 Okay good morning everyone. Thank you for joining the class today. Welcome. I love you. Good to see you and I think we'll have a few others joining us. We have started the recording of this lecture so this class will be recorded and the recording of course will be made available in the coursework section as well as in the e-learning portal for other students to listen to. Okay so let's pray and we will get started in BC 310. Could somebody just please unmute your mic and just say a quick word of prayer and we'll get started. Loving Heavenly Father thank you for this wonderful morning of Lord Jesus as we gathered to study this administration course of Father God. Help us to give us knowledge and wisdom of Father God. Help us to be efficient deacons and faithful ministers for your Father God. Also I pray for a pastor. Bless him of Father God as he takes time to teach us of Father God. Help us to understand and do well of Father God. We pray see we honor you. In Jesus name I pray Amen. Thank you. Thank you Darrell. All right. All right so this is our second lecture on this course. I just want to quickly take some time to review what we did this past Wednesday and all of these you know PDFs will be released in the coursework section as we go along so just please download it and just have a look at it, review the contents and we can journey together. So I'm just going to share my screen and we will begin with a quick review of what we did. So last class which was on Wednesday and we just went through the coursework view of what other things we're going to look at. You know we said we'll talk about good administration objectives, cover things like church trust and governance and a lot of different areas that we that go into what we refer to as the administration of the church and ministries. We're going to be covering a lot of ground here and yeah there are two books that we referenced but you don't have to buy it. I will just be taking in taking some good ideas from there and sharing it with you as part of the course. Very quickly chapter one which we covered last class just to review. We discussed the importance of good administration. You know why do we have such a course where we're talking about the administration of the church and the ministry? You know why is that very important? So we looked at it both from a biblical perspective and from a practical perspective. From a biblical perspective we said look you know God is a God of order, design, organization and creativity. So in everything God does we see it stamped with order and design. Things don't happen at random. The sun doesn't rise up on the west one day and the north one day and the south one. You know it's just there is order, there is organization, all he does. We looked at some biblical examples you know how Moses and he had to have a team of people in Exodus 18. Jethro his father and Lord advised him to appoint leaders. In Numbers 11 God tells Moses you know bring 70 leaders and I will anoint them. So it wasn't Moses doing the work alone. When the people of Israel and the Jewish people, the Hebrew people, when they marched from Egypt to the Promised Land they didn't march randomly. They all had to go in order in camps. God gave them clear instructions you know that which camp must go, which tribe must go and they all marched in proper order. So we see God even organizing his own people and making that journey from through the wilderness to the Promised Land. We talked about worship of the Tabernacle. It was again very orderly. They were the priests and the Levites you know those who did work spiritual work and the Levites who took care of the Tabernacle and then we talked about David's time where when he was having worship going on there in the Tabernacle it was highly organized. You know about almost 8,000 people working in the Tabernacle to make sure everything went properly you know during that time of worship. Nehemiah when he had to rebuild the walls he again engaged all kinds of people and organized them so they could work together. When you come to the New Testament and we will be looking at some of these scriptures today we see that even the church is organized. There are elders okay they're responsible spiritual ministry but God also has called those people who are like deacons that means they're responsible for the business side, the administrative side, the organization side of the ministry. So that itself is a very valid ministry in the church. We talked about the gifts and we will look at this again today the gifts of administration and helps that those are valid functions in the body of Christ and Paul also wanted order in the church. So biblically when you look at it there is a very strong biblical basis for developing administration organization in the church and in the Christian ministry. If you look at it from a practical perspective we said look you know there is a need there's a demand. The congregation expects the church or the ministry to be organized and efficient. You know we can't make excuses to the congregation saying sorry you know we're only doing spiritual ministry. No people expect the church to be organized to function properly. Secondly we said there are many people who are willing to use their skills. You know they may be very good in administration, they may be very good in leadership, they may be very good in organizing, they may be very good in planning. Some people are very good in you know doing analysis, some people are very good in strategy whatever so many skills there are people and they are willing to come and help the church. So we must give them the opportunity so that's also a practical thing. And thirdly the world in which we are living is changing. People out there are you know they are they are changing they are becoming used to technology, they're becoming used to certain ways in which we live life and the church must be able to have those kinds of competencies to be able to relate to people outside the church. So we felt that you know we said that look there's a practical need for administration, organization. Then we said look what are some of the common excuses you know people church people especially pastors or leaders would make to cover up or to excuse the lack of administration or you know we just address some of these things. Sometimes people say oh look we don't have training you know we only went to Bible College. We learned how to preach the Bible but then we're not trained to do administration or management. Well there is a solution to that either you know we can get trained or we can bring people who are trained people who know how to do that. Same way you know sometimes people say we don't have the means to hire skilled people. We can say that look sometimes people are willing to volunteer people have the skills they can give some of their time. Sometimes the third excuse we saw was well it must be done by spirit people are trained in spiritual matters. So we said not necessarily because there are people who are called to the gift of or the ministry functional administration. We says another excuse would be we want to focus on spiritual matters that's fine. We have to focus on spiritual matters but then the organization helps fulfill the spiritual function. So you need that backing. Some may say we only want a spiritual atmosphere and we don't want to become like the corporate world. It is good if we maintain a spiritual atmosphere but the organization supports that enables you to maintain a spiritual atmosphere and we can run you know the organization in a spiritual way and we will see that today. And we sometimes people say it's God's work we don't need human involvement. For that we said well we are co-workers with God. Now there is God's part but there's also our part and we have to do our part. We are co-workers with God. So this was a quick run through of what we did last week. Today I want us to move forward and just talk a little bit about the objectives of good administration. So we're not going to you know move slowly we're going to move more and more into the practical things of administration and so on. So what are we trying to achieve of good administration now to begin with let's you know what we you know we want to define and especially in the context in which we are talking about that is church and christian ministry. When we are using the word administration we are referring to this broad area of activity that supports and undergirds the ministry of the word and worship and prayer and nurture equipping a believer in the proclamation of the gospel right. So that word administration refers to everything that is done to support that ministry the work of that ministry right. So when we say administration all of the support functions all of the activities that help the ministry of the word is covered in that in our context. Now just before we get into actually explaining the objectives of good administration we just want to emphasize that administration in the context of the church is a spiritual ministry it is a ministry and it's not just a function but it is a ministry to the Lord and His people. So all the people who are involved in administration you know there are various roles various roles whether it is a receptionist in the office or a front desk person or you know the accounts or HR or whatever so many different roles are there and as part of the administration we must understand it is a ministry to the Lord it is a spiritual ministry as far as the church is concerned. Now how can we say that because when we look at certain scriptures and you know we will we read some of this but if you just look at them again in Romans chapter 12 verses 6 to 8 somebody could read that for us Romans 12 6 to 8 if you just read it out for us. Can you just unmute your mic and read it Romans 12 6 to 8. We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us if your gift is prophesying then prophesy in accordance with your faith if it is serving then serve if it is teaching then teach if it is to encourage then give encouragement if it is giving then give generously if it is to lead do it diligently if it is to show mercy do it cheerfully. Thank you Dara. So you know he's talking about various gifts he's saying basically look we've all been given different gifts and obviously this list is not the complete list of the gifts that are given it's they are more a sampling a representative list. The main point is whatever you've been given he says you don't do it well but even in this short list representative list you find in verse 7 he talks about ministry and that word ministry comes from the word di canos from which we get the word deacon which we will see a little later but it simply means service anything that is done to serve so administration is like it's a serving organization serving we also see the word leading leading means to be in the front and you know take things forward so leading could happen in so many areas you know so you're saying you know lead so leading doesn't always have to be in preaching it could be in so many areas somebody's leading is up in front taking charge and moving things forward so he says if that is your role that is your function do it well you know so what we're saying is there are these functions which may not necessarily be spiritual but they are ministries in the church that of ministry or leading in roman 16 that same word diaconos this translated servant and it talks about this lady phoebe and paul says you know she is a servant of the church she's a deacon of the church a minister of the church so and he says you know she's taking care of some matters some business you a sister let us turn to 1st Corinthians 1228 this is just to quickly review some things we saw them last week i mean not last week last class 1st Corinthians 1228 can somebody read that for us please and god has said some in the church 1st apostles 2ndarily prophets 3rdly teachers after that miracles then gifts of feelings helps governments ever cities of town so verse 28 god has appointed because god has put this that's why we are saying it is spiritual minister god has put this in the church and of course he talks about apostles and prophets and teachers and miracles and healings but then he says helps administrations or governments you know so the word help simply means to aid to assist so anything any function anything that is done to aid and assist it is god appointed so the accountant is assisting with managing the finances the you're a librarian may be assisting with managing a library whatever you know there's so many people are assisting so many ways it is a god appointed function then he also uses the word administrations some translations it's governments or leaders or guides or organizers you know later on the word the real the root word simply means to steer a ship so can imagine a ship it's about to you know set sail well somebody has to steer the ship you can't just let it go anywhere and that is administration you know you gotta steer it you gotta take it somewhere I mean to the place where it's supposed to go and and anything you know such people who steer the ship who take the ship to where it's supposed to go they are appointed by god they're god appointed people right so that again helps us understand that administration what we're talking about is a spiritual ministry and lastly in first Timothy chapter 3 verse 1 to 13 you can just turn there I'll just point out something so in this passage very broadly Paul is talking about two categories verse one he's talking about bishop and he says okay this is the requirements for a bishop a bishop of course is a spiritual leader but then from verse 8 to 13 he's talking about deacons and deacons as we understand it in the New Testament are people who are taking care of you know what we would call as the administrative the business side the organization side of the ministry so he says there are spiritual leaders and there are deacons or business leaders administrators organized organizational people and both are godly ministries both are appointed by god right so I want us to just keep that in mind as we will move now slowly into more and more practical but don't forget the spiritual side that whatever we do in terms of organization and administration it is really a spiritual ministry now administration and again now I'm moving more to some of the general ideas of administration in most management or business books you know they will talk about it as an art and a science and we add to it this third third thing that it is also a spiritual gift because we just you know we just explained it's a spiritual thing for for us as far as the church and ministry is concerned so it is an art art means it requires certain innate traits and characteristics some you know something that's there in the person which of course can be developed further so example would be the ability to work with people you know some people are better at that than others you know they just they just can move and mingle with people and they just seem to just understand people very well you know or being sensitive to people's needs that some people just have that that innate level of attentiveness or sensitivity to people's needs or some people just have a sense of timing you know when should I when is the right time to introduce something when is the right time to speak to that person when is the right time to do something you know they just have that trait or characteristic now in administration some of this is important and it depends on the roles you know very you know if there's a certain role you want to find a person who's got certain traits and characteristics that match that or that that role that function you know for example if it is let's say the human resource role of course you want somebody who's who enjoys working with people if you know if he feels if he doesn't like people or you know what then that may not be the role for him but you want somebody who has that natural we call it natural innate ability to work with people and so on you know so some people have that and then of course it can be developed further you learn certain you know you learn certain ways of working with people and so on so that can be developed further but administration is also a science that means we can develop certain skills and it requires the skills which can be developed to organize to plan to establish process to do some budgeting to review performance to evaluate data to analyze to make decisions so that's the science part of it meaning these are skills that we can learn we can develop new skills new ways of doing things and of course as technology comes in as there are different best practices that come in from various learnings you know we can learn them adapt them and use them for church and ministry and thirdly we are saying it's also a spiritual gift right so that means we can expect the anointing of God we can expect God to give us ideas we can expect God to guide us and give us wisdom so when we talk about this whole area of administration keep this in mind there is it's an art it's a science but it's also a spiritual gift God is involved God will help us okay i'm going to cover one more thought and then we will take some time for discussion and questions before we move forward now just some idea here you know especially when you look at general management and organizational development and leadership studies in in you know secular normal colleges usually they draw a distinction between leadership management and administration usually okay so when we when we want to understand it what happens is how do we understand it leadership leadership is usually providing a vision and dealing with something that's very strategic at the management you are involved in planning organizing at the administration level we come down to more a little bit more fine grain detail you're talking about scheduling executing how is it going to happen at the leadership level it's more of an influence that you exert on people the management level you can motivate people at the administrative administration level you begin to get down to hey is it happening is it not happening there are accountability there are checks there's you're looking at the actual work at the leadership level yes usually usually the perspective is at an organizational level in a broad high level the management you're looking at a particular department you're looking at a particular unit a business unit or an organizational unit at the administration level you're looking at teams and sometimes you may even look at individual individuals you're going down to the fine grain to the smallest unit which is that of an individual or maybe teams at the leadership level you're looking at the overall organizational performance overall did the organization move forward did the organizational you know achieve its objectives at the management level you're looking at it from a department unit performance and at the administration you're going down to individual performance and say did the this individual individuals do it right but all but all three are very important all three have their place in the organization and all three are important for for our course we are going to blend management and administration in typical you know business courses or so on in they would they may be draw hard and fast distinctions between management and administration but for our purposes you know we will overlap this too so a lot of things we talk about will just be moving between management and administration and very often in church settings there is this fluidity between you know management administration unless it's a very large organization you may have clear distinction of roles but in most church settings and Christian ministry settings you know that's not the case it's a blending of both people who are quote-unquote management may also be involved in fine grained things which are administrative in nature and those who are administrative in nature will be expected to perform more of a managerial type of work just because you know the organization itself may not be that big and so you'll have this this this overlapping of management and administration that's how we will approach now our our course okay so before we get into just discussing here the objectives of good administration i want to pause and just see if there are any questions any things that people would want to discuss on just what we've covered so far any questions any thoughts okay all right so i'm going to go forward and please feel free to you know ask any question any point of discussion anytime you're welcome to do that so now let's get into you know what are the objectives of good administration right i'm talking about in church context Christian ministry context what are we what what what is the organization the administration there to do right so and this is a way for us to capture that what good administration will do or good organization management and administration will do is it'll ensure the developing of people it'll ensure the establishing of systems and the fine tuning of processes and the allocating of resources which when we say resources it will include time it will include money it would include a lot of other things that go into ministry work it could be you know hardware and infrastructure whatever different things that are used but it's bringing people establishing systems fine tuning processes allocating resources so that in order to ensure alignment and we will look at some scriptures ensure alignment so there has to be alignment there has to be efficiency and there has to be productivity so you're putting all this in place the immediate goal is hey you know when i'm putting people when i'm putting systems putting processes and spending resources the question immediate question that we are looking at is is this aligned to the ministry goal and the vision is it being efficient and is it being productive so there is to be alignment efficiency and productivity towards what towards the ministry goal goals and vision of the church or the organization Christian organization right so a church will uh say this is our overall vision you know we are example we are here to be salt and light in the city of Bangalore our voice to the nation of India and to the nations okay that's the overall vision you know impact India impact the city the nation and the nation's overall vision and then there are the goals the goals for various areas of ministry you know worship ministry has its goal children's ministry media media ministry they all have their goals you know what are what they're trying to achieve so the administration has to make sure people are developed systems are established processes are operating fine they're operating at their optimal level and resources are being used in a nice in a proper way so that everything is aligned everything is efficient everything's productive in line with the goals and the vision right so that is the objective of administration this is what administration is trying to are working on achieving now let's spend a little bit time on talking about the alignment right so amos chapter three was three it says can two people walk together except they are in agreement it's a simple statement can two people walk together unless they are in agreement that means look if we are going to all move together in a certain direction we have to be aligned we have to be in agreement right so if we are contradicting each other if you're pulling in different directions we cannot walk together we cannot make progress together right so people systems processes resources they all have to be in agreement coming together very cohesively to achieve the goal achieve the vision similarly you have to ensure efficiency in the scriptures and i'm and i just mentioned these two scriptures you know god leviticus 26 very interesting and there is a reason behind why you know god says certain things the way he says in leviticus 26 and verse 8 can somebody read that for us 26 verse 8 five of you will chase 100 and 100 of you will chase 10 000 and your enemies will fall by the sword before you thank you semen you know it's very interesting i mean okay we just see numbers here but look at the numbers very carefully saying five will chase 100 that's 20 times a factor of 20 so five their efficiency is 20 but he says 10 so i've only doubled the number 10 oh sorry there is a five and a hundred of you five a hundred of a hundred of you will put 10 000 to flight 100 of you will put 10 000 this now efficiency is 100 times okay i've so on this side i've gone from five to 100 i've increased it by 20 but the net result is a hundred times more so i'm going from a 20 20 it was a factor of 20 efficiency to a factor of 100 efficiency because 100 are going to chase 10 000 i've just increased by 20 but my efficiency has gone up by 100 and so you know this increasing in efficiency now i god empowers us to do that you know there are many examples in the bible you know one great example is that of Gideon's army you know at one point there are like huge numbers of people and god says you know that too many people reduce them they finally brings them down to about 300 people and he god uses 300 people to overthrow an entire army armies of people who are coming against Israel and just 300 overthrow armies so there's increased efficiency because god is behind it god is backing it up and so we need to think you know and we need to ask god god you said you know five will chase 100 but 100 can put 10 000 give me a hundred factor of efficiency of 100 uh god how do we do it how can i bring that into what i'm doing you know give me ideas because you said we can do it you can give us a 100 factor of 100 efficiency show me how right so ensure efficiency also ensure productivity productivity is the output what is coming out right efficiency means you're doing more with the same or you know in terms more more with less kind of thing productivity is like there is fruit coming out of what is happening and god is interested in productivity we see that in john 15 you know when jesus talking about the wine and the branches he doesn't say your branches on the wine so that the wine can look nice no he's saying your branches on the wine and you bear fruit in fact he uses the word bear much fruit that means be very fruitful and he says in verse eight my father is glorified if you're very very fruitful you bear much fruit okay so this is what our objectives are and this is what we are going to try and learn in this course what we're going to do is we're going to talk about developing people we're going to talk about establishing systems we're going to talk about fine tuning processes are you going to learn about allocating resources and of course all this has to be aligned to the ministry goal or vision whatever you are now some of you may be already in church ministry some of you may be planning to start your ministry so you know where what was stages you can start thinking about these things but not only do you think in terms of alignment you also should be thinking in terms of efficiency and also we should be thinking in terms of productivity and achieving ministry goals and vision right so that's the objectives of good administration and that's what we are going to be you know working on or learning as we journey through this course and the final thought for our class today is what does it take what does it take so as far as administration is concerned there are three broad areas of skills that we have to develop and which we are going to learn these three broad areas so of course this is related to whatever what we have already spoken but if you want to look at it you know for a good organization for a good administration what are the skills that are needed and you know these skills can be developed even by pastors or people who are doing spiritual ministry in fact it is good that people who are doing spiritual ministry learn some of these skills you know and so again there's a need of a change in thinking that you know these are skills somebody in spiritual ministry doesn't need no these are skills all of us need so in administration in management or organizational development three broad areas one is we can call them as people skills or technically you call them human skills saying it has to do with people right how do you nurture people how do you develop people how do you motivate people how do you care for them how do you empower them so that the best can come out of them how do you manage them how do you you know how do you deal with challenges in this area of people right ultimately we want every person to be able to bring up every person to give their best but it's not always straightforward it's not always easy there are challenges but that is an area of skills that people involved in administration can learn and develop then there are conceptual skills which we would also call as organizational skills meaning how do you establish systems so these are conceptual meaning you're looking at certain things that are happening and you say hey wait a minute I can actually set up a system here and that if I put that system in place this can function better and if I set up a certain process fine unit you know efficiency and productivity can increase but that is conceptual you should be able to look at something happening and then begin to design the system and think about the processes right these are organizational skills or conceptual skills that anybody involved in management and administration need to have and can develop right just by when you're looking at things that are happening people are there resources need there's something needs to accomplish okay you think conceptually this is the system I need this is the process I need and I need to fine tune it so that it can become very quick very efficient very productive right so you think like that so for example you know you know let's say something is happening where for a particular thing to happen right now A B and C are involved in this work but then you look at it and you say hey wait a minute I really don't need B there because B is not actually adding value to this whole thing but B being B being there person B being there is actually causing this whole thing to be delayed by two days and person B is not actually adding any value so then you say okay let's fine tune it let's take out person B out of this whole system and this process flow the output doesn't change or we're getting the same output but it's become more efficient because the whole process has been shortened by two days and we don't need an additional person there now that is something conceptual organizational because you're looking at things and then you identify hey that you know you're not just taking you're able to look at it and say hey that that doesn't need to be there you know we don't need three steps we can do it in two steps and the same thing can happen the output will be the same but efficiency has increased because one less person that person can be you you know moved to do something else and so overall the organization is better because that person is helping in other way so those are conceptual or organizational skills and lastly what we are going to learn or learn to develop are what we would call execution skills or technical skills so this is the the hard stuff meaning the the actual nitty-gritty stuff the nuts and bolts kind of thing where okay you've got people you've got time you've got money you've got other resources maybe infrastructure hardware all these other things available how do you you know put all this together so that the work gets done so that you know the objectives of the ministry or the projects are accomplished and also you need to measure things are we really achieving our goals are we accomplishing things can i do certain things to improve the outcomes so these are the nuts and bolts kind of things the execution skills so broadly speaking as we go through this course we hope that there will be some things that will help us improve our people's skills there will be some things that help improve our conceptual organizational skills and there will be some things that help enhance our execution skills and as these skills are developed the overall objective is accomplished that means we will be better at developing people establishing systems fine-tuning processes allocating resources and in the process make sure there's alignment efficiency productivity to achieve goals and fulfill the overall vision of the church or the christian ministry we are involved okay so i'm going to stop there for today i just want to leave some few minutes for any questions any interactions around what we heard today just again it's more of an introductory introduction to the course what we are going to learn what you can expect to acquire through the course any questions any thoughts yes kiran i have one question regarding organizers and skills so if we will take a b c three person to and give some work and a and c is working nicely but b is not working good then how is left b continue that work like with a and c yeah so good question that's a very practical question because sometimes we see those things happening so you know if if somebody is not doing a good work we will have to find out the reasons right so we will have to talk to the person see what is preventing them from performing well right so sometimes maybe they don't have the skills sometimes they just face for they having some personal problems that's why it's just impacting their work sometimes they don't have maybe the equipment they need the resource they need to do a good job you know so there could be many reasons why they're not doing a good work they're not able to be good in their work so that would be the first step is trying to find out why right so once we find out why that people need to try to help sort that you know help them solve it if it means giving them a new computer or maybe giving them a little bit of training so we need to do that and then hope that they will be able to improve their work after we have addressed that if there is still no change then we have to come to the conclusion that maybe that's not the place for them right maybe that is they may be better in doing something else and so that's when we move them out into something different which would be a better suited for and either we bring somebody else in to take their place so generally you know I'm just speaking in general terms generally that's how we would approach a situation like that right if anybody else wants to add to you know add some thoughts therefore Kiran her question you're welcome to do that anybody else all right any other questions any other thoughts before we move I mean before we close off for the day and we will pick this up next week all right so next week we're going to start from the very basics or not very basic from the very beginning meaning the first thing is the setting up the organization you know so before you get your ministry started now some of us may join an existing organization that is fine but some of you may want to go and start something so we're going to address that part right so that means you need to have a legal entity in place so we'll talk about how do you put a legal entity in place and get that initial you know team of people in place and what are some things to keep in mind and I'll just share some you know some learnings we've had our experiences we've had not only from our own church in Bangalore but also you know when we send people out to go and start ministry in different parts you know we've all we've had some interesting experiences when they go out to start a work somewhere in the you know in different part of India certain challenges that they would face so we would talk about those things right so that's the initial stage we'll talk about it for you know for some maybe that's not immediately necessary because maybe you're part of an existing organization but for some that may be necessary when you are starting a church or starting a Christian organization to know how to bring a legal entity in place so we'll spend some time on that and then go forward from there how to develop the organization and so on okay so let's close for the day I just want to invite somebody just to pray and dismiss the class and bring your questions any thoughts questions we will take them up as we go along okay could somebody pray and then we will close please no thank you lord this wonderful time that you've given is a father thank you lord that we could learn today about the objectives of good administration father I pray a father whatever we learned father that we would understand the father and put into practice a father I pray that you would give us wisdom and ability and understanding of father as we move forward in this course a lot I also pray a father that in whatever we are doing currently a father that we would put this into practice father and make the place better for people a father and enable I pray that you would enable us to father work for you for your glory not I just surrender the entire team with your precious hand the holy precious might be in my prayer thank you thank you everyone so have a good weekend enjoy your weekend and see you again next week God bless thank you thank you thank you