, whatever leadership capacity you are in in the organization, this is a very difficult task of having to sit down with somebody and tell them, look, you know, your job is not up to the, your work is not up to the mark. It's a very difficult thing. But, you know, you have to do it. You have to get feedback. And usually, we take, we take the three strike approach. I mean, first time, things are not going well. You sit down to give them a, you discuss things with them. And you say, look, things have to improve. Then you do it a second time. If things don't improve third time, you close the case. That means you have to really relieve them. So it's a three strike approach. You've given them two warnings. If it doesn't change, then you have to release them. Now, sometimes what we do is we try to reassign them. So you take them from one role. Maybe they don't have the skills in that role. Maybe they don't have the aptitude. And so you try to reassign them, put them in a different role. See how it goes there. If that doesn't happen, you know, if there is some, you know, if there's another role for which they're suited, you can try to reassign them. But then you can only do it two or three times. After that, if they're not performing, you know, you've given them two or three chances. They're not performing then. You just have to, you know, make a decision. Maybe you have to release them or move them to some sort of an hourly type of role where they only do the things that they can do and leave it at that. So that handling in underperforming employees is a challenging thing, but that needs to be done. In the light of that, what I recommend is always do it in face-to-face meetings to address difficult matters. This was a mistake I used to make in the early days. I remember in the early days, you know, I made tough decisions, but I communicated it through email. That was a very bad thing. Maybe I had my reasons for doing it. I was very busy and, you know, especially in some situations, the person who was working was working remotely. They were working from, you know, south of Bangalore, and our office was another part of the city. I didn't want to make them come all the way across town just for me to tell them that, hey, things are not working out and we need to stop your consulting engagement with the church. So I just sent it by email, but the fact that I sent it by email upset them even more. You know, they said, why didn't you speak to me? So those were mistakes I made personally in the early days of the organization, but then I learned, you know, I learned, okay, difficult matters always sit down face-to-face and talk, explain it to them so then they can be a dialogue. They can ask questions. You can explain it and don't do it by email. Have a conversation. Talk to them. You know, tell them you've looked at the whole picture. You've, you know, you've gone through so many months, everything, but after you have the conversation, then you put it in writing. So this is another thing I learned very important. Always put these things in writing because they may forget, you may forget what you said. They may not understand, you know, the reason why you made your decision. So when it's in writing, they can read it two or three times and realize that, look, you know, you have been patient, you have been gracious, you've given them a lot of time to improve, all those kinds of things. Plus this is a written record of that decision, you know. So this whole issue of handling underperforming employees is a challenging thing, but that, you know, you can do it well. And if you do it well, then, okay, everybody is at peace and things will still work out fine, even though the process is difficult. Okay. So that's just a quick run through on, you know, managing church staff, managing employees. I'll try to finish the rest and then we'll have time for questions. Another important thing is trying, you know, giving opportunities for people in the organization to keep developing, right? That means they should keep getting better and if they get better, of course, the organization also benefits. So we need to have some ways in which we can help people get better. So some of the things that we do is, of course, one is on the job training. So we give people the time they need to learn, to do research, to read, you know, whatever related to their role and their work. There's this constant on-the-job training where people are doing all the IT team, others in the media. So we encourage, okay, you learn, you develop this skill, try this out, okay, experiment with that. So on-the-job training happening. Then we do encourage people. Okay. And nowadays, you know, there's not too much need to go to formal courses because a lot of these courses are available online. We encourage people to do online courses, learn things. The other things that we also provide is we let our staff attend Bible college courses. So every staff is entitled to attend, I think, I think two courses every semester or something like that. So that, you know, it's part of the, it's counted as part of their work. So they, you know, so four hours a week, I think, they can use to, you know, attend courses. We also encourage them to attend weekend schools. It's not happening now, but under normal conditions, weekend schools used to happen. So we used to encourage our staff. You can attend these courses. The weekend school, it's counted as a day of work. So that they, if they sit, they attend the whole school. I mean, that Saturday, it's part of their, it's considered a work day. So it's just incentive for them to, you know, develop spiritually. And the other things is also when there are new projects or new opportunities, new roles, these are things that we can provide to help people grow within the organization, something to keep in mind. So basically, you're caring for the individual, you know, and as you care for the individual, the organization benefits. All right, let's wrap up with a few things and we'll have some time for discussion. So performance reviews are done once a year. So once a year, you sit with the staff or the immediate manager will review their work and will recommend that, yeah, they've done a good work. So we can, and they've developed themselves this year. So we can increase the salary or the contribution has been very good. This is what we planned for their next step in their work and so on. So that happens once a year for all our staff. And then there will be difficult situations, as I mentioned. And sadly, there will be situations that result in immediate termination. Now for underperforming employees, like we mentioned earlier, you know, we do this three strikes approach. But there are situations that result in immediate termination. So this has to do more with the issues of integrity, issues of, you know, behavior. So if there is a situation where there is a lack of integrity, so, you know, in one situation had to do with finances. So there was a mishandling of finances in such a situation, immediate termination, you know. So it's the end of it. That's it. There's no more, no discussion, no questions, no warnings, nothing. It's, this is your last day at the organization. So we have had to do that. In one situation, it had to do with inappropriate conduct. There were two married people getting into a relationship. And this happened in the church office. So the first time I saw it, I had a suspicion. I just took the man aside. I said, hey, this is not right. And please be careful. But then within like a week or two, I got a call from the wife saying, this is happening. So basically, there was a married man, there was a married lady working in the church office. So the wife of the married man called me, said, hey, this is, you know, this is happening. So that same week, I called both of them, I called the wife, I called the lady, I called all of them to church office on Saturday, verified everything, made sure, yeah, this thing is going on. And at that moment, both were terminated. So this is a very difficult situation. And there is no grace, because like this, nothing, something like this is not allowed to happen. So these are difficult situations when it is has to do with, you know, integrity, inappropriate behavior. Now, in a corporate, let's say, you know, if, if there's an affair going on, that's, that's their problem. But in a church setting, it's very different. And it is, you know, we've also put it down in our staff guidelines. So before they join the organization, they know these are things that, you know, are not going to be tolerated. And, and if there is any kind of, you know, this kind of behavior, and sadly at APC, we've had to do some of these things. It is sad, but you have to be farmed because you're protecting the organization when you make such kinds of decisions. So there was immediate termination in these cases. No, no, no grace. Now, generally, I'm just going to finish up here. Generally, then an employee or person leaves, you want to have a conversation. So a formal way of trying to find out why they are leaving is good. Now, if you are terminating them, you're dismissing them, then obviously the reasons, the reasons are obvious. But then if somebody's choosing to leave, then it's good to have conversation. Now, so we've done it in the past, but of course, you know, nobody's going to tell you in your face the reasons, the real reasons why they're leaving. So that's a, you know, sometimes it's almost pointless to do this, have this conversation because they don't want to offend you or they don't want to tell you why they're leaving correctly. So, but then you're just giving an opportunity saying, hey, please let me know if there's anything we can do, things like that. And it's a learning time, so that if they give us useful feedback, we can change, we can improve. So sometimes people do give us feedback that we can work on, that tells us, you know, something is the point out what is lacking. And then it helps us improve. But in most cases, they won't, they won't tell us. So we'll have to try to find out, you know, where did we go wrong? Where could we have done better? What could we have done differently to keep them so on? Now, just one thing is sometimes there's a big change in the organization. And we may have to let people go, not because they were bad, not because they didn't have the skills, but because there's a change in what the organization is doing. So those things, you have to handle very graciously. And in such situations, instead of giving them one month notice speed, I usually give them three months notice speed. For instance, in 2019, and I think it was maybe somewhere there, some, you know, we had TV programs going on, on God TV and so on. And then I felt, in fact, I told them maybe two years ahead, I said, hey, at some point, we will get off God TV because there's a big move of people from watching traditional television to consuming content online. So two years in advance, I said, hey, at some point, we're going to discontinue TV because our TV programs because you know, people are moving away from that, the main channel of consuming digital content. So I should tell them, I was kind of trying to prepare them also for it. And then, so two years in advance, I told them, you're going on. And I was waiting to see, you know, when do we make this change? Because it's very expensive every month being on God TV, on the TV channel, producing the programs, paying for the telecast time and all that. And then finally, we had a meeting with the trustees. I discussed it with that advisory board also. I said, see the time has come, people are, you know, using online channels and not people are moving away from television. So they said, yeah, go ahead. We can end our contract with God TV. So I had to make that difficult decision, which is informing God TV that end of the year, they're going to stop. But at the same time, we had two very good people. And they were very good people, you know, they had, they were good in their work, but we don't, we didn't need them because we were going to stop our TV programs. So I told them three months, maybe even more, three months in advance, I said, see, December we're stopping it going to be a last program. Three months, you have to find a job, I'll help you find a job, you'll send me a resume, I'll give you contacts, you know, so I did what I could. So that's another, that's another scenario where you have to let people go not because they're bad, but because the, there's a change in what is happening in the focus of the ministry. And so in a very gracious way to the best you can, you help them and you, you, you know, you have to release them. Right. So in a quick way, I've touched on various aspects of taking care of church staff and how you can, you know, take care of them, help them. And so some questions that I had noted from previous years, people have asked, you know, what, what can you do to help people grow in the organization, give them training, give them resources, give feedback. In the past, somebody asked, how do you separate personal life of church staff and they work at church? So this is a very important question that, you know, we don't, we try not to interfere outside of work hours. But at the same time, a lot of things are happening on the weekends, you know, like services are happening, conferences, seminars are happening on the weekends. So weekends do get caught up in, in, in ministry. And so if they're working on the weekends and during the week, we let them take the day off. And on that day, don't disturb them, let them have time with their family. But at the same time, I mentioned, you know, some scenarios where personal life can impact what happens in the church. And a lot of these things have happened, sometimes even with our pastors. So, you know, one situation happened where one of our pastors, they're not pastors right now with us. But, you know, they got into a business financial thing with somebody in the church. And then the whole situation went out of control. And it came to me. And I had to sit down. Now, it is very difficult situation because this was a personal dealing. It wasn't, it wasn't something church, it wasn't something church did or church, it wasn't church involved. But that person who was also a pastor at that time with us was doing some business or doing something on his own work. And he was involved, you know, financially with some person in the church. And it just went sour. So it became a big problem. You know, so that their personal life affected the church and then had to be addressed. And so we made it a policy among our pastors not to be involved in any financial business dealings with anybody in the congregation. You know, if you are a church staff or, you know, don't get involved in financially in the Congress, because it can affect the church and so on. Now, in that case, unfortunately, both the family affected and finally even the pastor, their family, they both left church. But it was very difficult situation at that time to handle and address and sort out. And eventually things worked out like that. So these are different situations where, you know, keeping the personal life of the church staff or pastor and they work, you know, keeping it separate is, it's a challenge, but we have to try to do the best we can. And how do we pastor our own church staff? You know, so it's a little difficult because I'm also their boss and they're also congregation members. So there are times I have to speak to them as a boss or a leader. And then there are times I have to speak as a pastor to the same people. And so, you know, having to understand the difference is a challenging thing. But we try to do it. And then we also try to give them time, you know, opportunities to grow spiritually while working, doing their work as well. All right, let me wrap up. I have crossed my time limit. So any questions so far? Any thoughts on church staff? First of all, one question. So this is aligned with what we discussed today. So you are running your own business, right? A new creation IT business. So there you were like, you were a CEO. So now in APC, you are heading as a senior pastor and the founder. So the question is, is there a leadership change the way you work with people? So or more or less similar. Like, you know, maybe you would have worked with a full professionals on the ground in a new creation IT business. Now here, it's mix and match, like, you know, professional plus ministry and everything. So question is, is that a leadership change the way you work with employees and ministers faster? Very interesting question. So I would say it's more of addition. That means I am still bring I still do like, you know, what I used to do as a CEO, I still do that part in from an organizational perspective. So, you know, dealing with people from a professional perspective. So I still continue a lot of that. But then the same time to bring in this ministry side of things. That means to look at it more, not from, you know, how much money you're going to make out of the project. Or, you know, we've got customers to satisfy. And, you know, I have to be a little bit more lead and lenient here. Now, when we're doing the, you know, in the software company side, it was very tight. You know, there's no tolerance for mistakes. And, you know, and there's here. Whereas in the church side, you're giving, I would say you're giving a lot more extra grace and you're being a little bit more empathetic and more compassionate, which on the professional side, you know, it's, you can be a lot more firm when you're dealing with people. So here in the church side, it's a lot more, okay, you know, try again to this change. You know, I would say a lot more gracious because on the professional side, the customer is not gracious. You know, they don't tolerate anything. If it's not done, it's not done. You know, money will not be, it won't be paid kind of thing. That is on the church side, it's a little bit more, I would say tolerant, more gracious. So, so, so I tried to blend the two to blend the professional, corporate style and learning, along with the more empathetic, gracious Christian leadership thing. Does that answer your question? I don't know. Yes, Pastor. Trying to blend the two. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Is there any other questions? A question, just one more question here. I mean, since, I mean, you know, we mostly hire church people. And there's, there's, there's already a relationship that's been established since, you know, we have hired people from church. So, but when you deal certain things as a boss, there is a, there is a personal hurt that kind of happens, that could possibly happen, you know, in any organization, you know, when they've already established a relationship and then they work as a staff. And, and when they deal with that person as a boss, there is a personal hurt or, you know, that could happen. But how to deal with those situations at the beginning itself, you know, to let the people know, even before joining, the church is church and work is work and we deal certain things in a certain way. Because in corporate, it works a little differently. It's work and personal is personal. So, you know, just to, just to put. Yeah, so very, very, very good question because this is, you know, it always happens, right? Because from, because there's, there's a very personal connect, a personal relationship and in all of that, and then at the same time, work has to be done. So I think from the very beginning, that is, when we start, we have to keep work-related things at that level. And, and if you find that, you know, people are trying to be casual about it, oh, this is my past. So here, you know, okay, that is when, you know, when, when we are having, you know, spiritual conversation or talking about the Bible or those kind of things. Yeah, we can talk like that. But when you're talking about work, this is how we want. And sometimes I've had to tell it directly to people, you know, most, what I have found is most people understand the difference. So they know the distinction between what is work and what is a pastoral or a ministry-related, you know, we are a fellowship. Maybe let's use the word fellowship. And they understand the difference between work and fellowship, I think. But some people may not, they want to mix the two and say, hey, no, no, no, no, no, let's keep this separate. Because work, we have to hold people accountable. We, things have to be done. So we talk like that, you know. And when somebody is coming for some, when the same person is coming to you for counseling for something personal, okay, now you're doing it because of a fellowship or a pastoral role. But if they're coming to you, you need to be talking about the work, you have to say, you know, right and wrong. Yes. Yeah, so my experience has been, most people understand that difference. In some cases, when I see that they are not understanding the difference, then I have to tell them that, you know, this is how we will work. If you make it clear, then they also will learn. Because as a staff, as a colleague also, you know, we could have that kind of a relationship problem because we are from the same church. And then, you know, you come to a place where you work, the organization. And then when you share certain things as a colleague in a work related matter, there is this personal thing happen. So I just wanted to understand like how to deal with and, you know, in a more gracious way. Thank you. Thank you, Pastor. All right. Good, good, good questions. Okay. We will wrap up today. Next week, we will talk about volunteer engagement. And maybe even, so that's just one chapter, I don't think it'll be very long. And then we will talk about communications. Like, how do you communicate within the organization? Volunteer engagement is very important because like we saw, you know, the thing about, we have about 300 some volunteers and many churches, many Christian organizations, a lot of the workforce are actually volunteers. So we have staff, but a lot of volunteers. So then how do you manage them? How do you keep them motivated? All those things are some practical things we'll talk about, which will be useful. Okay. All right, let's close in prayer. I know we've taken almost 10 minutes extra. Let's close and we will dismiss. Somebody could please close in prayer for us. Loving Emily Father, we just come into your presence of Father God. Thank you for the state. Thank you for today's class of Father God. I pray for all the people who are joined of Father God also pray for our pastor. And I pray for today's class, what we learned of Father God Jesus and help us to cope up with all the challenges and other difficult things in our ministry, in our workplace of Father God. Give us wisdom and knowledge of Father God. Let us be faithful in our designated works of Father God Jesus. Thank you for guiding and leading us in Jesus name. I pray this prayer of Father God. Amen. All right. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for being part of our class. See you again. How good we can. Thank you. Hi. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.