 And I think we're having some good discussion going on and also I'm trying to be a little faster because we have the whole book to cover and there are wonderful insights and so many relevant questions to be answered. So just trying to see how we can cover everything but at the same time have questions answered. So if you feel the pace is too fast, please let me know. I can slow down a bit but if it's okay then we will continue in a way, in this way, I'll just share some key thoughts and then keep moving on to the next section, okay? And if you have questions then you can always you know stop me in between, raise your hand post the questions on the chat, we can discuss it and then keep moving forward. So we're talking about you know aspects that make the local church strong and just now we looked at the fact that we must be relevant, okay? So if we are aloof then the church is not making an impact on the lives of the people in the city and the nation. So here's the next important thing that makes a local church strong and that is raising up leaders, okay? So this cannot be neglected at all because leaders are the pillars in the house of God. So when we have several pillars, what is the benefit from that? The building will be strong. You have enough pillars to hold up the building for the long run. So in the same way for a local church we need lots of leaders, good leaders, strong leaders. So this is not just a senior pastor or you know one or two people in the pastoral team and making up the leaders in the church but along with the pastoral team if you have a lot of other leaders, you know, ministry leaders, cell group leaders, basically we are grooming lots and lots of leaders. The church will be a strong place. Now of course it's not easy to nurture leaders to help them grow again. We are only facilitating because ultimately growth is every individual's responsibility but we can facilitate that growth. And hopefully if the individuals, you know, grow well in the Lord then you have, you know, quite a few leaders that are sort of upholding the church. But if the leaders don't grow or somewhere along the journey they decide to leave for whatever reason, maybe God has a different calling on their lives, it's fine. It's fine. The main leadership as such, the senior pastor and you know the other pastors, their task is to continually look out for people who can be groomed into leadership. Now if these people quit, meaning they don't want to grow anymore, that is unfortunate. But if they choose to continue to grow in a different setting where God is leading them, it's still beneficial for the kingdom of God. Now they may not be serving in our local body but that's okay. They are a part of another local church and they are contributing to the life of that church and ultimately the kingdom of God is growing. So we must constantly look out for potential leaders and invest in the growth and the maturing of those leaders. So strong leaders are very necessary for a strong local church. Now the next aspect here is the continuity of the local church. Now when Paul instructed Timothy, he did tell Timothy that the ministry should be entrusted or committed to faithful men who will also be able to teach others. So what was Paul telling him? So Paul was saying that it's good that Timothy is serving to mature the church but at the same time he must think of the future. When Timothy is maybe old or he has to move on to new territory where God may be calling him, who is going to run the church? Who is going to take on the position of leadership? So it's important for a strong local church to establish that continuity. Now how can we do this in a practical way? There are some insights here which pastor shares. So he talks about how he looks out for people who are even 20 years younger than him, 25 years younger than him, 30 years younger than him. So you look out for people quite early and when you find that God puts certain people on our hearts who may be much younger than us, we can identify, we can also begin the nurturing process because we are aware that God has a calling, God has a purpose for this individual and maybe God is impressing it on our hearts and saying they might take over leadership in a certain area. So you start grooming them much early. So any pastor, any senior leader should be investing in the lives of people who are much, much younger than him or her. Okay. So for example, I've heard this said often that children's church is not the church of tomorrow. Children's church is the church of today. So sometimes what happens as leaders, as pastors, we just get caught up in doing Sunday services. We get caught up in managing the adult church and we don't think that, hey, those teenagers who are watching us, those kids who are part of the children's church, they are the ones who are actually being groomed. Like how much of the work of the word and the work of the spirit is affecting them today. Okay. That they can one day step into the grace, the gifting, the calling of God upon their lives. So for a senior leader, it's very important and it is also good to be intentional about identifying people who are much younger than the leader and then begin to invest in their lives. You know, and it might take years and years of time. Okay. So yeah. So I mean, I'm just thinking about myself also. I think it was, when was this? I don't even remember. It was several years ago that one day passages asked like, hey, can you preach? Okay. And for me personally, like I had no clue that I can preach. I was running a live group. And just to prepare the messages for the live group and share it. It was such a stressful activity. Like if live group is on Wednesday by Tuesday, I'll have a mental breakdown. So that's what was going on. But even I didn't recognize that, okay, I can understand God's word or I can share God's word, not at all. But anyway, long story short, I guess the leadership, they kind of understood the grace. So the opportunity started early on and, you know, several opportunities, several opportunities. And just as I'm journeying through, right, I recognize, oh man, I would have never imagined. I would have never imagined that this is an area where I could contribute in the kingdom of God. But the journey has happened and it's not like a one day journey. It's definitely, I mean, safe to say that, you know, more than a decade since I first preached my first sermon, right? And so, but I'm thankful that, you know, there were people who have invested and very consistently over time. And that's like, you know, such a blessing. And, you know, I'm just sharing from my life and I'm saying that if that can be done to the younger generation, you know, that will ensure not just the continuity of a local church, but I'm looking at this, like from the kingdom perspective also, right? So we must intentionally look out for those who are younger and invest, invest in their lives, help them, groom them, nurture them, strengthen them. And here is a portion given in our notes from Judges 2 where, you know, like Joshua, you know, Joshua walked closely with the Lord. But then they also talk about a generation after the conquest of Joshua and all that that generation that followed Joshua, it is said that they did not know the works of the Lord. I'll read it for us. Judges 2 verse 10. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel. So, there was a gap. One generation experienced, you know, if you want to call it like a revival or the work of God and the power of God and everything. But they did not invest in the next generation. So, when they were through, we read in Judges that a fresh new generation came on scene who were not equipped, who were not taught the things of God and that is very dangerous because they wouldn't know where to lead the church. They wouldn't know how to extend the kingdom. So, it is the responsibility of our generation to be a blessing to the succeeding generations. So, actively in a local church, if people, the leadership is able to invest in the lives of those who are younger than us, then we can see an entire generation, rise up for God and whatever even Charles was talking, influence the government, influence education, influence the media, influence, you talk about all the seven spheres, seven mountains that can impact society. Every stir can be affected because we are investing into the next rising generation. But if we fail to do that, you know, they won't know that they have grace, they won't know what gifting is, what they won't know, what anointing is, they won't know, you know, what they should do. They'll just, you know, do life and fail to carry on the legacy that has been handed over to them. So, that's a little bit about strong local churches and what are the things that make a local church strong. So, once we discuss questions, comments, we will move on to the next chapter here. Kennedy says, is modernity masculating the gospel in local churches? So, again, Kennedy, when we say modernity, the way I would look at this is like, see, as long as we are true to the word of God, true to scripture, we are good, right? And when we are true to the word and we are relevant, that's okay to be modern. Okay, but what exactly do you mean by modernity masculating the gospel? If you could please expand it further, I think that will help us understand. Yeah, Kennedy, go ahead, please. Yeah, sorry to interrupt, Kennedy, but can't hear your voice. Okay, I think there's an audio issue. Okay, we'll wait for very faint, very faint, very faint again, Kennedy, sorry. Okay, not to worry, how about you just hold on to the question and then we can come back towards the end. You could type it in the chat. Okay, thank you. So, do I move on to the next chapter here? Yes, ma'am. Okay, great, let's move on to the next chapter. Now, again, the next chapter is a very, very interesting one. It's about church growth principles. I would recommend that you watch, in fact, most of the church growth principles here are from David Yongecho, who is the pastor of Yeouido Full Gospel Assembly in Seoul, Korea. And there's also a seminar video, which is available on YouTube. So, if you could listen to that, it's very interesting to hear him share his own story. So, many of the points that he shares there are also covered here. So, church growth principles. Now, God wants us to be fruitful. We've talked about that. And I told us earlier that when we think about the Gospel spreading far and wide and many people coming into the kingdom, that is a great thing. Because that's what Jesus wanted us to do, right? Go preach the Gospel and even to the end of the age, I'm with you, he says. So, we're supposed to take the Gospel everywhere, right? Every tribe, every tongue, every nation. We see all categories of people in the Book of Revelation. So, the Gospel has to go out. And therefore, for a leader or a pastor or even those who are engaged in other forms of ministry in the church, for us to desire the growth of the local church, it's a godly thing. Now, some of us might feel that, hey, if the church grows too big, then what about community? What about fellowship? I'm sure there are wise ways in which it can still happen. The community can happen. But because we want strong fellowship, if you're saying, oh, no, let the church be small, I think we will be going against the very mandate that God has given us. We are called to impact hundreds and thousands of people. So, for us to desire church growth, it's a good thing. And many of the nations that we all come from, we know the population is huge, right? And so, there are so many people waiting to hear the Gospel. And it is our responsibility to take the Gospel out. Now, how do we see the growth of the church? We will discuss some key things that will help us see growth. So, these are principles for church growth. The first one is to have a strong vision. And these principles, again, as I told you, they're being shared from what Dr. David Yongecho shares in his seminars. So, he talks about having a strong vision for a large growing church. And he says that the vision must be such that it kind of overtakes you. The vision is in your heart. You're dreaming about it all the time. And that becomes the fuel that is making you work. You're fine to work tirelessly because there is a vision in your heart. And you're looking at the church, the kind of church that God wants you to have, the numbers that God wants you to have. So, the vision is very powerful. And Dr. Cho, he talks about how the language of the Holy Spirit is dreams and visions, okay? And the clearer you get the vision from God, the clearer you can communicate that vision and people can follow along. So, the responsibility of a leader is to get a clear vision from God. And the Holy Spirit will minister to us with the vision, with dreams. And we need to learn how to receive this communication. And I mean, I'm putting it in a simple way, but it's nice to listen to him talk about it. Okay, and he talks about how God put a vision of a large church in his heart. And when he had something like three or five people in the church, you know, he would preach like he's preaching to thousands of people. And those three people like pastor, like, you know, our ear drums are hurting. Why are you screaming? You know, they would say things like that to him. But in his heart, he was overtaken by the vision. And he's like, yeah, I know it's just three of you. But one day, there's going to be so many thousands of people in this church. And surely so, I think in a matter of three decades, the church grew to 800,000 people. I think that was the number in three decades, what they saw. So you see, he says that he began with the vision. So when there were no people, there was a vision. Okay, so even if we don't have people, if we have a vision, we're fine. Because sooner or later, as we are journeying with God, you know, scriptures say that the write down the vision, the vision will surely come. Okay, so the vision is very important because if there is no vision, then we don't know what to work towards. So for a pastor who is trusting God for church growth, a vision of that large church is very, very crucial. And we see in scripture that the vision is supposed to be very real to us. So here in your notes, there's a statement that says, when you embrace the vision, the vision will embrace you. So every day you're living for the vision. Okay, so that strong vision, strong desire to see the vision fulfilled will drive us. Now this vision will take us forward. The vision will also change us. We're ready to change in line with that one vision that God has to bring the growth in the church. So vision is the key thing that will help us. And even when things seem dead, the only thing that keeps us going is the vision. Okay, so in Yonge Joe's experience, he talks about the progression like from three people to something like 300 people, then 3000 people. And then there were a lot of struggles in between times when he thought, hey, well, this really happened. But at those times, it was the vision that kept him going. And God is somebody who speaks and he addresses things that don't exist as though they did. And what can make us declare the things that don't exist, a clear vision in our hearts because it's like what your natural eyes can't see, your spiritual eyes are seeing that. So we have to see that from our spiritual eyes. And when we're able to see that, the soon will come, the growth will come eventually. So the vision is the key thing. Now, moving on, the second important principle for church growth is to have a strong burning desire, okay, strong burning desire. And he talks about how he worked hard, he prayed hard, right? So there are times when he says that every time God would put a number in his heart, like, okay, at one point, I think God told him like, you'll have 300 people or something like that. So he just walks around his church, he just circles his church, prays, prays, prays. And that strong desire that, yes, I know, I know, it's going to move from this number to the next number. So he was willing to pray hard, he was willing to keep that zeal and burning desire to see the church move to the next level. So it's important because if we don't have a burning desire, if it's just like, if it happens, it happens, if it doesn't happen, it's okay, that attitude will not get us anywhere. So especially when it comes to church growth, for somebody who has a vision for church growth, I think the desire must kind of be very strong that we are moving in this direction and we know that God is going to touch many lives, transform the city through this church, transform the nation through this church. And you keep desiring, praying, working towards that. So first is to have a strong vision. Second is to have a strong burning desire. The third is to engage in continuous prayer and spiritual warfare. The reason for this is that any territory, we've discussed about this, like the strongholds in that region and the territorial spirits, the spiritual influences have to be broken. Now, we may work very hard, but if the spiritual aspects are not dealt with, then our labor, we may not see fruit for our labor. So in a seminar, he talks about how the ministry which they did in Korea, in Korea, they also initiated, okay, sorry about that class, there's been a network issue at my end, but that's okay, we will continue from where we stopped. I hope you can hear me. Yes ma'am. Okay, thank you, thank you, Ami. All right, so I was saying that, so they had a lot of prayer going on in Korea. So he talks about how when they went out to preach, the response that they received in Korea was incredible. Like a lot of people responded to the gospel message, but apparently, you know, close by when they went to Japan to do the ministry, they did not have people responding to the gospel. Okay, so his understanding was that, you know, the kind of spiritual warfare that went on in Korea did not happen in Japan and maybe because of that, you know, the spiritual atmosphere was not set to see the results or the fruit that they were seeing in Korea. So he uses that example, but you know, we have talked about this earlier, we have studied about this earlier. So engaging in spiritual warfare, right and binding the strongman or the work of the spirits that control that region, you know, we are cancelling that, we are destroying that through prayer and worship. So this is very important for church growth because at the end of the day, what are all our natural exercises, you know, they are meant to bring about spiritual results. So we must engage in prayer, we must engage in worship and that is very important for church growth. So spiritual warfare and continuous prayer is another key, maintaining strong faith. Okay, so faith is important because, you know, like any, any other goal or vision that God may have given each one of us, even if we are not a pastor, we understand that only with faith, we can keep going on in the journey. The example would be that of Abraham, right. So we know that God gave him a promise, but it was 25 years before he actually had Isaac, right, and the promise was fulfilled. So 25 years, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of difficulties, I'm sure there must have been times when Abraham thought, you know, is this really going to happen? But your faith is the the evidence of things yet to come. So if we have faith, we can journey through those seasons that may be challenging. And faith is not a feeling, you know, sometimes we feel like, yeah, this will happen. But there are many times we feel that I don't think this is going to happen. But it's not a feeling. Faith is, you know, our dependence on God and faith is a choice that we make. So we must continue in faith. And especially when it comes to church ministry, church planting, church growth, there's a lot of faith involved, right? And that will help us press through the challenges. So maintaining strong faith is also important. Then having a close fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Now why do we need close fellowship with the Holy Spirit? That is the lifestyle which is recommended for any believer and especially somebody who wants to make this journey of church growth. Now, Dr. Cho, he, he refers to the Holy Spirit as the senior partner. He says, the Holy Spirit is the senior partner and I am the junior partner. So the senior partner gives the instructions and I run with the instructions. So it's something like, you know, you're receiving that strength, you're receiving the guidance, you're receiving the ability, right? So basically you're receiving everything from the Holy Spirit and that is driving you forward in seeing the church growth actually happen. So we must trust the Holy Spirit for everything that he has to give us. Even the power of God, like in the ministry, definitely without the power of the Holy Spirit being released and touching the lives of the people, you know, that's not ministry at all. If people's lives are not touched in that way and it can only happen through the Holy Spirit. So we must learn to engage with the Holy Spirit. We must learn to communicate with the Holy Spirit. We must, you know, walk in such a way that, you know, we are completely dependent on the Holy Spirit and, you know, scriptures say that when we are in Christ Jesus, we become one spirit with him, right? So that kind of a closeness, koinonia or partnership, fellowship with the Holy Spirit is very, very important. Now, as part of the deep communion with the Holy Spirit, there is a four-step process called incubation and I think for, not sure if we have sufficient time to look at it in a proper way. So I think I'll pause here. Any questions so far on the church growth principles? Okay. All right, so you're getting an idea of what these principles are. So let me do this. Okay. I was also just getting the comment on the church growth that self-fellowships, which Dr. Yangeteo really adopted, really goes a long, long way. And in having those self-fellowships, we're reaching out not just to their spiritual needs, but also trying to see how we can meet their physical needs, because that also goes a long way in drawing people and then drawing people to the church. And then also setting up programs that I believe strongly that primarily the church is supposed to build people spiritually. But it's also important that the church also finds ways to bridge, to form bridges between the society and the church. The church also can be empowered to come up with programs that will make men useful in the society. Those things are ways of drawing people. People, people who don't want to hear the gospel, it could be a means of getting them into the church. And by doing that, we can use it as an opportunity and capitalize on those kinds of programs that make men useful in the society, to bring the gospel to them and then bring them into the church. And that way we can expand, because now we're, like you mentioned, the several mountains of society, we can be influential in these places and use those areas to draw men into the church. So that's just my comment. Yeah, sure, sure. So thank you for sharing that. And in fact, we are going to talk about some of these things in the, you know, maybe in the next class, right? So it's part of the church growth principles. So we will discuss that. And I've quickly put a link here in our chat. This is what I was talking about. It'll be good between now and the next class if you can have a look at it. The video quality is not that great, but at least you will get to hear the message from Dr. Cho's address in a church growth seminar. Okay. And I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Yeah. So any further comments? Is Kennedy back with us? Kennedy, do you want to try asking a question now? Oh, yes, perfect. Yes, Kennedy, you are. Yeah. My big concern was most local churches don't talk about the supernatural. They are more focused on enlightenment. The enlightenment is more than speaking about the supernatural. That's what I was asking. Is modernity affecting the gospel? So that's what you meant. Yeah. Yes, Kennedy, a very relevant question. So what Kennedy is saying is in the attempt to be relevant, people preach, teach, but they don't demonstrate the power of the gospel. And this is also considered like the modern gospel where there's more of just the teaching aspect, but not the supernatural power of God. And that's true. That's true. And we must be careful not to get into that, because obviously we know that that's not how Jesus ministered the kingdom. So there are three aspects, preaching, teaching, and demonstrating the power of the kingdom. So that's the biblical way. Yeah, sure. Yes, Harrison. Thank you. Okay, Kennedy. Yeah, okay. Thank you, Kennedy. Yes, Harrison, you have a question we can have quickly, because I think the time is up. Okay. It's just some of the few things enough observed in ministry here in Africa. And it's more like we tend to focus on the building more than the people. We tend to focus on infrastructures. We tend to focus on the material things than the people in those in that material things. And at the end of the day, it's more like you're not you do what you do by the end of the day, you're not seeing the result of what you're doing. And when you look at it, it's you notice that you've channelled your energy in pouring out everything that you have on the building and the people. So it is very good in a way we understand, you know, what ministry is, you understand what it means, you know, to to run a local church, you know, because as they come in, you know, I do say that, you know, the church also is like a hospital. You know, a lot of people will come in, some are broken, some are wounded, and so many other things. And how do you address them? How do you address those issues? We need to we need to put up, you know, activities, you know, that we help them come out, you know, from that trial and challenges, you know, that face. And when we are not seeing ourselves, you know, doing this thing, then it becomes a problem. Thank you. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your insights. And with that, we will wrap up the class. Oh, okay. Yeah, so, okay, everyone, thank you so much. I know you have another class to attend. So please feel free to log out. God bless you. And I'll, we'll meet again next week. Okay. So take care. God bless. Bye. Bye for now. Bye, mom. Bye. Thank you. God bless you too.