 Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the class. Good morning. Aaron, Thomas, Kiran, Siddharth and others were coming in. Welcome. Good morning. Let's take a moment to pray and then we'll get started. I have started the recording for this class. So this class lecture will be recorded for the benefit of other people. Could somebody just pray and we will proceed into the class? Could somebody lead us in prayer? Thomas, would you like to pray for us, please? Sure, Pastor. Father in Jesus' name, we thank you for your mercy and grace, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for loving us so much. Father, we bless this day. We bless this heart in Jesus' name. As we sit down here, the war, Father, anoint us. Anoint Pastor Ashish in Jesus' name, Lord. Help us to understand each and everything. Father, let the beneficiary benefit our life and to the kingdom of God and the body of Christ. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining this class on church and ministry administration. I hope you are finding these things useful. Some of you, these may be some things that, you know, maybe you're already using. Some of you can already use. For some, it may be in the future, you know, as things as maybe you start your church or your ministry and in the future as you're growing, you may need to do these things. So, you know, even if you're not able to use it immediately, some of these practical things in ministry will be useful. What I want to do today is just quickly review what we covered in the class on Wednesday on policies, guidelines and standards. Just quickly review it. And if you have any questions, you're most welcome to ask. And I also want to touch on some of the things I feel I need to emphasize, which I did not touch on in the class on Wednesday. So I want to just address some of those to kind of bring this to a close, this whole area on policies, guidelines and standards. And I just want us to understand that this is the importance of having these policies, guidelines and standards in the organization as a church, as a ministry. Now, keep in mind that when you're starting a ministry or when you're starting an organization or when the organization is still small, you may not have too many areas to worry about. You know, because maybe you're, you know, the ministry itself, you're engaged in a few areas. But what I would encourage all of us, even when other ministries are small or the organizations in which we are working are small from an early stage in your journey, try to use this important thing about policies, guidelines and standards. One of the earliest things we did, apart from, you know, the staff guidelines, which is when you are, when a person is joining an organization, you set up staff guidelines. One of the earliest things that we started was volunteer guidelines, volunteer team guidelines. And this I think will be relevant for any Christian ministry or organization, because in any, you know, whether it's a church or whether it's a Christian organization, you are going to have volunteers. And even when you are just starting out, even when you are just small as a ministry or as a church, it is good to put down in a document guidelines for those who are going to serve as volunteers. Now, you know, the tendency in church and the tendency in many Christian organizations is, okay, you're a volunteer, come on and join, you know, especially I'm talking about in the early stage. Oh yeah, just come and help, you know, just come and do this or come and do that. Now it's good, it's nice to be warm and welcoming and open for volunteers to come in and making it easy for them to come in and volunteer. But from an organization perspective, it is important to at least have some guidelines written down in the document and you have a conversation, whoever is, you know, enlisting the volunteers to work, to do their work in various teams, to have a conversation, say, hey, these are the guidelines. This is what we expect from those who are going to be volunteering in the church or in the Christian organization. You know, you're not making it like a big deal, but it's important to communicate that because if something goes wrong, now volunteers, you have to handle them differently from church staff or consultants, because staff and consultants have some sense of accountability because they are salaried. Now volunteers, they are offering their time or they're offering their skill to the church or to the organization. So to handle them carefully. So it's better to have these things put down and just because we can see as a volunteer, this is what we expect. Now, while we were doing that, you know, having these guidelines for volunteers, now you can have a copy of that from our webpage that I shared with you last class. Now while we were doing that, we also understood that we need, so the guidelines not only address the conduct aspect, that means how you conduct yourself as a volunteer, but it also took care of the practical side. Okay, so in this role, these are the things you're supposed to do. Okay, if you're a volunteer at the book table, okay, this is what we expect. You know, you need to be, the book table has to be set up half an hour before service starts. You know, so those kind of details have to be in the guidelines for the volunteers. So eventually what you'll have is not only will you have a statement of conduct, that means this is what we expect volunteers, how they conduct themselves, but you'll have guidelines for specific areas of ministry that have to be written down. So that will come eventually. So if you're a volunteer in the worship team, what are the expectations over there? So that will be written down. If you're a volunteer in, you know, a volunteer who's helping with ushering in a service, what is expected? If a volunteer is ushering in, you know, being a, you know, part of the welcome team, well, what is expected there? So eventually what will happen is you will have guidelines written for different roles, different roles, you will have guidelines. And another thing that we learned was also that the more visible the role is, the higher the standard of conduct should be. Now in general, of course, all of us have to, you know, maintain godly conduct, especially in a church or a Christian organization, it's standard. But what I'm saying is the more visible, you have to be more careful. Because what I experienced was, you know, we had volunteers serving in so many different roles, but when they were volunteers who were part of the worship team, they were the ones who were, you know, the congregation observes. The congregation knows, hey, these people are up on stage and they are volunteer. I mean, of course there are many of them are volunteers, they are serving in the worship team, but I would get emails like, you know, today, all kinds of things, you know, the clothes, the attire that the person on the worship team was wearing was not, you know, not suitable. So I'll get an email, please, you know, tell them to wear these kind of clothes. Or if the worship team, you know, after they finished leading worship, they went and sat down. And then if they didn't, you know, if they got up and they walked out of the service, I'll get an email or some complaint from somebody, hey, why did the worship team member go out of the service during the worship, during the service, this is not a good example. You know, because the more visible the role is people are watching and, you know, they're expecting a certain standard from the volunteers. And so, you know, we had to reinforce this over and over again, put it down and writing, and sometimes it would be very explicit, you know, and we were saying, okay, worship team members, you need to be seated on the front row. You know, you know, example was when we're transitioning at the end of the sermon into worship. And I would say worship team come, they need to be up on stage within a minute and be ready to, you know, start singing. So if there was a delay, you know, the congregation is wondering what's happening, all those things. So we had to detail that, you know, worship team members sit down in front of the row. As soon as pastors has come, you need to be on the stage and in those kind of things. So these are guidelines that I was giving some practical things. And we went through all of these and for different areas of ministries. And people would give us feedback and we need to put down these. These are guidelines for people who are serving in different areas of ministry and especially when they are volunteers, you have to handle them, you know, in a little bit more gentle way. And yet at the same time, you know, they have to meet certain, you know, standards have to be maintained. So these are things you have to think about. And what I would recommend is start doing this early in your ministry, right? Even when the ministry is small, put down whatever you can, whatever you observe, put it down. How do you want your volunteers to conduct themselves? Put it down and, you know, go over it with them repeatedly. And I remember in those early days, we had to bring the teams together very often and go over the guidelines again and again because, you know, eventually everything comes back to the pastors, you know, the congregation is holding the pastors accountable for the conduct of everybody who is serving and it comes back to us and we have to answer to the congregation when, you know, something happens. So, yeah, so let me just go over that document one more time. I just want to impress on us the importance, you know, of these policies, guidelines and standards and just share some practical situations, scenarios. So, you know, we emphasize the importance of it and emphasizing, you know, have it written down so that everybody knows very clearly what is expected. And we talked about the administrative policies. This is how the organization will function internally. This is what I was talking about, right? The volunteer team guidelines, team specific guidelines. So, at some point, what will happen is you have guidelines for your volunteer team members, okay? But then you also will have to have guidelines that are team specific for the different areas where people are involved. You have guidelines. Now, guidelines are not like the 10 commandments, right? These are just, you know, these are like, let's all, it's more of an invitation to the team saying, hey, let's all adhere to these standards so that we can all, you know, function together well, hold ourselves to a certain standard of conduct or, you know, those kinds of things. So, we're not putting them down as, you know, like, you know, in a harsh way, but it's more like inviting people to adhere to those standards. And then what will happen, another area that you would need guidelines is an interaction between teams. So, example, we have the book table team. Now, they are responsible for setting up the books, you know, making the books available to the people. Now, we also have a publications team that does the publications. I mean, they get it done. They get the books printed, et cetera. Now, they will have to interact because, you know, when the book table is running out of stock, they need to inform publications so that books can be delivered to the various locations where they are on display. So, just one example of interaction. So, like that, you know, your various teams will have to interact with each other. So, especially, for example, in a worship setting, there's the worship team. They prepare a set of songs that they need to sing. They're going to sing. But the media presentation team needs to know what are the songs so that they can project the lyrics. And then if you're doing live streaming, the live streaming team also would need to know what is being presented so that they could show those lyrics and, you know, while for the live stream audience. So, the media presentation team is taking care of what is being projected inside the auditorium. There's another team that's taking care of what's happening to those who are on the live stream. And there's a worship team. So, now, they all have to be in sync. They all have to interact. So, now, who's responsible for what, you know? So, then, that has to be detailed. So, you put the response in the worship team, worship team. You're selecting the songs. So, you have to send the lyrics. And you have to make sure that the spellings, the lyrics are correct. You know, all of that, that's the response to the worship team. So, till that point, it's the worship team's responsibility. And then, who is going to send it over to the media team? The media team's responsibility is to make sure it comes up on the screen, you know, at the right time, all of that. And in the right way. And then, the live streaming team, they also need to put the lyrics on the lower third of the video so that people who are watching online can see it. So, that interaction between teams need to happen. And that has to be detailed. So, as your church or your ministry is growing, slowly, you know, these details, these guidelines for volunteers, for the various teams, for the team interactions, these things have to be detailed and communicated to people. Otherwise, you know, if you don't have that, then it could be a lot of chaos every time, you know, something needs to be done because they will say, oh, I thought that team will do it. This team will say, no, I thought team C will do it. There will be confusion. So, have it written down for even the volunteers and the teams. And like we mentioned, you know, once you have it written down, it's very easy to bring on new people. So, if new volunteers want to join or new staff want to join, you just have to tell them, hey, just go through immediately, go through what has been done. These are what's required of you. Just follow these things. And it's very easy to bring on new people to join as staff or volunteers. And another important thing of, you know, writing these standards down is that the improvements that are made don't have to be reinvented. You know, for example, take graphics work, you know, and we went through this whole process because in the early days, okay, we made mistakes. But then, you know, if you don't document, if you don't capture the learnings from those mistakes, you cannot maintain that level of improvement. So, let's say a new person joins your graphics team. You don't want to start back on level zero and make repeat all those mistakes. You want to start if you're on level four, you've made all the mistakes and you're at a certain standard of where you are. You want when a new person joins, you want to start off at level four and keep moving up. You don't want to go back to level zero and repeat mistakes. So, when you capture your learnings and establish them as standards in a document, what happens? You're passing on the learning to new people and you don't have to repeat mistakes. So the quality and the consistency is ensured regardless of who does the work. So that is a very important thing, you know, when you write down, okay, so example, our graphics, you know, what are the standards for them? And you can pick up the documents, you know, available on our guidelines webpage, you know, you can see. Well, it has to be, these are the dimensions that we're going to use for the website, for, you know, promotions on social media, for promotions on, you know, on Sunday announcements. These are the standard sizes of all the graphics, these are the standard, you know, established standards in terms of colors, features, whatever. We're establishing those standards, so people don't have to repeat mistakes. They just come, they read it through, they understand what the standards are, and they begin to do those things, right? So these are practice standards and they are important. Okay, one thing that I did not mention here, and it's not, I should include it, which I wanted to mention today, is similarly you need to have accounting policies. Accounting policy means how finances are going to be managed. So obviously, much of this is determined by the accountant or the accounting people who are handling the money for the organization. But the organization should have accounting policies. So that also has to be documented. So for example, what are the things a staff or a volunteer, or a staff or a consultant or a volunteer will get reimbursed for? That means if they spend some of their money on doing something, can they expense it and get reimbursed for that? So that has to be documented. Okay, this is a policy. Suppose you are on work and you, okay, example, you know, when our video team goes off-site, goes somewhere to do a video shoot. So they take, you know, there's a team of three, four people, you know, and sometimes we have vendors also coming in who bring their cameras and all of that. And so it's a full day's work somewhere off-site. Then they order lunch and they order, you know, they may order breakfast lunch and snack or tea, coffee, whatever. So as part of the accounting policy, you state that you're on an assignment like this off-site and you're, you know, somebody's ordering food. The food will be covered, the costs for the food will be covered, but this is how much you can spend. So it's clear. So people know. The people in the video team, video shoot team know that when they are off-site and they have to go to some shoot somewhere, you know, their breakfast and lunch and the order to your coffee for them and for the vendors who come with their equipment. It's covered, but this is the range in which you should order food. So that's an accounting policy. So the other thing, you know, we established in the beginning is all reimbursements must have bills. So there has to be a bill against which the money is paid back to the staff or the volunteer. You know, so without a bill, money cannot be reimbursed. So it's a normal thing. So somebody cannot just go to the account and say, and say, you know, I spent so much money. No, there has to be a bill that has to be approved. And then we also have an approval process. That means before you spend the money. I mean, I'm not talking about the food thing, but, you know, for something else, something that's bigger, you know, it has to be approved. And then you spend it and then you'll get expense for it. So you have an approval process. That's again part of your accounting, right? So, you know, in all of that I shared last week, I would add accounting policies. That means things that have to do with money. It has to be written down for your staff and also for your volunteers. So they're very clear that these are the things that if you spend money for the work that you need to do for church or for the ministry, you will get reimbursed for it. And these are things we do not do. So that depends on your organization and so on. And different organizations may do different things. For instance, we do not provide phones, mobile phones for our staff. So we say, please use your own phone, right? Otherwise, we'll have to buy phones for so many people. So we just tell them, you know, so it's a standard. That's our policy. We don't provide phones. But there are selected numbers like for member care, for certain, I think we have three numbers, three or four numbers. Those are paid for by the church because they're designated numbers for church work. The others, they're using their own personal phones. So we don't pay people for their, for their fuel. But we say that if they are on an, on a work related assignment that they have to be consuming a lot of fuel, then for that they get paid. So, so those things have to be clarified. So then they have to expense that they have to show, you know, this is what I did for work related. Not for coming to office and going home that, that they don't get reimbursed, but for something work related, that will be expense. So certain things like that, you know, have to be clarified. So people know this is what I get expense for. This is what I don't get reimbursed for as far as the accounting policy, the financial policies within the organization. And this has to be a pretend now for very mature organizations. It is what to say, it is a given thing, you know, they always have it in place. They've been doing it for years. But I'm speaking, you know, many of you will be going out and starting your ministries, starting your churches, or you may be working in organizations that are starting out. So when you're new, it is good to, you know, put all these things in place and make use of it. Okay. The last thing is, you know, when, when, when you have email communications happening and, you know, and if you're going to do software development and all, it's good to follow standards there as well. I won't talk much about it. You know, usually the IT people will understand that. But I just want to say in terms of emails, you know, very important. Again, when you are, when people are communicating on behalf of the organization. So let's say you have somebody, you know, who's handling emails that come to your organization. And, you know, they're responding to emails on behalf of the organization. It's important to have standards there also. You know, some simple things like it has to be, you know, there should be no spelling mistakes. Sorry, the English language and grammar should be good. This is what you, you know, you follow. So for example, for us, we say we will follow American standard in our English. So the English should be American standard. The dates should be international standard. So we don't write dates in Indian format. We don't write dates in US format. We write it in a global format. So that means we always spell out like MAY202021. So it's put out that way. So regardless where the person is from America or any other part of the world, they understand what the date is. Because if you write the date in Indian standard, other people may not understand it. If you write the date in US standard, others may not understand it. It can cause confusion. So you have to be, you know, you say, okay, all documentation, all emails, all communication should follow in a generic format so that anybody in the world who emails us when we respond to them, they understand, you know, play. There's no miscommunication. And then you have standard templates for certain things. For example, we have a template or example, example. There's a standard template we use when we have to send an announcement about somebody's passing away. So let's say a congregation member has passed away. And we need to notify people in our congregation that, you know, so-and-so has passed away and this is when the funeral is happening, et cetera. So we have a standard template that, you know, it should have this amount of information. You have to get permission from the bereaved family, get them to provide the details, and then you send the email. So it's a standard process and a standard format. Now why is the standard format important in a situation like that? Because you don't want to miss out on some information. You know, if you tell them, you know, just send an email. Sometimes they will mention the name, full name. Sometimes they may forget to mention, you know, the date of demise or they may forget to mention the cause of demise or the age of the person, you know, various things. So we have a standard template that makes sure that every email, any email that is sent with this announcement will have all these details, including a picture of the person who passed away. It's a format. So that's another thing you can practice. It is you create certain templates for things that are recurring, you know, email templates to make sure that every email has all the required information and has been worded correctly and is sent out to the people. So that's another thing I would share here is for emails. Make sure that, you know, your team or the person who was handling the communications creates these templates. You can do all you have to do is check it once and you know that every time they send an email for a certain thing, it's all covered. Okay. So, so I just wanted to, you know, cover those things because I missed mentioning that on Wednesday. And lastly, I just want to spend a minute on this and a few minutes on this and then we'll take questions. You know, one of the things and unfortunately, one of the things that you should be ready to handle is that sometimes and I'm not saying everybody. Sometimes some believers debut, you know, this whole thing of policies guidelines and standards as being very controlling and legalistic. So they have a negative view when you as a leader or a pastor say, look, let's have some policies and these are the things we're going to follow. These are the guidelines or these are the standards. Some, you know, believers will look at it as legalism. Why are you creating some new rules or laws or whatever, you know, why can't everything be free. Just people do what as they feel like. Why are you doing these things, right? So that's something you should be prepared for in some situations. Now, some believers, believers will understand your motivation. They'll know why you're doing it. But sometimes they may question and call it legalism. So how would we, you know, respond to that? How would we handle something like that? I just want to get your thoughts. So suppose, you know, you are introducing some guidelines or some policies or some standards in a certain area of your church or your ministry. And somebody says, why are you doing that? Why do we need it? How would you, you know, in a loving way explain or how would you handle it? I just want your thoughts. Darrell, what do you think? Assar, can you hear me? Yes, we can. So, you know, just to put it in a loving way, I think we need to explain them saying, you know, since, you know, we are organized, the church is organized. So we do everything, you know, as per order. So, you know, so that's the reason we are, you know, having certain guidelines to follow it and also keep it the standard manner. It's no, it doesn't mean enough church. We can have it in, have the services or anything in any way. But we need to have it in order. So that's the reason we are putting certain guidelines. So I just, you know, as you said, faster, so we need to put it in a, in a loving way. So graciously, we need to put it so people will accept graciously. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Thank you. So just explain to them why we are doing this, have them understand it. Any other thoughts on, you know, if you get this kind of a pushback from people saying, why are you putting in some standards? Why are you putting these guidelines? Why are you, you know, how, how would, how would you handle it in your church or in your Christian organization? Any other thoughts? Thomas, have you experienced anything like this in your, in your, so far, in your experience? Oh, too fast. The thing is, when we discipline, nobody will like that. I'm really facing that difficulty when it's a beginning stage. If you want me to speak when I'm say the certain things, they're not ready to follow the youngsters. I think you need a time to grow in the world of God, then only we can able to do that. I don't know how to do the things I'm still learning. It's very quiet part when we say certain things, people are not ready to accept us. That's the difficulty. Yeah. Sometimes they may even think that, you know, we're not giving them enough freedom. I think we are being outdated when we expect certain standards. We're like too crunching and monitoring. What is this? Now this church don't like that. Now they feel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So we did have, you know, I mean, some of the things that we went through. Is a little funny. One funny thing I can think of was in the early days. You know, we, you know, we as a church, and this is going to be back in time. In the early years, you know, we, we, we, we want to be open to all kinds of people. And so we had an urban youth. But we had also a lot of youth who were coming to church who had just moved to the city. Okay, so you would, you would call them. They had grown up in, you know, smaller towns, and they had moved to the city. So you had youth who always grew up in an urban culture. And then you had youth who had just moved into the city. So they were still transitioning. And I remember in those days, you know, you could actually see, you know, two kinds of youth in the church. And the youth in the urban, you know, they were very free with each other, very relaxed. And, you know, they would mingle and do all these things. But the youth here would look at very strangely at the behavior and the mannerisms of the youth who, the urban youth. You know, so there was that difficulty in them being assimilated in the same congregation. So we are one congregation, same congregation, but because of the background, you know, there was that, I would say, a disconnect between among the young people itself. And so, you know, so what, what, what, you know, and I remember those days where we had to address urban youth, you know, we had to talk to them and say, Hey, you know, here are some changes you can make in order to welcome. These kinds of people are moving into the city. They're coming in mainly for college or for study for work. And they're coming to the same church. But culturally, you know, you need to be sensitive. You need to, you know, avoid doing certain things so that they will feel comfortable. Those kind of, you know, we had to have those comments and it's a funny thing that you're having a conversation on on those things, but we had to talk about it. And then we had to set some guidelines for our worship team, who are a lot of youth in it. So that we could be more, you know, accommodating, welcoming to young people, regardless of their, you know, their backgrounds and so on. So we had those kinds of conversations and it was not easy because people why, you know, we will do what we want kind of thing, but then you put in some guidelines, especially for those who are youth leaders and those among the youth who are actually being in influencing influential positions, leadership positions. You know, for them, we had to set some guidelines so that the goal was to make everybody feel welcome in church. So we went through that. And there was pushback, but we had to stand firm on our ultimate goal was we want everybody to feel welcome. In the church, regardless of their background, you know, and so we had to stand firm in certain guidelines and things like that. So, if we, you know, we explain it, we have to work with them and help put these guidelines in place, standards, policies, so on. Any questions? Yeah. So one more thing, you know, regarding the guidelines. So, you know, the church where we currently go in Coimbatore. So, you know, every week, every month, couple of weeks, they have a youth meeting. So it's not properly, you know, in order or organized manner. So, you know, couple of weeks, we had a meeting. So Pastor was saying, how do we do it? And, you know, how we can take it ahead, how we can keep it organized. So to be honest, you know, I took our church as an example, you know, we has, you know, we have APC. How we do it, how the staff, you know, how the guidelines, the church guidelines for the worship team for the youth. Everything helps and how it, you know, enhance, you know, the youth and, you know, other people in the church, you know, following the certain guidelines for every team. So I explained, you know, each and everything, you know, for the youth. So they accepted graciously. Like they said, you know, I told them, like in terms of, you know, time and attending the youth meeting and, you know, being, being diligent about it. So everything I explained step by step and they accepted graciously Pastor. So I thought I'd share this. So now, you know, they are planning to have a certain guideline, how to keep it and how to make it good. And I really, you know, felt good about it, you know, sharing, you know, as an example and giving them, you know, certain guidelines. So, you know, so going on, everything is going to be fine, I believe. So they are, they're also happy in the accepted gracious me, you know, whatever I suggested. Very good. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. So I think people, you know, will be receptive and they see the good that comes out of the policies, guidelines, standards we play put in place. People will be accepting. Okay. So that's, I think hopefully that's enough discussion on this area of organization, although it's a very important area. Hope, you know, impressed on your heart that this is important to put in place and feel free to use the resources, you know, that we have. And of course, these guidelines will be updated, keep updating it as we keep learning as we discover various scenarios. We'll update our guidelines, but you're welcome to, you know, modify it, use it to for your church, for your organization. So next week, we will move on to the next aspect of church and ministry administration, which is systems and processes. So that means, again, it getting more into, you know, how you're right, how to run that church and the ministry as a good organization and to run it as a good organization. It's important to put systems in place and processes in place so that, you know, the organization functions like a good, I want to use the word machine, but it functions well. And, and, and we'll get into that next week and explain certain things of that. Okay. So let's wrap up in prayer. Thank you for being part of class today. And yeah, somebody could close in prayer. Who wants to pray? Connor, is your phone okay? Alright, your phone is probably got a problem in the phone. Alright, now mines, then maybe I'll ask Kiran. Connor, we can't hear you. Okay, Kiran, why don't you pray and dismiss us please. Yes, sir. Father God, we come before one second. You've thrown Father God, Father God, thanking you for everything, Father God, thanking you for something, Father God, we learn, Father God. We are learning, Father God, a new thing in our life, Father God. So thank you, Father God. Father God, help us to walk systematically, love and humble Father God and help us to orderly and maintain the discipline and perfect thing as your perfect Father God. Help us to walk like that, Father God. Teach every, your way, Father God, to your kingdom work, we will like you. We will use Father God, help us to every side, Father God and give you more knowledge and wisdom that we can understand and we can use to your kingdom. Thank you, Father, for our class, thanking you. So I'm thanking you, Father God, all your students, Father God, thanking you. Almighty Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. Thank you, everyone. See you again next week. Enjoy the weekend. God bless you. Thank you. Bye now. Thank you.