 to those who joined in the last few minutes. So, we will pray and we will get started. Just want to request someone to lead us in a word of prayer, please. Anyone, you can unmute yourselves and pray. Ma'am, can I pray? Yes, please. Okay. Heavenly Father, we come before your throne of grace in the name of Lord Jesus Christ. As a verse, you give us grace and mercy every morning and give us new opportunities. So, Lord, Father, bless our pastor with the spirit of revelation, wisdom, knowledge and understanding and remove every form of distraction so that this class will go smoothly without any kind of distraction, technical, and bless each of us with a listening ear and understanding heart so that we can grasp and understand whatever we learn in this class, Lord. And thank you for hearing this prayer. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Abhishek. Thank you for leading us in that word of prayer. So, what we'll do is we will get back to what we were discussing in the last session. So, basically, we talked about the house of God and in the context of us being the family of God and then we touched on a couple of points here. We said that we are a family but we are a spiritual family and there are boundaries between the spiritual and the natural families and then we said the way every family has a culture, it has values, it has vision, it has mission. So, similarly, even the local church must have these things and we said that in our family, people are at various levels of experience and maturity so that applies to the church as well. People who are more mature, they are expected to be more responsible and greater accountability is expected from them and those who are just growing in God, we nurture them and we help them grow and there's more of forgiveness and understanding given to those who are just growing up in a regular family as well as in the church family. So, these are some things that we talked about then we said that in the family of God, there are fathers and mothers, those who are mature in God and we talked about how they impart into the lives of those who are growing in God and then we also said that it must be a relationship where there is that mutual understanding and care so the mentors or the fathers and mothers as we want to call them, they are pouring into the lives of the people who are growing and those who are receiving, they are very respectfully received from those who have gone ahead of them so we touched upon the characteristics of fathers and mothers and then the characteristics of sons and daughters in the house and I think we have covered that on our fathers and mothers and yeah so what we will do is oh yeah we talked about how we can establish a good relationship with someone whom we want to mentor and you know that's where we were at we said that it's good to have a personal relationship with people and then from that place you know when we communicate with them and not just you know superficial communication but anything deep that has to address matters of character they will be in a position to receive because we have built trust in that relationship and then we said that in a mentoring relationship one must exercise positive influence and see to the spiritual growth of the person who we are mentoring and always deal with people's character more than we deal with gifting. Now there will definitely be inputs that are provided for a person to grow in the anointing and hone the skills that God has given them but you know the underlying core thing would be the character so we said that the character is the wine skin if the character of the individual is not okay then even the anointing cannot last for a very long time okay and then we we talked about how we must not be jealous or envious of you know the father's another should not be envious of the people who grow under them in fact they must be proud if anyone has greater accomplishments compared to the mature folk okay then yeah trained people based on that God appointed destiny so we we don't just get them to do things which we think are essential for the for the functioning of the local church but we always have their destiny in mind okay and and that's how we we position them that's how we we groom them nurture them and then you know as the Lord leads if God would want that person to minister outside of the four walls of that local church then you know we bless them and send them out and also help them to make that transition so uh this was about the mentoring relationship and how to build a positive mentoring relationship okay uh yeah okay so the next topic here is about developing community but I think the subject of fathers mothers even in the Christian circle right now it's it's um I mean it already exists in certain places I think I don't know I don't know what to call it but it may not be used in the in the right way so I thought we could just talk about fathers and mothers and mentoring relationships a little bit before I touch on the Christian community and also in the last class Samuel you had talked about you know how a mentor should should go after the mentee and be or let's say labor of love right long suffering so just to keep going after a mentee and to never give up on the mentee so the fact is that uh yeah that's that's true that's true and a mentor should have a heart of that kind the father or the mother um but you know reciprocity is is equally important so while the the father or the mother is doing their part to uh to develop you know a young person or somebody who's who's fairly new in the Lord the responses of of that individual really matter in the long run and if the the mentee response well enough you will see a faster growth okay so uh it has to be it has to be from both sides the cooperation has to be from both sides so I just thought I would mention that and I mean uh Samuel do you have uh anything to ask on those lines or just I think um no my thoughts on mentorship which is few thoughts even I've been thinking about it so so at one level they are the church pastors who who are the shepherds who say who look after the flock and you know bear burden for the flock and make sure that you know everyone who's attending um is being spiritually nurtured but I think you know a mentor is at a deeper level where once you decide that you want to mentor someone I mean if you jump into mentorship for the opportunity to try out and you don't know the mentee well there are good chances that uh you know expectations are not set there are chances like you know the mentor-mentee relationship doesn't work but um you know if if if there is more intentionality in terms of uh you know okay I I've known this person for a while and and there is an opportunity for mentorship let me let me uh let me kind of think what I'm getting into and you really think about that you you evaluate this person that you that you want to take up mentor I think I'm just uh in my mind I think I'm thinking of mentorship at a whole new level where it's it's more than uh just uh you know I mean so because a mentor is not a mentor for the whole church unlike a pastor is you know you're you're talking with one individual I think the default position should be that that yes uh you know I'm here to develop a character the spiritual growth but but this person will have character flaws there are chances that the person might still you know there are chances that person might not like you know what I'm the way I'm doing it so so I think the default person for me would be uh to to know all of that and and enter into I I mean can be customized to the default position once I decide to take up mentorship for someone I'm going into like this is this is this could be this could as well be a lifelong relationship and and even if the entire world gives up on this person I I won't I'll be the last person because I think I'm looking at if I'm looking at Christ as my model for mentor and I'm looking at myself as a model for mentee and if I'm saying Jesus Christ mentor me uh you know I'll not always be you know aligned but but I would expect Christ to give up on me I mean it's ideal and the most ideal I know it's it's not always available but the default is where I'm entering saying like I'll not give up on this person uh like I said uh you know it could be customized I mean they could see like you know they are there are chances that the mentor himself could could backslide could fall into something you know obviously loses the right to mentor someone and all of that or or it could it could it could even be a mutual consent like a life gets in the way that men marriage has kids other responsible things like that so you know they at a later journey uh with mutual understanding the mental mental relationship could end or could transform into something like friendship or better but you know this whole like if you say a father's son when does a father give up on the side never I mean ideally a father doesn't give up on the son eternally hopeful eternally so so I think that those were my thoughts thank you yeah sure sure short uh Samuel thank you thank you for sharing um so uh yeah I mean I I do understand where you're coming from and the the thought that a mentor should never give up on a mentee you know it it is uh I mean that's what it's supposed to be like right because Paul he wrote to um I think it's the Corinthians where he says that you have many teachers but you do not do not have fathers so you know a heart of a father is is something that uh you know it's it's for the complete well-being of the children and the love of the father goes to a great extent so yeah in that regard yes the mentor or the father must never give up on the mentee uh and yeah and and again you know as uh I pointed out earlier if at any point the the one who's being mentored does not want to receive then it becomes hard but yes the father should go a long distance in journey and you know do their level best to uh to help see this person grow and when we talk about growth uh you know I just wanted to share with us on scripture now it is uh from Galatians Galatians 4 and verse 19 let me read it for us it says my dear children for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you so you know that scripture's like the basis uh of what spiritual fathers and mothers should be doing so that is like the goal or the outcome of spiritual mentorship where Christ is formed and Paul says you know I've labored I've been labored in pains so that Christ be formed in you so uh whatever it takes you know teaching them the word uh mentoring them with regard to their character teaching them about the anointing the work of the Holy Spirit these are things that that are the focus as we mentor people because what is our goal Christ be formed in you I labor I labor so that Christ be formed in you so Galatians 4 19 I is a scripture that we can remember and I also just wanted to share this pdf pdf you can download you know from our website so we had done a sermon on spiritual fathers and mothers it covers the insights that we've shared in this section about what mentorship is supposed to be and nurturing is supposed to be and all of that uh but another good thing is that uh this sermon addresses some of the um you know some of the things that mentors should not do okay so I will read that out for us I thought that will be helpful um for us to note in this class as well so uh basically we talk about how one must not violate divine order if so by divine order basically it means that you know there's a family structure and there's a family boundary that God has assigned so as a pastor or a leader like you can't you can't trespass the other boundaries that individuals have like you know okay we've understood enough about this in prayer and intercession and believers authority so not to violate divine order now suppose uh uh menti is from another uh is from a local church and you know we are mentoring them in the area of leadership or something like that now we can't trespass the the boundary right there is a pastor over that individual and you know that pastor uh sort of uh work mentors this person in a different way so you know you can't override that so maintain those boundaries don't violate divine order uh no control or manipulation you know uh control manipulation because in the name of in the name of um spiritual mentorship okay spiritual control and manipulation is a possibility uh and you know that is something that we must stay away from uh and you know Paul in fact he warned the Galatians and he said that you must not come under bondage again so if Christ Jesus has set us free um yes there are fathers and mothers in the church but that relationship should not become a relationship where you know you cannot make any decision of your own or you don't have a you don't have a thinking uh mind of your own and everything has to be told to you by uh a preacher or you know everything from the bible has to be revealed to you through uh uh particular pastor only if they teach from the word can we understand God's word you know because things like this are happening around the world unfortunately so uh we must not let a mentoring relationship for a father mother uh spiritual father mother relationship become manipulation and control okay and uh not to abuse spiritual authority so abuse of spiritual authority means interference in people's decision making now uh somebody who is uh uh growing in the Lord whom we are mentoring they might want to make a certain decision regarding their career or how they want to plan their finances or whom they want to marry it's completely their choice you know as mentors as fathers and mothers we are responsible to share the truth of God's word so we place the truth of God's word before anyone but the choice to decide is that individuals so you know that is something we must respect and we must not abuse our spiritual authority if we if we try to force people to make decisions um uh based on what we think is correct what they need what we think they need to be doing you know that is abuse of spiritual authority so that is not uh you know um mentoring or spiritual fathering or mothering okay yeah so the the other uh some of the other points here is um not to uh be envious of of those who have gone ahead of us so you know it could happen that you know when uh someone does better than the mentor then the mentor looks for ways to pull them down or bring them down so uh to not not to do that uh and to be open and secure such that um people can receive from others as well for example uh there is a pastor in a church and the pastor is very anointed in terms of teaching now uh since the pastor has the teaching anointing and he really uh imparts the word into people's lives now if the pastor says that okay you must not listen to any other preacher or you must only read uh uh you know my commentary of the bible or things like that what happens is we are trying to control people we're not letting them have uh you know that that full perspective of what god is doing in the global body of christ so uh a mentor should not stop a mentee from receiving from several two ministers of god because in the body of christ there are many you know whom god has raised up and the work of god is being done through the lives of so many people so uh a father and a mother will not try to control okay and say that no you must listen only to me you must follow only what i say and things like that so uh and a little bit from history you know the shepherding movement of the 1970s and 80s uh there is an element of abuse you know that started in the christian circle um and and that is something we must be wary about uh so uh while it's good to to have you know spirit people used on like spiritual covering and all that all that's good but at the end of the day our submission is to god okay the submission of every believer is directly to god and the time for people who he puts into our lives but nobody becomes a mediator there's only one mediator the lord jesus christ so some additional thoughts here uh and uh to to be cautious about you know um uh some of the things that are being taught in the christian circle these days things like if you don't have a spiritual father or a mother you have an orphan spirit so these are all misconceptions and there is no biblical basis for things like this um or you must be connected to a spiritual father or a mother otherwise you will not develop in god i mean um there's no scriptural basis for statements like this if what if you don't have a spiritual father or mother you know the word of god uh one john two seven it says the anointing in you will teach you all things you know if it comes to that if you don't have a mentor the holy spirit is our mentor right so i can still learn still grow still mature through the word of god i don't need a human being to always be there for me now it is the way god works that he has given teachers in the body of christ and he does connect us you know to other individuals human beings in our lives and we praise god for that we receive from it but if at all we don't end up having a mentor that is not going to stunt our spiritual growth okay so uh yeah there are lots of other statements like your spiritual lineage is important like who's the father your spiritual father of the father you know teachings like this uh so i think i i'll just stop here you can have a look at the pdf we address all those issues and i think it will be very helpful um for us so christopher we are right now on page number 64 page number 64 yes yeah so uh i hope those those thoughts help everyone any any other clarifications okay shrikumar is asking can we pray to god to give us a spiritual father yes shrikumar that's a that's a good prayer we can pray that yeah we can pray that it's biblical it's biblical to have spiritual fathers and mothers so there's nothing wrong with that okay so i think there's enough like yes yes this this this really helps uh first i think um i i wasn't aware of this pdf but i'm looking at it and it's very specific i think the specific uh details really uh so i mean my thought was just around uh so that i think there's two sides of the like the one spec one end of the spectrum is where people have uh taken the mentorship to a whole new level and have misused it you know with with uh with uh you know manipulation and all of the other things that you're saying but uh what i also see is the other side of the spectrum where it's taken very lightly you know like yeah you know yeah i like i'm i'm becoming mentor and then in one week i'm changing like you know and and it the whole thing is just namesake and and that is not effective either so yeah yeah sure sure yeah that that makes sense and a good way in which we can um look for a mentee or look for a mentor is to be led by the spirit of god okay so i am reminded of elijah and elijah you know how god made that connection so god has a way of bringing people uh you know making people cross apart uh and when we we see that divine connection there go by that don't just go by thinking oh yeah i can do a good job of mentoring this person but in addition to that in spiritual mentoring we need that divine connection over there for us to uh decide you know who we want to mentor or who wants to um who we want to be mentored by yes okay uh ashri kumar yes i saw your hand raised so pastor you you cleared it uh when you said that no holy spirit will actually my question was this that whether we can choose a mentor or the god has to give us a mentor so that line now you clear it so that's why i just um you know lower thank you okay sure sure great so that's the best way of finding a mentor depend on god depend on the holy spirit so if we are comfortable with this subject we can move on to the next section over here which is about community developing community uh okay so developing community i think christopher in the last class had a question about live group um so you know we will address that as of now in the local churches one of our main gatherings happens to be the sunday service which is fine but in addition to that if we have other ways where people can connect they can get to know one another smaller group connections it really helps for um many things to happen in the lives of people okay so that nurturing can take place we can find fathers and mothers mentors we can learn uh you know so many things we can um equip ourselves in the in the work of god's ministry uh and all this can be done well if there are smaller groups where life to life connection happens so while we talk about christian community we will try to define what christian community is supposed to be and our best example is that of the early church okay so there is a passage given here in our notes i'm on page 65 the end of that page acts 2 versus 44 through 47 could somebody please read this passage yeah anyone please acts 2 44 47 yes now all who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and fighting them among all as in on hard need so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house they eat their food with gladness and simplicity of heart praising god and having favor with all the people and the lord added to the church daily those who were being saved amen amen thank you thank you charts for reading uh so some characteristics that we can see in the early church is the sharing of resources they had uh you know that the spiritual life they were serious about it and they engaged in things that would strengthen their spiritual life so there is prayer that is we talked about they met you know uh to learn from the teachings of the apostles so the word of god had importance in their community worship okay so they got together worship god so that was the reason that was the core connection for the community and then uh yes they also had fellowship they ate food in each other's homes and why is it that way we discussed it you know when we talked about the different kinds of church structures uh early church had homes where people could gather but today the format is slightly different you know we can't really gather uh in people's homes all the time so uh you know we have our main services and then you have other forms of gatherings and then yes some churches do have life groups so they gathered in people's homes um then they worshiped they worshiped at home they worshiped in the temple they had favor with all people so that just shows they had good healthy relationships among themselves and with the uh people outside uh and you know it was it was a place where god was working uh and the presence of god was so real the work of god was so real that many people were being added to the community so it was a growing community uh and uh that's how we observed the early church now given that in mind what we're saying is a good godly community of believers will have the following characteristics one is to have christ at the center okay so why what is the reason we fellowship christ is the reason okay so that must uh be the main thing because otherwise we just end up doing a social club like anyone else out there in the world and it it is no different from the communities that we can be a part of outside of church so uh when we talk about nurturing or developing godly community we must make sure that christ is at the center of our fellowship and our gatherings then we relate to one another so that we can spiritually build one another up so again the way paul said you know what is the reason for my laboring that christ may be formed in you christ's like character may be formed in you and what is the reason for our spiritual fellowship with one another same thing same thing that we may grow uh in the things of god uh and therefore you know a good spiritual community will have um engagements and worship and prayer and sharing of the word because these things are important without these things how are we going to uh develop in in the spiritual matters so uh doing like i mean doing community minus the pursuit of god doesn't make it a christian community okay or what else are we saying that the goal of spiritual community is to grow together in godliness okay and then the other other requirements as we see in the bible you know love one another with brotherly brotherly love carry one another's burdens so we're there for each other even the early church was uh was a very caring church they they took care of each one's needs and similarly christian community should have that genuine care for the people who belong to the community then um yeah i am just trying to give us some distinct points here okay uh we must also be a community that engages in love and good works towards the people outside then a good christian community is a community that engages in the great commission that has love for the people who are lost in the world outside uh and it's a community that experiences the kingdom of god you know the kingdom of god and we've discussed you know what is the meaning of the kingdom of god the power of the kingdom of god the values of the kingdom of god the principles of the kingdom of god so it experiences all of that and that makes for a good christian community now what christian community should not be now uh we're not saying that you know in any any gathering uh which is you know let's say a church gathering um if you miss out on prayer something's wrong or you know if we all didn't sing a two or three worship songs together then something is wrong with us no it's not about the activity but it's about the the uh you know the overall vision of why why we have these relationships you know the genuine care the genuine intention to see everyone grow and develop in god so as long as we have that i know activities will happen sometimes you know every time you meet somebody from your fellowship you may not pray with them that's okay it's not about the christian activities uh but the goals have to be correct why why are we together or why are these relationships how did this these relationships form and what is the reason for which you know we we have uh this fellowship so in case our gatherings or the fellowship uh becomes one of worldliness okay what do we mean by that you know we could all be um from the same church uh and from the same fellowship but there's nothing uh you know spiritual about about uh this fellowship so basically you know people gather everyone is a christian but the the things that they follow are of the flesh for example in Ephesians five it says but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor course chesting which are not fitting but rather giving off thanks so if you know so called believers they they come together and conversations are about you know some uh uh unholy things or you know some bad movies stuff like that we could be believers we could be from the same church but you see that that fellowship that community is not fitting the model that we see in the early church and the instructions of god's word for us so doing community like that uh it's not you can't classify that as christian community just because people of the same church are coming together often okay we could be hanging out but talking all kinds of things doing all kinds of things that not uh you know righteous in god's sight so that is not true christian community also uh in the name of christian community sometimes what happens you know we like to cling to the believers and that becomes an excuse for us not to step out in the world and uh make disciples okay so i think the archbishop of canterbury does one statement he makes that a christian should not become uh you shouldn't um uh what uh assault is not you know meant to be happy in the salt shaker so we're all together we're just happy to be solved together we're not willing to take a risk and share the gospel proclaim the gospel with others outside so that again is not christian community you know so uh these are things we must be careful about okay now uh i i said that maybe once in a while you know we really don't engage in in prayer or there may not be any sharing of the word you just come together uh and then you know for whatever reason there's no prayer or anything you just leave but in general in general you know we honor the Lord through the sharing of our faith we honor the Lord through the sharing of the word we honor the Lord through worship you know all the other things that draws closer to God because otherwise what happens it's all it's about us and it's not about God anymore so always keep God at the center of christian community and fellowship so that's a little bit about christian community what it should be what it should not be any any comments on this any thoughts and after this we could move on to the next section here okay is there a question canady yes canady we can hear you you are muted yes yes please okay canady do you have a question okay i'm not sure if uh ban is raised by mistake here okay sorry everyone i think i'll have to mute canady because he probably is not able to hear us okay fine yes uh abraham you have a question yes pastor i i once led a group i mean especially here in vietnam i once led a group that um as we were growing it got to a point that the activities became um like um self-conscious it was to make people feel comfortable it was to know people's problem you know the agenda was oh let's have more fun time i mean you know um they like to go outside and eat they like to go outside and talk but um being the leader then i i realized that if i allow those things even though those things are good but those things are not really helping the people especially when they brought the issue of um trying to know people's problems so i said okay um if we are supposed to know people's problem can we solve it because these are people that even if they discuss the problem they don't have the solution so i was trying to let them know that the most important thing here is the word of god and that is prayer but it was like prayer was becoming forceful if you are calling for prayer it's like a bed it's like you are causing people to do something abnormal and also if you are trying to make decisions based on the word of god let's give this people the word of god that's the only solution to their problem so that at least when they have issues that we cannot handle we can go to the past and find solutions so i think this became a very i mean challenging moment for me that it looks like i see um either i am being too spiritual or i'm trying to say that i know so much that the other people don't know so it really had a an impact on me that i don't know the day i have to step back and do so many other things so my question here is that is it because i don't know about the cross culture ministry and uh accept their culture or um you know because i am from africa and they are from asia so it's like oh we are we are too forceful because at the point i was told that oh africans are giving the grace to pray you know it's like okay so prayer god has given people grace to pray other people don't have the grace to pray so it's like um we are more of want to speak in tongues we want to pray we want to share the gospel but other people are very quiet so how do we balance this too is it about christ as you said or is it about culture and all those things i i would like to get some clarification thank you pastor yeah thank you ibrahim very interesting um thank you for sharing you know honestly the challenges that you have faced uh so from my perspective um i would say that you know a little bit uh can be the the cultural difference here um uh but overall you know we we we are people of the kingdom culture okay so uh yes we could be from different nations and worship god in differently but we have to adopt the kingdom culture based on god's word so the overall uh overall thing that you're saying about having prayer and fellowship uh based on you know fellowship for the sake of spiritual growth that is correct what you're saying is correct okay now um i don't know i mean i i don't know if the if the the way the fellowship was going on uh was uh intentionally for for spiritual growth or some some things were missed out over there so when something like that happens a good thing to do is to see if you can address it with the leaders in a in a very you know respectful way um and then if possible make changes okay uh so that that is how we would go about uh making amendments uh now if if you know that the the format of the church is such and then they're not ready to to accept our inputs then just let it be because you've done your part of of for sharing your concerns uh and what you've done you know engaging in other things that's fine it's fair enough you know you you got involved in other things so that's okay uh now talking about you know culturally the way you prayed and um you said you know Africans people say that okay they are grace with more you see um i mean i i'm talking from my experience i i shared with all of us right like i had so many brothers and sisters from Africa worshiping at at our location and uh you know i i i loved their style of worship and then uh also they had this concept of overnight so they constantly like uh and we didn't start off you know overnight worship also we had that for uh for you know several months through the night we would pray you know but what i realized is some of the other folk like you know the uh Indian folk from our location they found it very difficult to connect with that extent you know uh like in terms of the time the prolonged periods of time to engage in prayer because uh these these brothers and sisters from Africa they were used to it but some of you know our other friends here they were not used to it so what i'm trying to say is sometimes there can be that cultural difference so uh when they notice that you can see how to bridge it okay so what we did is we kind of shortened the time so we didn't go through the whole night but we decided we will just do you know three or four hours straight you know prayer worship and all and it was fine for the uh Africans as well as you know the the Indians who were joining so from that place we're building uh capacity even of the uh the Indian folk who are not used to you know that kind of overnight um prayer and worship be every week so culturally there can be some challenges Abraham so we will have to observe if you've gone to a new place to minister we'll have to observe observe where they are at and then see how um you know and also again we really need to ask the question whether things have to be done in the format that we used to do it in our earlier place okay so you might want to do things differently for this particular crowd where God has sent you so you don't have to follow the um old format or way of doing things am i answering your question does it make any sense yes thank you so much okay sure sure yes thank you right so yeah all these aspects if we take that into consideration then we will be able to do community in a better fashion yeah great question any anything else to clarify before we proceed because these are all you know aspects that we are going to apply so that's the reason i'm asking us okay great so i think yeah we have we have a good idea now and then you can practice make changes learn so the rest of the content here in the section it talks about how in the family in the family we said that the householder or the leader of of the house the spiritual leader of the house is responsible for um the way things are so the word of God teaches us that God promises us that he will judge the world but the judgment will begin from the house of God so God is a God who wants to see order in his own family first so as God's people you know we we must yield to that we must cooperate with God and know that just because it's a family we can't do things our own way we have to go by God's word and God's standards okay and there are certain practical aspects that have been put out here for us to consider and we've touched on nearly you know all of these elaborately earlier so we we are saying that we can create a sense of belonging in the church beyond the Sunday services so then you know your life groups come into play you could also have teams right here at a PC they have different teams and in fact the teams become a place of fellowship yeah you know the teams have people mentoring one another praying for one another so you have ushering team worship team media team so there are different ways of creating small smaller groups and it's after every local church how they want to create these smaller groups so to live in community and then develop a some mentality so the pastors if they treat people as sons and daughters then you know you you develop sons and daughters and the congregation has a son daughter mentality towards the leaders and you know that's how life should happen in the family of God then encourage fathers and mothers to nurture younger ones and all the ingredients of true Christian community you know make sure that we we try to focus on that and build true Christian community some of the challenges that that we might see we've already said you know of time to develop Christian community it's not all that easy anymore okay because we have a very different way of very different way in which people's lives are scheduled you know you have people connecting online and everyone's online these days so even if you call them for for something that is offline they may not prefer to come so there are there are new challenges in our in our society today but we can be creative and see how this Christian community can be nurtured you know in person and also use other resources to do that okay then what are some of the other challenges yeah in large congregations people might feel disconnected so we have to be intentional about creating smaller groups and when smaller groups do form we have to be careful about clicks clicks and factions because people can end up in their own you know group it could be a language group or it could be a group that has subscribed to a certain ideology or you know the way in the Corinthian church some people were fans of Paul and some were fans of Apollos so within the church within the congregation we can have all these divisions but we have to be careful about clicks and factions okay so I know we've overshot time but we will take Mangi's question and then we will go for a break yes Mangi please go ahead thank you Pasta yeah um I just want to say to ask about uh talking about mentoring and family and father figures and and mothers when does does does the father know or realize that the child is grown and then it's time to to release to release them so that they can go and fly on their own because most of the time they tend to to hold it as the young people down and think the people remain under their wings for forever thank you yeah sure good question Mangi uh so Mangi it depends on the destiny of that individual okay and the growth progression of the individual so as a mentor we will work closely with them and we will observe okay and we'll see okay God is God is opening up these doors and the person is growing in that in their personal work with the Lord in the you know in the ministry they are serving well so as we are observing these things the progression that they are making you know at some point they may not need as much input so we are only available for whatever input they need or if they need input okay but otherwise we just let them grow we let them grow initially yes there's a lot of hand holding but eventually they become more and more independent and then uh we we mentioned that a mentoring relationship should be a divine one that you know God divinely orchestrates uh connections like Paul and Timothy okay uh so in the same way we must be led by God to understand the timing the seasons that the mentee is going through and you know God God orchestrates this timing in in amazing ways and you kind of know oh okay and this maybe the person got a job in another country and they're moving out but that's as much as you can do for that individual now they they're moving for good you may not have that same opportunity anymore so from a distance you can still continue to encourage them but uh you know at that point maybe you could think to yourself yeah I have to release this person now let them go and do what God has called them to do so that also is uh led by the spirit led by God so that's how we will know Maggie as we are walking with people yeah does that help yeah sure sure and uh I remember we had one session for the volunteers in church uh about mentoring and in that uh session a pastor was sharing about how as we mentor people uh and Maggie you brought that up also you know at what point uh I mean people can the fathers and mothers can sort of keep the mentees under okay forever but in that session I remember pastor was sharing about how as the mentee grows there could come a time where the dynamics of the relationship changed slightly so it's like at some point they have become those those fellow workers together with us and they don't need as much input maybe all they need is to work together and you know a word of encouragement and accountability from time to time but you become like sort of you know uh uh how do I say this they grow up like in irregular families you know those those who are parents of teenagers and younger adults you know your relationship dynamics is very different because now they're more like friends and you don't you don't really have to grill them on the basics so that can happen even in a spiritual mentoring relationship where they are somewhat friends uh and then you know you talk about the same things uh and you know they are very mature uh and the interactions change after a while so they're not really under anymore yeah so additional thought there mangy okay so okay uh Susan has a question let's let's take that up uh yes Susan please go ahead no ma'am my mistake my hand got mistake okay okay okay no problem no problem Susan all right uh bet I was reading about the journey of Paul and Barnables Barnables was like Paul's father figure then the dynamics changed yes but it looks like it took a disagreement for the mentee to step out yeah yeah yes uh bet you know personalities they clashed uh and uh that's how they parted ways but yeah you're right you know at some point Barnables was not uh providing as much input into Paul's life as he did in the initial days okay so thank you for sharing that on okay on that note we will go for a break we'll come back at 10 or 6 a 10 minute break and then we will move on to a different topic okay thank you everyone see you after the break bye