 Okay, good morning everyone welcome back to a new week. Hope you all are doing well and fine All right, so let's begin the session with a word of prayer could one of us please lead us in prayer Father you have a good cause of you are the other you are a provider Amen Amen, amen Thank you so much, Kennedy, for leading us in prayer. All right, so last week we closed on chapter three. We looked at how having the right workplace attitudes matters, right? Wherever we are, having passion, having excellence, hard work, maintaining integrity, truthfulness. And there are so many attitudes, right workplace that we must apply, whether we are in the workplace, whether we are in ministry, some of us may think, okay, I'm already a pastor of a church, or maybe you are just stepping into ministry, how does this help me? It does, because these are principles and characters that each and every person, whether we're in the workplace, whether we're in the ministry, we need to carry these right workplace attitudes. And when we do that, God is pleased with that. We looked at in chapter three that God is as much interested in our work as he is in the ministry. We may be in ministry, God is interested in it. We may be just doing something in the workplace, but God is as much as interested as that, as those who are in ministry. So it's not like God is saying, okay, let me look at those in ministry first, and then those at the workplace, no. And we also looked in chapter three that in most times, our attitude will show us our altitude in life, right? When we have the right workplace attitudes, when we display the fruit of the spirit in all that we do in whatever has been assigned to us, we will see God's blessing in our work and in everything that God has assigned for us, right? So any questions, any thoughts you have in chapter three, before we move to chapter four, any thoughts, any questions? Okay, so shall we move to chapter four? Is that okay? Yes, sir. All right. Okay, let's move to chapter four. Chapter four, we're talking about corporate vision, mission, values and culture, right? Now, this chapter starts with corporate vision, but what we will do is we will also translate all these principles, the mission, values, culture, we'll translate it even in the ministry, right? So how can we, as believers or those in ministry, have this vision, mission and value, values and culture that we must create for our workplace and for the ministry, okay? So what is a vision, right? I'm sure all of us know what a vision is. Vision is something that we wish to become as a personal in your personal life or as an organization. And it is something that is pursued over time. Remember that, you know, we all have a vision or we have a plan, hey, maybe 10 years from now, I want to see myself as a good worship leader or I want to see myself writing songs and praising God with these songs. So these are visions that God gives us or God may put it in your heart. 10 years from now, five years from now, I want to start my own small business and these are all pursued over time, right? We cannot wake up one morning and say, I want to be, you know, the best worship leader or I want to start writing songs. No, it is pursued over time. God takes us through that seasons and of pursuing the vision that he has for us. The mission describes how we're going to achieve the vision that we have, right? Remember the book of Proverbs, you know, we learned so much about, you know, hard work and diligence. We saw that lazy hands profits nothing. And so we may, we have a vision. How do I go and achieve that vision? That is called the mission, right? And we see the Lord Jesus did that so beautifully. But he had a vision, he knew what he has to do and he had a mission. He chose 12 people. He said, okay, this is what we're going to do. And he went about doing it. So there needs to be some work. And then there are values. Values stand for ethical standards and what the organization stands for, right? I'm sure all of us have worked in different companies and they have certain values, okay. As an organization, we believe in equality. As an organization, we believe in, you know, providing equal opportunities. So every organization has certain values. And, fourthly, the culture of the place, the workplace, the work environment, how people work together in the organization. Now, remember this, just like, you know, when you see in churches or ministries, different churches have different cultures. They have a different essence, right? They have a different taste, right? It does not mean that, you know, maybe we are part of a church. It does not mean that the other church is not as good as, you know, this church, just because, you know, maybe our church is doing something good. No, every church has its own essence, its own culture. Now, the culture is always, it's formulated or it's built on the people in the organization. Of course, the leader, the pioneer is the one who sets the stage, and the people in the organization create the culture. So if you look at ministry, maybe some of us are pastors or even life group leaders, small group leaders, what we do and how we, you know, how we portray ourselves in the ministry will also show the culture, you know, it'll affect the culture of the church and of the group, the small group. Like for example, if, you know, as a leader, if there is somebody, not putting anybody down, but just giving an example. If there's somebody who speaks a lot, like he always speaking and always talking, it's most likely that, you know, even the people in the group will begin to start opening up and the group will be an active group, a lot of talking, a lot of, you know, talking and conversations happening. So the culture is something that we develop within the organization. So let's look at a few points as we study this. Corporate vision, mission, values and culture, right? Your vision influences productivity, right? Let's read Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 18. Proverbs 29, 18. Yes, could one of us please read that? Proverbs 29 verse 18, where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint, but happy he who keeps the law. Hi, man. Thank you, Abinas. So here the word revelation simply means inspired dream or vision and the writer here is saying, if there is no vision or there is no revelation, people are cast off restraint, which means if there is no vision, there's, you know, what vision does is it captures our imagination, right? It grips our heart, it fires our passion, it inspires action, it does so much in our heart. Last semester we studied about, you know, revivals, visitations and the moves of God. And one of them had a vision, you know? Remember we studied about that last semester? All these wonderful men and women of God, they had nothing with them. Some of them were well educated, some of them were not educated, but they did not stop them. When we have a vision, and if God gives us a vision, it doesn't matter if we are, you know, educated, uneducated, we can, we are accepted or not accepted in society. A vision is always something that grips our heart, it fires our passion, and we will always look to fulfilling that vision, right? A vision always results in productivity. We saw how these wonderful men and women of God in church history did such great things, started small, but ended up with just doing such great ministries. How is that? It is because of the vision that God put in their heart, right? Remember we studied about the Azusa Street Revival, William J. Seymour as a black person. He was put outside the Bible college. He could not even sit inside the class and nobody was willing to listen to him. But he had a vision in his heart and we studied that how, when he started that small center, that small church, and how God used him to impact thousands of lives, how did that happen? Vision brings productivity. Now the moment we don't have a vision, we will not have something to look at in the future. And when we don't have something to look at or to fulfill in our life, we don't become productive, right? So a vision is very important. Each one of us, we can, even as we are in the workplace and ministry, even in our personal lives, have visions, have inspired dreams, have things ahead, look at things ahead and say, okay, God, here is what I want to do. These are things that I feel in my heart that I can do and with your help, I can achieve these things. So we look ahead, right? And what does it do? It increases our productivity. I'll just share a few thoughts here. I remember I must have shared this in April, sorry, in July 2018, as a family, we came to the city of Mangalore and the church was about 8 to 10 people. And I was really excited, right? And the first thing we did, I remember, was, I asked all the 8 or 10 of us in the church to meet one day and I began to share with them the vision of the church. I said, this is the church. This is what we stand for. This is how we will deliver with integrity, excellence. We will stand for these things. We will avoid these things, right? This is what we will do. And I remember the eight, nine of them of church were just sitting and watching me wondering, why are we even having this meeting? And I began to tell them, this is how we will do outreaches. These are the events we will do. Saturdays will be worship evenings these are the weekends, the schools of ministry. And so I made everything. And what did I do? This was some vision that I had for the church. And I put it forward to the church and I said, okay, this is what we will do. And in one year, let's see what is our progress. And then every half-yearly, let's meet and discuss on what is our progress. And so we saw that after every month, we saw people started opening up. The eight, ten people who were in the church, they said they began to invite other people. There was suddenly a change in the atmosphere. There was a change. They were not just coming, sitting in church and going back. They felt that, hey, this is a vision of the church to reach out, to be solved, to be light. So I need to share the gospel summary. And slowly they began to invite families. So vision influences productivity. Second one, when we have a vision, write it, repeat it, repeat it, repeat it, keep repeating it again and again and again. Let's read Habakkuk chapter two verse three and four. Habakkuk chapter two verse three and four. Let's go ahead. Then the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run, repeat. So the mission is yet for an appointed time. But at the end of it, he will see and it will not lie. Though it carries, wait for it because it will surely come, it will not carry. Amen. Thank you, Kennedy. So we see here in the book of Habakkuk, he's writing and he's saying, write your vision, make it plain on tablets, which means what? Repeat it. Write it down, read it, keep meditating on it. Now when we don't write down our visions or when we don't keep repeating it, it's easy to forget what God has spoken to us. Or it's easy to forget our vision, especially when times of, you know, maybe in the initial stage, we are working towards our vision and somewhere in between we may, you know, there are challenges, there are difficulties and that's where the test really stands. So the more we repeat the vision, even through the difficult times, we are focused and we say, God, I know these season that I'm going through, it's a difficult season, but the vision is still clear. It is fresh in our mind, it is fresh in our spirit. And also as leaders, it is very important that we communicate our vision to the people who you're working with, maybe your team or even those part of your organization. As a church or as a ministry, it's very important to communicate your vision. This is what we want to achieve as a church. This is what we want to achieve as a life group. This is what we want to achieve as an organization. And when you communicate that, when you write it down, when you display it to people, it's always fresh in the mind. One of the things that we do at APC is every Sunday we have video announcements. Every Sunday, the church congregation will hear the vision of the church every single Sunday. Why? Because we are reminding them, this is a vision. This is the bigger picture to be salt and light to the city of Bangalore and voice to the nation and the nations. So we are propelling them. We are constantly reminding ourselves also, to see the church, ourselves also, to keep ourselves motivated and say, okay, we need to do. We need so much more. The anointing of God, we need so much more to do ahead of us. And so it energizes us. One of the things that a lot of organizations do, I remember when I was working in the IT sector, I don't know if they do it now, but we used to do something called as the SWOT analysis. Opportunities and threats. And so when we do the SWOT analysis, we sit and look at, okay, in the year 2021, what was our strengths? What was our weaknesses? What are the opportunities? And what are the threats that we saw? And then we work on it. So if you want people to run with you, with your vision, repeat it. Repeat it again and again and again. And the same thing can be translated for our personal lives as well. So if God has put a vision in your heart, write it down. Write it down, maintain a book, write it down and keep reading it every now and then. Don't let circumstances and situations, just let that vision to fade away. Write it down, declare it, speak it, ask God to help you to empower you, to strengthen you. Maybe some of us, a lot of them have shared with me that post COVID, the pandemic from 2022, many of them have just discarded their vision because of all the challenges that is around. But God is bigger than all of that. God is able to help us achieve that vision. All he needs is that self-energizing and say, God, you're able to do it. And so vision is something that is needed to be repeated again and again. Third one, a compromised vision will leave people confused. Matthew chapter 6 verse 22 to 23. Let's read that, please. Matthew chapter 6, 22 and 23. Anyone? Yes. Matthew chapter 6, 22 to 23. The lamp of the body is the eye. If, therefore, your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? Thank you, Maggie. So if we have basically what the writer here is saying is, if we have a clear vision, we have light. So if we have light, we have a clear vision, we know where to go. But if our vision is dark or it's blurred, we're not really sure where to go. Things are unclear. Should I take a left? Should I take a right? Should I just keep moving forward? And we don't know which part to take. And sometimes we may stumble at the wrong direction and we may remain in a place, in a wrong direction, in a place that is completely not in line with the vision that you have. And sometimes what happens is we may make decisions that are not aligned to the vision and the purpose of the organization. So when our vision is clear and our vision is clearly shared with people, communicated with people, then we have light. We know what step to take. When the focus, when there's no vision, the vision is blurred, everyone are doing their own things. What happens? Productivity drops. Why? Because everyone are not working on the same cause. The same vision is not there. And so very important is to re-estate, to clarify, to make things right. Make your vision clear. And share it with people. That's when the team also can work towards that. State your mission again, loud and clear. Now we saw what the vision is, but how do I achieve that vision is through the mission of doing the work. And so we have to state the mission. Yes, it's good to have the vision saying, okay, we want as a church or as a ministry, we want to see ourselves here. This is the vision. But how are we going to achieve that? It's a mission. And we cannot just have the vision, communicate the vision and tell them, this is the vision 10 years from now, this is how we want to be. But if we don't communicate the mission, they'll be wondering, okay, the vision is great, but how am I going to achieve that vision? How are we as a team going to achieve such a big vision? So the mission also needs to be communicated loud and clear. Let's read Luke chapter 4, 18 and 19. Luke 4, 18 and 19. Luke chapter 4, 18 and 19. The speed of the Lord is upon me because he has choose me to bring the good news to the poor. And he has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of the sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. Amen. Thank you. So the Lord Jesus here has come into this world. He's launching out into his earthly ministry. And what does he say? He reads the passage from Isaiah. He says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has chosen me to bring the good news to the poor. So he's stating the vision and now he's stating that vision loud and clear. Then he also backed up that vision with a mission to achieve it. What was the mission? He said, okay, let's choose 12 people. He chose 12 disciples. He was able to teach them, train them over the course of time. And it was quite apparent that if you wanted healing, you wanted miracles, you wanted freedom from bondage, the oppressed, the sick, the demon possessed. Those who were unwell, everyone who wanted freedom in life, they had to go to this one person named Jesus. A few months back he said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. This is the mission to proclaim liberty, set the captives, to recover sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed that the time of the Lord has come to save people. That's the vision. How did he go about doing it? The vision? He didn't, you know, Jesus didn't sit at home and say, okay, those who are oppressed, please come to my house. This is my address. No. He had to work for it. He chose 12 people. He went about fulfilling that mission that God has for him. So even as a vision is loud and clear, make the mission also loud and clear. Remember John the Baptist? He came with a mission. All of a sudden, there's 400 years of silence in Israel. And all of a sudden this man is coming in the desert and he's saying, prepare a way for the Lord. And he's, you know, baptizing people in the River Jordan. What does he say while he was coming? What does he say? Hear the voice of the one who's preparing the way of the Lord. What was the vision to prepare the way? What was the mission? You know, baptism by repentance and bringing people to the, to knowing that the repentance is required. And so follow through of the act of your vision is very important. There are a lot of people out of folks who have a vision but don't follow through. Now we cannot blame God for that, right? God, I had this vision but I could not achieve it. Maybe because of the pandemic. No, no. There's a lot of students who are very interested in learning music. They want to, you know, learn guitar or keyboard or whatever instrument. Now the vision is, okay, one day I want to play in church. That's a wonderful vision. It's great that God has given us. That vision needs to be backed up or followed through with corresponding action. So you've got to firstly have the instrument, purchase it if you don't have it, and sit and practice, maybe join classes. You know, I always tell young people nowadays that it's so easy to, you know, learn instruments nowadays. You've got YouTube, you've got tutorials. You've got so much online that free material that you can learn from. Growing up, we used to look at others, how they're playing and we used to figure out, okay, what God is that. So it was not really easy. But now things are so easy. And, you know, when God has given us a vision, we need to follow through that with action. If God is calling us to start a business. So there needs to be an action. Not necessarily that we should, you know, quit our job and start immediately. No, plan through. Careful planning is very important. But you need to work towards that vision. And we see that the Lord Jesus did that. He declared his vision and he also followed through with a mission. John the Baptist did that. He says, this is a vision. God has called me to prepare the way. And how am I going to do that? By baptism of repentance. And he again raised up few disciples and was able to fulfill the vision that God had gave him. Even though he was just doing, his ministry was for six months. The Lord Jesus himself says, there's no one greater than that of John the Baptist. So it's not how long that vision is, but how faithful we are in completing that vision. Next point is values. Values are very important. Let's read 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 8. 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 8. If the trumpet makes a certain sound, who is prepared? Thank you, Kennedy. So during the ancient times, olden times, even in the Old Testament, the sound of a trumpet was always a sound of battle. It is to alert the people, right? To alert the, okay, you know, the enemy is coming or to alert for any kind of, you know, things ahead. High risk management. And so if you remember in the book of Exodus, as the people of Israel were going out, the people blew trumpets first, right? And even through leviticus and numbers, as they went through many battles, we see that there was trumpets blown. It was only to say that, okay, things are ahead are not right. We need to be geared up, ready for battle. Now, what happens if the battle, if the trumpet is not sounded clear? Imagine there's a trumpet sound, but it doesn't even sound like a trumpet or it's too low. Okay, was that a trumpet sound? Or do we need to get ready? There's uncertainty, right? And so here's what we're trying to bring it. When we are working in an organization or even setting up your own organization, set certain values, clarify what you stand for, right? Many organizations stand for different, you know, values. Some have good values. Some have bad values, right? Some are truthful. Some don't really, you know, they don't matter as long as the company is making their profit and they are making profits, it's all right. And some companies, they say, okay, honesty, some companies, it's okay to cheat people, but make sure that they'll be getting the sales, they're getting the business in. So values are very, very, very important. These values that you and I stand for, maybe as pioneers, will flow down to your team members, right? So many values, integrity, honesty, excellence, equality, dedication, hard work. These are different values that each one of us must carry. So for example, you're working in an organization and the organization, you know, does not have right values. So in the sense that it's okay to cheat and as long as the business is coming in, but here's where you take a stand. We cannot say, okay, anyway, the, you know, the organization values or cultures that people cheat. So I'll have to also do the same thing. No, we cannot say that. Remember that God is our, you know, our boss eventually. He's the main boss. So make sure that our values, if we're working for a company, if the values are good, work towards those values. But if those values are certain things that take you away from God, then stand for what God has called you for. Stand for the values that the Bible principles teach us, right? So some of our core values in APC is mentioned here on the next page. Some of the core values of APC, first one, integrity. Integrity is something that we uphold very, very strongly, right? Integrity over profit, right? So as an organization in APC, it's not about, you know, receiving funds and only, you know, doing all, you know, trying to receive funds from different, it's not about that. We value integrity to work with integrity, right? We don't, you know, sacrifice integrity just to make some profit. No, integrity is number one. Be faithful in our attitude, integrity should be shown. Excellence, now as a church, this is something that we all strive at. We want to be excellent in what we do, right? Especially when we try new things, you know, 2020, we went into online Bible college. And so there was a lot of IT back-end work involved. You know, we know that, hey, I can't do a half-hour job because we as an organization stand for excellence, even as our, you know, our teaching, preaching, graphics, everything. What is in the back of our mind? Excellence. We're here to do our best, right? Three, we value people, right? Now, this whole, you know, rat race of, you know, making money and making the organization big and, you know, all these cultures and all of that that we try to instill in an organization. We forget that people are the organization, right? Even in ministry, if we look at all the things that we are doing, you know, which are important like graphics, video recording, IT work, all of that is important. But why are we doing all this? For people, right? Without the people, the ministry is nothing, right? Remember what Apostle Paul wrote? I love that. Apostle Paul writes and he says, you are my crown in heaven, right? He does not say the first missionary journey, the second missionary journey or the churches that I've planted is my crown. So when I go to heaven, I can say, God, these are the, in the first missionary journey, these are the places I've been second here. These are the number of churches started. These are the number of episodes that I've written. So accordingly, please bless me with the crown. No. He says, Paul says, you are my rejoicing in heaven. You are my crown, the people. So ministry and organization is about people. And so we are to value people and treat people well. The sad thing that we see is when ministers and leaders treat people according to their financial standing or how much they give to the Lord or how much they can contribute. That is a wrong way of dealing with people, especially in ministry. We are to value people. Whether they give to the Lord or no, that is secondary people. God has created them. God has a plan for them. So we value them. Yes, there are policies in place, we said, but the people are more important than the policies, right? And then some few, two more core values that we have as a church is creativity. We pursue the creativity in everything, you know, not just stuck to the same routine. We try to do come up with new ideas, creative ideas. Now, even when we look at the ministry as a whole at EPC, we've tried everything, coffee talks, youth meetings, and we continue to try a lot of things. So it's not like we have to do it this way. We try different evangelism ideas, different strategies, and we see what works best. So creativity is important. And finally, unity, what we accomplish together is more important than what we accomplish as than an individual's accomplishment. Now, in EPC, one of the things that we very sternly, you know, believe and we follow and we, you know, stand for is unity, right? So it's not about one person. It is about a team. Like for example, we have the Bible college going on, we have maybe about six staff. So it's not because of the staff, the Bible college is going on, the lecturing, the teaching stuff. It's not because of that. There's a team involved, there's IT teams involved, there is the graphics team involved who did all the promotion. So we all, as a church, we always believe in unity. Everyone is given the same honor and preference in a team. So it's a unity. It's not a one man's job. It's all of us working together. And so even now, these are values that have been set many years ago and we work towards it and we work as a team. And so none of us can say, okay, because of me, this was done or because of me, we accomplished this. No. So as a church, we know that, hey, all of us work as a team and this is a team effort. And so these are some of the core values we have plenty more, but just a few are here. And so even as you maybe planning to start your ministry or your own business, you can use these core values. Now, we may feel, okay, but my ministry is only five people or 10 people in my church. It's all right. When you set the stage now, you're setting the stage when there's five or 10 people. When it comes to maybe 50 or 100 people, you don't know, I have to worry about, oh, you know, we need to have a meeting. We need to share the core values. You've already done it. You've already done it in the ground stage. Your own congregation will know these are the values APC stands for. As you communicated to the congregation, your own congregation members, your own church members will know. Hey, these are the values of our church. So we will walk with integrity. We will walk in excellence. We honor people more than policies and more than what they can do for the church, but we honor them as people. So set these values. And as your ministry or your business grows, you'll find it easy because you've set these things in place. One of the things that is really important is to understand that when we set these values, people watch in a congregation. People watch. I'm sure you've heard of this. Many people may not remember your sermons that we have preached. They remember our lifestyle. So when people watch, they will learn. They will watch. Okay, this is something that we can see. And so that whole culture is automatically the values of the churches or the ministry or the organization. It automatically spreads within the people. So for example, there are people who may be talking back, gossiping about somebody else or talking bad about somebody else behind their back. When we have certain values and we've instilled it in our church members, maybe our church members will say, hey, no, we stand for integrity. We have certain values that we treat people with respect. We honor them, even though we may not agree to everything that they say, but we honor them, respect them. And so maybe the new people wonder, wow, this ministry or this organization really stands for their core values. So it's very important to set this in place. One of the things that we've done is taken printouts and stuck it in the church, in our office. So every time we pass by, we look at it and say, okay, we remember these are our values. Even as we fulfill the vision, maintain these values. Yeah, so let's go to the next point. Create a culture aligned to your vision, mission and values. Let's read Nehemiah chapter 2 and verse 20. Nehemiah chapter 2 verse 20. Nehemiah 2 verse 20. So I answered them and said to them, the God of heaven himself will prosper us. Therefore, his servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem. Amen. Thank you, Mangi. Thank you. Now, the story of Nehemiah is a powerful example of how we can have a vision. We work towards that vision. That means you take the mission 2 and 3, what are the values that we can set in the organization. Now, what we'll do is I'll just share a little bit about Nehemiah. And then we will pick up from certain principles and it's a wonderful study on the book of Nehemiah. We will pick up points from next class as well. But let me just bring a context of what we're going to do from the study of Nehemiah, right? Now, Nehemiah, the city of Jerusalem is destroyed. The Babylonians came, they've destroyed it. And now Nehemiah is working under a Persian king, right? And his work is a simple work, which was, he was a cup bearer. So every time the king wanted his refreshments or they were, you know, any dinner parties or any time, he had to bring, you know, cups and he had to make sure that everything was set in place. So that was his job, right? It was not something very difficult. But when he heard that the walls of Jerusalem have, the gates have been burned down, the walls have been broken. The Bible says that Nehemiah broke down and he wept. Now, here's the thing. Many of the Jews living in Babylon had heard the same news. Many of them heard the news. But for Nehemiah, it became a burden. It became something that is a vision in his heart. What was that vision? The vision was Jerusalem is my city. Jerusalem is a city of God. Jerusalem is a blessed city. It's God's blessing to us. But now the Babylonians have come, they've burned the gates down, they've broken the walls. There was a burden in his heart. What I want to go there and repair the gates and build the walls and restore it back to its former state. That was the vision. Now, is this vision a small vision or a big vision? It was a big vision, right? What are the hindrances? One, why should a Persian king give permission to a Jew to go and build the walls of Jerusalem? No, you know, the Persian king can just say no. No, you've got to work here. You can't go there. You can't do that. One, two, even if Nehemiah had the vision, he cannot go and build a wall alone. He can't repair the gates alone. He needs people. He can't just say, OK, I've got the burden, so I'll go and I'll do it myself. No, he can't do it alone. He needs a lot of people to build a wall and fix the gates. Three, who's going to provide the finances, the money and the material to be bought? How are we going to achieve that? Again, problem. Four, we don't have the skills to build the wall and the gates. We are not people who are skilled in that area. Nehemiah wasn't skilled in that area. And five was, of course, the king giving the permission. So there are plenty of hindrances for Nehemiah. But here's the thing, when we have a vision, we don't look at the hindrances, but we see the finished work in our mind. Yes, there may be 100 things that is against fulfilling that vision. But when a vision is in our heart and it's burning strong, we only see it in our mind's eye as completed. I'm sure Nehemiah may have gone back to his room after the day's work and he would have closed his eyes. He would have thought, now it's broken, but one day those walls will be built and the gates will be back to normal. The city of Jerusalem will be restored. Maybe he saw it in his mind's eye. That's what a vision does. It does not look at the limitations, but it looks at the possibilities. So we will stop here. Tomorrow, we'll pick up from the life of Nehemiah and how he was able... The vision, the vision, the mission and the values and the culture that he created. How this one man with that one vision got people together and completed the task in 52 days. It is not easy and so we will learn from that tomorrow. Any thoughts, any questions before we close? Is that okay? Is everyone able to track along? Is it something that is able to understand and apply in our lives? Let us close now. Could one of us please close in prayer? Rupa, is it okay if you can close for us? Okay, sir. Thank you. Father, God, we thank you. We bless your holy name this morning. Thank you for your presence in our midst, Lord. Thank you for teaching us the value of vision, mission, Father God, and how to carry on the vision with your grace and help, Lord God. Father, as we have learned your word, let your word be treasured in our hearts and give us the grace to put them into action and let it bear fruit in our lives in the ministries, in the call over our lives, Father God. We bless Father Foster Paul for sharing anointing even more and using for your glory as a family, as they serve you in Mysore, Lord. Let your kingdom come and you will be done in that place and be established in that place in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Rupa. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful day ahead. I'll see you tomorrow. God bless.