 Morning, Pastor. Morning, Thomas, Dave, Kiran. Hope you all had a good weekend. Aaron, Kannan, Neelam, welcome everyone. So let's pray. Yeah, let's pray and start. No problem, Dave. I was just asking everybody, how was the weekend? I was just wanting to know if you started meeting in person there in Kathmandu, or are the services still online? No, sir. We are still in luck. I mean, a kind of lockdown. We are not allowed to gather still. So we are still on our services are still online. Online, OK. All right. OK, let's pray. Now we get started. Kiran, can you please pray and then we will start. Yes, sir. Father, God, we just come before you. One second, Father, God, thank you for everything. Father, God, place once again each of everyone. Father, God, give you wisdom and knowledge and understanding. Father, God, to the subject. Father, God, that we can serve our Jerusalem and all places. Father, God, Father, God, give revelation more. Father, God, thank you, Father, God, for everything. Upcoming time, I'm just submitting to your hand. Father, God, you just take care of everything. Thank you. Almighty Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. OK. All right, good morning, everyone, once again. Welcome. We are continuing our learning about urban church learning and we're just sharing with you some of the practical things that we went through or learned along the way, mainly in the work that's being done in Bangalore. Of course, some of the things we learned by observation. We learned from watching other churches, other ministries doing work. Or we can also learn through reading some of the material that's put out from the experiences of people. But a lot of things you learn as you just keep doing or do the things that God's called you to do. So our goal here in this course is just to share a lot of this so that you can take it and use it, you know, whichever city or whichever place God has put you in or where you may go and start a church or where you may go and start some sort of a Christian ministry. Doesn't always have to be a local church. It could be something else, a specialized type of Christian ministry. So I'm just going to go ahead and share the PDF. We are still in the second section where we are talking about the practical side of urban church planting or urban ministry. And we started talking about strategies that is just developing methods or means by which we would reach people in our cities or in our local context. Maybe you may be in a town, a small town. You may be in a medium sized city. You may be in a very big city. So we have to develop strategies depending on where we are doing the work. We just laid a little biblical foundation. We went through a few scriptures to look at how we would order some of the things to keep in mind as we go about. Let me just, yeah, as we go about developing strategies, we said things like we don't want to intentionally offend people. We want to make sure that the ministry is not blamed in any way. And one more thing that I just wanted to address here is the issue of civil rights, civil law. And we've run into this in many cities, many parts of the world. That means how do we relate to what if there is a law that says in this city you're not supposed to preach the gospel, right? Or, yeah, let's say you go into a country or you go into a city that says we forbid preaching the gospel. Well, how do we approach those things? I just want to mention a little bit then. And then we will talk about strategies. Let's go to Acts chapter 4, verses 18 to 20. Somebody could read that for us. Acts 4, 18 to 20. Somebody could read that. Acts chapter 4, 18 to 20. Maybe Siddharth, you could read it. Yes. Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. Thank you. So here's just one example. And you'll find this throughout the book of Acts where there was opposition. And in this case, they were the religious leaders who said, don't preach and teach in the name of Jesus. So there was some sort of threatening and all of that. Now, how did Peter and John respond? They said, look, we have to obey God more than we obey man. God has told us to go preach the gospel. And people may have their own rules and don't preach and don't do this and do that. So Jesus has commissioned us to go preach. So we will preach even if we are told not to. Nobody can stop us from raising our voice or using means and methods to proclaim Jesus. However, what we must be careful is, don't do it on property or on time. Or let me put it like this. We do it in a way that without violating time and space, property and time, that does not belong to us. For example, if you're in your home, of course, in your home, you can talk about Jesus. And if somebody comes into your home, you can share about Jesus. It's your space. You are there. And nobody can dictate your conversation with people. And of course, in your own room. But if there is a law in the land that says, you're not supposed to preach or you must not supposed to give out hand bills or you're not allowed to give out tracks in public areas, which is basically government property or in public spaces. OK, follow that rule. So you don't go there in a public space or go into a mall or go into a space where they said, you're not supposed to do it. OK, you follow that rule. But that doesn't prevent us from inviting people to our home or inviting people to a common space where we can have a conversation or those kind of things. You can still preach the gospel. But the point I want to get across is nobody is going to stop us from preaching the gospel. We can still do it. Just don't do it in the spaces that they said that the law of the land forbids us from doing it or in the manner in which they forbid us. Like if they say, don't give out tracks, OK, fine. We won't give out tracks. But there are other ways to proclaim the gospel. There are other ways that we can share Jesus or other spaces where we can share the gospel. So we have to expect full of those kinds of things. But in our personal spaces, we always have the freedom to share the gospel. So keep that in mind. And then also, the other thing is we don't want to hurt these sentiments of other people or other religions. We are respectful of people. So don't say things and do things that provoke other religions or people of other beliefs. We do it in a loving way. We do it in a very positive way that this is the gospel. But don't do it in a way that's hurtful to other people. So these are some guidelines, biblical guidelines we keep in mind as we start to develop strategies. Just to recap very quickly, from 1 Corinthians 9, we said that we want to be relevant to people. We want to step into their worlds. We saw what Paul did. From 1 Corinthians 10, we said we don't intentionally offend people. We want to do things in a way that draws them. From 2 Corinthians 6, we said we don't want to do things in a way that would bring any blame to the ministry. And from Acts 4, 18 to 20, we said that, OK, if there are restrictions, OK, follow those restrictions. But we don't stop preaching the gospel in spaces and in ways that we can do it without violating what the law of the land requires and without hurting the sentiments of other people. It's with that frame, but with that idea, what we want to do is one of the ways that we go about developing strategies is to, there are several ways we can do it. One is to look at age groups. So you can look at different age groups, primarily looking at, so we're looking at the demography of the city. We're looking at different age groups. And we're saying, what are the needs of different age groups? And then let's tailor or develop strategies to reach people in different age groups. Another way we can develop strategies is by looking at areas of need. Looking at areas of need. So this is where you would also take into account different cultural cultures in the city, because different cultures will have different needs. That's one way of looking at it. And of course, there are needs that are common to people across cultures. So you try to identify, what are the needs in the city and what are the needs that God wants us to address and how should we go about addressing them. That's another way to develop strategy. And we'll share with you some examples in these areas. Our third way to develop strategy is to look at the different spheres of activity. So this is more of, what are people in the city doing? Where are they spending most of their time? So obviously, working people will spend most of their time at their workplaces. But what are the main activities that are happening in the city? Maybe in terms of industry, in terms of the different spheres. We will talk about that. So you can tailor strategies that are reaching people in the spheres of activity. That is where they spend most of their time during the week in their workplaces. And so these strategies can reach people where they are. Another way to develop strategies is to use tools that are available. Of course, these tools will change over time. The tools that we have available to us today may not have been there 20 years ago, 30 years ago. So we have the advantage of making use of these tools as we are reaching people. So there are four different, at least broadly speaking, there are four different ways in which we can develop strategies to reach people in urban contexts. And point number five is simply the whole most important way is to equip believers to engage in evangelism. While we can develop strategies, and these are important, as a local church, what we must do is we must equip our people so that they can evangelize. They can reach out to others as part of their own everyday life. So we just call it lifestyle evangelism so that whenever they get a chance, they can minister to people, pray with people, and evangelize. And that's most important because ultimately it's God's people, believers who are going to evangelize, who are going to share the gospel with others. And so we equip them, they will be able to do a better work in evangelism. So what I want to do is just share some of the practical things that we can do, which we have been doing here in Bangalore, at APC, and just to give you idea, just to give you look, this is how we can do it. Now, while I'm sharing these things, we are all mindful that we just can't necessarily do the same things everywhere else. That's not the point in sharing these strategies. The main point is to say that, hey, here's an example. This is how you can think. This is how God may lead you to develop strategies. But what you have to do is your develop strategies that are relevant to your place, right? Rebit city you are in, which place you are in. What are the needs there? How are people engaged there, right? So whatever I said, I'm not expecting you to replicate exactly in your cities. That's not the point. The point is just to give you an idea. And then you pray. And you see how God would want you to do it in your city. What the strategies God would lead you to use in your area. OK, let me pause here and see if there are any questions before I go forward. Is everyone with me so far? OK, any questions so far? I am just looking at the chat to see that everyone's fine. OK, so let's go forward here and maybe I'll pause a little later for any additional questions. All right, so let's go back to the PDF. And let's, OK, so when you talk about age groups, of course, we'll say there are children, there are youth, there are young adults, there are middle-aged people, and then there are also what we refer to as elderly people. So you can think of people in their different age groups. And then say, OK, what are their needs? And how can we minister to them? How can we reach them? What are some opportunities that we could use? So for children, so basically we're talking about children schools. How do we reach them? What would be the best way? Now, of course, in the church, we have our children's church. That is for children who are already coming to the church. So right from the time you start a local church, you plant a church, you should think about starting what we call as a children's church, or a Sunday school, or a kids' church. People use different terms. That's fine. But it's important that as you start, as you plant the local church, you're also having something as part of the church that is catering to children. And this is, most often, it would be children of parents who are already attending your congregation or coming to the church plant. So you've started a church. Some families have started coming, and they have children. And to serve those children, you have children's church, or kids' church, or Sunday school, whatever you call it. So that is fine. So that is one important thing, so that you continue to give to them. But what about children out there in the city who don't come to church, or whose parents don't come to church, or who may not be coming to children's church on Sundays? How can you reach them? How can you serve them? So we're talking about children below 18 years. And what is commonly said, or referred to as the 10-14 window, that is, children in the ages of 10 to 14 are, let me put it like this. If we can impact children in that age range, between 10 to 14, that is the most impactful time to share the gospel and to lead them to the faith, which will stay with them for the long term. So you might see these studies available online that when, and I'm not saying God will never touch people in other age ranges, that's not what we are saying, but just these studies have been put out that if we are able to reach children in this age group, 10 to 14, they have a higher percentage of staying in the faith through their young adult years and later on in life, they have a higher percentage. So it's commonly referred to as the 10-14 window because of the study and the data that's there. But of course we're not saying that that's the only time people are going to come to Christ, people come to Christ at any age, at any point. But our thing is the question we're trying to address is how do we reach people, these children outside? So some of the questions we need to ask ourselves is what are some of the challenges children face? So depending on where we are working, the children that we have in the city where we are working or in the area where we are working, we should ask the question, what are some of the challenges these children are facing? And what strategies can we develop to reach these children in urban centers? Maybe you're looking at the city at large or you're looking at a particular area in the city. So these are simple questions that we need to ask and the Lord will give us ideas and the Lord will give us opportunities to reach people for our children. So for example, if you're looking at in the city, there are slums, especially if you're talking about in developing countries, just like we have here in India, in our cities, there are many, many areas where there are slums, people are very poor. And so there are children here and these children have a certain set of challenges. So that is one way we can think about it. How can I serve these children? How can I help these children and the parents of these children? That's one way to look at it and say, and God will give you strategies. Maybe you can provide them food and clothing or you can also provide them free school lessons or in attrition classes or get them to go to a school nearby and then give them tuition. Most of these children may not have proper food, so at least one good meal a day or two good meals a day that you provide. There are so many ways that you could address the challenges they are facing. And through that, expose them to the love of God. Expose them to the goodness of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that's one way to think of strategies that can serve these people. And so we're not only giving physical food, but we're also being able to shape their future and their faith and minister to them. What happened to us at the APC is, which year was this? I think this was in 2008. I'm sorry, my year remembrance of these years may not be exact, so I just have to qualify for that every time. But I think it was 2008. We were serving here in Bangalore and, of course, as a church, we had our children's church. We were doing those kinds of things. But I think it was in that year when I received a call from Dr. Pinto, who was the head of the Ryan International schools and also the Xavier Group of schools. So they have many schools across India. I think it's more than 100 schools or something like that. And they're based in Mumbai, but they had a school here in Bangalore. And they have, I think, two or three schools here in Bangalore. And he was here at the time in the school that they had in Yalanka. So I received a call, and he said, come and meet me. So I went. And then so that time he asked, he said, is there something APC can do to teach scripture to the children and also do something for the teachers? Now, at that time, this was 2008, APC did have, we did have our Sunday School ministry going on, the Children's Church ministry going on. But we didn't have, I wouldn't call it a very strong children's ministry or anything. But when he asked me, I just felt in my heart, hey, this is a door, God is opening. And right there sitting in conversation with him, I said, sure, we'll take it up. I'll come back to you with a plan. We will do it. But basically, I had nothing in front of me. It was just like a white sheet of paper saying, come and do scripture for all our students in school. And there was no person that I could think of or there was no nothing. But I just said, OK, God is opening a door. We're going to go through it. So it happened in kind of an unexpected way because it wasn't something we planned or we were strategizing. But the moment the door opened, we recognized the opportunity. And we said, we're going to do it. So I said, OK, so what are we going to do? We need somebody who's going to go to the school and who is going to teach scripture to the children. They would give us time as part of the regular weekly class schedule. Somebody has to go and teach scripture. So we looked around. I mean, we just I don't think we even did any advertising. Right at that time, somebody said, hey, there is this person who has been doing some kind of ministry like that. And this was Pastor Selena, Macquana. And it was OK. We asked to send a resume. Yeah, she graduated out of seminary. And she was already working with children. So she already had that background. And it was a good fit. So actually, I was really amazed how a door was opened and a person was also sent to us. It was literally God was setting the whole thing up. So I spoke to Selena. I said, Selena, look, this is the opportunity. But here's the vision. This is opportunity to one school. But if we can do it in one school, we can do it in many more schools. So the mission here is for you to design a curriculum that we can teach scripture to all children from, I think, it was like grade 2 to grade 12. Just teach all of them. So you need to design a curriculum where we can do it to that. Get a team of people, whether it's volunteers or paid people, paid staff who can be a part of this. And then you start in this one school, but then replicate it in as many schools as possible in Bangalore. That's the goal. So when we started, we started with this vision that God has opened us a door of opportunity in one school. But it is very simple that if you can do it in one school, you can do it in many schools. So let's build for that. Let's plan for that. And so we just started. So with Selena, then we announced in church. We got a group of volunteers. We got, I don't know. We did have a different points in time, paid staff also. So we had some volunteers, some paid staff, along with Selena, who would, Monday to Friday, they would be busy in the schools going and teaching scripture. And so from one school, we contacted other schools in Bangalore. We told them we gave it a name. We called it Catalyst. And we had it right up about what it is and what we're going to do. And so we approached many other schools. And several other schools opened up. And so it started growing. And I forget again which year this was. But at one point, Catalyst grew to where we were speaking. Our teams. We had a team of people. We were speaking to 20,000 students every week. Our team was speaking 20,000 students every week. And I think this was across six or seven schools, something like that. My numbers may be a little off. But I know that it grew to this extent. And can you imagine, every week, we had the opportunity to speak to 20,000 students and teaching scripture. So we had a curriculum. We would take them through Bible stories from the Bible and show them what it means. And of course, through all of that, we bring the gospel. We share Jesus with them. And then at some point, we also decided to change. And this was done on the request of the school from grades 8 to 12 as value education. So they wanted something different. They wanted it to be called as value education. But the principle was the same. That is, we are bringing the Word of God to teach them good values from that perspective. And of course, using the Word of God, we teach them values. It would help build a character and prepare them for life. And so now, of course, there were some restrictions. We couldn't distribute. We're not allowed to distribute Bibles because these are all children. They're coming to school. So we didn't do all of that. It was just scripture classes of value education. But from scripture, from the Bible, if children wanted Bibles, then they would have to get a written permission from their parents. And if they got permission, then we would give them Bibles if they wanted it. So we did that. And there were some students who wanted, so we could provide it for them with permission. So it was a very nice program. And many students were impacted. Now, of course, these students are not going to come to church because of the age, they all belong to 18, and they depend on their parents. But while they're journey through school, they are exposed to scripture. They're exposed to stories of the Bible. They're exposed to the gospel. They are exposed to the teachings, the values of the scripture. And so it was a wonderful ministry. And that went on till 2018, I think. It was just one year. 2018, I think, is when we put a pause on it. Because, of course, we had a lot of people working, and then we had people moving on. So in 2018, we put a pause. And we said, OK, we will take a break for one year and then continue on the next academic year. Then there was the whole pandemic, and we couldn't get it going. So I think one year before the pandemic started, we also put a pause on the Candlest program. So I think, in effect, we ran it for 10 years. And for 10 years, every academic year, these things would be done for students. So it was a wonderful way to reach students, children, who were outside the regular kids' church service. And so now when things resume, we will definitely pick up this program and take it back to the schools and begin to serve the students and bring the word of God to students. So I just wanted to share that example because one way in which we can reach children outside the church, and I know of other organizations who are doing the earlier idea that I shared about children in the slums. So they are actually serving children in the slums with these kinds of approach of caring for them, providing for them tuition, education, and then exposing them to the scriptures. So let me pause you and see if anybody has any questions or any comments. You are following with me so far any questions? So that's one way. I'm sharing this with you, is that you can think about, perhaps, in your city, in your area, maybe something like this could be done. Maybe once after this whole lockdown restrictions are removed and some point in the near future when students are able to get back to school and those kinds of things, maybe you could explore in schools nearby, in schools where you are, that you could think about reaching children through teaching scripture. You could go to our church website and I think some of this curriculum might be available in our church website under the ministries where you look at catalysts or children's church, different resources available, you could use it and you can think about reaching children in your area, in your region. And it may be teaching scripture or it may be doing something else, maybe providing some sort of vocational skill or some sort of seminar, whatever, you could begin to reach people. So then similarly, when you think about the youth and you're thinking about, okay, let me just add one more thought here as far as children are concerned or maybe that would be in different needs. I'll talk about that under the area of needs. Let's talk about youth right now. So we're talking about people who have gone out of school or in college and who are getting into their first job. So they've transitioned out of school, they're in college and right after that around 21 to 25, depending on whether they're going to do their masters or just the bachelors, they would then transition into their first job in the workplace. So again, we ask these similar questions. How would we describe urban youth? And of course, this would be, you have to look at it in your context, in your urban area, in your center. How would you describe them? What are they going through? And so you talk about things like what are their aspirations? Because now they've come to a place where they're going to think about their life, their future, what they want to do. They're on that stage. So you ask yourself, what are their aspirations? What are they afraid of? What are their apprehensions? What are things that are probably holding them back or majority of them? And so what can we do? What strategies can we develop to reach youth in urban centers? So we're asking questions that would help us develop strategies for people in this age group, 18 to 25, the youth in the city. So take a look at the youth around you, around where you are, and ask these questions. What are some of the challenges? Some of these may be similar from city to city. And some of them may be very unique to the city that you're living in, or maybe something very peculiar to the youth that you are surrounded with, their challenges, their apprehensions, and so on. So there are studies, things that are online that have been put out about different generations. This is depending on the generation in which they were, the decade in which they were born. They refer to them as Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z. And for them, there's a lot of studies that are put out on, OK, these are the challenges they would face when they come into the workplace. These are their characteristics or traits. So those are generalizations, of course, but it's good to know some information about the generations that are born, the people who are born in these different generations. What are some of their characteristics? So the point I want to get across is that it's good to take some time to understand the youth that surround you, that you are going to reach out to, to see what their needs are, and how do we go about reaching them, right? And then from there, we can begin to come up with various strategies on how to reach them, right? Maybe it's seminars, coffee day kinds of events. And I will talk more about these perhaps tomorrow and in what we did, right, at DPC when we tried to reach young people, you know, how we could go about thinking about them and reaching them, OK? I will share some practical things in the class tomorrow, but take some time to think about the youth and what are their needs, what are their challenges, and what strategies you can use to reach them in your city or in your area, OK? So let me pause on that for now. I'll get into some practical things that we did here and in Bangalore. Of course, a lot of these things are on hold for the last one and a half years. A few of these things have been moved, rather I shouldn't say a few, but one of these things have been moved online, one or two of these things. But most of these things are on hold. But I can talk about what we did prior to the pandemic and then we will have to develop a plan on, OK, how do we get back to things post the pandemic, you know, in the near future. OK, so I'm going to pause here for today. I hope this was useful. Any questions, any thoughts? OK. All right, so tomorrow now we'll just continue this and we'll talk about some strategies for the youth, things that we have been doing here in Bangalore and, you know, in a similar way that you can think about the place where you are, what you can do, and you could start preparing for the post pandemic phase. That means, OK, you know, at this moment, there are limitations. Yes, you cannot go out freely and, you know, reach people. But hopefully in the near future, when things open up, you know, we should be ready to get out there and start reaching people and do some things to evangelize. OK. So let's close in prayer. There are no questions. I'll just ask maybe Thomas to pray with us and close and dismiss us, please. Sure, Pastor. Father in Jesus' name, we thank you for this wonderful time of learning, Father. We thank you for your mercy and Grace, Daddy, as we're learning about the church ministry, Father, about the children and youths. How can we reach to the people? Those who cannot come to the church, Father, thank you for the understanding, Father. Help us to apply in our ministries and see the fruit in Jesus' name, Father. We thank you for this. We thank you for everyone. We thank you for Pastor Anshish. We bless you, Daddy. We bless you. We give you glory. We give you honor in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Ma'am, thank you, everyone. In the rest of your day, we'll meet up again tomorrow. God bless. Bye now. Thank you, Pastor.