 Okay, good morning everyone. Welcome to a new week. Let's begin this time with a word of prayer. Salome, can you lead us in prayer, please? Yes, Master. Thank you. Thank you Jesus. Thank you for everything that you've done on Father God, which we glory on and praise the Father God. God, this morning I pray your father God for you to lead your father. Everything that passes says God, you lead him and speak through him of Father God and everyone we touch the Father God and help us to learn more about what you want us to learn. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Salome. All right, so last week we completed on Chapter 7. We looked at innovation and creativity and how important it is to be innovative, creative and remember that God is our source of wisdom. We saw how God gave wisdom to David. He gave wisdom to the two people in the book of Exodus where Bezalel and Belial were, God gave them the wisdom to make these crafty art and craft for the dress on the high priest. So what we concluded on the chapter is innovation and creativity comes from God. So we need to open ourselves and ask the Lord to give us new ideas and new strategies. All right, we'll move to chapter 8 this morning. We'll go into some of the practical things. Now we know that the scripture teaches us not only about, you know, only the spiritual aspects but there's lot of practical things that the Bible teaches us. Proverbs is a whole book which has a lot of practical, you know, implementations that we can use in our lives. So let's look at chapter 8. People processes, performance and rewards. Now we'll go a little quick because we have a lot to cover so I may not go through every verse but we'll see what is important and we'll go from there. So people processes, performance and rewards. Now remember that a ministry or an organization is all about people. So if we don't have people there's no ministry and if there's no people, there's no business, there's no organization. People are the core of a business or a ministry. And so that's why there's something called as human resource management where there's a department called the HR where they look at employee motivation, resolving conflicts, performance evaluation, employee rewards and it may sound like, okay, these are not so important but it's very, very important, right? Because the people whom you serve in an organization or the people in an organization is what makes an organization, right? So we need to make sure and that our employees and our people in the organization are, are, you know, comfortable, they, they enjoy working. And so we will look at some fundamental principles on how, what the Bible teaches us about people and, you know, especially when it comes to employer and employee, boss and, you know, employees, what is the Bible teaches, right? So we look at a few of that. Now, in a time when, you know, work from home is something that is, you know, so prevalent, you can sit in one nation and work for another nation, right? So it doesn't really matter. And so people working remotely, now this is a challenge, especially for HR, Human Resource Management for that team, it's going to be a challenge because they cannot get people together. There's, you know, processes cannot always be put in place, performance and rewards, you know, it's, it's going to be a challenge. But anyways, let's look at what God teaches us from Scripture on how we are to treat people, how we are to treat processes, performance, how we are to reward people that work for us, right? So let's look at a few points there. First one, pay fairly based on contribution and value to the organization. Colossians chapter 4 verse 1, Masters, give your born servants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. Now, Paul is writing this, right? He's saying, Masters, give your born servants what is just and fair. Now, we know that the Apostle Paul also worked, he was a tent maker, he probably would have been on his own, or probably he would have also worked under a few Masters, we don't know about that. But he says here, give your born servants what is just and fair. So what do we mean by just and fair? Just and fair simply means what a person can bring to the table, or what a person or an employee can bring to the organization, right? What are the skills they have? Now, just to make an understanding in an organization, we'll have people who are more skilled and bring more to the organization. And then we have people who are still learning, they may be young, they're still learning, and they're still developing their skills. Now, we know that the remuneration for both of them is not going to be the same. Why? Because this person, person A, is able to bring more to the company, to the organization. And this person needs some time. So, as long as there's a good understanding between the employer and the employee, you see, the reason I am paying you so much is because this is what you can offer. But as you grow, as you develop yourself, this is what we can do. Now, certain companies or certain organizations, we always have this, especially in our nation of India, they look at work experience. Okay, you have 10 years of work experience. Okay, I'm going to give you this. Now, it's not entirely right. Yes, work experience does count. But a person can be 10 years in a workplace, 10 years of work experience, and not be able to give his full potential to a company. Whereas a person who's just two, three years can give more than what a person gives for 10 years. So it's not always, okay, 10 years in this industry, so I should get paid more. Especially, you know, you know, we are working in an organization or you're planning to start an organization, never permit the feeling of entitlement to set in, right? What is entitlement? You know, it's a feeling that, hey, I am the best. I know how to do this. And I think I can do this the best. And so I am entitled to have all these benefits, right? Now, when that comes in entitlement, people, you know, it fosters lethargy, it impairs performance, it demoralizes people, right? So for example, if there is, you know, if there is somebody in, let's, you know, look at ministry, right? So if there's somebody who is a pastor in the church, right? He's a pioneer. And they have children. And we've seen this in many places. And maybe their son, the pastor's son, they don't know anything on the scriptures. They just know a few things. And all of a sudden, they are preaching. Now, why does that happen? Because there's a feeling of entitlement. I'm the pastor's son. So then I will become the next, you know, I have to take on the next response. No, not so. Same thing in an organization. We may be the boss's son or daughter. But it doesn't entitle us to, you know, just come and sit in a position. Always remember that it is what we can bring to the organization, right? I have seen many, many, and heard many ministries where pastors, very genuine, have, you know, in a hurry, they've given their son to take over the ministry. And instead of the ministry growing, it just went into trouble. And, you know, there was lack of wisdom in the way the things were functioning in the ministry. And he went into a lot of problems. So this whole thing of entitlement should be removed both in the corporate sector, in the ministry as well, right? We work, we serve, and according to what we serve, our, you know, our employers or our bosses pay us accordingly. Two, ensure people are paid on time. Let's read Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 13. Let's read that. Leviticus 19 and verse 13. Is any one of us? Yes. Yes, go ahead. Okay. So let's read. Leviticus 19 and 13. Do not drop or take advantage of anyone. Do not hold back the wages of someone you have hired, not even for one night. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Abinas. Now, this is in the book of Leviticus that is, you know, just when people began to deal, when God began to deal with the people of Israel, he brought them out of Egypt and he's setting things, you know, for the nation of Israel. And that time itself, very clearly, God is saying, people don't hold, do not rob, take advantage of anyone, do not hold back wages, someone you have hired, not even for a night. Now, this is so clear, right? Now, there will be times, right? Of course, a lot of organizations pay on a monthly cycle, there are some that pay fortnightly, some pay, you know, over one week or some of them pay hourly basis. So whatever it is, the Bible instructs us to pay our wages on time to the people you have hired, right? Now, we may not be bosses in a company. If we are, please follow this, but if we are not, there will be areas in our life where we will be, you know, probably helpers or people who are vendors who are helping us in our business or vendors who are helping out in the ministry, whoever they are, do not hold back wages from the people we have hired. Because the Bible teaches us, if we go on to Deuteronomy 24, 14 and 15, it says, I'll read that, Deuteronomy 24, 14 and 15, do not cheat poor and needy hired servants whether they are Israelites or foreigners living in one of your own towns. Each day before sunset, pay them for the day's work. They need the money and have counted on getting it. If you do not pay them, they will cry out against the Lord and this part is, you know, and you will be guilty of sin. Now, of course, we don't pay on a daily basis, but what he's trying to bring out is if you do not pay them on time, it's a sin against God. God looks at it as a sin. Right? So even as some of the things that we follow as a church and APC is we have a lot of vendors, vendors who, you know, coffee and coffee vendors, food vendors, people who come and help us during some productions, some recordings and a lot of vendors that we have. But one of the things that we do is as soon as we receive the bill, you know, we take a scan copy of the bill, email it to the accounts team and the accounts team sends the money on the same day. The confirmation is sent to the person who emailed the bill and that person can either email it to the vendors or WhatsApp it to the vendors and so on the same day, the whatever has been, you know, used or whatever has been, you know, we have taken from, you know, facilities that we have used, it is paid on the same day. And why do we do this? Because we want to stay right before God because people are dependent on this, right? Now, for example, you got, you know, here in Mangalore, we've got, you know, coffee vendors, we got food vendors and yesterday we had a lunch after church and so what we did is we go at the bill, we email it, we send it, immediately the payment is made. Why? Because he has a family, he has children that he has to look after and, you know, we can't withhold something which is theirs. And yes, there will be times like as an organization, funds are not there. But we need to let our employees know this is a, you know, this is the problem that I'm going through. But in so and so date, I should be able to make your payments. Now informing them is all right. But if there is no good reason and we withhold what belongs to somebody else, we are, we are, this is not acceptable in God's eyes. We have to give what belongs to the others, right? You know, sometimes we do something where I've heard of, you know, a Christian event that happened not in our nation, not in Bangalore but in another city. So these Christian organized, two, three organizations came together. They said we'll have this whole evangelistic meeting and they called some of the good vendors and they came, they put up the stage and lightings and, you know, all the sound system, everything, everything was already discussed before. And so after the whole event, they expected more people to come but the number of people who turned up was very less. So what happened was they began to tell the vendors that, you know, this was not good. That was not good. This was not done on time. It was not up to the mark. And, you know, these are the problems that we face. So we cannot pay you what we have told you. We'll have to sit and make, you'll have to give us a discount and all of that. And the vendors are very discouraged with the way that things went on. And how I know this was because one of the believers in that whole meeting who was part of the team felt very bad with what happened because these guys are hardworking guys coming and, you know, it's hard labor, physical labor and, you know, they felt really bad. Some of them in the team and they asked me, what is it? Is it right? I said, no, of course it's not right. What has already been discussed, we have to pay the people who have served us and pay them on time as well. Third one, don't exploit people. Don't hold back their wages. The same thing. God forbids us from exploiting, cheating employees. What is theirs is theirs. Never exploit. Fourth one, never exploit the poor and the powerless. Let's read Deuteronomy 24 and verse 14. Deuteronomy 24 and verse 14. Yes, go ahead. Anybody? Deuteronomy 24 and verse 14. Yes, anyone's there? Anyone can read? Yes, pastor, I can read. Yes, go ahead. Deuteronomy 24 verse 14. Do not cheat poor and needy, hired servants, whether they are Israelites or foreigners living in one of your own towns. Thank you, Prabhakar. So what does it say? You shall not oppress hired servants who are poor and needy, whether it's one of your brethren or whether they are aliens from another land, meaning they may be part of, you know, they believe in God, they believe in God of Israel or they don't believe. They are people who don't fall under your religious section, but do not oppress hired servants. Now, one of the dangers that we see is, especially with employers, right, people who are wealthy, is the tendency to oppress the poor. It just comes, I'm not saying everyone, but that's the tendency, right, because these people are meagre workers. Now, when you look at Deuteronomy, what was happening was the people of Israel had gone into the promised land and there was so much of land, so they hired people. They said, you come work in this land, you come work in this land and whatever crops come, you can, you know, take some of it, we will pay you for wages. So the Israelites began to hire people to work for them. Now, we must remember that the poor people who are, or people who are working for you are dependent on what, you know, on the money that they need for their home expenses and for the things that they have to do throughout the day or throughout the month. And God is saying here, do not oppress. When we take advantage of the helpless people, right, whether in ministry or organization, remember it is oppression and God's instruction is we should not oppress people, right. We should not exploit the poor and the needy. Another point that we can look at is in an organization is to hire, write, retain and review people, right, Proverbs 26 and verse 10. Let's read that, one of us, Proverbs 26 and verse 10. Yes, Proverbs 26 and verse 10. Anyone read? Go ahead. An employer who hires any fool that comes along is only hurting everybody concerned. Yeah, thank you Pratik. Now it says here, what does it mean? An employer who hires any fool that comes along is hurting everybody concerned. That means a person, an employer, we must hire carefully because who we hire will affect the organization, right. So have a sound recruiting process. Now, for example, say you are in a team in the church, right, you're handling a sound and set up team. Let's take that example. Now, just because the person is strong and he looks like he can carry speakers and, you know, he's a active guy, doesn't mean we have to hire him. We have to look at character, have to look at whether he is aligned to the will of God, aligned to the vision of the church. Now, why is that important? He's just going to carry speakers and carry wires and cables and set it up. Why is it that he should be aligned to the vision because this one person, if he does not walk in good character and if he's somebody who's always troublesome, causing trouble, causing strife or jealousy, enmity between people, he, this one person can cause confusion in the entire team, right. So even before you hire people or recruit people in your team, make sure that you, you know, you teach them the vision, the values that you follow as a team or as an organization, right. There will be people who will be very skilled in what they are doing and they're doing well also in the team or in the organization. Keep them, retain them, do everything that you can to, you know, to help them to grow in the organization. Now, there will be times people will want to leave an organization, go to another organization, we cannot stop them, we cannot control that. But a good thing to do is have exit interviews. Now, some of the things that we do in APC is, for example, if somebody wants to leave a team, we don't just say, okay, now you want to leave, all right, it's all right, we can leave now. What we do is we sit with the person, we ask them, okay, what is it, is it, most of the times it's, you know, work and commitments at work or family pressure and unable to give their best for church, but it's good to always sit and have an, you know, an open, honest interview, right. It's called an exit interview. We used to do that many, many years ago in I.D. companies. I don't know if they do it now, but what is important is when we do that, we get to know, okay, these are areas where I can improve as an organization or these are areas where I can improve as a team. And so we can also do this having an exit interview. But here's the thing, higher right, meaning don't just take in people in your team just because they are there doing nothing, don't do that, right. Jesus, when he chose the 12 disciples, he didn't choose people who are just sitting around on the streets in Jerusalem doing nothing, no, no. Almost everyone that he chose were people who are working, right, people who had an understanding that they had to work and earn for their families and support themselves. And so when you hire people in your team, you may be a team leader in the church as well, right. You may be just 100 people in your church, but hire the right people, sit with them, talk to them, let them understand where they're coming from. Why do they want to join the team? Is it because they just want to be in some team? Or is it because they want to, you know, be, that people should recognize them? Or is it because they want to do something for the body of Christ? So hire the right people. One person in a team who is not, you know, in line with the vision can cause havoc in a team. So always remember this. Next one, treat people the way you like to be treated. Now Jesus himself taught us this very clearly. Let's read Luke chapter 6 verse 31 and verse 36. Luke 6, 31 and verse 36. Luke 6, 31, 36. Do for others just what you want them to do for you. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful. Amen. Amen. Thank you Abinas. Now this is a simple principle that the Lord Jesus taught us, right. Do for others what you want, what you like others do for you. How would, how would I feel as an employee or part of a team in a church or in an organization? How would I like to be treated? Or if I had a problem and, you know, and this is a problem in the organization that I am facing, how would you like my managers or my team leaders to consider the situation and assist us, right? So treat others how you would like others to treat you. Jesus himself taught us this. Jesus himself said, when you treat others with respect, you also, you know, will get that respect. If you as a leader always gossiping and, you know, rude to your team members, what is going to happen? Your team members is not going to respect you, right? Now also, we must remember that this is a reciprocating relationship when, you know, when we like to treat our employees in a good way. The employees also must be willing to give 100% to the organization. Now it would be wrong if the employee says, anyways, my team leader is a very good guy. You know, he's always understanding me or my manager is very good. He'll give me all the leaves that I want. So it's all right. I can just call in sick or I can call in, I can go for a vacation whenever I want to. That would be wrong, right? It would be wrong for the employee to keep showing, you know, expecting goodness and mercy upon him and then just doing whatever they want. No, there will be a place, there will be a time when we will have to warn, we'll have to give them stern warnings to make sure that, you know, we are doing our part of treating you the right way, but we don't see it coming back from your side. So we have to make some changes, right? Yes, Kennedy has a question. What is your take on nepotism in a company? Okay. Yes, Kennedy, there is going to be nepotism in a company so much so even in the church, as I was mentioning, it's going to be there, right? We can't stop it, right? But there are times when, you know, companies have, you know, you know, they feel that their children or their loved ones can are really equipped enough and they are taken on board just as a regular employee. But then again, there is going to be nepotism everywhere. It is wrong in the sense that, you know, if they're not skilled and if they are not equipped in the area that they are in, they cannot be in that position. Like how I just mentioned, so if there's, let me take it in the side of ministry, right? So if there's a pastor and the son hasn't even spent time, hasn't gone to a Bible college, hasn't spent time reading the Word, hasn't spent time, hasn't really, you know, received the Lord Jesus as their personal savior because the whole life they've seen church and they've not really understood. Just because they're the pastor's son doesn't mean they're going to preach next. They should be there next. Again, it's all about skill and the way that, you know, for that position or that role that they are applying for, they should be skilled in that area. So my take on nepotism would be, it's going to be there, right? Everywhere, but good leaders will, you know, good organization, good leaders who really want to see the company do well, see the organization do well, see the ministry do well, will avoid nepotism and look to equip people and put them in right, hire them in right positions, you know. So for example, I can't have a, if I'm a CEO of a company, I can't have my son when he's 19 years old say, okay, he's part of the, you know, managing directors, he's part of the board. This guy maybe just out of college, you know, out of school and just, you know, out of college, he doesn't know anything about how to run an organization and you put him in the board, it's going to cause destruction. Right? So, I hope that answers your question. I think it's more about skill and talent. Yeah, thank you. But, you know, the biggest hindrance would be hiring staff. It's normally tribalism and nepotism. Sorry, I didn't get that. The biggest challenge in hiring staff is normally tribalism and nepotism. Yeah, yes, yes, that's true. That's true. That's true. And so that's why even when we recruit, you know, recruit and there's HR process, HR team involved, it's very important to have the right people in the team. So as a, as say, for example, I'm a CEO, and I have a HR team. Now, I must be fully convinced that my HR team is doing the right thing by hiring this person. Right? And if you feel that there's something going wrong, always get involved, right? And even in ministry, right? Get involved in teams. It's not like you don't trust them. It's not like you don't have, you know, you don't want to delegate responsibility, but it's just that, you know, sometimes you feel that it's good for you to step in, step in, share your views, share your points, share what you feel. And, you know, you can, that's good for the organization because you're looking at the organization as a whole. So, right. Let's go to the next point. Warn but never threaten or abuse. Let's read Ephesians chapter six was eight and nine. Ephesians six, eight and nine. Yes. Any one of us? Ephesians chapter six, eight and nine. Chapter six, eight and nine. Remember that the Lord will reward each of us with a slave of free for the good work we do. Masters behave in the same way toward, toward your slaves and stop using threats. Remember that you and your slaves belongs to the same master in heaven who judges everyone by the same standard. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. The Apostle Paul is so wonderfully putting this here. He says in the earthly, basically what he's trying to say is in the earthly aspect, you have a master, you have a slave. But when you look at a bigger picture, these both are on the same ground because God is our boss or God is our employer. Right. So just on earth, it's like this. You're the master and there's a slave. But for God, God being the ultimate employer, we both, the master and the slave are in, you know, on the same level. So what does he say here? Just because you're a master, do not threaten your employees, do not abuse them. You know, yes, there will be times when we have to get people to, you know, perform in a company, perform in the organization, expectations are put, and then you say, okay, these are targets that we have to meet. And then there will be times when we cannot reach those targets. There will be times, there will be different challenges that people go through and maybe targets are not reached during that time. Do not, you know, threaten your team and say, inflict pain, injury or damage in their minds, you know, because it's like, you know, taking retribution to something that they've done or not done. One of the mistakes that we make is we can say, if we don't reach our target today, this month there will be no salary. Now, that is wrong. It's like a threaten. You're threatening. If you don't do it, you know, salary. That's wrong in God's eyes. Remember that you and your slaves belong to the same master in heaven who judges everyone as the same standard. Right? So we must be very careful. It may be a house help who comes home, right? Or a cook who comes home or somebody who's doing a small help in the church, maybe a helper who washes the vessels in the church or in the ministry, or somebody who just comes to clean the church every week. Never threaten them. I would say, if you don't come, I will, you know, throw you out of the job or, you know, I'll not give you your salary. You didn't do this job. Well, never do that. That is abuse, that's threatening. But we can just tell them. You can warn them. There will be times when, you know, people in the team are just taking things for granted. Warn them. You know, some things we believe in APC is the three strike policy, right? And strike one is you make a mistake. Strike two is you make a mistake again. Strike one, you get a warning letter. Strike two is, you know, a second kind of a warning. Strike three is you're out of the organization, right? So three, three strike policy. And so why do we have this? Because yes, it's a ministry. Yes, you know, God loves us and all of that. That's good. But we also want to make sure that there are certain policies and we are all, you know, on the same ground. All of us, right? So warn, don't threaten people. Don't abuse people of what they are doing. Right? Now, some of us maybe, you know, in church ministries and teams, we may be team leaders, right? We are not to say, okay, if you don't do this, then maybe next month onwards, you can't be in the team. That's a threat. Right? It's like you're threatening them if you don't do it. If you don't serve in the church for the next one week, see, I, you know, I can't say I'm going on a holiday. And so now you have to do all the work because I'm going on a holiday. And then you can't threaten them by saying, if you don't do it next next month, you won't be the team. That is wrong. Right? There are ways to handle people handle your team members. And it's always good to be transparent with them. Tell them, right? They can't understand everything. This is one very, very, very important lesson that I learned in ministry is tell people what you, you know, what you expect because they may not understand it. You know, they can't read minds. People cannot read your mind. People cannot read my mind. So we have to tell them, right? If somebody does something wrong, you can't make an angry face and stand and say, okay, I thought you saw my face last time I was upset. So this is your next this is your final warning. You're out of the team. No, you need to sit. We need to sit with them, talk to them, warn them, tell them, these are the things that we are that is that we are doing is affecting the organization. It's affecting the team. And so we want to make sure that, you know, this does not happen. So what we're doing is we are, you know, we can consider this as a first warning. Now, there's nothing wrong in it. It's not unbiblical, right? It's not, the Bible teaches us to, you know, the Lord Jesus Himself has, has, you know, taught His disciples and Apostle Paul also saying here, when they do good, you bless them. Remember the parable of the talents the boss gave them. And what did he tell the last person? I gave you something, but you didn't do anything about it. I gave you a coin. The others doubled it and they blessed and they were a blessing to me, but you didn't do anything about it. The boss was not happy about it. Right? He did tell him that, you know, you haven't multiplied. So, so it's not good what you have done. So the same way, it is all right as a leader, as a boss, as an employer to tell your team, right? Whether it's even a cell group you are, you may be attending, or you may be a cell group leader, tell your team, if you feel that there are people in your team that are causing strife, causing things that are, you know, you know, within the cell group and it's causing division, or there's some kind of uneasiness in the group, you need to, you know, you need to look at that matter. We cannot, you know, say, okay, it's okay, it's ministry. No. Yes, there's mercy, but there's also a way to deal with things, right? And so even as we, you know, as we continue serving in church and ministries, or in the organization, we will learn all this. We will learn how to bring correction, right? Next point, empower people for high performance, right? We learned that God, there's a lot we can do as we empower people. I just want to use these two examples. One is the ant, one is the locus. Now, through nature, God is teaching us very, something very important and Proverbs, right? It says, Proverbs 6 says, go to the ant, you slugger, consider her ways and be wise, which having no captain, no overseer, no ruler, provides her supplies in summer and gathers her food in the harvest. Now, this is a wonderful example that we can see. If you see the ants, they don't have a team leader. They don't have a command center, meaning, okay, you, you don't have somebody standing there, like the captain of the ants saying, you go this way, one go north, one go south, one go east. No. When it's, when it's summer, they know, okay, winter's going to come and they start working as a team. They all come together, they start making these, I'm sure you've seen these ant hills, right? It's not going to, it's not going to happen overnight or in two, three days. It takes a long time to make some of those ant hills and they all come together and, and then some of them are building the house for their shelter during winter. Some of them are going and bringing food and storing it up for the, for the winter because they know during winter we cannot come out. Now who made them, you know, who made them to work together? Just team work. What a wonderful, amazing example God is teaching us here. To, he's teaching us the power of teamwork, right? Now, the second example would be locus. Now, locus are very solitary, right? But in certain conditions, for example, when there's heavy rains or there's famine or drought in the place, they swarm together, right? There's no leader, there's no captain and, and what no locus, there's no, there's no, you know, personal locus that's saying, okay, we will do this way. No, no, all of them work together in an orderly manner. And then when they do so, there's great devastations. Remember the, in the book of Exodus, the whole plague of locus? Now they were not one or two locus, you know, just coming and sitting in the palace. No, no, there were swarms of locus and, and they have great flexibility and, and they, they can, you know, a swarm of locus can really just break into a wall. They are so strong, right? And here God is teaching us that when there's unity, when there's order, when there's spontaneous teamwork, the results can be amazing. So we are to empower our team to do better. Empower our team for excellence. Now you and I may be a team leader, and when we are a team leader, empower your team for excellence. You say, hey, come on, we can do better than this. And we've done a good job. We can go on and, and, and appreciate your team, involve them, tell, take them to their maximum limits. You know, even in ministry, you tell your, you know, I remember when we were offline as Bible college, when we were, when we were going to teach offline, I would tell, we would tell the students, the teachers, all of us, the faculty would tell us, come on, you have this assignment, this assignment, you got to do it. These are things that you have to do. We would send them out on street ministry in the afternoons. All the students go out on street ministry. Some of them would say, oh, I've not, no, you go, you can do it. You can learn. And so we wanted them to really excel in what the reason they came was to study and to do something in the ministry. We wanted them to be excellent in that. So pursue your team for that. Teach them the power of teamwork. These two examples, the aunt and the locus. Working as a team, spontaneity, and they're able to do greater works together as a team. Remember, ninth point, the sweetness of the lips increases learning. Learning is, takes place in the best way, is the best way that learning takes place is through positive encouraging. You encourage your team members. You encourage your, you know, imagine for example, you know, you want to learn the guitar and then you go, you go for classes and imagine the teacher says, you can never learn guitar, you know, you're not even able to play the G chord. How will you feel? Feel, hey, this guy is saying, I can't even play the chord, so I better not learn the guitar. Right. But what if you have a teacher who says, hey, it's, it's, it's nice. What you're playing is good. But, you know, as you practice a little more, you'll be able to do it this way. And, you know, and if you look at yourself two years from now, you'll be able to play many songs. The sweetness of the lips increases learning. I remember I went for keyboard classes and when I went, because I have a year for music, you know, I started just playing a few things and the teacher came and said, no, no, you should not play this. I said, no, I have a year for music, so I play, but then I will learn whatever you teach. No, you should not play anything else other than what the next class I was not there. I never went. I knew that this is not the right teacher for me. And so sweetness as a lips increases learning. Be good, be kind to your team members, encourage them. And when you do so, they will be encouraged to learn more. Right. Be supportive even when people make mistakes. Right. When people, you know, let's read Proverbs 1911. Smart people know how to hold their tongue. Their grandeur is to forgive and forget. All of us make mistakes. People in organization, especially we make small mistakes, we make big mistakes. Now, me personally, I've made small mistakes, I've made big mistakes. I'm talking about in the ministry. Right. I've made small mistakes, I've made big mistakes. And there are some of my team members in my team who have made small mistakes, big mistakes. Now, part of providing a supportive organization and encouraging environment is not to make a big deal out of people's mistakes. Don't hold on to their mistakes. Right. Yes, there are people in, in, you know, for example, in the church that I'm leading, there are people in the church who've made mistakes. Right. And now we've used that as teachable moments. We've told them, see, this is why it's wrong. This is why what you did is can affect the whole church, can affect the people in the church. And so we began to encourage them. We told them, okay, you look at other opportunities, pay, meaning look at other ways that you can deal with this problem that you're going through. And then pay attention to them, ask them what made them take that step, set certain guidelines. And sometimes all they need is a little help. Right. Just some guidance, some steps. Right. And especially you'll find this in the ministry. Don't be somebody who, you know, you know, somebody in your team makes mistake. Okay. This is a big mistake out of the team. No. Give them chances. Make it teachable moments. And then don't hold on to it. Don't, for example, somebody made a mistake two years back. And then maybe after three or two years, they made another mistake. You don't say, oh, you made another mistake. Remember, two years back, you made a worst mistake. It was a bigger mistake. Now again, don't do that. That is very, very, very wrong. Right. Even when people make mistakes, be supportive. Remember the Lord Jesus, He's so gracious to us. We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes. Now, God has been gracious to us. So we extend grace. Yet, if there is complacency, if there is indifference, if there's continual poor performance, if you feel that they are, you know, they are just hurting the organization by being there, you feel that they are not improving themselves and their skills and abilities. Again, you can give them a warning, then you can just show them the exit. Why? Because it's beneficial for the organization. All right. Kennedy has a question here. Is it proper for men to be entitled for maternity leave as some say it affects performance? Okay. That's a good question. Kennedy, nowadays, from what I know is a few organizations, especially IT companies and all that, understand that, you know, times have changed before you have a child. You know, your whole family comes and you've got people to look after the child and all of that. But now people working remotely, husband and wife just staying together. And so it is all right for and I know of companies that are providing leave for men as well because they know that, okay, the wife won't be able to, you know, after nine months of labor and all the pain she would need about three, four months of rest and wife will not be able to being a new mother will not be able to do things alone. So companies do consider giving paternity leave to men. So it's not wrong. Of course, it's not going to be like three months and like what companies do for women, but maybe 15 days, 10, 15 days depends on the organization again. And this is new ground. I'm not sure about companies, you know, I haven't been in the IT sector from 2012 onwards. So not sure if this is something that has come on paper. But but I believe that there are some companies who are already providing paternity leave. But it depends on them again. So yeah, there's nothing wrong about it. Okay, so we finished our time. We're close today. We'll continue tomorrow. We'll try to pick up from where we stopped. And then we'll also go to the next chapter, Workplace Relationships. All right, thank you so much for attending this class. Have a great day ahead. I'll see you tomorrow. God bless. Thank you, Pastor. God bless you too. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you, God bless.