Church & Ministry Administration | Lecture 3 : BC310-CMA-20260818

Okay, everyone. I'm um sorry for the delay or we've had some problems here with the power UPS switching. We'll get that sorted, but hopefully now we should have um stable connection for the rest of the class. So, we'll get started. Uh any uh any questions from last week? No, all all fine. So let's go now to uh lesson number two um which is what are the objectives of good administration in church and ministry. So remember everything we're talking about today or in this course uh although we may be speaking a lot uh uh from a local church perspective uh you can use it for any min any Christian organization right and um so what would be the objective what are we trying to achieve when we have good administration last week we said okay our god is a god of order god is a god of design he's got everything in order and so Now when we are not working on having good organization, good administration in church or in the ministry, what are we trying to achieve? Right? So we begin with a basically a from a Christian ministry context when we say administration, we're talking about all the everything that happens behind the scenes that support the work of the ministry. Right? So ministry is happening whether it's worship or the word or we're going out on missions or we're going to serve some people whatever the kind of ministry is behind that a lot of things have to happen right so that support work that support structure and what happens there is is what we're referring to as organization and administration and so the goal is that the ministry itself should happen very well right that's why you need a administration organization behind it. Some important things that we want to keep in mind uh which we have emphasized last week is administration is spiritual ministry especially in our context right we're talking about church sometimes we think oh administration oh these are people they are you know with the very we look at them as very carnal people very you know or the spiritual people are the people who would be preaching or leading worship or you know doing those kind spiritual ministry we think oh those are very spiritual people these people are doing all the administrative work they are not spiritual people we generally think like that but what we emphasized last week and we looked at these scriptures uh at Romans 12 6-8 you know where we see that in the list of gifts that are given in Romans 12 6-8 Right? We see the word ministry that is used which is means any service anything you do to serve and it could be yeah saying like arranging chairs or desks it could be accounting it could be IT media whatever any service we are doing is is under that word ministry you know um so there is no distinction there and in that list we also see things like leadership. So leadership can be anything right you're you're leading a team uh as a leader you'll have to organize you'll have to plan you'll have to uh solve problems all those things and that you know which is what a leader will normally do they may not they may not look very spiritual a team leader you know he say he's making a roster okay all of you will be doing this and telling everybody what to do it doesn't look very spiritual but It is part of the gifts and functions that are given to believers. That's Romans 12 uh 6 through8. So uh that's one scripture that tells us that ministry or service and leadership is part of something the spiritual. Romans 16:1 and2 there last week we saw uh the you know um a person named Phoebe who was uh uh in charge of some business and Paul uses the word there in Romans 16 deacon or a helper you know so somebody who's serving as a deacon as a helper Paul recognizes them as a as co-workers in the ministry right it is this is not say, "Okay, they're like, you know, secondass ministers." No, no, they're ministers. They're co-workers. He's he's telling them, you know, please, whatever uh she comes to do, please you be of help and support to her. Um and um 1 Timothy 3:1 uh 1 Corinthians 12, sorry, 1 Corinthians 12:28. Again, we saw this last week. We actually see the word helps and administrations. 1 Corinthians 12 28, right? We see the word helps and administrations, right? Oh, I I I I forgot now all I'm putting all these notes in the in the class Google classroom. You all have access to it. Yeah, you can download the PDF, right? Okay, good. Um, 1 Corinthians 12:28 helps and administration. So, help means any kind of help. It's it's it's God has set all these people in the church right so we should respect them you know so like for example you know Sunday morning church service uh there's so many people who are helping right from arranging chairs to all kinds of things so many I can't list them all uh they may not be the ones standing on stage they may not be the ones on video live stream nobody knows but 1 Corinthians 12:28 is saying God has set them in the church. God has appointed them just like he's appointed the apostle, the prophet, uh teacher, the evangelist, all of that in that God has appointed helps. God has appointed administrations. Again, administration, anything that you somebody can do in support of the ministry, they have been appointed by God. So we have to respect them. We have to honor them just as we do for other ministries. Right? So we have to change how we uh think and look at these people who are actually doing a lot behind the scenes. They're not the ones on stage, you know, but they're appointed by God. Scriptures telling us that you know. So we recognize this is a spiritual ministry. even though they may be doing some hard work the spiritualist right and in 1 Timothy 3:es 1-13 over there Paul talks about bishops and deacons bishops and deacons bishops we know of spiritual work deacons anything that they do in support of the spiritual ministry they are there right so that's the first uh thing that we need to understand administration is a spiritual ministry history uh don't look at it differently give it honor give it respect the second thought that I want us to think about is that administration is a art is a science is a spiritual gift that means um uh art as in different things come naturally to different people so when we talk about art basically it's an expression of what that person has innately so example suppose somebody can sing or play instrument it is something it starts they have that right and of course they have to practice and learn and all those thing I'm not saying it's not there but it's something it's like a talent to ecology and it is something they have that's the art part of it the science part of it is they can develop it you can learn many things about it right it's a learning part there is skill development part and then it's also a gift. So uh just like anything else when we talk about administration we see certain people are very good in organizing. Some people forget about organizing it's all one thing big jumble together that is not what they do. They may do some other thing. Uh some people are very structured right they everything organization they see order they that's that it comes naturally to them. other people they're just free flowing they just it somehow it'll happen you know but uh they're not so that organizing putting things in structure in place that is not what they've been designed to do right so people are different so uh each one has certain things that you know come naturally art science you develop that you learn about it you make yourself better in it and Then gift understand that um you know uh there is a anointing there's a grace there's an empowering that God gives in your life to do well in whatever he's called you to do right so even administration it can be learned can be developed can be improved you know and uh God empowers people, you know. So I remember so even in terms of um uh you know church organization and things like that uh so many times God you know how do I do this? You know how do we solve this problem? How should Oh something's wrong really? It's ringing by itself. All right. Um, you know, and over and over again, and I'll share some of these stories as we go along. um over and over again uh God will give ideas do like this plan like that you know and it keeps getting better you know for example uh our these Bible college courses how you know how did we come up with these course like we we're not using a curriculum from anywhere it's something that we have developed you know which we feel and we continue to improve Right? But it's something that happened over time and as we keep listening to God, keep listening to our students, keep seeing what's happening around the world. Okay, these are the needs we have to talk about. Then we keep improving the curriculum, the courses we offer, the content in the courses also keep changing because some courses we have to keep it updated, right? Depending on what's happening around, right? So it's it's a it's it's an art, a science and a gift. Like we blend all of this together uh in the work we do right um and and God God is involved now the next thought is u just I'm just making mention here about leadership management and administration. So you'll have these different terms being used uh leadership, management, administration but and they have different functions you know there there are traits or characteristics that are very distinct to each of these uh a leadership usually we talk about somebody having vision coming up with strategy uh influencing people motivate moving them into action organizing etc. In management, a lot of it is planning, organizing, that kind of work. Administration gets into the nitty-gritty, the details of scheduling, executing, checking things, teams, individuals and all that. So, uh, leadership is a higher level, management is at another level, and administration is like getting down to the details of things. But in this course, we are going to just kind of club them all together, right? So I'm not uh going to we have a separate course on leadership that'll that's that that focus on leadership but in this course uh we will talk about many things that overlap between leadership management and administration. I'm not going to se you know separate these things. We'll just talk about it together. Now let's get into the objectives. Why should we have good administration? Right? At different levels uh there are certain objectives right? So one at the first level we want to develop people right. So when you think about the organization nobody comes in like oh I'm perfect right everybody comes in uh where they are they may bring in some amount of experience or they may be fresh out of college or whatever they come in at a certain level but we don't want them to stay at that level. We want them to develop. We want them to get better because if they get better then the organization gets better. Right? But we must be intentional about that and that hey let's develop these people. Let's help them learn some new skills. Give them the experience they need. Give them the opportunities they need. Give them the resources they need so they can develop as individuals. That's one of our objectives, right? So, we are focusing on building the people in the or who come to be part of the organization. So, we have full-time staff, we have um volunteers, uh sorry, consultants and we have volunteers. We have broadly speaking, we have three categories of people who are in the organization, right? And we will get into the details of this. But at all levels, we need to think how do we develop these people like how do we help them get better? maybe some training uh maybe some resources they need maybe some opportunities they need you know we have to think about that. Secondly, we also want to establish systems. That means a a system is uh a a set of processes that are people and processes that are working together. That's a system you know um and I'll give an example may you know when we talk about say for example somebody will send an email saying please send me uh all your English I heard APC is giving free books please send me all your English books here's my address okay now we have to fulfill that request so we have to have a system in is by which that request is fulfilled. So it comes as a email. So first thing is we need to check the address and because we don't want to send one set of books it goes to wrong address it'll all waste. So first step check the address you know maybe call them or send them hey this is your correct address or your pin code was missing or something. Make sure the address is correct. Then uh uh you know there used to be a time we'll send a full set of books but in now we say okay initially let them send send them five books uh make sure they look at our five books and if they're interested then ask them for more unless it's somebody known to us or uh you know then we can send a full set because now full set means about 50 some books are there that's kind of big and expensive to pack and send. So usually we'll say okay we'll send you five books uh please have a look at it if you want more you ask you yeah you know instead of sending all 50 books at one one stretch uh then you know it gets backed and all of that happens you know and it goes to them and so on but there is a there is a whole process involved right so we need to have systems we need to have process to make sure that request now like that we don't just get one request But in a week there could be many requests, many people are asking and then different language. Some will ask for English books, some will many will ask for Hindi books, many others will you know other languages. So we have to have proper system uh with proper processes to make sure these requests are all satisfied. Otherwise people get oh these people are simply saying they're sending books. No, you know books are coming right you'll get upset they get discouraged right so we have to satisfy all the requests that come in and I'm giving only one example right where you have to have a proper system proper processes in place to meet that request on top of this there will be conferences happening around the country and if a conference happens somebody request they'll request in bulk they'll say please send me 200 sets because 200 200 pastors are coming. So now that's a different thing but that also we have to fulfill. So again there are five books make 200 sets which language pack. We can only do this if we have proper systems and processes in place. Right? So uh we to look at our system look at processes and then allocating resource. All of this costs money. How much money are we going to spend where right? So that's one set of uh objectives we need to maintain people, systems, processes, resources, right? Only then uh u that's some of the things that we want to achieve through our good administration. Now we do all of that. Why? So that there can be the next set is alignment, efficiency and productivity. Right? Uh there has to be alignment to the vision. You know we don't want to do things where something is going off in a different direction. Yeah. So every all the work that we do has to be aligned to the overall ministry goals and vision and we must do it in an efficient way in a productive way. Efficient means do it quickly. Uh do it in a way where nothing is wasted. Right? And that kind of overlaps with productivity. Are we maximizing what we can do in this particular area? Do it efficiently. Do it productively. So example books I'm just using books as example. We are must also maximize our reach. So we need to let people know that books are available. Otherwise nobody will ask you know we can keep printing books here. If nobody knows free books are available they won't ask. So how can we be productive in this? How can we get the books out to the people who need it? How can we find out you know which pastors in remote areas uh the books have to reach them. So we should go we should let pastors know pastors if you want some books in Hindi or whatever language you want to use it in your ministry you want to use it in your church it's available we will send it to you otherwise we'll be unproductive right we can have the money we can have the books but it's not reaching the people so we have to think on that right so we're thinking about alignment to the purpose and objective and vision uh it has to be efficient and productive are you with me so far right so we have to have good administration. So all this can happen and then the overall goals and vision of the ministry is achieved. Right? Then so as part of uh our administration there are three broad areas of skills that we need to look at. What is it? One is human skill. That means um people, right? How do we care for people? Because an organization, if you if you think about it, an organization is basically people. It's not the building. You can have a nice building, nothing will happen. It can be an empty shell, right? So most important is the people you have in the organization. Without that there is no organization. Without people there nothing will happen. Right? So people and people have to be developed cared for uh they have to develop like we said earlier developing skills. So to have good administration, good organization, we need uh people, we also as individuals need people's skills. That means how can we work with people? How can we lead people? How can we motivate people? How can we work together well? Right? So in administration very important, we need people skills. Right? And again, uh none of us start perfect. Right. Uh we all make mistakes. I made many mistakes last 25 years. If I get a chance to do it again, I'm sure I'll do it better. But I made many many mistakes because I didn't know. I was learning, right? Oh, oh, I made I should not have done I should do it like this next time. You're keeping on you're continuously learning how to work with people, how to uh motivate people, how to you know just people skills is something you learn but we have to continuously learn to keep improving human skills, people's skills. Second are the organizational skills, right? That is also needed. That means how do we organize the ministry and how uh how do we put systems process in place? How do we check if things are happening? How do we measure if uh we're getting the right results? you know the the organizational skills is something we all need uh for a for good administration and these again like we said uh we constantly learn right and the third is the technical skills to do your particular piece of work you need the related technical skills uh like we said example Example, we have media team. So obviously if somebody's part of the media team uh they need human people's skills that say to work as a team uh they need uh good organizational skills okay how when should we all do the work all of those planning all that they also need technical skills I mean okay you need to know how to use these tools to produce the videos whatever all of those things right so in good administration we need these three things we need good people skills good organizational skills and good technical skills for your particular area. No one person will have everything. Right? So each that's why we need many people doing their different different different bits and pieces of work. We all work as one big organization. Get the whole work done. Right? So uh when we talk about administration organization we're really talking about something which is the result of all our efforts put together right and no one person can do it. Now let me just talk a little bit here on this. Uh you know the especially in church and ministry. Uh and I think you know when I when I see when I go across India and I see things many times one pastor tries to do everything A to Z. One pastor will do it. when you are starting out, when you are in the early stages, okay, that is understandable because you may not have the resources, uh you may not have the people, but our mindset should be I'm not going to stay like this forever, right? I want to see if I can get some more people to come alongside me. uh I want to see how I can organize these people in a proper way and each one according to their technical skills. So when APC started 200 1 uh there was no staff zero staff he started with nothing. So next class tomorrow I'll talk about from the very beginning the legal structure right but I'm just giving a little background uh we started in the month of February we started services we still didn't have a legal structure that means we were not registered we just started let's start only later on I think it was in uh April or May of that year that we actually formed a legal entity right because you need a few people to be part of that trust or the legal trust. I'll explain this to you later on to tomorrow. Uh so we formed the trust later but there was no staff. So first year APC there was no there was no need. We were small only 10 people 20 20 people 30 people like that. So I sat and did everything but it was easy. There's nothing much to do, right? Collect the offering, whatever they gave on Sunday, write it down. Very simple. Just not too much money. Uh write in one page. Simple. Uh and once we had the bank account, just put it in the bank account. Simple. And some coordination meaning I have to for the venue, okay, book the venue, pay the rent. There was little bit of a little bit of work. So then in our second year is when we had a parttime admin person it's not even a full-time so part-time there was one person he was working actually for the company but I told him I gave him the freedom I said see you divide your time you put 50% or some of your time in the company you running a company you work for the company and little bit of church admin he also do. So, uh he was but he wasn't even paid by the church because he was staff of the company but he would give some of his time for church admin work. That's how we started literally second year. Um and then uh we had uh children's church pastor but he was also only part-time. So he I was he's like our first uh paid pastor still in church and uh but he was not full-time. So he didn't he didn't even have to come to like the office and sit at least that time until later on he he joined came full-time but initially we had a very small children's church and we should just pay him a little money uh for the ministry but that was all later on uh I think the first uh pastor Jenkumar joined us he was our first full-time star full time and this only happened I I think in 2004 or something if I remember so only so literally like four years three or four years before we actually had a full-time staff. So what I'm saying is in the early days uh you start small uh you don't have too much of things to be done it's okay you can just manage with a few little bit of help and you can finish but as things grow then you grow the organization you grow the administration but we have to keep that in mind that you know I won't be able to do everything I will need help and then at the right time you start bringing uh the right people to help so pastor Mr. Jkuma actually joined us as our administrator. So he was our first staff and he joined us as admin to run the organization of the church. But because he was also um good in worship. Uh we used to have you also please lead worship on Sundays. So he was like an unofficial worship pastor but he had actually come as full-time for administration taking care of the church administration. Now from the very beginning we had an accountant but part time her work was finished I think almost 2 hours a week finished nothing much to do she'll come I'll give her hey this is the um uh amount we have received I've written it in the book then she'll put it into the accounting system I'll explain that when we talk about our finances very small finish put done work is done two hours a week work is done not much accounting to But slowly her number of hours increased because the work increased. But for a very long time actually till 2018 that means almost first 18 years we did not have a full-time accountant. We only had uh we we we uh had an accounting firm who would send an accountant for just two uh maybe initially one day later on two days later on 3 days depending on the work. In other words, till 2018, the accountant didn't have full-time work and now we have full-time accounting. But till 2018, there was no full-time accountant. Only one accountant will come just do our work, finish it and go. So it's part-time, you know. So even in the accounting area, uh we slowly grew, right? We didn't have uh full-time people from the beginning. slowly just depending on what we need you come do the account work finished right so um then our first full-time pastor you know so I think 2005 is when around that time and again my years the dates could be a little off but our first full-time pastor was our worship and youth pastor uh and I think by the time our children's church pastor also came on full-time. Uh and then we um had um uh Arti who was pastor Jekumar's wife join us for administration and then pastor Jakma moved into pastoral ministry. He took over APC South because that became a full-time responsibility. he took over and then pastor Selena joined us 2008 right so slowly we were adding people so you can see by the time he came to 2008 we probably had only four or five people still not much you know just four or five full-time staff 2008 years only four or yeah one one two three four five full-time staff Right. So the point I'm making is it takes time to grow and don't rush. Right? Today you see you look at ABCs. Oh there's so many staff, so many consultants, so hey, it didn't happen overnight. It grew slowly and we were not in a hurry, right? There's no hurry as and when you have the ministries opening up which requ So how we think is this can we give if we bring a person full-time can we give them enough work to do every week like we look at 40 hours is there enough work for 40 hours every week if there is then then we need a full-time staff If it's not then we will see if a consultant consultant means you work whatever hours you can maybe 10 hours 20 hours whatever part time you understanding now sometimes a consultant they'll start as consultant then they become full-time because the amount of work grows increases but the basic criteria for getting a full-time person is do you have enough work to for them to be busy for 40 hours at least. Then you bring a full-time person. Otherwise, just use part-time help for the work to get the work done. Don't be in a hurry. That's the approach we've taken. And that's how the organization has grown over time. Okay. Little history. Uh any questions? All right. So tomorrow what we'll get into is we'll start from the very beginning meaning how do you form a organiz a trust and I will share with you I'll put it up on classroom I'll share with you our APC trust but um our APC trust is old meaning it was written in 2001 but I'll explain how what all you have to look at when you're writing those uh uh uh uh we call it it's called in India it's called a trust deed h in other parts of the for example in the US they'll call it articles of incorporation same doc kind of document but language is different okay it's a trust deed or the articles of incorporation right that means you're forming a legal entity what you should have right I'll go that just go over that with you I'll show you it now just keep this in mind I'll say this and I'll stop uh right now in India we are having problems in forming a religious trust especially north India Bangalore, Canada, Tamil Nadu it may be easy you go to the registister's office you want to form a trust they will happily do it uh it doesn't but when you go uh outside more north it's very difficult they just they just don't accept you know uh so because we we know it because we have outreach churches all across North India. Uh it's very difficult for them to even register. We are willing to do it legally, pay you the money to we don't we don't want to register a Christian religious trust. So it's become a problem. So one option that we have doing is we tell them you come to come here register a trust here you can operate anywhere in the country. Right? So a legal entity wherever it is registered in the country can operate anywhere in the country. You have legal right to operate anywhere in India. So like couple of years ago one pastor from Mumbai he was having so much problem they were not helping him allowing him like unnecessary they'll put you know uh hindrance. So he just came to Bangalore, registered a trust here, go back operate in Mumbai. Right? So I'm not saying everywhere in India it's like this but in many parts especially north India it's like this. It's they make it very difficult. Right? Southern states it's uh a little easier. So one option is you come this part of the country you register here and you go back and once you have a trust you can open a bank account you can operate you can buy land you can rent a land all those things you can do legally because you are a registered entity uh so that's kind of an approach I'll talk more about this tomorrow okay um let me see if anyone has questions online students do you have any thoughts any questions Um are we all good? >> Hello. >> Yes, you have a question. >> Yes, pastor. I want to know like um I'm from Uttraan. >> Okay. >> So, I know it is it is very difficult even to register in any trust here. So is there a way where as you just mentioned is there a way that uh we can also register through APC or come to Bangalore and then register we already have a online ministry um a church and we want to have a physical ministry also out here. >> So that is my question like is there a way where um APC supports and helps um to register. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Um so there are two options. One is um uh you know we can recommend the our chartered accountant the the people who help us uh the legal sorry an advocate and a charter accountant. So you'll need both their help uh to help register the trust. So the same people that we work with we can recommend and that's what we've done for a lot of other people. Um but if you want to register your own trust you need to come physically here because you have to go to the registister's office do your thumb print and sign and all that uh >> yeah so uh typically you need at least three people >> uh so you everyone has to come here go to the office do that so that's possible uh the um at least maybe uh I think um two three years ago when we helped someone recently it was like around 15,000 rupees fees for the advocates the advocate fees he will do everything for you he'll go with you to the office and that's the cost I don't know what it's today but let's say not too far back maybe 3 years ago it was that that was the amount so it's not that's the kind of cost what we do for all our outreach churches that means the churches that are working under APC is we give them a copy of our trust so we say uh especially in the places where they cannot re we try encourage them to register if it's possible but some parts of India it's not very difficult like you said so then we say you operate under APC uh if you as an outreach church we give them a copy of our trust we give them a letter uh with that they can operate freely uh you know and uh so it's like an extension of APC Bangalore that's the other way we >> other way we do it uh and then we take full responsibility for that uh church and location and pastor and all that and they they operate under you know uh a so both ways both options are uh available and yeah >> yes thank you thank you >> God bless okay we'll um stop here we'll continue this tomorrow okay thank