 Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to BC 310, a class on Church and Ministry Administration. Let's take a moment to pray and then we will start. Could one of us in the class please pray? Father, we want to thank you for this morning and we humble ourselves in your presence. We pray to God as we learn from your word today that your voice would speak to us especially regarding administration. Oh God, we pray that you would help us understand the importance of it and also to work out this in our practical life, Lord God. We thank you for this time of learning. We humble ourselves once again before your presence. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you. All right. So last week we were talking about culture, how just turning on setting the understanding of culture both from an organization perspective, that means there is the culture of an organization and also there is culture of the congregation of the church. And in this lesson we are going to focus on the culture of the organization of the ministries from that site and the things we learn of course can also apply to the culture of the community, the church community of the church organization. It's the same principles will apply but our focus is on the culture of the organization. So let's me go ahead and share the PDF and then we can begin our lecture. So just to quickly review when we say culture we're talking about the environments within in an organization. We're talking about a church ministry or a church organization. We're talking about the culture. So and the culture is shaped by the values, what people hold as important, shaped by the practices, the behavior, the traditions that are observed in that group of people in that organization. So and culture can change over time. We may start right but we could end up wrong. We may start with a very nice happy environment, a nice culture and if we are not careful the culture could become bad. And that I think has happened in a lot of Christian organizations. I think last time I mentioned when you read Christian magazines like Christian Aid Today or other outlets that report on Christian organizations and when you read about the culture in a certain church or a certain organization where it has gone wrong we must understand that they didn't start wrong. Most almost almost every church, every Christian organization started right. They started with a very kingdom, vital base, God-fearing, God-loving culture where everybody said okay we want to glorify God, we want to follow what God was saying and so on. So everybody started right but somewhere along the way inside the organization things are changing. The culture drifted from what the Bible tells us we should maintain and for various reasons and then it became very toxic, it became very difficult, hurtful, harmful for the people working in the church or organization. So we have to constantly watch over this whole thing, what is the environment like, what is the culture like and we have to keep monitoring just like how we monitor our own health. If the temperature is going up, you know something is wrong, if I'm getting a fever, something is wrong because it has to be within a normal healthy range and if it goes wrong we have to address it. So we said culture and this reviewing what we did last time, it affects the organization, how people work, how people you know the productivity, can people be free to do what they can, how we serve the congregation and also if you have a healthy culture it can protect from negative influences. Of course there are negative influences to not correct but then if you have a healthy culture it tends to self-correct, you know like just like our body, you know, we can go out, we are going out and around us there may be germs and this and that but if it comes here, so about the difference, it puts up a difference, it's a difference mechanism. So like that a healthy culture can help protect the organization and we covered one point last time on what shapes the organization culture and when I said and we said this that this is very important which is it starts with the leadership. Leaders at all levels must model the culture that we want to see in the organization because people are going to imitate the leaders, they are watching and they say hey the leader behaves like this, I will also behave like that. If the leader does this, I will also do this. The leader says that is okay, I will also say it's okay, the leader says not okay. So I'm not saying that you know the leader is solely responsible but it is a very important influence, the leadership influences the culture and leadership at all levels because example if there's a team of people and there's a team leader, that team leader is the closest point of contact for that team member, for those team members. You know he's the one who's directly influencing that team so at his level that team leader must you know embody kingdom culture. He must demonstrate or he or she must demonstrate and that level okay this is what it means and then people around that will follow. So we need to understand how this is again so important about leadership and some of the things we just mentioned you know we should avoid celebrating culture where people are celebrating the individual. We're not gathering around the individual. We're gathering around the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our chief shepherd. The leadership should model servant leadership. What does it mean to serve? What does it mean to go to live sacrificially like we heard earlier this morning? So the leadership should model that. The leadership should listen to feedback and people should not feel threatened that hey if I give feedback the leader will take revenge or retaliate. They should feel like that. They should have the understanding that if I give feedback the leadership will listen and you know if my feedback is valid they will definitely take it into account. So people should have that opportunity and the leadership should let people know that they are welcome to come and talk and share their thoughts and give feedback. So that's the first but that's not the only thing. There are other things that also influence organizational culture and the second thing that we will talk about is stories. So when we talk about hey this is our journey. This is how we started. This is how we have journeyed. These are the things we have faced in the past and overcome. This is in a church context or in a Christian organization context. We can say you know this is how God has provided for us. These are the things God has helped us do. These are the ways God has worked in our journey. So as we share these stories, it really inspires people and they say hey don't can do it again. God can do bigger than the past. He can do greater than the past and so these stories inspire people and it inspires the behavior and it motivates the people and so on. So telling and retelling the good stories. I'm not saying we should you know talk about all the bad things now but the good things of course we can talk about the lessons we've learned from mistakes but to talk about you know the victories that may God has led and the way God has helped us navigate difficult situations it will encourage people and it will inspire and shape the culture. Also to rituals and practices that means things that we do repeatedly. They shape the thinking and the behavior of people. Things that we do repeatedly practice so that's what we call as rituals or practices. Things that we do repeatedly it shapes the thinking and behavior and I just give you know for example how to be handled when a staff leaves. Now for us at ABC we do have people joining us new people joining us and from time to time we also have people leaving us as staff. Now how do we handle that? It will affect the thinking and the behavior of the other people especially when you think of you know when staff are leaving it can actually bring the morale down. You know people will be wondering why is that person leaving why is that person why is that person not staying and working here why are they going but if we celebrate their movement we say hey they're going for better times and they're going for a greater opportunity and be celebrated then you know it shapes the thinking and behavior that it is fine if people have to leave and they're going to go for something better maybe a bigger opportunity and we are celebrating it we're not it's not pulling us down so what we do and what we have been doing is you know and people leave for various reasons like this year our one person left because he was going to do higher studies he went abroad to higher studies another person just left because you know his family is moving abroad so I can at this moment I can pick up two people who left so just as an example what we always do is on the last day or the day before they leave we have like a little small fable big cupcake we have snacks we let them share talk to talk to everybody about their journey and if you see so example the past religion they left he was with us from for almost you know 12 or 13 years so that's a long journey he had with us but now he's moving abroad so he blessed him he celebrate that transition he hey he's he's got you know he's got his blessed him and his family with a nice opportunity abroad so he's going and we send him with blessing so then the staff leaving does not become a demoralizing thing on everybody else but it becomes a celebratory thing that hey this bus is going for a better opportunity of going for something you know different and and so and this is a ritual and a practice we have all the time you know whenever that is we celebrate the birthdays we celebrate the special things that are happening we celebrate the departure somebody leaving us they're going to something else and he celebrates this so like that these rituals these things that we do repeatedly it shapes the thinking of people yeah we should think positive on on on situations that helps a culture another thing is orientation and repeatedly communicating the values right so these we constantly repeat and before people are comfortable two values so if we find somebody deviated from our core value then I will call them whoever's responsible problems hey you know this is we need to stay aligned to this right we need to follow it's example integrity if somebody is not you know being truthful or honest problem it's a you know supposed to be truthful as opposed to be honest we have to maintain integrity so keeping people aligned to the core values helps us make sure the culture is maintained and it's not getting diluted or corrupted by what some people need to do sometimes they do it unknowingly sometimes they may not do it knowingly and so we have to hold them accountable and get people back so the constant training repeating the values helps in maintaining the culture and also affirming and rewarding behavior that's aligned to the culture there's somebody does something that's aligned to the culture you know of course everybody is doing things aligned to the culture but when somebody goes out of the way to do something very exceptional in order to you know maintain the cut then you recognize that you reward it then it affirms that people say yeah that's the way I must behave that's that's what's important for us as an organization you know and then they it really strengthens the culture so these are things that we we must be aware of that help us you know affirm or shape the culture within the organization now one thing that it helps is to clearly spell out to clearly communicate what are our values and what are our values and then to use those values when you're making decisions you know especially within the staff within the people so we have put this in a little picture like this and of course this was done many many years ago in the early part of our journey I don't know exactly when we did this but we put it in a little picture like this and we said look these are our core values so when it comes to ministry our theme is Jesus it just means everything we do should be communicating Jesus now we don't want to talk about ABC we want to talk about Jesus and so our theme is Jesus our content is the word of God and that's very important we have to speak preach teach trouble word of God the method is Holy Spirit yes we will use a lot of tools but we are depending on the power of Holy Spirit our passion is people that means we are focused on building people helping people transforming people people and then our goal is to help everybody become like Jesus so this is it you know that's what we are doing and we need to keep affirming yes keep talking about keep emphasizing and we have to monitor that yeah you know in the in the way we are doing ministry in the way we are going about our work these core values are being taken and then surrounding it practically there are some other things very important for us one is we want to give opportunity for everybody right so we don't say okay the opportunity is only for you know certain kinds of people so everyone can participate in what's happening in the church of course in certain areas you know you have certain skills that are required for example people who are worship chief they should be able to sing or play some instruments that's obviously a requirement so yeah those things will be there and therefore you know there may be some requirements or there may be some you know you know like auditions that happen but otherwise in general anybody who has that skill of course can apply or can conserve that if they meet that requirement they can definitely serve but the opportunity is open second unity we want to go on the stage together so if anything that is disrupting unity we'll address it by anybody if somebody even in the pastoral team if somebody in the pastoral team is doing something that's disturbing unity we'll address it if there is somebody congregation who's doing something that's disturbing unity we'll address so unity is like I mentioned earlier integrity or excellence pioneering that is trying out new things it's okay go ahead do something new maybe it's not done before it's okay go ahead try it out it's okay to fail you know it's okay to try it out and then say that yeah it didn't work out that's okay yeah at least we try at least we experimented we saw what can happen and now of course we're thinking we're not just blindly doing things we think we plan we research but yet we are open to pioneering to experimenting to being to being on the leading edge of things and also relationships people relationships with people these are all very important so when we are making decisions when you're going about our work we can emphasize these things example there was a time I would say maybe at least till about two years ago then there used to be mistakes in the power points in the in the in the projections that happened you know and I used to get very upset but it'll happen in the middle of the service because they're putting the songs up on the screen and then you'll see one spelling mistake some word is spelled wrong or some problem the lyrics or something like that and then one thing I used to do was but I will notice it and then I'll send an email on Monday I'll send it to a mediator hey this thing was spelled or the worship team what was responsible for example so hey I'll give feedback on soon I give feedback you know I won't just let it go and it was almost like I was pushing then again we have to get this right we have when we project something on the screen on Sunday when we are showing some or you know any for that matter any service or any event when you're putting up our lyrics when they are putting up our you know our content or when you're doing our Sunday video announcements it has to be shouldn't be any mistakes so kept pushing kept pushing keep giving feedback not in a condemning big but just to highlight hey that was a mistake that was not right so then you know and then we trust okay how do we make sure that you know our lyrics are correct how do we check how do we double check because we want excellence you know we don't want people sitting in the congregation then they're looking up on the screen and you know a word is spelled wrong or the lyrics is not you know it's wrong it's like hey people will feel bad what is this so we have to keep pushing pushing pushing and finally right you know I think I'm not I don't I can't say we are 100% perfect but at least we from what I've seen the last one year or maybe like the recent two years things have been fairly good like you know I don't think I noticed hardly any mistakes and so on so but it took us a while to come to that click so constantly pushing so like this in every area now but if you see books they're still working on how to make every book free from mistakes you don't want a single spelling mistake you don't want a single grammar mistake they don't want a single you know type setting in sometimes the type setting to grow on you want everything to be good we have to work at it work at it and because when we when we do something let's try to do it better I'm not saying you're 100% perfect but it's part of our culture so keep working towards it and eventually you know we will get there so like that there's so many different things you know we can talk about each of these values the point is that we should we have defined our values we've described it now we have to make sure that people are following right if anything goes out of line in you bring them back in like hey that decision did not that decision affected relationship it you know also was that decision the right decision because for us relationship is important and we don't want to make decisions that are hurting people disturbing relationships we have to think you know so all these things we can you know in practical ways we can hold people responsible accountable for these things so it's good to put down these are not covalent these are things that are important to us and so we're going to pursue these these things in a in a practical in a day-to-day day so we kind of explain this a little bit here so let me pause here and see there any questions here on covalence and how to practically help maintain culture all right okay i see a question in the chat what if someone leaves for some bitter reasons or because they got offended by something or the past ends of this it's remained in some grounds how will a pastor then explain his departure yeah so this also has happened right so let's i'm talking about our church staff right there are times when people have been released because they've not been performing for example or maybe they were doing things that were harmful to the culture where example if somebody you know was affecting relationships right they were disturbing relationships the dynamic in church they were getting into strife with people so those you know and like this so this happens typically you know in a ministry if somebody's not performing they're not doing their work like i had mentioned earlier you know we have a three strike rule that means we give them one morning second morning third morning they still are not performing we'll try to put them in a different role if that doesn't work out still they still don't perform then at some point if they're not performing well they'll have to you know let them go now in such situations and i'll talk about the offended part separately but i'm just talking about this part where we have to remove somebody because you know maybe they perform us not good or they're affecting relationship or something to that in such situations things are done at a very personal level that means the only people who know are the people who are involved so i will have a common example if i make that decision i will have a conversation with this person and it would have gone on over a few months right it's not something you just wake up one day and distance somebody no it's because over over months we have been talking about their performance example and we've been telling them we give them feedback we've helped them maybe change the role we put them in a different role they're still not performed there is some you know real proof that they're not being performing but finally it comes to a point where we have to let them go so it'll be a conversation between me and that person and only the people who need to be involved which is usually which will be the HR person and the accountants so usually only these people need to know what is happening right that this person is being released because of a lack of performance because the HR will be involved they will know they will be involved through the process and the accountant needs to know because we need to settle all the you know any outstanding views or what are all those things to be dealt with they don't the accountant doesn't need to know all the reasons but they need to know that hey this person is being terminated and their last table usually we give them 30 days notice so the last days 30 days from now please make sure that all you know all the details are taken care of before so they need to know so it's done at a very personal level and we also do the same thing farewell is done we just bless them we send them out but we don't talk about their reasons in public so we don't we don't explain the lack of performance all that we don't talk about it in public we just say so and so is moving on to something else and hopefully by the time they're about another job or something else they've had a plan and so they talk about what they're going to be next but we don't we don't talk about that in public so only the people who need to know sometimes there's another team leader who is involved because maybe they're reporting to somebody else so that person is involved I am involved HR is involved accountant is informed so only those people know others will not know and we don't need to talk about it to other people the first part of your question which is if somebody leaves for bitter reasons they got funded now of course they will initiate the action they will come and tell us I'm leaving because of some such and then we always hand little grace that means it's a fine you know we respect your decision we will again we will not talk about that we will not discuss that matter in public it's all kept only between the people who need to know because we want to you know we we don't want the negative things we don't want to talk about that they may have been offended there there may be some misunderstanding and so on but it's the people who need to know who would be informed and if it is a very important person like somebody who's holding responsibility then I need to inform the pastoral team sometimes I have to inform our board of trustees as why this person is leading this depends on you know the situation but again the same thing applies which is only the people who need to know will be informed and that's how we handle it is that okay did I answer your question rosen all right thank you any other questions on culture on buster one question yes in that congregate with it's a multicultural setting I think it is quite possible that people from same culture spend more time together is it okay or as a church do we need to work around anything I think we mentioned one thing regarding this I think during signing volunteers we can combine people from different culture together so that they can gel alone but I'm asking specifically about the congregation people from same culture tends to stick along together even after the service during fellowship time and all that so is it okay or should we do anything about it yeah so we have it's a very very good question very good question we have to look at it from two perspectives one is people are comfortable being with or among people of their own culture right that's just normal just natural you know it's like they tend to move among the same crowd so that is a positive side which is yeah it is their community it is their it is their safe space it is their very comfortable place so that's a good thing but the other side is that that will result in formation of yeah or we could say clicks if you're not careful and which will leave other people out so that is the other side the negative side of it so there is a positive side yeah we want people to feel comfortable and and by default we all feel comfortable with people of our own who are like us so that we are comfortable talking to them it's it's normal but the negative side is it may result in forming of many many many groups and it also may need other people out and this has happened and it keeps on happening actually in fact just I think maybe one or one month back I think we had to address that one one back one or two months back we had to address that with our youths here in Bangalore right we noticed that happening that you know of course we have a good youth group and all that but even among the youths what we started noticing was certain people certain youths were just spending more time with each other for whatever things yeah but then that resulted in this almost like groups from within the bigger group you know and we saw that hey that's not good that's not what we want yes we want people to feel comfortable but we don't want because then it will leave other people out and it has happened some people will leave that it's oh I don't feel like I fit in you know like I'm not in this group I'm not in that group I'm left out and it happens and it has happened so the moment we noticed it I know I know it happened within the recent two months so you know we discussed it and then our youth master said okay the best thing to do just address it to everybody so at one of the meetings they talked about it openly they said hey guys we are seeing this happen is it true or not and if the youth themselves agree yeah it's happening you know that these people are together these people line up together others are left out so the youth themselves recognized hey this is what's happening amongst us and then they said okay we should not let this happen we should all mingle together we should you know be welcoming to everybody so to answer your question there is the positive side but our goal must be to encourage people to really be a community where everyone is welcome which especially in the city like Bangalore we have people from all over India different states different cultures different languages different customs but the church must be a community where everybody feels part of it so we have to consciously move people towards that yes they can be comfortable with some of their own but when they come together and we have church events and we have services when they're doing things together we should encourage and mixing and intensely create activities or you know the way they the way we do the service or the event we should intensely mix people so that they will make new friends new people will become will feel comfortable so that's from our perspective from the people's perspective yeah by default they will go with those who they are comfortable but we are intentionally moving them to you know to mix and I hope that answers your question yes pastor just to have a follow up question on that so as we mentioned about different language groups as well like people from different languages are coming and I just wanted to know pastor like would the would it be okay if let's say I'm considering my example so we have some very less though but some Malayalees in our church but they like to talk in Malayalam with me so would it would it be okay if if me as a leader talk to them in Malayalam or should I should I follow the common language but especially when I talk to them personally because they find it very comfortable to talk to us in Malayalam so so I just wanted to know if it is right to speak to us through the language which they are comfortable especially when we talk in private yeah so my response to that would be if you're talking to them in private yeah by all means use the language that they are comfortable you can speak to them in Malayalam but when we're talking to them in a group setting like you know maybe in a Sunday service and then always use the common language you know speak in English so then people don't feel that you're giving them a special preference you're speaking only them you speak so in a group setting there are other people are there always speak in English everybody understands and speaking them privately personally yeah you can talk to them in Malayalam they feel comfortable it's their language they can express they can say that's perfectly fine that's how I would approach that yes thank you any other questions we're talking about culture how do we you know try to establish culture and you know keep that together within the organization or within the choice setting any questions oh yes sorry one more question so in in in manglow culture I'm just taking this as an example so let's say one group of community they like certain type of meat during their food food yeah and when we when they arrange lunch and they prefer that kind of meat like especially when they are you know want to celebrate something in the church they prefer that kind of meat and but some other part of India they don't take that meat so would that be okay to to have because we've been doing that for quite some time now because of the culture difference some people might not take that meat but they they will still eat food with all of us that's not an issue but should be at any point of time because it's it's regarding food and some culture does not so is there anything that we need to be careful about yeah yeah I know this this is a small thing but yet it is it is very important thing because it's for the congregation you know I would I would I would try to do something that's especially when it's a common setting right like if it's like you're in a church setting after service or at some event you're having a meal together everybody's there together I would try to create a menu that would be accepted by everybody and if somebody on their own wants to bring a special dish and that dish happens to be something that only few people would eat that is okay but what is you know put forward by the church as part of the meal should be something that is for everyone everyone will enjoy it so then what happens is people see that the church is not giving any kind of preferential treatment to any particular group but the meal that is provided by the church is for everyone who are part of the congregation and you know if some people prefer certain kind of dish and they bring it to their own to this said that say who wants to take it take it that's okay that's okay that's that's so that's how I would approach it there because by doing that we are communicating that the church is neutral that as a congregation we want to serve everybody equally and at the same time there is freedom for people to enjoy the food of their own taste or their own preference that is okay if they want to come and do it and share it with others that's perfectly fine so that's how I would approach it and I think that you know we will not offend anyone or give any preference to anyone by doing that yes but yeah thank you but interesting questions but I think there's already practical things that should affect the culture of congregation community yeah all right so we will um yeah this fine moment is for break and then all right let's just see let's introduce the next section and then we can go forward in the next five minutes so I just want to ask a contrast healthy culture and toxic culture and there's something you just think about you know and and we can say you know see this is healthy this is not healthy this is toxic this is uh this will impact affect people in a negative way right so among leaders if a leader is consultative that means he's saying let us discuss you know I'd like to know everybody what are your thoughts on this that's a good thing and that's a healthy thing that gives people opportunity to share their ideas but it is dictatorial very unilaterally okay only one sided do what I say that's dictatorial that that is that that will that will results in a toxic culture if a leader is encouraging supportive versus abuse overpowering suppressor so no you have to follow what I say I am in charge that is that will result in the very toxic and uh if a leader encourages teamwork and let us do it as a team you know why don't five of you get together and do it that is a healthy culture if the leader is the leader themselves is creating competition between people let me put this person against the other then it is going to become a toxic thing because now people are going to compete with each other the leader is making them compete with each other that is not the leader is direct and straightforward that means you say what you have to say but say it nicely say it lovingly it all means words don't you know say something people don't understand well say directly this is right this is wrong this is truth this is not truth so we're direct we're straightforward but we speak the truth in love uh whereas the leader is manipulated uh you know just trying to control people there is that's very toxic freedom versus controlling transparent versus being secretive sharing success versus you know it's about me I am the branch we did it together it's about all of us versus it's all because of me fairness that is everybody's rewarded based on what they're actually doing versus entitlement I deserve this you know accountability the leader is also answerable to others versus autocratic I'm not answerable to anybody that will create a toxic culture we celebrate each one strength and if the leader recognizes that there are a lot of people around him and each one has certain sets of strengths which God has given so the leader doesn't have all everything other people around them have those strengths but the leader says I have everything I know I'm better that's going to create very toxic culture the leader wants a mutual submission right he also follows the same rules that everybody else follows or if the leader says the rules of everybody else not for me they're going to result in a toxic culture and same thing about the staff people feel you know I will give my best but if people say no I just need to hold on to a job that's a toxic culture people want to do excellent work versus I just do mind your fire to be feel like we must succeed versus I just my job I don't care what happens to that this is this this kind of thing among the staff will be you know a bad workout let's pause here we'll go for a break we'll come back in five minutes and then sorry 10 minutes and then we'll discuss to other yeah thank you let's go