 Good morning. Good morning, Divya. Alright. Divya, let's begin this class. Good morning, Master. Yeah, it's okay. We'll begin. We'll just say a word of prayer and we'll begin the class. Sure. Father, we thank you Lord for this time. We thank you for the word. We thank you Lord for your presence in our lives even as we get together and study from your word. We pray your praise, your mercies, your anointing, and pray Lord that you will give us the wisdom to understand your word of God and apply it in our lives. Thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright. So last week we studied chapter 10, Planning and Execution. And this week we will, chapter 11, it talks about profitability and corporate finance. Now what I thought was we just go to chapter 12, which is like strategic partnership. And towards the end of the semester, if we find time, we'll come back to chapter 11 and just go over that. But I want to look at chapter 12 and chapter 13, which talks about leadership. So we'll try and spend more time on these chapters. So let's move to chapter 12, Strategic Partnerships. Right now, when you hear the word partnerships, when you talk about partnership, it's always, we always think of two parties coming together in alignment, where there's agreement in alignment. Now, when you think of there are partnerships, maybe there's match, or there was misunderstanding on people even before the partnership was made. But if you look at a positive, strategic partnership is a great way to leverage strengths of two different companies or two different organizations. Now, this organization may have a certain kind of an objective, and the other organization may have a different kind of objective. But getting them together can definitely leverage expertise, leverage in strategic partnerships, how to, it could be property, technology, anything that we are seeing right now. But the Bible teaches us and gives us insights on partnership. There are things that we must be aware of. Now, when you look at it in ministry, it's wonderful that we all have one main goal, one main vision that is to bring people to Christ, build God's kingdom here on Earth. But each ministry has, again, a different vision. And so when we as ministry leaders or pastors, when we want to partner with other ministries, it's very important that we think about what we're doing and why we're doing it. Plan, prayerfully decide on how you want to do it. Now, it's not wrong to partner with other ministries. It's good. More can get done. But you don't want to step into something and then later realize, hey, I made a mistake. And so being wise, so this chapter, we'll talk about some of the insights, some of the things that we must understand before you get into a partnership. First one, we talked about this little, a little bit in the previous chapter, an ox and a donkey cannot plow together. Remember the ox and the donkey, the horse and, I forget which is the other one, the horse and the donkey syndrome. But here it's an ox and a donkey which cannot plow together. Now, look at this, Deuteronomy 22 and 10. Don't plow with an ox and a donkey yoke together. Why? Because now they both are different animals. To do different things. Now, an ox is built to do the plowing to, it's a strong animal. It can carry a yoke and it's fast, it's strong. It is agile, it is quick, it knows how to do the work. Now, if you look at the donkey, a donkey is normally used to carry things on it or to travel, I've talked about during those days. It was used to maybe travel to short distances or carrying goods on it. It is not used to, it's not meant to do hard work on the fields. It's not as strong as an ox. Now, what happens if you put an ox and a donkey together, yoke together. The ox is going to keep saying, hey, come on donkey, let's go. The donkey is saying, hey, I can't, I can't. It's too much. So what's happening? The ox is so much stronger and powerful and it will be able to carry the weight and the donkey is only going to become a liability. Why? Because there's no compatibility between them. They don't match. The ox and the donkey do not match. The donkey is meant to do something and the ox is meant to do something else. If you're trying to plow them in the same field, the only thing that's going to happen is the ox is going to make the donkey angry and the donkey is going to get upset with the ox because there's no compatibility. Now, what is it that we can understand from this? When you and I are getting into partnerships, look at where you stand as an organization or ministry and see whether this is going to be compatible. Are you both in line with what you want to do? Are you able to fulfill the commitments of the employees? Partnerships are never one-sided. I remember a long time back, I think it was 2014. It could be wrong, but I'm guessing it's 2014. We had the Power to Change campaign, which is a global campaign all across. They went to different countries in different months. I think they did the campaign here in our nation for about two months. It was a wonderful campaign. It was a wonderful partnership that we had. I remember we were just working with a team of Power to Change. They were so open to our ideas. They were so open to how we would... We also asked them, as you will make Power to Change those books, we will also put some of our books and we will post it out. They said, yeah, that's a good idea. They gave us addresses of people and we had some addresses. Together we worked it out. It was a strong company. They were able to do a lot. We were also in a place where we were able to post our books and reach out to people. We had ministry teams during that time to call and pray for people who had needs. It was a wonderful partnership, but it was a strategic partnership. A partnership is too... It's not like the person who is getting into the partnership is the main and the other person is not. Both of them put their hands to the plug. Now, especially in ministry, when you are planning to get into a partnership, always think twice, read through, prayerfully do it. The reason I'm saying especially in ministry is because there's lots in stake. More than the money or more than what people may think it is about, is God glorified in this? Is God the goal of the ministry of this partnership to build God's kingdom or to just increase us as a ministry? So all these things must be very well thought of, planned out before taking the step. Secondly, know whom you're dealing with, dig deeper and get all the facts. Proverbs 27 and verse 6, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Now, when we are entering into a strategic partnership, learn more about the company. Now, in an age that we are in, mostly if you want to know about something, you can just go to Google or probably organizations have their websites. So for example, if there's a ministry and they want to partner with another ministry for maybe six or seven months, dig deep. So this other ministry says, hey, we want to partner with you for six months, join together and maybe six months a year. We can reach out to the youth in our city as two different ministries, join together and reach out to the youth. Now, it's a wonderful idea. It's a call for unity. It's a call for God's people coming together. Wonderful. Now, what we must also do is dig deeper. So what would I do in this case? What I would do is I would just go up on the website one. Firstly, of course, I will talk to the leader and I will say, just plan out everything. Even as they talk, we'll get to know what's the idea, what's the big strategy or what is the main intention of them wanting to partner. Then you feel free to ask questions, ask them how we'll go about these problems. We basically do a whole SWOT analysis and see what are the pros and cons of this partnership. Put it down on paper or maybe you can discuss it. Two is I can also, what I would also do is go to the website, read about their ministry, read about their, what are their beliefs, when did they start, what is their vision. Now, it's not about they should be a thousand people only then I will partner with them. It's not about the strength, but it's about what is their vision? What is their mission? So a church is not about the strength. It's not like we have 5,000 people in a church. The church is wonderful. It's a great church. It's not about that. You can have 500 people and do much more than what 5,000 people can do. So it is about the values, about what is their culture, about the way they treat their employees, the way they, their beliefs. That is very important, especially in ministry beliefs. Now imagine, there's a ministry, they don't believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They believe in everything else. Just an example, not against them. But just, you know, what if there's, they don't believe that the gifts are still prevalent. And now what if, you know, there's this other church that's flowing in the gifts of the Spirit. They have all the gifts flowing. There's healings, miracles, prophecies, everything. Now they're partnering together. What is going to happen? It's going to be the donkey and the ox syndrome. Or sorry, the ox, yeah, the ox and the donkey syndrome. It will be like, God can bring healing. The anointing is there. When the other people say, hey, no, no, let's just look at the word. Let's read the word. And then there's this whole confusion. So it's good to know who you're dealing with. This is just an example, right? So when you take it in the corporate sector, make sure you know who you're dealing with, right? Be prudent. Think, carefully consider. See the level of commitment that they are willing to put in, right? It's not like, okay, we are in partnership and just leave it there. But see the level of commitment. Are you willing to commit to this much? All these other things that you must be willing to commit to, are they willing to do that? Next one, evaluate work approach before saying I do. Proverbs 1, 10 through 15. My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, come with us. Let us lie in wait to shed blood. Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow them alive like sheol and whole, like those who go down to the pit. We shall find all kinds of precious possessions. We shall fill our houses with spoil, casting your Lord among us. Let us all have one purse. My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your foot from their path. So basically, we're talking about how you go about accomplish something that is important. Now, just because I want to accomplish something, how about accomplishing it? It's not like I can use devious means to accomplish it. It's not enough to be profitable or to be successful in the industry, but how we get there is important. Now, we can use a hundred devious methods, bribing, money laundering. We can do all of that and get to our profits, reach our targets. We can say, hey, I reached my targets. But the truth is, we have reached the target by wrong means. So work approach before getting into a partnership. See, now initially, you may not know all of this. You may not know how they work and how they are, what kind of work they do. But what you can do is test their work approach. You can check with them. So if this has to be done, how will we do it? And when the way they speak, the way they come up with solutions, we will get to know what's the hard attitude. Now, if there are differences that are radical between two ministries or two organizations, refuse such partnerships. The mistake we make in ministry is we say, hey, no, we can do more together. We can achieve more together. And there are a lot of times, you know, ministries have gotten to problems. Why? Two, three ministries got together. They had a big whole evangelistic meeting. I think it's happened the early 2011 or 1011 it happened. There's a couple of ministries here that happened in our nation in India. These couple of ministries came together and they did this whole youth revival kind of concert and they called people from different places. Now, what happened was at the end of this whole, you know, this whole event, probably it was a two or a three day event, but over the end of this whole two, three day event, pastors began to say, hey, contacts, right, pastors want new contacts so they can invite people at churches. But the organizers started delaying that. So no, no, we have to check this. You have to check that. And eventually the other pastors were not given many numbers. They've probably given very few numbers who they had to call and talk to. And the outcome of this whole thing, the pastors, you know, these are, you know, some urban, some rural pastors, the pastors hardly got any people to connect with, hardly got any people to follow up with. And everything just remained the same. And, you know, it was, it was, it was not that people were not blessed, but then they felt that they were cheated. They felt that, you know, hey, as a ministry, they said they will help us. But the problem is it was not on paper. It was all by understanding word of mouth. That's the problem with ministry. We take too many things by word of mouth. Yes, we love each other. We honor each other. But always do things on paper, right? Evaluate your work. By doing it the right way. And nowadays we have, you know, you can record calls. You can email. Email is the easiest way. So some of the things we do at EPC is whenever we have a verbal discussion, we just go back and send an email. Hey, you know, this is what we have discussed. This is what we plan to do. These are the things that we have discussed. These are the things that we need. And thank you so much for just an email. So now we know, okay, it's on email. Do we trust the other person? Yes, we do trust the person. Right now the other person can be forgetful. They may change their mind. One day they are angry. One day they are happy. Things may change. The email will not change. There. Right? So it's always good to evaluate. Next one. Check alignment of culture and values in mergers and acquisitions. Mark 3, 24 and 25. If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. Song of Solomon's 215. Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines. For our vines have tender grief. Now it's the same thing. Two mergers of two organizations happen. Now it's like two families living under one roof. And it's making two homes become one. Now these mergers, I'm not talking about partnership. Partnership is different. Working together for a couple, maybe for a year or two years, whatever. You go back doing your home thing. But mergers are when two companies become one. And we see this a lot in the corporate sector. Two companies, another company will buy the shares of the other organization. And then the name is the same. But they both become one. There must be alignment of culture and value. Otherwise it will be a mismatched merger. What will happen? How will the United States stand? I'll just give you an example. It's come to my mind. I was reading this many, many, many years ago. And this is a motor company. And the motor company is an Indian company. They used to make these motorcycles. Which was mainly for middle-class employees of our nation. So they used to make these motorbikes. But over time, I think it was the early 1990s. What happened was, this is an article I read quite some time back. I just remembered it. During the early 1990s, this company Hilo was not making any profits. They wanted to come up with these motorbikes that can help the working-class professionals and the daily wage workers and make it in a way that they can also afford a motorbike for their travel. But they were doing well, but they could not make a profit. They were going under a loss. And the whole management, the directors, the board of directors said, we need to come up with some new ideas. The nation of India is growing and growing. So there will be need of motorbikes. The only thing is we are not able to reach the right target. We are not able to execute and plan well. Or something is missing. So then they approached this Japanese company called Honda. And then somehow there was a merger. It came to be known as Hilo Honda. Now what happened after that was there was a boom because Honda came in and being a Japanese company, they bought in their technology, bought in their ideas and inputs. And it was a merger that the company just exploded. And now it's huge in our nation, which are in other nations as well. Now the alignment, values and cultures were set right. Both countries knew they wanted to be people who can help the regular working class professionals. So the values, the culture was the same. The point of this organization is that I can help working class people to get a motorbike and to ride and everyone can afford it. It shouldn't be very highly priced so that even the middle class people, and that's what the whole, even the Japanese wanted. And so it just came together and it worked out. Not always that works out. But when the culture and value is aligned and a merger is done, it can do great wonders. The flip side, if a merger is done and the culture and value is completely different, a company can go to scramble as well. It can just become ashes. So we need to, again, be wise. Agreement is important. Put everything in writing. Amos 33, can two walk together unless they are agreed. This is so important. Agreement is important. You must have it in writing. They may be the greatest prophet or the greatest apostle ever known to man. And they say, hey, I want to partner with you. You put it in writing. Because the greatest prophet or the greatest apostle ever known to man can change his mind the next day. So always put things in writing. Whatever it is. Especially when there is a strategy, there's a partnership, when you know that two organizations or two ministries are getting together, put it in writing. Now, when we do that, we arrive at a place of understanding. There's mutual understanding. Hey, the partnership was decided to be for one year, March 2023 to March 2024. So it's on writing. Now, if you have spoken to the person, say, hey, March 2024, I'll go ahead and go back and do my own business. So I need my shares. Say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can take your shares back. March 2024, right, one year. Now imagine this person is maybe their best friend or maybe they're both the best Christians ever. But imagine March 2024, the other person says, hey, you can't leave because, you know, you still have to commit to what you have said. You haven't, you know, the shares or whatever we are doing, it hasn't reached our targets. The other person say, but you said 2024, I can leave. You didn't tell me about any shares and reaching targets and all of that. I did my best for one year. I partnered with you. Now I want to go. So if you leave, that's good. Then, you know, I can take you to the court. What's happening? A simple, good understanding between two friends not put into writing has caused this problem. So if you had it in writing, March 2024, regardless of our, whether we can reach our targets or not, I can be released from this partnership and I can go back to what I was doing. If you have it in writing, that is nothing. Even if the person says, no, you can't. You can say, hey, I have it in writing. So I'll take you to court. You can take me to court because I have everything in writing. Agreement is important. Something that we do and we always, always do at APC years, we have things in writing. Right? Not only internally, but also outside. So sometimes we hire places for our church services. We tell them, it is a church. You will have singing. You will have, after singing for 45 minutes, you will have a preaching of God's word. Two, we are not enticing people. We're not going to tell people you have to come. They're coming out of their own free will. Three, when they come, there will be people who are coming from other faiths. It's not like we are forcing them to come. They are willing to come. Four, we will meet Sunday. This is the timings. This morning, 8 to 10. 30 is our timings. And these are the number of bikes. Approximately, this is the number of bikes. Approximately, this is the number of cars. This may sound not required, but it is required. You take a place and you start church. And after two years, you have some 15 cars coming. Where will you park the cars? Now the owner will say, hey, you didn't tell me there were going to be 15 cars. Oh, I didn't know about it. No, you've got to think. It's all about thinking proactively, thinking ahead. So what if my church becomes 200 people? Then I'll have 60 to 70 cars. Where will I park? Where will I park? So I need to put it on the agreement. I will have about 50 to 70 cars parking with about 30 bike parking. So this is the space that I would need. All that is important. There will be times when lunch will be served. During those times, we would make sure we will clear the place, clean the place. These are simple things, but you're putting everything, every small detail in writing so that later on nobody can, you know, even if people come against and say, hey, this is what we have it all documented, put everything on a contract. Now, everything, we put it on a contract. And then that way, you know that it's well documented, government authorized and everything should be fine. But you know that you're doing things well. Next one, build business partnerships steadily. Proverbs 2517 and when you find a friend, don't outwear your welcome. Show up at all hours and he'll soon get fed up. Partnerships are like marriages. They take time to build. There are patches, rough patches that are good patches. They come with certain pros and cons. The other company may come with certain pros and cons. There will be unexpected challenges, matters to be dealt with. We need to work steadily, cautiously and patiently. We need to be patient. So if you can, you know, look at it at ministry, the ministry side. If you're joining another, you know, two ministries and partnering for maybe five years. Now, we need to understand, we need to be patient with them. We may be a big church been there for 20 years and the other church partnering with us maybe is five years with just maybe 100 people in their church. Now, they need time to learn, adapt and make changes. We need to understand each other just because we are there for 20 years and we know everything what church has grown and we know that A, B, C, D, these are the things that need to be done during any event or doesn't mean we overpower them. Doesn't mean we say we have all the, we know we've done it before so you just do what we say. No, it's a partnership, right, where you can also make suggestions, ideas and value the partnership. If the partnership is not valid, they may say, hey, you just made us like servants, we have to do everything that you say. Our inputs are not people are there, our thoughts and contributions are not valued in this organization what will happen will eventually break. There should be a sense of mutual understanding, adaptability and that comes over time. So give people a chance. Give them a chance to work together hear from them hear their thoughts, hear their ideas and again together make decisions. This calls for humility especially when it's a big organization and a smaller organization coming together whether the corporate or ministry it calls for humility so that's something that we must again do. Get all on board on board to work the partnership. Can any one of us read this? Genesis 13 1 through 7 Genesis 13 chapter 13 verse 1 through 7 anyone can read. Genesis chapter 13 verse 1 to 7 So Abraham went up from Egypt to the Nagir with his wife and everything he had and Lord went with him. Abraham had become very wealthy in livestock and then gold and silver. From the Nagir he went from place to place until he came to Bethel to the place between Bethel and A where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abraham called on the name of the Lord. Now Lord who was moving about with Abraham also had flocks and herds and tents but the land could not support them while they stayed together it was so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abraham's herdsmen and the herdsmen of wealth. The canonites and the parasites were also living in the land at the time. Look at this. This is a thank you Japhina. So we see here Abraham probably had hundreds of servants, cattle lamb, God had made him rich God had blessed him out of being nothing and he fulfilled his promise and he was materially very rich and now there was lot Lord also was rich materially he had lots he had animals, servants, everything and they all were going together from place to place and the servants of Abraham and the servants of Lord started fighting. Both Abraham and his nephew Lord began on this amazing journey together both were excited both were eager to reach their destination both were very strong, both were successful yet there were problems between their employees the employees the servants couldn't get along right so what does it teach us? You know later on we see that in that chapter they go their separate ways so you see that picture Abraham is nephew Lord God has blessed both of them they have hundreds of servants Abraham has hundreds of servants Lord has hundreds of servants but Abraham and the Lord they fight with each other but their servants are fighting your sheep are always coming this side your servant told this they fight the arguments between them the employees but Abraham and Lord were fighting with each other they don't know they have hundreds of servants so they are doing all the work just spending time in God's presence and they have no problem with each other but the employees were fighting the servants now what does it teach us? it teaches us that who are in the organization who are involved in that partnership the employees are there they must be also get them all involved in the sense imagine you go to this happened a long time back but I will share this and then I will share this example imagine you got an organization you got maybe 40 people in your organization you got a small office space and then you do this partnership and then the other company comes up with 20 employees now you as an organization as an employee you know that you have to be in office at 9 a.m the other company the employees say hey I got 11 a.m but I will work 8 hours so you got here one set of people come at 9 a.m begin their work that time and then you got the other organization and those employees are coming to the same floor or the same office space they are coming at 11 a.m what is going to happen? say hey you are supposed to be here at 9 a.m work starts at 9 a.m I will come at 11 a.m I will stay up late what is going to happen is understanding that how the wise thing to do is get all of them together this is what this organization follows this is what this organization we follow now we need to come up with a solution for this so get the employees involved what do you think is good should we move the timing to 10 a.m so it is not for you 10 a.m everyone here work from 10 a.m so then when the work is when the partnership has begun we have people from two organizations there is an understanding already there put on paper and they know they have to be there this happened many years back there was an organization it was called America online and later on there was another company called Netscape they came in and there was a merger so we had in the same floor we had people from this merger company smaller company called Netscape they would come and they began to work in our office now the problem was in this other company the America online company people were very hard working they would not take breaks they would just make calls and these incoming calls would be so much that they would just spend hours they would work really hard out of 7 hours or 8 hours of work it was 9 hours altogether so 8 hours of work, 1 hour break they would work really hard but the other organization which was merger they would have calls coming to them so they would come and they would sit they would take breaks they would be chatting with each other and here we are taking calls one after the other back to back calls and we are hitting our targets but even they are getting because we are hitting our targets they are also being profitable but they are not doing anything they are not getting any incoming calls hardly anything they would get 10 calls in a day that would be like 5 minutes each call that's like 1 hour work the rest of the time they just with their headset on just doing nothing it became a big problem in the organization I remember the managers of the team they said how can this happen you can't have our staff working 8 hours taken back to back hundreds of calls in a day and you got this it became a problem they had to bring all the employees the employees said no we are not going to work we are not going to log in today and it became a big problem big problem I remember like for 2 days we just came to office but we said we are not taking calls because this is not right it was more like a fight against there should be equality so it was all started off by 2 leaders but the employees there there was misunderstanding so get everyone involved if you have a team get them all involved now if it's a small business small ministry we can do it easily but we need to plan out if it's a big big organization or a big ministry how will you get everyone involved so plan it out well next one let go when you have to Genesis 13, 8 and 9 then Abraham said to the Lord we are relatives your men and my men shouldn't be calling so let's separate choose any part of the land you want you go one way and I will go the other way not all strategic partnerships will succeed that's a fact but when they don't just let go in good terms go your separate ways and it's better to do that than to be together on the ship and the entire ship sinks go your separate ways bless each other pray for each other or just say hey all the best for your organization we tried this it didn't work so maybe we'll try it after a couple of years and see what it is but it is better to let go than to hold on to something and just be on the waters unsure of the future unsure of productivity it's better to let go of partnerships resolve disputes peacefully if possible Proverbs 25, 8 through 10 don't go hastily to code for what will you do in the end when your neighbor has put you to shame debate your case with your neighbor and not disclose the secret to another lest he who hears it expose your shame and your reputation is ruined so basically in partnerships strategic partnerships disputes may occur when disputes occur try to resolve it within the organization even in ministry try to resolve it within each other try to resolve it as much as you can and enclose those the word says don't take them to court let's say later we'll be put to shame later we'll be put to shame so think about it even when you feel that there's something that's going wrong try to sit together and on a table just talk it out try to solve a solution that's the best way to do it but if things don't work out and you feel that it has to go up then you may have to do it but then again be wise on how you do it so that's very important right so we come to a close on this chapter next this coming week on Wednesday what we'll do is we'll talk about a very very important chapter which is chapter 13 on leadership the aspects and attributes and characters and things that we need to have as leaders and how do we as leaders develop this attitude of leadership and then pass it on to the next generation a very important topic so this we'll start with chapter 13 just an important note I've put on the midterm semester so feel free to just start working on it you can just write it on a word document and post the answers up on the classroom itself on the class work tab for the e-learning students I'll put up the midterm assessment sometimes this week so you can also begin to do that alright any questions today's lesson any questions any thoughts alright let's close in prayer maybe one of us can close close Isaac would you like to close in prayer Isaac or go ahead Father God we want to thank you for this moment we want to magnify your name we want to glorify your name for bringing us together to take the lesson and to learn how to live our life in the workplace we want to thank you for our pastor and our colleagues in the school we ask that you continue to grant us wisdom so that we can absorb as much as possible what we are learning and then you give us the light so that we can be a background of hope to others who share the life with others we want to thank you for everything that you have been in our school in our families we ask that you continue to bless and guide us as you go through the course these are all other masses we ask in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Amen Amen thank you Isaac thank you everyone have a great day ahead I will see you on Wednesday God Bless