 Okay Welcome back everybody to our second lecture second hour on Church and ministry administration are there any questions from anyone? So you went for the break and came back any questions? All right Let's move forward that's going to share sharing the on PDF so What we've done so far is established a biblical perspective on you know the fact that There you know God is a God or order design and he's put that in the work that he does on the earth We also said there's a practical perspective People do expect the church to be organized Have good administration now the you know Like I mentioned very beginning when we when we talk about administration and organizers and People will make some excuse gentle and what are some of the excuses we might encounter Some people say oh, we don't have proper training, you know, we went to Bible college. They only taught us the Bible They taught us scripture. They taught us the work of the spirit They didn't teach us leadership and management and organization and administration So we don't know how to do this. So we won't do it. Well, that's an excuse Which can be overcome that means you can learn you can learn how to you know have Proporganization and how to put things together how to plan how to organize so that can be learned if a skill that can be developed another excuse might be We don't have skilled people to do this Right, or we don't have the means to hire skilled people Maybe we can start off by engaging volunteers like we said There could be people Are gifted by God in leadership and administration and helps We just need to bring them together and give them the opportunity and start with what you have You know, maybe you have two people who are willing to do it. Okay start with them And then from there we you know as as things grow Got to provide and how to bring it in more skilled people and maybe you'll even come to a time when you can fire skilled people to help Another excuse will be well, you know, this is church and Ministry must only be done By those trained in spiritual matters. We don't want the secular things to come into the church, you know, we We must and I am just come combining these two points spiritual personal and you know, we must maintain Focus on spiritual things and we don't want to get distracted by you know, organization and so on well, like we said even Administrations helps leadership's service generosity These are gifts and graces given by God You know, so being there are people who are given these gifts and graces and they Can serve in the church and they can help Do things in the church So it's not that we don't need these people. They are part of what God is doing Another excuse could be, you know, we want to maintain a very spiritual level We don't want any corporate. We don't any organization. We don't want, you know To have any rules and regulations and all that Well, if you're going to be organized, you need to have things in place You need to have certain Guidance and things have to be in a certain way We're not saying just because we are organized. We are becoming like the world, you know, God himself is organized So obviously if we can show in in the church and And, you know, another excuse might be, you know, this is God's work We don't need these kinds of human involvement. Well, this is God's work, but God is working through people Right? He's working through us And so we we need to bring our best To bear for the kingdom of God. So these are just some excuses that could be others, you know That people we don't want to have organization. We don't be having good administration But these excuses, you know, we can have a good response to them and hopefully convince people that We need to have good administration Let's go to lesson number two Which is What are the objectives of good administration? What are we trying to achieve and what are we after when we say church and ministry administration What are we trying to achieve? so when we say Administration we use the word administrates We're referring to all kinds of activities that actually support the spiritual ministry So all kinds of things that support the spiritual ministry Can be classified as administration helps And it's actually undergirded It's helping us do the spiritual ministry. Well, whether it's to equip believers or share the gospel with those outside the church So Let's begin by re re-emphasizing what we already said that administration Is a spiritual ministry In the context of the church It is A god anointed ministry God appointed and god anointed So we shouldn't think that administration is how it's just meant for people who don't Don't have any level of spiritual interest. No, no, no administration is a god appointed And god anointed ministry Like we read in 1st Corinthians 12 28 god has appointed in the church helps administration So it's a god appointed ministry And we saw in Romans 12 God himself has given grace So it is a god anointed god graced ministry You know, so even if somebody's just doing helps administration organization leadership planning financial management These are not You know Let me put this back. These are god appointed and god anointed ministries in the church They may look very ordinary but God has appointed them. God has anointed them to do that So it is a spiritual ministry in that sense that god is in it and the word for ministry the word for You know, when we look at the Greek words, the word for servant Let's let's read Romans 16. We haven't read that. That's interesting. It talks about Phoebe Romans 16 Let's read that Romans 16 verses 1 and 2 could somebody read it, please Okay Sorry to turn off that The echo here Thank you Thank you So Romans 16 1 and 2 is talking about Phoebe And she's a servant same word for deacon or minister right and And she yeah Paul says, you know receive her and yeah treat her in a in a good way So that she can assist in whatever business she has need So she's just attending to some Administrative things on business. He calls it So he's using the same word for deacon For what Phoebe is doing. She's a deacon. She's a deaconess. She's doing some business. She's attending to some business In first coin this 1228 there was but what we read earlier helps It means to assist administrations It means to steer the ship and you know, it can be used For different kinds of leaders within government or leaders or organizers Awesome. That's the word administration is steering the ship. Yeah Kind of guiding the ship in the way it should go So other big responsibility, you know taking care of the ship, but that's the word administration that's used in this Corinthians 1228 which we read In uh first Timothy chapter 3 1 to 13 in there is like we mentioned there are bishops or spiritual leaders, but they're also deacons the same word servant or deacon or a minister We see them so what I want to emphasize is That administration is a god appointed and god anointed minister Maybe shouldn't look down on it. God has gifted these people and he's put them in the church So administration can be also looked at and this is actually more from a you know general management perspective that you know Generally, they tend to debate is it an art or is it a science, you know But it is both there is an art to it. You know, how do you organize? How do you? See the right people in the right place and then working together It's almost like an art like, you know, how an artist Would see the colors coming on there, you know drawing and painting and you know, it's almost like an art But there is also a science to it. That means you can learn Yeah, this is how you do it So art meaning It is something That there are traits and characteristics that can be developed and nurtured And you can help people. There is this art of understanding people of you know Being sensitive to people's needs and so on. It's something that that's part of you And then there is a science to it. That means you can develop the skills to organize to plan Learn how to use the tools to look at the finances to budget things To evaluate performance and analyze data. So that's a science to it And then like we said, there's a spiritual gifting that God annoying. So really in administration We are bringing art and science and God's gift to me bring it all together Right I mean God is giving us the anointing. He's giving us the empowering of the Holy Spirit. He's giving us ideas. He's giving us wisdom But then also the The innate abilities the things that seem to come naturally to you That's what we refer to as the artistic side of it. And then there is a science side of it That means you have developed certain skills. You've learned how to do certain things And you bring it all together to carry out administration Serve the ministry and so on. So it's nice to understand in this also coming together of art science and the spiritual gift now in In this whole aspect of administration You know Speaking about it in a very broad sense. There is The area of leadership that is area of management And there is the area of administration So in some Courses They would separate the two they would say this is a course of leadership This is a course of management. This is a course of administration operations Okay Now what is the difference when we look at the difference in these things and you talk about leadership You're talking about providing vision We have direction we're talking about strategy we're talking about how to influence people and How do you align the organization towards achieving those goals? When you're talking about management, we are breaking the whole big vision down into You know smaller units. How do you plan? How do you organize how do you motivate people? How do you organize departments and so And the administration part you're going down one more level of detail You're looking at schedules looking at how things are being executed You're looking at accountability teams and performance and You know costs and expenses and budgets and so on so it's it's It's at different levels leadership is at a much higher level looking at bigger things Management comes down to closer to the actual day-to-day things Administration is like get on the ground How do you get things done on the ground? What's actually happening? How do you resolve the problems on the ground? So In this course, we are not going to differentiate things like, you know, so Distinctly we're going to kind of just overlap these things and talk about In all of these things in a kind of a condensed Way that yeah You know you provide vision you organize manage and you also To the atmosphere kind of combine all of them You know going to you know distinct them Break them out distinctly so Going back to the main question in this chapter What do we want to do in good administration, especially in the context of the church So this little diagram here helps us understand what we're trying to do At the foundational level We should be developing people You know recognizing who the you know who are the people who can do these things Putting the right people in the right place Giving them the right opportunity The right support they need to basically it's building people Because without people you cannot have administration We want to establish systems The way things work We want to fine-tune Processes so that they can keep improving better Keep improving And then also we want to allocate resources properly, you know, how we spend time and money and invest energies So develop people establish systems fine-tune processes Make sure proper allocation of resources. So those are the overall high level objectives we're trying to achieve in the in in this whole administration of the local church And this will then result in Alignment to the vision That means whatever is happening in the church It should be aligned to the vision You know, if there are 25 ministries And I'm all 25 ministers going in some different direction people will be wondering like what is this that's trying to do That is the trying to go There should be an alignment towards The vision every ministry is kind of moving the church in the same direction To become what we are supposed to become To achieve what we want to achieve Right, so there's got to be alignment Of all the ministry there may be a lot of ministries happening But all ministries are moving in the same direction Amos chapter three verse three says can two walk together in agreement Two walk together unless they are in agreement, right? So if you look at it from the functioning of a ministry can two ministries, you know, really Work together and serve the purpose to get unless they are in agreement They have to be moving in the same direction Of course The ministries must be efficient We don't want You know, if something can be done a very simple way We don't want people to you know, if something can be done in two steps We don't want people to be doing it in 10 steps. That's inefficient So let's just bring it down to just two steps to get this done making it very efficient And there has to be it has to be productive. It has to be resulting in fruit You know in john 15 Even jesus says he's talking about being fruitful And he says, you know, you will bear much fruit And my father is glorified if you bear fruit. So Are we want to ensure alignment efficiency and productivity? So whatever is happening in the church They have to be moving the same direction. It has to be efficient It has to be productive So that's what we're trying to achieve And the net result of it will be that All the ministry activities will help us move towards the Goals and the overall vision of the church What god has called us to do We'll be able to achieve them So We have to develop people establish systems fine tune processes allocate resources so that There's alignment efficiency and productivity In so that all the ministry is going to achieve the goals and vision of What we are called to do as a church So That's the whole reason why are we having good? Why do we want good organization and administration? This is it You have to be accountable to god. You have to fulfill the vision That he has given us to fulfill as a church We have to make good use of the people the resources that he has given to us And where the fruit he wants us to bear For his glory. That's the overall objective of good administration So In in order to achieve that obviously There are different skills That we need Many people's skills Right So we need to be able to take care of people People are not machines They just can't work endlessly They have to be cared for they have to be nurtured. They have to be developed They have to be You know attended to if they having problems So We need people's skills We also need organizational skills. That means, you know, how can we put things together? How do we organize? Systems processes How do we continuously review and improve these things? So we need good organizational skills And we also need Technical skills Which is How do we allocate money time resources? How can we use tools methodologies? And how can we measure the outputs? How can we check if things are going well? And how can we improve outcomes? So there is human skill organizational skill and executions That are required So hopefully this course will Help us understand some of these things And help us to Okay, let me pause here any questions from anybody so far Everyone with me so far Okay All right So let's go to chapter three. Let me just introduce that and I know Yeah, let's go to chapter three So the first thing Is to form A legal entity So we call it in India, we call it a trust A church trust In in the in the united states, it'll be called as a Non-profit a 501c3 Non-profit organization that means that's typically what A religious church would be Registered as or a legal entity so in different parts of the world, you know, they may use different language for this but basically We the first step is to form A legal entity Right Now, why is that important? Because first of all Uh, we want and whatever we do we want to submit to government authorities We don't say, oh, I'm in church. I can do whatever I want. You know, we don't we don't kind of make up our own laws Our own rules that we follow the rules of the land so In india We have the provision for religious organizations to form to be recognized as a legal entity Typically, it's called a trust or a religious trust. That's the Kind of entity Beformed In other parts of the world, it may be called by different names, but basically you are You're forming a legal entity That is recognized as a religious organization or a religious trust now if somebody wants to Do You know, not just religious work, but social Yeah, you can you can form an entity that is recognized as a non-government organization In order to do social work It may not be necessarily a religious organization So however you want but in our context, we're talking about a christian church. We're talking about a christian ministry So generally it will come as a religious organization So we want to be submitted to the government Secondly, uh, we want to be blameless in how we conduct our ministry. So why are we forming a legal entity? So that everything can be done right, especially when it comes to handling money You know, so paul writes in second currently in chapter six verse three and four he says, you know That the way we conduct ourselves we conduct ourselves in a manner that is blameless Second current in six we give no offense in anything was three We give no offense in anything that our ministry may not be blamed But in all things we comment ourselves as ministers of God So he says in the ministry, we don't want to do anything That people can point fingers at us So even in the way we do the church Organize the ministry We want to be, you know, blameless. We don't want people to find fault with us Another reason is we want to be honorable in the way we handle Everything especially money So in second co-incidence eight and paul verse 21 Paul says, you know, especially in talking about money He says we want to do Honorable things not only the side of the lord, but also the site of mech That means In handling money, we want to be right in the eyes of God and in the eyes of mech Right, so we can't say here. I'm just right in the eyes of God Well, man is going to come and say hey show me your accounts Where is the money going? What are you doing with the money? Are you paying your taxes? Are you doing things? Correct Right, so if we are not doing things correctly And you know, we get into trouble. We can't call it persecution You know And in India, we've seen in organizations that Both, you know, Christian organizations as well as other non-governmental organizations When they did not file their The reports with the government The government took action against them And then there's someone saying oh government is persecuting us. The government is not persecuting you You didn't do what you're supposed to do, right? You didn't file your Your reports with the government. So obviously comment is saying hey, what are you doing? You can't call it persecution It's just that we have to do things right in the sight of God and So we have to be accountable to Human authority in which in this case would be the government And of course we want to have a clear conscience when we need when we are doing things right Our conscience is clear. It gives us great boldness and authority To speak We know that we're not doing anything wrong, right? So Forming a legal entity is very important and So When and how should you do it? So when you're starting a ministry Whether a church or a christian ministry There's an incubation period. That means you're kind of just launching the work you Getting people together You're getting things started so As soon as possible form the legal entity So for example for abc We had our first service in the month of february We started launched it now at that time. We were not A legal entity just like an informal thing or we are calling ourselves all people said those who want to come come so 10 12 people started but We launched in february, but by april we formed the legal entity and it's like in the very beginning within a couple of months and So the few months we formed the legal entity so that from then on We are official We are we are legally allowed to rent a space Open a bank account You know, we can collect if we collect the money offerings from people you can collect it and put it into that bank account You can have everything proper So we started and as soon as we you know found some people who can join us Because you need typically you need at least three or four people to form an entity uh, so We found it, you know Four four of us were there. So we said okay with and we were all aligned. We were all at the same mind we Registered as a religious trust we form a legal entity so that everything can be done properly so While there will be a little period incubation period we kind of get things together Try to form a legal entity as soon as possible You know, as I said, if you recommend that you register a legal entity as soon as possible now Typically you'll go to an accountant channel accountant And they would refer to you refer you to a lawyer You know, we'll form the trust. I will give you a sample copy of our our articles Of ebc. I'll give it to you next week As an as a sample So basically you'll write down. Okay. This is what the objectives of This religious trust is And our approach was as we've advised by our Chartered accountant at that time keep it as broad and that's open You know, that means in the future may not be doing all these things now But in the future if you want to get into any of these areas You should be able to do it like if you want to start a bible college You want to start a school you want to You know do different things just keep it open so that in the future you can get into those kinds of activities, right? So we had a trust The articles that were written And we registered that so I will share that with you next week but Now I just want to emphasize, you know, the importance of forming a legal entity and We just get into this, right? So it gives you credibility The fact that you are a religious trust A registered entity It gives you credibility. You know when people are giving money They would prefer to give it in the name of the organization If you say, ah, give me money. Give me all the money in my name People have got a question. Hey, how can I give money in his name, right? But when you say give it in the name of the church You write your check in the name of all people's church or in the name of Such and such ministry, then they know, okay, this money is going to go into that organization And from there it will be used Secondly, a reason you want to form a legal entity is to have separate status. You'll have bank account in the name of the organization You can enter into legal contracts like rental agreements and all of that In the name of that organization does not be in your name So Everything is happening in the name of the organization Not not in your personal name It of course provides protection That means it's keeping, you know, your personal things separate from the Organization, right? So in a way it protects the individual. It protects the directors The office bearers their personal things are protected If something goes wrong with the organization, it's not their personal things that are going to be affected It's the organization that something went wrong here. So it's a very important thing to keep the separate the liabilities are Thirdly, you can also enlist professional services So when you want a conference when you're other people to work They're working for the organization They're not working for you personally So they can handle things separately And then there's also other benefits You get tax exempt status So as a religious organization If you apply for tax exempt You know for any preferences in India, we don't have to pay taxes If we are registered as a religious trust, so they have a special provision. It's called 12 a So if you register as a 12 a organization, then you don't pay tax on the income. You do pay tax on All the services that you For example, we pay tax We collect the income tax of the individuals and we keep that to the government So that is there but on the income To on the on the contributions to your organization The government exempts you from paying tax on it And so there are other benefits And in some cases you may even have access to public and private grounds Are they say, okay, nonprofits can apply for this So if you're a nonprofit you're registered then you can apply for it and your organization can get Benefits so there are a lot of benefits here of forming a legal entity And so I would encourage, you know, as soon as you're ready to start your ministry And start your local church to form this legal entity And typically the entity can operate anywhere in the country. So although we are registered in Bangalore, india We can operate anywhere in india. So we open up churches or do ministry or do work All across the country you're given you have legal rights to operate anywhere within the country Because you are a registered religious organization And there are different kinds of organizations religious non-governmental education In our context we're talking mainly about the local church and so on Okay, so Yeah, when when do you form it, you know, as as soon as you can Once you really got your work started You know, and you understand What are the best options for what you're going to do? You have a code team because you need typically you need at least three people Uh to form so you need three of more people You have enough money for the initial expenses of course to incorporate or to register you you have to pay money to the There are fees involved whether the charter come to the lawyer and to register the entity you have to pay those So you have enough money to pay that that's not much but You should have that money You can get the help of a lawyer or a tax expert an accounting firm and you review and finalize the articles of incorporation or what is one is a trustee then you can form the legal entity All right So, um I will stop here what I will do is I will next week I will share with you the articles of incorporation or the trustee Of of a church all people search just as a sample and not saying you should copy it It's only an example and you can keep it as a reference and then When you want to form your entity for your charge to your ministry you can take some ideas from there Of course, you can get the help of somebody local to You know to to make it better to pick it relevant to the kind of ministry You wanted to So I'll say that with you we can go over it and then I will we'll pick up from here In how do you select those initial? Poor people were going to be the office bearers. They're going to be the members of the trustees the office bearers in the In in your church to minister. How do you select them and just give some practical examples of You know What not to do and what to do we will pick up from there again next week um I hope uh, you're all with me. I hope you're not finding this boring Okay But all these things are practical things that you have to do When you want to start a church or a ministry These are the practical. These are all the hard side to it You have to work through all these things. We can't avoid it If you want to be You know doing ministry in a good way without getting into trouble with the government, right? All right um Let's see now. There's a question from roslyn Why some pastors don't deposit the entire offerings in the ministry account? So roslyn that's a good question and actually The correct way to do it is all the money That That you get as that, you know a church gets as dyes and offerings Should go into the bank account Of the local church Right That's the right way And from there everybody gets you know all the staff the pastor and everybody else get a salary That's the way the organization should function So and that's the way we've been functioning from the very beginning right, that means all the money That people give in the offering Goes straight hundred percent into the church account and it's recordings right and of course these days people Do online transfer so it goes straight into the bank account Of course on Sundays, there is a cash offering And I will explain later when we come to the financial section how all of that should happen Whatever we collect as cash offering on sunday morning We have a group of people who will count it. So I'm not involved in that You know, maybe I like I said in the very first Yeah, I had to sit and count But uh, I don't do that. I've stopped doing it for you know a long time There is a group of people who will sit they will count And they will write everything in a In a in a book and that's full amount hundred percent goes into the church bank account right then So all the contribution whatever people give online everything goes straight into the bank account Then at the end of the month everybody, you know, all the people who are staff in the church they get everybody gets a salary Based on their role and based on the work they are doing and the skills they have They get a fixed salary So it functions like an organization. That's the right way to do it So if you say, you know, if we see some pastors or some people saying Give me the cash or you know, give it to my personal and that's not a that's not a right thing to do In fact You know, they're technically supposed to pay income tax on what comes into The bank account, you know, and there are a lot of complications and it's not right to do Now I hope I answered a question Okay, so we'll get into those details on how to manage the church funds correctly Okay All right, so let's pause here for today. So next week what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you ABC's trustee just they won't read the whole thing because there's many pages But I'll just quickly take you through like see this is what you should put into a trustee very important because whatever you write in the articles of incorporation is going to Almost like be a rule. It can be modified later, but that's a you have to go through a process So it's best that you get it right in the beginning Whatever you put in the trustee and the articles of incorporation it's going to regulate the activities of the ministry So it's very important that you check it very carefully and Before you register that document with the government Because the government can hold you accountable to that You know, basically you're saying this is what we're going to do This is what you know, we call it all people's church. We can call it whatever name and you register with the government You're saying this is what this organization is going to do the government will hold you accountable for that Right, so we'll go through it next week and then I'll take this Could somebody please pray and then they You Know we thank you that you're a god who accuses your god of order design Thank god you have called this You have chosen and then you're a god who uses with wisdom Jesus Right now as we are listening to the classes or how to administer a church a ministry or anything that we do But we give ourselves into your health choices. We give our life. We give our minds Fill us with your plans fill us with your vision fill us with your goals and Give us the wisdom with those who lack wisdom You can ask you The Amen thank you everyone. Um, so all again next week God bless you Have a good week. Thanks