Church & Ministry Administration | Lecture 5 : BC310-CMA-20260825

Okay. Recording is on and welcome everyone to our course on church and ministry administration. Thank you all for joining the class. Um would like to pray and we'll start. Mike is there next to Glory. Mahima, yes, please pray. >> Thank you, heavenly Father. Thank you for this wonderful morning that you've given us, oh Father God, as you study to your word, oh master. You open our mind, oh Father God, give us give us wisdom and knowledge, oh Father God, so we can understand everything whatever we study here, oh Lord. And I surrender pastor into your hands, oh Father God. You reveal yourself, oh Father God, and give more revelation, oh master. And I pray that I surrender this whole entire class into your hands, oh Father God. Holy Spirit, you lead us and guide us, oh master. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. In Jesus' name, I say, "Amen." Amen. >> Amen. Thank you. All right. Um we are talking about um the trust or the legal entity um that we need to form. We just started that in lesson number three. I'll quickly review, then we will get into things we want to talk about today. Uh church trust and governance. So just a legal the forming the entity, the legal entity, right? Um so basically some quick just quickly review. So when you start your church or your ministry, you give some time for, you know, the the work to take shape, right? So you don't rush in necessarily to form a legal entity immediately. You start the work. You get some people come together. And uh then you you um select people that you trust. Right? So, that's something we spoke about last week. Uh select a few people. You need I think three at least three people uh to form a legal entity. People who are aligned to your vision, are willing to serve. They're not looking for some position, you know. And they shouldn't cause problems. So, you have these three people. Uh that's including you, you and two others. Um then you form the legal entity, right? So, in order to form the legal entity, you need articles of incorporation or you need what we call as a trust deed. Or some places they call these are the bylaws or laws of this the uh trust. So, they use different language in different places. Uh and I have shared with you uh the trust deed uh of of our church, our People's Church, right? Now, this is old one, meaning it was uh 2001. So, it was made in 2001. Right? So, it's a little old one. So, today if you go to um form a trust, you can use this as a starting point. Some key things here, but the person the the advocate or the lawyer who's or the sometimes a CPA can also help you do it. Uh the person who's helping you form your entity, he may he will definitely modify this, you know, he'll make changes, make it more current. Uh but this is an example of what we did. Yeah, so it was more than 25 years ago. Uh you all with me so far? You're You're seeing it on the screen? Yeah. So, basically you put the names of the people, you know, how many of the people are there. Uh there'll be one main person who's responsible, the settler, and then there will be few others who'll be with you on the trust. Um whatever number. So, sometimes it could be three, sometimes it'll be seven. Uh usually uh it's an odd number of people, but there's not no requirement like that. The usually they say odd number because if you have to vote on something, at least you will have, you know, one person who's who you can decide. Be like a deciding person, but it's not necessary. It's just simple guidance there. And then uh what I said last time was when you're writing this articles in your aims and objectives of the trust, try to put in everything that you possibly can or might do in the future. Right? So, that's one important thing, right? Don't just put down what you are doing in me at that moment. At that moment, let's say for example, you're doing Bible study. So, don't say I'm forming this trust only to run a Bible study. No, no, no. You do Bible study, but do write much more, you know, whatever things that you think um you would want to be doing in the Christian ministry, right? So, that's how, you know, we when this was written, uh it was written in in a very broad way. You know, and you look at some of these things here. So, if you look under section three, aims and objectives of the trust, number one, you know, it Now, this is a religious trust, okay? It means we are clearly indicating we are here as a Christian organization. Mhm? So, if example, if you're starting a school, like educational, it won't be like this, right? An educational institution has to be very general. It's for the public. Uh it has to be available to anybody regardless of their religion. Or if you're doing something like social work, um helping poor people, you can't say I'll only help Christian poor people. You can't do that, right? Uh that's a social organization. You have to help anybody regardless of their religion. So, school, uh social work, any NGO, things like that. You In those types of organizations, you cannot say I will only do it if they are a Christian. If you want to do something very specific to a particular religion, then you have to form a religious trust. That is what this one is, right? Because we are very clear. This is a church. It is for a Christian organization. So, very clear. But, like I said, I'll explain again later. Uh as a And again, this is for India. Uh as a If you're a religious trust, there are some benefits you don't get. Like, you won't get the 80G uh license, which is uh giving tax benefit to your donors. You won't get that if you're a purely religious organization. If you're a school, you Like, example, you're a school, you're doing social work, you're doing something very general, okay, you will get that 80G. The government will give you. Uh if you're religious, you cannot get it. Mhm? So, those are differences. And I'm just talking about India. In other parts of the world, they have different rules, you know, uh and so on. So, going back to this aims and objectives. So, first one we say, we are here to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. Very clear. You know? Um and we're going to serve preached everybody. Uh then we start adding all these other things. So actually when we when we when we form the trust we were not doing many of these things we were not doing. And we only were having church church service. But we put all this in because in the future we could do it. And now um to provide relief, rehab for people who are affected by natural calamities, uh we want to provide benevolent services to the old, the homeless, refugees, all that. See now here's what has happened. When we formed the trust, I mean talking about again in in India, we said we're going to do social work. Okay? At that time they allowed it. But today they will not allow it because government has now become very strict. If you want to do social work, you have to be a social organization. You religious organization you do only religious work. You know? So you will immediately see that this same trust deed which um was written back in 2001, today the when you go to form the trust on the the lawyer will say you have to take this out, you have to take this out because today uh things have changed. Uh you can only be a purely religious trust, right? But in those days this was okay. You could uh do social work and help uh the poor, the homeless, the orphan, all of that. Then we said number four to print journals, books, book shops, all those literature type of work. And all the lit whatever you can do under Christian literature, we want to do it. Then number five, we want to be able to establish local churches. Number six, we want to be able to establish uh institutes and seminaries. That is like Bible college, all those things, you know. We want to be able to do that. Then number seven, we want to again Bible college and school and teachers. Um uh to prepare theologians. Number nine, we want to be able to bring people from outside. See, that time it was okay. Again now today, changed. You they will we can't simply invite people um to come uh we have to be careful. They They if they're going to do especially in public, they will need special missionary visa and all of that. It's very very difficult these days. Those days were okay, you could bring people in, so. Then uh we can conduct workshops, conferences, which we we do. Uh we can do some research, uh experimental research for teaching training, uh you know, field work, uh basically do some experimental work. Number 13, we could have libraries, book clubs in around the country. So, basically this trust is saying we want to operate all over India. Around the country. Right? Uh was not was 40, number 14, the trust work will be around India. Uh and then we will be able to work with number 15, work with other organizations with a similar objectives. Right? So, that we can do. But, see, again things have changed so much. Those days, it was very easy for us that we receive we have funds, we can give to other Christian organizations. But today, they'll question. Why are you funding another organization? It's become difficult. You know, the uh the whole environment I'm talking about again I'm talking about India. Things have changed. So, even though another So, number 15 is saying we can work with other organizations who have the same objectives. That means they are also Christian organizations. But things today they will start questioning. Why are you collecting money and you helping another organization, Christian? Why are you doing it? You know, although uh technically there's nothing wrong we are doing we have the same objectives. But they start questioning. And especially in some states like UP, you know, um we have to even if we support our own pastors, our own pastors who are there in the state of UP, they start questioning. Why are you sending money from Bangalore, Karnataka state, to UP state? Why are you doing this? Questioning. You know, so all these things which were easy in 2001, today suddenly has become very uh very difficult. You know. So, but uh we are doing we are doing quietly we are doing but our we are doing quietly we are trying but we are trying to be very careful. Uh so, giving money to other organizations also has become a little challenge. Uh we have to do it very carefully. If it is APC to APC is okay because you're it's within the organization. Uh but even then, like I said, APC to APC in another state, especially certain sensitive states, question. Why are you sending? Things like that. But anyway, it was all this was possible for us in those days and um we could buy land, we could buy uh things, uh we could hire number 17. We can hire buildings or construct buildings. Um we can use the money in a way that is aligned to the objectives of the trust. Uh we we can uh invest in it, but not in a way that is risk risk thing. So, that means you can make uh fixed deposits in the bank. If you have extra money, you can put it in fixed deposits, so on. Uh you can buy property. Uh you can give donations to other trusts with similar objectives as I was explaining. Uh you can provide accommodation for you know, like we're saying in our Bible college, you know, educate and so we can provide accommodation. Uh and we can cover any uh uh expenses that are related to the work. Anybody does work for the trust, we cover their expenses. Uh so on. Okay. Um So, the responsibility of trustees, number four here, they have to keep proper accounts. Um uh number five, they they can use the money of the trust in a way that furthers the objectives of the trust. They can receive donation. We can use this money. Um So, another important thing that you have to put in your trust is that the trustees can be paid by the trust for their service. This is again important thing. If you don't mention it, then it implies that the trustees are only voluntary volun- teers. But when you mentioned that anybody who serves the trust can be paid by the trust. That means you can have stuff. Right? So, that's what we have at APC. Our trustees are also paid by the trust as well as we have a lot of other staff. And we have lots of other consultants, everybody working. They're paid by the trust. So, you put it in the trust deed. You You understand, right? So, that's also an important clause you need to put in your trust deed to make sure that those who are serving the trust can be paid by the trust for their work that they do, right? And then all these other things you can hire lawyers, other people to represent the trust and so on. Okay? So, uh So, this this trust deed is a sample that you can use, you can look at. But, um like I was trying to say, uh times have changed. So, uh when you are registering a trust today, they may tell you to change some of these things because the whole environment in which we are operating has changed. So, they they have to be a little careful. Okay. Right? Uh there are other things. Um okay, let me just go back to So, some things that we will have to follow. I'm going back to um um So, you form this trust, you you have this legal document, right? Now, once you have the legal document, there are some other things that you need to be doing. Once you become a legal entity, right? So, so how do you form this trust? You have this you know, have your trustees, you have this legal document, you go and register the trust with the uh the registrar's office here like in every city you'll have this. You go register the trust. But the moment you register a trust it means that from now on you have to follow uh the legal requirements of the state in your state. So there are four things to keep in mind. Sorry. Four things. First you have to record the meetings of the trustees. Okay? That means let's say you have three, four people as trustees. When you meet and make decisions, you have to record those decisions. Okay? Now I'm not saying that uh so so the way it works is uh uh not all decisions are made by the trustees, right? So example the church the church where all people says we're running every day there's so many decisions are made. Those decisions are not made by the trustees. They're made by all the pastors everybody is working they're doing their own making decisions and the work is going on. But big decisions major decisions those will be done by the trustees. Those decisions have to be recorded. And we don't have to record every little decision every day we're doing so many things. We don't have to record all that. Those are done by the people who are working in the church. Uh by the pastors different leaders are there different people are there they're all making this they're all doing everything. They're all big decisions example buying a land. That is a big decision, right? So uh when you're going to buy a land, that this is okay, you know, you've done everything, you've done such then the trustees are okay, we have decided on behalf of all people's church to buy this land. That has to be recorded. And you may authorize and we are authorizing two people to sign on behalf of the trust. No, no, no, instead of taking all the four, five people going to the office to sign uh the the thing government offices, so we authorize two people to sign on behalf of the trust. That has to be recorded and signed by the trustees, right? So, that is the first thing. All big decisions have to be signed by the trustees. So, example, to open a bank account. Mhm? So, all the trustees will agree, we have agreed that we will open a bank account with such and such a bank. And our trust bank account will be here. That's That's a big That's a big decision because all the money that's coming in to the trust is going to be in that bank account or whichever bank you you know, you you decide. So, important decisions. Or when you're making an amendment to the trust. Example, say in the trust deed uh there was no clause that said we can start a Bible college. Now, you want to start a Bible college. So, what you do? Okay. All the trustees will sign uh a document saying we are making amendment to our trust that our trust will be able to start a Bible college or start Bible colleges. Better to put it in plural in case you do more than one. Then but everybody has to sign. You go and get it amended, right? So, any big decision will have to be signed by all the trustees. So, that is the first thing. And that has those record will have to be kept. Now, um before, I'm saying before means in the last 10 15 years, this had to be kept it it is so it's kind of funny, but it had to be kept in a handwritten logbook. They didn't accept uh you know, these now you know, emails, documents. Yeah, it has to be in a the minutes of the meeting used to be in a logbook physical book. Yes, has to be written and signed. Um but now I think you can have a printed letter like you write one print everybody sign. You as long as everybody has signed it. You know, so basically you keep a record like we have passed a resolution everybody has signed keep a record. This has to be kept kept, right? Second important uh rule to follow. And again, I'm speaking from India, you know, in different countries these rules will be different. But in India, for a religious trust, the rule is 85% of the money you receive as contributions has to be spent in the same year. If you're keeping any money beyond the first year, there are a couple of rules. It means first is uh you can keep it you have to have a good reason like why you're keeping it. You can keep it for a maximum of 5 years. So, rule. So, think about it. So, you know, as a church uh people are giving their tithes, their offerings, their giving. The rule is because you're a religious trust, you have to spend 85% of the money in the same year. You can't just collect and keep and do nothing. Now, this is of course the rule the government has put because they want to make sure that people actually use the money for what they said they're going to do, right? Otherwise, people will simply form a religious trust as a way of hiding money. They just put money there, don't do anything with it. They can just say, "Oh, I formed a religious trust, put money there, not to anything with it." Right? That They don't want that to happen. But, let's say we have a building project, which I'm saying really we have a building project, which means we have to collect money for it. And we have been collecting money for a long time. But, we have to give an explanation when we do our filing to the government that we we have kept this money aside for building projects. Right? And uh we will use it when we find the right piece of land. So, that is acceptable, but you have to explain. Why? So, we also had questions, right? The government asked, "Why are you keeping so much money?" Oh, it is for a building project because you need money to buy the land. We're collecting money slowly, we're collecting, and we're also searching for the right piece of land. Uh and when we find it, we don't know when, but when we find it and when we have the enough money, we will buy it. So, you have to give an explanation. But, they will ask. If they see that in a given year you've collected so much money, so much money has come in, but your expenses have not is not there, they'll ask why. You'll get a letter, for sure. It'll come. Why is this money not used? So, we have to give a valid explanation. Construction project, building project, these are all valid explanations that yeah, it makes sense. But that is a rule, second rule. Right? Uh you have to keep if it is not example if it is not for something like a building project, you cannot keep that money, you cannot accumulate that money for more than 5 years. You have to spend it within 5 years. If you keep that money beyond 5 years, you'll have to pay tax on it. So that is a penalty. So example suppose I'm just giving example. Suppose uh some suppose somebody gives us a lot of money for books, printing books. Okay. And obviously we don't use all of that money in 1 year to print the books. Okay. We have to report that hey there is this so much money. We haven't used 85% of it. Uh we're keeping it. We're going to use it for printing books in the next 5 years. We will use it. Little by little. Yeah, certain amount. Okay. Fine. But they will watch. Every 5 years every year you're giving a report. If you don't, any uh money that you have not used will be taxable. Now you have to pay your tax which will be I think in depending on your thing like a 30% a big amount tax unnecessarily it's going. So in some way they are forcing us by these rules to make sure we use the money for what we are saying we are going to do. Meaning if you're a religious organization, you better use the money for that purpose. Don't simply collect money and keep it. It's a government way of saying you have to use the money. So, that's a second rule, right? So, first is you have to record all your meetings, important decisions, you have to record. Second is about the money. Make sure you're using money 85% otherwise you have to explain to the government why you're keeping that money. It There are valid reasons, they will understand, but remember if you keep it longer for more than 5 years and not use it, they they will charge tax and they'll send one bill. Pay this much tax, right? Then there are uh two two filings. That means you have to report to the government twice every year. One is the income tax filing. That means uh not income tax but income filing. That is you have we have to report to the government the money that has come in. Mhm? We're not going to pay tax on it. You're a religious organization, you're tax exempt. If you get the 12A 12AB exemption, you are tax exempt. You're not paying the tax on it, but you're still reporting to the government how much money has come in. So, that's a filing as a religious organization you have to do. Okay? So, the chartered accountant will help you do it. But you have to keep accounts. So, the moment you form a church, all these things come into uh action. Right? So, it's not a simple thing. Oh, I formed a trust and I'm happy. Uh next year you have to report to the government, right? So, the third thing is you have to report once a year. And it's fine. It's not a very complicated, but it means you have to keep proper accounts of money that is coming into the church. Keep proper accounts. So, the best way to do it is uh put all the money, whatever comes, put it in the bank. The bank there will be a transaction. So, end of the year you take the bank transaction, income expense, report to the government. Finish. Simple. Right? You have two bank accounts, take uh both bank accounts in the name of the trust, uh put it reported to the government. And what money came in? They want to know. Fourth requirement is to submit audited reports of your accounts. That means uh all your income and your expense has been checked by a chartered accountant. And he has to sign off. Like that accountant has to say, "I have checked all this and everything is correct." He has to sign. I need to submit that report to the government. Okay? So, these are the four things we have to be careful to do. Mhm? First is uh uh keep a record of the main decisions with trust. If there are, you know, in a year it may be two or three. I'm not saying there there'll be many decisions. You may make some years the you may not make any major decision, you have nothing. Some years you may have something. Okay, so first one is easy, nothing complicated. It has to be put It has to be written down, has to be signed. Second one is about the money. You have to make sure that you spend it. If you are saving, we have to explain. We are saving it for this purpose. Those four That is the rule. Third one is the There are two filings that you third and fourth are two filings. That means you have to report to the government once a year. One is your income filing. Second is an audited report. That means some accountant auditor has checked if all your statements, your bank, everything is checked and he'll sign and say it is fine. Okay. So, the moment we fall we form a religious organization, we have to follow the rules. Not complicated. If you have a good um chartered accountant accountant, he will help you do this work. So, it's not a burden on you. You have a accountant say, "Hey, please do this for me." They'll do it. So, it's not difficult. But, see here's a problem. If we don't do this, that is when we'll get into lots of problems. Because government will come. They are tracking everything. Right? You have a bank account? The reports are going to the government, right? So, they will know, "Hey, here's a religious organization. They formed a trust. They have a bank account, but they have not submitted their income reports, audited reports." They will know. They'll get send a letter. And then they'll come and check. And then that's when, you know, uh there can be some problems. And um we can't say it's persecution. And I go, "Oh, the government is persecuting me." No, you didn't submit your report. They're just doing their job. They're coming and checking and they're coming and asking you, "Why you haven't submitted your report? Or what is going on here?" We can't call that persecution. Government is doing their job because we failed to do our part, Right? So, the simplest thing is submit all the reports every year. It's only once a year and once a year report you submit, everything is peaceful. You don't have to worry. And a good accountant will help you do this. Okay? Um I'll just go on to what the one more section. So, this is not necessary, but it is a useful thing. Which is having a board of advisers. Board of advisers means just people who can advise you. That's all. Okay? It's not a legal It's not a legal entity. This advisory board uh is not a legal entity. And even we uh we don't have something very formal. Uh the way we do it is in a very informal way. Okay? So, what we do is we recognize that even though we have trustees, our trustees are not experts in everything. Right? Our trustees don't know everything about everything. So, what do we do? We have people that we get advice from on matters uh on certain matters as and when we need it. Okay? So, um and I'll just share with you like what we uh we we do. Uh I'm not saying this is what everybody has to do, but this is useful. So, we have the trustees, meaning they are the legal people, right? They put their their names are on the trust, right? So, then they they're le- they're legally responsible for the entity. The advisory board are people who can give us advice on certain areas when we need it. Right? So, uh we the way we structured it or the way we thought through on this is uh we identified about eight areas where it would be useful for us to get advice. So, one is legal. So, it's a lawyer. For this man, he doesn't come to all people such. He's an independent lawyer. But when we need any legal advice, we go to him. Uh sometimes in a year we may never go to him because there is no need. Okay? But sometimes in a year when we need some guidance, we'll go to this person. Legal. And um then like that we have so for accounting, right? So, we do have our own chartered accountant, but if you want to get the independent view, we ask someone who a different accountant. Only when we want some input advice. Okay? Uh and then other areas like if you want to develop organization or Christian missions, uh technology, operations, creative arts, entrance. So, uh right now we we right at this you know right now in the way what we are doing, there are three advisers we are really working with. One is on the legal side. Uh one other is on the missions side there because um when we are doing missions work, uh when there is we need a lot of guidance. You know, we are in we are in we are in Karnataka, this state, but a lot of our work is outside up in the north. Right? So, we need a lot of guidance how we should work there. Right? So, we we talked to certain like people that we trust, right? And say, "Please guide us what to do." And so, um uh that's And the third is in the area of our building work. Okay? So, right now in this season, uh for legal work, for missions work, and building work, we depend heavily on these uh advisors who are outside. They are not people who come to the church. They're outside, but they're good people. Right? So, even in the legal work, uh when it is legal, so in the legal side, uh okay, let me say, in the building project, even in the building project, uh we have a person within the building project who's a legal person. Because obviously, there's lot of uh paperwork to be done. Right? So, he's an advisor. In fact, he will go and get the work done for us. Right? Uh because we don't we don't directly go understand the government, which government office to go to. I won't know. Uh all these things, you know, we we're not we don't know these details, right? So, we depend on um and then um in terms of working with the architects, the construction people, these all this, we are not experts in all that, right? So, we depend on these people outside. We'll follow Of course, we'll sit and have meetings with them. We'll tell them what we need, but they are the experts. Right? So, we follow their advice. Uh same thing when we need legal guidance uh for missions work, we we talk to example uh ADF. That's uh that's a organization based in Delhi. And they have a network of lawyers all across India. So, when we are doing missions work and we need legal help with missions work. We speak to them. Cuz we don't know. Right? We'll call them and they'll please guide us what to do. So, they will guide us. Right? So, this is where this advisory board or people who are experts in their particular fields uh or and we talk to them for them to give us a correct advice so that we can do the right things. Yeah? Um And like I mentioned, especially in missions work in North India uh we for example we one person we speak to is Pastor Patsy David in Varanasi. Uh we speak to him a lot. He'll guide us because he is in Varanasi. He knows what's happening that part of the country. And we are here in Bangalore, we don't know too much. He knows. And he is also a advocate. So, he is a minister. He's also advocate, so he knows both sides. He will guide us. So, we depend on him a lot for giving us guidance uh in terms of missions work and also in terms of the legal side, you know? If any of our pastors need help, we ask him here how do we help our pastor who's here um in this. So, he understands what's going on and he'll help us. Right? So, this advisory board is useful may basically it's people who can help you. Uh they may not be in the church. They could be anywhere, but you go to them for advice to guide you in how to do this. And they're not uh they're not like trustees. They're not on the trust. Uh they're not legally on the organization. But they are good to help and guide you. Right? So, um these are some things I would, you know, share with us when it comes to setting up the organization and how to run the organization as an entity. Okay? Let's take some time for questions. Anyone here in class want to ask questions? Online students? You can put your questions in the chat or ask. And I'll be happy to share. On on this forming the legal entity We'll get into details like next class tomorrow. We'll get into how to structure the organization. Those things will come later. But just from a legal perspective if you have questions on that, we can take it up. >> Sir, I have a question. >> Yes, Srijith. >> Yeah. Say if uh it has been registered as an NGO and if I have to pay my salaries for the pastors uh is this legally valid? Or how it can be taken? >> Yeah. So, because it's an NGO and you're So, one is you're you're you're you're you're want to pay like your staff. These pastors will have to have some role um in the NGO which would be, I don't know. Let's say let's say field workers or something like that, you know? You'll have to have a role >> Okay. >> and pay. But the thing is I'm I'm just thinking now. I'm thinking aloud here. If they are actually doing religious work I'm meaning church church work, ministry work. >> Yes. >> And the NGO is let's say example, the NGO is um something to do with educating the poor or uh you know something like that. Uh and if these field workers are not doing that work, then you know that it could be definitely a reason for trouble. Because they are doing they are doing religious work. Whereas the NGO's objectives are I'm just saying education. >> So yes. >> Yeah. So they they will be a class and so that's kind of a dangerous spot especially in given our environment today. >> Okay. >> They will check and it will become a problem. >> Okay. >> So I think if it's purely church work that they're doing, it's better to have a religious organization then you can support them. Uh it'll be perfectly fine. >> Okay. >> When you're going from an NGO across into religious work, nowadays nowadays it's it's becoming very difficult. Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah, very kind of. So thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. Yes, question. You can pass the mic so yeah, Trisha. Who's it on? It's Yeah. >> You have an NGO where you're um reviving a certain craft in India, right? And it's not religious necessarily. However, you're also ministering not like outwardly, but say for example, you are encouraging them in the word, providing the word in a way that's not like okay, you're teaching them or even an extension of that question would be say you want to teach their children. And you're teaching them all kinds of things including the word of God as well, not just um the word of God as like a Bible school, but also other life skills and all of that. Would that come under a religious organization, or would that is kind of like >> Mhm. >> both. >> Yeah. So, it all depends on how it's executed. So, example, an NGO, right? You're teaching a skill, a craft. And let's say, while you're teaching, you do a prayer. That's okay. Like any any institution, maybe they open with a prayer, or they'll have a prayer place, or it's okay. That is not uh considered a religious organization, because your main thing that you're doing is the skill, the craft, the work. But, of course, anybody will want to have a prayer or something. It's okay. It's not It will not be a problem. It becomes a problem if suddenly, let's say, our teaching of the Bible uh becomes the main thing. Or uh let's say, the people who are coming to receive learn the craft, which should be open to anybody, right? Anyway, if one of them raise a complaint that um they were trying to convert me, or they're trying to think you know, then it becomes issue. So, for example, I'm just thinking, for example, think of Baptist Hospital, right? It's a medical hospital. It's a mission hospital, but a medical hospital, and they have cross and everything everywhere. It's a It's a Christian organization, meaning it's it's a uh uh but it's a medical entity. And they have a chapel. They'll have service. They have prayer. That's all okay. We're not But, if somebody raises a complaint that they're forcing me, or my employment is based on me being a Christian. If some complaint is raised like that, then it will become an issue. >> Yeah. >> But what if um it's not strictly for Christians? This is for >> Anyone. >> Anyone so that they can encounter God through the work they're doing and through the education. So it's not only the word, but also other things then >> It's okay as long as like you know, so again if you have a little prayer or you know, maybe it It all what is done is so important, right? It should be like nobody should feel compelled. You know? Hey, we having prayer, you want to come, we'll pray everything. Or we're doing a Bible study outside of office hours, you want to come, come. That won't be a problem unless somebody raises a complaint. Right? The main focus should be yeah, we we are doing craft. We are you know, doing skills or Cuz any organization uh will may have a prayer or you know, thing as long as it's the NGO is doing the NGO work without forcing people. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It'll be fine. Uh but if somebody raises a complaint, nowadays it's like that, you know, like if somebody raises a complaint it becomes an issue. >> So if you want to be open about say teaching children the word of God including other life skills, would that still now come under like a Christian organization? >> If the main focus is going to be the spiritual aspect, then uh it's better to be formed as a religious organization which then teaches vocational skills. >> Right. >> Example, like okay, what we're doing here at APC, right? Okay, we are a religious organization. We are having a Bible college which is main focus is teach the Bible. Now along with this let's say we want to start some training like uh I don't know. Whatever training skills training like anything, we can do it. >> Yeah. >> Uh but we are a very clear religious organization. Uh teaching Bible. In addition to that, we will teach vocational skills. It's fine. >> Mhm. >> The Here's the problem. Here's I think the issue is we cannot charge charge So, as a religious organization, you cannot charge fees >> Mhm. >> for anything. You know, everything has to be a contribution. Has to be donation. Whereas, if you're um a different type of entity, you example a school, you can charge fees. You're not a religious organization. Tuition fees is like this. You can charge fees. A religious religious organization, you can't charge fees. Your fees has to be donation. Like, please give this as a donation kind of thing. So, that's the difference there. >> The reason I'm asking especially is cuz you know, many people, if it's one if it's say a certain religion, they tend to be like, "Okay, that's just for Christians. That's just for these people." So, it kind of inhibit like it it cross >> Divides like keeps them out. >> Yeah, and that's the bridge that I'm thinking about crossing, right? Like making it available for everybody so that they get to learn other things, but at the same time minister God's word in a way that you know, >> Yeah. >> touches So, then definitely if you want if the goal is to keep it open for everyone, it's best to be like a a a a a non-religious entity, which is like you could have a public charitable trust. Um or you could have like um um uh like they call it uh under Section 8, another type of organization which is like more like a corporation but it's for social work. So, there are options like that. But you're saying I'm not mainly a religious organization. You know, it's it's anything for public charity. Along with that, you can have a little prayer and like something very quietly you do. Yeah, not up not in the main Any other questions? Okay. Yeah, so we'll pause here today. We'll tomorrow we'll get into the next lesson which will get into the organizational structure. How do you build this organization, etc. We get into it tomorrow, okay? Thank you everyone. Bye. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. Thank you.