 Okay, the recording has just has just come on good morning or one. Thank you for joining us Let's take a moment to pray and then we will get started in our class today Okay Who'd like to just say a word of prayer or us together? Go ahead Prince, please Give us the good understanding that will receive Work for what lot help us and also I pray that You are with us and Holy Spirit help us to grow in your lot. Thank you And I submit this class in your hand Jesus name I pray Amen. Amen. Thank you Prince All right, so We Yesterday we started talking about these spiritual dynamics Understanding the spiritual dynamics of Urban centers of cities and so on so today. We will just continue from but we paused yesterday and Go forward from there. I'm just going to share my PDF and So what we're saying is that God is at work. So we must understand the natural dynamics It was also understand the spiritually spiritually. What was happening? So we said God is at work in cities But at the same time there are demons there Satan and his demons acting in the city We are also at work in the city and we went through Revelation chapter 2 Where we saw you know in these cities what four of them first four of the cities where Jesus is when he's speaking to the church He is also addressing what Satan is doing or what Satan is attempting to do Against the church in that city Which is very important because You know the Lord is taking time to address that And so we also as believers must be aware. What is Satan doing in the city and how do we counter those things? Okay? So there is a Let me just make sure I let people live in I don't want anybody to have okay Okay Yeah Okay, all right, so Going back to So we don't want you know To be ignorant of What what satan and his demons are doing in the city and we must always keep in mind that the real battle for souls Is a spiritual battle. So while we are doing things in the natural understanding the natural dynamics of the city which will help us in the kinds of ministries we will start Uh, you must also be aware of the spiritual side because that is also going to influence You know how we counter what satan is doing in the city, right? So that's what we're trying to put together here now In addition to what we already saw from revelation chapters two and three We also see in scripture And I've just given two references here That our spiritual beings influence natural leaders influence leaders over cities you know, that means While we are thinking, you know that Okay The leaders are there and they're doing things you must also you must not forget that Uh Let me just find I'm just looking at looking for worse here Yeah We must not forget that that there is demonic influence over cities And these demonic influence also Demons also influence leaders over cities So we see that an example of Babylon and I've given you references here I also word city of Tyre and I think one classic example is In first chronicles 21 verse one. Can somebody read this please first chronicles 21 verse one It's not on the in the in the notes. That's why I kind of just turned to it in my bible Uh, can somebody turn it to it in their bibles and read it first chronicles 21 one Can somebody read that for us? Now Satan's In Israel and moved David to number of Number Israel so David one is enough. Yeah, where's one? So it's look at look at that where second chronic first chronicles 21 verse one. It says Satan Stood up against Israel so Satan was going to go after this nation Israel What did he do? He moved on David He moved on David was David King. He was a leader And he moved David to do something God. I told him not to do so God had already given clear instruction The leader must not know How the nation of Israel just trust God that The people will be as numerous as the stars and the sky and the sand and the seashore You don't worry about numbering the people And so here It's telling satan move He was trying to go against the nation trying to disturb, you know cause some problems for the people But in an attempt to go against the people. What did he do? He influenced the leader And think about this was David. This was a god's man. This was a man who loved God who Honored God, but there is demonic Interference satan is trying to move upon this leader And moving him to do something that is wrong in the eyes of God So that, you know, it will eventually affect the people so Keep this and also in mind. So not only are demons and evils first operating in the city, but they're also, you know Trying to work through the leadership in the city or over the nation and trying to cause things to harm and hurt the people right So and we know the ultimate objective is to steal kill and destroy So he's coming to steal kill and destroy God's plan for the city God's plan for the people He wants to pervert that and so that he works towards in those directions now what I want to also understand is that One way By which we can understand what is happening in the spiritual dynamics of the city Is by looking at certain things that are happening in the natural so For instance, if we look at the culture You look at what's happening in terms of the art the dance the festivals the customs the superstitions that the people hold on to things like that It gives you a little understanding of the spiritual dynamics of the city You already look at something in the natural You know, sometimes yeah, and you can easily tell this especially in smaller settings For example in a village You know, which is easier to tell actually if you go to village and In that village if they keep in a you'll notice in some villages They may say, you know, everybody in this village is having a certain kind of Illness a certain kind of problem certain kinds of issues Now some sometimes it could be just purely natural that is You know, maybe it has to do with the food or You know, some other natural thing is okay. Yeah, some of it Maybe just just because of a certain diet or whatever they're all having common problems, but sometimes you'll also you'll find that it is spiritual and Because of the worship of certain things or certain sacrifices It is affecting almost every household in that community in that village So there is a connection the spiritual is being expressed in the life of the people in a certain way The influence and so you can pick it up quite easily when you when you observe that And so when you look at I'm just you know, when you look at culture When you look at the way things are being expressed in the natural you get some sense Of what is influencing the people When you also look at the social Geography of the people, you know, what are the religious groups? ideologies philosophies religious systems that are predominantly in that area that part of the city You get an idea. Okay. This is what's predominantly Influencing people in this area You look at the moral values. You look at, you know, how people are living their lives You look at the addictions, you know, is there a lot of You know drug trafficking or prostitution or Different things happening in you know in that area or in that part of the city Then you know, that's a problem that there's a spiritual influence behind those things Or sometimes it's human trafficking or bonded labor or suicide corruption crime Other kinds of needs, you know, you can look at, you know, what are the NGOs struggling with? You know, the social organizations, they're struggling with certain things and it's okay So there's a spiritual side to this, right? So by looking at some Of the natural aspects, which we have listed here It gives us some indication What's happening in the spiritual because usually that spiritual dynamic is expressed in the natural through many of these challenges and problems Right, so you could take some time to think about, you know, hey in the region where I am What are some of the predominant problems I'm seeing in expressed either in In the in the in the life of the people and it could be, you know, whether it's moral values or What's happening? What are some of the things that I would be able to identify easily? Right, because of the spiritual influencing the natural now I want us to understand that while it is good to observe and you know arrive at these these deductions Don't get too caught up in what is what has, you know, in the past Used to be called a spiritual mapping Now in the 1980s, especially in 80s 1980s 1990s, I think you're not on that time There were a lot of books written on spiritual warfare And and you know, this is generally it is true. We are in spiritual warfare We are fighting against Principalities and powers Rulers of darkness is so now that is true that that aspect of spiritual warfare is very true And there are a lot of good books written that told it taught us how to engage in spiritual warfare. We're very good but in that whole spiritual warfare, uh, you know Understanding that was coming to through to the church to the body of christ There are also certain elements that You know today retro in retrospect when we look back we feel like hey, this was probably impractical And unprofitable and one of them was spiritual mapping, you know, so People would go to every part of the city and to identify, you know religious places And and say, okay, because you have this religious place or that religious place Therefore, you know, this influence is existing In this community Now it might work well in certain parts of the world where there's only one religious place in, you know, a whole area But if you come to other parts of the world, you'll find, you know, so many Religious places on the road, you know every road has five or six of these That's what sense are you going to make of it, you know, so it's really impractical And so if you're going to cover an area you'll find 50 of those, you know religious places and all those kinds of things so you know, so It was rather impractical and so I would say, you know While we definitely need to observe And get a general sense don't get caught up in spiritual mapping try to look at Looking at every little thing nitty gritty of what's happening on the street because especially in Parts of the world that we live and there's a lot happening You know, and we will be wasting all our time doing spiritual mapping and we'll never get to do anything, you know Beyond that so don't don't get caught up in that instead What I strongly recommend is to learn to listen to the Holy Spirit, you know Just follow the spirit of God the Holy Spirit is Able to help us discern and when when he wants us to know certain things He's going to alert us as we stay in prayer as we stay sensitive to him He's going to alert us so one in the natural we are observant That means we are aware of what's happening and we're observant to these things We're not pretending. They're not there That is what we see in the natural the news and things to hear But more importantly listen to the Holy Spirit to so that he can tell us, you know Hey, now you have to pray like this or now you have to move like this Or you be on guard in this area Because the enemy is working actively in this area, you know, protect yourself in this area and so on Put your defenses up in this area. So be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Okay now This whole exercise of understanding the spiritual dynamics, of course It's going to move it's going it's going to help us in how we pray And also how we carry out the ministry in the city And now I can just you know, and we all understand the importance of prayer and we do a course on prayer You've done it in your I think your first first year And we understand how we have to pray for cities pray for people pray for nations Pray for regions and we understand the importance Of that and I and I just want to you know, just share this little Testimony and this goes way back into during my college days And and I shared this because you know for us, it was a very small, you know, I studied I did my bachelor's in engineering in money pile Which in those days was a very small town It was a student community basically there they were, you know, there was an engineering college There was a medical college of dental college a law college A big school So really it was predominantly Student community an educational center You know, and it was very very simple in those days. Of course things, you know, things have changed a lot And so while I got to study there do my engineering my bachelor's in engineering I knew I said god, I know There's a work to be done in this place Please help me show me what to do and so on so First year we were doing some things, you know, just having some reaching out to people Second year we continued, you know, having some special meetings and pretty rich people Let's continue praying and in my third year in engineering college Is when we formally launched We started what we called is And every week we started meet every Saturday. We show rent a conference hall in the hotel And we started weekly meetings. We called it our believers fellowship meetings believers fellowship meetings and so we started just teaching the work So this was from my third year And so we started doing that now around the same time We also started praying so every Sunday morning Some of us would go Towards so money money pile was kind of like on a hilly hilly area So we used to go to one side Away from the campus on a hilly area And we should spend at least two hours sometimes three to four hours in prayer on Sunday mornings So we'll go from six a.m We'll start praying by six a.m on the hillside And we'll go on through nine sometimes 10 so mostly we go on through through till about 10 o'clock And then we would get back So we started praying we started praying for money pile. He started interceding. It's a god Now we want to see a move of the spirit now at that time when we started doing this The believers fellowship meetings was very small. We would have 20 people 30 people come You know, but in the morning on Sunday mornings, we people are going out for prayer We would usually have about You know six people six to eight people Going for prayer and we were praying every Sunday and there would be you know, we were so committed we said Rain or sun whatever we are going to pray And there will be times when we were on the hill slope and they were there would be heavy downpour because this was on the coast coastal side of western india Heavy raining heavy rain. We'd be sitting there, but we were praying There's praying over money pile. There's pranks in God. We want to see a move of your spirit interceding for the various things that we were aware of spiritually over Money, but you know, so I'm not saying we didn't like, you know a detailed spiritual mapping. We did not do that But just generally we knew okay. What were the struggles of students? In money pile what was going on? So we were praying we would pray we would use the word of God praying tongues Pray with the word of God and pray and spend that time two to four hours every Sunday And we continued like that for about a year and a half Now by the time I graduated I left money pile And at that time the fellowship was still small maybe 35 40 people on an average But passed on the leadership to the next person was to go to lead the fellowship and subsequently what happened was A year or the following year There was just a mighty move of God in that place And there was a great strong work that was hard-taking place and that fellowship grew to more than 250 students within I would say and I can't remember the exact things because this was a long time ago But you know within I think about two years After you know, I transitioned somebody has continued and the work was going so somewhere two years three years, whatever the work just exploded And students and I don't remember these are all students the students would come students would leave students would come students would leave You know, there was there was a there was a flowing crowd You know students would be there for generally four years five years maximum five and a half And that was a continuous flow of students But this fellowship grew to about 20 or 50 students on an average meeting and that's only some families also joined And when I look back I can say At the time that was invested in the spiritual and praying Interceding You know praying for money, but now we were all students. You know, we were not like theologians. So we didn't have you know Great ministry experience or anything We were just praying but for the work to suddenly just See a breakthrough and see it's huge impact On the lives of so many students, you know, and that work continued for many years and Lots of students from who are now in different parts of the world many doctors many, you know, of course the others all engineers and Lawyers and dentists and so on different parts of the lives were impacted through that fellowship and one Part of it I'm not saying the only but one part of it was the prayer that went in in that initial time, you know towards This fellowship and of course prayer continued In that so And for us looking back, this was a very controlled environment, you know a city is very big You know has millions of people whereas moneypal was a student community as a small town It is kind of like a controlled environment for us So where we could be very focused in our praying be very simple in our praying I think complicated it was all students mainly students praying for the community And we could see the results you could see the outcome and in the lives in the work of the spirit that was taking place in that community so I just want to what I want to impress is the whole purpose of understanding the spiritual Dynamics the natural the spiritual dynamics is to lead us into this kind of action Where one of the things is to pray now, of course, we did other things we had special seminars We, you know did a lot of outreach work that was happening in moneypal plus prayer Right prayer also was happening and he saw the fruit. So we are combining the natural dynamics and the spiritual in the work that We are doing In an urban center Okay, let me pause now before we get into the next closing chapter and I just see if there are any questions any questions Okay, all right. So I see a question there, you know So how do we handle religious festivals in within our area? City our homes here, you know, there are Hindu festivals and other kinds of Just depending on which part of the world you sorry, which part of the world you live There will be different kinds of cultural religious festivals now one is we should never get You know don't get what to say Don't feel like oh This is going to affect the church or it's going to cripple the church or it's going to affect Now don't be in fear. Maybe I should say that Now just because there is some religious thing happening Never get in fear and there's a you know, we know who we are We are the church the keys of the kingdom Have been given to us And the gates of hell will not prevail. You know, we know that so You know, we never operate out of fear or you know, all things are going to be bad for us and all of that No, never operate out of fear Right You we always know who we are and we walk in that sense of authority Now people around us may do whatever they would like to do and that's their choice. We are not Afraid of it right and then you know if We just continue to live a life that hosts the presence of God That means as gods people as the community of believers We do what we should do to Be a habitation of God's presence To be a dwelling place of the presence of God that means We continue in prayer We continue in worship and we continue living The life that we have in Christ That's being the temple of God Where we host the presence of God And when we do that nothing's going to shake us. Nothing's going to So basically don't operate in the fear don't operate out of fear Secondly do what I would be normally do to be a dwelling place of God in that community right Another question here When people come off come and after down the work when they leave I'm not sure if I understood your question. I know like what exactly were you saying when people come And they do their work and they leave meaning I didn't understand Actually, sir, I have one question that when people come church and after their work done And they leave church. So what do you do that time? And they didn't Come again church Okay, somebody has just come to church like a visiting church and then they leave or I'm not sure Actually, no actually they come for prayer and they're attending church and After some days after a few months they went because their work is done And after that they didn't come church So what to do that? Okay Oh, I understand what you're saying that People come to the church because of a certain needs And you know, they come into church for maybe a couple of months Because they have a certain need Their need is addressed and then they decide to stop coming to church Uh, and that's your question. So what should we do? Well, uh, of course one is definitely we try to reach out to people You know, even while from the beginning when they start coming We try to you know Reach out to them. We try to disciple them to other extent. We can try to You know, put their focus on Jesus. Of course, they have needs We all have needs But our focus is on Jesus. So we try to do this You know throughout their time when they're coming to the fellowship that You know our focus on Jesus and not just to get our need met and then disappear But our focus is on growing the relationship with Jesus And to know him and live for him. So we keep that as a focus Of course, God is faithful. God is merciful. He will meet needs But we need to emphasize So if if our preaching and if our ministry is need-based Then people's response will also be need-based And if you only keep saying well Jesus will heal you and Jesus will deliver you, which is true. It's not wrong. That is true But then people will think that okay I go to Jesus only when I need healing or when I need deliverance or when I need something So their relationship with God is also need-based So when their need is okay, fine, then they disappear and then until you know, they're in Another situation of need But if our preaching and teaching and our we are telling them look, this is relationship With God you're in a life relationship with God And we're learning how to live out of that relationship. Then it's not a need-based thing it is I am walking with Jesus Because I want to grow in relationship with him and let that relationship affect my life And of course in the process I have needs I will present my needs to the Lord and he will minister to me and so on So then what happens people understand Even when my needs are met and everything is fine. I'm still growing in relationship So that will you know ensure that they continue To grow spiritually and be a part of the community of believers Okay So, yes, sir. Thank you, sir Welcome So now let's just go to the last section in this introduction as we learn about urban church planting Which is just a quickly look at some some, you know lessons from The book of acts All right, and I will just say you know share some of these things very quickly You know, we could take a lot of time to read and examine each of these but I will just highlight right some of these things So we know in acts chapter one This was right after the resurrection of Jesus acts chapter one Jesus Gives his apostles and The early believers The account here in acts one tells us that about 120 of them He says look, you're going to be my witnesses In Jerusalem in Judea and some area to the ends of the earth. So that's that's the vision. That's the mission Right. This is going to start in Jerusalem But it's going to go to the ends of the earth right and you can imagine these True, I mean the 11 apostles and they are the 12th one added and there were 120 people and you know, Jesus is telling them From here, it's going to go to the ends of the earth And they're they're probably like, you know, they're just a small group. How is it going to happen? But then acts up to The day of Pentecost takes place. Holy Spirit is poured out And we see how the church in Jerusalem, you know, when you look at acts two all the way through acts eight It covers the an eight-year period approximately And then in that eight years from acts two to acts eight We see how the church in Jerusalem just exploded right and if if we were to say, okay, what were the main things that helps in the growth of this church in such a powerful way We can highlight a lot of things and we could say well, there was strong teaching the apostles You know, they were discipling the believers in whatever they learned. We see this in acts two There was constant fellowship. They were meeting from house to house. There was prayer and worship They were engaging in prayer and worship There was there was a demonstration of God's power and healings signs and wonders and there was community so the people were sharing with each other the things they had and there was also resolution of problems so when there was a problem between The Greek speaking Jews and the Hebrew speaking Jews You know, they resolved the problem and so they maintained that unity There was a great sense of reverence for God the Bible tells us so we could highlight these things, you know And I say wow, this was here was a church. These are the characteristics And this church in Jerusalem was powerful. It was impacting the city of Jerusalem You know, so this church Was really impacting the city and that's what we're talking about. We're talking about cities We're talking about impacting cities and definitely the church in Jerusalem Was such a church. It was impacting the city But what I want to highlight very importantly is that in this eight-year period the these believers Thousands of them were so equipped in God were so strong in God that when a big wave of persecution came Which dispersed the community so all of a sudden, you know Thousands of people were displaced Because of persecution So the church in Jerusalem may have been about 20,000 people That's a rough estimate what people say that in eight years it grew to about 20,000 just as an estimate But when there was persecution thousands of people were scattered. They had to leave Jerusalem So many of them would have gone back to their own hometowns where they came from Many of them went into all the neighboring towns and villages around Jerusalem and they all went up all the way north Up into Syria in Antioch Some of them went over You know various places so The church in Jerusalem was scattered, but it didn't cause the church to die overnight the church multiplied So when these Believers were dispersed It only resulted in the multiplication of the church. Why because the believers were so strong So where were these believers went? They reproduced the church So example is in acts eight Philip goes to Samaria And he preaches Christ there and the church is established there Who was Philip? He was a helper in the Jerusalem church but when he Even he was scattered that means when he had to leave because of the persecution When he went to Samaria, he just preached Jesus How church was established and so you know you read about in acts 11 That some of the believers were who were scattered in acts eight when they went up On the way to Antioch the city of Antioch in Syria north of Jerusalem way north in Jerusalem They planted a church there And so everywhere churches were planted So that's what we can say about the initial church in Jerusalem was so powerful when it was persecuted it just multiplied Then we see later on we see the transformation of Saul And then from acts 13 onwards we see Saul's ministry, you know how he went and ministered in cities So we can quickly go through some of the examples In acts 13 you see how when paul came To pathos The city of pathos there there is a governor. He's a very intelligent intelligent man but He was also a very spiritual man. He's very interested in spiritual things but Paul demonstrates the power of God and This man Sergius paulus in acts 13 a very intelligent man He turns to Jesus Christ when he sees the power of God and he hears the teaching about Jesus So we see that there was a spiritual encounter Which caused the leader to change and obviously when the leader changes, you know, there could be many others who Would follow his Choice and they say wow, you know a leader is making a choice. So Maybe we should also follow we don't have too much of a record on that but we have a record of how the leader of How sergius paulus was affected in act 17. We see paul journeying through teslonica through beria through to Athens when he comes to Athens You know how he Preaches the gospel in Athens. So Athens is a very interesting case study because It was an intellectual city So it's nice to observe, you know, paul took time to survey Athens I to understand what was going on in that city and then he presented christ To the intellectuals of that city in a church was planted in acts 18 he comes to Corinth Corinth is a very sinful city quite different from Athens and we see how paul along with the aquila and priscilla They stay in Corinth for quite an extended time for about a year and a half And they're working. They're making tents, but they're also establishing a church there We don't have too much details about Everything that happened, but we know a strong church was established Now then he comes to Ephesians And you read about this in acts 18 and acts 19 and Ephesians is a different kind of a city in Ephesians The goddess Diana is being worshipped And it's a very spiritual city, right? So Athens a very intellectual city Corinth a very sinful city Ephesians a very spiritual city they're all worshipers of the goddess Diana and You know But but but in that city the power of god is so demonstrated That people turn from their witchcraft they turn from their In all the black magic they bring everything and burn it To the point where the people who are worshiping goddess Diana get upset Because their business goes down people are turning away from You know buying merchandise the idols of goddess Diana. Now they've stopped buying it And they're following Jesus. So, you know, you see the dynamics over there So just some examples, you know, if you look at this and we could even look at acts 16 And Philippi I've not listed here, but how God how Paul goes in the Philippi and there it's again There is a spiritual encounter there that affects the whole city So if you look at how what happened in Philippi you look at what happened in in Athens you look at what happened in Corinth You know, you look at what happened in Ephesians, you know, these are, you know You can you can just pick up a few insights here of how these people ministered in the cities of their day when they went You know, and any city was different like we mentioned The very spiritual cities are very intellectual cities. So very sinful cities different different cities And and and they served the minister and they established churches Which became strong churches to which Paul later on You know, he writes many of his episodes to these churches that had been established all right, so Paul as he journeys He goes to some of these major cities. So, you know, just to Bring this to a close It is estimated that Paul Through his through three missionary journeys touched at least 50 major cities of his time so He definitely would have stopped in numerous villages Our communities which, you know, are probably not even recorded for us but It is estimated that he affected 50 major cities All the way to Rome. So, you know, when you go on later on in an axe Paul Is sent to Rome and he spends at least two years in Rome and although he is under house arrest imprisoned in Rome it is influence reaches all the way to Caesar because the guards who come Paul witnesses to them Paul shares the gospel with them and they are Taking the message back into the palace While Paul is waiting for his turn to be tried The message has already gone into the palace through the Roman soldiers so everywhere Paul is reaching influencing cities and about 50 cities in his day He influenced Just by physically going there traveling on road or traveling through ship and impacts the city so The point I just want to bear across in our hearts is in the book of axe We see urban missions being played out for us Now, we don't have all the details Other than you know, what is given to us and we can pick up a few things here and there but the fact is cities or missions to city Was an important important part in fulfilling axe 1 8 Jerusalem Judea Samaria and to the ends of the earth Cities was an important part of that. I'm not saying it was the only part, but it was an important part of that. And so today Even in our day and time Cities are very important probably more important because people are moving into the cities So, you know with this we've kind of given a little bit of introduction to urban church planting or planting studying churches and ministries in cities As you go into the next section, we start talking about the natural dynamics. We start getting into, okay You know, here's how we start doing things just the practical things The goal is just to share with you, you know, some of the lessons we have learned Both, you know while we worked in Bangalore and other places Starting Churches or starting ministry works What are some practical things we need to keep in mind, you know, now we're going to talk about Ground level, you know, when you're down at the trenches You're you're starting to dig. You're starting to lay the foundation What are some of the things to keep in mind? How to go about it? How you know some things to think about I'm not saying That everything we are going to learn you will have to use every time. No These are just ideas. These are just some practical lessons And in different situations, you may use some of them And it will be helpful As you think about either starting a church Or a ministry in urban center Okay, so any questions before we close for today any any things you want to ask so far um, I don't see any questions so we're gonna close in prayer and then We will you know get into the section two The natural dynamics Next week and get into all the details. Okay So I want to just ask somebody to please close us in prayer and dismiss the class could anyone Anyone could pray and close please Who wants to Aaron you want to pray? Yeah, sure Let me pray Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for letting us understand each day as we are talking in your word Lord, thank you for letting us understand about a spiritual dynamic of urban center Lord Any word says that uh to put the whole armor so that lord we can stand against evil works So lord help us to be more sensitive in spirit and help us to progress to walk by faith not by sight and lord Let us all hold into our calling and give the heart Of zeal who will say yes, and I will go lord So lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for For everyone to attend this class and lord. Thank you, especially lord father. We just want to say thank you for pastor I should love other for using him uh as a channel Of blessing lord so lord lord We just want to say thank you lord And thank you for being with us throughout this day lord. So I submit all the students Into your loving hand in Jesus name. I pray amen Amen. Amen. Thank you everyone. Thank you See you again