 Okay, got it wrong. Okay, welcome back everyone to our second lecture on BC310 Church Administration. Today we are talking about church staff management, managing church staff and so on. Let me just see here, there's a comment there from Roshan. Pastor problems will arise in the office. It is okay to be angry if things are not done properly. Only thing we should not hurt others with our behavior, be angry and say not hope I'm right. The fact is yes Roshan, we all get angry. I mean we are just human beings and that getting angry is part of our emotional response to certain situations. Yeah, we do get angry but like the scripture says, you know, be angry but don't sin. Don't do something that's wrong out of anger and that's where we have to be careful. Don't hurt others, don't explode, say and do things that are not right. Okay, any other questions, any comments before we continue forward? So what we've looked at is the hiring process, right? So the first thing, what I guess what I'm trying to emphasize is in managing church staff, the first thing is to hire right, get the right people in. If we can do that, we can actually avoid a lot of problems and so I was just giving you some things that, you know, kind of we do here, mostly I do here when I'm interviewing people. These are kind of things I look for and so on. Okay, then some other things that we also do which are common things is we look, we do background checks and now these days we check social media. So one of the things that HR person will do is check their social media activity. Is there anything in any kind of things that are not right? Then we will flag it, you know, because we are a Christian organization, if this person is going to be working for us but if they're doing stuff on social media that's bad, dangerous, whatever, it will eventually reflect back on the organization. So we do those kinds of checks as well. We also speak to, depending on the role they've seen, speak to their previous references. Usually it'll be a pastoral reference. We check, ask about how they've done so. So assuming all of that is done, everything is fine, then of course we give an offer letter. So this offer letter is also very important. That means in the offer letter and I think, yeah, I'll have to give you a sample of, I'll put up a sample offer letter basically tells you, you're going to start on this date. This is going to be a role. This is what you're going to be paid and this is whom you will report to. And then along with the offer letter is the same role description and our staff guidelines. So this is a formal welcome to this person. We send off another offer that is very important because the offer letter, a role description staff man is basically saying, look, we are getting you on board. And this is what you expect it to do. So again, that's very important. And now for a new role, especially for people who are like straight out of college, in case we're hiring somebody like that, then we usually have a probation period of three months. So if there's a new role, then we tell them, okay, three months, you're on probation, that means you're going before you can make you a permanent staff. We're going to watch how you do for three months. So that's that we do that in some cases when they're especially with your fresher of college. We usually experience people, we don't do that because they already know how to work in organizations so on. And we give them all our staff guidelines sample of that is available. And then once the person starts usually on the first day, there's a lot of, you know, orientation kind of thing. Our HR person will get them to take care of the paperwork which is to give their bank accounts, any other paperwork they need. I'll begin them set up with the computer systems, what all of those kinds of things. Just a little bit of orientation, you know, how do they fill up their time sheets? How do they report? How do they do this that on the other? The HR person walks them through on that. So they kind of get settled in. Usually it's a one day thing. It's done. Okay. So we bring them on. Now the next thing, important thing, of course, in any Christian organization is paying the people, right? So this is important. This is important because people shouldn't feel that hey, just because I'm working for a church or a ministry, I won't get paid well. You know, no, that shouldn't be the case. Now, of course, we may not be paying as high as as corporates who are making a lot of profits and so on. But at least we should be paid well. That means they need to be taken care of. They should have enough money to save and take care of their family, all those kinds of things. Right. So so the the the organization as part of taking care of your staff or many staff I'm talking about is that we need to pay them back. Right. So here's how we do it. And you know, some of you may be familiar with these things. So forgive me if you're already familiar with these things, but I'll just share it. So the compensation, which is the what the person receives, there's a salary, a base salary fixed, they're paid every month. That's the salary that will be based upon their role and their experience and the response for their caring and so on. So have a base salary. Plus, there is a bonus. Now, you may be given a bonus once a year. That's usually at the beginning of December. For all of our full time staff. Some organizations may break it down and give it twice a year or whatever. But there's some benefit being part of and we have a calculation how we do the bonus. We can't do it as corporates do, but we do have a system here. And then there are other benefits and we will talk about that. You know, so for example, all our staff get health insurance, them and their immediate family that is their spouse and children are covered with health insurance. They get what we call as pension or deposit into their pension or that we hear here in India, it's called poverty pension fund. So they get a certain amount given by the organization that goes into their retirement fund. Then we also have paid leaves and so on. And then we have other benefits that we give to our staff, like, you know, say 10,000 rupees every year for their own education, anything they want to spend on in terms of learning related to their work, anything they can, you know, if they don't want to do online calls or whatever they can use that. They are they have free access to our Bible college, they can attend Bible college classes if they want to, they can attend beacon schools. They want to as part of their work hours. So so so it's a benefit. So if even if you attend Bible college, you know, up to four hours, it's considered as part of your work. Or if you attend a beacon school, full day to eight hours, it's part of your work. So those are different benefits that we have identified, which we can give to our staff. And then we have ministry related leaves, if they want to go and do some ministry on their own. We have a certain number of days in a year that they can go and do that. This is outside of their regular vacation leave and all those things. So these are benefits that we give to our staff. So that gives them their total compensation. Right? So why is compensation important? Because this is this affects how they feel about the job and the organization, you know, and this is a big motivation. We want to keep our people motivated. We want to keep them happy. And we want to make a feel that they are cared for. They should be worrying about money. They should be free of that worry, so that they can, you know, put their mind on doing the work of the ministry. So, so that's why salary or compensation that we give is important. Now, and also, they also need to feel that it is fair. It is being done fairly. That is, nobody's given money preferentially or anything like that. No, everything, everything is fair. They also need to understand that it is linked to their performance and also how the organization does. So there's an overall responsibility. They are responsible to the organization. They're also responsible for the well-being of the organization. That means the organization does well. Everybody is fine. But if the organization doesn't do well, then it's going to impact everybody. Right? So, for these reasons, for how they feel about the job, that they are feeling they're treated fairly, and also there's a sense of responsibility. Compensation is important. Now, of course, you know, how much an organization can pay will depend on where the organization is financially. You know, so I understand that there is, there is, there is a dependency there, that if the organization does fine, I said you can pay people well. But I think it's the responsibility of the organization then, therefore, to fund itself. Like, you know, you need to get the money, whatever ways that God has given you, so that you can take care of the people well. So that's part of the responsibility, right? That we have. And of course, it's aligned to values and operating principles. That means, you know, we don't overpay, we don't underpay, but there's certain values that we do. And a good compensation system will keep, will not keep people worried about their money, you know, so it'll keep them focused on the goal and the goals of the organization. So that's also important. Now, how do you determine employees, staff compensation? Of course, what can you afford? What is the level of skill and competencies they bring? What is the responsibility and work they're doing? What is the leadership they're providing? And how are they advancing the organization's objectives? How are they growing personally? And also, you want to reward them for staying with the organization. So these are some of the things you will look at. When you decide, and every year we revise our staff's company salary. So these are some of the things we look at as we revise their salary. So okay, they're carrying more responsibility or whatever. So these are things we look at. What are the benefits we offer? Like we mentioned earlier, there's the health insurance, the retirement savings, leaves, money for utility development is also an annual bonus. And, and so on. Other intangible benefits that of course, that people get when they work for a Christian organization, they're involved in Kingdom work, which brings a lot of satisfaction, opportunity for missions. So we pay for all our staff to go on missions. So they have every staff has one, three paid trip anywhere in India. So in fact, we've just started our missions again, trips, so people are starting to go to church, we will pay for them for our staff, one paid trip anywhere in India. And if they want to go on more trips, you know, they can definitely pay and go, but we will pay them for one trip. Anywhere in India, they can go and come there. You know, as long as they're doing the work well, you know, they have good job security, they can grow within the organization, let them grow, they can move laterally, work really based on how they're developing. The culture, the workplace culture is a big bless, you know, it's a big positive. If you have a good organization, people feel good about working there. They'd like to say, I work for APC, I work for this, you know, good organization. And then of course, we take care of make sure that they can balance things. Good work life balance. Okay, so these are some thoughts to keep in mind when you're thinking about how much to pay your staff. And this is important part of taking care of your staff. Let me pause you and see if there are any questions, any thoughts here. Okay. All right, I see a question here from Elisha. Should a Christian ministry engage in other business to maintain its finance or should depend solely on donations? Very interesting and a very good question. So Elisha, this is my, I would say my advice, based on the way we've conducted ourselves and also based on what I've observed around the world with Christian ministries. As a church, as a Christian ministry, my advice or my recommendation would be never to get into any kind of business operation, right, keep the church and the ministry purely church-based. And that's been the way we've operated. Now, for the first 14 years or 13, 14 years, I was running both a church and a business. I kept them both separate. Absolutely separate. Everything is separate. Money may flow from the business to the church as a contribution, but not any other way. Money doesn't go from the church to the business. Never. So it's totally separate. And that was because I was involved in both. But the church itself would not engage in any kind of business activity. Now, what I've observed, and this was especially when I was living in the US, I know of at least two cases and the problem more, where church got involved in business dealings. And it was terrible. It was terrible. One church, the pastor joined with another person who, you know, was into this kind of some sort of an investment thing. And he, you know, the pastor, because you have an influence, when you say something, people will, you know, kind of blindly follow for the most part. And so that's a very dangerous thing. So the pastor got people to, you know, give money to this man who would supposedly invest their money and give them big returns. And so the pastor encouraged that people gave money to this man, this man messed it up. And it was very painful situation, very painful. It was bad. So that was one example. Another example was investment in TV stations, I think. I think another example. And this was because many years ago, I'm talking about this one church that got involved in some sort of a, because they were doing this TV business, I mean, they were doing TV stations, they were buying it. And again, it went through, they got into it more like a business kind of arrangement. And it was again, very bad, you know. So, and then over here in India, I've heard about churches doing real estate business, you know, so what they would do is and they would buy land and they would sell portions of it to church members and out of that profit, they would try to build a church building and so on. And in many cases, I've heard that that has been a cause for problems in the church. And that's why, you know, when we began to look at our building project, the same idea came many times, people were repeating, hey, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do this? I said, no, we will never get into any kind of business dealing. Even for land, the church will buy the land, the church will own the land, the church will build its building. And that's I want to keep it 100% clean, no business to this. Just everything belongs to a church, it's purely ministry. So that's my advice, because I just don't like the idea of that. You know, getting into this business, the church ministry, getting into this business dealing the cost problems will then impact the ministry to affect the people. It would be a big mess. So my advice is to stay away. There may be some successful models. I'm not saying there's not been. For example, one thing I've heard about was the church renting a big commercial space. Which on Sundays, they would use for the church services that they do the week, it's like a mall or whatever. So they make money out of it as well. So you know, the church is kind of doing business and supporting the ministry, whatever. In some cases, it's worked well. Okay, you know, fine. But would I do that? I wouldn't do it. Why? Because if something goes wrong, it's going to impact the ministry, right? So there are some models where people have, okay, done something or maybe they have separated out. I don't exactly how it functions. But my advice is, you know, don't don't mix, don't mix church and business. Okay, Pastor, thank you very much. As a follow up, what about a model where the ministry, because it does a lot of publication works, it decides to set up a print company, a print company, so that most of the publication works, instead of taking it outsourcing it, it will be done by a different entity owned by the church. So it kind of, it's, it is keeping the operation of the publishing company to within the same kind of circle. And then also going into media, or in a TV station, a radio station, one, those two outlets are going to serve also as a platform for the church to do its media ministry effectively. Yes. So what about that kind of model too? So, yeah, I understand what you're saying. If you know, I would be very careful how, how it is done, or all these separate entities, for example, the publishing printing company, the, let's say media company. Here's how I would go about it. If I were going to do something like that, those will be completely separate entities. They would be run by people who are, you know, professionals who are running it as a business. No money will go from the church to them, other than paying for the actual service. So the church will not fund it. The church will not give seed money to it. No. If the church would pay for the service, you know, okay, you print these books, I'll pay just like how they would treat any other entity. You print these books, I'll pay the money. You do this work, I'll pay the money. So it's just purely a paid service. It's not funding. See, the problem is, we can't take money that's given as donation, and then use it as seed money to run a business that is like, you know, so that's, if we set up, set it up as separate entities, it should be run as professional organizations completely independent of the church, the church is using their service. And it could be run by Christian people, and they should be allowed to do many businesses, whatever. Otherwise, it should be completely owned by the church. That means, like, it is part of the church. So you set up a publishing ministry, but it belongs fully to the church. It's run by the church. It's not a business. It's part of the ministry, media team, fully run by the church. So for example, at ABC, that's how we do it, right? We have our own, our own team that does the printing everything. Of course, we use vendors, we use a printing press, we pay them for it. We use translators. But the the book is part of the church is fully funded by the church is all it's completely it's part of the ministry of church. Same thing with our media. Now we are planning to get into short films, produce short films. So that will be 100% run as part of the ministry of the church. It's not a separate entity, but it's part of the church. We're setting up the Bible college. So the Bible college is part of the church 100% owned and run by the church. Let's say in the future, we set up a Christian school. It'll again be part of the church 100% owned and run by the church. So it's all be part of the church. That's the way we would like to function. So it's everything is considered a ministry of the church so it can be fully funded by the church, whatever money comes in goes straight to the church. That's one way of doing that's the way we would do it. If you're doing it as a separate business entity, then it should be 100% separate. And those things should function as businesses. So both these options are there. I would choose this or the way we are doing it is separate in the sense that you're doing it is that everything's owned by the church, fully funded by the church and is a ministry of the church. That's how it's run. Hope I explain myself clear, clearly and I share. Yes, pasta, please. Thank you very much. Welcome. Christopher. Yes, but I'm actually referring to, you know, Bible difference. The very early days of the church. So in Acts, Acts two, verse 44, I just mentioned now all of you but together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all had meat. Oh, I think in this case, they actually sold their possessions and then, you know, it was kind of distributed across for use for people who were to need that ministry. So just wanted to find out has this actually happened? I mean, kind of times and, you know, and, you know, to the main challenges and all that, but has this work and, you know, or where has this worked? And, you know, what does, what are some of the, I mean, how the opportunity to do it in case you are aware of that? Okay. Yeah. So, so what we read in Acts chapter two is a special case, meaning it's a special case because it had to do with the, according to the Holy Spirit, the first eight to 10 years of the birth of the church is a special case because when they are putting the Holy Spirit happy, we had all, we had all these pilgrims who had left their hometowns, their home, home cities and it all gathered congregated in Jerusalem. Now, they had these are Jews who had come to Jerusalem in order to serve in order to participate in that 50 day period of peace. It was a parcel of the feast of the first fruit. So then there was the feast of Pentecost spread over these 50 days. So they had left everything that come in and then they were impacted by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, they became believers, they continued to stay on so obviously they didn't have the resources. And in that context, believers helped each other, but this was only that early period of the church. You don't find this as a practice in all the other church plans going on. In fact, what you do find in the writings of the Apostle Paul later on in the future chapter four, in Second Thessalonians chapter two, he basically says, you know, let each one, let each one work with their own hands, provide for their own needs, provide for their own family and so on. So you see a change in how the life of the church continued later on as you read the episodes compared to what happened in Acts chapter two. So that's why we say Acts chapter two was a unique situation. And in order to meet the needs of that situation, this is what they did. Now, in contemporary society, I have read, I never personally witnessed, but I've read of a certain very well known Christian author, I think his name's, I don't know, I don't want to mention his name, but anyway, so he was a big proponent of this idea. And he tried to create Christian communities like this. He tried to replicate Acts chapter two in modern times. The result was disastrous because in modern times, family units have their own needs. You know, you have said your children school this, that no, you know, and then if you start to create and each one has their own homes, etc, etc, all that. And now you try to create some sort of a community pool of money to take care of all of these people. It actually resulted in a lot of abuse from the reports I read about an attempt to replicate Acts two in modern times. So, you know, so, and we have to know that it's not a biblical thing, the biblical thing as you read on in the episodes, there is a difference where everyone is instructed to work and take care of their families and so on. So, that's, yeah, that's, that's what I would say. Yeah. So, just, so, just as a follow-up, I mean, and related to that discussion we had on the interim, interim ministry, at the end of the Bible, you know, there's this mention about, you know, even Jesus, you know, you know, sending out his, his disciples out and he told them to, you know, to go and, you know, not even have, you know, an extra pair of clothes and I know I go very simply go to different towns and so again, I would say that that would be, would that be in the sort of exceptional kind of case or would this be, you know, I mean, how would you kind of view it, you know, going in, going as more in a simpler approach and having a ministry or a church, you know, and in a sense kind of sponsored that person in a simple way, obviously, you know, how would that, I mean, is that, is that, has that worked in the incontemplary, in the incontemplary sort of era? Okay, so, so when you look at the Gospels, you see Jesus also make a change. So in Matthew 10, when he gave the commission to the 12, he said, when you go, don't take anything with you, don't worry about anything, into whichever city you enter, you just go there, whoever receives you, let your peace be on the house, you will eat with them and more. But towards the end of his ministry, and I'm looking at Luke chapter 22, verses 35 and 36, Luke 22, 35 and 36, Jesus changes that. He says, you know, Luke 22, 35 and 36 is, when I sent you without money bag, napsack, sandals, did you lack anything? So they said nothing. Then he said to them, but now he has a money bag, let him take it. And likewise, a napsack. And he has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. This is Luke 22, 35 and 36. So you find that Jesus actually reversed it. In Matthew 10, he said, don't take anything. Luke 22, he says, take your money bag, take your clothes, take your sword with you. Right? So the reason I'm highlighting it is, you know, Jesus himself reversed what he had changed. Okay. You've done this now. From now on, once you do it differently. To answer your question, you know, each one of us has to live the way God has called us to live. There are people who would live, let's say, I call it like Matthew 10 says, they don't worry about anything. They just go and they just live. And if God has called them to do that, you know, God will take care of them. But for the others, we have to live by the other side of scripture where God tells us to be responsible. You know, you work, you take care of your needs, etc. So my answer to that question would be, you know, each one has to do what God's called them to do. For most of us, we just have to follow the instruction of scripture, which is, you know, be responsible, work, take care of your family, this, that, those things. Then maybe those who God says, you know, hey, I just want you to live like this. Don't worry, just go. Okay. They have to obey God. And so that would be the right way to live. Just follow, you know, be clear about what God calls each one of us to do. If there is no clear word, then just follow the instruction of scripture, which is be responsible and, you know, do what you have to do. Sri Kumar, you have a question? Yes, sir. Thank you. Sir, I have two questions. What's the follow-up question from which Alicia asked? So I just want, I need a little clarification. If I keep my business away from my ministry, and if I do, and not involving the money of the ministry into the business, but rather than my whole idea is, you know, using the money of my business into the ministry. Is that wrong or is that the right step, I think? That is fine. That is fine. If money is going from business to ministry, that is fine. Okay, that there's nothing wrong with it. You're keeping everything separate. Yes. But money is going into, that is a good thing. That's not a problem. Thank you, sir. Sir, my second question is regarding to employee compensation and benefit. I just want to know this one thing that, like as you said, you evaluate the performance. So now in the corporate world, you evaluate the performance based on their targets and their achievements. So in the spiritual thing, how we can, how, how can you evaluate the things? And second thing, I also source, like some churches where they have, they keep the targets, like, no, this number of baptism, this number of baptism should be, though the people are just forcing the people to get into baptism. So is it like that? Or how we come to know that, no, if you are actually giving a hike to a particular pastor or an employee? So how do you evaluate his performance every year? So I just want to know that. Thank you, master. Good, good question. Yeah. So how do we evaluate? And so I've shared a little bit on this, let us give you a minute. I can, so it's a very good question. The way we do it at APC, we don't do it based on targets, like, you know, it's not like a number of baptisms or those kinds of things. We don't do that. Let's see now if I can quickly show you. So we look at basically their role, so it of course varies based on their role, and how they have contributed to the organization and to the growth of the organization. So it is quite subjective, right, in the sense that it's very specific to each, sorry, each person, and it's not based on numbers, although in some cases, for example, let me see if, yeah, okay, I'll try to bring that up. Yeah, although in some cases, you know, numbers to not in terms of targets, but more in terms of, okay, you know, has the church grown, or for example our worship team, you know, did you produce, did you release music, you know, these, did you write and release songs that year? So that would be important, because, you know, we keep motivating, or we keep encouraging our worship team, you know, you need to write songs. So basically the worship pastor is responsible to make sure that they train the people, they keep, you know, building up the team so that the team can then write songs and then we produce the songs and so on. So we, we try to do that, you know, we try to look at it. So let me just take a moment quickly to share some of the things we look at. Just give me a minute. Okay, so here's how, what do we look at, right? So overall performance, right? So overall performance, of course, how did this, for example, the worship pastor, you know, we would look at, you know, how did he do as a worship pastor in that previous year, or in the year that's just getting over? So, you know, did he, did the worship team, worship team develop? Are new people brought into the team? Did the worship team go up to a good level? Did he, you know, invest in training the people, right? Then looking at his people interactions, work ethics values, you know, creatively, did he come up with something new this year? Did they do something different? Did they come up with some new ideas? Or what about the quality of their work? I mean, is he showing really passion and hard work? Is he developing himself or he or she growing, are they growing in the areas? Are they contributing to the organization? So they're not just focused on their own work, but they're also contributing to the organization. Are they carrying, what is the leadership and response that they're carrying? Are they solving problems for the church, the people, the community? So all of these are subjective, so they're not numeric, they are not in numbers, they are more on the quality of their work and the quality of their leadership. So this is how we look at people and based on these things, and this is in our staff document, so based on these things, we would, you know, we would score them here and with the, you know, of course they would score themselves, if they're reporting to somebody, the team leader will score, somebody else will score, the pastors also score, and you look at their overall average. So that's how we do it, so it's not purely numbers, it's more of a quality of their work in these areas that we assess. So it is very subjective, so it is based on observation, based on actual work that is done, that you could see, but we're having conversations with people throughout the year that says, look, we're looking at it. Example, our worship team, I tell them, see every year you have to produce at least six new songs. So I've given a number six, because it's a practical thing that they can work at. Now the last two years, we didn't do that, and last year we released only two new songs, I think, year before that, maybe just two songs and so on. So, you know, the, the, and okay, yeah, you know, it was a pandemic and you know, a lot of constraints were there, so although a goal is at least six new songs, okay, we did two, five, okay, so they were not penalized for not bringing up six new songs, you know, but that we have a number, the number is more of a guideline, right, because it's a doable thing, and it says okay, but then they have to work on it throughout the year to be able to produce six new songs, but my goal is, I say, hey, as many songs that you can't release it, you know, that's the overall encouragement, because we want our worship team to be writing songs and producing them and releasing, so the overall guidelines is as many songs you can't do it, but at least eight for six, then it is more a practical thing, so that's how we do it, but it's not like, it's not numbers driven, it's more of a qualitative thing, yeah, yeah, Roshan, I will post this in the classroom section as well, yeah, under that. Thank you sir. Thank you. Okay, all right, so we will pause here for today, I think we'll have a lot to cover when we talk about staff management, having managing people well is very important for the Christian organization, because ultimately it's the people who are going to be doing the ministry, you know, it's not just one pastor, one pastor cannot do it, no, it's all of us together, working together, you know, that are going to eventually produce the work of the ministry, so that's why people are very important and taking care of them, paying them well and helping them grow, all these things are very important, okay. We'll continue this next week, we will pause here, can somebody pray in this Mrs please? Can I pray Pastor? Go ahead, go ahead. Our Heavenly Father once again may come to you with a lot of gratitude in our hearts, we thank you for the opportunity you have granted us to learn through our interactions, we pray that you grant us the grace to be effective and efficiently this ministry's Father, we pray that you continue to guide our decisions and our thoughts as some of us prepare to step into full-time ministry. Lord, we pray that you continue to grant Pastor Ashes the wisdom and understanding, so that whenever we're engaging you'll be able to pour into our lives, we bless you, holy name, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Amen, thank you everyone, enjoy the recipe today, I'll see you again soon, God bless you all, thank you, bye now, bye, thank you, thank you everybody, God bless, have a good weekend,