Church & Ministry Administration | Lecture 1 : BC310-CMA-20260811

Okay, recording is on. Uh good morning everyone uh once again and welcome back to Bible college. Uh hope you all had a good um break from the spring semester earlier this year and most of you are now in your third year. Uh and uh very soon you'll be completing graduating by end of April you'll be done uh next year and be ready to go [snorts] and uh yeah really excited. Thank you for joining. Uh this this week uh I'm just teaching from home because I have to also attend to some personal work and uh next week I'll be back in the Bible college teaching. So I'll be able to see and meet with those of you who are studying in person and uh welcome to all of you are online and also to all the students who will be doing this on e-learning. Uh welcome to all of you. All right, let's take a moment to pray and then we will get into our course on um church and ministry administration. Um as always, we'll just open this up for somebody on the class to pray. You [snorts] can unmute your mic and pray and we will get started. Could somebody lead us, please? Father God, we thank you, praise you, worship you for this opportunity to learn from your servant. Thank you, Lord, that it is given by you. And Lord, we are here to receive, Father, as you give. We pray, Father God, let our hearts be perceiving hearts. Let our hearts be ready to receive your word and receive your instructions Lord through your mouthpiece. Father God, use Pastor Ashish, Lord God, to instruct and teach as led by you, Holy Spirit. God, we thank you. Help us also, Father, that we may concentrate and our hearts, our [snorts] minds, our bodies, they may all align, Father God, to receive from you. We give you all the glory, honor and praise in Jesus mighty name we pray. Amen. >> Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Welcome everyone to um our course BC 310 on church and ministry administration. [snorts] Um just a few um you know preliminaries some guidance. Um I will be putting out the PDF for this course uh lecture by lecture in the classroom rather than giving the whole thing to you in one go uh simply because uh as we go along I might update some of the content um uh as we talk about things so we can keep the content um current uh and talk about more current issues. Um this course on church and ministry administration uh is not a heavily theological um cause meaning it's not um just share the PDF. Yeah. >> [snorts] >> So it's um it's not some you know um it's not uh not very uh deep in terms of uh let me hide this here. Oh, sorry that's not what I wanted. Go back here. Okay. Um it's uh it's a more of a practical nuts and bolts. Um you know like boots on the ground, hands hands dirty hands kind of course meaning uh this is where uh we actually have to do the work. That is where um things uh you know are are translated from uh uh a u a place of u theological learning to a place of practical doing when we talk about administration. So uh we will start off with you know a little bit of uh look into the word of God but most of it from there on will be a lot of practical aspects uh in in the running and the operation of a church or any Christian ministry or any Christian organization. Right? So we calling it church and ministry. So that means this is not exclusively for a local church. Although a lot of the things that um we will be sharing is from a local church perspective uh but these practices uh can be used in any kind of Christian ministry uh whatever the you know the organization is you can apply these things. So this is more of a hands practical side of uh the ministry this course will focus on that. Um and uh some of the things that uh you know so let let me just introduce you know why is why are we doing this course because [snorts] uh ultimately when we are doing ministry whether in a local church or any other kind of Christian organization uh we must combine our depth in the word of God and in the spirit with good organization and administration so that we can actually impact lives and reach people. Right? So there's this there are two sides to it. honestly the the depth in the word of God and in the Holy Spirit and then that has to be combined with good organization administration so that as a church or as a Christian organization we can actually serve people well right so that's the goal and so we are talking in this course on the other side which is the organization the administration side of the ministry. And uh what we want to do is just share with you some of the things that we have learned you know over the years uh at uh APC as a local church. uh uh we are not perfect but uh over the last 25 plus years uh we have learned certain things we have made mistakes we have corrected ourselves and uh you know so basically passing on uh some of these uh good things we've learned in the area of organization and administration right so what are we going to be covering in this course I've just given some of the main topics. Um we'll begin in lesson one which we will get into today on the importance of uh good administration. And that's probably uh the only lesson where we are actually going to be looking into some amount of scripture. Uh why do we need good organization, good administration from a biblical perspective, from a God perspective, right? And then we get into you know uh what are the objectives what do we want to achieve and we want when you want having a good organization good administration and then we start from okay how do you form an organization the church trust or the incorporation of a legal entity uh what would be the organization uh structure uh we'll share with you what we are doing but there is you know so many u variations that we can have uh the importance of policies and guidelines and the systems and processes you need to have within the organization to keep things running well. Then we talk about human resource management. You know how do you manage people and especially in a church or a Christian organization you have different kinds of resources. You have people who are working full-time uh you may have people who are working part-time and then you may have a lot of volunteers. So here at APC for example we have you know about 40 people who are full-time staff then we have another 40 some people who are uh part-time and then we have uh working remotely from around the country our outreach pastors others there'll be another group of u I would say another 30 people uh these are our pastors who are working around the country. So they're not based in Bangalore but they are still uh our full-time staff. They're pale paid salaries uh and they are around the country. So we have about 70 people here locally in Bangalore 40 plus 30 and then another 30 like distributed around the country. They're working you know in their own churches etc. And then locally we have close to 400 volunteers. So you see you know the number of volunteers far uh are far more than the paid staff that we have. So, we have, you know, uh about uh about a hundred people who are being paid by the church. Uh e they're working full-time or like I said as um as uh part-time or pastors around the country, they're paid by the church. But then that's about 100. But then there are 400 people who are serving as volunteers. So, we have to care for all of them. So that's you know that's what we will talk about under human resources. How do we care for all these people who are serving and most of them are serving as volunteers that means they are giving freely of their time and effort uh but we still need to take care of them uh and make sure that you know uh they are protected and also cared for. Then we talk about workplace culture. So as a church organization you know we have people who come to the office we have people who are working in the Bible college uh we have people who are working from different parts in the city what is our culture as an organization so we need to you know uh talk about that how to create that culture how to protect that culture how to create a very healthy enjoyable joyful uh work culture in the church. Yeah. So, we'll talk about that. Then the finance part, you know, how do you manage money? Uh because that is such an important part of the ministry. Uh uh money is involved. Uh people are giving their contributions, their tithes and their offerings. uh and we have to you know manage it properly and uh with all the different activities ministries that are happening. How do you budget? How do you allocate? How do you account? And most importantly uh there has to be um integrity you know there shouldn't be any problems when it comes to money. So that will be a very important uh subject to talk about. Then there is a legal side uh making sure that we follow the laws of the land and we are we follow all the uh required compliances the regulatory compliances uh so that uh the ministry shouldn't get into trouble right then we talk about other things uh how do you plan and coordinate uh because uh in everything everything there has to be planning you know for example in running the Bible college, you know, somebody has to plan the course schedule. Uh there's so much that's happens you from admissions to the running of the classes to the running of the college to the issuing of mark sheets certificates so many things for the on-ampus students making sure their food and their accommodation everything is really good lots of things. So every aspect of the ministry uh there is planning there has to be coordination so the work can happen well and uh uh a a big part of what you know uh happens is happens as teams that means no one individual uh is doing everything it's not possible so we have to work as teams uh so if you look at the ministry there are actually so many different teams >> [snorts] >> are all working together like you said these these 400 volunteers plus about 100 paid people. Uh we all work together as teams uh to get the work done to get the ministry done. And how do we manage volunteer teams? Because these volunteer teams, these 400 people, they're not paid. Uh they're just giving their time and skill and energy. How do we care for them? How do we keep them motivated? how do we keep them accountable etc. Yeah. So we talk about that and then the overall church culture. So there is the workplace culture but then there's overall church culture. How how do you you know keep everything together? Uh executing projects, technology and excellence. So we'll just touch upon some of these things in this course. So the ide intent here is this uh some of you may actually start your own organization. You may start a local church or you may start some other Christian organization. So for you this course will you know help you think about all these things you know if you want to run the church well or you want to run the Christian organization well all these things are important. uh some of you may be part of a church organization or a Christian organization. So you may work in those organizations and you can take all these ideas uh that we are talking about and depending on your role and the you know whatever responsibility you have you can introduce some of these things you know if you find that u the things we share with you are useful are relevant you can take it you can adapt it to u the organization in which you are working or thirdly some of you may may not directly be working in a church or a Christian organization but maybe you uh you're part of uh you are you know you have the ability to share with people who are running an organization you can share these ideas with them you know if u you can share them hey you know you could run your church or run your ministry like this and you can pass these ideas on to them and maybe uh their church or their Christian organization can become better uh by you know making use of some of these things uh that we talk about. So um this course can benefit all of us uh in many ways. Um so as usual you know we'll just have to uh uh exams but don't worry too much of the exams you know because uh this course is more about just practical information. Uh the goal is for you to be exposed to a lot of these ideas um and for you to use them uh you know depending on where you are and what opportunities you have. The exam is is just a review of the content. So uh don't worry too much about it as long as you understand the things we talk about. Uh I will also refer you to some resources. One is uh the house of God. uh most of you if you've already done the the second year course on the local church uh we use the book the house of god and in the second half of that book there is the administration side of things so you can always go back and refer to it um also online on our website uh we have two important pages that uh where we have put out uh a lot of information for others to Um let me just uh you know maybe I just quickly um share this um uh can you see the web page? I've just switched to the web page. Can you see it? >> Not yet. Pas >> Okay. Let me I have to I have to go share that. Okay. Uh let me just share it. Yeah. So, we have this uh web page that we put out. Let me switch to it. Yeah. Uh you know this is uh APCW.org/guidelines. Uh so this is one page where uh you know whatever we are using here at APC we just put it up online so others can use it. There are several sermons on you know basically on church administr related to church and church administration and these are a lot of our documents uh for every you know for our Sunday services we have so many different themes uh we have guidelines so all these documents are available on our church website um you can take them and change them modify them and use uh for your church or your ministry, right? So basically we have guidelines for different teams that are serving uh how should these teams operate you and similarly we have gu um guidelines for our internal office teams. Um so you could use that and then there are job descriptions for various roles sorry uh which again you can take it and use it modify it use it as you wish. So that is one um thing that I would point you to and uh I would also um let me share this page. There's another page the the other link that um that's there on the PDF. Uh there's another page that you could go to. Again it's on our church website under resources it's called church administration [snorts] where uh different people of course these are all our church staff they have uh compiled they have written uh on on various aspects of how the church works. So, you know, there's different sections. Church culture, church staff and volunteers, um human resources, volunteers, how do you train them? Uh media teams, how they work, uh staff and volunteers. So, uh the different teams, the short films and the publications team um this is on accountability, youth ministry, women's ministry. Yeah. So we've tried to you know capture some of the important information for different areas of ministry. So depending on your interest you could go here and you know make use of all of this information and we're trying to keep adding to it because there are a lot more ministries. So we need to add more but here's a page that you can come and read uh on the on whatever areas of interest. I'm not saying you have to read everything but whatever you you are interested in you can come and read and uh may some of the things that we've shared here might be useful for you uh or your ministry as well right so going back to the PDF that I was just sharing Okay. Yeah. So in this PDF um this one yeah I've given both these links here. uh the the guidelines page and the church administration page. So you can go to these pages on our church website and you know use them as a reference a point uh where if you want something you can just take it [snorts] and uh you can modify it to whatever you need and make use of it. Right? Uh any questions so far before we get started with our first lesson? Any questions on what we're going to cover or do you feel like uh you want to add something to this? Anything we're missing out. Okay. So, um let's go to our you can see the PDF now. Importance of good administration. Oops. Yeah. Uh, can everybody see lessons number one? Importance of good administration. Okay. All right. So, uh, let me just make sure everybody's aligned. All good. Uh, okay. Sorry. Let me just go back to sharing the PDF and we get started. [snorts] [clears throat] >> All right. So, importance of good administration, right? Why should any church, any ministry, sorry, I keep switching here. Uh why should any church, any ministry, Christian ministry [snorts] even be concerned about having good organization and good administration? You know, why even bother? Because sometimes people say no no no we are a spiritual ministry [snorts] uh our focus is only on we just minister the word we pray for the people we only focus on the spiritual things that is true of course uh you know as a Christian church or a Christian ministry we uh must do the spiritual things but like we said in the beginning uh we need good administration ation, good organization so that we can actually deliver this ministry to the people. So that people, our congregation, uh other people that we are serving can actually benefit from the spiritual ministry that we want to bring to them. It has to come to them in a good way. It has to come to them in a way that they can receive it. Uh and so on, right? So let's talk a little bit about this and sometimes you know we will as we go further in this lesson we'll see that there could be some reluctance from some people uh when we talk about administration when we talk about organization or why you're spending time on it why are you putting effort into it well here are the reasons one from a biblical perspective when you look at it the god we serve God himself self is a god of order, design, organization and creativity. The god we serve, he's a god of order. You know, uh when we look at his creation, you know, every morning we wake up, the sun [clears throat] rises in the east. It doesn't arbit arbitrarily come any direction or it's not chaotic. There is odd you know and you look out into the vast expanse of this universe. The planets are all going around in their particular orbit and you go beyond it. There are you know we don't know there this this vast universe uh uh galaxies beyond us and if you look closely on earth itself everywhere there is order there are seasons uh you look in the plant plants there is a way this you know the the seed is sown the the plant grows it bears fruit and it multiplies in every way there is order, there is design, uh there is organization, there is creativity. So God himself is the God of order, you know. So this is what we say we could say as an expression of God himself. So when we are pursuing or working on order and organization, we are actually expressing something of God himself. So think about it like this that when we are working on improving administration, improving organization or you know designing a s a process within the organization or uh trying to be more creative in certain something that we're doing. We're actually expressing something of God himself. So we're not contradicting God. We are expressing God in good administration, good organization. And interestingly in scripture, you know, when Paul and and there will be many scriptures that we will look at, we just going to read now just to begin with uh 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 33. Somebody could read that for us please. Uh 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and uh verse 33 and we can also read verse 40. 1 Corinthians 14 33 and 40. Somebody could unmute and read please >> verse 33 it says and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. >> Um 1 Corinthians 14:33 please. For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. >> And verse 40 also, please. >> But all things should be done decently and in order. [clears throat] >> Thank you. So we know here Paul is, you know, writing to the Corinthian church and he's kind of directing them on how what should happen when they are all gathering together. But notice, you know, in as much as there is the spiritual ministry, the work of the spirit in tongues, in prophecy, in the expression of the gifts, which is the subject matter of chapter 14. So there's a spiritual side But along with that Paul is saying it must not it must not cause confusion because God is not the author of confusion but of peace. So opposite of confusion peace and there is that that peace is coming from a place of order. He's he's the god of peace in all churches of the saints. And then in verse 40, he sums it up saying, "Let everything be done decently and in order." So yes, we believe in the expression of the spirit and singing in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and tongues and prophecy and all the flow of the spirit is is is is what we want. But let everything be done in a way that is peaceful, that is decent, that is in order. and he's saying you know uh we want this in all the churches of the saints. So yeah this is just one of the passes we'll look at many others where we realize that spiritual ministry in as much as it is spontaneous in as much as it is the flow of the spirit. Uh yet it can be done in a peaceful way in a decent way in an orderly way. And so these are not opposing you know so our our pursuit of doing things in a peaceful way in an orderly way in a decent way is not contradictory to the spontaneity of the spirit. We need to learn to balance both, right? That that this can be balanced because can be brought together because Paul is telling the Corinthian church, you know, you have this together. Have the flow of the spirit but do it decently. Do it in order. Do it peacefully. Right? So that's just one example. Now if we go through uh the Bible and uh we can pick up many examples and I've just listed some of them [snorts] uh where at various points organization [clears throat] stands out you know administration stands out for example um when you think about Moses you know he's leading the people of Israel the Jewish people, the Hebrew people. He's brought them, God has used him to bring them out of Egypt. Uh they're making their journey into the land of promise. And as they're making this journey in Exodus 18, we see a situation where Moses as a leader and and you know, uh this is the this is the let's say the first time he's he's in in a situation like this. Exodus chapter 18 and um you know he he's got all all these people uh estimated about three million people uh who are making this journey. He's the leader. God has used him to bring them out. Now as they're making the journey everything is not easy. There is you know some problems here some problems there all kinds of matters. And they all come to Moses in order to have Moses resolve these problems. Whatever it could be, you know, if two families are having some dispute, if uh you know, within a family there is problem, whatever, they're all coming to Moses. And Moses is sitting there one after the other. He's meeting with the people. He's trying to solve their problems. And Jethro um Moses' father-in-law, he when he observes this, you know, and uh uh he sees what's happening, he actually counelss Moses. Now try to picture this in your mind. Moses is the prophet of God. You know, God has spoken through him. God has used him so powerfully and yet in this particular matter he is actually not doing right meaning he's doing something that that is not helpful for himself and for the people. So is he a man of God? Of course. Is he a prophet of God? Of course. Has God used him powerfully? Yes, definitely. And here he is. He's doing something, you know, that that could be done better or it could be done differently. And God uses Jethro, his father-in-law, to advise him, to counsel him. Right? So, let's pick this up here in um uh Exodus 18. And uh let's could somebody read this for us, please? from Exodus 18 uh versus 13 uh to we could read till 23. Uh it's about it's kind of a long passage. Um but let's read it please. Exodus 18 13-23. Somebody could unmute and read it. The next day, Moses sat to judge the people. And the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. When Moses's father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, "What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?" And Moses said to his father-in-law, "Because the people come to me to enquire of God, when they have a dispute, they come to me, and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his law." Moses's father-in-law said to him, "What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourself out. For the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. Now obey my voice. I will give you advice and God be with you. You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God. And you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Moreover, look for able people from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands and of hundreds, of 50s, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you and they will bear the burden with you. >> Yes. Verse 23, please. >> If you do this, God will direct you. You will be able to endure and all the people also will go to their place in peace. >> Amen. Thank you. So you see here you like we were saying Moses was a prophet of God. God had used him powerfully and uh you know obviously he's fulfilling his responsibility. He's saying okay I will be available for the people but the work was so much so many people coming to him and uh from morning till evening he's sitting people are bringing their problems he's one by one he's he's he's trying to sort it out so you you know Jethro his father-in-law sees and says this is not good you know and he gives him counsel he says you know Moses you focus on going before God in prayer And you focus on teaching the people. You teach them the laws. You teach them the statutes and [clears throat] you appoint leaders. Meaning now it's not just you but you organize yourself like this. You know you appoint leaders. And he says you have to choose the right kind of people. You cannot just put anybody there. You need the right kind of people who will be like um you know I say like your your your assistants or people who have been delegated with certain amount of leadership and they will be responsible uh for groups of 50s hundreds and so on and in their group if they somebody has a problem they go to their immediate leader you know so in modern language we will call them as teams or we'll call them as uh ministries you know so there are different people responsible different leaders who are responsible for different groups of people anything happens in that group let them go to their team leader let them go to the person who's responsible there they should be able to sort it out only if there is some matter which they don't know what to do then they bring it to you so you see right here you God is using Jethro to give advice to Moses. And you know when you read on Moses actually implements this you know and uh that helps administer the law of God the the the wisdom of God to all the people. So Moses is the leader. He should pray for the people and he should teach them the go the statutes of the Lord, the word of God teach them and then let the leaders help administer that to the whole community. So right here we're beginning to see, you know, the importance of organization, administration in ministry. And later on in Numbers 11, God himself tells Moses, sorry, in in Numbers 11, God himself tells Moses, Moses, I want you to select 70 people. You know, uh this is Numbers 11. [clears throat] And uh you know this is again as they have journeyed along further uh Moses now complains to God and uh you know he says God I I I I cannot handle this you know it's too much for me and God says okay I'm just summarizing numbers 11 Moses get 70 men from all the tribes you know you get 70 people. I'm going to anoint them and they will help lead the people, care for the people. Right? So in the earlier se Exodus 18 there was a time when they had to resolve all the disputes. uh in numbers 11 there is spiritual leadership and the way God does it is by taking the anointing that was on Moses and distributing it across 70 people. Now that doesn't mean the 70 people became like Moses. No, they had a portion they had a certain aspect of the anointing of the Holy Spirit on him and they could help provide spiritual leadership to this whole congregation, this whole community of people. And one of them was Joshua uh who later on became the next leader. But in numbers 11, same thing, but more significant because God takes the anointing and he anoints these 70 people, putting them in a place of spiritual leadership to help Moses carry out spiritual ministry for the whole uh community, for the whole congregation, you know. Uh so that's again we're seeing God himself directing organization, right? Uh I'll just refer to uh numbers 10 before we close. Uh in numbers 10 is very interesting and I'll just uh share this with you and and I definitely encourage you to just you know please have a look at it. Uh numbers 10 uh the first section that is uh verses 1 to 10. Uh it's very interesting. Numbers 10 1-10. You could read that but let me just summarize it for you. uh in numbers 10 verse 1-10 you see something very interesting where when the people of God were making their journey to the promised land when they wherever they paused whenever they stopped for in a place God told them very clearly how they should order the camp. So the tabernacle was always to be in the middle. Then there would be four tribes in the north side, four tribes on the [clears throat] east and another four on the west and another four on the south. In other words, people couldn't just, you know, put up their tent wherever they wanted. No, they had to be by their tribes and the each tribe had a particular place where they had to pitch their tent. Three tri um three tribes in the north. I'm sorry. Whether I say four tribes, three in the north, three in the east, three in the west, and three in the south. So all four sides, three three tribes. Totally 12 tribes. God is very clear, very specific. When they had to move, that is start the journey again. The priest would blow the trumpet and they would move in a very orderly way. Tribe by tribe, they will move. So, you know, you read that portion in numbers 10 and you begin to wonder, why is God giving all these details? you know why didn't he all just say okay all of you sleep wherever you want all of you get up wherever you want and just keep going it it wasn't like that it was very orderly and that order was being given by God was interest in instructing his people I want you to camp in a very orderly way and when you get up and go you go in a very orderly way that's very interesting thing it tells us that God is interested in organization in order in administration otherwise he would not have you know spent that time and given all those instructions uh to his people and we still looking in the old testament we'll definitely get into the new so think about these things you know that throughout the bible we're getting a glimpse of god God as a god of order, as a god of organization, a god of design, as a god of creativity. Uh he doesn't want things to be done in a very haphazard way. He wants it to be done properly. Uh and we see this very clearly in the Bible. And uh so we'll continue this tomorrow as we can look at more scriptures old testament and then new testament where it's very clear to us God wants his work spiritual work to be done in a very proper way and that leads us into talking about church administration church organization. Any questions any thoughts before we close please? No, pastor. >> All good. >> Yes, pastor. >> All right. So, um let's close for today. We'll continue this tomorrow. Uh and as we keep going little by little, I'll keep putting out the uh um lecture notes uh on the classroom. Could somebody close in prayer and then we will dismiss please. Father God, we thank you once again, Father, for the uh for the things we learned today. You are a god of order and you are not a god of confusion or chaos. And Lord, same thing you desire in our worship and it's from the very beginning in the word we Lord it's our hearts which perceived it today that how you instructed your people to worship how you instructed Moses to be orderly. how you instructed worshippers to worship and we are so grateful to you Lord for this insight which is shared by our pastor. We thank you Lord God. We pray Lord help us to learn more. May your spirit continue to speak to us as we close this uh um class. We pray father god you bless each one of us and continue to speak to us and continue to give more insight and as we meet tomorrow again help us Lord God to learn more from you and use pastor Ashish Lord God as you used him today we thank you praise you worship you in the mighty name of Jesus we pray amen thank you everyone we'll see you again tomorrow have a good day blessed Thank you, pastor.