 All right, welcome back. Let's continue from where we stopped. Let me just present the notes. Okay, so engage your team together. Everyone achieves more. Okay, let's get into accountability and stay the course when the going gets tough. Proverbs 24 and verse 10. If you're weak in crisis, you're weak indeed. The word accountability simply means having somebody to speak into your life or being accountable. It's not like I'm just doing whatever I feel like doing. You're being accountable to someone. As people, as believers, who are we accountable to first? To God. We are accountable to God. Then we are accountable to our employers or our leaders. So accountability with subordinates and leaders is very important. There will be times when things are going hard, seasons of difficulties, working for more than eight, nine hours, 10 hours, 12 hours a day. Things are getting tough, right? But that's when you stay the course. You say, okay, God, things are getting tough in the season. This whole cycle of reporting, reviewing, planning and just repeating it on a weekly basis or on a monthly basis. It's not easy when you have these deadlines and targets to meet and you've got to put in all your effort. This is when you stay the course. Don't just say, okay, because it's so difficult, I don't want to quit the job. It doesn't work that way. So be accountable, stay the course during times when it's getting challenging. Remember, these challenging seasons can keep us motivated also. So it's all about how you look at it. You can look at something and you say, okay, it's too difficult, I want to quit. Or you can look at it and say, hey, I'm able to overcome this. So I can motivate myself to do well and overcome challenge that I see ahead. Well, next one, some lessons learned are more valuable than the profit gained. Proverbs 3, 13 to 17. Happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver and her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Lenght of days is in her right hand, in her left hand, riches and honor. Her ways are ways of peace and us and all her parts are peace. In the process of execution, you and I will learn valuable lessons in that process. Now, a lesson learned is great personally. If a lesson is learned, you have learned a lesson personally. It's greater than someone telling you. And it's like, for example, healing. If you've gone through a healing in your life, you know God's healing power. But if somebody hasn't gone through or didn't need a healing in their life, they're talking out of not from experience. They're talking from what God is saying, which is also very beneficial. But when we talk from lessons learned, it adds value. Look at scriptures. When God taught his people and God wanted to raise up leaders, he made them go through valuable lessons. Moses learned a valuable lesson. What? Don't act too smart. Learn to control your anger. All he did was kill the Egyptian. He shouldn't have done it. But I'm sure that's a life lesson he would have learned. So maybe when he was 40, started looking after sheep from where to where, from the palace to looking after sheep. Now imagine that 40 years he may have thought, why didn't I do that? I should have just walked out from that situation. But he was full of zeal. But he learned a valuable lesson. So when he was 80, front of the burning bush, he's saying, I don't know. I don't want to go. I'm not good enough. I'm not learned enough. I don't know how to speak. All kinds of excuses. Why? Because he learned a lesson. Lesson learned is always valuable. And you look at after 80, when God called him, you know, the Bible says, I think it's in numbers where it says there was no one as humble as Moses. And in Exodus, it says that he was well-learned, eloquent in speech. He's the one who's writing it. So he learned that, you know, these being eloquent in speech and being well-learned is not the answer for everything. And in the burning bush, he said, I'm nothing. Don't send me. I don't know how to speak. And you see that drastic change. So lessons learned in life are the most valuable lessons. Make a note of the lessons that you learn, both positives, both negatives. Make a note of them. When we say make a note of them, you can either write it down or you can, you know, lessons learned is there in your spirit. 20 years down the line, also you'll remember it because that's lesson learned. Oh, I did it this way, but I learned the lesson. I shouldn't have done it that way. And now, you know, this is a thing. So this is the outcome of that mistake that I made. So practical learning during the process is very important. Now, 10 years down the line, if I ask you all, what are the lessons learned in Bible college? You're not going to say in second semester I learned about timeless principles. You're not going to say that you're going to talk about the lessons that you learned, right? Meaning the life that happened during Bible college. You're going to remember that it's going to be there, right? And so learn from it and make a note of the positives and the negatives. Above all else, let God be in charge. Proverbs 16, 3, but God in charge of your work, then you'll have you, then what you've planned will take place. And so as you plan, you put God in charge of the work. Well, this is what I've planned. God, I commit these plans to you, right? Commit your ways to the Lord and He will direct your paths. And the Proverbs has plenty of verses. Commit your thoughts, commit your ways, commit your works to the Lord. And He will direct us. Let God be in charge. You plan. You come up with the strategy to execute. I'll say, God, I'm surrendering it at your feet. You execute it. You be in charge, right? And when you look at the Old Testament, God is a master executor of plans and strategies. From the time of Moses, right? Look at the way He executed these people, right? How He planned it. There's going to be these plagues and diseases that will come, but none of them will touch the people of Israel. All these plagues. In one day, the people came out of Egypt. He planned for them to walk through the desert. He planned for them to get into the promised land. He executed that plan. He saw the walls of Jericho. He came up with a plan. He said, you do this. He came up with a plan to stop the sun, where the sun stood still. Strategies and plans. That's how God is, right? Of course, He's a God who can change anything at any time, but He can enable us to work with the strategy. He can give us the strategy and work with us. So the planning and execution is very, very important as believers. Even as you get into an organization or your ministries, plan. Don't be without planning. I would say start planning now. If it's five years down the line, also start planning now. And then come up with the execution will change over time. So what we are doing now, five years down the line, we may have better equipment, better ideas, better strategies. That's okay, but you put it into paper and commit it to God. Any questions on this chapter? No questions? Okay. Any practical guidelines that you can give for ministry planning? Practical guidelines for ministry planning. We already have a vision. There are some basic guidelines, right? Okay, I'll just share briefly. I don't want to go completely off topic, but see, if you feel that you're talking about wanting to start from scratch or already a church, the church is going, has an organization also, right? So you're not working. Okay, so yeah, you see, what you're doing right now, continue to do and ask God for new strategies. When we started, like, for example, any ministry, any church, when they started, they would have started with Sunday Services Life Group. Maybe those two things. Over time, new ministries, new ideas, new plans, new strategies was birthed. Right? So again, you need to ask God for ideas. So some of it is practical. Okay, what do I do with the men of the church? Let's start a men's ministry. Women's ministry, very simple. We don't have to pray for that, right? But the strategy you can pray and ask God how I go about it, right? Then children's church. Okay, there are children. You have to come up with the children's church, right? So what do we do for them? So in terms of ministry, what do you want to do in the church? Nowadays, everything is there, right? Meaning we know, okay, men, women, single adults, you can add all of these over time. But even as you add this, very important, we talked about, you know, raising up leaders, getting the right people in place. So you can envision your ministry. So, for example, you may have 60 people in your church. You have maybe 25 men. In that 25 men, 10 men are interested, right? In men's ministry. So you get all the men. Say, okay, once a month we will meet. Meet with them once a month, talk to them, minister to them. It'll take time, right? But what you can also do is you can share the vision. Hey, one day as a men's ministry, this is what we want to do. We attend, one day. So then over time, you purposely slowly step back. You give somebody an opportunity. Let them share or let them teach. Then you get that person to involve with you in planning. Hey, we want to have men's conference. So, a full day conference in church. So you get them involved. In the logistics, you can get them involved. Say, okay, you prepare this, you know, the timetable or the agenda for the day. You prepare what has to be for lunch or tea and you do the logistics. So you're getting them involved and slowly you tell, okay, I'll give you one session to teach. So what you're doing is you're building the ministry. So like that, you start it and then you build on it. Now there will be certain ministries that you may have thought of, but it's not yet time to start. So don't throw it away. Write it down. Keep it. So for example, you know, you're 50, 60 people, but your vision is, okay, as a church, I want to see us in the worship like a full band within years and a good strong band and we should have like a good lighting and nothing wrong with all of that. Good lightings and good sound system. But now you're 60 people. You cannot afford to have such high end equipment and you don't have the people, but envision it. You write it down and you say, okay, one day we will get good equipment. One day we will get people to play those equipment, musical instruments as well. And one day we will have our good sound and sound team or a worship team. So you envision it and you begin to work with it. So again, it's like starting from scratch. I remember the sound and setup. Like I always say, right? The sound was never like how it is now. Never. This is very unique. Over time it's come this way. It was never, if you see, if you go back to 2010, I don't know if 2010 videos are there, but 10, 11, if you see it was just general stuff which everyone were using. We had speakers everywhere, monitors, speakers, base amp. The stage was fully crowded. No LED screen, but over time, right? I'm sure, you know, there was a vision that one day it will be like this. But you had to work towards it. It took us what I would say maybe 14 odd years to get to where we are right now. So we got to be patient in that journey as well. So, okay. So what I thought was we'll move into chapter 12, chapter 11 profitability and corporate finance. We'll come back to it towards the end if we have time. But I want to talk about strategic partnerships. I know very important strategic partnerships. Now, in an organization or in a ministry, partnerships are very important. What is the meaning of partnership? Whether it is two or two or more people joining together using their strengths, using their abilities, using their skills, their technical abilities, they're leveraging their skills that they have and they partner together to get things done. Right. Now, when it comes to partnership, we must be very careful. We must know who to partner with, why to partner with these people and whether the vision is at least in some way aligned with each other. Whether the character, this character involved, that is vision involved, as many things that are involved when you come because a wrong partnership can just destroy an organization. And we've seen it in the world, right? Where people have tried to involve or partner with certain organizations and they said bad move. But sometimes, good move, brilliant move. Let me give you this example. In, I forget the year, but we know the car, Marathi, Marathi car. So it was initially only Marathi and they were not doing well in India. They were not doing well. Marathi is an Indian company. This is just an example. Marathi is an Indian company. They were not doing too well in automobile industry. Okay. Not performing too well. But then Suzuki came in. Suzuki is a Japanese, if I'm not wrong, Japanese organization. And they said, hey, we'll partner with you. Partner with you. And so we'll make it in a way that together we'll do automobile. Was it a good move? Brilliant move. What happened? Skyrocketed. Marathi Suzuki. All, all, if you, if you look at, you know, the cars that are there, it's exactly the same. That are there in other countries. Right. But it'll be written Suzuki. It won't be written Marathi. But here it's Marathi Suzuki. It's just that there was a strategic partnership which the organization which was going to dissolve and die off. This partnership enabled this entire company, this organization to continue. And it's doing well. So there are some which are very good. The partnership has been fruitful. But there are some where it has caused complete failure. And that could be for many reasons. So let's look at a few scriptural insights when it comes to partnering with people. Now what about in ministry? In ministry we'd like to partner with different ministries. Sounds nice, no? You believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus. Let's partner together. No, no, no. Don't do that. Be wise. So we look at a few scriptural insights. That's right. An ox and a donkey cannot plow together. Okay? Do draw to me 2010. Don't plow with an ox and a donkey yoke together. We talked about this. Can you picture it? An ox and a donkey? What will the ox do? Ox is meant for plowing. It'll go. What is the donkey doing? It's standing there only looking left in. The donkey is saying no, I'm not going to go. But the ox is saying, come on, man, let's finish the work. And then lunch break after that. And then we come back out into the field. And then when it's five o'clock, we finish. The donkey is saying, what work? I will do it later. It's two different mindsets altogether. The donkey is saying, I want some water. I'm tired. The ox is saying, come on, what we do? It's only five minutes. Fast. Get the work done. Don't plow with an ox. Both are farm animals. But both have different mindsets. Both have different capabilities. And you put them both together. There is a recipe for disaster. Or a recipe for failure. The ox is going to beat up the donkey. And the donkey will, you know, is... That's why the word is stubborn as a donkey. Donkey will say, no, I will not go. I will go only after I get some water to drink. That's how it is, right? So don't... It's a simple lesson on... Is that the capability... Compatibility is critical in partnership. What is compatibility? Compatibility means to see whether you're on the same wavelength, same skill set, right? And you're able to coordinate with each other. An ox and a donkey cannot. Why? An ox is much stronger. It's designed to work on the plow. Work in the field. A donkey is not designed for that. So if you partner them, it's only going to fail, right? So even in strategic partnerships, if a partnership is one-sided, if one person is doing all the work, it's not... Usually it will not be a success. Just picture that. An ox, a donkey trying to plow a field. It's not going to be a success. It is better off if the farmer just removes the yolk and puts the yolk on one ox, he will get more work done. Because this donkey is only being a hindrance to the ox. The ox is ready. The donkey is being a hindrance. So when you partner with people, right? Make sure you partner with the right people. Put everything down. Next point, right? Know whom you're dealing with. Get deeper to get all the facts. Proverbs 27 and 6. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. When you plan to partner with somebody, get everything, dig deeper, understand every aspect of the organization, what you will do, what you will not do. Put it all on paper. The mistake we make is, we may say, both of us are ministry. We both are friends for 30 years. So we'll partner together, but we've not put it on paper. Now what's happened? 30 years friendship gone down the drain within 6 months. Has it happened? Yes. Why? Not put anything on paper. Know what you're dealing with. Just because he's your friend for 30 years, don't partner with him. You're going to see the skills, see the capabilities that the person has. Or if it's ministry, just because somebody's in ministry is, maybe a person is, their ministry is very big and the church is very big. And they say, hey, why don't you partner with me? Don't just say yes, because they are big in ministry. Remember, the visions may be completely different. Imagine you partner with them. Your vision is to start a Bible college and to minister to people to teach and to release and plant churches. Now this church, maybe 1,000 people or 1,000 people in the ministry, their vision is more of evangelism. So he's telling you, go and do evangelism. You're telling, no, I want to teach people. I want to start Bible college. You see the vision is, it's too sided. So then it's very hard for you to get out of it. So put everything down on paper. And we have, even when we, sometimes we very rarely partner with ministries, but I remember one of the ministries that we partnered with was on the power to change campaign, which is a global campaign. It happened in 2014, I think. So it was a power to change, people's testimonies were played and it was a global campaign. Books were given and people would call in for prayer. They would read the books and different testimonies and people who overcame drug addiction, healing and different testimonies were put in. So it was a global ministry effort. So one of the things we said is, okay, we will do these, we will distribute books and we'll set up a posting system. We will do one-on-one book distribution and we'll also post. Why? Because we have, we post all our publications. So we already knew the vendors. We knew the people. We said, hey, we'll give you books. You post it every month. You just send it by post. We'll give you the addresses, everything. So here as a team, they were getting the addresses of people. They would call and they say, I would like some of those books. Okay, give you address. We'll stick it, post it to them. So we are doing part. We're fulfilling part of that bigger vision, but they didn't expect us to go to different countries or go to different places and we put the expectations already. This is what I can do. My strengths as a church, our strengths is we can do the distribution and we can also do the calling. So we hired people. I remember we hired part-time, full-time people to make calls from the church office. So we can do this, two things. And we did it. So when you commit to something, do it. Otherwise, don't commit and not do. That becomes a bad partnership. Our name will be affected. So when you partner with people, look at motivation. Why do they want to partner with you? Especially now if you're a small organization, then it's okay. But when you grow, you become known in a city or in the nation, people know you as an organization. Better check why people want to partner with you and be wise about that. Next, evaluate work approach before saying I do. Proverbs 1, 10 through 15. Proverbs 1, 10 through 15. My son is sinners, entice you, do not consent. If they say come with us, let us lie in wait to shed blood. Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow them alive like sheol and whole like those who go down to the pit. We shall find all kinds of precious positions. We shall fill our houses with spoil. Cast in your lot among us. Let us all have one purse. My son do not walk in the way with them. Keep your foot from their butt. Think of this, right? Any organization, the end result we want is being successful and being profitable. Any organization, right? Being successful, being profitable. Now, here we must ensure to see how we get to be successful and profitable. Are we using the right methods or are we using unscrupulous methods? Meaning, are we using methods that are wrong? That is not legally right. What methods are we using? So, this is very important. Do not use unscrupulous methods to achieve success and profit. Go through that work approach. How am I going to do the work? Remember the non-negotiables we talked about? What are the things I will do? What are the things I will not do? These are things I will not do. So, how will you approach your work to achieve success and profit? That is very important. Yes, we want success and profit, but how you go about it is very important. Now, when you look at an organization in what's happening around us, they don't care about how the things are getting done as long as it should get done. Whether the method is right or wrong, it doesn't matter. But the work should get done. That's not how we should be. Evaluate your work approach and make sure that you don't do something just for gain. Choose the wrong part. Because these wrong parts will later you will end up, you may see success, but it's only going to be bitter later on. Because remember that truth is always going to get exposed. The lies are going to get exposed. So, being truthful, in work approach, there will be different styles of work approach. But be careful on how you partner with people. Evaluate the work approach. If you feel that there is nothing unscrupulous, they're working with integrity and everything is done in an honorable way, you can think about partnering with them. Check alignment of culture and values, especially in mergers and acquisitions. Meaning the same thing, check whether the culture and the values are at least some way aligned. It's not like it should be exactly the same. But some way it's aligned together. Agreement is important. Put everything in writing. Very important. Let's read that. Amos 3-3. Amos 3-3, can two walk together unless they are agreed? Agreement is important. The mistake that, you know, especially believers make is trusting people by their word. I'm not saying don't trust people. Trust people. But also put it on paper. For example, you know, you are going to stay in somebody's, you want to rent a house. This house is a Christian. He's a believer. The whole day he's only praying. He knows everything from the Bible. And you are so happy. Oh, I've got an owner who's a believer. Now don't say, okay, no need agreement. I'll give you the money. This is the rent. I'll pay you. That is the biggest mistake that we can make. Never. Because now, one year down the line, you leave. Example, you've paid 1 lakh as a deposit. 10,000. And you're leaving. Brother, I paid 1 lakh. Who said? I don't remember you giving me 1 lakh. So never go by people's word. I'm not saying everyone are like that. Put everything on paper. Get it legal. There should be no misunderstanding at all. For example, you're partnering with an organization for a conference. Put it on paper. For example, you have a church leader. You have a letterhead with your missing. Put it on paper. This is the terms of our agreement in terms of this conference. We are putting in 5 lakhs. You're putting in 5 lakhs. This is the budget that has come in. Anything above this will be resolved after the event on a 50-50% basis. And if there's an amount remaining, it will be resolved on a 50-50% basis. This is agreement signed by this church ministry, signed by this church ministry, legally signed by both of them. They have it on paper. Both are ministries. So agreement. Put everything on paper. For example, you're going to go start a church. You need a place. Put it on paper. First thing. The owner will say, you start the church. I will do the agreement later. No. Don't do that. Get the agreement. The church is okay. It can start two weeks later. Nothing will happen. First get the agreement. Then get things done. Don't be in a hurry to start things and not doing it the right way. Get what I'm saying, right? Do things the right way. Build business partnerships steadily. Proverbs 25 and verse 17. And when you find a friend, don't outbear your welcome. Show up at all our house and he'll soon get fed up. Partnerships are like marriages. Marriages take time to build. Not only marriages, friendships. Friendships also take time to build, right? It's not like you meet somebody and the next month you say, he's my best friend. It's not going to happen. It'll take time to build. So the same way in partnerships, you go through rough patches. You go through unexpected challenges. But you work steadily. You work cautiously. You work patiently. You work out things with a clear understanding and over time, you know, partnerships can be really strong with good relationships because what's happened is you built into a team. You feel like, hey, you know, we are like working together and it's nice. There's understanding that is planning. There's execution happening. So you can, there's good, there's adaptability. There's mutual understanding. That's wonderful when it happens that way. And you will only see the organization get better. So when it comes to, you know, building partnerships, build it steadily. Take your time and build on it, right? Get all on board to work the partnership. Genesis 13, 1 through 7. That's really done. Abraham went north, north of Egypt to the southern part of Canaan with his wife and everything he owned and Lord went with him. Abraham was a very rich man with sheep, goats and cattle, as well as silver and gold. Then he lived there and moved from place to place going toward Bethel. He reached the place between Bethel and AI where he had camped before and had built on altar. He worshiped the Lord. Lord also had sheep, goats and cattle as well as his own family and servants. And so there was not enough pasture land for the two of them to stay together because they had too many animals. So a scourge broke out between the men who took care of Abraham's animal and those who took care of Lord's animals at the time the Canaanites and the Perigetites were still living in the land. This is a partnership now. If you read the story Abraham and his nephew Lord God had blessed them. They had everything that they needed. They had servants, they had cattle and they had hundreds and hundreds of them. Now God told Abraham I'll take Abraham and Lord I'll take you to a good land. So now what's happening? Abraham, his family, his servants, his cattle, his herd, everyone are going and here there's Lord, his family, cattle, herd, everything. So now you've got like two teams both highly blessed, rich they're journeying together in the desert. Now what is happening is Abraham and Lord have a good understanding with each other. Between these people there came disagreements. Abraham's cattle is always coming to our side. They always want this side. Whenever we go how come lots are getting better? Cattle is getting better and their employees are people are getting better water, better facilities. They get to sit in the shade and we are sitting in the sun. So there's misunderstandings between the people. Abraham and Lord are like they're going together. Very important. In the end what happened? Because of the disagreement Abraham had to Abraham said you choose one way I'll choose another way. We have to depart from each other, separate from each other so that there is no more disagreements. So Lord said I'll go this way. Abraham said okay I'll choose the other direction. So in partnership it's not only about the leaders making the partnership. It's also the employees who are involved. Imagine two leaders they say oh they shake hands and they make a good partnership. But those in the organization saying I will not give my 100% for this. It's not even a good partnership. And they're just there not giving their 100% just there just working or eventually they may just leave the organization. But the leaders are happy. No just because the leaders are happy doesn't mean you can go on with it. You try to get the employees involved. Share the vision. Share what you're doing. So in case it's a church I remember and we went through this power to change. Pastor had called us he said this is what the plan is. We will do this, this, this. Everyone get involved. It was like rebuilding a wall. The pastors also will make calls and talk to people. Yeah. So it was all well organized. We all knew what we're doing. But we knew that this is just a season. As fast as we knew we're not going to keep taking calls making calls. It's just a season. Till the campaign is over. Right so get all on board. When you go through these kind of partnerships. Let go when you have to. Genesis 13. 8 and 9. Genesis chapter 13 was 8 and 9. Then Abraham said to Lot we are relatives and your men and my men shouldn't be quarreling. So let's separate. Choose any part of the land you want to. You go one way and I'll go the other way. It's a very wise thing. Your men and my men are quarreling. We cannot control them. So let's go separate ways. Now remember that all most of the partnerships may not work. Don't be afraid to part ways. Part ways. It's okay. People may talk or see they join and then now they've parted ways. That's okay. But you are being cautious because you're protecting your organization. You want to develop your organization. Build your ministry or organization that you're doing and do it soon enough before the ship sinks. Meaning do it before you've come to the last stage and then you say okay then we have to part ways. When you see it as a leader you should see foresight. This is not something that's going to work out. Make the decision. You probably can call your core team or call your employees those who are involved in say see this is what it is and we want to stop doing this. So that our organization is better and we can at least move forward. Finally resolve disputes peacefully if possible. Whenever there are disputes in strategic partnerships make every attempt to resolve it peacefully. Once settled learn to keep quiet and don't go publicizing the wrongs and dirt of the other party. See when we make a partnership we shake hand, we say okay we'll work together but when we part ways it may be a bitter experience but let go of that bitterness. Don't talk bad about them and then they will not talk bad about you. Hey good working with you. It's a good time we learn from this and maybe it's not working out but I wish you all the best for what you are doing and it's better that we part ways but don't go back biting or don't go gossiping about because of me that organization is doing well now. They are using all my ideas avoid all of that so just let go forget focus on your organization don't look at there is a saying the grass looks greener on the other side you've got grass on your side but that side looks more green so you are looking there how come that side is more green that's because the sun is falling there it looks greener it's the same grass so just let go of these bitter experiences and focus on your organization and your church or the ministry that you are doing any questions any thoughts before we close would anyone like to pray and close thank you for this time thank you for this team and whatever we learn from this course you just help us to accomplish in this way God we surrender everything into your hand in Jesus we pray Amen alright thank you everyone see you next Monday God Bless