 Hello and welcome to this lecture on BC 310 on church and ministry administration. I am pre-recording this lecture because I'm traveling this week on ministry. I'll be in another city ministering Wednesday to Saturday, so I thought I'll just pre-record at least one lecture so that we can keep things going. I hope you find this lecture okay even though it's pre-recorded. Let's pray and then we'll get started. Father we thank you for this opportunity to gather together online and learn. I thank you for those who will be watching this video lecture and I pray that the information that we share will be useful to each of us Lord that we will be able to carry out the work you've called us to do very well. The ministries you've given to us, the local churches that we care for. They will do the work well. Fill us with your wisdom and your grace in Jesus name. Amen. Alright, so today we are going to pick up in lesson number 12. If you remember last week we spent time talking about accounting and finance. Those aspects of the ministry. Now I realize some of you may have some questions on it. We will pick it up when we come back in person this week and also next week. I will be doing pre-recorded lectures. So there won't be that opportunity for interaction. But when we get back to be in person, please feel free to ask me questions on what we did last week on finance plus the things that we'll be doing this week and next week through the pre-recorded lectures. Today we'll be in lesson number 12. I want to talk a little bit about the legal aspects of church and ministry administration. Now this is also an important part of doing or carrying out a ministry. In fact, just earlier today, I was on a call with some leaders of a church in another part of our country and they actually started the ministry several years ago. And they have grown and they have many churches. They've spread across many states. And suddenly they realized that they have really not been doing the legal side of things, which is the filing of annual returns documents. It's supposed to be filing with the government. That hasn't, for whatever reason, they have not been doing it. And so this reached out to get on a call and talk about how should we do these things now? They like to get things back in order. And so we just shared some thoughts and insights and also pointed them to qualified people who will be able to help them. But the reality is that even though we are involved in Christian ministry, we are busy preaching and teaching the Word of God and ministering to people, we are still accountable legally to the civil government. And so there are different aspects in which we need to be accountable. We just can't go about doing our own things any way we wish. But we've got to follow the rules of the land, the laws of the land. And these laws are meant to keep every organization, not just churches, but every organization on track, follow certain rules. And this is the way you have to conduct yourself. And this is how you have to report back to the government. So the legal aspects are very important. Now, I would first of all begin just by outlining the fact that when we have a legal entity, whether it's a church or a Christian ministry, the trustees or the members of the trust, which we mentioned it in the very beginning, you need to form a legal entity. Now, from time to time, you may, these members of the trustees may change, which means that people may resign and new people may come on board, which is normal for any legal entity. There will be these times of transition. But this has to be done legally. That means this has to be documented and reported back to the government saying, these people have stepped down. These are the new trustees or the new members of this legal entity. So that, that is not just an arbitrary change. Just be understand among ourselves and say, okay, you become a trustee, you become a member and we don't do that. You know, it has to be done legally. It's a legal process to change the trustees and the members of the trust. So we need to be mindful of it. Do all the necessary paperwork, register that with the government, if there's a change or when there's a change of the legal trustees or the members of the trust. Another important thing is to record the meetings and major decisions that are made. This again is a requirement. Now, obviously, the, the government is not going to come and check these things every month. But if and when, you know, they ask for such record, records of meetings by the trustees and decisions being made, we should be able to supply it, so provide it. So it's important to record these things after meetings, the decisions in a very formal way, maybe in a document in a book or in a document or something that, you know, a meeting took place. This was the decisions made and you have the trustee sign it off, sign off on it and you record it so that if and when that is asked for, we may be able to submit it. And also just for the benefit of the organization itself, that important meetings and decisions are recorded so that in the future, you know, other people are leading the organization, other people are responsible for the organization. They have a reference point to go back and understand why certain decisions were made or, you know, how they were made except or when they were made so on so forth. So it's important to record important meetings and decisions. Sometimes people may just record it in a logbook and write it down or they may type it out, have signed people, have people sign it and pilot. Whatever way these the decisions made by the trustees and members should be recorded and kept on fire. So these are two important things just remember from a legal standpoint. Another important thing to keep in mind is that the government in most places will be done and requires every entity every legal entity which includes the religious organizations churches and Christian ministries ministries to make certain filings, meaning reports filed with their with their respective offices. So for instance, we have filings of our audited statements we have filings to obtain certain permissions that need to be done, you know, to get that really tax exemption. So there's certain documents have to be filed. And I mentioned in the accounting that when we deduct tax and has to be paid back to the government and so on so forth. So whatever is needed, the filings and the compliance, they have to be maintained. Of course, as a pastor you are not yourself are not going to do this personally but you are going to get the help of a chartered accountant you're going to help get the help of the right people to report these things periodically. So at ABC we have our, as we mentioned, our accountant in house we have an external accountant, we have the auditing fund, they take care of all of these filings they make sure that you know month on month. These documents or this this information is filed with the government so that everything is kept up to date. So we never slack on a fall fall short of any of these things so everything is kept up to date year on year and whatever we need to report to the government reports are done. Another important thing is that when property is purchased which generally would happen in a typical church setting as a church grows the church will want to buy land and build a building things like that. Always remember, all property must be purchased in the name of the church, it doesn't belong to any individual belongs to the local church because it is bought with the money that has been contributed to the local church that has to be very careful. You're never, you're never going to buy property in the name of an individual that's that's that's not allowed. And so everything has to be done clean. You know what belongs to the church remains with the church. Another important another aspect of the legal side is that from, you know, they can be sometimes. People who may, you know, file complaints against the church or against the ministry. And sometimes it happens in the form of, you know, people just objecting to our preaching of the gospel. To our winning of lost souls. They may find complaints and so on. And these things happen in different parts of our country. And so this is where we have to appeal in the court or appeal in the police station initially and later on in the court and need to get lawyers involved. And this happens. So in India, we have some organizations that help those who are being persecuted in this manner. And so they are a network ADF India. And for instance, and even persecution relief, they have a network of lawyers. And so we can reach out to them and they will guide us, they will tell us, okay, this is what you need to do in this situation. And we have used their help in times past, you know, when one of our churches on multiple occasions actually people came to disrupt the service, they came to interrupt the service. And, you know, we were just having a regular church service and one of one of our, you know, church locations not in India. And they came and disrupted. And so we had to go to the police and became a big, big thing, but we reached out to, you know, the lawyers, they told us exactly what to do, how to be, you know, write the report, how do we file the report, what are we supposed to do, the legal process that we had to follow, and so on. So it's important that even at such times we do have access to lawyers, to people who know the law and how we have to follow the law, what we're supposed to do in order to defend ourselves when it comes to these kinds of situations. So it's important to, you know, have these things in ready, it's not that these things happen every day, but as and when, and if these kinds of things happen, we should have access to people who can guide us and provide us the right information legally on how to handle matters of the police station or in the courts, and so on. So that's a little brief about the legal side. I know that we generally don't want to get involved with these things, but the fact is that we are operating in the world and we need to make sure of these things and need to be accountable. So we're going to move now to another aspect of church and ministry administration, and it's something we will encounter more frequently, which is planning, execution and coordination. So in the church or in the ministry, there are a lot of things that are happening, a lot of ministries that are happening, a lot of events and conferences and projects that could be happening. So these things don't just happen arbitrarily, you know, you don't just get up and say, okay, I'm going to start a ministry or oh, we're going to have an event or we're going to do this project, you know, for many of these ministries to take place, we need what you know we need good planning, good execution, good coordination. So I'm just going to talk a little bit about this whole aspect. Now, as a pastor, you know, or as a leader of the Christian ministry, there may be times you will be directly involved in a lot of these things. It's part of, you know, leading a ministry leading a church. Now, it'll be great if we can reach a point in time where this can actually be delegated to someone else as I hate. You know, you oversee the term, the administration, you oversee the planning, the execution, the coordination of all the areas of ministries and conferences and events and so on. But even then, you need to oversee, they will, they will refer back to you for important decisions or for guidance on what to do in certain situations. So, it's almost, you know, almost given that whether you are a pastor or the leader of a Christian ministry, to some degree, you will have to be involved in the planning, execution, coordination of the various ministries and the various projects and the conferences and events that are happening. It'll require that skill. And in fact, we need to have really good skill in this area. Now, when you look at planning, from a biblical perspective, there are two sides to this. One side, where we see in Matthew chapter six verse 25 to 34, Jesus says, you know, don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about what you're going to eat and drink and bear. Now, don't worry about life, because you have any father knows you have need of these things, which is don't worry, have faith. As a milling James chapter four verses 13 to 17 James says, you know, come on now you just can't say that you'll go to this such and such a city and do such and such a business and make such and such a living know, you need to say if the Lord wills this and this will happen. In other words, he's emphasizing the fact that we need we are completely dependent on God, and we ourselves are not determinants of the entire outcome, depending on God. And these are true. You know, we don't need to be worried about tomorrow, we don't need to be concerned about tomorrow, and we are truly dependent on God for tomorrow for the future. Having said that the Bible also teaches us on the other side, for example, in probably six six three eleven. God says, you know, go look at the end. Go learn a lesson from the end. The end doesn't have a leader. Yet it knows how to gather its food in summer to prepare for the winter. That means the end is so called planning well in advance is looking ahead and gathering in summer, what it needs for the winter for when times when it cannot gather. The Bible teaches us to ponder the path of our feet to think thoroughly the path in which we're going. So that is also there. And our God is a God of plan, right to God himself planned ahead of time, what he's going to do and how he's going to unfold. So God saw through time and he decided when in the fullness of time he would send his son and so on. So there are two sides to it. One is we're not living in a state of worry or anxiety about tomorrow. We are not, you know, thinking that we've got everything in our hands about tomorrow. No, we completely depend on God. And yet on the other hand, we do have four sides. We live with prudence. We try to think ahead. We try to plan ahead without being worried about tomorrow or without thinking that we are in control of everything. No, so we need to balance it to and learn how to do our planning, everything well and still learn to walk by faith, trust, independence on God. Think about what the Bible says here. And all of these are from the book of Proverbs. Proverbs says that a prudent man acts with knowledge. That means he gets information and then he takes action. A prudent man understands his way. That means he's thinking about the way in which he's going. And he's not just going blindly and he's not just saying I'll go wherever life takes me. A prudent man considers well his steps. He's thinking about every step he's taking. You know, yes, there may be some risks involved. There may be uncertainty. There may be things that are not very clear, but to the best he can is considering well his steps. A prudent man receives correction. That means that people tell him, hey, watch out for this or don't do this. He's willing, he's discussing, he's thinking. A prudent man acquires knowledge. A prudent man foresees evil. I mean, he's looking ahead and preempting danger, preempting things that could go wrong. He's foreseeing evil and is taking action ahead of them. So all of these things are indicative to us that we use our mind, we think, we plan, we receive information, receive correction, receive guidance, and we are planning or looking ahead about things and how we live life. So we're not just blindly going through life, but we're thinking, we are planning. And so we take these truths and apply them to ministry, apply them to church, apply them to how we go about doing things in church and ministry. So that's why this whole aspect of planning, project planning comes in, execution, coordination, these things come into play that we are doing things with understanding, we're doing things, we're acting with knowledge. So, generally, when you think about executing a project, now for that matter, if you're planning an event, a conference, let's say a plan, a next year planning to have a conference. Usually every year we have multiple, many conferences. So we always plan, we fix the dates well ahead of time, we fix on the team, and then we start working towards it. So it's like a small project or a certain area of ministry that itself is like, can be managed like a project. So what, how do we go about doing a typical project or managing a typical project? So, these are, this is all general information, which I think we can learn from, and we can make use in our churches and ministries in how we run our projects. There are five stages, if you're for a project or we call it the project lifecycle. There's the initiating stage, planning, executing, monitoring and closing. And there are certain tasks or activities that are done in each of these stages of the project. We'll talk about this. Typically, when you are initiating, you want to understand what the project is, what are the goals, what are the objectives of the project. You want to get an overview or in a high level understanding of what this project is all about. Why are you doing it? Secondly, and then we start planning, it's okay. What are the resources that I need? What are the times, the money, the kind of people we need? And how is it going to be done? What are the activities that will be taking place? So, you are planning things out. You're thinking through the whole process of cutting this project out. Then comes obviously the execution. That means, okay, now let's jump in. Let's start working on things. And the execution of the project begins to happen. You're actually cutting off the work to get the project done. And while the execution is happening, you're monitoring. That means you're measuring and controlling. Okay, you're checking on, you know, the time, the resources being used, the people being allocated, the tasks that are being completed, the progress that's being made. So you're measuring all of these. And if anything is out of line, you need to bring it back in line or put things back in control. So, while the execution is happening, you're also monitoring, you're looking at how things work. And then finally, when the objectives have been met, the project is complete, you want to bring it to a close, which usually will review everything. How did we do? Did we achieve our objectives? What did we do well? What did we not do well? What can we improve the next time around? And so you can assess the whole project and bring it to a close. So what are things that will ensure that the project is successful? So whether you're planning, carrying out a particular area of ministry or conference or a special mission trip, whatever. What are key success factors? Now, some important things are, we need to have a clearly defined objective. Now, what are we trying to achieve? The objective. We need to have a practical timeline. Now, how, when, by when should this get done? Does it need to be done in six months, six years? What is the timeline? We need good leadership, people who can lead others, lead the project and give oversight to bringing everything together and making sure things happen. We need a good team or some cases, multiple teams, people with the right skills, people who are committed to the project. Now, we need good management. That means there's going to be constant review feedback and improvements. That's the role of a manager checking constantly and, you know, giving feedback, improving things, having to be able to overcome problems so that there may be internal problems, there may be external problems. We need to be able to resolve these. And, of course, we need to finish, we need to go through the finish line, make sure we complete what we started to complete. Right. So all of these are factors that determine whether we would be successful in something. Now, I'd usually like to pause and ask, you know, do you have any questions and I can't do that because this is being pre-recorded. But, you know, if you have any thoughts or questions, we will definitely pick it up in two weeks from now when we meet in person. Right. So just write down your questions in a book somewhere. And then please bring it up when we meet in person. So when we initiate the project, like, you know, we kind of drill into the details of this when we are initiating the project, key things are, we just have a plan, which is the objectives, general idea of how quickly we need to get it done. There's a money that's allocated for this or what money will be available, the kinds of people that we can bring on board. And we need to look into the whether we can have a project manager or a team leader to lead this project so that that person can acquire, find good resources together or overcome any challenges toward leadership. Negotiate, you know, engage in conflict resolution, persuading people, establish credibility. So these are qualities that, you know, that we would need in a project manager or team leader. They need to be sensitive. She's a good leadership style that matches our culture and the people we are leading, good ethics, and obviously the ability to handle stress because the biggest stress, the most stress is on the leader of the project manager, the person in charge. He's got to handle, have the ability to handle stress. Then we also think about the project team, what are the skills we need for the people so that things can get done on the required project timeline. So these are the kind of things we think about, we talk about, we try to identify the initiating stage. And then getting into the planning is when, okay, we know we want to get it done in two years or whatever that timeline is. Now let's break it down. So you break it down into smaller tasks. So that's where you come up with a project schedule. Now that you can get into the details, we can have a better cost estimation of each step along the way, so that we can monitor and say that we are on track, we're not overspending. What are the activities that are going to be involved? Who's going to be doing them, the resource allocation? And then the, how are we going to assess if there's a risk and how do we mitigate it? So these are things we think about ahead of time and work on as we plan something. Plan the project, whether it's ministry or a conference or an event if you're planning for an actual project we're planning to carry on. Then while we're executing the project, there's a lot of interaction. How is the team going to interact? How are people going to communicate with each other? We can use email, we can use messaging on phones, we can use in-person meetings, so on and so forth. So we need to think about that and make sure those communications happen. How do we keep our team motivated? How do we keep the people motivated? People tend to lose interest, lose passion, slack off, and so on. How do we keep them motivated? That's another important part of the project. Regular review meetings so that you can monitor the progress. So maybe it could be weekly meetings, it could be monthly meetings, but you're reviewing how things are going as we planned and so on. If there are problems, we need to resolve those problems while the project is being executed. There's a lot of purchasing that could happen. We need to purchase equipment, purchase different things and so on. And then also reporting has to be done. We must keep the leadership, keep the right people informed of the progress and they may even ask if they want to know how are things happening. So these are things we need to consider during the execution phase. During our monitoring, during our execution, we are also monitoring. We're also looking at how things are progressing and some of the things we need is measuring and controlling. So this is example, money, time, people, these are things we're looking at. Are we overspending? Are we spending more time than previously anticipated? And if any of these things like, you know, going out of what was planned, how do we bring it back? How do we keep things aligned to as close to as possible to our plan? Expanding scope, what if the project is becoming bigger than you thought it was? Or there are additional things people are saying we should be doing which, you know, was not anticipated or budgeted for or planned for. How do we control that? Should we say yes? Should we say no? What do we say yes to? What do we say no to? These are things that we need to think about. And obviously, are the costs increasing? If costs are going beyond what was budgeted, how do we control those costs? How do you monitor people? Are people giving their best? Are people working well? Are people cared for? Are they all happy? So on and so forth. What's the quality of the work that's being done? And are things on schedule? So these are things that we do when you're monitoring the progress of the project or the ministry or the preparation for a conference. And lastly, the last thing I also want to mention today is that when you're done with the project or the event, it's good to always assess, review what's happening. Look at the actual versus estimate. So we had estimated a budgeted this, but what is the actual? And then you try to take some lessons out of this whole experience. So you review and you take in insights for the future. So this is also very, very important. So we do this for every major event or conference. We'll review. So what went right? What went wrong? We look at the expense. And this is what we estimated. This is what was the actual, are we okay? What can we learn from this whole experience? And how can we make sure we don't make the same mistakes again? And how can we pre-empt certain mistakes? So this closing phase is also very important so that we can keep improving as we do these projects or ministries or conferences and so on. So it's important to think about these things. Right. So I'm going to pause here for today. We pick this up next week. Next week I'm going to talk about project management methodologies. These are just ideas on how you can run projects and different base to run it. And again, I'm not saying that in church or ministry you'll do these things very tightly, but it's good to know these things so that you can use them if you feel these are appropriate. So we'll talk about that next week and share some thoughts on it. Now, what I want us to do is think about, you know, maybe think about how you can apply these for the work you're doing. Now, so for example, we've listed out some exercises, you know, if you, and these are just sample projects and these things that we have actually done are in some ways, and not necessarily exactly, but some way. But these are some things that you could think about or maybe you think about a work that you're already doing. You know, so for example, suppose we have a project where we say in the next year. The worship team has released an album with at least eight songs. We need to have we need to write about 16 songs and then produce about eight songs. So you have about 12 months and you have about 3 million repeat study lacks. You know, assigned for this project, how would you go about planning it. And this is a typical thing which our worship leader and worship team had to work with typical example. Or think about, if you have to host a conference, you have one year to prepare and plan to host Christian arts conference, we're going to bring in artists from different parts of the world. How would you go about planning for this and actually doing it. Or if you were going to run a two month short term Bible college, you know, with all of these, you know, these are the objectives, how would you do it or, you know, you want to run it so set up and run a resource center, a host of Christian leaders conference a lot long just to Bible college student portal. Now these are all real projects and so I want you to just think about, you know, if you if you apply these five things, the initial phase planning phase execution monitoring and closing, you would apply these five phases to each to any one of these as a project. How would you go about, you know, what would it look like at least in your mind, work through it or on a piece of paper, write it out. Yeah, think through it. And these are all Christian, these are all real ministry related things and in fact, all of these we have done as a church and that's why I put these as samples here. Yeah, except for this resource center that's not been set up yet, but that's something looking into the future. So, you know, you could use some of these projects as samples to think about or maybe something that you're already doing. And I want you to think about this whole how would you apply these this this project lifecycle this project management lifecycle or these five steps how would you break this whole project down into these five steps. What would it look like. It's useful if you write it down or you think, think through it mentally. So, if you can, in the next lecture, we won't have a lecture, but I encourage you to use that time, or you can do it any other time to think on one of more of these sample projects or maybe a project that you have already happening in your church ministry and think about how you would apply these five steps that the or five stages that we spoke of to that particular project right. So just think about it. It's not an assignment you need to submit it just for you to apply what we spoke about in terms of project management and planning for a project and definitely in ministry. This whole thing of planning execution coordination is something that we need to be able to do so that we can run the ministries or areas ministries very well. Okay, so let's pause you for today. I will be praying closer and I know this is a prerecorded lecture so you know we don't have the opportunity to ask questions and interact but hopefully I will be able to do that in two weeks from now. Okay, let's pray and close father we thank you for the learning that could happen today through this lecture. I pray for everyone will listen to this lecture. I pray that they will be encouraged to think about how to plan and execute and coordinate their areas of ministries and things that they do even better with excellence so that you can serve you well and serve people. We thank you for your wisdom given to us by your Holy Spirit in Jesus name. Thank you so much each one and we will next week. I'll have to do the same thing I'll be again traveling so I'll do a prerecorded lecture next week. Thank you. Have a good day.