 Okay. Recording is on. Good morning, everyone, to BC 310, our course on church and ministry administration. We have two lectures today, and I hope we'll all find it useful, find it interesting as we talk about various things involving the administration and the operation of a church or a ministry. Okay. Let's take a moment, please, to just pray together, and then we'll get started. Who'd like to pray with a glass? Anyone can pray. Okay, I'll go ahead, Harrison. Oh, Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for this minute, this moment, this hour. I want to thank you because your Word is made flesh, you know, you bring your Word to us, you know, and it brings light, you know, to understanding. We thank you for the another opportunity that you've given not to us, we've got to study your Word, and to be better, we'll go at what we do and to bring glory to your name. By the way, ask the God that your Spirit of God come afresh upon us, let your Spirit of God feel everyone of God, that the words we hear, what God will bring life and bring understanding. The love, Father, may we not just be the hearers of your Word, but, Father, I'll study the words of your Word. I want to thank you for your servant, whom you want to use right now to speak to us. We ask the God that your Holy Spirit come upon him strongly, by the words his speaker, God shall not be words of men, but words from the throne of grace. We cover this place with the blood of Jesus, and we ask the God that let your name alone be glorified in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Okay, thank you. Welcome everybody. Good morning, our very early morning in some parts of the world, and maybe it's evening in some parts of the world, but welcome. All right, so we are going step by step in this course on church and ministry administration, and as we keep introducing different parts or different parts or ideas, I want to encourage you, if at all possible, to think about these things in the context of whatever you are able to do right now. So if you are serving in a church or involved in a ministry somewhere, see if you can take these ideas and put them to work. That would be one of the best ways to learn and to assimilate these ideas. Now some of you may have already been doing this for some time, so in that case, if there's something new, you can try to use it. And some of us, maybe you may not have the opportunity, that's okay, but at least try to understand it, and then sometime in the near future, when you kind of get into some ministry or church where you have to do something, then come back to these notes, go through these ideas and see how you can implement them. So the whole purpose of this course is to give something very practical to us, which we can all use in our churches and ministries. So we're going to quickly review a little bit of what we did last week, and then I know I didn't finish up the chapter four. So let's quickly review, and then I just want to cover the last part of it. I know last week we had some connectivity problem, and so I think at some point we lost connection. I will keep my phone with me here and just make sure. Yeah, and I hope it doesn't happen again, but anyway. So we were talking about ministry, organization, and structure, and we said that, you know, what for the church or the Christian ministry, we need this organizational structure. It's the backbone and that supports all the work that is being done, but it has to be organized. The organization itself should have a structure to it. So we refer to that as the organization structure, and basically it means that the activities and the flow of information, the decision-making process, etc, are very, very clearly defined within the organization, and that's how it's like putting a machine together, if you want to think of it, and everything works together, and then you have the net result or the outcome. Now there are different organizational structures, which we mentioned, you could have divided by functions, you could have divided by divisions, geographical areas, our departments, you could have a flat, you can have a mix or a matrix structure. We looked at the scriptures, you know, what we see some amazing examples in the Bible, we talked about why we need to do this, we talked about some, you know, our philosophy behind it, that's just be simple, keep it simple, don't make it overly complex, and some questions we can ask ourselves to make sure that the organizational structure, the design of it is good, you know, it's sound, it's serving the purpose, and we need to continuously look at it. Just one simple example where, you know, if people are not adding value, there are steps in the process that are not meaningful, you know, we need to eliminate them and, you know, be simple. We just looked at, you know, just sharing some of the things that we have here at APC, what we're trying to put together, I mean, not everything is in place, we're still looking for people and interviewing and setting things up and, you know, growing step by step, but generally we have an idea of what we're trying to build and what we're trying to put together. So we went through this, and this is where we paused last week. So what I wanted to explain was that, especially in ministry, whether it's in the church type setting or some other church ministry, you will have spiritual leaders, you will have the professional skills, when people are, you know, referred to them as the staff or the administrative staff, they're paid staff, and in many cases you will also have volunteers, and very often the volunteer base is bigger than the number of full-time paid staff. And that's the normal case with non-profit organizations, charity organizations, right? Because we don't want to spend the funds on the administrative or the organization itself, we want to spend the money on the people who are being served. And in order to make that happen, in most cases, in churches and Christian ministries, there are a lot of volunteers, people who willingly give their time and effort to do the work of that organization. So we'll talk about volunteers a little later. Volunteer management itself is a very big subject. You know, people study that, they basically, how do you motivate volunteers, how do you take care of volunteers, etc., and so on. And what is very interesting to look at is the interface between staff and volunteers. People are paid and those are not paid. How do you get them to work together? That itself is a very interesting area. And that's again, you know, people who are doing management and all, they study that a lot. But what I want to share here is a simple hub and spoke model that we use here at APC and I'm sure many organizations would use this to facilitate volunteer engagement and also to give people the opportunity to be involved in multiple areas, which is what happens usually in a church or in a ministry setting. That means usually one person, one individual, would be involved in multiple areas of ministry. You know, it's not very restrictive. You know, we say, hey, sir, wherever you can, and they may end up serving in two, three areas. And similarly with the staff, the pastors and the staff, the staff are not just supporting, you know, dedicated to one area of ministry. Many times they are actually involved in multiple areas of ministry just for efficiency and, you know, making it cost effective. So then how do you manage that, right? So this, if you keep this in mind, it really helps this model. So you have pastors and ministry leaders. The pastors and ministry leaders, an individual pastor may be involved in multiple areas of ministry. So you see the blue there. So you can think of, you know, one pastor being involved in more than one area of ministry. Similarly with the gray, the staff, you know, an IT team will support almost all areas of ministry. Media team will support all areas of ministry. You know, so the staff are kind of, you know, actually supporting multiple ministry areas. And then you have the volunteer base, which is much bigger than the number of pastors or staff. And here again, a volunteer may, you know, most often a volunteer may be involved in multiple ministry areas. And so what happens is you create these things are called, these are ministry areas. So you have what we call them as ministry teams. That means it's a group of people. It's a mix of pastors, staff and volunteers that form a ministry team or a team that takes care of a particular area of ministry, right? But keep in mind that the people in that team could also be part of other teams. So within each ministry team, you've got a team leader who was overall responsible or a ministry leader who was overall responsible for that ministry area. And he's got people who are, you know, they've got people serving there. And so while you have a core set of people, these people are actually making everything run, all the ministry areas run, and everything works smoothly because it is kind of fluid. People can move across areas and serve. And then you have to look at the efficiency of each ministry area, how that works. Okay, we'll get into that in the next chapter. But is this concept or this idea or this model simple and understandable? Any any questions on that? Let me just pause here. Everybody's with me on that. Okay. Any questions? Any thoughts? Charles, you have a question? Yeah, I was interested to confirm from the the Haber spoke, and I was wondering the spokes are many. Each ministry team requires the pastor. If the pastors are few, won't you have pastors that would be maybe one pastor is on three ministry teams? Like two ministry teams, that's some clarity there. Yeah. I mean, what you're saying is correct that one pastor can actually be involved in multiple teams. So for example, let me give you here. You know, Nancy Ramya, she is associate pastor of one of our church locations. She is also missions coordinator. So she is overseeing missions. She also handles or she used to handle what we refer to as a campus elevate. Those were our outreaches to college campuses. So and then she also handles a fourth area, Auburn's conference. So you have one pastor, Nancy. She's actually in four teams, four areas. Now, the workload, it may seem like a lot, but if you actually look at it, the women's conference, basically it meets the conference. There's only one conference happening the whole year. And then on a monthly basis, you know, I mean, they have a women's group that they interact. And then on a monthly basis, they do prayer prayer, what do you call it, prayer chain, right? So that's the campus, which I mean, we have to stop all that because of COVID, but it'll get restarted. The campus was again, she had a team and it was delegated work was delegated and so on. So one pastor involved in multiple ministry areas. And of course, the staff church staff will support the work, you know, meaning, you know, website needs to be updated, graphics needs to be done, videos need to be done, promotions need to be done, you know, for conferences events, those things to be done. So there are church staff who will do that, but the pastor coordinates with all of them. So you'll have church staff in all four areas. And then you have volunteers. So the volunteers who want to serve with the women's ministry, they are part of that. Volunteers who want to serve in the college campus ministry, they are part of that. Volunteers who want to serve in missions, they are part of that. And then of course, there are volunteers who serve in that church location, DPC North. So, you know, they coordinate all of that. So this actually makes it nice because like you said, we may have only a few pastors, but they're able to oversee multiple areas of ministry. Is that okay? Thank you so much. Any other questions? It's on that just how to organize a church or a ministry that brings together spiritual leaders, staff and volunteers. And then you can, you know, do multiple areas. Okay. And I just think about it. It's just one idea, which is very simple and useful. Okay. Let's move forward. So some other thoughts that we have to keep in mind as your church ministry grows is, you know, initially, you organize for a local ministry. All right. So example, when you, you know, you start a church or a ministry in a city, the way the structure is, okay, we're going to serve a congregation that's in the city. All right. So you're organized for that. Are we going to serve people in that city? So your organizational structure is localized. But then, you know, with the grace of God, with the blessing of God, the ministry may go beyond that city. It may go to maybe the state or maybe a region or maybe the entire nation. And today, given all the opportunities we have, the ministry actually can reach beyond one nation. It can reach into many nations. So then what you have to do is you start thinking about how do we serve people beyond our local area, you know, so the organizational structure must therefore support the ministry across countries, across nations. And of course, it depends on the kind of ministry that you're doing, you will therefore need to design or redesign the organizational structure to support what is happening beyond just your local area and so on. So for example, you may have to think about different languages, you know, because if God is opening doors across the country or across nations, then obviously, you know, languages are there. So, you know, the translation of your resources into other languages, then how would you serve people in different parts of the world? So different regions. So generally, you know, organizations talk in terms of regions, like they may, you know, they may talk about the Americas, the Europe, Asia, or Asia Pacific. So they may club, they may break it down, you know, by continents, they may club regions, continents together, so on, so forth. And then they were, they would replicate their structures by those regions. Or you could do it if it's more of a national kind of thing, you can do it in terms of cities and so on. You know, but think about it, right? Your organization must support the growth of the ministry that goes beyond your local area. And one more thought to keep in mind is, and we will talk more about technology, use of technology, is that these days, the organization and everything that happens in it, it has to be, you know, this is a common phrase you will hear, it has to be data driven and it has to be technology enabled. That means the decisions that are being made, the, you know, various things that are being, that are happening within the organization, it has to be based on actual data, which today in our world is very possible because a lot of the information is being captured, retained, and then it can be looked at, it can be analyzed and decisions are being made, made not on some individual's intuition or just like that, but it's based on data. Now, of course, you know, there is the wisdom of God, there is a supernatural leading of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time, we must learn to look at data and there's nothing wrong in doing that. And that's itself a skill for us as believers to learn how to balance data with, you know, what God is leading us to do and what the Holy Spirit is inspiring, you know, the simple rule of thumb is we always follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, but when there is no specific direction, then make your decision based on facts, right? So you always look at the facts, you come to your decision, but then you submit that decision to the leading of the Holy Spirit. In many cases, the Holy Spirit does want us to use our mind because God designed our mind, he gave us the ability to think and reason, and so he will lead us with that, but there will be times when he tells us to, you know, overwrite that, and then that's when we just step out by faith and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. But anyway, getting back to this, we must learn to be data-driven, make use of the data that's being collected and analyze it and then, you know, make decisions, and we have to be technology-enabled. Now, one of the things that I myself am working with our own church staff, and which I think might be a challenge, is to help people in our team, people who are serving in the church and the ministry. See, we are doing spiritual ministry, but at the same time, we must develop professional skills. We must develop professional skills. So that is something, you know, it's, not saying it's a struggle, but it's something I'm trying to work with our team and slowly develop that side, because think about the mindset. Those who come to serve in the church or in the ministry, of course, they all come by the very strong spiritual inclination. You know, they love God, they love his word, they love the ministry of the Spirit, and they want to see lives transformed, and then they come in and step into the organization, but then for the organization to function, well, we need professional skills, and we need people who can look at data, who can analyze data, who can, you know, there's so much to be done at a professional level. And so that's where I find the challenge, I find there is a challenge that it's not just, spiritual side is very important, but we need to constantly grow professionally, right? And so that to create a culture, to help those in the ministry, in the organization understand that we have to have professional skills that are relevant to today, where organizations are data driven, and their technology enabled, right? So we'll have to, we have to be, you know, savvy with these things. That is a challenge, and that's something we are continuing to work on, right? So we come to the end of this chapter, I want to pause and just take your thoughts and comments, and so on. Okay, I see a question here. Does the pastor automatically become the leader in each ministry area? Good question. Let me just go back to the organizational chart to kind of answer that question. So what we have here is that the pastor, the senior pastor, is overall in charge of everything, like overall responsibility. So, you know, here are all the ministry areas. So the ministry leader, there are different ministry areas here. There's a ministry leader. So every ministry area is, the person who's actually responsible is the ministry leader. They make the decisions, they run it, they do it. But they will refer back to, you know, the pastor, the senior pastor, as and when needed, right? So as senior pastor, I would just, you know, be more in the background, more to make sure that that ministry area is staying, going in a certain direction. So we didn't interact, we would talk regularly with the ministry leaders, hey, how are things going? For example, you know, let's take the men's conference, okay, the men's conference. You know, so the person who's heading that up, I will talk, okay, for this year, you know, let's, this will be the team and we will have the speakers and, you know, so just talk with that, discuss that, then thereafter, the person in the men's conference will go get it done. And then what are the outcomes you want to see? And from there, you know, what do we want to do? So we discussed that, but the person in charge, the ministry leader in charge of men's conference is the one who's actually going to get everything done and, you know, carry it out. So that's how we work. So, you know, while the senior pastor is at a high level, you know, overseeing things, they're not actually involved in the, in what actually happens, right? Because the people in the team will get it done and will run with the ministry and they will make all the decisions, okay? Go ahead Elan, so you have a follow-up question. Yes, Pastor, thank you very much for the feedback. I asked the question with a background of my denomination, where almost all our ministries at the national level, we have basically four levels. We have the national level, the area level, the district level, and the local level. Aside, apart from the local and the district level, the area and the national level, all our ministries are led by pastors. They are led by full-time ministers. Yes, and they are supported by volunteers. So they make the team at the leadership, ministry's leadership level. Initially, it wasn't so. Initially, at the area, district level, and even at the national level, it was led by volunteers. Volunteers, elders can't head the ministries. However, I actually don't know the thoughts that went into that decision, but at the time, it was reversed and ministers, full-time ministers were made to lead the ministries. From personal observation, I've realized that it has its advantages and disadvantages, where sometimes the pastor, based on his leadership style, will have influence on the ministry, or positive influence with the ministry, or a negative influence. And you see sometimes how volunteers relate with the pastor, when volunteers, one of their own is leading the team, the relationship is different. And when it is being led by a pastor, the relationship is also different. Yes, that goes from the background that's why I asked the question. Yeah, so the ideal, I mean, this is my thoughts, the ideal is that we can so develop and empower people and just give them complete freedom in their areas of ministry, because each one can grow and fulfill what God wants to do. That would be ideal. And of course, the pastors are there to just oversee, to make sure things are on track, to discuss the vision, and provide some important guidance, and then give people the full freedom so that they can really carry things out. I mean, that would be the ideal way to work. But it varies, depending, like you said, on the organization, the leadership style of the leaders themselves. Yeah. All right, I'm sure we're going to be coming back to some of these things as we go along, as we get into the details, these things will come up again on the dynamic of working with people, and so on. So we can revisit some of these things. I'm going to move forward to the next chapter. And as we, so we talked a little bit about organizational, chapter four, we talked about the organizational structure, the design of the organization, and the importance of, you know, today in today's world, even Christian organizations or churches have to be data-driven and technology-enabled, which means that those in the organization, although we are doing spiritual work, we still need professional skills. And that's something we need to continuously work on. And, you know, that's one of the reasons why we are having some of these courses as part of the Bible College. That is, now we want our students, they're going to be doing ministry, but they need to have some understanding of, you know, ministry administration, organization. Next, next year we'll do a course on media and technology, you know. So again, you just need that, you know, these days, it's all a necessary part of doing ministry. So it's, you want you to have these skills. All right, let's move forward. In chapter five, as part of your having of, you know, building your church ministry, church ministry or organization, it's important for the organization to have documented administrative policies, guidelines and standards. That means the organization is writing down and is having it in a written way saying, this is how we are going to work. Okay. These are our policies. That means this is how we make decisions or this is the philosophy, this is our guiding principle in making decisions. These are our operational guidelines. That means when teams work, when different departments or units are working, they need to follow these guidelines and these are our standards. That means when you're actually producing something, this is how it has to be done. Right. So you've got policies that guide the overall decisions at a high level. You've got guidelines, operational guidelines that tell you how things have to be done. And you've got standards that dictate essentially the quality of things that have to be done. And these have to be documented. That means it has to be written somewhere so that people can go to it, look at it, you know, and of course these things will, we have to keep updated. We have to keep reviewing, updating, revising from time to time. But why do we need that? Because it will help establish efficiency. There'll be consistency. We also know who's responsible for what and therefore we can hold people accountable to what has been stated. Right. So I remember, you know, I was in some place in India, I was ministering at a conference and then I usually during break time, you know, we just had a pastor's conference and during break time, tea time, lunch time, we just be casually sitting, having conversation with pastors and so it's nice. And once one pastor came, he said, you know, I have a problem. Okay, what's the problem? He said, see, I just hired one person from my church as an, to help with administration. But this person, they come, I think it was a lady, I forget exactly, you know, he or she, let's say, he comes whenever he wants. He leaves the office whenever he wants. And he takes his own time to do the work. And now I am afraid to correct him. I said, why? And of course, he's afraid because this person is also a member of the church and he doesn't want any misunderstanding with this person. So he said, like, I'm finding it very difficult. What am I supposed to do? So I just think of it as actually a very funny situation because there's only one person that the pastor wanted to engage as a staff in the office, church office, to help with some administrative work. And with this one person itself, there's so much of stress already, because that person comes to the office whenever they want and they leave the office whenever they want and they take their own time to get work done, etc. So then I asked a simple question, I said, you know, do you have some sort of a document? Like, you know, an offer letter when you hired this person, did you state, you know, what are your work hours? How many hours a week should this person work? And what are the things they're supposed to be doing? I said, no, I just told them, start, they started. So then, then we had to go through the very basic thing of, okay, see, you need to put all this down in a letter and a document, make it very clear and you get them to sign it before they start work. Then you will not have this problem. You know, you tell them you have to be in the office from 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday, they have to work eight hours a day, 40 hours a week. This is the responsibility. If you have it written down, get them to sign it off before they start. There is absolutely no issues, you know. So, very simple. The solution actually is very simple. But if you don't have something written, if you don't have a policy or a guideline or a standard, it can become such a big stressful thing unnecessarily. Okay, such a simple example. But the fact of the matter is many churches and Christian organizations, they run like this, you know, they don't think about the importance of documentation, of having things properly documented and so on. So, we need to understand the importance of it. So, why is it important for us to have these policies, guidelines, practice standards? Like we said, it provides guidance for the organization, the people are working in it. It catifies the organization's position on specific issues, like how are we going to work? For example, how are we going to work with new vendors? So, you know, example, if you want somebody to provide a certain kind of service for the organization, let's say, to somebody who'll be providing your sound equipment for your event or be doing the stage lighting and media, whatever. There are so many vendors you may want to interact with. On what basis would you select a vendor? So, because you could select, there could be three or four vendors. And then you don't want any vendor trying to influence the decision maker in your organization. You know, so you don't want anything to happen that way. So, what should you do? You have a vendor service agreement that states, you know, these are things that the vendor should meet. These are criteria. And then based on that, you know, there's a decision making process. And this is how you make your own, choose your vendor and go forward. So, when you have written policies and guidelines, it helps in making decisions. And then there is great objectivity, consistency and fairness in decision making. That means people know that you're not making decisions just based on your own whim and fancy, but you're making a decision based on certain actual stated criteria. Right? So, there is no, you know, the decision is fair to everybody. And also, when you have something written down, you can hold people accountable to that. You know, say, look, this is what we wanted to do. Have you done it? You know, so there's that sense of accountability. Otherwise, people will not be answerable for their work. And very important, everything must be written and available. Right? So, it's got to be documented. It's got to be accessible. People should know, okay, I can go and look at it here. Right? So, have them written down, be simple and clear. Be specific and detailed so that there's no ambiguity or misinterpretation. Communicate, you know, what are the principles, motivations. And so, you're providing the principle and motivation because, you know, we won't know all the scenarios people will have to, people would encounter. So, if they know the principle, they know the motivation, then they can make a decision in various scenarios. Make it available to people in the organization and then reiterate, review and revise. Right? That means you go over this over and over again because people tend to forget. And so, we need to revisit these things from time to time. Okay? So, let me pause here before I show you, you know, examples of what we have here at APC. You know, let's just think together. What will happen if there were no policies, guidelines and standards in a Christian organization? So, in a church, so in a church setting, think about this. In a church setting, if you didn't have this, you know, you had a whole bunch of full-time pastors, you had church staff, you're all working together. But, you know, there's no policy, there's no guideline, there's no standards. All right, let's do ministry. What would happen? What do you think? Go ahead, please share your thoughts. Ayesha? Pastor, I think in the situation, there could be chaos. Everybody does what's pleasing. There's no identity for the organization. Just as you cited the example that a church staff reported to work at his will, he takes time to do the work when it pleases him. And there will be no efficiency. There will be a lot of waste in the system. Very good. Very good. Good thoughts. Thank you. Yep, I see some of the thoughts coming in the chat as well. Good thoughts. Thank you. Kennedy, I see your hand. Charles says the government will arrest the pastor. Go ahead, Kennedy. I think there'll be a lot of confusion. There'll be a lot of responsibility. There'll be no accountability. They'll lead more divisions in the church. True. Go ahead. Kennedy has something more to say. Oh, okay. And really, people will start going in different directions. So the organization overall will not make any progress because people are going in different directions. People may be contradicting each other in decisions. And it will be like what some of you have said, it's going to be chaos. And yeah, of course, the organization can get into some serious trouble and people can get into trouble. Yes. And I see, yeah, Rose, I see what Rose said, no growth or multiplication. Yeah. So things just stagnate. There's no progress. Nothing happens. Okay. So good. I think all of us can understand the importance of having well-stated, well-documented policies and guidelines and standards. And yeah, see what Roshan's saying, the vision of the organization will not be achieved. The organization will not be making progress, not be fulfilling what it's there for. Good. Very good thoughts. So let's go back now and we'll move forward here. So what are the kinds of things that you need to have as an organization? So I'll just share some of the things that I feel are, we can list out a lot and depending on how big the organization is and what all they're doing, there could be lots of policies. But I'll just state a few here and share a few thoughts. So at the very basic level, we need what is referred to as staff and consultant guidelines. That means these are policies for people who are employed or paid by the organization. Right. Now, let me just pause here. So what I'm going to refer you to is our apcwo.org slash guidelines. Okay. So you can go to this web page anytime and apcwo.org slash So on this web page, we've put out all our guidelines. Okay. So let me just share that with you. I mean, just show it to you now. And then you could, you could definitely go there and have a look at it later on when you have some time. Can you see the apcwo.org guidelines page now? Or can you see it or you can't? I'm not sure. Pastor, we can see a page where it's administrative policies and staff and consultant guidelines are just given as a topic. Okay. So you're seeing the PDF. Okay. All right. And let me just go back to, okay, seeing the PDF. I'll show my entire screen so you'll be able to see everything. Okay. So now you can see the apcwo.org guidelines slash guidelines. You can see the guidelines web page. So if you go online to apcwo.org slash guidelines. So now we can see the guidelines web page, right? With all the documents. Pastor is seeing it. They're in red. Yes. Thank you. All right. So, you know, you're welcome to take any of these and, you know, modify it and use it. But here's what I wanted to show you. So we have these guidelines for different areas of ministry, right? These are simple, you know, one, two page documents, but they're updated from time to time. And, you know, when somebody wants to know, you know, for example, FTV stands for first time visitor. So for a first time visitor, if they want to be a part of it, first time as a team, you know, what are the guidelines to be part of this team, right? They can go look at it up, look it up here. And then usually when somebody's inducted to the team, they kind of, they go through it periodically to teach them, you know, okay, this is what you do. And so like this, you have different areas of ministry, right? Then you have the team guidelines for training documents. We want to train and so on. So I just wanted to show this to you staff and consultant guidelines. So if you look at it now, this is our staff and consultant guidelines. And so when somebody is going to join us as a staff, we tell them to read this and before they sign up as a staff or a consultant, right? So it basically says, okay, there's our vision, there's who we are, there's our destiny, is what we're called to do, you know, this organization structure, these are our co-values as an organization. A little explanation on that. This is our culture as an organization. This is a culture we want to maintain. We'll talk about workplace culture a little later on. We explain to them, you know, hey, this is what we want to maintain, this is what we want to avoid. And then we have a code of conduct. So we want to make sure that all our staff and consultants, you know, we're working. For example, we definitely say, you know, no alcohol, no smoking, these kinds of things. You know, and what do we see? There has been integrity, accountability, and so on. We have to keep information confidential. We give them access to our database, which has, you know, people's information, you have to keep all of that confidential, some basic address code, things like that. How do you, you know, hiring, resignation, termination, we have staff, and we have consultants, and then we have people who are interns or trainees. What are the work hours, weekly hours, office hours, you know, lunch break, personal work, you know, punctuality, work from home, how do you report your time, how will you get paid, and, you know, reimbursements for work-related expenses, what are the leaves you can take, all the holidays and so on. When you're going out of office, and if you want to go on a paid leave, what are the benefits for our staff? You know, these are the benefits, you've got your bonus, your health insurance, you have your retirement fund, and, you know, how do you do your expense claim, that is, if you spend money on work-related things, how do you get it back, some guidelines on interacting with church people, you know, you have to be careful, we have counseling available for everyone, and how are people going to be paid. So, you know, we tell them, look, we value your skills, there's performance reviews, these are the criteria on which you're going to be reviewed at, how it'll happen, and this is what you can expect as an increment based on performance. This is how your bonus is going to be calculated every year, and then, you know, there's, in case of emergency, you need some salary in advance, this is how much we can provide, then the spiritual work-related daily devotions, we give them free access to private college courses, free access to weekend schools, they can attend conferences, seminars, we give them money for doing their own courses and so on, and how some guidelines on our communication standards, you know, confidentiality and security of data, ministry data to leave, that means you can take time to go work and serve in other ministries, and things like that, you know, workplace culture, how to be cultivator, so basically, I mean, this is a long document, but when we, when somebody joins us as a staff or consultant, we give them this document, so they read it, so everything is clear before they join, right, so in case they don't like, they don't like something, they don't want to join, at least they can make that decision before they sign up, so this is one example, so like that, there are, you know, different documents here, and then these are the role descriptions, you know, what is expected of you when you're working at EPC, so everybody who's a staff or a consultant is one of these roles, you know, and so they can go here and they can say, okay, you know, as a, let's say, a children's church, assistant pastor, okay, children's church, so this is your role, you know, this is what you need to be doing, and this is what we expect from you, and what are the skills that are required, there'll be additional responsibilities, and these are your opportunities, et cetera, so it's a short paid document, but it makes it clear what they're supposed to be doing, now in some cases the role may be a little bit more, you know, a little bit more detailed or involved, where example as a pastor, you know, okay, you're going to be responsible for all of these things, and this call, you know, so it's a little bit more involved, but we spell it out, so we have all of this here, what I would want, you know, I'd encourage you to just go to this place, take any of these documents, modify it as you want, just suit your church ministry and, you know, feel free to use it, we put it out here because all our people can go and, you know, our staff volunteers, others can go there and make use of that from time to time, all right, so let me, okay, I need to pause here, that we're already into our break time, okay, so we will pause here, I'm sorry, I kind of spilled over into our break time, we'll come back and pick it up from here, okay, so let's go for a break, we'll be back in 10 minutes, thank you.