 All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to a new day. Good morning. Good to see you all. Let's begin this time with the word of prayer. Yes, could one of us please lead us in prayer? Mangi, if you're there, do you mind leading us? Yes, Pastor. Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning. We pray, Father, it's really not about our market price, our place ministry, Lord, that you can enable us, Lord, to understand, Lord, and to be attentive, Lord, and also pray, Father, that you will empower, your Holy Spirit will empower Pastor Paul, as he teaches, Lord, so that you may teach in a way that we will understand. We pray all this in your mighty name, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Mangi. Okay. So yesterday, we started off with chapter eight. We looked at people, processes, performance and rewards, and how in an organization it's very important to remember that the organization or the ministry, it's about people. If there's no people, there's no ministry. If there's no people, there's no organization. So people is what makes the organization work. And so we looked at a few points like, you know, pay fairly based on contribution, ensure that your people, your employees are paid on time. Now, many of us may not be, you know, we may not have our own business, or we may not have our own ministry, but even in the things that we do in our daily life, as team leaders or managers, if there is, you know, certain things under your control where you have to make payments to vendors, make sure that they are made on the right time, not to hold back wages, not to exploit people. I did give you examples yesterday on how, you know, many times in ministry, we ask people or we ask these companies to come and, you know, set up the stage and set up sound system. And then after the whole event, they say, you know, we cannot pay you this much. This was, it's too difficult. Now, that is the wrong thing to do. Make sure that what you have promised, what has been decided would be paid to the vendors. Then another very important point in, about organization, about people is to hire the right people. You know, there will be times, especially, especially in ministry, we need to find out the motive as to why people want to join ministry. Well, there can be plenty of motives, right? Sometimes people like to be called, you know, pastor or, you know, worship leader, or they like to, you know, just think of ministry as something that is, you know, we can do whatever we want, however we want. You know, we don't have to go to office. So there are many reasons why people want to join ministry. So when you hire, I'm just translating it into ministry, hire the right people. So also in the corporate sector, you know, we may have people with excellent knowledge, excellent in their work, but if their character and their attitude towards work is wrong, then it's going to affect the whole team. So of course, yesterday we also talked about warning, right? Never threaten or abuse, but warn your team members. There'll be, like at ABC, we have the tree strike policy. You make a mistake, right? And it's a crucial mistake. You get one warning, then you get a second warning, and then there's a third strike. You'll be out of the organization. So give people warnings, right? Now, you may be a team leader or a cell group leader in your church. There will be people who will, you know, try to cause confusion or, you know, there will be people in the cell group who may want to always be in the front line, they want to be known, they want to always be talking. So as leaders, we need to, you know, get the wisdom, ask God for wisdom to handle these kind of people because we don't want to hurt them, but we also don't want to disrupt the entire meeting, right? And so you will also learn more next year in discipleship and small groups, you'll learn about that as well. And very important, empower people to high performance, right? And your team, and even if you are part of a team, empower yourself, empower your team members for high performance, right? One of the things that we always do in terms of, I'm just going to give this example, right? In terms of APC worship, our worship ministry, we always, always look to get better and better and better. It's not like, okay, we have this team, okay, we've done this. Okay, so that's enough. No, it's always this feeling of wanting to do better. Even right now, as the whole worship team, many of us are writing songs. We are coming up with songs, melodies, because we want to just get better and better, excellent in what we're doing. And then we stopped at this. Remember that sweetness of the lips increases learning, right? Now, if you have somebody and you tell them, in a harsh way, you tell them, you don't know how to do this, how come you? You've been here for five years. Why would you know this? You should have done this before. Now, that would be the wrong way to handle the situation. The Bible teaches us that sweetness of the lips increases learning. So, you know, you may be having people in your team who are 10 years in the ministry, but they may falter in small things. Remember that sweetness of the lips. Encourage them, teach them, and tell them, you know, we can do this together. It's okay to fail. It's okay to fall. The Bible assures us that the Lord Jesus is with us. His Holy Spirit is with us. He will empower us. So, sweetness of the lips definitely increases learning. So, for example, if I join a team, whether it's ministry or a corporate sector, if I join a team and I, in the initial days itself, I have a team leader or a manager who's only shouting and, you know, who's always, you know, in stress and putting out all that stress on his team, I wouldn't want to be in that place. I would rather, you know, look out for another job with lesser pay or than to look, than to be in a place where there's constant, you know, tormenting or this constant, you know, discouragement being put on us. So, remember, sweetness of the lips increases learning. And this is something that we can implement even in our families. You know, many times the Lord has taught me how to deal with my children. You know, sometimes, you know, we get upset. We say something. So then I realized that, hey, I shouldn't have said it that way. There are better ways to say it. And so the Bible continues to teach us. And these principles, the reason it says timeless principles is because they transcend time, they transcend place and it can be used in every area of our lives, right? So if any of us are not in the corporate sector or, you know, we're finding it difficult, just implement these, translate these principles into your own life, right? Don't say, don't feel that, okay, I don't have a business or I'm not in the ministry yet. I still haven't started. It's all right. Translate these principles. Let it soak into you. And then eventually when you start off, you know, all these principles will come into your mind. The Holy Spirit will remind you, you can use it, right? So we will continue from where we stopped. We are on, let me just share the page we are in. We are on page 71. One standard for all and show no partiality. I'm on that point, right? So in an organization, have no partiality. One standard for all of them, right? Let's read Proverbs chapter 24, 23 to 25. Proverbs 24, 23 to 25. This thing also belongs to the wise. It is good. It is, it is not good to sow partiality in judgment. He who says to the wicked, you are righteous. Him the people will curse. Nations will abhor him. But those who rebuke the wicked will have delight and a good blessing will come upon them. Amen. And I'll also read the Proverbs 28, 21. To show partiality is not good because for a piece of bread, a man will transgress. There's so much of wisdom in this book of Proverbs. I think the book of Proverbs deals with every single aspect of our, you know, of our daily lives, every single thing. Here it talks about don't show partiality. Don't show partiality. Don't show partiality. Now, especially in an organization, it's very easy for us to show partiality. It's very easy. You know, if you are a team leader or a boss and you have people under you, working under you, it is very easy to show partiality. Right. Now the Bible teaches us don't show partiality, especially if you have people who are, you know, very easy to show partiality. Especially if you have people who are, you know, very good in their work, right? They're excellent. They're always performing high performers. And then you've got somebody who's average, right? And I've seen this happen in the corporate sector where this high performing guy, he, he can just apply for five, six days leave and it gets approved. But this guy who's maybe average, he says, no, you have to come. You can't take five days. But the same rules apply for both. The reason why this one's leaves are approved because he's a high performer. Now that would be very, very, very wrong. As employers, we have to treat our team members equally, right? With fairness, what you do for this person has to apply the same for the other person. Now in ministry also, you know, for example, you're a cell group leader and in the cell group you have somebody who's 30 years in the ministry and then you've got somebody who's just two years in the ministry or two years. No, he knows the load. There should not be a difference in the way you see them both. So in your, in our mind, we should tell ourselves, we should remind ourselves, okay, they both are same in the eyes of the Lord. Of course, the skills and talents are different. The rewards, I mean, their performance, all of that is going to be different. But the rules and the guidelines apply to both of them equally, right? If the cell group starts at 10 o'clock, just an example, right? 10 o'clock and you expect everyone to come at 10 o'clock and say, for example, or if not a cell group, say a meeting starts at 10 and you expect everyone to be there by 9.55 and this guy, he's a top performer and he comes at 10.30 and you say, okay, it's all right, just come and sit. And you don't, and if we don't talk to him later and tell him why he has to be on time, then that is partiality, right? The Bible is strictly against partiality. The Lord Jesus, when he chose his people, he should know partiality, right? He loved all of us. Even now, he loves all of us the same way. Whether we know the entire Bible or not, it does not matter, right? He shows no partiality. He's not going to say, okay, this guy, this person is a pastor for 30 years, so I love him more. No, he shows no partiality, right? So as people, as believers, we must do the same, right? Just because somebody, James writes it so wonderfully, just because somebody is rich and they come into the church and then don't do extra things for them just because they are rich and you know that they can sow into God's kingdom. Just be normal, right? Just be normal. In Mangalore, so we have this very, very rich person. He's a builder and he's very rich. He's very famous all across the city of Mangalore and he comes to our church. I've made it a point to make sure that I don't have this extra care for him. People come after church for prayer. If he wants prayer, he has to stand in line. He has to wait his turn just because he comes in a BMW or whatever. It doesn't mean that he gets to come first and pray and go, no. All of us are equal, right? So keep those standards right. Next one, listen to all sides of the story. Here's a very, very important point for us as leaders and every point I'm going to translate both from the workplace and in the ministry so it can help all of us, right? Proverbs 18-17. The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him. Now conflicts will happen wherever there's people working conflicts will happen, right? In an organized, there will be differences like the way I think of certain things and the way somebody else thinks of certain things will be different, right? Now we must, as leaders, learn the discipline of hearing both sides of the story because sometimes as leaders, we don't have time, right? There's these petty squabbles and silly fights that happen. We don't have time. We just listen to one side of the story and we say, okay, let's move on. Let's just make this all right, just resolve this and let's move on with the more important things to do. But sometimes in that urgency, we forget to listen to both sides of the story and we may end up hurting the other person, right? So as leaders always hear both sides of the story. Now, how do we deal with this in ministry, right? We have to deal with it in the right way. We need to make them both sit and hear both sides of the story or you can separately sit with them. I remember this elderly couple in our church, right? They are retired, their children are all gone abroad and they came to church and now in our church, we have a few families who have small children and the children keep running about and sometimes they scream and we can't help their children. But these two, this couple got really upset. They came to me and said, what is this? They are always disturbing and all that. And then I felt bad for this family, this couple, because the little girl, maybe three, four years old, they're unable to control her because it's hard. But I did speak to them, but it became a big problem later on. I realized that this couple and their children were not coming to church for a long time and I asked them what happened. This family was very upset with us and they shouted at us, meaning they just got upset and they said, why can't you control your child? Why is she making so much of noise and all that? That really, I realized that, hey, I should have dealt with that problem initially itself. I didn't know it was going to escalate so much so I went and I spoke to them and I had to hear their side of the story. They were feeling bad. The child is disrupting the service and this family, they are not used to children. They are used to quietness. Their children are all grown up and they're probably grandparents now, but they're used to quietness the whole day. So they're not used to children moving about. So I had to come up with a solution. So I said, I told this family, let it not stop you from coming to church. We will make a place where you can sit that even if the baby, the child cries, you can just quickly step out of the church for a while. And then I had to speak to this family and tell them, see, I understand that you're retired. You're not used to this. You're used to quietness, but you can't help. Children are like this. Nowadays, they don't go out every day and so when they come out, they get excited. So that should not stop. So we had to resolve, listen to both side of the stories. Both of them had a legitimate concern. The older couple is saying, we want to come worship the Lord, but every time they're screaming and shouting. But this family wanted to come to church, but this is the problem. So always listen to both side of the story and make sure that when you resolve a conflict, both sides are somewhat satisfied to do our best to somewhat make them all right. The next point, to settle a dispute, quiet the quarrelsome one. Proverbs 26, 21. A quarrelsome person in a dispute is like kerosene thrown on a fire. I like the message translation. The message translation always, you know, it brings it to life. It brings the word so much meaning and it relates so much to us. Imagine there's a fire and when there's a small fire and you have a troublesome quarrelsome person, you throw kerosene on it, the fire is just going to burst up. So if you find somebody that way in your team and I'm not just talking about corporate, I'm talking even about ministry. There are people who can scream and shout and cause a ruckus. So the best thing to do is take this person aside. Let him calm down and then speak to him. Because if he's there in that place, it's only going to cause problems. And I remember many, many years back, there was this one man who's always had an issue. He started to shout and cause of trouble and we had to actually tell him to come outside the church and stand and let him speak to him and tell him why. The reason was he was going through his own challenges, his own personal challenges. He was stressed out. So he was putting all of that stress upon this other, the people in the church and it had to be dealt with. So get the person out first and then resolve the conflict. Now, when you're resolving a conflict, use the power of a gentle response. Let's read Proverbs 15 and verse 1. Proverbs 15 and verse 1. Anyone of us? Anyone's there on Proverbs 15 and verse 1? A soft answer turns away a wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Thank you, Samuel. Now, this is not something that is only for the corporate or only for ministry. You can also apply it in our lives. Soft answer turns away a wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. How many times, you know, you've got this heated, tensed moment of conflict and we can either do two things. We can either get upset and go back to the same tone that they are speaking in, or you can give us, you can, you know, speak gently and peacefully to resolve that matter. Now, a gentle response will definitely change the minds of the other person, right? Especially when they are verbally, there are verbal attacks. They're aggressive. They're agitated. They're rude and they're just lashing out everything that they've been having in their minds. That's the best time to either stay calm, keep quiet, let their anger just pass away, or respond gently. Now, by responding gently, you will eventually bring every tension, every, you know, this agitation, everything will come down and then you can resolve and discuss the matter, right? And now, as leaders, we must ensure that we don't lose our temper and we don't get upset and say, you know, how can you talk to me like that? Do you know who I am? All of that is not required, right? Gentle response. Sometimes maybe at home, you've got, you know, a heated moment. Just stay calm. Just stay quiet. Say, okay, let it go. And then later on, you can, you know, try and resolve the problem or even during that time, use the power of a gentle response, right? And it's really, really powerful. Next point. Keep gossip and strife out of your work environment. I'll read Proverbs 26 and 20. When you run out of wood, the fire goes out. When the gossip ends, the quarrel dies. When you run out of wood, the fire goes out. When the gossip ends, the quarrel dies. You know, we've all heard of this world, right? Office politics. And we start gossiping. We start talking about, okay, what this person did, what that person did. Do you know what happened to his family? Or do you know what happened in his workplace? Do you know behind somebody's back? That's gossip, right? And when we begin to gossip and we begin to have strife in the work environment, it's going to affect the overall work, the overall performance of the team. Now, in places of ministry, we're not saying that there's no gossip. There is enough of gossip, but we need to make every effort to teach our members, our, you know, as leaders to teach them what happens when we gossip. Well, how it affects us, how it affects our team and how it's wrong in the eyes of God. So, as team leaders or people in ministry, you know, make sure you have a pulse of what's happening in your team, right? Especially when the ministry is small or your team is small, it's all right, you know what's happening. But as the team grows, as the church grows, keep an eye as to what's happening, right? And it's not like you're, you know, you're cracking them and seeing what, you know, but it's just that you're making sure that things are happening. And if there is gossip strife, you bring them out, you teach them, you correct them, you empower them, you ask them to continue, right? But I believe that it all goes back to teaching, teaching your team members through the scriptures why it's wrong to gossip, to strife, to have strife, right? And when we do that, you know, slowly things will begin to change. Now, you may be wondering as one person in a team of maybe 30 people, how can I alone change it? Now, I'm not saying that it's going to change overnight, but there are certain principles when you stand by it, maybe at least two, three people will say, hey, one thing I know is this person is not going to gossip about others. So there's no point of talking about anything to this person. So, Proverbs 17, one says, better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife, right? Better is a dry morsel with quietness, just little with some quietness, than a house full of feasting with strife. Stay away from it. If you're in a team in the corporate sector and you've got strife and people are gossiping and you know it and if you feel that it's gone out of control, just stay away from it. If people gossip, they come and tell you things, just say, hey, I prefer not to talk about it. It's all right. They may think that we are weird or it's all right. They say, hey, I prefer not to talk about it. There are many times when I was working in the corporate sector, we would all sit together and eat. Now, I just became a believer. I was so much wanting to learn the word and grow in the word and sometimes these team members would all sit together and they would start talking and talking about the other team and the other manager. I hope I was there. I hope I was here. This company is like this. Now, they are receiving a salary from the company. Yet, they kept cursing the company or saying things about people and many times I just got up and walked out of that place and they came and asked me what happened. I wanted some peace during the break. Because the whole time we are talking, I wanted some peace. But they understood that it was not for that. It was just that they kept talking and gossiping and so as leaders and team members, stay away from it. It just eats us up. Gossip and strife is not going to do anything to the other person, but it's only going to eat us up. Same as unforgiveness. It's just going to cause trouble in our own life than for others. So stay away from it. And if you feel that you have the power in some way to change things as a leader, have team meetings. Get them together. Tell them. In the corporate sector, you may not be able to bring out Bible references, Bible truths, but you can surely bring out the effects of gossip and how it's going to affect the team overall. And that way gossip and strife can slowly be taken away from the company. Now, last point. Show trouble makers the door. Proverbs 2210. Cast out the scoffer and contention will leave. Yes, strife and reproach will cease. Now, underperforming employees or employees who are causing internal problems, it's never an easy task. In the corporate sector itself, it's very difficult to, you know, sometimes it's easy for some managers to just show people the door. But in a ministry setting, it's very, very difficult. As leaders, how can I combine grace yet combine this whole thing of scriptures where you cast out the scoffer, contention will leave. But always remember, if you looked at this before itself, you can see the individual. Now, for example, you have a church or a ministry and this one person is going on causing trouble and you give him a warning. And then you say to him again, maybe two warnings, three warnings. And this constant trouble making is going on. It's affecting the entire team. Or it's affecting the entire ministry. There will be a time when you will have to show troublemakers the door. Now, I'm very sad to say this, but there are times in the church I have asked, you know, after giving a lot of warnings, maybe two, three warnings. I've escalated it to our senior pastor and we had to show people the door. We had to tell them, please, you know, we love you. We care about you, but we will not be able to, you know, as a church, we want to protect our church even though we are small and we're growing. So we request you to kindly look out for another church and not in a harsh way, but in a very kind way, request you to leave the church, or another church where you can feel comfortable. And we were very, with a very gentle way, we yet stoned, gentle yet stoned. We put the message across and they had to leave. It is very sad because, you know, it's very hard to let go of people, but then the church or the ministry or the team should supersede that individual. And so in ministry, if it has to be done, it has to be done, right? Yes, Teisha, you have a question. You raised your hand. Hi Pastor, hi Roland. Well, I was just relating to the situation that you talked about. Sometimes you got to show a person the door and that is so true. I encountered that early in my ministry, maybe about three years ago, I started off, we were in a season of prayer and fasting. And so we had a group at a time and two young ladies in particular, I think they were demon possessed. That's just my, you know, honest, I think they were. They joined and said they wanted to come and pray, but they disrupt the group. They call people at certain hours, 12 midnight, and some of them have their husbands and all of that. And that's not looking too good. You know, and they just disrupt the group. They weren't about prayer. They had a spread of confusion. They were like that young girl in acts that the devil sent them to just disrupt. It was so horrible. So, you know, I had to say listen, I really had to kick them out the group, block them. Yes. And, you know, tell them listen, this ain't gonna work. No. As you say, show them the doors. I was just sharing that I experienced that, you know, early in my ministry. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Thank you for sharing that. Yes, there will be these challenging times showing people the dough. It's not really easy, but very important is to do it in a gentle manner. They may respond very harshly or they may take it in the wrong way. They may say, you know, your ministry will go nowhere. You are nothing and all of those things. So, don't worry about all that. Right. You're doing what is important to protect your ministry. So, right. Anybody have any thoughts? Any questions? We complete chapter eight. Any thoughts, any questions? Anybody has faced office politics and how did you deal with it? Anyone would like to share? Or maybe even in the church or in the corporate sector. Okay. Christopher says, please give us examples of trouble making in the ministry. Yeah. Okay. Sure, Christopher. There are plenty of ways people can cause trouble. Like for example, you know, there will be sometimes people don't like this contemporary worship. Right. I'm just giving one example. Right. Well, they don't like contemporary worship. They want to sing hymns. Right. They say, okay, hymns are the ones we should sing. You know, and so what happens is they are discontent. And so every week they begin to, you know, probably tell other people in the church, you know, the worship team is not so good. They should start singing hymns. They should avoid all of these contemporary worship. It's all cultic worship. You know, and so what happens? They are putting seeds into people's hearts. And the others will say, oh, okay, you know, they start sending links or, you know, start sharing about podcasts and all these things. And then slowly realize that the entire, maybe a group of 10, 15 people are all of a sudden raising their voice and saying, we don't like the worship. How did it start off? Initially they were okay with it, but then how did it start off with these two people? So if you dig down deep, ask questions, you talk, you ask questions, discuss with the people, you will find out who the real troublemakers are. And so that is one. Then you have people in ministry who will, you know, especially dealing with money as well. You know, there are times when people will put in wrong builds. They'll start claiming for wrong, for things which they didn't even have expenses for. And then it becomes a habit. And then at, you know, they begin to maybe share it with other people in the team. The others as well do it. Now these are troublemaking things. And Paul, sorry, in the book of Revelations, you know, one of the, I think you'll are doing Revelations as well this year. One of the churches, they were troublemakers, right? And they were causing strife, they were causing trouble within the church. So yeah, Christopher, there are plenty, plenty of ways people, it can be as simple as, you know, a song which people sing, worship song. It can be as simple as, you know, like what I mentioned, causing trouble because children are making sound, making too much noise in the church. So of course, you give warnings, you give maybe one or two warnings. And then if you don't see a change, if they don't take the suggestions that are given, if they don't take the advice in the right way, then we have to show them the door. Yeah, Christopher, would you want more examples? Yeah, there's plenty even as you... Is that okay, Christopher? Would you like more examples? Let's have another question. Yeah, go ahead. I'm just typing it out. Okay, I think somebody else also raised their hands. Was that Rupa? I'm sorry, I didn't see that. Was it Rupa who raised her hand? Okay, Christopher, another question. In ministry, is it a practice to do reference checks? Okay, so the Bible teaches us, as we looked at the point there, always look at both sides of the story. So when you mean reference checks, meaning to check with people, you're talking about hiring people, while hiring people, usually they do... Okay, for recruitment. Now, I will answer this this way. Now, if there's somebody who is in the church, say for example, you've been in this church for five years, you're serving in the church for five years, and the church knows you, the pastoral team knows you, everyone see you, for example, sound and setup team. So everyone know you. You've been serving five odd years, three to five years, you've been serving faithfully. Now, all of a sudden this young man wants to join, you know, wants to, there's an opening for a certain role in the church, and it's in line with what he's doing. Say for example, HR. And so if he wants to apply for the job, now as a main, say for example, I'm there, I'm in the recruiting process. I've seen this person for five years, right, serving in the sound and setup team faithfully. So I wouldn't want to do any reference check on him, right, because he has served faithfully in the church. We have seen him Sunday after Sunday, you know, for all our meetings, for all our programs, he's there, he's serving. I wouldn't want to do any reference check, right. Now, if there is somebody who goes online to our website and says, okay, there's an opening HR, and he applies for it, right, and say he is maybe one year in our church, right. But we haven't, we don't really know, right, whether he has come every week or it's just one year in the church. So what I would do is I would consider him, but I will also find out details about him, right. I would find out what is his understanding. Now, if this is with Christopher, I'm just talking in terms of recruiting in ministry. What do you want for the workplace as well? No, just for me. Okay, okay. So for, yeah, so this person is maybe one year, and we haven't seen him much in the church. But he suddenly comes and says, I'm part of your church. I want to apply for this position. Now, I would want to know more details about him. What is his understanding? What is his, now he may have the qualifications to be a HR manager, whatever. He may have 10 years old experience. So that's good. In the area of his work, that's all right. But I also, since it's ministry, I need to check what's his understanding of the scriptures, what's his character like. How is he going to be in line with the vision of the team? So if not a reference check, whatever I do is I would put them in a probation kind of a period, maybe give them six months, see how they are, see how they work, maybe keep somebody senior to just help him out, to walk him through certain processes and see, and in maybe six months make a decision. For all you know, he may be a very quiet person just wanting to do his job and go home. But then there's this other times when there are people who are coming from different ministries or just people from different places. They're not part of your church and they apply. I would definitely do reference check, yes. I would ask them to send their pastors details, and whichever team they've served in, a letter from the pastor saying that you are part of this church, you have served in this church, yes. I would definitely do a reference check. Any other questions, any other thoughts? Welcome Christopher. I think Rupa had raised her hand. I'm sorry, I'm not sure if she's here on the call. All right, any other thoughts? Those who are in the corporate or those who are in the leadership role? Any of the challenges? We've got about four minutes left. Any of the challenges? Tarun's been with us for many years. Tarun, do you have any thoughts? Anything that you would like to share? Samuel, any thoughts? So a few thoughts, Pastor. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. So this prophet that I've been on for a year now, which is about around, I think, conflict resolution, but it's more to do with creating a space for everyone to say what they're feeling, what they're thinking, like an intentional space, because when you normally tell people, does anyone have any thoughts? You don't get many volunteers, but there will be in the room, there will be people wanting to say something, but you're not sure, should I say, should I not say. And that's, I think, a normal culture, especially, I don't know, but in Sikkim, we are a very conflict-avoiding society, where even if I don't like something, someone, I will never bring that up. I would rather go and talk behind that and let other people know that I'm not happy, not happy with the company, but never in a forum where I'm supposed to bring the tensions out. So creating a culture, creating that safe space, intentionally by saying, I think by a few techniques, but things like small groups going in rounds, that has been quite a game changer where there is intentional practice put behind listening to each and every one, giving people a space to voice out however they're feeling whether it's good or bad, or suspending judgment and things like that. So, yeah, I got reminded of all of that when you were sharing about gossip. Like, I felt like, you know, gossips happen a lot. Like even good people, you know, I think integrity issues are something that is rare, like where people steal money from the company or does something. It's not that it doesn't happen, but it's not so frequent. But gossip is something that's very common and even good nature, very integral people, trustworthy people end up saying, essentially they're not gossiping, but it's just that because they've not been given that platform to express, say, they end up saying it outside the room or to someone else and that often comes across as gossiping or backbiting or saying negative things. But when a company takes that intentional space to create something, I think it's different. So that's something that I wanted to share. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Sam. We are very true, especially in true words. They may be going through very difficult time in their office. They just won't speak out. And we'll learn more in the next chapter workplace relationships and how, you know, as leaders, as managers, we need to develop an environment like what Samuel was saying, an open space where people are free to talk about what challenges they're going through. And so next week, chapter nine workplace relationships, we look at, you know, how we can maintain love, maintain openness and, you know, how we need to be sensitive to others' feelings, cheer up people, avoid, you know how we can avoid causing strife in workplace relationships. So yes, we will talk about that next week. Kennedy, talk about retirement in ministry. Any guidance? Is it okay if we can take your question up next week, please? It's 9.50 now. So you guys have to go to the next class. So we'll take that question up next week. Thanks, Kennedy. All right. Let's close in prayer. Maybe one of us can close in prayer for us. I'll be nice. Do you think you can do that for us, please? Yes, your pastor. Thank you. Thank you. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful time and the moment that you have given us Lord Jesus. Thank you, Father God, for your words, for your teaching, Father God, that you have provided and resources, Father God, that you have given us Lord Jesus. Father God, as we are learning for the marketplace, Father God, help us to learn more and more, Father God, so that we will not fall or stumble, Father God, but we will recognize and realize, Father God, what is right and what is wrong, Father God, and what's your words, Father God, and help us too, Father God, to work in your word, Father God, Lord Jesus. We're submitting this time and all the classes into your mighty hand, Father God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen, amen. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. Have a great week ahead. I'll see you next Monday. God bless.