 the recording started. Yes, good morning. All right, so let's pray together. I would like to request someone crazy. Are you able to pray today? Are you comfortable to pray? Okay, all right. Then maybe Christopher, Christopher, would you please be able to pray? Okay, I think I'll just leave it open. Anyone who is comfortable and ready. Can I pray? Yes, yes, I'll check. Heavenly Father, we come before your throne of grace in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for you give us new blessing and grace each morning and your mercies are new every morning Lord. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to learn in this class Lord. So I pray Father bless pastor with your spirit of revelation wisdom knowledge and understanding and remove every form of destruction from this class so that we can go learn smoothly without any kind of destruction and bless each one of the students with understanding heart and a listening ear that whatever we learn in this class it goes into deep in our spirit Lord. So thank you for hearing this prayer in Jesus name we pray amen. Thank you. Thank you. We will get to our content here. So far we were talking about partnership in the body of Christ, partnership in the kingdom of God and how partnership is something that we must try to establish we must prepare our minds for it and that will come only when we are kingdom minded. We talked about how putting others before ourselves is very very essential when we're talking about kingdom building to have a mindset where we are more concerned about advancing the kingdom rather than our own personal agenda or our own personal ministry. So that is the kingdom mindset and we must learn to connect and work with each other try to understand that God has gifted us in different ways and that together we are able to achieve more together we are able to complement one another and you know it's more fruitful the work that we are able to do for the kingdom of God. So these are all things that we saw and we talked about you know certain attitudes that we must maintain where we mustn't judge others without any basis so we must not look down on others and their ministries we must have a cooperative mindset towards others. So all of those things we've seen and we were touching upon the benefits or the value of partnership. So we said that when we have partnership it builds unity so unless we come together where is the question of developing that brotherly love for one another because we're not at all in contact but when we come in contact maybe through partnership you know it could have to do with something that we are working towards it could have to do with praying for the city so we are partnering for something and that partnership actually results in the unity among the people of God so it's an opportunity basically for unity so we must encourage partnerships across the churches across various ministries and we talked about you know what could be some of the hindrances to partnership again it has to do with attitude when we have an attitude where we don't accommodate others then we end up you know doing our own thing and we are not so concerned about the kingdom what benefits the kingdom at large so these are all things that we have looked at. So as we consider you know partnership are there any I think we were discussing about you know whether we have come across partnerships that are valuable for the kingdom of God anything that you know you have witnessed in your journey as a person in your city or your region any partnerships that you've come across and I think there were few examples that you know we discussed so maybe we'll take a little bit of time to discuss these things about partnerships and then we will go to the next subject here so if you have witnessed any effective partnerships among different ministries you could just share that so right after this class you know I was thinking about the current partnerships that I see so I just came across recently you know I watched some worship productions and they've been an incredible blessing the songs and just the way it's been produced and while I was just looking up and trying to understand how they've made these worship productions I realized that it's not one ministry but there are several ministries and even the songs that have been written it was interesting to know that you know they have this whole songwriting workshop where one of the things that is emphasized is a kingdom heart so people come together they see God together and then you know they have these sessions where they write what God's spirit is laying on their hearts so people write up songs and apparently once the songs are written another team let's say team A has written the songs apparently team B is the one that gives music to the lyrics which were written by another group so once that is done they select I mean it totally depends if somebody from these two teams is fitting to sing the songs and they sing it otherwise someone completely different sings the song and you know they kind of now I was really blessed to hear that this is the process that they follow because they want to develop that attitude among the songwriters and the worship leaders where they what they're saying is God is important our worship to God is important it's not like it's not that hey this is my song you don't sing it I will sing it better you know that attitude and that mindset they wanted to break among the ones engaged in worship so it's really beautiful you know they've given the names of those who have written a particular song and somebody else sang it and you know it's just so beautiful it's come out really wonderful it's a blessing and the entire attitude of that particular production which I saw it wasn't like a performance but they were not trying to show off their skills or their talents it was just pure worship they were focusing on worship they were focusing on you know lifting up praises to God and seeing the power of God manifested so I was so encouraged this was like an Indian production but then I did come across some of the productions abroad as well I'm not you know I generally try not to say names of ministries or people because I don't know I mean I feel like I don't know how it will be taken so that's the reason I'm not mentioning any names but there are collaborations out there and I'm sure you are witness to that as well and it's an incredible blessing people coming together and partnering it's to say that okay I have this and I'm bringing that on the table whatever you have will you bring it on the table let's see what we can all do together for God's kingdom so partnership is a blessing and also as we discussed it builds that heart of unity where we understand that we need each other when we have to help each other and we saw Psalm 133 that says that wherever there is unity God commands a blessing on that place so some of the recent partnerships that I have seen and I'm really impressed by you know I just wanted to share with us and anything that you have come across that has blessed you which is a good example for you you could please share and I think it will help all of us Pastor? Yes, yes please Thank you so much So I'll just use an example over here in Canada The Samaritan pause Okay, oh yeah Yeah so I guess it's worldwide What they do is a Christmas box towards Christmas and they partner with a number of churches here in Canada and when I was in Edmonton I remember that we always used to take a lot of we got boxes and then we'll engage the whole church the young adults will actually take that initiative to lead the church in donating, giving money or giving gifts and putting them in the box and then we send them off to the temple where they will take it over to ship all across the wall to alongside with other churches So for me I'm just when I came in contact with that that was back in 2016 that was really great partnership I felt was something that I think every church shouldn't even be cajoled to be part of in nature sorry 2013 rather 2013 this is when I knew about it it was later on I started doing it in 2016 so yeah and I see that kind of partnership as a way of engaging the church being part of a worldwide evangelizing you know because those gifts are basically used to get into countries whereby young boys and young girls have never heard the gospel and so it just shows that unknowingly you have actually contributed to the salvation of someone so you know so those kind of partnerships really something like that I was blessed and happy to be part of yes thank you thank you say yeah that's that's wonderful and we yeah and we do know that thank you Samaritan's Purse is doing an excellent work in across different countries so that's a good example so anyone you know would you like to add to that any examples that you are aware of and you think that that's a blessing and that's you know showing us what kingdom mindset is what partnership in the kingdom of God is is it that we don't have partnerships or is it that you know we're not aware of partnerships around us can I speak further yes yes please Nangi I'll give you an example of a recent partnership that we have encountered our local church is our local church partner another church in Durban and last week I went there for for a conference and at the end of November I will go there again for a week so that we can I can learn what they're doing what you're not doing well so I can bring back the knowledge to our local church thank you yep that's great that's great Mangi so thank you we saw an example where there is social action through partnership and what Mangi is saying is it's more like a spiritual equipping spiritual enriching through partnership yes even that is something that we can collaborate for some spiritual enrichment and equipping so good thank you Mangi that's a good example as well maybe one more example and then we can move forward so anyone if you have witnessed positive collaboration partnership so I can just add another one yes please the one familiar to us is the Christ for all nation so the main base of operation is in African countries when Rene Hamboki was alive he instituted that and he went from the west to the north to the south east of West Africa evangelizing and one thing he usually did was that he partnered with all the churches within that locality and then every person who makes a decision to follow Jesus Christ they always got their address and then redirected them to those churches to go be part of and also they would turn over the names of those who have made the decision to receive Jesus Christ to follow up after them so this partnership is something that they always been doing they didn't just come and evangelize but they partnered with all churches around that locality or that state you know so that at the end of the day the believers the new born believers could now be part of a family so that's another partnership that inspires and that came from yeah thank you thank you say isn't this what Rene Hamboki is a part of Christ for all of us Christ for all of us which is now Michael Michael I can't remember the person who is now the minister who has passed on now yes yes yes thank you say I think we have I have attended one of those crusades here they had it sometime in India as well but I don't think it picked up the way picked up across the African continent but they had a couple of crusades and the same model they tried partnering with churches people who responded to the salvation call their contact details were collected and they were sent to all the local churches so that after the crusade is done the churches can do the follow up so it was a massive massive program and yeah that also is a picture of collaboration and yeah I think I do remember that they had like a pre crusade prayer where this was started if I'm correct maybe a month prior or two months prior and they called for the churches to come together to pray for the crusade so that was also interesting because you had people from different churches but all interceding for the salvation of the city over a month so yeah that's nice people come together beyond my church my denomination my ministry and work together so thank god for some of these partnerships that we have seen and it's good even as we go forward in the work that God has called us to do as kingdom people we must be for these healthy partnerships to build God's kingdom so I think that kind of throws more light on this concept of partnership what we'll do is we can move on to the next section here this is about the city-wide church city-wide church establishing God's kingdom now we are aware that God has called us to establish His kingdom in all walks of life this is not restricted to the kingdom of God coming only upon our lives so that means the rule and reign of God everything that exists in heaven which is God's dominion without any interference God's peace, God's presence the righteousness that people live in up in heaven the joy, the hope the state of not being sick all of this, whatever is the status of heaven what we are saying is let that come to us so Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven this must extend to our families to our church communities and beyond our church communities because there is no restriction on the extent that God has given us so we can also pray and ask God the kingdom of God to come upon our city so when we are looking at our city a couple of things that concern us one is the salvation, people's salvation people are not safe the other thing is the conditions that exist we could look at some of the wrong things that are happening in our city it could be corruption it could be crimes different things that are actually destructive to the progress of the city all of this concerns us and as the body of Christ when we are talking about the kingdom of God coming upon the city what we really are looking for is a spiritual transformation which of course is the precursor to any other form of transformation that we want for our city but together with the spiritual transformation we want to see God move on the social issues we want God to touch every aspect of city life so that is what we are aiming for God has called us as we have seen when we studied about praying for the city God calls us to bless the city maybe our position Jeremiah 29 and 7 we saw how God has a heart for the city God sent people in the past to prophesy over cities to preach to cities Jonah is a wonderful example God had a particular city in mind God aimlessly told him you go anywhere God wanted him to go to Nineveh because he had a heart for the people in the way he wanted them to repent and he wanted the kingdom of God to come there so as God's people we must have a vision for the city because God has a vision for the city God is displeased by the sin in the city we call Sodom and Gomorrah sin came before God and God had to take a call he had to move based on his nature because his nature is love but he is also just God so he had to take a call to bring destruction upon the city so all of these things we are aware of and who is the representative of God in a given city it's you and I, it's every believer it is the local churches the body of Christ, it is the family of God so we are the representatives and through us God wants to see his kingdom come not just individually in our own lives, in our own small circle but this has to impact the city and thereby the region thereby the nation and then beyond so that is God's heart for us to see that in every city God has believers he has ministers he has pastors and leaders position, now all of us together we are the people who need to have a vision for God's kingdom in a city so for this to happen can just one believer pray and get the change come? yes, why not? now we see that in scripture God is looking for one man to stand in the gap and as we pursue the presence of God even one person initiated by one person things can change in a city however, now if we are looking at a large impact and a sustained impact over a city it is going to take a city-wide engagement it is going to take a city-wide spiritual battle so to speak and for that the city-wide church needs to come together primarily whenever we say come together physically that is helpful but the hearts of the people united together to make a difference for the city that is what is essential, otherwise we can have business level gatherings and we can just do the whole partnership partnership is good so we get together, we meet one another, we greet one another but beyond that at the depths of it do we really have a heart all of us, do we really have a heart for the city are we really putting the city ahead are we really trusting God for the kingdom to come upon the city, that is the core issue here even beyond just coming together physically so to have that sincere heart for the city is what is required so for a city-wide transformation we need the body of Christ to come together the body of Christ in a city will involve many congregations so just one local body cannot do this we need many congregations to come together and we know that Jesus prayed for this isn't it? so John 17 verse 21 where Jesus prayed for the believers to come, he said that they all may be one as you Father are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me, so it is a witness for the world when the body of Christ has unity the flip side, if you are all fighting with one another and the body of Christ in a city is disintegrated, so that does not bear witness to the name of Jesus so for us to impact the city it is going to take the unity of the city-wide church all the congregations which are part of that city and that is how we will be able to make an impression now we do understand as we have already been talking about this in the partnership discussion that every local church is different what they believe what their formats are like their expression of worship their style of worship, all of these things can be different but when at the core of it we all worship the Lord Jesus as our saviour and those main beliefs about salvation and the activity and the deity of Christ, these things are sorted as long as these things the very very foundations of the Christian faith are clear we can still serve together we can still walk together and we will not be as we said earlier, we will not be majoring on the minus there are some of those other matters if you bring those matters up, definitely there will be quarrels and arguments but we all kind of agree that okay, we will not bring those matters in we won't bring those matters that cause division but we will hold on to the core beliefs and we will just respect one another for who we are, we will maintain that love and that support for one another, because this is about the kingdom and this is about impacting the city and about city transformation, so a city by church can come together in this manner a city by church can be an extended community of believers and when we do this, we know how to work together, we really sincerely love one another we are demonstrating that love of Christ and we become the witness for Christ in any given city and the world may believe Jesus said and it's a great way of impacting the world for the gospel, so that unity is required now, unity is one thing the second thing is engaging the city so as the body of believers come together there are many things that we can partner towards we can partner towards spiritual goals as we've already seen, we can partner towards social goals there are today some of these ministries that are more focused on marketplace bringing the who's who in business or some other field and through them making an impact and establishing the principles of the word of God for the workplace, it can be the marketplace it can be any arena, just talk about it and it's possible to make an impact as long as the body of Christ comes together and they understand that hey, we have a common vision for the city here, we have a common vision for the gospel in the city here and we are going to make an impact for the kingdom of God we are able to work together from there so when we talk about partnership for city transformation there are some common foundations that we all have we must recognize that we are at the end of the day one body we've talked about it, when we said that we are the body of Christ we are all members individually but there is only one body, we are part of that one body so we need to maintain that we must also recognize that what brings us together is our submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ that is what is keeping us together we are all part of the kingdom, we are born again we are all submitted to God, we are following his will and that's why we are working together and the third thing is the attitude we choose to love one another respect, support and partner as required for the kingdom of God and when people of God relate in this way we can make a big difference in the city since we are talking about partnership and collaboration and coming together it is always good if the leaders set the example how can we cause this unity to come about in the city it's a good thing to begin with the leaders some sort of fellowship of the Christian leaders in the city if the Christian leaders are able to come together they are able to fellowship with one another that will create that bond and from there they will be able to encourage their congregations to also have that brotherly love for one another a good place to start is with the leadership we can invite senior pastors we can invite associate pastors we can invite the pastoral team of congregations and because the work of God in the city is not just done by the churches we can call as para church organizations there are organizations that may only involve in social action so we could say NGOs based on Christian principles and values so leaders of all of these organizations we might have some leaders in the marketplace we may not necessarily have or be running a Christian organization but they are making an incredible impact for the kingdom of God so they are also Christian leaders who can be invited so all of these people can be invited to come and spend time with one another now how does this help whenever we do something like this people end up spending time with each other in the city we all understand how busy things can get even just regular life can be so busy that we don't spend time with people we know and people we care about but to host meetings that will bring all these Christian leaders together that will become a platform or an opportunity for these leaders to actually spend some quality time with one another and whenever people are able to spend quality time with one another what happens relationships there is some bonding that takes place some understanding that comes between the leaders and we are able to think together we are able to have a vision for the city to get in we will talk about how to do it in a given city so the goal as we have understood now is to form relationships now I think each one of us will agree if I say that it's so easy when leaders come together for everyone to come only with a concern about their ministry it happens because when leaders come together it's possible they want to talk about what God is doing in their ministry and also want to promote their ministry because hey this is a super platform where other leaders are there so I can just promote my new app or my new production or my new sermon series or my new something you know conference it can become about the ministry but we have to intentionally look for opportunities or create opportunities where it is more about the lives of these leaders connecting okay and that will be a wonderful place to start some or rather not start but nurture facilitate genuine brotherly relationships between Christian leaders so one example that we have here actually this is something that APC has tried and we still have it it's been going on for several years in Bangalore city right now this is a round table conference sorry a round table discussion model that we have so what happens is we have like the pastors from across the city they are invited for breakfast and generally it takes place on the first Wednesday of the month we meet quite early we meet quite early so the first one are all the pastors leaders you know we spend time worshipping God we spend time also interceding for some of the key points key things that are going on in the city and number once it was time for our elections so we are just focused on that we prayed over our city we prayed over our nation it was a really powerful time because you had you know the senior pastors of some churches and you had all these leaders everyone coming together so it was a time in prayer followed by there's always you know a breakfast time so the breakfast time we get to meet one another we kind of you know able to ask them okay how are you doing how is your family so it's more of that personal kind of a talk where we believe that it really helps to build that genuine relationship it's not all business but spending time with one another just over a meal and getting to know the person for who they are you know it kind of facilitates that and followed by that there is a time for a round table discussion round table discussion what happens is every month there is a certain issue that we take up that could be about remember once we did the book of Timothy so Paul's instructions to Timothy about being a certain kind of a pastor and leading the church in a certain way so portions from that it was looked at for a couple of weeks so somebody will lead and they will pose questions to everyone who's attending and the leaders kind of sit in circles with other leaders so small groups maybe about 5 people it depends on the number of people attending the breakfast meeting on that day so a small group gets together and we basically brainstorm we talk to each other and the good thing is people are from all kinds of denominations okay but that doesn't matter because we are looking at scripture and then we are discussing okay Paul said this so what does it mean how are you applying it in your church sometimes you know there is a question posed about okay city wide evangelism how are we going to do about it some of the latest methods which are being used maybe we have somebody who comes in for that breakfast meeting who shares for 30 minutes about some of the new methods in Christian ministry and after that we have this round table discussion on evangelism in the city so we have had presentations as well we have had presentations on marriage and how even Christian leaders must really think about this and take care of their marriage family there was one presentation I remember about media media and ministry so we had some people who are engaged in media who came and gave their ideas to help the ministries do better and from there came some discussions about hey I want to do this okay I will help you I have certain resources that I can send you so this is more about a brotherly kind of a partnership more than just us talking about our ministries and promoting our ministry so what is really happening relationships are being built over a period of time okay relationships are being built over a period of time and I remember recently when covid happened we had one of our pastors meetings and that there was a discussion these pastors who attend the meeting they were invited for a discussion about covid and what we can do about covid and as many of you all know the covid relief project was initiated from one of those discussions where we met with the citywide you know pastors team so this is an example which we want to present where over the years building those genuine relationships okay that has helped and there is value in that instead of doing it is possible to just do something more like a conference style where people come in they just spend a lot of time listening to a sermon and then there is very little time to get to know one another or to talk about the issues or challenges that the leaders are actually going through something to do with integrity something to do with finance something to do with not being very well equipped you know with technology in the ministry but when we bring up those relevant questions and also provide good environment for fellowship a safe environment where pastors and leaders can ask questions right and when relationships are built there is a better chance for accountability if something goes wrong in someone's ministry as a brother I can always ask a pastor that I know I can just call and say hey I heard this what's happening because we have that relationship now so it's helpful for that unity to come among pastors first the point is to nurture relationships but to nurture those genuine relationships where we have mutual respect and brotherly love for one another it's all not ministry oriented that will be a great blessing for the citywide church so we can begin with leadership and bring that unity among the leadership okay moving on partnerships partnerships for city transformation this is more ministry oriented what are the things that we can do what are the things that we can make happen in the city first is relationships the second thing here is partnership for impact and in partnership what we're talking about is we're talking about collaborating with one another cooperating with one another and picking up matters these can be spiritual matters social matters business related whatever else we think is important and we can work along those lines again when it comes to partnership it would be nice if we can have something that is long term something that is focused on really seeing a transformation whatever area we pick let's say for example we are talking about suicides suicides among teenagers it will be great if a ministry which is called for that and let's say a church which is interested in that they collaborate not just for the sake of promoting an event once the event is done it's over or just have a gathering once the gathering is done it's over not in that sense but it would be nice we do understand that for lack of resources some projects can only be for a while only a couple of things can be done for that project and it's closed but for the long term making a real impact making a real change in the lives of the people maybe having a partnership over an extended period of time across ministries, across churches that would be wonderful that can happen so once the leaders have a kingdom mindset once the leaders understand the value of partnering together they can begin to encourage they can begin to encourage such collaborations which will make a long term impact in the city they could probably the leaders could probably look at some of the initiatives that are already in place and give it more trust in any which way or they might think that ok there is a new area which is a problem in the city, now how can we start something fresh to address this matter in the city maybe a new initiative is put in place and that is steered forward so what we will do is I think we will just go ahead and take a break and then we will come back and discuss about partnership for city transformation but at this point any thoughts, any comments you want to add so about the round table discussions for a couple of years we had our students joining us in the monthly pastors meetings it was a good time for them as well they saw how pastors and leaders of the city get together, how they pray together how they discuss matters together so I don't know if any one of you was part of that part of that I don't think so but at the moment because of Covid we had a couple of online meetings but we felt that it was not as effective as meeting in person so last few months we have not had it but once things are better in the city hopefully we will resume it and if at all any of you are attending the on campus classes I am sure there will be an opportunity for you to attend these meetings some information there so let's go for a break class we will be back at 11 am and we will continue when we have stopped, thank you