 Right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to a new week. Right. Let's begin this time with a word of prayer. Any one of us can please lead in prayer? Rupa, if you're there, can you lead in prayer, please? Anyone else? Go ahead, please. Let's start the session. Father, in the name of Jesus, Lord, we thank you for this church this morning. We thank you for your grace and mercy upon us, Lord. We thank you for this class as we are going to this class. Help us to receive, understand, and make it adapt in our lives, Lord. We thank you for everything, Lord. Let your Holy Spirit help us to receive. We thank you and we praise you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. All right. So last week, let me just present the notes. We had a good discussion last week. We talked about a lot of questions that came up. We did chapter seven. Your cell is your ministry team. So we talked about how we are to build each other up, disciple one another, you know, follow up with newcomers. And there's so much that we can do, right? Be strategic, seed projects, outreaches, and also as cell group and cell group leaders, we must involve in the Sunday services at the church. Then we also looked at pitfalls to avoid. Now, every ministry that is small and being built, we will make mistakes, right? The important thing is when we make mistakes, we have to learn from that mistakes, right? Now, sometimes we make mistakes and we learn from it. Sometimes at times there are leaders or seniors who share with us, right? So these are the mistakes I've made. And so, you know, these are things that you can avoid. And so we learn, right? It's not like, you know, we won't make mistakes at all. There will be mistakes. But you know, it's good to know in advance, you know, what are certain things that can cause us to fall and that way we can be aware and more careful. So we looked at avoiding shortcuts, avoid competitiveness, avoid careless appointing of leaders, right? So if you're in the cell group looking to raise up leaders, be wise, right? Just because somebody is talented, right? Maybe in music or in talking doesn't mean that person, you know, can become the leader. Of course they can, but you be careful, be wise while appointing leaderships. Don't compromise on that aspect, right? Then we looked at, you know, making the cell group more, you know, discussion related, keeping it open for questions so it doesn't become a mini-church service. Now watch out for people with personal agendas, right? We talked about that as well. People will come with all kinds of doctrines. Now they may be good at heart. They may be true believers and they really love the Lord, right? But somewhere the doctrine may differ from what we believe in, right? Now we don't hate the person, nor do we hate the doctrine. But the thing is, we must take care as leaders, we must take care of our cell groups, right? So it's not like we're telling the person, you know, this is wrong, this is wrong, wrong. So you can say, you know, this is something at APC that we do and so this is our beliefs and so this is how we will continue our cell group, right? So because there will be times when people will come with personal agendas, you know, we may have visiting speakers. Now one thing at APC is we don't encourage much of visiting speakers because we want our own believers, our own church folks to, you know, take on leadership, minister to one another, grow in maturity, right? And then there are independent ministries who can come and, you know, you know, disrupt, I would say, you know, disrupt a meeting. So sometimes people will come from different countries or different cities. They come here to Bangalore, this is an example, right? They want to start a ministry. So they start off, they start coming to a cell group and then from the cell group, you know, they sometimes, you know, look at it as an option to take people away and, you know, just bringing them out and, you know, making them join their ministry. So we see that that becomes a personal agenda. So be very careful. Now these are situations which you have to deal with, right? You can't say, no, you know, it's okay. Anyway, it's only two people know you as a shepherd. Remember, you're pastoring the 12 people as a shepherd. You must make the decision, right? So if you look at it practically, a shepherd, if he knows his sheep is in harm or they're going the wrong way, the shepherd is going to bring them back and protect the sheep, right? So that's what we must do. Then we looked at personal prophecies. Now at ABC, we do leave it open for everyone to begin to flow in the gifts of the Spirit. But very important, the Bible says, test every prophecy. Test whether it's in line with the Word of God, whether it's in line with your calling or your gifting. And very importantly, a prophecy must always lift us up, build us up, cheer us up. And some of the things that we avoid in ABC is no correction, no dates. No giving, okay, this is the month, this is the date. And no, you know, there are a lot of them who are looking for proposals or marriages. No saying, okay, this is the one which God has for you. So we don't do all that. We let people make their own decisions. But if there is a word, a prophetic word, very wisely, just share that word, right? Now there will be times, I've shared that, you know, as leaders, there will be people who are in ministry for many years or they know the Lord for many years and they may join your life group or cell group, right? So don't forfeit your leadership. Don't be intimidated by the people who come, right? If God has appointed you as a leader, now we talk about this, right? You may not know everything. We may not know everything from the Bible. Maybe the person who's attending the life group knows much more than what we as leaders know, but it's all right. Because this is what God has opened for you and God wants you to learn. God wants you and I to learn. And if I forfeit it, I'm basically saying, God, you know, he's better than me, so let him do it rather than me. So I'm not giving an opportunity for the Lord to train me up and for my growth itself, right? It'll be like I'm stagnant. So don't forfeit. There will be people with different spiritual maturity, but we just continue to serve, okay? So let's go on from where we stopped. Let's look at cell administration. And now every ministry or every church, every business will involve administration, right? Administration means it's not the spiritual side, but it's more of getting things done. And I'm sure all of us know what administration is. Now the Bible teaches that there is a gift of administration, right? So it is a gift from God. If you are more inclined towards being in the administrative side, it's a gift from God. It's not like only those who are teaching and preaching, it's a gift. Administration also is a gift from God. And we see that the Lord Jesus had the administrative skills, right? Now when He chose the 12 disciples, He didn't choose them and say, Okay, wherever I go, you come with me. No. He made sure, okay, you know, let's go here. We'll go to Judea. We'll stay there for three days. Then we go into Samaria. Samaria will rest there for a day. Then we move on. I'm sure, right? There was so much that He would have taken into consideration, right? It's not like Jesus said, okay, in the night, let's travel. It's more wise to travel in the day. He knows that we need places that we have to stop to get food. He knew that the disciples needed rest. They had to go back to their families and be with their families also for a while. So in the Bible, we see a lot of administrative work. Even if you look at the example of Nehemiah, what a powerful example, right? All he was doing was, you know, he was a cup bearer in the Persian king's temple, right? In the palace. And God gave him the favor and he used administrative skills to build that entire wall and the gates of Jerusalem. So he said, okay, let's divide this wall into 10 portions. Each portion will have a leader. And under that leader, they will have, you know, people working in that portion of the wall. And so that way, these 10 portions will have 10 leaders and these 10 leaders will report to me saying, what is the update of the wall, right? So it's very important to look at administration also, right? Now each cell leader can report directly to an associate cell pastor. So if you look at it, we have a cell pastor. From a cell pastor, you can have associate cell pastors and then you have cell groups. Now, if your ministry is small, you can just have a cell pastor with maybe if there are 10 cell groups, cell pastor, 10 cell groups report to the cell pastor. Now, once we become a bigger church, right? Maybe 1000, 1500, 2000 people, you know that, you know, you're going to start many more life groups. You may have 100 cell groups in the church. Now, how will 100 cell groups report to one cell pastor? It's going to be very difficult. So what you can do is, you know, okay, so 100 cell groups. So we'll divide it. Okay, 30 cell groups will appoint a leader. So associate cell pastor, look at these 30 cell groups. And another associate pastor will look at the other 30. And then another cell group associate pastor will look at 40. So that way the work is divided, right? And then the cell pastor and the associate pastors are essential to facilitate the dynamics and growth and pastor relationships through their interaction with the cell leaders and cell members, right? So the cell pastor and associate cell pastor must work together, right? There could be things that are happening in the cell group. There could be plans, ideas, strategies, right? And so right now let me give you a glimpse of what APC looks like, right? So we don't have associate cell pastors, but we have what we call as a life group pastor, life group coordinator, right? Now the life group coordinator, right now at APC we have about 29 life groups. So all 29 of them, they report to the cell life group coordinator. Now it could either be through email, it could be through a message, or if there's any need within the cell group, if there's any questions that they have, they can always write back to the life group coordinator. And so the life group coordinator will report to the main pastor, right? So there is no associate life group coordinator or life group pastor. We don't have that right now. But what we do plan to do is as we grow, as we come 40, 45 or 50 life groups, we will have zonal cell group leaders. So we have North Zone, South East West Zone, right? So we'll have zonal cell leaders and each zone will have maybe five or six cell groups under them, right? So that way we are all connected and even the senior pastor, the associate cell pastors, the cell leaders, everyone know what is happening in the cell group. Your cell pastor will be in touch with you on a weekly basis, work closely with your cell pastor, get feedback, get resources from them. If you're planning something, keep them updated, right? If you need additional counseling, visiting a cell member, you need people for praise and worship, you can contact your cell pastor. And as a leader, always remember that it is good to report. It is good on a weekly basis to work with your seniors, right? It's not like, okay, I'm the cell group leader, so I will do everything and I don't have to report. No, it's always good. Remember, we talked about this. We are a team, we are one unit, right? So you can do that. Then you have cell leaders feedback form. Now, this is something that can be done every three months, every, you know, every quarterly, yearly will be too much of a gap, but maybe half yearly is something that you can think of. And why do we do this? So that the, you know, we see what's happening in the cell groups is the cell groups being effective. And then we can give ideas. So basically right now, what we are doing is every third Saturday of the month, because all of us are, you know, working professionals have family. So, and since we all stay in different, you know, sides of the city, so we couldn't, we can't really get together quite often. So we meet via Zoom, third Saturday of the month, and we keep it open. We just spend a few moments reading the word or just a small word from the scriptures. And then leave it open for questions and thoughts from the cell group leaders. And this is wonderful because it's open, you know, they can ask questions. They can ask. They have doubts. They can ask anything. And again, we are always available by either by email or the cell group leader wants to meet. They can come and meet us. So making ourselves available. I look at this. This is the cell leaders feedback form. Feel free to print this out. If you already have a cell group, you can make changes to it. But maybe this is something if you haven't done, you can think of doing, right? If you are a cell group leader, you know, just have this whole thing. You can just print this out. You can make changes. So it says here, name of everyone who attended, including children, children cell was conducted. Who led the children cell? What is the topic that was covered? If there was a salvation call here, you have a number of salvation reports or the not disposable changes in individual slides. Are people taking responsibilities? Are there testimonies of answered prayer? Are people flowing in the gifts of the spirit? Is the operation of the spirit happening? So for example, right? If I have a life group and I feel that it's very, you know, worship, prayer, word, close, right? So I can always write here. You know, I think we as a church can, because I'm giving an honest opinion, right? I'm saying we as a church can, you know, as a cell group, we would like to, you know, operate more in the gifts of the spirit. We would like to have some more time for this. So you're putting your feedback in. And so as a leader, I can see, I can say, okay, people are interested. Right? See, the thing is sometimes people, especially believers may not express their desires, right? But when you give an option for them to write it to be anonymous is also so they can write it down, right? So give them options. Sometimes there are people who, you know, they may not look interested, but they're really interested. There are people who, you know, who know so much, but they just are quiet. They just keep quiet. They don't really talk too much about it. So there are different kinds of people. Sometimes until they tell us, we won't know. Right? So as a leader, we must be able to dig in. We must be able to really speak into their lives, help them to open up, make it a place where they're free to share their thoughts and opinions. Right? So that's just an example of the feedback form. We can make changes to it as well. Right? Okay. Before we go into becoming a cell church, feel free to stop me, ask me questions. You can also unmute and ask questions. Right? Let's get into this 10th point, 10th chapter, which is becoming a cell group or a cell church. Right? The first point is change. Now to become a cell church, there must be a change. Right? So how does a local church function? Right? How does it operate? And what are we doing new right now? Right? Now for a cell, now we're talking not about cell groups, we're talking about cell church. Right? This is one. Now to start more cell groups and eventually become a cell church, the change is required. Now, you know, especially in terms of leadership, in terms of, you know, when we are doing something for many years, we don't like change. Right? Change can cause a sense of instability, but if we don't change, then we will become stagnant. Right? So change is very important. We need to do new things. So you just picture this right now with all the facilities that are available in media and, you know, the gadgets that are available, the cameras that people use right now. You know, 10 years back, it wasn't so. Right? But I can't say, hey, from 2013, I've been using this camera and it's a good camera. It's working well. So I prefer using this itself. I'm nothing wrong in using it. But what happens? If I don't change, I'm not going to see what's available and how I can better myself. Right? Hey, there are videos that can, you know, the high definition cameras and all of these things that have come up now. Or I've been doing ministry only this way. So I will continue to do it only this way. You know, everything, there's a change. The best example is, I think we looked at this in chapter one. Remember? In the book of Acts, when the church in Jerusalem was persecuted, people went into Antioch. Now the church in Antioch also was persecuted. What happened? They stopped meeting together, like in large numbers. It just broke down into several groups or house groups. Now that was a change. Because obviously 10,000 odd people and probably the Antioch church had hundreds of people or thousands. But they couldn't continue because there was persecution. So they didn't say, oh, it's okay. Whatever happens, we will continue this way. No, let's change. Right? So we must be open to change when it comes to church. Right? Or when it comes to anything in our life. Right? Change is a constant. Right? When we plan to become a cell church continuously raising up quality cell leaders. Right? Remove insecurity in the hearts of cell leaders through proper training. Proper and total training system must be put in place. Now, I'm just giving you a couple of examples at what we do. One is we have the life group leaders training, but I think we've already shared this. The life, if we are selecting somebody to be a life group leader, they must be a member of our church for at least a year. So they know the culture of our church. They know what we stand for, the vision and all of that. And if they haven't been part of a life group, they need to be part of a life group at least for three to six months. And only then we will make them a leader. Right? And even while we do that, we see, you know, we just check on character, their heart. Is it in the right place? Why do they want the leadership? So these are things that we look at. Right? And there are times we have, you know, waited, you know, given people opportunity, but we have told them, you know, just be keep attending for six months and then eventually you can start your life groups. But we must constantly be on that lookout as leaders for life group. Now, another important thing that we always advise our life group leaders is to be part of our weekend schools. So we have plenty of weekend schools once a month. And so we choose a topic and we talk about that. You know, we go a little bit in depth and we study from the word. So we encourage them to be part of it. Then we also encourage them to take part in missions. Right? And Holy Spirit baptism or everything. Right? So we encourage them. So what happens is they are cleaned. Right? Now, for example, let me share this example. Right? You know, I didn't know much about, you know, burials and, you know, I didn't know much about it. Right? So I joined the ministry team here at ABC. But, you know, I would go with the pastors and I would watch them. What are they doing? You know, it should be an order, right? It's not just do whatever we feel like. So first we go, that is, we go to the person's house and there's, you know, prayer there. We sing a few songs, pray. We spend about an hour there. Then there's another team that is making sure that the, you know, the paperwork is done, paperwork is needed for, you know, the debt certificate, the church certificate, the government certificate. And then they go take it to the cemetery. And there's so much that needs to be done. Right? And so by watching, you know, we can learn. Right? So it could be anything. I'm just giving you the example of this, right? It could be anything, leading worship, preaching, teaching, right? Get people involved in your ministry. Never feel, I can do it alone. You may be able to do it alone. But look at people and say, hey, why don't you join? Why don't you join? You know, if you feel that this person can be a leader, why don't you join? Come. Now, I understand that there are people who are working. They may not be always available, but keep that option open. Come and join. See how it is. And they begin to learn. Right? So always ensure sufficient number of newly trained leaders to take on leadership and start new cell groups. Right? Have trained them in the right way and go through the process. Right? So one of the things that we do at APC is, you know, every three months or every two to three months, you know, I write down, okay, these are potential life group leaders. So maybe 10, right? So 10 names. Okay. So just call each of them, say, hey, how are you doing this? You know, so we are planning to grow the life groups in church. They've been here at church for many years now. What do you think about considering to start a life group? So they may say, you know, I'm at work. I'm working. I may not be able to be committed. So it's okay. Right? So we understand. If people say, yes, I would love to, but I need more time. I need to get a little bit training on this. So then you know, okay, this person is open so I can begin to work with him. So out of 10, maybe five of them may be available. So you have, we have an, am I okay? Five people are there. Five believers, strong believers. So I can start five cell groups. I say you begin to work with them. Right? And that way, what happens? You, you know, you're telling them, hey, you know, eventually you must be starting, you must start a life group. So this is what we'll do. Can work with us. We can continue to build each other up and eventually help them to start, right? But all the energy and resources of the church must flow in the same direction, meaning the entire church must, you know, must flow. They must flow in the same direction, right? The training, the standard of training, the ability to function well. The cell church is like a, here, the cell church is like a two-winged bird. The cell meetings and the Sunday church celebration services. Right? Both are important and both must have the highest standard of excellence in their implementation. So, so powerful, right? It may be 10 people in a cell group, but both must have a standard of excellence. Especially, you know, if we're doing something right in a cell group, it can really take off, can really bless people's lives. Right? So right now we have some, some of the life groups that have, some of the life group leaders who are 10, 12 years, they continually training, building up people, 10 years of life groups, continually. No stop, right? And you see, because people are coming. They are raising up leaders. They are going ahead, you know, many of our, you know, leaders who are part of life groups have gone on and started their own ministries. So that's wonderful, right? So you look at the bigger picture, the building God's kingdom. It's not like, oh, he left APC. We don't have leaders at APC. No, the building God's kingdom, right? So many, many of them who've gone on to raise up, you know, work with big ministries and also start their own ministries. So what am I trying to get at? If you're, if we are able to lead the cell group in the right way, building people, encouraging people, people will come. It may be, they may be 10 kilometers away. They'll still come. But we don't encourage that because of the distance. But there are people say, no, no, I don't mind traveling because I'm blessed by what's happening there. Right? So both are important, the cell group and the church. Let's look at the next point. Single task. The only way to make cell ministry work is for it to become the single task of the church. It is imperative therefore that everyone be doing the same thing. Right? Now, some of our current programs we see here is teens and 20s. The Covenant Keepers is, I'm not sure if this is still going on, but the BFC Biblical Foundations course, all of these things that we had were all, you know, different kinds of programs, right, that we had. So separately, teens and 20s, then we had a separate Covenant Keepers and separately Biblical Foundations course. Now, over time, what happened? All of these programs were, you know, they just transitioned into the cell group. Right? So, like we talked about, you know, Biblical Foundations course, we can, as a leader, we can, it's very important to go through these Biblical Foundations that can help the believers in the church. So all of these programs, different programs, get into the cell group. Now, we may find it difficult to stop programs once it started, but we will have to transition. Right? There will be times, you know, there'll be lack of time, lack of resources, like, oh, maybe people are not available. All that is there, but we continue, right? Continue to do as the best that we can. Right? Any questions? Any thoughts? Everyone's been so quiet. Any questions? Okay. So after this whole talking about cell groups, we'll also talk a little bit about discipleship, right? And how we must, you know, do the right discipling in the right way. And what is the impact of good discipleship? Right? All right. The essence of a cell church, right? First one is relationships. The heart and life of the church is a cell. Right? It's a place where people are built up, disabled. The cell is the basic part of the church. So if you have 500 people in your church and you have 50 life groups, there should be at least, you know, there should be at least 10 people in each life group. Right? So our goal is that everyone should be part of a life group because everyone are important. Right? You know, there will be times people are not available, work, all these other things. But that's our goal. The cell is not a program. It's not a meeting. The cell is life. Okay. Second point in the cell church is participation. Everyone is actively participating. So doing the ministry, praying for one another, being available to counsel one another, help one other, ministry is not optional. Right? We must lead others to Jesus, care for everyone and just be available, ministering and leading. Then empowering. We empower people, leaders in growing churches, concentrate on empowering Christians for ministry. And that's something that we at ABC emphasize and focus on. Right? Every minister, every believer is a minister. Then eventually every minister can be a leader. Right? So empowering these values in people. Everyone is being trained and empowered to participate and lead. So it's not like, okay, everyone go to church, finish church and then go back home. Okay. I've been part of church. No, that's not what we want to do. What we want to do is that every member of the church can become a leader in a sense. They can, they can mentor people, disciple people, be available to speak into people's lives. Right? So, so in the mind, they know that, hey, I'm not just attending church and going. I'm part of a bigger picture. God wants me to minister to be empowered to minister. Right? And then they are also released into the things of God. Another point here is focus on Jesus. Everyone experiences and worships Jesus as a center of their lives. So it is Jesus doing the work. Leadership is given by Jesus and the Holy Spirit is allowed to do all the work He pleases. And, you know, in church, every church must focus on Jesus. The moment we turn our attention to the leaders, oh, this pastor is really good. They may be good. It's wonderful. God has called them. But the focus is not on the leaders. Yes, God may raise up powerful leaders with powerful leadership skills and just know that they are anointed from God. That's wonderful. We need men and women of God who are anointed in the ministry. But we honor them. We respect them. We work along with them. But our focus is what Jesus is doing. If there are healings, prophecies, all of that happening. It's not because of the pastor. It is because of Jesus. Because Jesus is giving us the Holy Spirit to do this. Right? So, you know, the pastor may pray and we may receive healing. But don't focus on the pastor because he prayed I got healed. No, just because Jesus in his grace healed us. Right? So I hope you're getting what I'm trying to say. It's not about the leadership. It's important. God chooses anointed men and women of God to do the ministry. But the focus is not on them. The focus is on Jesus because if the focus is on men and women of God, if they fail in a certain area, what will happen? Now, we must remember they are also human beings. If they fail in a certain area, what will happen to us as believers? Say, oh man, I put all my faith in this man of God or all my faith in this woman of God. Now he or she has fallen. I mean, you know, they're going through a difficult time and, you know, now we feel completely down. Yes, but we don't be discouraged. We don't lose faith because our focus is on Jesus. So we pray for them. We help them stand up again. But again, the focus is on him for a cell church outreach and multiplication. Everyone is doing their best to reach the lost so that the cell multiplies. Now in a season that we are in now with the anti-conversion bill, especially in our nation and maybe in other nations as well, we must be careful that we must be careful how we do ministry, how we do outreaches. We need to prayerfully consider. But the heart of God is for those who are lost, right? Just because the anti-conversion bill and all of this has come doesn't mean that God is quiet. No, God is working. God will continue to work. There was persecution in the early church. There will be persecution now. There will be persecution later, right? But people who get to know about Jesus, we as a commission, we are told to go and make disciples. So this is our heart as a cell, right? Then networking. All cells are knit together by visionary, servant leadership. The cell is not independent but interdependent. So the cells work with each other, right? And even the same applies to cell churches, right? So we need the bigger picture. We are building God's kingdom. You're not just building APC. Yes, God has put us here in APC to build a church. He's given us a vision. He's given us a purpose and a mission for us. But what is the bigger picture? The bigger picture is we want to build the kingdom of God. We want to enlarge the kingdom of God. Nowhere are we saying we want to enlarge APC. We want to say to impact the kingdom of God, right? So even our outreach churches and all the programs, the Bible college, the weekend schools, pastoral meetings and everything that we are doing, cell groups, life groups, all of it, this whole thing, the whole ministry that we're doing, is to glorify God and to build his kingdom, right? Because we must be very careful. Especially if you're pioneering a ministry, be very careful that we are not looking at, okay, my church should grow. That's important. That's good that we need to pray for our church to grow. But we must also look at the bigger picture. God, we're building your kingdom. So it's not like, oh, if I share the gospel with this person, you know, he doesn't speak English, so he can't come to my church. So I'll only speak to people who share the gospel with people who are English, so that they can come to my church. Now what's happening? I'm not thinking, I'm not being kingdom-minded. Now if I can speak in that regional language, I can share the gospel with them, get them connected to a church, which is that regional language, then I'm thinking, hey, I'm building the kingdom of God, right? So we must come to that place. And one of the books that I encourage each one of you to read is Kingdom Builders, written by Pastor Ashish. It's a wonderful book because it gives us insight on how you and I as believers must think. It's not about me, it's not about the church, it's not about my ministry, but it's about building the kingdom of God. And even as we do it, there are certain processes, there are certain things that we must do in the right way, in the right manner, with integrity and honor, with certain values so that we don't cause disruption in the kingdom of God, right? Finally, adaptable structure. The structure should be adaptable to the context of the society now. The organization is to serve you and not to bind you. So for example, we are, now that we are, in the time that we are in, after the pandemic, everything's become so convenient online, right? We are able to reach out to so many of them online. So even now at APC, we have cell groups, life groups, that are hybrid, so some of them meet in-person one week, online one week, right? So two weeks a month. There are some life groups which meet four times a week, two times they meet in-person, two times they meet online. It's being adaptable, right? Of course, we want everyone to meet in-person. But looking at what's happening, right? So people have families, people have work, you may not be able to travel, travel time takes so much. So we are open to it, right? There is still that in-person meeting, but we're open to the new things that are happening. So we have many cell groups right now that are meeting hybrid. So being adaptable to what God is doing in our midst. So let's take a break. There's too much of content that we've been covering. Let's take a break. We'll come back at 10 o'clock and continue. Kennedy, can we come back and take your question, please? All right. So we'll come back and answer Kennedy's question and continue with the session.