 We'll just wait for the others to just join and then we'll start. So Thomas, I've actually messaged WhatsApp to you the number that we were talking about yesterday. So you can contact that pastor. I've sent it on this number 9742777457. That's the number I have of you. So I've sent the pastor's number. You can check with him. Okay, let's get started. Okay, so we've been looking at developing counseling skills for the inner-cell group leader. If we are self-group leaders, we're developing counseling skills in us. So one of the things that we need to understand is that for those of people in our cell group, we need to give them time. We need to give them time and give them space because people will need to feel comfortable enough in order to open up and share about their problems, which could be because of their own mistakes or share about what they have done wrong. It takes time. Now they want to solve it and they know that it's because of their choices, their decisions, or maybe it was because of someone else. But they would definitely want to wait and see until they feel confident enough to share that. And the reason is this, that they don't want to be made fun of. They want to know whether they can really trust you as a person. And so they just want to wait and see. So you give them that time. Maybe sometimes you know that this person has this issue. This person has this problem and needs to be sorted. But give them that time, give them that space. Continue to speak the word of God, depend on the Holy Spirit. So Isaiah 50 verses 4 and 5, the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learner that I should know how to speak a word in season to Him that is Viari. Not to speak a word in season to Him. He is Viari, the one who is Viari. So the word of God ministered in the season on the right time to the one who is Viari brings about a lot of change in that person. The viariness is taken away, the discouragement is taken away, the person is revived, renewed. So speak the word of God. The word of God does that. And does that change? Depend on the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 11 verses 2 and 4. The Spirit of the Lord, it's talking about the Spirit of the Lord and it says this, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and shall make Him of verse 3 and make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. And He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes neither reprove after the hearing of His ears, but with righteousness shall He judge the poor and reprove the equity, the meek of the earth and so on. So we see that the Spirit of God the ministry of the Holy Spirit through a person's life brings about so much discernment even beyond our natural senses beyond our natural ability. So in counselling we know that yes, you are discerning based on your experience, knowledge your understanding of people and all that when people share some things you are discerning. Okay, this is what sorry, this is what they are capable of this is what they have done and all that but even beyond that the Holy Spirit who knows the source of the issue the problem and not just the source of the issue issue and problem but also the solution the wisdom of solving it He brings it. So depend on the Spirit of God depend or minister or speak the word of God. That is why Christian counselling has so much more to offer to the world because it goes beyond the cause and effect of human behavior or it just goes beyond just the psychological, just the mind it goes to the root of the issue and goes into the spirit realm as well. Okay, then be practical whatever you are suggesting let it be practical let it be doable it doesn't have to be always super spiritual some simple things can actually solve things so be practical direct the individual to get professional help now this is something very important now we understand that we are not trained counsellors if you are a trained counsellor then you can handle some of the difficult situations and challenges or the difficult circumstances that the person is in you are able to bring the council of God you are able to council them but if not if not then it is best to direct that person to a counsellor to get professional help because if it requires a lot of time if it requires repeated visits and if it is a complex problem you feel that sometimes what happens as a pastor or as a self-reported saying okay, these people are here I need to solve it no, you don't have to you don't have to solve all the problems you don't have to have all the answers right, so in a cell group this is something which intimidates a cell group leader which actually discourages a cell group leader ends up feeling I am not able to do this so you are not expected to know all the answers you are not expected to solve all the problems so just direct that person to a good Christian counsellor or a counselling ministry and say now you need to do this this is what is best okay with that I would also say you need to guard your time because when it comes to these kinds of things typically counselling in general it is going to take some time you are talking to people you are finding out, you are asking questions so what are your priorities and what are things that are required of you let that not suffer guard your time you can say okay we can do this another time nothing wrong or you can say okay now we have looked at it till now we have spent about one hour already on this so let's meet another time because you need to do other things and you need to focus on other things maybe there is family or maybe there are other important things that you need to do at work maybe in this week so no need to ignore all that ignore the priorities ignore no need to ignore that so you can always say okay let's meet another time or maybe right now is not the time maybe person calls and then starts to talk about this and the other they are taking a lot of time already 20 minutes, 30 minutes is gone by and it is just going around in circles it is not being solved nothing is being reached so just say okay let's take it another time definitely we will do that and we will talk about this but today okay let's stop right now let's put a pause right now and then we will continue so guard your time and when necessary if there is a need for correction you know then for the person then you need to do that speak the truth bring in the correction do it with honor that's the other thing no need to dishonor the person bring correction in love bring correction with honor and let the person know that whatever they have said or whatever they have done or the choices they have made that is not correct that is not right okay so there could be different situations like husband and wife or teen, young adult you know kind of situation where you are you are sharing the counsel or bringing the counsel of God always remember not to cross those boundaries you know maybe if you are if you are a man then it is best that you bring in the counsel to another other man right and the same gender because you know that is the safest boundary because people are sharing the heart there it is always possible that emotionally you get maybe attached to that person etc so best to avoid that and it is important to avoid all those things so know your boundaries right and and keep them don't cross those boundaries so so maybe the first time or the second time you might have to you know you might have to do that as a cell group leader because they are in the cell group but then if this thing continues then you can always direct them to another godly person of the same gender if you are a man and then this woman this lady is asking for counsel direct that person to another other person other woman, other lady and if you are a lady and there is this man who is asking for counsel and all that direct them to another person other man same gender so that always you know enables that your boundaries are not crossed ok so here is a good piece of advice you are never responsible for the pain of those who have ignored your counsel maybe you know you've given your best and you've shared ok this is the heart of god for you in this matter this is what you need to you know this is a suggestion this is what of god says and this is what you need to do I don't know because it's up to them to follow it right so you've given that now they might do something completely opposite from what you've you know what you've shared what you've counsel ok completely opposite and as a result of that there are consequences right maybe the consequences are very negative consequences in the sense they did things are not going well ok they completely ignored and now things are bad it's become worse now there is no need for you to feel guilty ok because you have done as a self-group leader you've done your best right you've directed them to the word from the word you've shared and you know that you know that is the the best thing and it is very clear black and white so share but that counsel was not taken right it was not heated and something that was opposite of that was done so in which case the consequence was or the result of that was bad so you are not responsible for the pain that they are going through there is no need for you to feel guilty or you know sometimes you feel I should have been a little more forceful I should have stopped that person you know you did your best you suggested and you said this is the best thing for you to do and the person didn't take it that person didn't carry it out and as a result there is no need for you to feel guilty and condemn yourself right and so you are not responsible for the pain of those who ignored the counsel ok ok so you know lastly in this developing oneself as a self group leader or developing other self group leaders something that we see is some values and disciplines a summary of that is to live a life free from habitual sin ok to keep our lives free from habitual sin very important now we know sin is deceitful sin destroys sin can be you know it's a destiny blocker blocks us from reaching our destiny blocks us from prevents us from reaching our full potential in God that keeps us in a place of imprisonment there is no progress when it comes to you know if we are tolerating sin recognizing and there is no spiritual growth there is no joy so keep your life free from it we need to keep our life free from habitual sin when we say habitual it's not a one time thing it's just repeating it's on repeat mode over and over and over again so we need to deal with those kinds of things which are habitual sin which is you know which is a kind of become a pattern or a cycle over and over again so we need to keep our lives free from it we need to take all precautions we need to take all measures and keep our lives free from habitual sin knowing that sin hardens our heart that's nice okay so that's one thing we be discerning as believers, as leaders secondly a fully developed prayer life okay now when it comes to prayer it's not just corporate prayer with family with other, with the spouse or with cell group members but it is also prayer our own our time alone with God so both develop that prayer life it has to be it's not something that will happen automatically I think we know by now as believers that these are things that will not happen automatically but we need to be we need to pursue be intentional factor in that time and say okay I'm going to be spending time with God and make it a daily thing okay then the third thing is that we need to earn the respect and earn the trust of our cell group members now like we studied last week we saw that people can follow a leader because of the title because someone has given the title someone has appointed you as a leader and people can follow because of the title but that needs to change to a place where people are following because they have seen and they've seen your life and they've seen they've seen what our work is and they've seen what we can how we serve and therefore they make a choice to follow which means that they've observed and now they're giving permission to lead giving us the permission as leaders to lead them and they want to follow what happened it's because they've observed, they've seen so we need to understand that we need to earn that respect earn that trust and earn that permission so we need to live a consistent life a life of servanthood wanting to serve, wanting to minister so we will see that okay yes this person sincere and therefore I will give permission for that person to lead so I remember once when we had our church membership class, we have a membership class so those who want to become members now everybody attends church but to be a formal member there is a process so we have a membership class people come, attend it and they understand what does it mean to be a member what is church membership all about and some of the information about the working of this church the structure of the church all that is shared during the membership class so during that class they also share why they chose to become members and how they decided to become members of the church so one such membership class meeting I remember this person sharing that he along with his family has been attending church but he waited for two years okay and in those two years he was coming attending church, worshipping but he waited for two years to see, to study the life of the pastor to see, okay is this a person that I can truly me and my family I can truly come and be planted in this particular church is this a person whom I can trust or is this person saying something and doing something so he waited for two years now not everybody does that so it takes time to earn the trust of a person or earn the respect of another person whom we are leading and it's especially true in cell groups also the earned respect of cell group member okay the cell group, like we said the cell group and the cell group leader does not function in isolation so what do we mean by that? it means that it's not separate from the church we need to understand that this particular model I'm talking about this particular model that we've been studying this is a model of discipleship so it's not separate from the church it's not alienated from the church but it's very much a part of the vision and it is a ministry of the church okay so the cell group leader or the cell group cannot be distanced from the local church or it cannot be not involved in the local church it has to be involved involved in the life of the church involved in the activities the ministry of the church okay so whatever the cell group you know the cell group leaders there could be meetings, there could be trainings there could be maybe certain prayer other things happening equipping training now the cell group leader if I'm a cell group leader I need to make sure that okay I'm there for those I give or I plan and prioritize those here is a meeting that's happening and it's it's scheduled on a particular date and make every attempt to attend that it's very important it could be a training meeting just a meeting of all the cell group leaders just to catch up just to see okay maybe the pastor wants to know what is happening and all the cell group leaders are asked to share what is happening in their cell groups and so on so make the attempt to be part of that meeting okay so which means that you are involved in the local church then a strong desire to share Christ's love with anyone who will listen and the determination to help cell group members reach their friends for Christ evangelism and also outreach and evangelism and to have a strong passion and desire to do that right so these are some things to think about these are some things that we need to understand when it comes to cell group leaders, values and disciplines right so the next section come to the third section of this resource of this course which is about raising up disciples okay so we saw that okay I first follow the Lord and I myself make sure that I am a disciple of the Lord even before enabling others to do so now that I am following now that I am leading of the cell group now how can I raise up others in the group in the cell group to be leaders okay because there are potential leaders in the cell group of people who have the heart and the ability so how can I raise them up and how can we do this is that a process so we are going to look at some things and we are going to look at some of these general things about church leadership embracing leaders and so on so even before that I just want to know like if there is any questions based on what we shared so far we can look at that any questions about the cell group leader or some of the things that we looked at today or in previous class any questions at all we can look at that okay or any challenges of this whole thing of cell groups no questions from Kiran okay so let's look at yeah it's clear fine okay let's look at the other aspect of raising up leaders so raising up leaders so as disciples we are to go make disciples okay so what is the process that we said you know people come to follow Jesus they become believers they have a transformation in their lives so from being believers they learn to follow the Lord Jesus they learn to live out a life of a believer and they we call that being disciples because they are following Jesus following his teaching the person and the principles and the precepts so they are now disciples and from being disciples as disciples as they discover their call and the gifting and they receive the anointing from God they move on to be you know as disciples they move on to be I shouldn't say move on but as disciples they learn to minister okay so they are now they are disciples but they are also ministers they are ministering they have recognized the call of God they have identified okay this is what God has called me to do in the body which is in the church in the local church you know maybe there are certain things that God has called them to do so they recognize that they identify that and they are doing that and so as ministers then they come to come to a place of being leaders you know as disciples so you never stop being a believer you never stop being a disciple you never stop being a minister but you continue in all this and you continue to come to a place of leading others leading others so being a spiritual father or being a spiritual mother leading others so in doing so in leading others what are we doing we are also taking others along that same path from being believers to disciples to ministers and leaders so you are raising up others to become all this to become leaders the ministers to become leaders so here are some thoughts about being leaders in a church or church leadership you know some things to consider here these are some very interesting nuggets of wisdom great leaders will build great churches average leaders will build average churches and anti-leaders which means you are setting negative examples anti-leaders will harm and break down churches as well as church leaders and their visions for God so this is something that is for us to think about great leaders will build great churches and average leaders will build average churches so wise leaders know that they must utilize all available leadership to the maximum so a wise leader will not hamper will not stifle people from raising up as leaders because the more leaders you are raising up and the more the leaders realize their potential and they are also doing the work of ministry and raising up other leaders building a strong church and you know Paul talks about how in Galatians he talks about how he went and met Peter and James and he talks there seem to be pillars in the church so a leader is like a pillar and the more pillars you have the stronger the building is the more stable the structure is of course needs to have a strong foundation but as it is being raised up the more pillars there are the stronger the structure so so we make sure that the leaders are being equipped and mobilized which means they are gathered and they are placed in places of leadership where they are required so that's something that we need to continuously do because when there are leaders and they are placed in that right place of leadership then they are using their gifts they are using their abilities for the sake of the kingdom passing growth that is what happens right let me just share that and then we will go and move on okay I think this we saw in Ephesians quite recently Ephesians 4 verses 15 and 16 speaking the truth and love may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love so what is Paul saying here saying that the body is joined in it together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part is doing its share so every leader functioning well doing their work well being placed in that position of leadership using their giftings everything what happens they are working well and it causes an effective work of ministry it causes growth of the body growth is inevitable when we raise up strong leaders and place them in positions of leadership because they are influencing people for the good and so that is what happens then another thing to understand is that this also something that we have learnt in kingdom builders course kingdom of god course that that success in ministry is based on the ability to raise up successors that you need to have who are if I am the leader today but if I am not there tomorrow who are the others who will continue the work a successor someone who is raised up like how Moses raised up Joshua there was Caleb also how Moses raised up Joshua but Joshua was the one who took on after Moses the mantle of leadership so like that who are the others who are whom we are raising up to be successors so when we say ministry is successful it is not complete without a successor one who can continue on the work even stronger maybe maybe better, stronger, better or bigger than ever before right then the great leaders understand how to get everyone to participate so because we see again in Ephesians 4 we see that this is what the 5 fold ministry does the apostle prophet evangelist they equip the church equip the body of Christ all the believers to do the work of ministry this is what they do and when they do that every member is every believer is doing the work of ministry and that work of ministry is having its effect causes the end result is that it causes the body to grow and everyone is effectively working so it is important that even before everybody starts working for everybody to participate for everybody to understand this everyone in the church to understand this and to accept it I might understand it but I am not accepted for myself maybe it is for that person maybe it is for that person that everyone is a minister so to understand, to accept and only when I do that do I participate get involved so great leaders understand this that we need to do everything to make sure that people are involved people are not spectators that everyone is involved everyone is participating okay so nobody is left out everyone is participating so they understand that and they do things to make sure that people participate now so in a church and in church leadership we need to understand it is not just the pastor who is committed and fired up and passionate but also the others who are in the leadership others who are with the lead pastor or the senior pastor so a leader's effectiveness is greatly influenced by those who are closest to him especially which means that the leadership team so how effective is that leader well the team the leadership team their influence their commitment determines that okay so it is not just the leader but it is also the others in the leadership team so some of the things that we saw a leader you know because when people follow a leader because they want to that is a great achievement and so we need to understand that is the greatest thing that people have given permission to be led and also that any investment that we make it is as leaders because we are called to influence raise up others and especially the next generation and the generation after that so as leaders what are we doing to raise up the next generation that is one thing and the following generation or maybe even the third generation after that are we doing anything to to create an impact influence to raise up that generation as well because the challenges faced by maybe our generation is very different from the challenges of the next generation and the learning experience of the next generation if you think about it some of us did not have smartphones, some of us did not have social media when we were growing up only I think last year or last year is when I I started using Instagram so it is quite late in using Instagram because I had to learn to use it because of official work we were putting out you know promo material and all that so there was also a Instagram account so I need to understand how it works how do you post things all that but it was only last year right quite late but the next generation like my daughter she grew up using it from the teenagers she grew up understanding you know what Instagram is and so on and the generation following my nephew and all that their phone is the smartphone that is how they understand it the TV is a flat screen TV they have not seen huge televisions that we are used to they don't have any idea of cassette player or not even CD players because those things are not there or slowly just going out so their experience their environment is totally different and some of them are so used to the online things online classes online education is something that they are so used to it's part and parcel of their life whereas for us it was not it's cool meant to go somewhere and it's nothing on the screen so their challenges are different and also also spiritually morally all the challenges are different so if we are raising up are we investing it's good to talk about it and say we want to raise up leaders but do we understand the environment in which this generation is coming from the challenges and the generation after that what is it? it's a fast changing but the truth never changes so in order to raise those that generation we need to do something without compromising the truth but to be able to take it to them and raise them up so are we doing enough are we investing our time, resources our talents, abilities in doing that right so we get into this section of how we have all these okay let's say you have a cell group you have about maybe 10 to 12 cell group leaders okay now how do we get them how do we train them into cell leaders now they're all members they're coming attending I'm sure for those of you who are leading a cell group or you're part of a cell group you have people coming attending taking part actively now how do we raise them up to be cell group leaders right for each of them to lead their own cell groups okay so we're going to be looking at that what do we need to do is there something that we need to do is there something that we need to understand or will it happen automatically right so all these things so we will look into the next class we will start this topic for the next class so training cell members into cell leaders how do we train them what do we need to do so first thing we need to understand it is possible right that people can be raised up it is a process it is going to take time and one needs to be intentional about it so because there will be some who will who will just come forward right who will just say okay who will volunteer and say okay I can do this there will be many who will not there will be many who will be just comfortable being who they are right well they might have hidden potential giftings but they are just comfortable where we are so what do we do in such a case what do we do in such circumstances as leaders to be able to draw out to be able to encourage and set them on that path of leadership development okay so we will stop here and we will look at it from next class onwards okay so so we will catch up next class and