 All right. Good morning everyone. Welcome to a new day. Let's begin this time with a word of prayer. So I request any one of us to please lead in prayer. John, if you don't mind, can you lead please? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for this time, this opportunity that you have given us to come together. Heavenly Father, we pray that as we continue to learn regarding small groups, discipleship, we pray all that you would lead us, you would speak to us, you would minister to us and help us to understand the desires of your heart and help us to live this life according to your perfect will, God. And we submit all of us into mighty hands. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. Thank you, John. So last class, we looked at chapter 17, developing the leader in you. And we looked at four important areas of leadership, meaning four important areas of growth when it comes to leadership. One was competence, confidence, compassion and collaboration. Right. So we look at different aspects in these four points. And we also looked at five levels of leadership, right? Position, permission, production, people development and personhood. Right. So we'll move on to chapter 18. And chapter 18, we're going to be talking about developing the ability to minister the word and the spirit. Now, when it comes to leadership and ministry, one very important area is the ability to develop the ability to minister the word of God in accuracy. In simplicity and also depending on the Holy Spirit. Right. So this is very important. And we talked about it, right? We talked about how we need to grow in our skills. And one important skill is the ability to minister the word. Right. So we have the word. We have a lot of content, a lot of material in the word. But how can you and I as leaders develop the ability to minister the word of God? In the right way and depend on the Holy Spirit. So we're going to look at a few aspects here. First one, ability to teach the word. Second Timothy 2 and verse 15. Study to show thyself's approved unto God a workman that needed not to be ashamed. Rightly dividing the word of truth. So what is Paul saying to Timothy? In 2 Timothy, this is his last episode to the church in Ephesus. And he's writing the last letter to Timothy. He knows he's not going to see Timothy again. And he says to Timothy, Timothy, show yourself approved to God. Right. By the works that you're doing that nobody should be ashamed of it. By rightly dividing the word of truth. What does it mean to rightly divide the word of truth? It only means to be able to interpret the word in the right way. Interpret through the leading anointing of the Holy Spirit. And minister that same word. In a way that will not bring shame. Right. So as leaders, very important. We must develop the ability to teach the word of God. And here's the interesting part. The encouraging part for us is that all of us have the same Bible. The same number of books. But it's up to us to get into it. And to understand and to learn. And in the time and season that we are living in now, we have so much of material. We have, you know, commentaries. We have expository Bibles. We have so much available online. Right. Pulling in historical facts, geographical facts, so much. Right. And so as a leader, the develop the ability to teach the word of God. Right. Divide the word of God in the right way. Right. And you would have learned more in hermeneutics. Right. How to, how do I understand scripture and context to the time, the place and the season that they are in. Second, there would be 224 and 26. And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men. Not to teach patient in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves. If God per adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. So Paul again is saying to Timothy and the servant of God must not strive, but be gentle. So even as we are ministering the word of God, yes, there are times we will be stern. The word of God also instructs us, exhausts us, corrects us. And so even as we receive, we come into that mode of, okay, God, I'm a student of the word of God. Right. We may be 20 years, 30 years, 40 years with the same Bible. And I'm sure you've heard of the saying, right? It's just a drop in the ocean. And we may know so much from the Bible, but it's still just a drop in the ocean. Why? Because the word of God is unlimited. God can take a scripture and bring out a whole new understanding. Right. So you always open your Bible. You spend time in God's Word being a student. You say, okay, God, I'm going to read. And I pray the Holy Spirit will teach and minister to me. Two is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Know how to teach someone about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Know how to pray for someone to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now as a leader, right, eventually people will come up to you and talk to you and ask you, hey, you know, I don't understand what the Holy Spirit is. I don't understand what is this about the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, gifts of the Holy Spirit. I don't understand all of this. Right. So we must understand that people are coming from different spheres, different levels of maturity. And so as a leader, we must develop the ability to teach the baptism of the Holy Spirit. How can we do that? Everything is available. Go to the Book of Acts. And you see the, you know, you see there in the Book of Acts chapter two, when there was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, what happened? They were baptized in the Holy Spirit. They began to speak in tongues. And so you can minister to them. See, this is what happens. The same people who are fearful, the disciples who are fearful are now bold and strong and they're able to minister, you know, through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Right. And know how to pray for some people, to pray for people to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, you know, it's not that, okay, I as a leader, I have received the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I know that, okay, I can speak in tongues. I know that there's all the nine gifts that are available for me to use and I can pray and ask the Holy Spirit to use them accordingly. But one ability that we must also learn is to know how to pray and pray for people to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, we must understand that we are not giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit who is giving them the gift. And all we're doing is we are leading them to that place saying, this is what the Holy Spirit can do. This is what the Holy Spirit has for you as a believer. And so it's basically like you're taking them to that place and say, okay, all you need to do is receive from the Holy Spirit now. Right. And very important here is as you do this, don't be discouraged when people don't receive the gifts of the Spirit or don't receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Don't be discouraged. Don't say, okay, maybe I'm not called for this now. Remember, the gifts are given by God. It is God who baptizes. It's not us. We are just vessels that God is using. Right. So keep doing it. I can share many, many, many, many, maybe hundreds of times that I've prayed for people. Some of them have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some of them haven't. But that should not stop us because we are not the ones who are doing it. It's the Holy Spirit. Three, ministering, healing, very important as a leader. Now, people will come up to you and say, hey, I'm going through this sickness. So as a leader, you must develop the ability to minister healing. Again, we are not the healers. God is the healer. But here are a few pointers that we can keep in mind as we are ministering healing. One, know that it is God's will to heal every sick person. Right. Every person in this world, it doesn't matter who they are. They can be believers. They can be even unbelievers. Right. They can be healed. Remember the story where Jesus is sitting with his disciples and the Canaanite woman comes and says, can you please pray for my daughter because she's possessed and even possessed. What happens? Jesus says, hey, I can't take the bread and throw it to the pigs. And she replies, but Master even, no, throw it to the dogs. I think I forget the whole thing. But she said, even the dogs eat the crumbs that has fallen off the table. Oh, Jesus said, oh, you are of great faith. So is, so go ahead and receive your healing. So Jesus didn't say, hey, you are not in covenant. Come back and be healed. Go, believe, do the offerings and come back and be healed. He did that to the Samaritan woman. He did that to the Centurion. They were all Gentiles. You don't believe in Abraham. They were not part of the covenant. But here we see that. What do we understand from that? It is God's will. So as a leader, if a person from another faith comes to you and says, this is my problem, and this is the sickness that I have. Don't, number one thing, don't tell them, you know, it's because you've opened your life to this. You've opened your life to that. The devil has come through this door and that door. No. Remember that it is God's will to heal every sick person. That may be true. That's a fact. Maybe they've opened doors to the enemy. The enemy has come and brought sickness or whatever. But that's, that's not important at that moment. He needs healing and God's will is to heal that person. Okay. So that should be established in our heart. It should be, you know, something that is strong. The person can be almost in his, his or her deathbed. Know that it is God's will to heal. Know the different ways through which God heals. Right. So God can heal through the prayer of faith. God can heal through the anointing of oil, the laying on our hands through handkerchiefs, through the Lord's table. There's so much, right? So you learn on how you can minister that, right? Different ways that God can heal. The Bible says he sent his word and healed our disease. Right. Just by the word of God. Right. So as leaders, remember, there's no set way and we thank Jesus. Thank God that Jesus did not use one set way because we'll be stuck in that one way. And then we thank God, right? We, we, we must understand that different ways where God heals. Know how God, how to teach God's word to build faith for healing. Right. So one of the most common ways to build faith is by God's word. Not just a common way, but the central way. Right. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. Now faith is a substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. If you believe in your heart and receive it, you will be healed. If you say to this mountain, go through yourself in the sea, believe in your heart. It is possible. What is impossible with God, with man is possible with God. Got all these words, right? You know how to teach people, minister to them. There'll be times you pray for people. They, they may be healed. Praise God. And when there are times they will not be healed. Teach them. Don't tell them, come back next week. Tell them, teach them what the word of God says. Help them to stand on the promises of God. You know, sometimes we don't have to, you know, we tend to spoon feed. Right. Yes, there are times that's the time is there, but there also needs to come a time when they stand on the promises of God. So that we have to teach them. Right. And then know how to minister healing to the sick. Over time, you learn how to minister healing to the sick. Okay. So if they are sick, how can I pray for them? How do I minister to them? Right. Even the right words are important when it comes to healing. Right. So for example, you're ministering to somebody who's sick. You need to speak the right words. Don't just say whatever we feel like saying because it's a very sensitive time. We need to be wise. We need to be, we need to empathize. Right. So knowing what to say as well. Then the same thing operates when we talk about deliverance. Right. Know how the devil operates. The Bible says that the enemy is like a roaring lion trying to devour. Right. The enemy comes but to kill, steal and destroy. The enemy is like a flood. He comes like a flood into our lives. Right. The enemy of foothold lest he take the entire place. So we know the devil. We know how he operates. We know, we must know that this is how, what he does. But remember, we're not focusing on what the devil is doing. We understand his operation and we counter attack through the authority of Christ. Right. We understand. Okay. This is what the devil is doing. But we counter attack. I'll stand on the authority of Christ. I'll stand on the word of God. I will put on the armor of God. I will, I know that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They are mighty in God. Then there is plenty of scriptures where we can stand against the devil. Right. Know how to minister deliverance to the oppressed and those who are possessed. Now I'm sure we know the difference between oppressed and possessed. Oppressed is being oppressed with a sickness or a weakness or a disease. It's an oppression. Possessed is something where the devil has taken complete control over your body, mind, soul. And so there's a difference there. Right. So we must understand how to minister to those who are oppressed and those who are possessed. Right. Next one, counseling. Know how to counsel people in the word of God, his will, his ways of God. Now this is a very important aspect. Right. As leaders, people will come up to us and they say, hey, this is what I'm going through in my life. What should I do? Right. Now it's very easy to say whatever we feel like saying. Right. Last week we talked, last class we talked a little bit about experience. Right. We all gain experience. Experience cannot take the place of God's word. I'm going to say that again. Experience cannot be replaced by God's word because God can work in a way that we think, okay, maybe this is how he's going to do it, but no, God can change it. He can try to work in any other way. Right. So it's very important for us, even as we counsel people, go back to the word. See what the word says. Right. See what the Bible says. So if somebody comes up to you and say, hey, I don't think, you know, just giving you a scenario. Right. So for example, somebody says, hey, I don't think I want to have children. Just an example. Right. So can you tell me as a leader what do you think about it? Now, we need to be wise. You need to know what to speak. We can't say, how can you not have children? That is their wish. Right. That's what the person feels and they may have, you know, 10 other reasons why they don't want to have kids. Now I may be in a place where I've already had kids and I'm enjoying the kids, enjoying living with children. So I can very quickly make an assumption and say, hey, no, you have to have kids because kids are the best. You know, they are wonderful. I can say all of it, but it's not going to help him. What I can do is go back to God's word. Let's go to back to God's word and say, okay, I respect your decision. But can you tell me why do you feel that way? And then we'll begin to talk to them. No, because I don't want to go through this. No, I don't want to go through the whole thing of, you know, raising up kids and now in this world that we are living in, there's so much of uncertainty. Why would I want to do that? And it's true, you know, there are a couple of months back, there are people who come and tell us, I don't want to have kids because look at the world. Look at the evil of this world. Why does it just be me and my wife are happy. We're married. We're happy together. We pray. We read a Bible and I don't want to take the chance to go back to God's word. Say what the Bible says, children are a blessing from the Lord. So it's not wrong to have children, right? But the decision is yours, right? The Bible says, you know, children will be like all of shoots, right? That means what? You can't stop in the ways of the Lord, right? So you use all these scriptures. You counsel them. You don't make the decision for them. You use God's word and counsel them, right? Now it could be with anything. Somebody may come up to you and say, hey, I want to stop working and join full-time ministry. And now this person's got a wife and two children. What do we tell them? They're asking you. God touched my life and now I want to become full-time ministry. So we need to be wise. So you say, okay, that's good. But have you heard directly from God? Has God given you the right direction? So you counsel them, right? Let them know that, you know. The Bible says that if you're not able to look after your own family, how can you look after the church? The Bible says that, you know, God put Adam and Eve in the garden and he said, you look after the garden. You tend it. So we have to look after our children. We have to look after our family. It's something, it's a responsibility that God has given us and we must do it. Then say, I'm serving God, so God will look after my children. Oh, God will protect our children. God's presence is always there with us. But God has also given us the wisdom to make the right decisions. So, like this, there would be plenty of scenarios. And we must know how to counsel people in the word. Always go back to the word. See what the word says. And then leave the decision up to them. Right? Okay. Any questions? Any thoughts? Okay. Is that a question? Okay, one minute. Okay. The phenus says, as we are talking about deliverance, I just have a question regarding casting out demons. We see Jesus asking the name of the demon in Mark. And today so many pastors make sure that they ask this question. What is the name of the demon before casting it out? And also how you came into the man and all other questions. Yeah. So when it comes to deliverance, so you're talking, the question is about a person who's possessed. I would say we don't need to ask all of those questions. We don't need to know where, what his name is. We don't need to know where he's coming from. But we want to see the result. Why? Because what will we do getting to know the name? Nothing. What can we do getting to know, you know, how many of them are there? It doesn't matter. Yes, Jesus asked it. But what was the outcome? He said, come out of that man, you unclean spirit. So our focus is, I understand that there are, you know, deliverance ministries which ask who are you, where are you coming from? I would personally say, you know, I've seen a couple of, you know, my own family members in Mumbai who are into deliverance ministry. I've seen the way they do deliverance ministry. And I totally understand, right? But the point is, what is the result? We want to see the result. We want to see the person restored, healed, and delivered from that, you know, from demons. So to answer your question, it's not really necessary. It's not really necessary. Because the Holy Spirit is going to do the work. But then there will be times when God can lead the person to ask certain questions. And if the Lord is leading, then they can do it. So especially when it comes to deliverance ministry, it's a very, very... When you talk about only deliverance ministry, it's a very, very anointed ministry. You need to always be in fasting and prayer. So most likely, you know, the people who are in deliverance ministry have a very high sensitivity to the leading of the spirit. So they know, okay, should I ask this? Should I not ask this? But when the flesh comes in, when you feel that, okay, I'm doing it just for the sake of fun. There's no reward in that. So... But for you and I, we don't really have to ask, you know, where you came from, what's your name? All we can do is say, in the name of Jesus, get out. Doesn't matter. Okay. Okay, let's get into the next chapter. Developing specific functional skills. Now, as a leader, we have to develop skills. Let's look at a few areas that we can grow in and the skills that will lead to be a successful cell group leader. Like we said, keep learning continuously. Keep, commit to relevant learning and development goals, invest in your time and effort to achieve them. Relevant learning and development goals. Learn. If you're a leader, learn from the Word of God. Get deep into God's Word. Learn, you know, even, you know, people's skills. These are some things that we must learn, right? So keep continuously learning. Have certain goals. Develop yourself in the goals, right? Now, all of this takes time, takes effort, takes, you know, takes commitment from us. But when leadership comes, we are called to do it. Because it's Proverbs 1.5. A wise man will hear and will increase learning. And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. So we look at five simple steps, right? Five simple steps to establish a cycle of continuous learning. So you've got the acronym here for first, right? So let's look at these five simple steps to establish a cycle of learning. Number one, focus on your priorities, right? Identify critical issues. Now, those priorities could be personal priorities. Those priorities could be priorities of the others. Okay, so for example, you've got a cell group. You've got 12 people. You know that somebody is going through a very difficult, critical situation. So you've got to focus your attention on them, right? You focus your type and efforts on them. Focus your priorities on critical issues. So there'll be, for example, now you've got children writing their 10-standard exams. So everyone are writing their exams coming up. So the parents may be, you know, getting anxious. Hey, children are not studying. What do we do? So as a leader, you just focus your attention. This is just a season. March, April, final exams. Once they move, once they go through the season, they move on. They go to the next season, right? So through the seasons, focus on the priorities that are in front of you. Two, implement something every day. Stretch, something, stretch your comfort zone. Implement something every day. Now here it says every day, but what you can also think of is maybe every week or every month or even every quarter, every half year, every year. You can look at it that way, right? So implement something new. Stretch from your comfort zone. If you feel that this is something that I've been doing and you see it, okay, 2023, this is what I did. We had cell groups. It was good. We were able to minister to people. We were able to, you know, grow together in the Lord, build fellowship. That's wonderful. 2024, let's try something new. Let's also, let's do what we're doing, but also stretch our comfort zone. So how do I do that? Okay, can we have, I'm just giving an example, can we have extended time of prayer? So one hour of prayer. I know that everyone can't come together. Can we do it online? No, this is coming out of your comfort zone. You know, you want to come home from work, have a nice tea, relax. Just refresh your mind. Rest. Rest is very important. And it's needed. But there'll be times when God will ask us to stretch from our comfort zone. And it's for our good. So try to implement new things when it comes to, you know, cell groups. Then not only cell groups, but also other areas of your life. Then reflect on what happens. So extract minimum learning from your experiences. And we talked about this, like last week, last class, we talked about experience. God takes us through experience so that we can learn from those experiences. God takes us through season so that we can learn from it. I believe when you look at, you know, Moses and in the book of Exodus, and you get into Joshua, Joshua was, you know, he was so confident that God is with him. Why do you think that happened? Why do you think Joshua is so confident? He says, let the sun stand still until I defeat the enemies. And God listens to him. God listens to Joshua. It makes the sun stand still and he's killing all the Amalekites and everyone. He's just, he's just gaining territory after territory, after territory, just defeating the armies as the leader of the army of the Israelites. Why did he do that? Because he saw, he saw the life of Moses. Now, Moses was not in the army. Moses was more of a ministry side. God, tell me what to do. I'll get it done. Here, it's a different story. Here's Joshua, who, his, his skill was battle. They're using of arms and weapons for battle. And he extracted maximum learning from the experiences. Can you picture Joshua standing there, in front of the Red Sea and he's saying, and he's looking at Joshua, and he's looking at Moses and he's just noticing everything Moses is doing. Moses stretches out that rod and the sea's part of the tool and they're walking on dry land. And he's, then Joshua's maybe just standing there watching. The Moses hit the rock and water is flushing from them. Do you think, you know, see the Israelites were so bent on water. They wanted to drink water that they completely missed the miracle. Do you think Joshua would have said, hold on, there's nothing in the sky. There's not a cloud. It's dry land here. Moses hit the rock and water is gushing out of it. How can it be? Do you think Joshua would have stopped and thought about that? And the same waters, you know, continuously following them. Joshua, after Joshua would have seen all these miracles and when he came into leadership, he understood, okay, no matter what I do, God can work miracles. Extract maximum from your learning. Now these learnings could be small. Learn from it. Learn from those experiences. So S, seek feedback and support. As a leader, seek feedback. Learn from others' ideas. Learn from others' perspectives. Seek support as well. See, as a leader, we can't go about doing everything on our own. We need support. You know, one of the things I always say is that as leaders, sometimes we don't have people to talk to. Because everyone look at us as a place of leadership. Oh, he's a leader. And sometimes there's no shoulder for us to cry on. Or there's no one to be with us. And so it's very important to have somebody who can support you. Just as a source of strength. And then you learn from others' ideas. Learn from their perspectives. Remember, people will be working in the corporate sector. They may have a high level of knowledge. So get them involved. Get ideas from them. Ask the leading of the Holy Spirit. And seek feedback and support. And then finally, T. Transfer learning into like next steps. That is whatever you've learned. Adapt and plan for continual learning. Learn, learn and keep learning. Adapt, strategize, plan and learn. Your willingness to be mentored will bring you wisdom and success without the mistakes and pain. So wonderful. If somebody ahead of us has gone through life and they've made many mistakes and we are mentored by them or maybe they tell us, hey, don't do this. Because when I did it, it was a big problem. So what happens is the wisdom and their understanding that they are ministering to us helps us avoid a whole deal, a whole big, you know, many mistakes and pain. Just a simple example, right? So for example, you know, a person can say, hey, you know, when you get into leadership, don't focus on money. Don't put your focus on money. Focus on the ministry. God will provide the money. Now you are young. For example, you're just 25, 26 years old. You're planning to start your own ministry. But you have somebody who's, you know, in the ministry for many years and he's saying, hey, don't focus on money. Money will come. God will give you the wisdom. God will give you success. Because when I focused on money, nothing was happening, right? Nothing. I couldn't do any ministry because my mind was focused on the money. How will I build a church? How will I build this? How will I do that? How will I support my family? But when I moved my focus from money to God and saying, God, I know that you are my provider. You are my Jehovah Jireh, my provider of trust in you. God began to work in my life. God opened those and provided for me. So as a young man, I'm telling you, trust God. Don't put your heart in money, but trust God to send the money to you. So what's happening here? Because of those words of wisdom, I avoid making simple mistakes of just thinking about money, or going through pain, right? Because I'm receiving words of wisdom, right? So be open to receiving. Be open to also giving your wisdom and sharing your wisdom and success with others. Then some specific skills that we may need. Ability to organize, coordinate. Again, these two words, organize and coordinate is more of an administrative role. So you'll need to have a combination of ministry and administrative role. So you bring them together. Regular follow-up, we talked about this. If somebody is new or even with your cell members, work with them regularly. Follow-up, check on them. Then work with your cell pastor. If you have a cell pastor, cell leader, connect with them. Let them know what you're going through. Be open, share your thoughts, ideas, and then networking with other cell leaders. So remember we talked about this, right? There may be many cell groups, maybe 15 or 20 cell groups in a church learn to work together. It's not a competition, but it's to complement each other and to understand that, hey, we are all working together to fulfill one vision, the vision of the church and to fulfill the Great Commission. Right? So let's go into the next portion. Developing people and relational skills. It's just a small chapter. I think we should be able to finish this. Let's look at it, right? People's skills. Now, our sharing, you know, I think we shared it last week. Some of us may be introverts. We don't want to talk. We just want to keep to ourselves. But remember, ministry is about people. Ministry is about people. That's what ministry is about. Ministry is not about the Sunday service and the conferences, events. No. Imagine you have an event and nobody turns up. Will you call that an event? It's not even an event. It's just that you went there, saw the place and came back. Imagine you start, you say, okay, we're going to have a conference. And nobody came. It's not going to be called a conference. Because there's no people there. Who will you minister? Who will we minister to if nobody comes? We may have all the PPT and the screens, LED screen and lunch and everything ready. Administratively. But if people don't come, all of that is gone. Because ministry is about the people. And then comes everything else. Developing a liking for people. Now, this is something that I had to do. Remember I shared, I had to develop a liking for people. Even though I don't, you know, by nature as an introvert, I don't like to talk to people, but I had to develop a liking for people. It's not like I didn't like them or I hated them. They were good people. But it's just that we need to come out of our comfort zone. Develop a liking for them. Getting rid of fear of meeting people. My God. Sometimes we have the fear of meeting people. Oh, I don't want to meet him. His English is so much better than mine. When he talks, I don't know half of what he says. Or maybe I don't know how to speak so well or how do I keep a conversation going. Get rid of all of that. Meet people, talk to people, minister to people. As a leader, we must know that we are led by God and God wants to use us to minister to people. So get rid of that fear. Proactively meet with newcomers. These are people's skills that we must grow in. And one of the things I remember what I did was in 2010 is I joined the... We had something called as first-time visitors. So we call it FTV, first-time visitors. So those are the first-time visitors at church. And after church, we had a lounge area. So those who are new to church, all of them would come there and we had a few volunteers who would sit and just talk to them, get to know them, pray with them. And so for that, we need to be very open. We need to know how to speak, be very friendly. And so I decided that I will join this team. And I joined the team. And I remember it was very hard for me because people come and initially it was very difficult. But then after that, I was able to just be open and talk to people, pray with them. And thank God for that, right? Because if I wouldn't have stepped out, I don't know if I would be in a place that I am in, right? That God would have led me this far. So as leaders, we need to be proactive. And if you are not an introvert, if you are an extrovert, it's just natural, then that's wonderful, right? Because some of them it's just so natural. They're able to, you know, just talk to people, right? So that's wonderful. If you want friends, make them. Proverbs 18-24, right? A man that had friends must show himself friendly. Very simple. As a leader, we talked about this last class as well. We need to develop the ability to have friends where people can come and talk to you and be open, but also not take that lightly, lest what you say is just taken lightly. It's good to make friends. It's good to have friends, right? It's good to spend time with them, right? You need it, right? Sometimes you feel, okay, if I have family, that's more than enough, yeah, that's good. You also need friends. You make those friends, right? Be sensitive to people. Their background, culture, and upbringing, right? And in ministry, especially, right? As a leader, be sensitive to people. Their background, what kind of upbringing they had, their culture now. You know, statistics show that, you know, almost every year we have about 10 or 15% of people coming from villages into towns and cities. Now, when they come into towns and cities, their upbringing is completely different. Their culture is completely different. They don't understand, right? They may not understand now that we have so much of gadgets and media and technology, they may not understand. So, for example, somebody joins your cell group and they say, join online, and this person says, hey, I don't have Zoom. So, we need to be careful to say, okay, this person doesn't have Zoom. So, be sensitive to them, okay? Okay, this is what Zoom is. So, this is how you log in, you show them. Being sensitive to them, right? And there could be many other things, right? I remember there was this one time long back, a friend of mine who came from a village, a very rural village, and he said, I can't stay here. Why? Because it's too much of chaos happening. He comes from a village. When he wakes up in the morning, there are chickens. There's quietness. There is peace of mind. But here, when he gets up instead of chickens, he's got lorry sounds, traffic, and all of this. And he said, no, I can't handle this. I need peace of mind, right? You know, it was very easy for me to say, get over it and move on in life. But I remember telling him, you know, what you'll get used to it as you keep doing it. And I remember very clearly telling him, I love the village life. It's so quiet and peaceful. And he was like, okay, he's just being sensitive, right? Being kind, being courteous, and wise without being compromising. Kind, courteous, and wise without being compromising. The Gospel. This is the Gospel. This is what Jesus said. This is what Jesus is. This is who he is. This is what the Word says. Now if a person comes up to you and says, I don't believe in this healing or I don't believe in rapture, be kind, be courteous, be wise, but don't be compromising. Stand on your principles, right? And then overcome personality weaknesses. Again, we all have these weaknesses in our personality, so we overcome them, right? Here's John C. Maxwell. He gives a few points here, but let's go here. What every leader should know about people. People are insecure. Give them confidence. You can do that. You can give them confidence. People feel special when you honor them. No matter who they are, what they are doing, they feel special. When you honor them, they feel special. People look for a better tomorrow, so give them hope. The hope of this world is different to the hope of the Bible. So give them the hope what the Bible talks about. Give them encouraging words. People need to be understood, so listen to them. People lack direction. Navigate with them, meaning teach them. Go to the Word. Help them navigate life. We'll have people from different spheres of influence. Students, teams, college students, young professionals, married couples, you'll have people from different spheres. You give them direction. Navigate with them. People are needy, so speak to their needs first. People get emotionally low. Encourage them. People want to succeed, so you help them when... You're helping them when... Nobody in this world wants to fail. Everybody wants to win. Everybody wants to have a good life, so you help them. People desire relationships, so you provide community. I can share a couple of examples where this young couple in our church, they built such a beautiful relationship with another young couple. They had come, I think early 22, two young couples. So I didn't go and say, we introduced them, but they got to know each other in church. They are so close to each other. One is in East Bangalore, one is now in North Bangalore. But almost every month, at least two or three times, they meet together. Apart from church, they meet together, they pray, they discuss, they spend time together. Why are they doing that? Because people desire relationships. And so as a leader, you can provide community for people. You can just introduce them, help them to build relationships. People seek models, so be an example. This is what we have to do as leaders. It's what God is calling us to do. We talked about being an example in every area of our life. Let's pursue this, that Lord will be an example following what you want us to do. And the Lord will minister. The Lord will use us to build His kingdom. Thank you so much for this session. Thank you for being here. Have a good, great weekend. We'll meet up next week. God bless.