 the recording should start. Okay, the recording has just started. So good morning and welcome everyone. Let's take a moment please just to pray together and then we will get started. Let's pray. Stephen, would you please like to lead us in prayer? Thank you Lord Father for this wonderful day that you came in as a father for adding one more day into our lives of father which is surrendered this day and our lives of father and this class into your hand. I pray a father that we would learn something new a lot and whatever has been thought of father we would be able to understand and grasp and put those into our lives of father in action of father in the days to come and and this would help as a father build your kingdom and expand your kingdom of father in a way that that you would be pleased in a way that that your name would be glorified a lot. I just surrender a pastor into your hand Father just anoint him to submit the rest of the entire class into your hand of father. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. All right let me just. All right so last week we spent some time talking about policies standards and guidelines that we need to you know document put in place for the various things that are being done as an organization as a Christian church or a Christian organization it's important to have policies very clearly spelled out and like I you know try to just share that some some of these policies would evolve over time because you know you learn through some of the experiences and some of the situations you face then you say oh I need to have a policy for that kind of a situation if it repeats so on some some of these things you can do preemptively that means you can know in advance especially for routine things okay like different activities where you know example graphics or software development or you know certain ministry activities which are routine you can know and so it's better you know right from beginning you put certain standards certain guidelines certain policies in place that really helps in the smooth functioning today we are going to start talking about another important aspect about the of the church or ministry so when I say ministry it could be local church it could be any kind of Christian organization another important aspect is which we call as operations and we having to do with systems and processes so let me just share this document that I have put out for us in our class notes now for some of you you know these terms operations systems processes may be familiar for some of us it may not be familiar so you know don't don't get worried if it's not familiar you will understand it as we go through now what we talk about and so so essentially as you are part of the church of ministry the there is of course a spiritual side which we call as ministry but the church is also an organization or the ministry is also an organization now sometimes people don't look at it that way they only look at oh it's only ministry you know I'm doing ministry I'm preaching I'm teaching I'm praying for people I'm serving people spiritually that is true but it is also an organization I mean the the the work is being done that is ministry but what is supporting the work is an organization and for that organization to function if you break it down into smaller you know what is that organization made of an organization is really made up of many systems with processes you know any organization if you break it down it is made up of many systems with processes and the functioning of all of these systems and processes we refer to as operations so operation just a generic term of a or how are all the systems the the components of the systems within this organization how they are all functioning and so on so if you want to look at you know a system in a process just this is more of an introduction we'll get into more detail just I just give an example okay a system is like a box in a black box something and you put an input and outcomes something so the system does works upon the input and converts the input into a desired output so for example you can think of a blender a blending machine right so the blending machine takes input it takes in fruit cut fruit put it put it inside example it has power supply all of that then you turn the blender on and what are we expecting is output you know juice you know it's blended that juice and the fruit and gives us fruit fruit juice so this is simple example okay so we have a system which is a blending machine the input to the blending machine is of course cut fruit and electricity power and the system does its job and the output is fruit juice okay yes so there's input output and then there is something to the system that does the does the work on what has been given to it so you know this paragraph is more of a technical thing it's you know a system is a collection of components there's an inflow of maybe information other materials that come into the system okay that's in our example it would be cut fruit and electricity and then the system has boundaries okay here in this case it's a physical system and an outside the system is the environment and the usually the environment may or may not have effect on the system in our case the blender yeah the environment has it because if you don't have power the system will not work right and and there's feedback that's the system tells you know gives information on what's going on to other systems that connect to it in our case we're just looking at an isolated system a blender okay but if you look at the organization and I just try to create a picture the organization has a whole the church for example the church so if you think this church this this whole church or ministry it actually has many ministry areas right so example you'd have you have a youth ministry you have women's ministry you have children's ministry I worship ministry you have you know emissions you have books publications for example you know so let's these are our six different ministry areas that make up the that what that's what the organization is doing or the church is doing and for each ministry area for that to function example for the youth ministry to function actually if you look at it from an organization side it has a lot of systems happening inside a lot of you know different things that do the work and there's a flow of information across you know between these systems so example within the youth ministry they may be you know things that happen and there's the weekly life groups that are happening so there's a system that needs to make sure life groups happen then there is a monthly youth gathering happening so there's a system that make sure all the monthly youth gatherings should happen then there may be you know the youth youth missions you know so something that makes sure that youth are going on missions so like that you could have several systems within this one area and they interact they all interact with each other share information so right so if you look at the organization really if you break it down there are a lot of systems that interwork working together right and although I have put these in separate boxes really all these ministry area similarly are interacting with each other and they're not they're not working in isolation they're all interacting with each other to make up what the organization is doing so in our context when we talk about a system it's saying some repetitive functional activity that needs to be done to achieve a specific ministry objective right so that's one of these boxes some repetitive it's happening you know life group life groups are meeting every week youth life groups example youth meetings happening every month once a month so it's a repetitive thing it's happening over and over again every month or every week yeah and it has to be done in a certain way now in our context especially this system here is actually made up of people you know so we use the blending machine as an example the machine was a system but for us a system is not a machine most of our things are you know in the ministry it's all people so we have various people with different skills or doing different activities and they're working together and they make up a system so literally you could almost think of a system as a team of people with different roles and different things and they're all working together to achieve a common objective which is run the life groups make the monthly youth meeting happen so they're all working together but then there's also process that means the other there's a flow of information there's a flow of people there's a flow of finances so that that is also happening so what we must understand is for this organization to function very well right for this organization to function very well and basically eventually the ministry to happen very well the systems and processes must be designed and must be organized very well okay so we look at some example different examples as we go along today so I just mentioned what youth ministry but you can just look at an accounting department okay the finance department I'm just calling it accounting some people call it finance it's okay at the accounting department so so this this whole big box you can think of okay let's say that's a ministry accounting but accounting has many systems within it we have offer tree counting then we have deposits have to happen purchases have to happen expense claims come in from staff and they have to be paid salaries have to be paid vendors have to be paid reports have to be given to people who need it and budgets have to be made and given so take for example just a simple one system in the accounting department offer tree counting this system has to be well designed and the connected processes put in place let me explain so offer tree counting when does it happen usually this of offer tree is received Sunday morning so we haven't done it for a long time because of the lockdown and all that but in pre-lockdown days what would happen every Sunday morning as part of the service offer tree will be received but it's not just a simple thing that people give money no first of all for offer tree to happen you need offering boxes where people put the money into but these offering boxes have to be secure so that means you know there has to be some sort of a lock or something so that money is put in the boxes and are safe so that needs to be that's all I'm just talking about the details of one system just one box one system right what goes into it so you need offering boxes then you need ushers who are ready who are trained who know how to you know pass the offering boxes and collect all the offering you know the offering boxes at the are taken to the back of the church or a designated area where they kept until the service is over but the offering offering boxes as part of what we do as a good practice is the money must be counted immediately at the venue before it is sent to the church office that's step one so you need a team a counting team and again the counting team you have say example five people as a team in the in B of in the site of all the five people the boxes are opened and money is put out then the counting happens everything has to be written down in a book you know so so much came through cash so much came to check whatever all written down it has to be verified by two people signed off the money the book everything is put in a sealed packet and that sealed packet has to reach the church office on the first working day which is Monday so so this whole offering counting is a system and how that all the things take place are the processes within that system right that means how the offering is received how it is counted how it is documented how it is all sealed how it is sent to the church office so one system and there are processes happening within that system for it to function well now if something goes wrong in the system especially now in this case in this particular case of offer tree you know it could be quite bad for example in this case it could result in the in the loss of money you know that let's say if hope it doesn't happen but let's say if money is stolen you know somehow somewhere before the from after the time the money is collected if it doesn't when by the time it reaches the church office if money is taken out what will happen that you know first of all the person who gave it will feel very bad that their money didn't reach the church and was not used for the ministry and the ministry is going to be impacted because that money is lost so the system has to be very tight in this particular case the processes have to be very clearly defined what the system must do has to be clearly expressed so that that that one system within you know in that ministry area in this case accounting should function very well okay so but for the accounting department of function remember there are many other systems also offer accounting is only one system that is part of this unit this department so like this you know everything has to be defined so deposits if you think about deposits that's also a system so that means when the money comes to the church office so how will deposits happen well it's like this the money comes to the church office over there in the church office everything is reconciled checked once again right so the book is open the logbook is open the cash is counted the checks are checked looked at it's okay everything is fine yeah it's in order countered once again then that amount has to be physically taken to the bank and in the bank it has to be deposited and we have to get a receipt that tallies everything so if the money that came in was fifty thousand in the it was fifty thousand was counted in the in the service at the end of the service fifty thousand was counted once again in the church office fifty thousand was once again deposited in the bank account all three records must tally then we know that this depositing system has worked some if you know something goes wrong and you know fifty thousand came in but forty nine thousand was deposited that's a problem you know something is wrong with the deposit system there's there's a leak there and money is being lost again but that's another thing and so these two systems of a tree counting and deposit are connected and they're exchanging information and information is being cross verified and checked so like this I'm just giving examples different systems have to be clearly defined and then they all work together for one department to work and then of course this department is also working together with all the other departments another good way to look at this whole system and process is by looking at the human body right and I've just copy pasted some information here about the human body it's just from Wikipedia it's just general information yeah so the human body has these main systems so you talk about the cardiovascular system digestive endocrine exocrine immune or lymphatic muscular nervous renal or urinary reproductive respiratory and skeletal right so these are the main systems in the body so each system is doing something and together all these systems together make up the human body but all these systems are working together they're not in isolation you know the bones don't go off and say wow you know we're doing it on our own you know the bones are there part of the body they all have to work together and they're also providing something for the rest of the body so example the bone the skeletal system they protect all the important organs in the body right they protect the heart they protect part of the cardiovascular system they protect part of you know all the other organs are being protected by the bones you know the brain is protected the lungs are protected the heart is protected so other systems are deriving benefit from the skeletal system similarly the respiratory system the lungs are not breathing in isolation the lungs are breathing but the whole body all the other systems in the body are deriving benefit from the respiratory system and there is an interplay that means the exchange of information so if the body is walking fast the you know the respiratory system has to breathe you know more so that it can provide so various systems they are benefiting other systems and there is exchange of information flow of information across these systems and all these systems to get that make up the body so that is how the organization of the church of the ministry must function so there is a ministry side you know there's a preaching happening there's a worship happening there's a prayer happening there are members are being cared for and missions are happening and okay that's all the ministry said but what is behind all that operations there is this organization that has to operate very well but for that to operate very well how can you make it operate well you have to think about it in terms of systems and processes okay so hope that helps us understand for this whole body to function every system has to be working well so if there's a problem with our muscular system you know we can have good bones but if the muscles are not there the bones you know cannot the rest of the body cannot it will be affected out of the problem with the digestive system or you know so in problem with any system affects the whole overall body okay so we can have excellent you know you know one system could be very working really well but if another system is not doing well still the body suffers so when we think about the administration of the organization the church organization ministry organization we need to think about putting good systems and process in place right the system and process that you put must be very good okay because if the organization is doing well the ministry will happen well okay but like we said ultimately a system is made up especially in a church organization the system is actually made up of people and it will be our next chapter when we talk about human resources and taking care of people and the system is made of people with different skills and roles and so on and people grow people are not like machines you know now in a in an industry you could have systems that are just purely machines and the machines will keep doing their work but in a church organization Christian ministry most of the systems are actually people with skills who are doing things and people grow people may want to move vertically they may want to move laterally they may want to leave and move externally so people move so there is people movement so we have to design our system independent of people that means you know in some way yes of course there are it is different people but suppose there's a person who's doing who's part of the system and he decides to maybe change his role he goes to do something different joins you know becomes part of another area of ministry or something he moves the system shouldn't collapse right we should be able to bring in another person with similar skills or and the system should keep running you know so that the person can be replaced with somebody else and that work should continue happen okay so that is also another important criteria to take into account as we design systems right okay let me just pause here to see if we're all together I'm not lost in are we all together everyone understands what we're talking yeah go ahead sorry no no pastor I was trying to say we are all good I thought you had a question okay so we are understanding till now okay fine I'll go forward okay so let me go back to the PDF just wanted to check all right so designing a system okay in the in the organization what are some of the things we want to look for okay so first question he says okay how can we do things better right so we shouldn't just accept okay this is the way we have been doing it so this is the way we will always do it now we should say okay fine we have been doing it like this till now how can we do it better and these are questions we need to keep asking constantly right because we may have put a system in place a you know three years ago which is fine maybe it was fine for that time okay maybe we said we have only three people so we will do like this okay fine but time has changed we have to go back and look at that system that has been is there and say can we do it better now you know what do we need to do to improve the quality of what's happening okay so and we'll give we'll give some practical example a little later I'll just give the theory part so we had to say okay how can we do it better another thing from efficiency perspective how can we do things faster right now faster is always good because you know it will save time it will save sometimes it may save money sometimes it may increase productivity you can do more in less time and eventually people are going to be helped you know because ultimately this everything is supporting the ministry so at the end people are going to be helped if you know whatever if it's happening faster example you know I just example going back to our accounting department okay you know typically in the industry there is like a 30-day period before a vendor receives payment you know so there's this 30-day credit thing it's kind of like an unspoken rule it's not a rule but it's just an understanding and people generally have okay a vendor provides a service he will get paid in 30 days but my question is hey if you have the money why can't you pay him right away what's the big deal in waiting 30 days because if you pay him right away he's going to be happy and he's going to provide better service if you keep him waiting 30 days he will feel I mean yeah and we can say everybody in the industry keeps you keep it does it like this I understand but why can't we be different yeah so what do we need to do to make it you know almost immediate well the only thing we need from the vendor is once the vendor has given the service we needed we need a invoice from the vendor we need to understand you know where the payment has to be made the rest is it has to happen that's all so one of the things we did we said look as far as APC is concerned we should pay our vendors within maximum within 48 hours it's within two working days of receiving receive an invoice pay it okay now sometimes we may fail in the sense that if the you know if there's some delay in the in of this you know if there's some gap in between or the invoices and reach properly or some some miscellaneous things but normally you know so let's just work we will streamline this process now make it simple and increase our responsiveness so what is the advantage here in the context like this to increase a responder the vendor feels good but the vendor feels good he will oblige us meaning he might you know go out of the way to provide a service because he knows hey these people the moment I send an invoice you know as soon as possible they're going to pay they're not going to wait 30 days they're not going to make me wait so overall we benefit of course vendor also benefits I'm just giving an example so you know we can design our own system saying we will make it you know 24 hours or 48 hours for payments even though outside they may do 30 days you know we don't have to follow that we can make things productive faster a third part of our system design of course is economy that means we want to you know avoid waste so when I say cheaper I don't mean cheaper in quality I just mean you know like you don't waste money you want to make the most of money time and people so so when you look at designing a system you want to say okay I want to make sure that there's no wastage here that we get the most out of the money the time and the people that are being put into getting the work done right so some questions we would ask is you know how can we reduce the cost of the inputs so if you go back to the start when we talked about the making juice how can you get the fruit how can we get it at a lower price you know we don't want to get bad fruit then you'll have bad fruit juice but if you can get you know at least the same quality of the fruit but get it at a lower price it is better for everybody right we are saving money for the you know the organization so you look at some question like that are we wasting anything we're not adding value so for example you know there used to be a time that we used to print our invites you know I think say maybe and my dates may be wrong but I think till 2008 or something like that you know we used to print invites so if you had an event we would print poster we would print handbills or we would print small cards we will give it out to all the people in the congregation we will stick it here and there all that and then usually what we would see is that a lot of these things were lying wasted you know that means the event happened but these printed posters and things that were lying wasted it wasn't actually used now slowly what we also the good thing was you know okay more and more people started using phones and people are using WhatsApp SMS WhatsApp emails were you know slowly becoming common so then we said why should we continue printing these invitations we can digitize everything you know it's cheaper all the graphics team has to create the poster or whatever and then send it out you know we can send out an email you can send a SMS WhatsApp put on Facebook Instagram etc it doesn't cost us to do that so at some point I don't know which one I forget here we said we are stopping printing I remember at that time when we made the decision people were up you know like there was like hey why aren't you printing why aren't you printing I invite I don't know that initially when we are making that change right people were a little like why are we not printing posters because because we are making a change there is a you know we are seeing that things are being done differently so we can do it and then eventually you know we changed so right now we don't print any you know sliders so the whole so when you talk about promotion promoting an event you know we have saved money in that respect you know I don't know if there was a question on the chat let me just I heard it let me just see here oh Steven said okay oh okay come in okay right so you know so that's just one example where that system of promotion so if you think of doing promotions event promotions we had a system this is how we will do it it was working fine you know up until that time but we can redesign that system kids hey we don't need to print and the motivation behind it is economy right we can save some money there you know so we redesign that system moved only to digital promotions a fourth criteria that you want to keep in mind is edge purposely chose all e-words excellence efficiency economy and edge that means differently okay and I'm not saying we are in competition with other ministries or with the world it's not from a competition point of view but it is purely from how can we meet the need differently right so even as a church or as a ministry we need to think you know how can we meet that need differently so that is what gives us the edge whether you're saying differently from the world or maybe differently from what is already there so example Bible college okay we have a ministry called Bible college fine but why you want many people ask why you stop why do you want to have another Bible college there are many Bible colleges already well it's because of this the difference and the main differences the content we are delivering because some of the things we deliver in our Bible college is not being delivered in the Bible colleges around us so it's not trying to be saying we are better over here you know but it's the edge so we are meeting something different we're meeting a need in a different way right so when we are designing a system that is part of this whole big organization for every system we ask these four basic questions can we do it better can we do it faster can we do it cheaper can we do it differently and this whole different different the questions you can ask is can we do things in an innovative way right in a different way yes everybody may be doing it in a certain way that is fine but can we think of some innovative way of doing it you know the same system can we identify and meet a need that is not being met so counseling ministry motivation is that you know there's a there's a need people need it can we meet that need okay of course I'm speaking about a ministry area but that ministry area is broken down into systems and for every system you need to ask these four basic questions so then that will help you keep improving the system design you know how it's working and when you look at it better faster cheaper different better faster cheaper different or excellence efficiency economy edge whatever you look at what is happening in the organization you ask those questions and don't be afraid to ask those questions because only when you ask those kind of questions will you make improvements within your organization okay so what are some thoughts to keep in mind when you're designing a system to get something done in the organization keep it lean keep it minimalistic that means don't unnecessarily make it big and complex your goal will be what's the simplest way I can do it okay what was the simplest way we can achieve the output okay second put the right people in the right place you know because if you don't have the right person doing the right thing it system will not work you know so example if you go back to the blender you want to blender fruit now the the blade that you fix inside the blender is important because a blade it has to be the right blade if you if you put the blade that that does the dough you know kneading and then you put the fruit in you're not gonna get fruit juice you can run the machine put the electricity but you're not gonna get fruit juice because problem you haven't put the right blade in the blender so it's important right people right place the third thing about a good system is there has to be feedback and improvement but keep in mind like we said in the very beginning all the systems all the ministers are working together just like the human body all the systems are working together so only if one system is very good it still will not make the whole body function better every system has to be good so as a person looking at the organization you need to be looking at how can we improve all systems are all systems optimal that means are they doing the best they can at this point in time maybe one or two years of course we will improve but at this point in time is everything working fine because all the systems are interactive you know connected so just improving one area will not make sure the whole organization is improved you have to connect so part of the system is also the process that means you know these systems like we said here each box is connected to the other boxes so these lines are representing the processes things that are happening between the systems right so not only must the system be well designed that is what is happening inside here but the connectivity between them the processes between them should also be very very efficient so let's talk about that you know we'll just use one example now maybe we'll continue this on Friday but let's think of one example okay let's say you know the ministry has a publications ministry books are being printed and distributed so suppose somebody requests for a book every see the person requesting a book he the the person does not know what is happening inside the ministry okay so example okay all people's church all people's church is has books that they're giving out okay some person say from Delhi he wants to receive the book this is part of ministry a part of our ministry is the book must reach the person the person has no idea what is going on inside the organization he's only looking at ministry I want to receive the book so it is our responsibility that everything that happens inside here must be very efficient so that as soon as possible practically possible this person should get the book as soon as possible okay they requested a book they should get it as soon as possible you know if they request a book and they it reaches them after three months it is okay and I mean in the sense okay the book did reach them but to take three months to send a book to person in Delhi is not it's not good you know it's not a good you know the ministry can improve that system can improve you know what is happening there so you have to look at that whole area of ministry yeah we want to serve people by giving them the books okay but how are we going to make it happen now we're only talking about so one part of the the book ministry okay so you have to look at it like this look at it from a system design perspective is what they call it a system design or system and process design or they would say from an operations management perspective okay so you have to think like this look at it like this the request can come to the church in many ways you can come through an email come through a phone call you can come through a letter somebody could make a request at any book table you know that we have maybe at a conference maybe at Sunday service they may send a request to a staff they say oh this person is working at APC I'll just I know him I'll just request him there could be otherwise you know even through a bookstore because some of our books are given out of the bookstore so the request may go to the bookstore but ultimately all those requests we need to have a process in place where all those requests goes to the person who is recording the book request so we have to make sure now so the emails are directed you know that that's one step that eventually it should reach this person who records the book request and they take the details you know what is the language they want the book in what are the titles they want how many do they want the quantity where is the address it has to be delivered and whose contact details you know that person's name correct name phone number etc so all that is important this person will make sure that all that information is captured and record the request but then the system has to kick in the moment this is recorded somebody is responsible for getting the book out you know dispatching the book or the set of books but for here this to happen there are a lot of things involved there's a printing involved delivery involved inventory has to be maintained this person reviews the book request packaging has to happen then it has to be dispatched and then that particular request is mark has completed okay we have checked it off okay so this is another you know set of systems that are all all these things have to work together and how they interact with each other the processes have to be efficient so that the goal ultimate goal is as soon as a request is made for a book the goal is the book should reach the person as soon as possible right so the goal that's our ministry goal in this particular case we are serving people through books as soon as a request is made the book earliest possible it should reach that person but for that goal to happen in all these systems and the interactions which is the processes should be designed to be most efficient okay so the systems that is each part of what is happening the recording package in dispatch has to be designed how is it going to happen and their interactions these arrows are indicating processes their interactions must be designed to work very efficiently and we should constantly look at it we should constantly keep improving it okay so this is one example of a ministry area so like this we have to look at so many different areas in the ministry so many things are happening you know worship and youth and children and so many things are happening everything has to be looked at it's okay is the system design properly to make sure the the you know the the four E's that we want is it excellent is efficient is it economical is it is it providing some edge every system is designed properly and everything happening in the process the interactions information flow transaction flow you know sometimes there's a flow of money there's a flow of information is there all being working efficiently okay so we will pause here on Friday we will start with this whole scenario and we'll ask some questions you know what are the systems that are here what are the processes involved what are the things we should preemptively prevent breakdown you know example the person is recording a request but doesn't record which language well things will get blocked or where to find out what language you want because this person cannot send the books if he doesn't know which language to send you know one simple example so if that goes wrong everything is interrupted disrupted so like this you have to think okay I have to make sure this person must know that in recording a request all these details are required so it becomes part of this whole system here so you look at okay what are the things that could go wrong how do we preempt those things so in a proper system design you will be preemptive against possible problems you know preemptive before it can happen you should make sure it doesn't happen so we'll talk about you know how do we make sure this process things what how do you think to optimize the system and the processes how do you do it okay so we will pause here I didn't keep time for questions any questions any thoughts okay so we'll pause here we'll pick this up on Friday and just talk about this how to be how do we optimize the system and the process so everything is turning running smoothly right we just looking one example but we have to apply this to all the things that are going on inside the organization okay so let's close in prayer just would like to request somebody to close in prayer I see Samuel has joined us today welcome Samuel thank you for joining could somebody close and we will dismiss please somebody can close in prayer thank you Father God thank you for this wonderful dear Lord Jesus thank you for this time thank you for the things to gather this time of Father God and I thank for today's class of Father God thank you for being with us thank you for keeping away from all the distractions of Father Jesus let our hands be intelligent of our God help us to be efficient in our ministry in at work in our lives of Father Jesus thank you for the God thank you for establishing your plans in our Church in our ministry in our lives of Father Jesus thank you for the God and also pray for pastor thank you for the God thank you for thank you for the wonderful blessing years of Father Jesus let him grow strength to strength and glory to glory of Father Jesus thank I pray for all the all the students who are your Father God Jesus thank you Father God I just I pray that your your let us be efficient and let us be a channel of blessing in all the areas that we work of our Jesus I praise you on Jesus massless name I pray this thank you everyone have a good afternoon see again Friday we can do this class God bless by now thank you