 And then we will get into the subject on the local church. So would somebody like to lead us in prayer, please? Good morning. Good morning, Kennedy. Okay, Dinesh, would you be able to lead us in prayer? Sure. Please go ahead. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Father. First time, Father. It's your will, Father. If you thought you were real, nothing will happen, Father. I submit the entire course of this semester, Father, where especially today goes, Father, about churches, Father, different kind of churches, ministries. To this course, we are good to know what kind of ministries, what kind of load-cut churches in order to establish a good biblical church, what are the rules and ignoctions, what are the rules and responsibilities, what are the different kinds of speaking to Bible truth, focusing on Bible studies, Father. Help us get more wisdom, Father. Give us more knowledge of what to do to church, Father. I submit, Father, where we now might end, Father. To her, you are helping us speaking through her in order to gain knowledge, Father. Without any disturbance, without any external disturbance, may your help needed, Father, to concentrate, Father. I submit as a pastor, Father, or a good health, Father. I submit to all the students, my end, my end, Father. Hope everyone is doing well and you are curious, Father. I once again submit this entire session in my hand, Father, on also day, Father, may your control be over us, Father. Thank you, Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father. I submit in my hand, Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Dinesh, for praying and covering all of us with those prayers. So let's get into today's chapter. So far, I believe that we have been enjoying what we are learning because this topic is very practical, even if we are not pastors of a church, whether we are serving in the capacity of volunteers, or maybe at the moment we are not serving at all, there are so many things that we can actually understand, we can relate to, and we could think of improvements that we can make as we serve or if we are going to sign up to serve, what are the things to bear in mind? So it's beneficial for everyone, those in leadership and those who are serving in some other manner. So we've covered till chapter 4 and we've seen how every church goes through growth, it goes through phases, and someone who is a leader must know how to lead that change and prepare the church to adapt as the transition takes place. So now what we are going to talk about today is we will touch on what makes a local church very strong. So before we get into the key points that are presented in this chapter for us, I think I touched on vision in the last class, but I just would like to know your thoughts. What do you think makes a local church very strong? From your personal experience, we've all been part of churches. So, yes. Can I say that? Yes, yes, Avni, please. What I personally feel is the leadership with the vision and the leadership which is rooted in the truth of God's Word. More than everything else can make the local church because when the truth is shared and people receive that truth and when more of people are walking in obedience to the Word, the work of the Lord is more powerfully manifested in that church and the local church is strengthened by the truth of God's Word through the leadership. That's what I mean. Thank you, ma'am. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Avni. That's a key. So a strong leadership, leadership rooted in God's Word and the people also following the same thing and when their lives are established in the Word, that makes a strong local church. Great. Wonderful. Would anyone else want to add to that? What do you feel are the keys? Yeah, I would feel the truth is true. Along with the truth, existing souls our vision has to be many souls each other, many souls bring many souls then develop many things under extreme believers motivating different ministries like the church has to reach out to the docker where the gospel has to reach the world through that many souls we have to no matter all our old churches we have to not concentrate all the old churches we have to concentrate how many souls we have one and Avni, so extreme believers we have to concentrate under ministries it is just a key point. Thank you. The nation is talking about the mission of the church and how the church should be alive and active walking in that purpose that God has given the church so that makes a strong local church. Great. Wonderful. That's an addition. Kennedy says accountable leadership along with strong leadership vision that the leadership has accountability accountable leadership that makes a strong local church any more thoughts from your experience? Ma'am. Yes, yes Rupa, please share. A church should be a place where people should feel you can hear me? Yes, yes Rupa, very clearly. Okay. Where people should feel accepted welcome part of a family, God's family and where they are nurtured and where there is a discipline of sharing and also growing together. I think that makes it like a family church so like God's family when we connect with each other in God's love and character to each other I think there the local church will be very strong the leader should be able to identify the strengths in the people and give them the responsibility and also it should be a beautiful thing people should feel like coming back and connecting to it not like a place of politics or bickering and all. I think this is possible in small groups. Thank you ma'am. Thank you Rupa. Wonderful. So church should be a family where people feel belong, accepted, welcome and what was the other point you said Rupa? We should be able to identify the strengths of the people. Yes, yes, yes. So the strengths of the people also should be identified that way everyone is contributing and are growing together. So that's what Rupa said. So I mean I'm just as you all are sharing I can paint the picture of a perfect church if all this is part of the church it's perfect. Samuel is adding to that and he says a local church is strong when the church's values practices are based on God's word and is uncompromised at the same time God's mercy, kindness, love are most evident. Yeah, thank you Samuel. So again basing the standards of the church on the standard of God's word and also the character of God in his mercy, kindness, love all that being demonstrated in the church through the church that makes it strong. So yes, all of this makes a strong local church and you know we will study from how do I put this? Like a pastor's perspective you could put it that way right? Also pastor sharing in this chapter about some of the key things that make a strong local church strong not just in the sense of the community the sense of community is very important that needs to be established but there are other aspects that we must consider when we talk about a strong local church the revelation of God's word then good leadership then vision and when we're talking about fulfilling the vision of the church there's also the continuity element to it so we establish a strong local church and it is established for a long time impacting generations so with that perspective in mind we will look at some of the key things that make a local church very strong in the last class we touched on the point where we said that a God given vision is very important and the leader has to communicate it well to the church and it must be communicated often enough so that people use this phrase you catch the vision everyone is part of the church they catch the vision it's more than just something that they are aware of but they catch it, they imbibe it and they know that they must live by it so a strong leader with a strong vision and he communicates the vision in a clear way that will lead the people forward because we saw the scripture in Proverbs 29-18 where there is no vision the people perish or in other words people become unproductive when we don't guide them in a certain direction so if you look at some of the translations it says that where there is no vision they throw off their restraints they just live any which way like energy is directed in every direction because they don't know where to go but when there is a vision when there is a goal to move towards then people will focus their energies and be moving in that direction so vision is very very important that would be the first thing if any of us have that in our hearts that I want to plant a church I think the first thing we need is a vision what is God calling us to do what will this church be like what will be the key message that comes from the church so we have to pray and we have to get that vision from God then we also said strong leadership we said a strong leader who gives a strong vision now why is a strong leader important we talked about we talked about the fact that if the leader is not strong enough or if they don't lead by example then that can affect the people and remember when we talked about the structures of churches we said the ones that are large if you have a large congregation if a leader has some failure financially he fails or morally he fails in some other way that will impact those many congregation members and satan knows that so he would want leaders to fall he would want leaders to like what do you say if they move into error then that's a benefit for satan so we must be aware of it we discussed this when we talked about believers authority that we must not be ignorant of the enemies tactics and when it comes to the local church obviously the enemy would want the leader to fall because then that will impact all the people who he or she leads so a strong vision is important and a strong stable leader is also key for a strong local church and yeah so that is the first important thing the second one as many of you pointed out the truth of God's word the truth of God's word has to be established in the heart and life of the leader but also in the heart and life of the church members so we talked about it right we said that the the gospel message should not be compromised the whole council of God's word needs to be established and here are a couple of additional things we see Paul when he talks to the efficient church he says that the word of God is able to build you up okay so what builds us up we are talking about a strong local church now in the physical when we are constructing a building we will talk about the materials that are essential so if you have good cement, good bricks or whatever else you require to make a building then that will make the building strong but here we talk about spiritual aspects that make a church strong I think the one of the core construction material here is the word of God and Paul he told the efficient church if you don't have the word of God then you cannot be built up you cannot be strong you cannot be established so that is one of the key things and we must allow that word to be preached that word to be spoken right consistently clearly that must affect the lives of the people so this word which is able to build people up that is the same word which is able to strengthen their spirits Ephesians 3.16 talks about it and when we want to mature people you know maturing people is more than just telling them hey live like this or live like that because maturity also comes from the word of God and when we are consistently sowing the word of God and you know in our personal lives we know that when the word is sown when we respond to the word we live according to the word eventually maturity right meaning we grow and that needs to happen in the life of every individual who is part of the church so the word of God so for a pastor or a leader you know we go ahead and emphasize the word of God now in the word of God we know that you know okay so a little bit more about the word is coming up a little bit later okay I will talk about pulpit ministry okay let me just jump to pulpit ministry here so the word of God is very important and key I am on page 35 now I have skipped one section I will come back to it where because we are saying that the word will mature the believer how should the word be taught from the pulpit now pulpit ministry becomes very very important in the life of a church because that is where you are releasing releasing the logos and the reema word of God so we must look at it as more than a filler because we all know about the common church format that every church has and you know a large proportion of that time is taken up for some message now it is possible that you know we just share any word right every Sunday just share any word and keep moving forward however if we have the goal in mind that we have to see people maturing then it is good to share that word in a balanced way okay so here pastor shares his experience how he has some focus areas that he keeps in mind while preparing the Sunday messages so he writes about covering Christian life Christian life means developing your spiritual walk with God so that will involve developing your prayer life learning the word of God understanding the word of God faith you know the doctrine the doctrines and you know things like believers authority who we are in Christ so all these are important for Christian life but along with that you know it's also important to reach life skills from time to time so life skills would involve things like you know decision making I remember there was some nice inspirational messages about what is the vision what is focus how does focus help an individual moving to the next level enlarging you know again topics like that which are inspirational which touch on you know certain life skills so the names that I mentioned could be helpful for professionals or college students because you know they are motivated by it and like for one of our college programs here I remember there's one topic called power habits you know it talks about how you can manage your time how you can how you can manage your health how you can manage all your resources right so that you can be very productive now that something like that is essential for a college student because otherwise you know yes they can be strong in prayer and they can be strong in faith and all of that but there are some of the other essentials that just help them navigate through everyday life so life skills now under life skills so many other things can be covered you know relationships because the church is filled with people how can you relate rightly with people some basic things about that or you know marriage there are married couples so some basic life skills for marriage and all that so from the pulpit when we address these matters along with the issues that have to do with Christian life it's very helpful just helping individuals in their everyday life right handling finances how do you manage your finances these are practical subjects and believers need to know these things so life skills would be the second category the third category is ministry so we say that every believer is a minister of God and that God has given the 5 fold ministry offices for the saints to do the work of the ministry so saints or every believer is supposed to do the work of the ministry now how can a believer do the work of the ministry if they don't understand you know what grace they have they have or what gifts are available right or the gifts of the spirit how to operate in the gifts of the spirit okay so you know I hope you get my point serving is important but how to serve sometimes the believer needs to be trained and equipped to do that as well even things like ministering a prophetic word to somebody how to do it how to do it in the right way praying with someone how to do it in the right way so there are some topics that we can touch on that help the believer minister well okay so what pastor shares is he says if you can see a diagram there something like a pillar it has three you know three strong pillars one is Christian life life skills ministry so he writes about how he tries to balance the subjects between these three so when that is done it's helpful for the believer okay and he constantly watches the list of sermons and you know obviously being led by the spirit but you know in a wise way touch upon all these subjects so this will really help develop an individual believer now he also shares about the fact that scripture says that God knows the end from the beginning so with that in mind it is possible to know what messages should be preached over a certain period of time so what we practice here at APC is generally pastor the beginning of the year he will give us a calendar and we kind of know like okay January we are going to touch on this subject, February we are going to touch on this subject and you know March April we will be doing this series so he prays he seeks the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to come up with the subject for the entire year so how does that help you know it just helps because like one is preparation you can be well prepared with what exactly you want to communicate to the congregation but at the same time as the church is growing like for example now here at APC we have several teams that coordinate for a Sunday service so there is the worship team they have to be prepared with the song, set of songs that they want to sing then you have the media presentation team they have to be prepared with the power point or now you know it's even more like because there is live stream you know things like that so coordination and when you are doing live stream you need the right graphics so our media team has to prepare the graphics so unless they are given a good notice well in advance it's difficult to coordinate you know among various teams so the general practice that we follow here is at least two to three months prior the teams are informed so like pastor sends out a pulpit schedule for a couple of months and every team is copied on that communication so the media team knows what to do okay fine we have to get this ready the worship team knows what to do okay these are the topics we have to prepare they communicate it to their team so when the church is growing and you have multiple teams for us to coordinate we have to be very well prepared and that is something that we practice here at apc and it is possible to hear from god well in advance and it is helpful now if at all pulpit ministry is treated as okay we will just share whatever is on our heart that Sunday morning now there is nothing wrong with it you know god can inspire you every time but you see some of these things that I discussed right to analyze whether we have covered different subjects to build up the congregation whether you know and also to see to it that things are done in an excellent way all that would be affected if we only very spontaneously lead the pulpit time every Sunday so this is something that pastor shared here for our benefit and I think it is helpful for pastors who prepare their pulpit schedule so now I will just go back to the section that I missed so when we talk about you know Christian life under Christian life some things are important for the church and some things are part of the mission of the church so those subjects have to be covered because when we cover those subjects that is when the church can move in that direction and have that component as part of their as part of their as part of their church life so what are those those five areas that must be addressed okay to addressed by the pastor and build up the congregation the first one would be evangelism and I think Dinesh pointed it out and he said for a strong church we should reach out we should win souls for the purpose that the Lord Jesus has still left us here on the earth if we didn't have that then there is no mandate left but we are here to be salt in life we are here to engage with the world all that we have discussed earlier so evangelism is very very important so the local church should be continually encouraged to reach out to the unsaved okay so we can talk about this we can preach about this we can equip the believers on how you can share your faith with your neighbors with your family members in your workplace you equip the believer so evangelism is a very very important aspect of a congregation's faith life then discipleship discipleship has to do with developing Christ like character because everyone who follows a master should be like that master remember Jesus said a servant should be at least a servant should be like his master so we have to be like Jesus so developing Christ like character is another area of emphasis when we talk teach the congregation about Christian life so under Christ like character you would talk about the fruit of the spirit you would touch upon the conduct what kind of conduct people should have and how they should live everyday you know with integrity with faith and things like that so discipleship is another very very important thing to look into so then we do that we know that the people are maturing okay prayer and worship so prayer and worship also is important to establish in the church we know that God ministers in the midst of a praying and a worshiping congregation so again to teach about it and also to make provision equip the church to flow in prayer to flow in worship then fellowship fellowship is also another key aspect because you know the local church it's a community so how do you fellowship in the in a godly way how can we care for one another and what Rupa pointed out she said church is like a family so how can we do that in a biblical way so that area also is addressed and then equipping for ministry again what Rupa said she said identifying the grace over a person's life so we identify we equip them we release them to fulfill the the calling that God has for each and every individual so when the church is able to step out right in all these five areas there's a nice balance there should be a good balance of evangelism discipleship see evangelism is more outward looking discipleship is more inward looking you can't have one or the other right if you constantly just say oh evangelism evangelism is evangelism and then the people are not fed with the word of God to help them personally grow what will happen they'll burn out at some point because yes it's important to win souls but it's also important to establish the believer in the truth of God's word otherwise he will not have the strength right to step out and bring people into the kingdom so there's a nice balance outward looking inward looking then you know upward looking you could say prayer and worship is sort of upward looking fellowship where you kind of you know you look at others also in your community learn to grow together with them and there is the aspect of equipping the believer for ministry so when all this is happening in a local church there's a there's a very how do you say like a complete and a wholesome way of developing a believer and when believers are developed in this manner you can have a strong local church okay so the word right now we discussed about the importance of teaching the people the word of God and building them up in the word of God and the word should touch on all these aspects so then the believer is well prepared that makes for a strong local church now coming to the next aspect that is important excuse me a church where people are of one heart and one mind now we see Paul exorting the Corinthian church where he says that you know I just I plead with you that you all may speak the same thing that there be no divisions among you okay that you may be joined together in one mind so that is how he wanted the local church to be have a united heart and when you read about the early church you see that one accord one accord one accord quite often so there is a unity of heart there's a unity of mind which the people had despite the diversities in you know all other ways so establishing that unity in the church is important now Jesus also when he preached he talked about the fact that the house which is divided it cannot stand and the same way if you have a local church where there is division you know people are up against one another and you know Rupa use the word politics okay so that's again like an extreme but otherwise you know there's a lot of one person against the other the church will not stand for very long so we have to be careful never to let divisions take root in the church and as pastors and leaders we'll see later on that it's important for us to recognize like if something seems to be happening then you know we have to address that issue quickly because unless you address it at the root like at the smallest level it can work through the entire batch and sort of pollute the community so you know things like divisions, strife backbiting, slander so many things that can cause instability in the church community now one more aspect when it comes to being of one mind is that the leaders themselves should lead in that manner you know if the leader does not have that example if they are trying to you know backbite control you know do things which are not really godly manipulate people force people then sooner or later the people take on the character of the leader so it's unfortunate that you know it kind of is a part of the church because the leader is like that so it's important for the leader also to be like you know work with integrity and not engage in all this divide and rule manipulation kind of leading the people so oneness of mind oneness of heart makes for a strong local church alright now moving forward the church that is equipping and releasing people into their god appointed function ok so at the end of the day we said that every believer is a minister and here at apc that is like a it's like a quote and it's it's said very very often so every believer is a minister because god has given the 5 fold ministry offices for the equipping of the saints for their ministry so every believer needs to recognize their god appointed function now it could be within the framework of the the church setting or it could be in some other function outside of the church but we are also learning about kingdom so in the kingdom of god basically in the kingdom of god we identify our function and every believer is planted and serving over there now that will be very very important so if every believer has to identify their function and serve in that area what would be the role of the leadership the leadership should have the discernment and the wisdom to recognize you know ok this individual in my church what is god calling this person to do what are the gifts that god has given this person so as a leader when I recognize I must nurture the individual mentor the individual in that direction right so we create opportunities we encourage we encourage we lead people in that direction so in a church there can be people who have all kinds of you know giftings different grace over different individuals but as leaders we must recognize ok every believer is a minister now what is the place for every believer how can I lead this believer to walk into his or her calling but yes you know of course they have to make that decision and ultimately it is their response to gods calling on their lives but as a leader we can facilitate we can lead and we must have that heart to serve them as god appoints them in their function and you know they later on serve the church so leading people in the right way helping them know their position ok so what else makes for a strong local church church which is relevant to the world it is in now Paul he wrote you know he said that I have become everything to everyone like you know I relate to people in a way that that person can understand so in that context again we have already said that we don't want to compromise the word of god but without compromising the word of god we should think about relevance because we might have the word with us we might be doing all the right things but if we are not able to communicate in a way that people are able to receive then we are kind of you know there's a great opportunity that we miss out on so the church needs to be relevant so this how will we address this maybe the church it has an approach which is suitable for that particular generation in terms of the kind of language that they use you know the kind of programs that they adopt then recently you have so much technology and people are thinking about the next generation technology so why can't the church use that because a lot of people are already on those platforms and if the church says no we are only about fasting and prayer and we will only meet in this way we will only minister in this way we are missing out on those you know the way Jesus said like I'll make you fishers of men so we are not catching that fish but when we become relevant when we are open to changes that don't affect the integrity of God's word or the power of God's word then I think it's alright because all we are trying to do is to be relevant in our communication in the way we approach people and it only widens our scope it widens our horizon we are able to touch many more lives, disciple more people for the kingdom and extend the work of God so being relevant is also important for the church because if the church remains like earlier remember we said the wine skin when we talked about the church structure how it changed from just the lady, clergy style to more involvement of the saints in the work of the ministry there has been a transformation there has been a change so in the same way if we don't change now if you look back at some of the old ways of doing church and the churches that are stuck in it the churches that say no this is how the building should be this is how the music should be this is how things should be somewhere they are not people are not able to relate to it anymore so you are a very easy example to understand but you know what I mean so we must be open to addressing life issues life situations, scenarios that people are going through in a given period of time and speak in their language basically our communication should be relevant to them and when we do that we can be ready to change so a strong church will be ready to accommodate the changes then a church which is raising up leaders ok there are questions and or comment rather Rupa says a leader is completely dependent on the strong God is leading in guidance ok great yes Rupa alright Christopher you have a question please go ahead this is in relation to relevance I think you know there has been some update by APC I think also pastor had an update also for us in the bible college with regards to how APC was assisted during covid for pastors as well as for some of the less fortunate in the community so I think that was something that was really important to do and I think that made APC very relevant the other area possibly which is always quite sensitive is the area of church I mean church is intervening with government policies where there are government policies it could be specifically in relation to minorities so from an Indian perspective I think there are situations where government has have policies there are areas where there are things that have happened which can affect minorities that is where as one and the other area of course is how they can influence governments to move towards a more religious approach to life how they can develop spirituality within 4 policies as well as how government can influence that so I just wanted to bring that point up and wanted to get your understanding on your view on this sure thank you Christopher thank you those are very important subjects and glad that you know APC could do something about the COVID situation and address the needs of the people at the right time so thank god for COVID relief now coming to the next point that you brought up about the church being relevant to the minority communities and the issues that they are going through and influencing government policy see I think when you say the church like you really have to define what you mean by that now the church the people of god the kingdom of god should affect the government the policies and the decisions even when it comes to minority communities so that we see the justice of god established in the lives of the people now having said that if we are talking about a local church influencing government policy how does that look now it may not necessarily look like you know I am just giving a random name like a grace faith church grace faith church having in the legislative assembly it may not look like that or it may not look like grace faith church making a policy change it may not necessarily look like that but when we are maturing believers they make the difference now one danger with the church getting so associating with the government and the policy making in that way the danger is that the government affects the church because now we like the local church needs to be moved according to the vision that god has given the local church we don't want any government influencing the local church which is likely to happen when you tie up in this manner with the government structures in a certain city however if we are able to influence without getting influenced without our vision being influenced that would be a better way to make a difference and just from what I know Christopher I know so many people like in the Christian circle here in Bangalore and even in APC in fact I don't remember how many months ago this was but one of the years from she worships at one of our locations and she has a heart for justice she has a heart for minority communities and she was praying for a particular license and permission from the government to affect exactly what you're talking about so you see as an individual who's part of the church she's making a very big difference like she's out there fighting for the rights of people so many other people who are doing this like out there on the front lines and they are part of APC church other churches so is the kingdom of God addressing these matters I think yes should it address in a stronger more powerful way I think yes there's miles to go but there is a danger if we influence government policies in such a way like the structure we adopt where the government is able to influence us and I think in the past this has happened institutionalization of church you will read about this in church history how there were kings and kingdoms they kind of took over the church and then the church didn't have any say the church had to do what the government was telling them to do right so so I mean I'm just painting I'm just sharing all my thoughts with you I hope it's going somewhere and it makes some difference okay okay a crucifer is that okay most of the points I think there is also there are there are times when you know there are policies or decisions that are made and I again this is just what you hear sometimes news but there have been churches and pastors who have been really against them and they are really sort of stood up against you know the current government so it's it's more about trying to you know in a sense fight against certain policies or certain decisions that is made so again the way it is done and how it is done sometimes can be questionable but I just thought I'll just raise that point over there yeah sure sure crucifer yeah thank you so yeah we must be an influence but how we do it that has to be done with a lot of wisdom thank you thank you nice discussions everyone let's go for a break we'll come back and pick up where we've stopped