 gonna recording start it okay good morning everybody welcome to pc 310 thanks for connecting the class today let's take a moment and pray together and then we get started all right may I request somebody to pray please and we get started student you ought to pray if it's okay it's a chance to pray go ahead have any father we thank you so much for this wonderful day thank you for all that you're doing in our lives glory we pray that you will teach us through my pastor Ashish that we'll be able to learn thank you that you are also giving us the energy to concentrate and be able to pay attention so that we can learn very well thank you for those that are here to come but you're bringing them and even those who are here that we're going to be sending in Jesus name we pray amen amen thank you all right so in this course on church and ministry administration we last week not last week we didn't have glasses last week but before that we had covered up till chapter five and chapter six lesson five and lesson six let me just quickly share that just to refresh our memory and then we will move forward so in lesson five we talked about the importance of having administrative policies and guidelines so we went through that and then lesson six which was the last lesson we were covering we were talking about operations you know having proper systems and processes in place for various areas of our ministry make sure that everything is functioning well and you know the fact is you know we we will never reach a place of perfection in the sense that there will always be things we can keep improving you know every area ministry so our goal is to try to you know be as excellent as possible but the fact is there's always room for improvement so in every area ministry you keep on you know addressing things watching how things are going and encouraging people to keep improving so that you know we can over time become better and better in what what's happening in the ministry so just give some examples and kind of left you with a little exercise to think about there were two exercises you know just for you to think about apply this matter this content so let's quickly talk about it let's spend a few minutes on this and then we'll want to have a next lesson so if you were setting up a traveling ministry right so that means you're an itinerant speaker preacher you know whether an evangelist or a bible teacher or some kind of a traveling minister which means you you'll be traveling all over the world and it may be you you may have you know few associates so you there may be a team of people traveling so it'll be more than one person and of course you know you're teaching preaching is one of the aspects you may have other things going on you know you may be releasing content online you may be writing books you may be you know so the ministry is more than just the speaking engagement there's a lot of other things also happening so if that was your kind of ministry how what would what are some of the things systems and process you would put in place so that this ministry does well it serves the people but so let's just kind of talk about it I'm not giving it as a written assignment or anything but just for our discussions if people want to share your if you want to share your thoughts you know imagine you are the head of this ministry you're one of the main speakers you have to travel different places speaking ministry to different audiences plus let's say you know you have three or four people who are part of your team they're also doing this and then you may have other aspects of ministry involved so just imagine and and let's just share some thoughts anybody wants to describe what would be your organization structure and the systems and process you would put in place to make sure your ministry is serving the people that anyone he wants to go all right I'm going to call out some names yeah all right everyone attempt yes Kennedy go ahead is it good to have an advanced team before you start your ministry sorry well what was that team again and once okay what would this team do uh advance team meaning this team will do the setback for you what you need to do why you have to friends because you're traveling with people you can go on your own yeah okay good so you're going to have a team who would take care of all the logistics if I understood correctly they will go ahead plan out everything so that's really important right suppose you're having a conference in a city usually the planning starts say 12 months ahead uh yes if it's a smaller conference of course you can do it within three four months but depending on how big it is you know people start planning sometimes two years in advance sometimes 12 months in advance sometimes three four months so that's your team you need a you need a team you know you you can call it logistics uh but Kennedy used the word advanced I was trying to understand that um you know basically they take care of all the logistics of planning there's so many things that need to be done ahead of time so definitely that's one team you know that you will have to have in place very good what else so you're you're a traveling minister what what kind of things do you need to back you up okay let me see the chat here Tharun has shared be sensitive to cultural differences get the team train and cultures have a user-friendly expense tracking system okay so Tharun has highlighted two important things one is being culturally sensitive I think that's very important because you know if you're traveling in different places it's not the same everywhere especially if you're going to different countries uh you know if you have to be sensitive uh when you come there I mean how you go about doing things uh you know you have to be respectful sensitive to the culture so that the people you're sending out of course they should be you know since you don't want to do anything to offend people even if it's just you know it's a cultural thing but you know you need to be respectful and another thing Tharun points it out is um an easy to use expense tracking system so that's again another important thing because people are going to go ahead they're going to have the personal expenses they would need to be you know you need to monitor or I mean they would have all these expenses you need to track these things whatever needs to be reimbursed vendors need to be paid all kinds of things and so if you have a very simplified process that will help so that's that's kind of having to do with the financial side of things which is also very important so you need to have financial side so we we said we need to have a larger 16 we need our people who are culturally sensitized we need to have good financial system there to take care of all the expenses team expenses other expenses as well Shikumar has shared um preparation and prayer that's important proper communication um I'm assuming that's within the team yeah you need to have that you know uh so these are some other things to think about and then if you there are many other other things fix that poll if you're having a if you're having a conference you may need people to register for those things so the get it should be the public you need a team that will do the publicity for you the promotions for you and these promotions have to be targeted so that means if you're doing a conference in a city or you're going to be speaking in a particular city you want to of course let the people in that area know you don't want to let random people in parts of the world that they're not going to be there you don't want that information equal to what you want to target your promotions your thing your announcements so you need to have a good it system that records your database as people are registering you could you know keep informing them about upcoming events and so on yeah and a good admin yeah i see roshan's comments their website admin staff resources prayer counseling yeah so you need a good backup of admin when people call uh they will you know um want to know information about the event should have people responding also as a itinerant minister you know part of your your finances of course if you're going if you if you've been invited by a church or organization they would probably give you an honor radium but otherwise your funding your finances is coming through the supportive people you know the those who want to support your ministry so you need to think about that you need to have a a way by which um you would be able to receive five financial contributions and then you need you need to have a good wave acknowledging you know somebody send some money this gotta be they gotta get a reply saying thank you kind of thing whenever that's possible now um what i wanted to say but so as a traveling minister the principle that you apply is if you show into people's lives spiritually then you can receive from them financial material so this is biblical right you read about this in first Corinthians nine also in Galatians chapter six so you don't have a local church congregation supporting your ministry the ministry is being supported by people wherever they are who are being served spiritually through your traveling ministry so you need to have a good system should be robust so that anybody who wants to give will be able to give to support your work now as a traveling minister you may have multiple people on your team you know so then the scheduling and the planning multiplies that means it will be not just you you may be going to one city but another team member will be going to another city another team member will be going to a third city so this whole planning and all of logistics all that has to be replicated for every team member so that everywhere these conferences meetings can happen very well and then if your your team is producing additional resources like maybe you are producing books uh you're releasing content online uh so even there that has to be you know you're going to think about whether you want to give it for free whether you want to charge for it if you're going to charge for it you know again that's another source of income to support the ministry but you need to have a good system in place for those kinds of things as well and so uh so you to think about you know this traveling ministry it's a very valid ministry God calls people to be traveling ministers they go around and then depending on the kind of ministry doing you need to have a good organization backup uh supporting that very quickly if we talk um christopher go ahead please comment or a question oh yes but i was just also thinking that uh if we back up a little bit um you know at the start of this of this ministry uh there is a need to decide whether you know there's a certain focus um target audience and also focus uh geography that we want to you know target um and this also establishes a brand uh you know in a sense for for that ministry it could be one person it could be multiple people so uh i think that could be important and um particularly when it comes to you know getting invited by you know by churches or by you know certain uh certain cities or whatever you know geographies that uh where we want to spread where the uh this ministry wants to uh you know operate in so yeah start like that that's good it's very good actually that's very important you know uh what kind of ministry would it be are you targeting the youth are you targeting you know then you you hear about different specialized ministries you know some people you know specialize on uh okay we want to do things for marriage married couples or you know we want to do things for the youth or we want to do things for professionals whatever that's a good point so then you begin to target based on uh what you're been called to do you will decide on the areas where big cities or the rich parts of the world you're going and so on that's very important so very quickly uh so the other exercise was just like that you can think about well if you're running if you're having a bible college if you want to run a bible college you've got to think through the whole process again right so it's nice to say i won't have a bible college but it's not a simple thing to do right because there are so many parts of this whole thing this whole organization or ministry that has to run well right so right from you know you think about promotions how do you create awareness that there is a bible college and how why should people come to this particular bible college when you have uh when people have so many options today right so how would you promote how would you present yourself what are the differentiators then you think about where are your students going to come from you know how are you going to get the students to come and then what are the modes of your teaching it's going to be all in person nowadays you know you have to think about that it's all going to be in person it's going to be online what how are we going to teach them and then you got to think about the whole facilities we're going to have on campus you know the just keep maintaining the facilities running the facilities if you're going to have residential students then you have to think about all the other things that happen but that they're they're accommodation their food their daily schedule you know the things that they need so on so all of these things you have to think about if you want to even if you're running a simple bible college you have to think about all of these things and we need to put people in place to make sure all these things function well all right let's move forward we'll move to the next lesson today which is again a very uh you know I feel that all of these all of these things are important and I keep saying some sometimes I say something's important but actually every piece to this whole thing our ministry is is important so today we're going to talk about church staff management so what we're really talking about is how do you know how do you manage the people who are employed by the organization so we just call them church staff you could call them employees you can whatever whatever language you want I'm just calling them church staff because that's kind of what we the language we use here um but these are people who are working for the organization they are paid by the organization they are working for the organization uh the christian talk about the christian ministry right so that's what we mean by church staff now at a high level when you look at it for most christian organizations you would have at least three categories sorry you'll have at least three categories of people you'd have staff when we use the word staff you're talking about full-time people so they are working full-time for the organization then we use the word consultants these consultants are like part-time that means they will work any number of hours that they have available you know and and and so they're paid hourly so we refer to them as consultants they're paid according to the work they do and then we have a big set which are volunteers so volunteer management we will talk about that in a separate lesson I think it's the next lesson so we'll talk about that separately because that is a very important part of the christian ministry a lot of christian ministries are volunteer driven or maybe they have a very big part or place for volunteers to serve you know and and and that is important especially if you're talking about a church organization a church based on this a lot of volunteers would be there it is also true of general other kind of christian ministries people will come and they say I like to volunteer I like to just you know give my time and effort at no charge and so this is an important area we'll talk about it but when you talk about church staff here I'm mainly referring to those who are full-time plus those who may be paid hourly or part-time okay so we're talking about paid people who are part of the organization so you may in your part of the world you may be using a different word than consultants and staff but these are the terms that we use you may be using different different you may call them differently and that's okay right just the only difference is when we say consultants we're talking about people who are paid hourly or on work so for example our translators people who translate our books into different languages they are paid you know by the work they do for each book they'll have a certain cost especially the number of pages they translate and they pay for that so like that we all there those who do video dubbing you know so they they they dub the English sermon into the local language Hindi so then they get paid per 45 minutes of dubbing video so like that they're different people who get paid on a work basis then others are paid on hourly basis so you know what must we keep in mind when you're thinking about stuff I want to start at the very beginning the very beginning is your hiring process you see we need to have a very good hiring process because especially when you're you know just depending on the on the role that they're having you know our goal of course is to bring the right people in to the right roles that you have in your organization and for that it begins here at the hiring process so first you need to clearly define what is the role that you're trying to fill right so maybe it's a pastoral role maybe it's a administrative role maybe it's a technical role like a you know part of the IT team or your graphics team or video editing whatever you have so the skills the required skills the required background the the kind of person you're looking for and you know what what are they going to do what a response you need to write it down so we have intentionally before we start our hiring process first thing we do is we write down the role description you know so and you can find examples of that in our website apc.org slash guidelines so write it down so this way everybody's very clear what kind of person you should be looking for and the person who's applying also is very clear what is expected from them there is no ambiguity they can't say oh I didn't know I'm supposed to be doing this I didn't I didn't know this was what was expected of me no it's all very clear it's written down so there can be no we try to avoid as many mistakes the next thing is to have a proper interview process you know what I observe and I'm not saying this in a demeaning way I'm just saying from observation is that generally you know in Christian ministry or the Christian organization especially we we don't think about having a proper interview process you know the pastor will find somebody in church he likes the person okay come and join start tomorrow like that or he will have us you know some relatives okay you come and join you start working and generally you know in Christian ministry it's it's happens like that and that is actually not good because you you know because we might end up putting people in places that they don't really have the skills to do what is expected then there's problems and then there is bad feelings and then you know all kinds of things happen so I feel this interview process which is a very neutral process that means it doesn't matter you know who you are that is you know of course as long as we meet the criteria you go through everybody goes through the same process of interview and yeah and then we get them started right now the depending on the role you the process could vary that means you know of for example in some cases I don't even get involved like when example translators I'm not even involved in that you know we have a person who's handling publications that person will you know select you know who are the good to be the translators they have their own criteria they decide they hire they do so I don't I'm not even involved in that but they they will choose okay you know they will find the transfer they'll do have the calls they'll do the discussion they will select people are going to translate similarly in consultants in many areas I don't get involved I let the person who is hitting the administrative decide on whom they want to have on their team so I'm not I may recommend I say hey yeah why don't you ask these five people you interview them and you choose whom you want if I know people in that who are good in that area but otherwise I don't get involved it's okay see you find out you interview you you select you you come back and tell me I may just do the final you know meeting or something like that but generally this is a neutral process that means that it's not based on do I like to you know I know this person so I'll hire no it's based on does this person meet the required skills and so we have a proper interview just like how you know in the corporate world when people are live for jobs they go through a proper process even us we as Christian organizations should have some sort of a process so simple things like okay people have to submit a resume and we get lots of emails every day you know from people from around the country they say oh I'm looking for a job I want to work for a Christian organization can you consider me those kind of emails keep coming almost every day and you know it's like hey they're not even sending a resume we don't even know how can you even think about hiring somebody you know so they have their has to be okay you have to send a resume we need to know your background what have you you know something about what you have done what is the experience you're bringing etc then of course you from after you look through the resumes you identify potential candidates so this is what our HR person does of course and then they do an initial phone screening so it's a phone interview just to you know go through what they've said see if they really fit usually we will also check English depending on the role do they speak good English can they communicate clearly do they have the required experience etc etc then we may give them a practical test so the next round you know so especially if it's a technical role like if you're a video editor a graphic designer you're a software developer whatever you know this technical role then we give them a practical assessment so for example if you're a proof reader you know okay so we will make we'll give you a practical test so you know you read through this doc you know two page three page document and let do this you know to the proofing of it so we'll see you can see your skills right so that will happen and sometimes either that or they'll be in-depth interview so especially if it's like a pastoral role of course and we can't give them a practical assessment so we have to do an in-depth interview so or a counselor you know things like that so we have an in-depth interview where you know it might be a two hour interview we ask them a lot of questions about what they've done etc etc so then there's a group interview where you know if they do well in this let's assuming that they've done well here then the group interview is okay who are they going the team that they're going to be part of will interview them so if it's a pastoral then all the pastors associate pastors would interview this person because everybody has to be comfortable with that person if it's you know so if it's just so this group interview of course depends on the role if it's a counselor then our counselors who are there right now will interview them as a group so there's a group interview and then there's a final round where they will meet with me in most cases if it's a role that I'm you know they're not going to report to me directly or I'm not you know if I am dissatisfied with others if the others make an assessment then this we may skip this but if it is something where it's an important role they would meet with me here I really check on you know will they fit into our culture what kind of a personality are they you know are you know this is very important for me because if they don't fit into our culture if they have attitudes that are that are wrong if they you know they're off if they go off on a all these kind of things I try to filter here at this thing so they may be technically good they may be very good in their work you know but if they don't fit in to how we want to work I would filter it out here so and then finally if they go through all of this then we give them a formal jump off now some of you may think hey why should a church do this you know why should a church why should a christian organization do this I feel it's very important because you see if you have somebody in who is not performing or with not doing the work well or they are they don't fit into the culture it can disrupt a lot of things you know and here you are trying to serve the people well you're trying to give people the best you can and and if you if you bring in wrong people it can really cause problems and the ministry gets affected so I feel the hiring process is very very important as you bring people in to the organization what are some of the things you would check I'll just finish a little more ground and then we'll take questions you know some some simple things I check motivation you know why are you applying to APC so we also ask people to submit a personal statement you know why do you want to work for a christian organization then of course we want to check competence their skills they're calling their passion you want to look at their work history if somebody's been jumping a job every one year they're changing jobs for us you know that's immediately a red flag that means they'll stay with us only one year then they'll go on and by the time you know they've actually learned how to do things well they're moving on so that's not nice so we look at their work history one of the common questions they ask people is you know the blank sheet question so I just tell them suppose I give you a blank sheet of paper and I tell you you can do whatever you want there's no constraint of money there's no constraint of anything you can do anything you want what would you do what were the top three things you would do now the reason I ask that question is then you really get to know what they really want to do you know and versus the job they're applying for so if the job they're applying for matches with what they really want to do that's a very good sign you know that means they're going to really enjoy the work but if what they really want to do something else and they're just looking at this as a job that they work well you know I'm not saying it's wrong and just saying that you're aware that it's going to take a little bit more effort for them to be happy in the job because what they really want to do something else and this is there's something they they do for work we do practical assessments I mentioned that and also I would ask questions to explore you know are there any harmful dangerous characteristics you know so for example let's say you know so you know what are the biggest problems you had with your previous boss you know example just ask a question like that and then they start telling you how bad their boss was and how terrible person is then you know that's not a good attitude you know it's a red flag it's a dangerous attitude you know or you might say now what was the most difficult situation you had working with your team members and then they start telling you how bad their team members were and all of them that's a red flag you know so that means they're not willing to take response before their own actions they're always putting to blame on other people you know and that's a that's a dangerous attitude so like this you know we would look at it some other red flags for example if they come late for an interview that's it example two weeks back there was one person who was supposed to come for an interview at five o'clock at 4.45 he calls and says you know I'm late I can't come I told our HR tell him not to come they're not going to interview right because for me that's a sign of irresponsibility you know you've got an interview at five o'clock you have to be in this office at five if you're late you have to call us at least two hours before you know that you're late call us two hours earlier and say hey I'm going to be late or whatever the reason is but if you're calling 15 minutes before and saying I'm late that's not acceptable you know so we just didn't even bother to he had good skills he had already gone through the technical interview everything was fine so he had to come for the last interview with me but he just couldn't come on time cancel we don't want person like that on our team there has to be responsibility you have to take this seriously so we also see how they treat staff you know so when they come into the office we have a friend office person office manager do they talk to all these people respectfully you know or if they talk to them you know disrespectfully then we don't want them in our team you know you have to treat everybody with respect so I mentioned this they speak negatively with past employers experiences if they are judgmental critical about other denominations churches you know of course there are many different denominations churches but we should love people we shouldn't judge them criticize them yeah so when we ask questions we will see how they work simple thing you know if they come unprepared so I asked them so what do you know about APC and it's so funny a lot of people who come for interview they don't know much about the church that means they haven't prepared you know they're just coming for a job they're not they haven't looked into the organization that they are looking at you know that means they haven't you know a lot of information is on our church website so if they just spend you know half an hour going to the church website they'll get to know who we are but they haven't done that and so then that means they're not good people who are taking this seriously they may have great skills but they're unprepared or sometimes I'll ask them about the role they're applying you know so what do you know I want to make sure they've actually gone through the role description because we've made a lot of effort in writing out the role description and if they don't make the effort to read it it's a sign that you know they don't take these things seriously so then we just we don't bother we just let them go so another thing is if they you know if they give vague answers why are you leaving your previous job or your current job and you know they're not being clear and honest then they're covering things up so then that's a red flag for us so all of these things and then even if family members are applying they all go to the same process there is no preferential treatment and so on okay so let me pause here and I don't know what you're thinking you're thinking this these guys are crazy or what so all right um everybody's okay so far you're you understood okay all right okay yeah see your comments there um good can thank you all right yeah absolutely no problem no problems very late yeah and uh elaysia okay yeah so you know uh I know the sounds uh uh the sounds you know very uh very very uh I don't know what to say like very strict something very strict but really I feel it's very important because if you bring the right people in everything's going to go well with the ministry with the organization but if you bring you know somebody in with a bad attitude and so on it can be very very difficult very difficult yeah so uh Christopher has a question uh please provide real life examples of dangerous attitudes you know um so here's the example uh we had a person now uh I don't know if I give a give if you had mentioned the role some of you might know who I'm talking about so I won't mention the role he had with us but he had a very important role with us so uh and this happened just recently I'm talking about so the last couple of years anyway so he was with us and uh he he was you know decent in his work and and and and so this was before the pandemic so 2020 before 2020 uh um he he had already worked with us I think two years before that or something like that he'd been with us for something then the pandemic pandemic happened so you know a lot of things shut down so what I did was um um I told people so this was 2020 uh yeah this actually this happened in yeah 2022 so 2021 it's the second year so first year pandemic happened 2020 a lot of things closed shut down a lot of ministries we shut so everybody was working from home and you know we told people okay are you work from home and you're you're keeping things going and so on then in 2021 uh we reopened and again things shut down so I'm getting mixed up with this 2020 or 2021 I'm really sorry I forget which year this happened just forgive me I got a little mixed up here I ended this up 20 okay anyway I'm getting a little mixed up with 2020 and 2021 anyway but so okay here's what happened right so everybody had to work from home so I gave this person and and and I gave actually all our staff I said okay but we're just working from home we can't meet in the office this that's locked down so each of you please work on different things you know I gave them all things to work on and I gave this person and at that time I told a lot of our people you know to do a lot of writing work documentation work you know it's okay you document your part of what you're doing this is a good chance to catch up on those kinds of things so so I gave that kind of work to almost all our staff and and so to this person also I gave I said see you document your area of work document and I said see we want to build your department so right now your department has only one person you but the next step for us is to hire two or more three people under you so that you can grow your department and especially you know very soon we're going to start our building project we're going to buy land and all of that so it's going to be a lot of work so let's start preparing for that now and therefore you need to prepare to increase your department and part of that is you need to document all the process what's happening so the new people join it'll be easy for us to you know train them get them ready to be part of it so that was the motivation so I told please write this and I gave him time so I said you know after so so this was in March may I think may I get two months okay in two months send the document to me now all the others did their work they sent it you know we were going about it this person didn't do it so I said what happened you know because we don't have a lot of other work going on this was it's a simple you know maybe five ten page document you can write or maybe even less maybe five pages that's all two months or whatever the time was yet not done it I followed up with what happened at least you should tell me it's done it's not done well he did so I said okay you know fine be kind and give him another month please finish it didn't happen and so you can imagine this is a Christian organization there's a lot of grace I waited six months for a five page document now if the same thing happened in the corporate world I wouldn't wait five months I wouldn't wait one week I would have fired immediately if they don't do they were in a corporate sphere now because we're a Christian organization okay you know grace grace all that six months he did it so for me it's not that he didn't have the capacity he has an example of a bad attitude right we are being gracious we are saying hey please do this if everyone else has done that work you know and it's really been gracious giving time I even gave him reference documents I said you know look at these documents this is how it's going to be you know this is what we need for our organization we need to grow the department we need to hire more people you know once there's a lot of work coming up you know once we come out of the pandemic so let's get ready for it so I was being so gracious but his his attitude was no and now finally at the end of six months I had to deal with it the sense that called him called other team members I said see so I had to involve other people then because I wanted them to know that I'm not dismissing him arbitrarily I explained the whole situation I said see this is how often I was reminding this how often I was requesting I even provided reference documents we did all of that and yet till now nothing has been done and there is no real reason it's not like he didn't know he didn't have the skill it was just I'm I don't care kind of attitude and so we had to dismiss him yeah so so he's just one example where this person not that he didn't have the skill or he didn't know what to how to do it just he didn't care and yeah he was in a place of responsibility I don't know what he thought maybe he thought that there's no way I could be fired or whatever his reasoning was I don't know but we dismissed him and you know sad to say he came back to me about four weeks ago and asked if he could rejoin us for me I cannot take him back why because I didn't see a change in the attitude now there are many people who've left us and we've taken them back you know but in this particular case I said you know in my mind there's no way I can take him back because attitude you know that is a big issue all right so sorry I didn't mean to bore you all with these things but these are you know this this is these are the real side of you know a Christian running a Christian organization and so on you have to deal with these things and attitude is important okay all right let's before we go for a break okay see Christopher some of us may want to become a bible college teacher I may have missed this but don't see a role description for this yeah you're right Christopher we haven't we haven't put that out yet because as of now it's you know it's our pastors pastors were doing a lot of the teaching but definitely you know and also we just reopened so students coming on campus is still very small like right now we have only 13 14 15 something like that students you know so I think once things start picking up on you know people feel more comfortable getting back on campus all those kinds of things uh people and unless we need more staff we will put that out but the need rises and yeah people do that and usually we do hire people you know especially for bible college we take our own people because then they know those have studied with us they know the curriculum they know the content and they know very important as they fit into the culture so we usually don't take people from just random colleges because and for us content is very important you know what we're teaching so because that's our differentiator as a college yeah so we'll let you know we'll put that out yeah any other questions on this there's a lot more to talk about I just mentioned the hiring process any any other questions okay okay Louis go ahead please good morning sir good morning everyone um I don't know if you're asked if this is a psychologist but it does that sometimes I wonder how we journey as christen and christen starts how we journey from a place of commitment um you know there's that passion at this at the beginning then after a while we begin to develop some attitude the reason I'm saying says because in the corporate world you know it it's they could call it training but in in the church certain you go to church you hear messages you hear different things that come from the pulpit but after a while I begin to develop some kind of um actually how do we journey how do we journey from such one end to the other end you know and even in the spiritual quote unquote spiritual atmosphere so you're talking about your is your question like why why do like we believers get a bad attitude is that your question or yeah yeah just from the example you shared you know how someone that started at first you know with that sense of commitment faithfulness and then after a while he begins to journey into maybe there was an offense or something but then an attitude comes into the picture or yet you cannot stay corrected even though you're sitting you're sitting under the word of god the influence of the spirit but at that point in time it's like your heart is it's it's kind of severe if you're getting the work but not regarding the fellowship of the brethren I just feel that if you're having fellowship with the brethren it should temper your heart even though there was an offense even though there was something that's going wrong such that it doesn't affect the work that you're dealing with the brethren in this context of course we are a spiritual body but sometimes if you stay in that in that sphere of bad attitude you know here we are taken out of the system but sometimes we're not taken out of the fellowship we're just taken out of the administrative system because of your attitude but yet we remain in the fellowship of the brethren because we don't have to that's your part of the body yeah yeah um so I think see one I mean there could be many but one of the big negative attitudes that usually develops and in you know be all like you said we all start out well be a serving god etc etc be a part of the fellowship that you're serving but one of the common negative attitudes I see is a sense of entitlement that means you feel like hey I deserve to be in this place and I deserve this place nobody can take it from me it's a feeling of entitlement and that is a dangerous attitude because then you feel that you deserve this you deserve this position you deserve this place you deserve you know whatever you know privileges you may have and that's a feeling of entitlement and that's a dangerous thing because then even if you're not performing even if you're not doing things right you feel you still deserve it and nobody can question you it's a dangerous thing so what I do tell myself I say hey anytime I'm I should be ready to give up being a pastor you know either being a pastor being a leader is is a gift that God has given I don't I'm not entitled to it I should be willing to step down anytime anytime and the only reason I am you know I'm allowed to be here is one is because of God's grace secondly because I am fulfilling what God wants me to do if I fail to fulfill my responsibility then I I don't have a right to be in this place or if I am not living the way I should be living as a leader I have no right to be in this place you know in fact yeah I you know I like I think and maybe six weeks ago I was ready to fire myself out of my position you know my place as a pastor what happened was I I actually lost my cool in the office and now it's really rare that I lose my calm but it happened like maybe six weeks ago month and a half ago and what was the situation there there was yeah there was it had to do with one of our people in the media team you know and they were doing things that they were not supposed to be doing and I had I had a I had a long day it was like a full day I think it was Thursday like this Tuesday or Thursday I forget anyway I had a long day I finished my classes by the college classes I gone at meetings meetings meetings the office and then in the evening at about 6 30 or something one of the people in the media team come and they tell me what they're doing and it is like totally off I was so upset you know and I lost it like I really I said I spoke very sternly to this person why doing this and what is going on and all of that and then after I did that I felt very bad because I am the leader and I should not be losing my calm I should not and this was the second time like I had you know once it had happened maybe about two years ago I had lost my I had lost my cool in the office and again I had you know I had spoken very sternly to whoever the stuff was but this happened again this was second time it happened and I was so upset with myself you know I mean yes what they were doing was wrong but I always try to be calm and correct the thing in a very calm way but that day I lost it you know I just couldn't stay calm I I just spoke very sternly and there were other people in the office and people saw saw the whole thing I was so embarrassed I was so ashamed and I was also upset with myself that I lost my calm so I came home I told my wife and I said see I was just thinking about it you know this is not good this is happening the second time and this is a serious problem and as a leader I can't be like this you know and I was thinking what happened why did I do this why did I lose my calm and and I was actually I said you know what would I do if another staff behaved like this if another staff behaved like this I would give in usually we have a three strike rule at you know church I'll talk about it later that means we give two warnings and the third time they are dismissed you have a three strike rule so I said look I have to apply the same rule to myself this is the second time it's happening that means I've already finished two chances third time it happens I'm fired I have to fire myself you know and so I process the whole thing the same way I said see I have to treat myself the way I treat any other staff this three strike rule applies to me also and then so I you know I processed out you know I was thinking about it the whole night I woke up in the morning I was just God why is this happening I went to the scriptures I did all the scriptures about controlling your anger and you know all those things and then I certainly went to all our church staff I said you know I apologized for what happened the previous evening and I and I wrote down the same rule I said see if this happens one more time I will step down as being pastor of the church I will step down from being on the board of the church I will step down if it happens one more time because the three strike rule applies to me also I already messed up twice in the last two years two three years I've two times I've lost my cool if it happens one more time I will dismiss myself I will no longer be the pastor of the church I will step down I'll just be an ordinary cleaner that's it and so so what am I saying we should never feel entitled to this role anything that we have it is a gift from God and the only reason we get to stay that is because we are fulfilling fulfilling our responsibility the baby is supposed to if you don't you have to you know let go of it okay all right so let's go for a break and I took all the time break time already in this lecture let's go for a 10 minute break we'll be back in 10 minutes okay thanks