 Okay, the recording is on. Good morning and welcome everyone to BC310, a course on church and ministry administration. This is our second week in this course and we're going to start getting into more and more details on ministry administration. Alright, may I request somebody to please pray with the class and then we will get started. Who would like to pray this morning? Jay, may I ask maybe Avni, would you like to pray with the class and then we'll start please? Good morning pastor, thank you. Let's pray. Father God, we are so thankful to you for a new morning that has come into our lives as your mercies are renewed every morning. Thank you for fresh mercies and this time we commit everything into your hands thanking you for your blessings, for your provision, for your word that we are going to receive for the knowledge that you own impart through our pastor. We thank you for your presence amidst us and thank you for everything that you're equipping us with so that we are prepared to spread your kingdom around above Father and do the work that you want us to do above Father. We are indeed inspired by the power of your Holy Spirit above Father and continue to hold us and guide us in all the ways. Bless pastor, resolve the students and bless each and every one of us to learn in its fullness and use it for your glory and for your kingdom expansion. We ask this prayer in the precious and matchless name of Jesus, our Saviour, Amen. Amen. Thank you. Good morning once again, welcome everybody. So we're going to just quickly review what we did last week and then move forward from there. So as we go along, lecture by lecture, I will keep sharing the PDFs and usually what I do is I kind of update the content as we go along just based on our interactions and also some developments that happen. So that's why I haven't given you the full notes so it gives me the flexibility to keep updating content. I also shared one recommended reading book. There are many books of course that you could read but this has been the particular book that I shared, the Church Leaders MBA by Mark Smith and David Wright. It's a dated book meaning it was written in 2012 but it was an interesting way, it was put together. It brings in the thoughts of many leaders on various aspects of church administration. So it's a nice compilation of articles. So you can read it if you are interested. I'm not going to... The exams won't be based on content in that book, it will be just based on the course that we do cover that we covered in the course in the lectures but it's for your own benefit but a lot of it you will find that there are common ideas that are discussed and shared in the lectures. So see you, welcome to take time to read it if you can. Yeah, so let's get started. I'm just going to quickly share last week's notes and then we will go forward from there. So last week we got started in talking about the importance of good administration and like we mentioned last week, one of the common struggles people have is coming to terms with the fact that even though we are doing spiritual ministry, whatever that's a local church or any other kind of ministry, which is spiritual and depending on God and depending on the word of God and depending on the Holy Spirit, though we are doing spiritual ministry, we absolutely need good organization and administration. So many people find it difficult to bring these two together. In their minds it's like ministry is everything spiritual. Just organization, administration is very fleshly and worldly and carnal and human and so they tend to just leave it out. But hopefully from what we did last week as we just kind of journeyed through Scripture, the Old Testament and also the New Testament, we can see clearly that ministry truly is spiritual but God himself is a God who wants or who desires good organization and administration that both come from God, right? The spiritual and the practical God anoints and blesses both and we will see some more on that today. And then we also talked about a practical, from a practical perspective, why is administration organization important? What are some common excuses that we might hear from people and this can come even from pastors and Christian leaders and church people who are not very open to organization and administration and so we need to be prepared to give them a sufficient answer. So today hopefully we'll see how far we go. We can do chapter two and three if possible but today I want us to think about what are the objectives of good administration in a local church or any kind of Christian ministry, whether you're doing a youth ministry or a music ministry or a children ministry there's so many different kinds of Christian ministries we can be involved in. All of these ministries like we said need the backing of good organization and good administration. But we should be clear in our minds of what is the purpose of this organization and administration what are the objectives that we are trying to achieve. So we want to kind of do that we will of course start from a spiritual, from a biblical perspective and then come into the practical side. So when we say administration or organization we're talking about all the activities that support the spiritual ministry. That support and undergird the spiritual ministry. Of course Christian ministry is a spiritual ministry we are ministering the word, it may be worship, prayer, caring for people, equipping believers so many so many things spiritually but the objective behind it the objective of the administration is to really support and undergird it so that the spiritual ministry can happen effectively and meaningfully. And just to reiterate, we covered some of this last week but just to reiterate that and I want you to think about this that as far as the church is concerned administration is a spiritual ministry it is a ministry to the Lord and His people. You see, it's a slight change in our perspective a change in our thinking that the person who is doing administrative work organization work many times we don't look at that as a spiritual ministry we think, yeah, He's just doing some natural work but I want us to change our thinking because it's in the Bible and we will look at the same scriptures because it's in the Bible that administration doing that kind of organization providing leadership, structure, vision, motivation all those things that go into administrative type of work is a God ordained function it is a God anointed function and therefore it is a ministry to God from God and for the people so we've got to look at that and we've got to respect people who are doing administrative work organization work with the same kind of respect that we give to somebody who is a preacher who is a worship leader who is doing spiritual ministry of course we respect them all we say they are anointed they are gifted, etc but we need to have that same perspective for people who are doing administrative work organization work now why do we say that? we go back to some of the same scriptures we saw last week and I will just reference them in Romans 12 okay maybe let's just read it a second time somebody can read that Romans 12 well I'll turn to it in my Bible also if you have your Bible you can turn to it as well could somebody read it again I know Avi read it last week but it's good for us to do it again Romans 12 somebody could read verses 6 through 8 please Romans 12 6 through 8 go ahead Romans 12 6 through 8 before I say before I say through the grace given unto me every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think verse 6 you can jump to verse 6 having the giving and the gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us whether prophecy let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith or the ministry let us wait on the ministry and he that teaches on teaching or he that exotted on exotition and he that let him do it with simplicity and he that rulers with diligence and he that show mercy with cheerfulness let love be without thank you so Romans 12 6 through 8 I want to focus on two words the word ministry in verse 7 whoever does ministry let him do it let him focus on that what is the word ministry it simply means service it is a word that is connected to what we refer to what deacons would do right so any kind of serving they could be serving administratively organizationally any kind of ministry again there is the other word leading you are standing in front you are providing leadership and leadership has not only spiritual side to it but it has all the practical organizational side to it so both these in the context of Romans 12 are gifts that have been given to people from God and they are expressions of the grace of God put on people's lives and they are functions that people have in the body so you think about this administration or leadership is a gift, a grace and a function that God has put in the body and therefore it is a ministry unto the Lord it should be it is a spiritual ministry same thing Romans 16 verse 1 and 2 we read about Phoebe if you turn the few pages down to Romans 16 Phoebe we read about her last week she was a servant she was a deacon a minister of the Lord and she was handling verse 2 says Romans 16 2 she was handling some business related things it is most likely some organizational administrative type of work and she is referred to as a servant of the church a spiritual ministry 1 Corinthians 12 28 remember that we saw two keywords there helps and administrations helps and administrations 1 Corinthians 12 28 Paul talks about apostles prophets, teachers workers of miracles, gifts of healings and in that same verse he goes on to talk about helps, administrations, diversities of tongues so helps again it is just service anything that somebody does to support what is being done or assist what is being done helps, administrations and the literal meaning of that word is a steership or a helmsman as they would call it somebody who is in charge of guiding where the ship goes so that is an administrator he is guiding where the ship goes he is a helmsman and you could translate it into modern context as a government somebody is taking care of the governance leadership was a guide as an organizer so all that comes under that whole administrations and again it is all put together in the same verse along with apostles prophets and teachers and so on and finally in 1st Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 to 13 as Paul is talking to writing Timothy about how to take, organize a local church he clearly identifies 2 sets or 2 categories of ministries, bishops and deacons deacons are those who from the context we see in the book of Acts are people who are supporting the spiritual ministry in the church and so if you look at the requirements for deacons they are just about the same as those who are bishops or spiritual ministry the requirements are just about the same except that he doesn't tell deacons to be apt to teach but otherwise what is required of them is to say here again you see that a spiritual elder and a person who is doing practical work in the church both are ordained by God appointed by God and the requirements of their lives are almost the same so we went through these scriptures for one reason to emphasize and to put in our minds that we should not look down on people who are doing administrative organizational type work we would say back end type of work and neither should you because each one of us will be required to do this kind of work especially when you are starting a ministry you would probably writing the accounts you would probably be doing a lot of documentation or reporting organizing, administering and you would be wondering hey I would love to use this time to go and pray or I would love to use all this time to study the Bible of course praying is important studying the Bible is important the necessity if you have to do it don't feel bad it is something God has put in the church and you are doing it for the glory of God until such time somebody else can take up that role you do it and do it heartily to achieve it as unto the Lord so let me just pause you before I go forward to see if there are any thoughts or comments from anybody in the class any questions, any thoughts, any comments let's go forward now we start talking about all the practical stuff so administration you know people generally look at it and it's nice for us to think about it a little bit it's an art it's a science it's also spiritual guilt it's an art because some people seem to naturally have those traits and characteristics and also maybe sometimes because of the way they have been nurtured and taught and trained and so on they have these skills that are needed to work with people to be sensitive to people's needs and so on they have some that innate sense of responsibility they feel very responsible for people, for things for having things put in place so that comes under this whole category of art usually art is something that's innate it comes out of the person and so I'm not saying this cannot be acquired but you find people naturally to them to be very responsible to work with people well to understand people well to be able to organize it seems to come naturally but then administration is also a science meaning you can learn it you know there are skills that we can learn we can learn how to how to organize we can learn how to plan how to establish process put up a budget review performance evaluate data how to analyze and make decisions these are things that can be developed all of us can learn you know so hopefully in this course as we go through this some of these things will be you know some of these skills and of course as we said from a spiritual perspective God anoints God empowers He inspires He gives us idea, He guides us He gives us wisdom He gives us solutions to problems we may face as we go along and all of that so there's the spiritual anointing the gifting that comes from God so we need to look at it from all three perspectives we need to be very good at wonderful develop those gifts make an effort to learn develop the skills you need if things are new and you've never done them before it's okay you can always learn how to do it and at the same time we look to God and say God I know you can anoint me you can empower me you can give me ideas, you can give me wisdom and so we're constantly looking to God in this area and I can just looking back on my own personal journey I can definitely say God that God from time and time again would inspire ideas would inspire strategies there are times when I needed to know how to handle situation in the ministry he would pray, he would give wisdom and then I would be able to you know, carry it out and it would be a good solution so it's just we need to learn to look to God even as we organize and administer the ministry and the area of work God has given to us look to God, pray and he will definitely inspire ideas and wisdom and guide us in this whole process so we're not doing this on our own just for a little clarity sake you know traditionally traditionally but in general management schools or so on there is a distinction between leadership management and administration so leadership typically is involved with vision and strategy influence, organization looking at the organization as a whole management typically is in the operation, the running of a unit or a small department or we could say an area of ministry a specific administration is kind of getting down to a lower level of the actual scheduling the executing, the accountability the teams, the performance all of those kinds of things so we understand the distinction and we are aware of it but in this course for our purposes we are just going to club them all together so I'm not going to address them in three separate distinct categories but there are different things we'll talk about for example, talk about performance reviews or we will talk about motivating people or talk about having a vision strategy all of these things we will be interchangeable for the purpose of this course but then when your organization becomes very big and maybe you have several people maybe even hundreds of people then of course you will break it down into these three distinct areas of work you will have leaders, you will have managers under them or people are doing more of a management type role and then you will have people are doing more of an administrative type of role but in this course we are just going to be interchangeable to keep things a little fluid and not to worry too much about the distinctions okay so let's get in here now we're coming down to the ministry side of it what are the objectives from a Christian ministry point of view okay what should a good administration a good organization actually be doing or accomplishing I like to capture it in this little graphic here so what we are trying to do is we are trying to develop or what we must be doing in a good organization in a good administration we must be developing people okay because ultimately it's people who are doing the work so we have to make sure that whatever organization we put together and whatever structure we have and all of that it is building people up it's developing people bringing out their developing their skills helping them learn helping them grow helping them become better we're developing people and then you're also establishing systems we will explain we'll get into the details of this as we go along different functioning units you're establishing systems that comprise this entire organization you're putting in place and within those systems there are lots of processes happening every day and so you want to make these processes very efficient you want to fine tune the process and then you also want to allocate resources which is money, time people of course you have people already there you have to allocate money and make sure that money is being spent properly not wasted and so on so when you have all of this together you're developing people you're putting systems processes and resources together for what purpose to put them together so that there is alignment there is efficiency and this productivity in the activities of the ministry which are aligned to the goals vision of the ministry so that's what the whole purpose behind the organization is the whole purpose behind the administration so if you say why are you thinking of having a good organization why are you thinking of having good administration it's for this purpose that we have the people, the systems resources all put together and keep them aligned keep them efficient, keep them productive so that they can serve the overall vision and goals of the ministry you know the ministry could be a local church it could be any other kind of Christian ministry you're doing but this is the reason behind us wanting to have a good organization and good administration okay so this our motivation and of course the vision and the goals of the ministry are served well then what happens God is glorified and people are blessed lives are blessed, lives are touched that's the ultimate outcome of having this good administration and functioning so we are assuming of course that there is a vision for the ministry so this is very important we will talk about it in our next chapter that the vision of that local church or that Christian ministry is clear they have a clear overall vision and they have identified goals that they're going to pursue and of course these things could be refined as time progresses and in many cases they will be refined because the world around us is dynamic it's changing it's the needs around us are changing while the vision may remain the same the goals that they pursue that are pursued time to time could be refined and modified it's okay but as those goals are refined and modified everything else that is backing up the activities that are backing up the pursuit of those goals should also come into alignment and should be fine tuned to become efficient and productive towards achieving those goals so the organization itself is not static it's not like you know okay I put everything in place once and it's going to serve well for the rest of time not necessarily so because while the vision of the organization may remain constant the goals the way that vision is expressed in real life can be dynamic and change and therefore the organization must adapt must be fine tuned maybe new systems maybe need to be put in place so that everything stays aligned there is efficiency and productivity towards those goals let me just maybe cover a little bit more and then pause for some questions so when we're talking about organization and administration there are three broad categories of skills that we need and that doesn't mean the pastor has to have all this obviously not but it means that we need to assemble the right kind of people to make sure this happens so we need people's skills we need to develop and nurture and motivate and care for people so that they are able to give their best day to day you know in Christian ministry can be one of those ministries sadly where the highest burnout rate happens because in Christian ministry what happens is people tend to just give sacrificially I mean give of themselves their time, their energy they just sacrifice they don't think about giving of themselves they don't pause to think about I'm doing this for God I'm doing this for people, it's true but then they don't and we will talk about this later that we need to care for the people because as people we need to be renewed ourselves otherwise we will drain ourselves of the emotional, spiritual energies that we need and so sadly both people who are serving God and the leaders who are leading the people they only think in terms of sacrifice sacrifice, give you know just give just give you're doing this for God you know go the extra mile sacrifice and we keep on giving and we don't pause to think that I need to be renewed I need to be refreshed I need to be developed I need to be cared for I need to learn some new skills whatever you know we don't pause to think about that and so what happens there's a high rate of burnout and this especially happens in Christian ministry either they burn out or the life is just cut short sooner than it should be because of overwork and so on so part of the organization administration is you know we should be careful with people who are working in the organization we need to take good care of them the second part is having to do with organizational skills or conceptual that is you need to be able to envision what is the right system what is the right process that I need to have in my organization what is this thing done so example Sunday morning you're having a service every Sunday almost every Sunday new people come to church they come and visit the Sunday service now I'm talking about a local church now as an example okay, new people come now what are you going to do with them how are you going to follow up with them how are you going to invite them back how are you going to just find out who they are and see if they are interested in exploring more about the local church you know so you got to think okay what can I do well first of all you need to identify who are the new people any Sunday morning how will you identify them then you need to be able to connect with them so what are ways that you can connect with them and then new people come to the Sunday service if you think you're an example you have a church of 200-300 people sitting there or maybe more and even if 10 new people come in how are you going to spot those new people how are you going to connect with them how are you going to make them feel welcome and how are you going to give them an opportunity to connect with at least one person in the congregation how are you going to be able to follow up with them if they are interested in coming back or see if they have a need that the church could be of some help too right and how are you going to follow up with that so somebody has to think through on this conceptually that means first they got to think through okay you know this is the place where we are working with these are the kind of people so this is what they'll be comfortable with and then they need to put in a process to address this area of welcoming new people and following up with them connecting them so it starts off with a very conceptual how are you going to conceptualize a solution for this how are you going to put it in place and then follow up and make sure that it's working fine and then the refinement changes if it's not working always why it's not working and refine it okay so you continue to review and improve this so I'm just giving one example but like this in a local church or in any kind of ministry there are lots of areas that we need to look at and come up with a solution put something in place to address that particular need that needs to be addressed then lastly in terms of organization we need execution skills which is a technical skill that means you need to put the right people to do this this has to be the allocation of time and money and then you need to analyze whether it's actually happening in many cases you can look at numbers and then you think about how you can improve the outcome this is a little bit of technical skill and in allocating things you may use technology you may use different kinds of solutions to address the need and so on so you need the right kind of people with the right kind of skills so in administration you're doing all of this not necessarily you but you're bringing people together who can address these various areas of skills that are needed to make the administration, organization become very good okay let me pause here and see if everybody's are we all together any questions so far any thoughts, any questions hello pastor, this is Charles hey Charles, how are you doing doing well at the stage we are in it is the stage of listening and paying attention and trying to process these things and seeing them trying to look forward to see how these things can be applied so we might have fewer questions thank you okay okay, understand that Larry please good morning sir I've been nothing here because it's it's kind of different, it feels different because I worked in somewhere for about nine years as administrator and the times when there were consistent burnout but you were in between the continuity of the work and your context of being faithful to the work many contexts of because it's a spiritual work it always had this connotation of God does not take your rest or God does not go on breaks and you felt that you were burning out and you needed to refresh but it always seemed that that gap that you lived in those moments very crucial to the organization so it's always like, well let's say it's a place for most pastors where their staffs have to find a way to live life and at the same time work to work that they are supposed to work so is it a theme of how do I say something I'm also trying to ask a question from a pastor perspective how do you balance those kind of moments okay, very good so here's what we do at APC so what we tell all our staff including myself starting from me all of us we have to work 40 hours a week minimum and you're not expected to work more than that I mean if you work more than what working more than that so everybody's expected to work minimum 40 hours a week that means every 7 days you work 40 hours how you do the 40 hours is up to you right and now for those of us who are pastors Sundays would be a work day because we may do 2 services sometimes more then Saturdays would be a full day so our day off would be a Monday or some other day of the week so basically we say all our staff each person works 40 hours you take whatever day you want off during the week just keep your team and keep others informed so they know how to coordinate with you so that way if and secondly if you work more than 40 hours any week so example in blocks of 4 because 4 is half a day of work so if you work more than 40 hours a week any week you are requested to take the extra hours off immediately the next week or as soon as you want so it is accumulated towards you so example if I work 48 hours this week because out of necessity I needed to work more then that 8 hours extra is credited to my account it is all tracked in our system it is credited there and I can take the 8 hours off from work anytime so I could take a day off from work the next week we call it compensatory off because you have worked more last week you can take it off and in addition to that every staff is given these public holidays and they are given my numbers may be a little off now but I think 5 or 6 days of sick leave 15 days of vacation leave and if you work beyond 2 years then you are given 20 days of vacation leave so every staff is given that and now it is up to basically we are encouraging them every calendar year take these days off so basically what we have already put in place is a system where people are encouraged to rest so you are working you are doing Christian ministry but you are important you are only expected to work 40 hours a week if you work more than that take the time to rest so we are and sometimes I tell my staff, I tell people if I see them working, I say hey take a break, go sometimes I force them to take a break and it is what Jesus did in Mark 6 when he saw his disciples working a lot in Mark 6 and I am just looking at verse 31 he told his disciples come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while so he saw that his disciples were very busy and he told them to rest even the Lord Jesus did that for his own team so I think if he put these things in place then people understand that they are important and then we give a lot of other things benefits like for every staff 10,000 rupees are to spend on their own education every year so they can do any course of course related to work any course is related to their work and they can get reimbursed 10,000 rupees every year they can attend any bible college course for free so every semester they can take up to two courses for free and be considered as part of their work hours any staff can attend any week in school and that will also be considered as part of their work hours so it's all part of what we are saying is look your development is also important spiritual and practical development is important so it becomes part of that then every month we have a staff meeting where we do a little bit of training so one hour of training all the staff attend and the training could be on some practical things communication planning, strategizing, execution all these different practical topics everybody attend all the staff so this is kind of telling them that look you as a person are important you growing and developing yourself is important so I think if we in the organization if we build it into we want to run the organization then they will automatically people understand the importance of you know renewing themselves whether physically practically or developing themselves you know by learning new skills and so on and they will realize that it's not just about sacrifice and work and work and work all the time but they need to be taking care of themselves so we will get into all these details as we go forward I'm sorry for the long answer to your question but I hope Yes sir I think what you are trying to say if I understand is that it boils down to policy and systems and there are the administrative structures that's put in place for both staff and the ministries Yes Yes Okay we have time for one more question before the break Sri Kumar, I see your hand raised please go ahead Thank you master I just want clarification on one thing like as many especially I don't know what other country but especially India we don't take this management thing as a spiritual as you know in the beginning as we were discussing so in that case when you are ministering in a church and you are serving in a church and your pastor does not give much value to these things and when you know the truth so in that case how we will implement these things because the pastor is not at all the pastor is more focusing on the spiritual thing not on this area so in that case how we will be able to handle the things or how we can survive there hmm Interesting question hmm how what would you do in a situation like that I will share my thoughts and maybe others on the class may have other ideas I mean if possible I am not saying this will always work but if possible it's nice to have a conversation with the pastor and all in one area so you can always use one example so in one area where there is a need in that church ministry in that one area you can say pastor why don't you know the goal is to help the pastor see the value of organization and good administration and to help him understand that this is of God it's not against God it's not against the work of the spirit but it is from the Holy Spirit so of course we can show him you know share if it's possible share from the word and then give an example like a demo in one area in this one area let us organize let us plan well you know assign one or two people see how it goes and if he sees how sees the result of good organization in one area of ministry then he is likely to buy into that idea right and he sees that look there is prayer happening of course we are praying we are doing spiritual ministry but it is being backed up by good administration and if he can see it then he is most likely to say if it works in one area then it can work in all the other areas so that is one thing that I would try if possible as a way to introduce now I will just open it up to others in the class they may have other ideas so if anybody would like to respond to Shri Kumar's question with some other ideas so Christopher another question we will pick it up right after this anybody has any other ideas for Shri Kumar his question is if the pastor is only focused on spiritual ministry not interested in administration how can you introduce it to the pastor so that he will do it in the church or ministry with other ideas go ahead Roshan Roshan go ahead I feel what as you said pastor I mean showing to the pastors from the scriptures from the word of God our administration is actually stewardship not just about the revelations that God gives us but also you know how to handle things I believe it's I mean it would be so nice to open up those things that in the scriptures show them examples of Bezalayel and Hulayab how God gave them wisdom and knowledge and understanding what God had given to Moses so basically the pastor has to I feel has to come to that understanding through the scriptures I think that will be that will be the key thing that will just open up the pastor and then the other like you know just so the other things just comes in good good good thank you for sharing Charles do you have some thoughts for the response to Shrikumas question yes I am looking at when our brother was sharing the one who has been sharing and I was looking at the scholarly work also need this to be involved yes Jesus is good so he would do things because he is good he has all the scholarly work it requires but we look at other people so you would talk to the pastor and you look at the person like Paul he used his scholarly work to do the spiritual part so there are other people like Peter who didn't study and did the spiritual work but there are others that have done the scholarly work in the current dispensation the spiritual might not work as a single unit so the pastor would be to understand that the part of the administration thing will involve also some other things of studying deep studying deep working together in partnership with the Holy Spirit but also the scholarly work is also needed thank you thank you so what Charles is saying is that given the times in which we are living in we need to in the pastor should understand that we need to bring both in together the spiritual and the scholarly aspect of things last Kennedy did you have your hand raised or yeah I don't have my contribution am I audible am I audible yes you are audible yeah I think my contribution towards Shep Kumar's idea is that you take advantage of the small groups they have small groups in the church then try and benchmark what things where people are agreeable thank you so perhaps I know I have the smaller groups try and share ideas and you know see what's happening and that they can present it to the pastor okay we'll pause here I see comments there from Tarun which is gift him a relevant book to read which I think is a good thing to do you know sometimes that's a nice way a very gentle way of introducing him to the importance of church administration a book that combines scripture with these practical things about administration yeah Roshan says tell him to join this course and that's an option I don't know how he'll do it okay so what we're going to do is we're going to go for a break thank you all for sharing your thoughts it's nice to hear from everybody and learn from each other we'll go for a break, we'll come back I know we have to take Christopher's question and there's also who's Kennedy says we'll talk about privacy so we will see what that's about so we have two questions which we will pick up right after the break back in 10 minutes, see you soon thank you