 Welcome back. Hope you had a good break. Let's resume the way we left off. In the previous session we completed the case study of the church of Antioch and their pros and cons of the highs and their lows, all the work that they did. I hope it kind of gives you an insight about the growth of just, I know it's only two churches but I hope it encourages you, inspires you, something about them. Now let's just take a look at the stages of growth. We've taken some of the key points from the book called the Apostolic Strategies, Affecting Nations by Dr. Jonathan David and we've outlined a few several stages here. His book is called Apostolic Strategies, Affecting Nations and the author is Dr. Jonathan David. There are different stages of growth and more specifically to our context and the stages of growth in church, the growth of a local church. One of the first early stages is the pioneering stage. I mentioned in the last class that we will talk a little bit more about pioneering, being a pioneer of a church. This is what it is. The first early stage is, what is this stage all about? The church planting team and leaders establish commitment to a territory where the Lord has sent them or a family or an individual. The church planting team and leaders establish commitment. That means you'd actually say, hey, this is where the Lord has called me to go. Because of that, you are obeying God's word and you're committing to what God has spoken to you and you are saying, yes, I will go there. That's the first step as a pioneer. You are showing your commitment. You're establishing it by going to the place. There's pretty much like so many people that we can think of. One of the first things that can come to your mind is say Abraham, he didn't go plant a church and all, but when God says go, then he said, he's just back to his bags and he left. That's how you show your commitment. Then you start laying out the groundwork through prayer, intercession, reaching out, building bridges with a community that is being reached. You're laying the foundations down as a pioneer. You're praying, you're interceding for the city or for the town that God has sent you. Then you ask, okay, what is it that's burdening your heart regarding this city? You start hearing from God. Initially, he says, okay, go there, but he might not always give the big picture. Very rarely, he gives a big picture. I can't think of any instances where he's given a big picture, but he always works in process. Once again, I'm reminded of Abraham. God tells Abraham, take your son, your only son, and go to the place that I will show you. That means he hasn't still shown him the place where Abraham is to take Isaac. Abraham obeys and he says, yes, and he goes and then he says, go to that mountain. That's how it is in our cases, isn't it? When God tells us to go to a place, he will not necessarily say everything, okay, you should buy a house in this area, you should go there, okay, plant, maybe he will. You never know. I'm not going to put God in a box, but that's what it is. The first step will lead to another, and one to another, and the next to another. Now that he's sent you to a place as a pioneer, you start seeking the heart of God for that city, for the people there, okay, what is it that you want me to do here? Why it's me? You know, you start praying and then you start interceding, right? Interceding simply means standing in the gap or standing in the middle. That's what intercession simply means. Once again, Abraham stood in the gap and he interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah, right? It's like, okay, even if at least there's 10 people, will you spare this city? And if there's one person who's righteous, will you spare this city? Right? So as a pioneer, you have to pray. There's another brilliant book on prayer that I would encourage you to get your hands on. It's called, I mean, it's also called EM Bounds. I just put it in the chat section. He has a lot of materials on prayer and there's so many wonderful authors out there who written on the topic of prayer, but he's extensively written on the topic of prayer and the importance of it for us as ministers of God. We can't neglect that. Every successful minister who's been in ministry for decades and decades is because their prayer life is strong. There's no substitute for it. So playing the groundwork. Groundwork is not always the cleanest work. You're going to get hurt. Your hands are going to get dirty. Everything is going to get messy, but that it's much needed, isn't it? It's the most important part. So playing the groundwork through prayer, through intercession, reaching out or outreach, where you reach out to the community, to people and you're exploring what can be done and then you're building bridges with the community that is being reached. All of these, as you see God, as you wait on him to hear from him, he'll start giving you strategies and ideas. This is the bridge that you can build. You can do this to reach this community and whatnot. So this is the pioneering stage. Remember this is the first stage of group. Are you with me? Okay. Hope I haven't lost you already. Okay. So here is the question. Okay. When you hear from God for a particular city or place to go and you go and share with your pastor about it and if he says why you want to go so far, work here. I will put you in the cell group as a leader. You can serve God here. What should one do in this case? Rosalind, why are you asking me all these hard questions, Rosalind? That's kidding. Sorry. Yeah. Well, God's voice is more real, isn't it? And I mean, you have to respectfully, I mean, if you are 100% sure that God is leading you to a place, and they know, please don't apologize, Rosalind. Okay. It's funny because it's happened to me in my life. So I know about it. That's why I kind of laugh. When you're 100% real about it, you have to take a stand and because God's voice is more real, he is more real. And just pray that the pastor understands because at this stage, I think you choose if you want to please God or if you want to please man. And I think choice is kind of easy sometimes, not necessarily. But yeah, I mean, with all honesty that if you're 100% sure, I think you will simply have to take a stand and say his voice is more real. And I'm sorry, I can't take you upon that offer. I'm flattered, absolutely flattered by your generosity of the offer, but I unfortunately have to decline it. Take a more corporate and give a very diplomatic response. You know, polite refusal as we used to call it in corporate. Yeah. I hope that answers Rosalind because I understand what you're saying. Yeah. Can I just add something to this? So one thing is with regard to the authority, and it's not sin to say no. Having said that, we have to also see if we are equipped to or trained enough to pick up a new assignment, that part of it. And another thing which I want to say is we also, when we become a leader and if one of our members wants to do it, we also should feel free to let them go. Yeah. Rather than manipulate. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I think that's how the early church grew, isn't it? Part of the growth was that they were sending out people. That was actually a huge part of the growth is that they sent out, sent people out. They blessed them and released them, isn't it? So, yeah. I hope that answers that Rosalind. Yeah. Anything else? Any other questions? Yes. Static again. Sorry. Okay. I come back. Is it okay now? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think Rosalind's question is trying to put our eyes into the future. If we do become pastors and we've got subordinates who are being called by God, we should learn as leaders not to manipulate people. Yeah. We should learn to motivate them. Yeah. Allow them to grow up their wings and fly. So we would only encourage them, pray for them and ask them the nitty-gritty questions. How has God told you about this? We would be helping them to build their dreams, not them to be in our dream or race. Yeah. That's what I can say. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for adding that. That's wonderful, isn't it? Thanks, Lobega. Welcome, sir. Yeah. In the third point of the pioneering stage on the top of page 30 is it is the foundation laying stage. You are going down instead of going up. Right? You are going down instead of going up, but a strong and a deep foundation is necessary for future growth. Typically, the higher you are going to build, the deeper you must dig to lay the foundation. Okay. So this is a very key stage of the church growth, guys, is the pioneering stage. How well you pioneer will see how long the ministry of the church lasts. Right? So the deeper you go, the higher you can go up. Okay. So that's the first stage, the pioneering stage. The second stage is the administrative, organizational, and structural stage. What? The boarding stage? Is it like too much work stage? A very important stage as well. Now that you've laid the foundations, everything is set in its place. Now you start building, isn't it? You know, brick by brick, brick by brick, layer by layer, one step at a time, you're growing. So you will, once again, you will learn a lot more about church administration in your, I think it's not, is there a subject that you already, is there a question that you guys are already doing? Or I think next semester is the church administration. I'm not mistaken. Oh, right. This is a second year. Okay. You learn about it in the third year, guys. Okay. I think you're learning the final year. So as the congregation begins to grow, establish well-defined systems and process to serve the people. Okay. Establish well-defined systems and process. The key here is to serve the people. Okay. It's not as well-established systems for the sake of having a system or a process for the sake of having the process. Every system that you want to set in place or every process that you want to set in place or establish, it should be in the mind on how you can serve the people better and how they can serve the church better. So as the congregation begins to grow, begin to establish systems, assigned roles and functions of various ministries that the Lord releases in your midst. Establish Godly standards and guidelines for your ministry teams so that new members who come and uphold these values. Okay. So one more time, I want to read that point. Assign roles and functions for various ministries that the Lord releases in your midst. So when you start off initially with a church, when you start planting a church, and initially it might just be like, okay, you're the pastor and you're doing everything like the apostles did. You're taking care of the finances, you're taking care of the worship, you're serving the communion, you're cleaning the church, you're setting up the sound equipments, middle of your sermon, you're running back to the sound board, you're increasing your volume, you're decreasing the volume, you're doing everything, you're doing the PPT for the songs, for your sermon, you're doing everything. But as the ministry grows, you start breaking them out into different teams, you need a worship team, you need an accounts team, everything, a volunteering team that takes care of this and whatnot. And with all these different teams that are emerging, so to say, there are people involved and with people being involved, you need to have guidelines. If there are no guidelines, notice that it says guidelines and not a rule book, okay, like rule is a rule, but it's a guideline, it's kind of a diplomatic way of saying, here to help you. If you take a look at the website, All People's Church website and just go to guidelines section, there are quite a lot of guideline PDFs for every volunteering teams and you're welcome to download them and go through them as well. Okay, assigned roles and functions for various ministries that the Lord releases in your midst. The structure, the way it's set hasn't changed, at least in the last 10 years that I've been part of ABC, the structure is, okay, Pastor Ashish is a senior pastor and then we have associate pastors. For each location, we have five locations and each location is an associate pastor. I'm talking only about Bangalore City, guys, but it's the same thing. And then under the associate pastor, we'll have different teams that's in charge of that location, like the volunteering team, car parking team, the first time visitors greeting, greeters team, the welcome team, welcome lounge team, people who are coming in, so all of these various teams that can be like so many different teams. At ABC, if I'm not mistaken, recently we had this volunteer appreciation day, okay, so we take a day off one Sunday a year, we express our generosity and our appreciation to what they are doing. We appreciate the volunteers and so I was just going through the whole sheet and I was like, wow, you know, 19 different teams who work together to make one service happen, 19 different teams. So there might be churches with more teams or less. The point is there are teams that are working together to make one church service happen and that's pretty significant, isn't it? So assigning roles and functions is very key. Okay, this is a very important stage, by the way, guys. This is just the second stage, but administrative, organization and structural stage is key to the growth of your ministry. Point three says, do now what you will do even after you have increased in numbers. Don't say, okay, first let me grow a number and then I think it's better to do this and what not, but do as if you're fully added and you're already envisioning what you'll be doing. Put process in place when you have 50 people in attendance, which you will maintain when you have grown to 500 people or 5,000 people. So that's a very important thing to do. You will maintain when you have grown to 500 people or 5,000 people. All these things are going to have, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine regarding setting a culture of any new place that you're in. Any organization that you step into, a new organization or ministry or wherever you are, there's already a culture in place. Now, that could be a good thing, good culture or a bad culture. It could either be a culture of gossip, jealousy and blah, blah, blah, whatever, or it could be a culture of the kingdom of growth and of everything related to the kingdom of God and whatnot. So, because if you don't set a culture, the culture will be set for you by the people in the organization, right? I remember there's an example of a person who was talking about culture. He said, okay, a good organization with a bad culture is like this, a delicious food on a dirty plate. Okay, imagine your favorite food on a very dirty plate. Yeah, would you eat that? Doesn't matter how good that food is, you're not going to eat off a dirty plate, all right? So that's pretty much basically how he was explaining a bad culture, right? Everything can look good on the outside, but yeah, it's not helping anybody. All right, and the last point is new ministries can be birthed by the spirit in one of two ways. The Lord gives a vision of what needs to be done as you declare that vision. God serves the people who will step into it and carry it, okay? The first thing is, okay, there's a need in your church and then you've been praying about it. For example, a live-streaming team or IT team, a couple of people who can handle the technical department of it or a creative arts team, whatnot, right? You've been praying about it and you've been asking God to bring in the right people and then he does. So God will stir up people who will step into it and carry it out. New ministry is now being born. There's the creative arts team in your church that you've been praying for. The Lord may raise or send people with certain gifts and callings and you recognize these. Taking the same example, it may seem like, okay, hey, this person is good with photography or storytelling and whatnot. I think it'd be great if this person can do certain things like say a short film using the young talent of our youth in the church. So something that you haven't actually been praying about, but then you recognize the talent and then you say, okay, this can be used for the growth and the impact of our ministry, isn't it? So that's another part of growth. So this is the second stage, people, is the administrative, organizational and structural stage. You will learn in detail about it in the in the church administration course next year. So don't drop out. Yes, okay. The third stage now after laying the foundations and whatnot is the pastoral team stage, team ministry, senior pastor stage, whichever you want to call it. Pastoral team stage is establish a leadership team to carry out several areas of the ministry. The founding pastor moves into a senior pastor role, providing overall vision and direction for growth and expansion. Continuously create room and opportunity for developing leaders who understand and are committed to the vision God has given. Spend time nurturing new leaders. I love this last point. It says the more trust you give, the more faithful your leaders will be. I think Pastor Ashish has just added that because he's seen quite a lot in the last 20 years of his being in the ministry. The more trust you give, the more faithful your leaders will be. So some key important points there is establish a leadership team to carry out several areas of the ministry. We see in the church of Antioch in the case study that we did, there were new leaders were constantly emerging in that church. That means they were continuously creating room and opportunity for developing leaders because they were also spending time nurturing new leaders. So a leadership plan for the church is very key. When you're not there, who's going to do what? What happens in case if you move on? So the leadership plan is very important. So establishing a team to carry out several areas of ministry. Like we just say, so now Pastor Ashish at APC is the senior pastor. He's the founding pastor. In many ways, he is the pioneer. And now there are several teams. Now he's not leading worship. He's not leading the youth ministry. He's not leading the IT team. He's not leading the media team. He's not leading the live streaming team. He's not leading the the welcome lounge thing. Okay, everything. He's not leading children's ministry. He's not leading worship ministry or youth ministry like I've already mentioned. But then he's the overseer of everything. Now there are teams and individuals who are appointed to take care of each area of ministry. By doing that, we are also being nurtured. We are also being developed as young leaders. So that is the third stage, the pastoral team stage. You're just providing overall side for the other leaders. Okay, so the next stage, the fourth stage is equipping is the equipping stage. Can we very quickly go to Ephesians chapter four versus Ephesians chapter four? Let's see. If anyone's there, please feel free to read from Ephesians chapter four verse 12 to 16. Ephesians 4, 12 to 16. For the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Thanks John. You see it started, verse 12 started off by equipping the saints, equipping the saints for God's work and it ended with growth. Equipping of the saints, this stage has a lot to do with the growth of the local church itself. Okay, so focus on equipping the saints, you know, empowering them and discipling them. So that entire church is mobilized into ministry. It is no longer just the leaders doing the ministry but everyone is involved. Okay, if you remember, one of the key points from the course that we did last semester was ministering healing and deliverance is that everyone is called to minister in healing and deliverance. It's not just the senior pastor, it's not just the associate pastor. Okay, if you've forgotten, please go back and look at those notes. Okay, one of the things that we believe the culture that is being set is that everyone is called to minister in healing and deliverance. It's not just the pastor team, it's not just the leadership team. Right, so but that's the point that has been made here. It is no longer just the leaders doing the ministry that everyone is involved. Now we make ministry, the word ministry sound like it's a major thing and whatnot. The root word of the ministry is basically the root word is a server. So all you're doing is just serving. Faces on supernatural ministry and moving everyone into the realm of signs and wonders and the prophetic, equipping them to go deeper and deeper, not just stay where they are at. We're going to look at that much deeper a little later. The church begins to penetrate the community and catches a vision for missions. Okay, so as the saints are being equipped, as the people who are coming into the church are being equipped with different things of kingdom of God, now eventually the result of that is the church starts impacting and touching the community where the church is being placed, the physical local church is being placed. Okay, believers are ministering to one another and to the world. Okay, any questions still now guys? If you're hearing any pop music from my end, I apologize. Some killer scenes happening down the road. So just kindly But anything else? Any questions? Any thoughts that you want to add? Say, okay, so what's the first stage? The pioneering stage? Okay, then you have the administrative stage, then the pastoral team stage, and now we just finished the equipping stage, okay, the building stage. Okay, so see every stage is important. It plays its own role, right? All right, let's move on then. The next page is the apostolic function stage. Apostolic function stage. Establish an apostolic mindset. Okay, outward focused rather than a focus on internal care. All the process in place to continue to equip the saints. Okay, all of the processes in place to continue to equip the saints. The senior pastor and others have more time to go out and gain new territory for the kingdom of God. Okay, you see this now, when everything is done, that has to be done. Okay, pioneering stage is by default, then the administrative stage, okay, you have all the administrative teams in place, right? And as a leader, you have all the other teams in place as well. And then you've been equipping your saints for a good amount of time, like five years or whatnot. Okay, so now that everything is done, now you start thinking big, thinking wide. Okay, okay, now I can go out on mission strip. I can start, you know, impacting different regions, gaining new territory for the kingdom of God. Okay, that's what he's talking about here. The senior pastors and others have more time to go out and gain new territory for the kingdom of God. The church begins to actively reproduce itself in regions beyond. Okay, I just reminded so much of like the financial investment that you put in so much money. And after a certain time, it just keeps building on what you've already put. So you've invested, you've invested for like say five years. And after that, you know, you keep getting returns based on what you've already, you can stop investing and then I'm not saying stop investing in your church example. Okay, the last point there is the local church becomes more of a missions base rather than a spiritual nursery. We saw how the church of Antioch was the missions base. It's from there, everybody went out on a mission strip. And when this is in place, when you've done everything that when you've gone through every stages that's been mentioned, when you get to this stage, now the local church becomes a missions base. So by the time the church of Antioch became a mission space, that means it's gone through all these stages, right? It went through pioneering stage, the administrative stage, the pastoral game stage, equipping the stage, you know, equipping stage, and then the apostolic function stage. So they were at this stage when by the time it became a mission space, right? And so with all these things, with all these different stages, it just is only screaming changes, right? Different stages means different changes, right? And as pastors or as ministry leaders, we need a lot of wisdom, anointing and grace to lead our congregation. Can someone say an amen? Okay. We need a lot of wisdom. We need a lot of grace to lead our congregation, right? Because like as I just mentioned, with each stage, there's going to be a change that's coming. And the change is necessary. There will be certain, there will be a resistance sometimes, you know, as in why do we really need this change? Do we really need to do this a different way, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But our congregation will have to move from, you know, being people who come purely to be cared for and nurtured for into, you know, becoming apostolic apostles as well, okay? You teach them, you equip them, and you let them know as like, hey, you're not going to be a baby the whole time, and I'm not going to just keep feeding you milk the whole time. You know, we have to go through different stages. You know, I'm going to give you solids and we're going to move on. We've got to grow, you know, and keep emphasizing that, keep stressing on that part and let them know as like, okay, I'm not satisfied with where you are spiritually. We need to go deeper. We need to go deeper, you know, until they have this apostolic mindset, okay? So constantly pushing people forward, getting them out of their comfort zone. It also results in growth, and it's a very important thing to do for the growth of the church in a bigger picture as well. Okay. I mean, just mention a few pointers here that will be helpful to helpful in growing the local church is, as I just mentioned, is pushing people forward, giving them responsibility and trusting them with what's been assigned to them. Bridging across two levels, what that means is minister to people at their spiritual level and stretch them to the next level. So we spoke a lot about equipping the saints, isn't it? Discipling them, empowering them. You meet them at the point of their need, see where they are, okay? No, we can have all the degrees that we want to have, all the PhDs and whatnot. But then if we don't speak to them in their language and meet them at their level, that means, you know, sometimes, okay, they might know a lot more in any topic given. So you need to equip ourselves to get to that level and then talk to them, or sometimes we need to stoop low, okay, so that we can engage with them in their language at their level. And then you think, okay, hey, that's good that you're here. I'm happy that you are here. But let's keep going. There's room, there's space for us to grow, okay? You need to come with me, you know? So you're constantly pushing them to grow. Our teaching and preaching it must stretch their spiritual capacity, okay? Your teaching and preaching must stretch their spiritual capacity, okay? So that's bridging across two levels. And as I mentioned that there's always going to be resistance when it comes to change. When you ask them to go to a deeper level, this is like, I really need to go to a deeper level. I'm just happy, you know, being where I am. I love Jesus and I know He's my personal Lord and Savior. It's all cool, you know, I want to end there. But then you show them very patiently instead of, hey, from the Word of God saying, okay, hey, this is what the Bible has to say about this. There's so much more for us to encounter and experience Him. So let's go, okay? So we need the grace to explain that with wisdom. We need to have patience because that will be tested, believe me. So you have to lead the change. If you want to see the change, you have to lead the change. You guys with me? Yeah? So constantly pushing forward, you leading the change is very important. And also having the right people at the right place at the right time. I can't stress how important that is for the growth and the development of your ministry as well. Okay? For example, in the worship team, what we do is we need, if every time we want to add new people to the team. And now that I lead the worship ministry at APC, I'm not just going to put a billboard saying, like, anyone who wants to join the worship team, please come. So all are welcome. You know, come full musty, no. That's not going to happen. So we have a process in place. We have an audition. We send out a form saying, okay, hey, we're going to have an audition. We'll send out two songs for you to sing or for you to play on an instrument and what not. At the so-and-so date, at so-and-so time, if you meet the parameters of the auditions, of being part of the team, then you'll be selected. If not, there are other teams in church that you can serve. And we say that very politely. Stay away. There are other teams that you can serve in. So please be part of the team. So having the right people at the right place at the right time, if that is not right, then it's going to be a lot of trouble. It's very easy to add to a team than to undo a team. Okay. Can I say that again? It's very easy to add to a team than to undo a team. Okay. It's like adding someone to the WhatsApp group and then you realize, oops, okay, should this person really be in this group? It's just a WhatsApp group, but then we all make it a big issue out of it. And then you remove the person. That person removed me from the group. How can they remove? Have you ever been part of that drama? Well, that's what it is. In conclusion of this chapter, each time you transition into a new level of growth, there will be new kinds of challenges. So be ready. Okay. Each time you transition into a new level of growth, there will be new kinds of challenges. So be ready. Tap into God's wisdom. Don't let short hindrances stop you from growing. There's an example that's mentioned here. You are pushing your congregation to move in the prophetic. So there can be two extremes kind of people. I'm talking about the extremes in this spectrum. So you've just finished a series on teaching on the prophetic. One end of the spectrum is people just don't believe in that. They just don't want to move in the prophetic. And the other end of the spectrum is there can be one person who will use the God's name, the Lord's name in vain is saying, thus says the Lord for everything. The Lord said, I have to eat only this flavor ice cream. This is an example. They might use that thing. Okay. The Lord said, the Lord said for everything and can be a very bad example, most case, right? But that's a challenge. But a challenge like that should not stop you from pushing your congregation to move in the prophetic. As you deal with that situation and you move on. Right. So in conclusion, overall, leading a local church through various stages of growth and development is challenging. But also it should be extremely exciting. Okay. It should be extremely exciting to just go through this different ages and stages of the church. Because you've already envisioned this as a leader, as a pioneer, you've envisioned saying, okay, hey, my church, I wanted to be this way. I want them to be strong in the prophetic ministry and the healing and deliverance ministry. I want them to be strong in the word and whatnot. So you have this goal, you have this vision and then you keep setting out every different missions. Okay. To get from point A to point B, we have to do this. And I'm not going to compromise on that. When I say not compromise, that doesn't also mean it's partially stubborn, but for a good thing. So you don't give up easily. That's why I'm saying, all right. So I hope this chapter was helpful in a way that it helps you understand the importance of growth and development of a church by using two church as a case study from the Church of Jerusalem and the Church of Antioch and going through the different stages of the church. And none of these stages can be compromised in the journey of a church growth. Okay. That's about it guys. Any other questions or anything that you want to add before we close? Okay then. All right. Well, thank you for joining today's class. Have a lovely weekend. I'll see you all again next week. God bless you guys. Take care. Thanks. Thank you pastor. Thanks guys. We're very informative. I've shared the PDF on the stream section. Yeah, we got it already. Awesome. Take care. Bye.