 Okay, the recording is on. Good morning and welcome everyone to PC310 church and ministry administration. Let's take a moment to pray and then we will get started. Can I request somebody to please pray and then we'll start. Can pray. Okay, so we are in our course on church and ministry administration. I just want to review what we did last week. And then go forward into our next chapter. Let me just share the PDF of the lecture notes. Okay, so just to quickly review. Last week we were talking about administrative policies, guidelines and standards. That means as an organization, you need to have your policies. How are you going to be doing things about some of the guidelines or some of the standards. Yeah, that that that as an organization and various teams in the organization are going to follow. It is always good to document to these and I shared with you at the link for our for what we've done for ABC. We write them and then of course you have to keep them updated and you're welcome to use those guidelines. You're welcome to, you know, modify it and use it in your church and your ministry or whatever you're doing, you're welcome to do that. So it's important to have all of that written and be discussed, you know, why it's important and so on. And especially about roles, you know, what is a certain person in the ministry supposed to do? What is he expected to do? What is he or she expected to do? So if you have that written, it makes it easy for people. They know this is what I'm supposed to do. This is what is expected and so on. And it helps make decisions and so on and then standards for your work, you know, that everyone was doing different parts of different pieces of work. They follow certain standards. So then everything is uniform. It looks good and so on. So that's, you need to have that for various areas of your ministry. So that's where we come today. I want us to go into chapter six. Where we are not getting a little more into how the organization works. So we refer to this as operations. I mean, how does this organ, how does a Christian organization work? Now, this is true of any organization. Right. So it's not just about the Christian organization, but any organization, how the organization functions. That's called the operations, right? The way it works inside the day to day things that happen. And if you want to break it down, you break it down into what is referred to as systems and processes. That means a system is made up of many components, pieces, and it gives a certain output. So just a simple example, okay? This is not about the organization. This is an illustration. Suppose you think of a blender, a fruit blender. So you have this blending machine. Sorry. Now the blender has many parts to it, right? There is the blade that cuts the fruit. There is the motor that runs, that spins the blade. There is, of course, the container that will hold the fruit, the cover. Then there is, of course, the electrical side of it. Then there are the buttons that you press. So all these together, these all different components, all these together, they make up the blender. So what happens to that system? If you put a certain input, you will get a certain output. So in this case, if you cut the fruit and you put it into the blender and the blender works, then the output is you have fruit juice. So just to give an illustration of a system, and the system works the same way every time. Every time you put cut fruit blended, you're going to get fruit juice. That's it. You put cut fruit in, you blend it, you're not going to get sabati, you're not going to get rice. It's going to be fruit juice. The output is always the same. So that's a well-defined system. So in the ministry, the way the ministry is organized, in every ministry area, so example, publication, the books, youth ministry, children's ministry, pastoral ministry, member care, small groups. So you can think of each as a ministry area. And within each ministry area, there are many systems, things that have to take place. And between the systems, that is communication or transfer of information. It could be transfer of information, it could be transfer of data, it could be transfer of money, whatever. There's interaction between the system. So if you want the organization to work very well, you have to look at the system and process level. You know, you can look into it. Let me give you an example. For example, in our church service, the five locations, six locations, Bangalore and Bangalore, the six locations, we have first-time visitors. So we have welcoming, you know, we welcome all those who are here for the first time, welcome, please stand. You know, we greet them, we welcome them. And then we give them a little card where they can, I mean, we're not forcing them to do it. We just say, hey, if you would like to, you can write your name and number or email address, whatever. Give it back to us. Then we can keep you informed about things that are happening. Now, of course, so that's the first part of the system. There's one piece, which is you welcome the visitor who comes to your service. And in a very nice way, you are getting their information. So we give them a welcome bag. It has maybe a couple of books and a pen and things like that. So we give it to them and then we give them this card and say, can you please write your name and number. And then we try to interact with them immediately after the service. So we welcome them to, we have a welcome lunch. They're the first time visitors can go and they can meet some of our people and so on. So we've collected their information, but it has to go to the next step. So what has happened? So this is our process of information. So we collect, so this first box, which is you collect the information. Okay. Now it has to go to the next box. What is it? Well, all the cards come to the church office. So Monday by Monday, the cards are delivered to the church office. Now we have an online system also. So somebody wants to go and electronically provide their information. They can go to a particular URL and enter it there. But most people, you know, they're sitting in service. So they're not going to take out the form and do that. So it's easy for them to write it on the card and give it back. So it comes to the church office. In the church office, we have an admin person. Her responsibility is to put that information in a spreadsheet. Right? So she puts a date, the location, the contact details. And she puts it in a spreadsheet. And then within the first two days. So that's her task, put it in a spreadsheet, right? Which is not accessible to all the pastors. Then next step, we need to call them or email them. So we have designated people for the designated locations. They will call them on Monday or Tuesday or email them. Hey, thank you for coming. Did you like the service? And, you know, would you like to come back? Would you like to attend a small group? This kind of things, you know, we're not going to force them, but we're going to give them the options. Now, sometimes some people come and visit us from out of town. They may come only one Sunday. They say, no, no, I'm actually, I live in a different city. I just came for one weekend. So I came in things like that. So we just, we make a note that you don't disturb them. Right? Now, from that spreadsheet, that data has to go into our, we have a system and we will learn about this later on. We have a church management system. So all the data goes into that software. So the same person puts in the Excel sheet also just puts, puts it into, enters it into our church management. So typically on a Sunday, nowadays maybe over 20, 25 visitors are there. So that information goes. So it's not much. It's easy to manage. So she puts it into the church management system and their data also goes into our email list. So we have a mail list server, right? So the place from which we send out emails and also the mobile numbers go into our WhatsApp messaging system so that we can send them WhatsApp messages. And of course they can unsubscribe anytime. They can opt out of it anytime. So that's the next box. It's gone into the other spreadsheet, but then from there it also has to go into our church management system. It also goes into these email and WhatsApp system, right? So the IT team pulls it from spreadsheet there and this goes into our church management. Now when people make the calls, they, so that's the first call, first week. Now we call them for three weeks, right? To just see if they're coming back. If they decide, so if they're coming back then, sorry, let me say this. So when they come the first time, their status is first time visitor in the church management system. It'll be marked as first time visitor. But you, you know, on the second week or after two weeks, sorry, they call them again and they are coming to church and they said, yeah, I love it. I'm coming back and very be attending. Okay. Then we change the status to a regular attendee. That means they're regularly attending. So we, after two weeks, third week, so we make three calls. We change the status, right? That they are regularly attending. So the status, then from there, after three months, we invite them to a VIP banquet and we also invite them to a membership class. So if they've been attending, so they're now, a VIP banquet is more for them to get to know more about the church, meet with the pastors, and then a membership classes if they want to make a commitment. Actually, we don't force them to, into any of this. Now, if they do attend the membership class and decided to become members, then the status changes to member. So first time visitor to regular attendee to member. Now, if they were attending only once and then they decide not to come back, so then we move them to, the status moves to general. That means they just visited, they're not attending. So it goes to India general or overseas general. That means if they've come from overseas, we mark them as overseas. If they've come from somewhere else in India, we mark them as India general. So the whole data is there. Every person is tagged, family. So if they come as a family, it's all there. So at any time we want to pull up data. We want to address certain, like if you want to address the first time visitors, we can get that list. If you want to address those who are regular tenders, we can get that list. If you want to address those who are members of the church, we can get that list, right? So this is like about, you know, if you look at this whole ministry area, we call it the first time visitor and member care ministry area. Now, from time to time, we have to make calls to keep data updated. Because, you know, people come and go, they may leave town and so on. So we need to get people to call up to the dates. And in due time, our plan is to open up our systems so that people can maintain their data directly. So we will open it up. But for now we call to keep the data updated. And then also, you know, for their birthdays, every month of birthdays, we send them a little gift for wedding anniversaries. We send them a little gift. So that also happens because we have that data in our system. Right? So that's, so there are many pieces to it. And when it all works together, then this, you know, the first time visitors member care area is really strong. It takes, takes good care of it. The other thing you can do is you can analyze, hey, if we've had, you know, 500 visitors, how many of them are people from out of town? How many of them are people who have come back and are now regular attenders? How many of them have become members? You know, because you have that data, you can then analyze it and you can have a good idea of what's happening. And based on, you know, what's going on, we can improve, you know, so just, you know, like maybe two weeks back, I had a meeting with some of our pastors who are responsible for this. And, you know, we saw some gaps. We saw some areas that we were not doing well. People were falling through the cracks. And so, you know, we said, hey, we need to, you know, redo this. We need to tighten this, you know, because we can't miss out on people and so on. So we constantly keep improving. So that's just an example of, you know, how one ministry area is made up of many systems and processes. And when you, you know, define what each system has to do and how they have to transmit information and interact, then that particular ministry area works really well. Let me pause you and see. I hope I'm making sense. Are you all with me? Are you understanding what's happening? Is it all okay? Yes, yes, it is okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to, so that's just one example of how a particular area of ministry, if it's very well organized, your systems process, then that works fine. So like that, we have to think about different areas of our church or our ministry, whatever we're doing, and try to organize it very well so that people, you know, ultimately we want to serve people well, right? So for example, every day when I, I can log in and I can see whose birthdays are there today, whose wedding anniversaries are there. And so that's where I open my browser. It goes straight there. Then I can, you know, send them a WhatsApp message. So they feel nice. Hey, Pastor sent me a message to wish me on my birthday. It's not because I can remember it. Obviously I cannot, but it's there in the system. And I just have to, you know, log in and I can see, just send them a happy birthday or a happy wedding anniversary message. And then from the church, they'll get a call. Somebody will pray for them. From the church, they'll get a little gift on that day. It makes them feel very cared for, right? So you can do all these things, very simple things. But it makes, makes, gives people a sense of community, a sense of belonging that we care for them. And also if I want to find out somebody's phone number, I want to find out somebody's email address. I can just log in and I can see it. I can just search for them. I can see and I can, you know, call the contact. So it really helps to have that. Let's talk about a few, some things here now. When it comes to setting up the system for your ministry, what are some of the things, excuse me, what are some of the things that you need to keep in mind? So the system, you know, remember, it's repetitive functional activity. So every week this keeps happening, you know, like the first time visitor, it's repetitive, it's going on and on. And basically you need people with the kind of skills so that they can perform those activities. So each of these boxes here, they're actually people. You know, people are doing that. And so you need the right people with the right skills who can do that work. And then of course there's a flow of information, finances, et cetera, that happens. So let's take another example about money, right, accounting. So there are two ways money comes in to the church. One is through the offer tree that's made on Sundays. Now we have reduced that quite a bit because these days people are more comfortable just giving online, you know, they do a bank transfer or something like that. So the offer tree counting has come down, especially from the time the pandemic set and it's come down quite heavily. So not much money comes through the offer tree, but the process, the system of the process is still there. So what happens? And this we were practicing from the very beginning, right? So you would pass the offering buckets and nowadays we don't pass the offering buckets. We used to, nowadays we just keep it at the back. Those who want to, they put it there. So, you know, there might be people who may put some cash or drop a check in the offering box on the way out. They will just drop it. So then at the end of the service, this is a counting team. So there has to be two or more people, usually three to four people are there. It's never one person doing the counting. And the counting has to happen right there at the venue. And we have a long book, a book where, you know, it follows a certain format. You have to put the date. You have to put the various denominations of the currency. How many pieces of that currency was given? What's the amount? And then checks that came in is written. Okay, these checks, this amount. So then this is the total. And then all the cash in the check is put in an envelope. It is sealed and is signed off by two, at least two of the people who did the counting. The log book is also signed off by at least two of the people. Then the money that's there, along with all the envelopes for some people, they put their money in envelopes and they would write on the offering envelope. They'll write so much amount, you know, whatever. So those envelopes also, along with the cash, with the envelope, which has been signed off and sealed and signed off, that is sent to the church office. So there's a log book at the venue that has all these details, a copy of that is sent to the church office. That same information is on the envelope. So that's how it is done. And then that money comes to the church office. The same thing happens in the church office. That means there's a log book. It's counted once again. It's tallied. Yeah, okay, these are the denominations. Everything is all written. And then after that it goes and it's being deposited into the back. So there are three checkpoints. One is the checkpoint at the venue. Second is a checkpoint at the church office. And the third checkpoint is when it is being deposited. All these three numbers should be the same. So nobody's allowed to take money out anywhere. What came in, 100% has to go into the bank account. All three numbers are matching. So that's how we do it. Now on some rare occasions, when there's a problem, then we hold responsible. Hey, why is there a mismatch? Some amount is missing. What happened? Now it has happened on a couple of occasions and then we have to check and recount. And even if it's a small number, it's a small amount is missing. We are very careful. So in this last 22, 21, 22 years, it's probably happened maybe two or three times when the numbers were not tallying and then we have to check and call the people what's happening. And so people know that, hey, everything is being checked. No money can be taken out. We've had some, like I said, one instance when things went pretty bad. But other than that, it was good. The second big money comes in, of course, is through direct deposit. So this is the most people are doing it this way. So it comes directly to the bank account. Now, again, every month the bank statements, so there are three different bank accounts. The bank statements are reviewed by an internal accountant. They're also reviewed by an external accountant. Then every three months, there is an audit that's happening. So everything is being checked all the time. So there can be no slip up because there are different people checking in and nobody can mess around with the money. Now, I personally don't handle the bank accounts. It's being handled by other accountant. So she has full control. She's the one who does all the payments. Everything says she has full control. But she, of course, she's a person being trust and also she's very good at her work. And then there are other checks in place to make sure that everything she does is being checked by other people. So then we have processes for everything. So if people want to purchase something, they have to get a call, send a request that I want to buy something. It has to be approved and then they can purchase. So we have a limit like anything below 10,000 rupees. It's okay. The accountant can approve and send it. If it is above, it has to be approved. Usually it'll come to me. I approve it and then the purchase is made. So again, there's a process. If people want, for various ministry areas, they want to make purchases of different things, happens. We also have a process for expense claims that people spend money out of their pocket. They can claim that. But again, there's a process. They have to submit the bills. They have to send it in certain format to the accountant. She will do everything and she will reimburse. Of course, every month salaries are paid, when the payments, so our standard is we want to pay all our vendors within three working days. So we don't hold any payment. So the moment the vendor sends us a bill within three working days. Usually it happens the same day, but the maximum is we keep them ready for three working days. We make the payment. So we don't owe anything to any vendor beyond three days. Then every month I get a report, a financial report. That this is the money that's come in. And I can see all our income, all our expense, what happened, where we spent. And then the whole amount over the last, from 2016 I have an overview. I can see all the numbers month on month. And I can also see for that month, what came in, what went out and so on. So I can always talk to the accountant and say, hey, we are spending too much money here. Cut it down or these those kinds of things. So I just do a quick check. So the accountant knows that they have to send the report by the 7th of every month. And I have a quick check. And then we have a budgeting process where for every administrative ministry, this is the amount of money they can spend for various conferences and events. So whenever they want to conduct that event, that ministry, they have to stay within that budget. So that's, so these are all the different things that go into our accounting department. I just gave it to you in a very quick way. There's a lot of work that goes into all of this. So everybody in the, all the staff, they understand that this is how it works. So we have to keep educating them. Hey, you know, don't, if you're going to spend money, get it approved, then spend and so on. So everybody is in alignment. They all work like this. They know this is how it is. All the pastors, all the ministry leaders, you know, because they're all spending money for their ministries, but it all goes through a particular, through the accounting department, the system and the process everybody has to follow. Okay. So that's another example. Let me see. Any questions here? Any questions? Everyone's okay? All right. All right. So we will talk about some one more example that I'll give you a little exercise to do later today. So, you know, if you look at our human body, our human body also is so well organized. And I'm just giving you an example. We all know. So our human body has different systems. There's the car, certainly this is all the system that circulates blood in our body. The digestive system, the endocrine system, the skin, the exocrine, the immune system, the muscular system, nervous system. There is the renal urinary system, the reproductive system, the respiratory system, the skeletal system. So all these systems make up one body. So if you want to think of it, one organization, but it has all these specialized areas that are doing work, but they all work together and make up the whole organization. Right? So the human body is just a wonderful example of, you know, how an entire organization should work when it has different systems or departments, you can say. And they're all doing the specialized function but all works together and makes things happen. So what are some things, what are some objectives when you're defining a system and processes in place? What are some things we need to keep in mind? Right? First of all, it should make the ministry area efficient. It shouldn't become a stumbling block. Right? It should make work very efficient. You know, there are some cases when we need to make very quick decisions and, you know, we don't have the luxury of taking, you know, two weeks or one month to make a decision. No, you have to make a decision. Yes or no. Go forward. No. And so the systems that you put in place should be able to, you know, work fast, work quickly. So keep it very simple so that, you know, they can be efficient. Don't make it too hard for people to do their work. Make it simple. There is accountability, but yet there is efficiency. Right? Secondly, people must be very clear. This is what I have to do. This is who I need to work with in order to get something done. So for example, if a ministry or a pastor or a ministry leader wants to do a campaign, a promotion campaign for their area of ministry, you know, except the youth ministry, they're having a youth camp. So they want to announce the youth camp is happening. People need to go and register. This is the theme of the youth camp. These are the speakers who are coming, et cetera. We have a very clearly defined process. What happens? The youth pastor speaks to our events manager. So we have an events manager. Somebody who manages all the events for the church. They share all the information. The events manager is responsible for getting all the venue, the logistics taken care of. So the pastor doesn't have to do that. He just has to say, hey, I want to do this youth camp, November 2nd, 3rd, 4th. I would like to have it in this venue. We're expecting about 200 youth. We need to have transportation and please, you know, book the venue, please start the registration, et cetera. So that's all he has to communicate to the events manager. Has a responsibility of booking the venue, paying the advance, you know, getting all the logistics done. And then he interacts with the media team and the IT team to run the promotions. So the media team may create the graphics and the video, whatever they need to promote this youth camp. The IT team will send out the email or the WhatsApp messages to the youth so we can pull out in all the young people, you know, below, whatever, 30, between 18 to 33 or something like that. Pull out all the information, send them an email, send them a WhatsApp message, tell them to register. So the events manager works and what happens. So every ministry leader, the pastor knows to promote the event, they only have to speak to the events manager. The events manager will take care of all the other things with the graphics team, media team, IT team, get it all done. So people are very clear what they have to do, whom they have to interact with, and what to expect. You know, what information they should give, what can they expect to be done, very clear. So that's, it should be very simple, very clear. There should be a good flow of information, resources, finances and that. That means, you know, money, movement of money. So the events manager will inform the accounting, hey, we have booked this venue. It costs us so much, please send the advance 50% to book the venue. And so they're counting team and send it. Of course, it'll come through me for an approval. I'll approve it. Then they'll send the money when it's gone. So the flow of information is very clear. And then we also constantly look at ways to improve. How can we do this better? Are we, you know, are we having some problems? Did something do not work fine? And we keep improving the way the systems and processes are working. Right. Another question that we can think about is, you see, we mentioned earlier that every system really is, it's all about people, right? It's people who are doing the work. It's, you know, especially in church ministry, it's not machines, it's people. Now we do use computers and all that, but really it's people. Now people are going to grow and they will also like to have a change in what they're doing. Sometimes they may leave, they may go vertically laterally or they may move out of the ministry to do something else. So people are not static. People are dynamic. They're growing. They're moving. So the systems we put in place should be independent of people. That in the sense that it should not depend on the person, right? A new person can come in and everything should just go on. You know. So just some thoughts here. How would we make, how can we make sure that the systems and processes we put in place don't stop when people move up or they move horizontally, they move out? How can we ensure that these things will go on? I just want to get your thoughts on it. You can just share your thoughts. How can we make sure that things go on? Even when people move, any thoughts? Can I say, can I say? Please go ahead, Kennedy. I think by training others and doing mentorship. Yes. So we look at the next person who's going to come in, train them in, train them to come in so that when one person moves to another role, everything just goes very smooth. Everything keeps working. So usually in our ministry, we may reorganize like a youth pastor may become a worship pastor and somebody else may become a student pastor. There may be a reorganizing of people, a rearranging of people. And even if you rearrange, everything should just continue. And the best way to do it is when we can train them. This is how you should do it. What are the ways, what are the ways by which we can do this? Any other thoughts? Can I have something? Yeah, go ahead. I think by having a seasoned reliever who can come in when they let more somebody on leave or just travel. Sorry, Kennedy. I missed what you were saying. Having someone? A seasoned reliever. Oh, okay. A seasoned reliever. Okay. So they come in for that time when that person is gone and they fill in that. That's also a good idea. So we can keep people ready for that. Yeah. And if all the people are informed about the way we work, it's easy to move people up, right? So everybody knows. So whether I'm in this role or this role, this is the way I work. I mean, the roles are different, of course, but the way I interact with other departments or other areas of ministry is uniform. So if you move them here, everything continues the same. You're doing a different role. But, you know, if you want to interact with accounting, it's the same. If you want to interact with media or events or it's all this. So you can easily move people because you've got a standardized system and process in place that everybody can just move in and out very quickly. Harrison, go ahead, please. Thank you. I want to share some experience in my church. You know, there's this thing, you know, when a service is going on and they bring a piece of paper to you and say, okay, you're taking this or you're taking that and whatever it is that they want you to do. And when we're having a meeting, I can remember me mentioning some few things. Now, like what we are sharing for people, you know, whether they are relieved or maybe moved, you know, to one position or the other, or as new members are coming in, at least there should be room, you know, for them to be trained and put into some position so that there are laborers, you know, in the house of God, you know, to take up, you know, some responsibilities. So I believe that, okay, when there is a standard and there's a system, it will not be difficult, you know, to move one person from one position to another. But when there is no standard and there's no system, then you see things, you know, being done anyhow. So I believe that people, you know, every Sunday or every weekdays, you see new people coming in. So how do you bring in these new people? How do you take them in? How do you bring them into the system for them to start functioning? Because, you know, one thing I've seen is that, okay, people coming and they go out because there's no standard and there's no system. So but when there's a standard, there's a system, as people are coming in, there's a position for them, there's a system waiting for them to train them in one thing or the other. And you're able to like know, you know, their gifts and nowhere to position them. So I believe that when this standard and system is put in place, it will not be difficult to position people where they're supposed to be. That's what I feel like sharing. Thank you. Nice. Very good. Thanks for sharing. Very good. So I'll just share a quick few thoughts here on that. So what we have, what we do is we have a get connected page. Let me just share that with you very quickly. So we tell people, so this is our church website. So they can go and they can go to the volunteer page and we just tell them, hey, just fill this up. So anybody who wants, you can see my screen? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So we just tell them sign up. So very simple. Thank you. Put the number, name, mobile address, which location they are in. What's the age? And they would like to give them all these options, right? So they can just check and they submit sign up. So it's very simple thing. They can do it in a couple of minutes. And this goes to the event coordinator in their location. So if they select, depending on which location they select, it goes to the event coordinator there. And that coordinator immediately contacts these people and say, hey, you signed up. You want to volunteer in this ministry. I'll see you next Sunday. And then they take them through the guidelines for that area of ministry. Okay. This is what you should be doing. This is the time you come. This is how you work and so on. They take them through the guidelines and then they just, you know, roster them. That is okay. You'll be, you know, put up, you know, you can serve on these Sundays or these days. That's what you got. So this is how we did. It's kind of a very simple straightforward way in which we enable people to sign up, to get involved in the ministry. And these are volunteers, right? So just sign up. Within one week, they are into what they want to do. Of course, unless it requires training. So if people want to handle the cameras, if they want to handle the live stream or the media or the sound, those things require specialized skills. So, you know, they'll take, go through several weeks of training or somebody else will be there to guide them and so on. But then eventually they will learn how to do it. Some areas of ministry are very simple, you know, if you're a good eater, just stand there, shake hands, welcome people, things like that. So the training happens depending on the ministry and they get them involved, right? So that's how we do it. Yeah. Now, what I wanted to go into now is for good system, for having good system design. Some of the things you think about constantly is excellence. How can we do it better? Efficiency, how can we do it faster so that it's productive? How can we do it cheaper so other ways that we can avoid spending money on things so we can save that money using other things? How can we do it differently? Like it gives us an edge rather than doing it the old way, can we do it a different way? And a fresh way, right? So you always think about these things over and over again. How can we do better, faster, cheaper and differently? So these are the thought process as you're examining what is going on and what is happening, right? Now, very quickly, I just want to talk about. So here's an example of a system process about book requests and the people around India, they will contact us for books. So again, the request can come through email or phone call or a letter or it can come at a church location, a book table or they can speak directly to us. A request comes. There's one person who's responsible who records a request. Basically, it's a spreadsheet. Send these books. This is the address. This is the person, their name, and so on. And there's one person who's responsible for managing the book dispatch. So from the time books come from the printing press, he receives the delivery. He manages the inventory every month. He checks how many books, what are the different titles and languages we have in stock. And every week, a couple of days in the week, he will check what requests have come in. Some people may request many hundred copies. Some may request just a single copy. So depending on that, he will pack it and then dispatch it and he'll mark that request as completed. So this is a simple order fulfillment process we have. And this person also delivers books to bookstores around the country. So that's a really ongoing thing. He will talk to the bookstores at the stock and the bookstores have gone down. He'll make sure that he sends the books out to them so that people can pick up the books from the bookstores. So this way, we make sure that no request goes unanswered. People are able to get the books they need and so on. Now, of course, there are some people who download the books, the PDFs and use that. So then that we don't have to worry. But these are for the printed requests. So then it should be constantly look at it and say, sorry, how can we improve this? How can we keep improving what's happening here and so on? So we would discuss, hey, can we do anything better? What can we do? Can we send the books out in a cheaper way? Things like that. So as of now, we've optimized, okay, we work with a certain courier service and they get the books out. That's the best we've seen. Individual books goes through the post office, through an automated system, things like that. So we've optimized whatever we can at this time to make sure that we don't spend too much money on, we get the best deal in the cost for sending the books. Now, I want you to think about the, I'm just giving you an exercise. And so the next class, I won't be teaching, but I want you to take a few minutes to think about it. And then next week when we get back, you know, you can just share, but think about, just think about these two exercises. And you can do anyone or you can do both, right? If you wanted to set up a traveling ministry, let's say you're going to be a traveling preacher. That means you're not a pastor, but you're going from city to city, you just go wherever the invitations have come. You may preach in churches and conferences and stadiums, whatever, I guess, but your ministry is a traveling, itinerant ministry. So for that kind of a ministry, to support that kind of a ministry, what would your organization look like? Think about it, right? Now think about something big, okay? Don't say, well, I'm the only person, so I'll just, you know, I'll do it all myself. Of course, when you start, that's how you start, you do it all yourself. But as you grow, as you become bigger, you need to have various things and various systems and things in place. Sorry. So think about that. What kind of organization and how would you structure that? What are the systems and processes you'd have? Now, another exercise you can think about is suppose you want to set up a Bible college in your city. Okay? So in your cities, you're setting up a Bible college where students are coming from different places in your country. And if you want, of course, you could do online and so on, so students can join you from anywhere in the world. I'll leave that choice to you. But if you were going to set up a Bible college, what would be some of the systems and processes you will have to put in place for that to run very well? So think about all the different areas, how the workflow happens from the time something comes to get information about your Bible college to them making the application, them being enrolled and then how the classes happen and all those other things. So let's say you can have students who are residential, that means they come and stay in your hostel. You can have students who are based college. They just come out in class and go and you can have students remote. They join you online from wherever they are. So what would you put in place? So the next lecture hour, I'll leave you with these two exercises. You can do one of them or you can do both of them. Just take some time to think through and sketch it out if you wish. I mean, it's easy to just do some box diagrams and say, okay, these are things I'm going to have. Whatever you're comfortable with. And then next week, we will have a little discussion on these two things. Just like to hear your thoughts, your ideas, you know, and then we will kind of just review this chapter and move forward into the next. Okay. Any questions before we close this lecture? Are you all with me? So come. Pastor, this exercise we have to do in detail or just give you the skeleton of it. Oh, it's just so you it's just going to be a discussion. So you don't have to send like you don't have to give it to me. You can just write it on your notebook or you can just stick it in your mind, whatever works for you. And then next week, we'll have a discussion. So, you know, I'd like to hear different people share their thoughts on that. So you can write it in your notebook. Yes, Harrison. Pastor, I want to ask this question. It's more like, you know, how can one, you know, manage himself, you know, in a church where there's no system, there's no standard and things are done anyhow and you're not seeing yourself growing the way you want to grow. And, you know, it's more like, you know, for every time you attend service, you find it too difficult or you find it challenging to just like, you know, cope with, you know, what is going on. How do one manage such a thing or how do we go about in a such a thing? Yeah, that's a challenging question. One is and one part is if you have a good relationship, like, you know, and if the leadership in that church, if they're open to suggestions, ideas, then you could go have a, you know, a meeting with them, conversation with them, share your ideas, not from a perspective of, you know, these all wrong things, but you present like these are things that we can do better. And also, this is how we can make it happen. So you're giving them a direction for the, you know, the ways that the ministry of the church can improve and also a roadmap on how to make it happen. But that's only possible if, you know, the leadership are open and they're welcoming ideas from people, then you could do that in a very positive way and it can be a great experience for everybody if they're open to the ideas and then you put a thing together and, you know, you begin to organize little by little, arrange things and, you know, then everybody will be blessed, they will see the result of it. If the leadership is not open and it's a challenge, you know, then because these kinds of changes have to come, have to be led by the leaders. They have to say we're going to we want this change. So perhaps I just thought that comes to my mind is you can point them to some training outside, you know, hey, there's an organization, that's a leadership organization that can provide training for our leaders and so on, you can point them like hey, why don't you try to see if that can help our leaders. Again, you know, it depends if they are receptive to it. If they are not receptive, then we can't make progress. So, that's what I would think. Anybody has any ideas should we come to share your thoughts? Go ahead. Any ideas for Harrison? Is that Louie, you want to share? Can anyone share? Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir. So, let's proceed to it. Okay. For my own experiences, I try to decipher between amatocambus systemic advancement in a church environment or amatocambus spiritual advancement. I think I would like to distinguish between the two. I can be in a place, I'm going spiritually, but you do not have system to have structures, so it means that if it comes to the spiritual aspect, I am growing spiritually. If it comes to this system in terms of how this church is making growth or developmental advancement, at least I don't find a place in that. It does not negate the fact that I should leave the assembly. But if there's a way that I can function in that kind of environment, fine. If there's a way I can not function, also fine. Because you don't want to have a confrontational approach with a sex person. But if the person as a minister, I am fed of the word of God, then I stay in that regard until I can find my footing. Because most times you can be in a place that you're way ahead in a systematic organizational approach. Which means that your skills are not yet negated for that time where the experience of the church is. That does not mean that you're not important. But at that moment you might not be relevant to the growth process of that church. It can be sometimes for streaking, but at the same time also look at it from the spiritual perspective whether this person I am older, I am fed of the word of God and growing spiritually. But in my skill set, in what the things I can do professionally, I am not relevant yet. That does not mean that in the space of time you will not be relevant. But at the same time there's a balance in which you see growing spiritually, which is a priority for you at a certain point in time. But because of your professional prowess, you are not bringing it into the organization. For you something can be frustrating if you have some kind of question that wants to be done in certain ways, but they're not done. So you have to find that timing and balance at the same time. Just from my own experience. Very good. Good thoughts. Very good. Thank you for sharing that. Appreciate it. Very nice. Good. Kennedy, you had a question? Yeah, thank you. Mine is concerning just giving some guidelines of how to run a compassion ministry. Because at times you get there's a tendency that as the church tends to grow, there's no matter feeling that there's more affection, there's more love, the new calmers, the new believer than the old one. So there's no matter that kind of feeling that the older generation they're not being considered. Thank you. Yeah, that's an interesting question. I'll just make a few comments maybe we can when we get up next week. I think one of the best ways is to have what we call small groups or life groups. So when people are part of those small groups, that's where they really feel cared for. So we can have different kinds of small groups for different ages. You also can have for youth, you can have for young men, you can have young ladies, young couples, young families and then of course full-fledged families. So you can have these different groups and if people become part of that life group, they meet every week and they care for each other, then they feel cared for. And that would be the best. So part of what we try to do is that we try to get people into small groups so that they can feel cared for and that's the best way I think. Yeah. Thank you. We can pick up this next week as well and talk as among. So let's close the prayer. I appreciate each of you for asking questions and sharing your ideas. I think it's really nice. So next week we will listen and we will discuss on these two exercises, listen to your thoughts and then we'll go forward from there. Let's close in prayer please and anyone could pray and dismiss us. Sir, we don't have the next class. Yeah, we don't have the next class. But we can, I just want to work on those two exercises that were there in the PDF, the last two, and then we could meet again next week to discuss those exercises and then go forward from there. Okay, thank you sir. Welcome. Yeah, let's somebody pray and dismiss. Who wants to pray? Alright. Go ahead Harrison. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you. We bless your name. We thank you for all that we've had this morning. We thank you because you're revealing to us what no man can reveal to us. We thank you for your wisdom. We thank you for your knowledge. We thank you for your understanding. We thank you that Father you are shaping us into what you want us to be. And we thank you for your servant whom you've used to go to open our eyes to the realities of heaven that we may do work so good that are pleasing to you. We ask Father that the words that we've had this morning will not just drop for your Father it shall be fruit in our heart and make us a God. A living example of God to what heaven represents. We ask in a God that you will help us a God to serve you better. We ask in a God that you will help us a God to do the things that we've got that are pleasing to you. We ask a God that you will help us a God not to make the mistakes a God that will cause us a God to put you to shame. We ask a God that you will help us that at the end of God you will call us worthy servants. Thank you Father for this day as we go to a various place of work or whatever we will be doing today. I pray Lord that your spirit will be with us. I pray Lord that you will teach us more and to draw us nearer to you and to know you better. Thank you Father, thank you Son and thank you Holy Spirit. For this I pray in the much less name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you everybody. Thank you. God bless. Have a good weekend. Enjoy eternal worship by now. Thank you. Thank you.