Okay, good morning everyone and welcome to class. Today we'll have Nikhil from which place Nikhil which place? Uttar Pradesh, UP he's going to pray for us. I want to go a little more to the back so I think they can see you back, Pichai, Pichai, Pichai No, we can't see you still. Okay, no worries. You can bend if you want to. Okay, Nikhil is going to lead us in prayer. Thank you Lord. We thank you for this morning's permission.  We pray in the morning, Lord, whatever we are going to learn, Lord, through your pre-gen, Lord, whatever you want to teach, Lord, please teach us from the subject, Lord. Please help us so that the permission can teach us and we can receive it from our life Lord. Lord, I request you to help us so that we can understand those words, those things, Lord. Help us, help us. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you, Nikhil. So that was Nikhil's student from UP, that's Uttar Pradesh, not India. So our e-learning students are basically from all around the world. So he didn't pray in tongues, but he prayed in Hindi, which is a language spoken mostly in North India. He's more comfortable praying in his own language.  Okay, good morning, everyone, and good to see Karen, Shivkumar, Prabhu, Jai Chin, Prince, Samuel, and Nina. I can't see all, but thank you for joining online class. And good to see all our in-person students. Welcome everyone to class. Last week, we began looking at the book, Core of Honor. And for those of you who are in the online class, it's posted on the stream page. In our e-learning students, you can see it on the tab right next to course discussions. You will also find all the three publications, the books that we are studying, in the e-learning platform. We began looking at chapter two. We were looking at family and we basically said this whole book is addressed to pastors, those in ministry. So basically, you might be thinking, okay, this is not relevant for me, but it's also relevant if you're going to be pastors, you're going to be in the ministry soon, you're going to get married, you're not still married. If you're married and then you are doing a secular job, but also involved in ministry, this can help. So just keep your hearts and minds open to receive and to learn and this more practical learning so you can apply this in your everyday life. So we are looking at family and we saw that the three postures that we read in the Bible and we saw that all three postures are important. We also looked at how a man has to nurture his spouse, his children, nurture their relationship with the children as well, work to provide for the family. And we ended last week by looking at how we need to pursue God's call. Yes, family is important, but when it comes to God's call, God's call is more important than family ministry. So it's first God, second is your family, third is your ministry. And that does not mean when you're pursuing God's call does not mean that you compromise your other son, but you also don't compromise your love for God and your obedience to his call.  Now, most times what happens is the man of the house thinks he only has the call and he's supposed to be the breadwinner, he's supposed to earn for the family.  So the wife has to support the husband in his calling, take care of the family, take care of the children so that the husband is free to do his work. But we fail to understand that even a wife or a spouse has, they have their own calling. God has a vision, a plan and a purpose for your spouse as well. And it's important as it is for the man to fulfill his calling and purpose in life. It's also important that he also is able to see what his wife's calling, his children's calling, what his God's plan and purpose for their life and help them to fulfill that. If you read in Psalm 128 verse 3, it says your wife shall be a fruitful wine. The fruit of the wine basically in the Bible symbolizes joy and pleasure. Page number 41 in the book, sorry. Yeah, in the book page number 41. It's 37 for you all. Okay, I don't know how it's different. So it's 37. Okay, it's 37 then. Okay, minus showing 41 here for me. Okay, so encourage your spouse. Your spouse is a fruitful wine. You know, the fruit of the wine basically stands for joy and pleasure. Okay, so your spouse can be a joy and pleasure for you. If you support your wife, if you are able to see God's calling, vision, plan and purpose for them, nurture your wife in their calling and also encourage them to find their satisfaction, their fulfillment in pursuing God's call for their own life. If your wife is dissatisfied or your spouse is dissatisfied, it will end up in them living unfulfilled lives and you know what happens, right? There will only not be fruit of the wine which is bringing joy and pleasure in the home, but there will be saaness, there will be bitterness and there will only reflect saa grapes. Okay, that is why there's a lot of fighting in families because one partner is unfulfilled in what they are doing. They're frustrated, they're angry because they are not able to do what they want to do. They're not able to fulfill God's call. They're just doing the mundane activities and the mundane things. Okay, so it's nice if a husband and wife, both of them are called the same ministry but at times when a husband is calling to ministry, a wife is not called, but the husband needs to ensure that the wife also fulfills her call and the purpose that God has for her life. Okay, the same way we need to encourage our children, sometimes what happens is when we don't fulfill our own dreams in our own life, we want to see it fulfilled in our children's lives, right? Like many parents, they wanted to become engineers or doctors or teachers or whatever and they're not able to business people, they're not able to do that and so when they have their children, they get them to become engineers or doctors or teachers or fulfill their dreams in their children. Okay, but we need to understand or sometimes if you're a pastor, you've started your own church, you started your own ministry organization, then you want that to run like a business after you. So then you say, okay, I have my two children and I will get them, send them into Bible college, I will send them to Bible school, I train them so that when I'm not there anymore, I'll get old, they can run my business, that becomes a family business, ministry. Okay, but we need to understand that God has not made us as duplicates. Husband and wife don't have children as duplicates. Each one of us are creative, each one of us have different talents, different gifts that God has given to us, different functions in the body of Christ, different abilities, different talents, different potentials that he's given to us. So we need to see what is God's talent and potential that he's given in your children. You need to identify them, you need to help them to build on those talents, guide them, lead them, direct them and mold them to become what God has purposed and planned for their lives.   But we need to understand that they have their specific calling and we need to nurture them in their own calling. Okay, and also as parents, we need to set an example, a Godly example at hope. You know, sometimes we are preaching to our children, but our children learn more by seeing than just curing. Okay, if you are preaching in the pulpit, if you are teaching in the, in our Bible study groups, whatever, or having life groups at home and they're preaching to people and teaching and our children and our spouse are not able to see that in our own lives, then they're not going to, they will basically hate Christianity. They will be basically hate the ways of God. They will also not come to liking God. So what we need to do is we need to be living examples at home. You know, we can act like angels, we can be very Godly outside, but at home, you know, we can just be the opposite, but it's at home, it's our children and our spouses who are watching us, and if they're not able to see Jesus and whatever we are teaching and preaching to them, they will not follow, they will not, you know, go in that because they will see that, see us as hypocrites, okay? Doing something, saying something and doing something else, or preaching something and doing something else. So we need to set an example in the way that we live before our children, and then you don't even have to teach them some things like honesty and humility and loving people. It'll just automatically follow because they're just learning it by watching you. Okay, don't preach to your spouse and also don't preach to your children. For those of us who are married, don't preach to our parents. Now when we go back home, you know, we think we're coming from Bible college, we know everything so we can preach and teach them how to pray, how to sing, how to lead worship, how to worship God, things that we learn from the Bible, we can, you know, go on and on and on and on, okay? There's a right time when we can use testimonies, we can bring about different things that we learn from different men and women of God, sermons, some points, some Bible verses. We can bring it out at different instances, but not when we are correcting our family people, or not when you're having an argument with your spouse. When you're having an argument with your spouse or children, don't please say, you know what God says in the Bible, it says in Ephesians chapter 2, blah, blah, blah, blah, in Psalms chapter 23, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So this is what you need to do. You know, they'll get irritated. When you're having an argument with your spouse or your children, they'll try to reason with them, try to think with them, try to hear them, try to discuss and come to a conclusion. Please don't use chapter and verse. It's the worst thing to do when you're having an argument, you're trying to discuss something. But, you know, at other times you can, of course, you know, teach them through scripture and verse or through some testimonies, okay?  You know, some people are like that.  This is what my boss did. This is what this person did in office.  Or sometimes, you know, if you have misters, you know, this person came, they shared this problem with me, so sad. They're going through this problem, you know, they lost this loved one. And the children and the wife can get bored, okay? You need to, when you're having family time, when you come back home, leave your office, leave your church, your Christian organization, wherever you're working, just talk to the children, ask them how their day was, you know, hear them. She espoused how her day was, you know, discuss things with them, discuss family things, you know, some things that happen on the way, on the road, you can discuss, you know, children are very excited to share things with their parents and they know that their parents have no time to listen to them.  And they will go find their friends in Google. They will go find their friends on Internet. They can get lost. They can get into unwanted sites. They can listen to their friends. And then when you're trying to teach them Christian values, they will not listen to you because you are not having time to listen to them. They'll say, I will listen to my friends. Why? Because their friends have time to listen to them.  You need to know parents need to know what interests their children, different children have different interests. You know, so speak about their interests. You know, think about their interests. So what are you doing?  So I think now you, I can, we can, we go this weekend and get some more books so that you can learn, you know, just not how to paint what somebody else has drawn. Why don't you start drawing? How do I do that? You can show them through Internet, Google, how they can just draw learning tips, videos.  So spend time with your children.  Don't think it's husbands usually think it's the wives responsibility to take care of the children. Okay. To, to teach them, to train them.  So it's important that, you know, we know that God first family second and ministry comes third. Okay. Now do some, you know, getting your children to show your children that you're interested in their lives is not just being at home and taking your laptop or you're preparing for the sermon and you're saying I'm always at home.  I want notes, noise now. I'm preparing my sermon silence or go out and, you know, go out and play or don't make noise or put off that TV.  You're not doing things that interest them. Okay. So it's important that you speak into their lives, look at what they interest them and again, a right to also speak into their lives and right around their hearts. Okay. The next thing is put family first before ministry. We've already spoken about this. The next one is guard your family while ministering to people. Okay.    So it's, you know, people think that, you know, the pastor's wife should always be available at home to entertain people, always be available to entertain people, give them tea, coffee when they come to their pastor's home, always be with the pastor, take care of the children, be part of the Sunday school, you know, and the children should be like angels.  So you know, the children learn to tend to think that, okay, when I'm in church, I need to behave like an angel. Okay. But when I'm at home, when I'm in school, I can do whatever I want. I can be myself. And that is why, you know, many pastors children and Christian ministers children, you know, they tend to get out of hand because they're not able to be themselves all the time because they know that people will not accept them. Okay.  That's why we see many pastors children and ministers children growing up to be very, very rebellious. Okay. So you need to another thing is you need to guard your home. Your home is a place where it's a place only for the husband, wife and the children, not for everybody, not for everybody. Okay. So sometimes the pastor's home can be a constant place of people coming for counseling, for, for meetings, for, you know, different things and the children have no, you know, place to, you know, just to be themselves. They're constantly in their room. They can't move around, you know, because keep quiet. There is a meeting going on. Some days come to meet dad. Some days come here for counseling and they're just bugged. Okay. And they don't want to be at home. Okay. And also when they're doing Christian ministry in terms of having an organization, we need to be very, very careful. I've, I've seen examples of two people who've started these working with youth, the youth and, you know, they open up their homes to all kinds of youth, to drug addicts, alcoholics and all of them. And I remember, you know, working with one Christian organization, you know, where finally that the older daughter of the people who started this organization finally ran away with the drug addicts because their home was open to every kind of people to come in. See, and the parents are so busy ministering. They were not able to oversee their children. And finally what happened, one of the older daughters very sadly ran away with the drug addict. And of course their marriage did not end well. It was a very sad state. Another case where, you know, a couple were into youth ministry relate, you know, ministering to every kind of people. They didn't have enough time for their own children, their own girls. And one of the girls, you know, became an alcoholic and drug addict and became very rebellious against the family. And finally what happened was that couple stopped doing ministry. Okay. So we need to know where to, you know, bring about a division. We can't, you know, office is office, home is home, church is church. Segregate those things. Don't bring people into your home.  Okay. And also not only guard your family and your children, but also guard your marriage. You know, a marriage is kind of, if you visualize it as a circle where there is a place only for husband and wife, not the third person. So don't let the third person come into your marriage. Okay. I remember, you know, there's a couple who are going through a marital problem and you know, there was a lady who's very close to this man who works in his office. And she came to this lady and she said, I know, I've seen how he treats you. Just say the names are Ajay and Mina. Okay. Just keeping Ajay. So I know Mina, how Ajay is treating you. So, you know, we both are good friends. Do you want me to speak to Ajay? And Mina immediately jumped up and said, no, thank you. I appreciate your concern, but I don't want you to do that. I will learn to handle, we will learn to handle it and try to resolve things. And you know, why Mina jumped and she said, no, because this is the same thing that happened in her mother's and father's case. Mother and father were having marital problems. There's a third lady who joined in and tried to help them and finally, you know, the father and mother and went away with this lady. So, you know, the marriage is a circle, but only a husband and wife don't allow another person inside. And as a pastor, as a counselor, as a minister of God, you don't get into another person's marriage even though you are counseling them. So all women will counsel only women or men will counsel only men. Even if you're very senior, you have many years of ministry that does not give you a thing, you know, does not give you the opportunity or the privilege or the take to take the step to, you know, to counsel a young woman, you can do that one or two times, but then later on move them to another older person. But if the couple says, no, pastor, we want you to be dead and you to please son, then you have your wife alone. Make sure that, you know, the counseling sessions are both with the husband and wife together. And even if you have to speak separately to them, you're speaking separately to the wife, make sure that your spouse is there also, you're speaking to them.  And so it becomes very, very difficult.  We will all face problems and issues. We will all go to marriage ministry. We will also have problems in the way of administration, finances, how to do certain things. At those times, you know, seek help. There's nothing wrong in saying, you know, hey, I need help. I'm having a problem in this area of my life. Seek help. Don't hesitate. Don't let pride come in your way. Don't be fearful. What do people say?  He's an elder. He's a pastor. He's a missionary. He's so many years in the ministry. It doesn't matter. Go to somebody who you can trust. Make sure that they are there to help you to resolve things in your life. You know, don't think that, you know, don't put it away thinking, okay, this will just happen. It's just a time span. It's just a season. It will go away.  You know, when things don't go away, what happens? It erupts. When it erupts, it becomes like a volcano. You know, volcanoes, right? It's, it's always active deep down. It's always boiling deep down. And the pressure becomes out of hand. That's when it blows up. Okay. So you need to take things into action. Otherwise it blows up. Then you know what happens when a volcano blows up, right? It destroys so many people around. So it's better to take help before the destruction happens and after the destruction happens. So lay aside all your pride, your fear. Carefully pray and ask God to, you know, to show you who you can lead or go to or be open to the working of the Holy Spirit. You know, it's nothing wrong to get help even as servants of God and even as Bible college students. Even as you're in Bible college now, there are many things in your life, past, present that still needs to be dealt with, you know, deal with it. Don't cover it up. Don't put it under the pillow because later on, you know, it becomes like a baggage. We're carrying it. Later on, it will erupt into something more bigger. So talk it out with people, be open, be, you know, you can be vulnerable, you know, but then get help. It's going to just help you. The last point is, you know, it's good that and God wants us to pass on, you know, his covenant is teaching to generations to generations.  So God wants whatever, you know, we have learned to be passed on to our next generation. Okay, so the next generation can build up on the foundation and it's wonderful. You know, if generations that come, they're built up, they're built on the foundations that we have laid, they're growing spiritually, they're walking with God, they're pursuing the heart of God, the vision of God for their lives, they're flowing in the gifts of the spirit. It's all very, very wonderful. It's also wonderful if they have found their own place in ministry, but it does not mean that if you have a church or you have an organization, it's all to be run only by your family, right? That can become very, very disastrous, right? Disasters in the sense that, you know, we can put people in different ministry places and they can, you know, become a disaster because they don't have the calling, they don't have the gifts for it, and we see an example in the Bible itself. Anyone knows? Example in the Bible where the leaders, children, you know, they continue to the same Eli sons, yes? Who else? Eli sons, you know what Eli sons did, right? Eli was a priest and automatically children thought they were also priests, but what were they doing?  Yes, Sean? David's sons, Solomon, okay? Yes, David's sons, we know, we'll come to that example, yes, that's the thing. Even Samuel's son, sons, Samuel's sons as well, so they also went away from the Lord if you look at 1 Samuel chapter 8 verses 1 to 3, okay?  You already know about the sons? 1 Samuel chapter 8 verses 1 to 3, okay? They also did not keep the ways of the Lord. 1 Samuel chapter 8 verses 1 to 3, 1 Samuel chapter 8 verses 1 to 3, can somebody take the mic and read that loudly? Yes, Nikhil, you want to read? Okay, take the mic please. 1 Samuel chapter 8 verses 1 to 3, when Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel's leaders. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abidjah and they served at Bidjah with Seba, but his sons did not follow, follow his ways. They turned it aside after dissonance, gain and accepted bribes and pervaded justice. Thank you. So here we see the sons of Samuel did not walk in the ways of the Lord. They turned aside from those ways they took, they were you know taking dishonest gain and out to bribes and pervaded justice, okay? Questions? Questions? No, no, no different. Any questions anyone has? Yes, please give the mic to Sean. Sean, you can just move and ask your question. Can we also include Job and his sons and daughters in the list where he was also type of head when he had all power, he had all wealth, God made him a very wealthy man. But his sons and daughters didn't follow the example that Job said. So can you also briefly does not say that Job's children did not follow Tony says that you know they used to all meet together and party and have a nice party time but the next day he would you know kind of consecrate them and make a sacrifice so that in case they have sinned against God, no God would forgive them. But a good thought. Any questions from our online students as our in-person students are asking questions? Yes. You said God doesn't make duplicates. God doesn't make duplicates. So whatever the father and the child they are different. Each person is created individually or something. Then how it worked like when the Levites has to take their position according to their tribes their works has to be the same. Yes. Good question. How is the Levites they calling? May see the specific they had a specific calling as priests they had to be trained as priests so maybe that is yes they own specific calling but we don't but in our in the New Testament times, yes in the Old Testament there was a special tribe that was just dedicated to being a priest to running the temple, to doing various things in the temple. But in the New Testament we are all called the royal priesthood. We are all priests. So in the sense we all are into doing ministry and we need to get our children with that mindset that each one of us are ministers of God we have a calling but it does not mean that if you are a pastor and you have a calling to be a pastor the children should also automatically become a pastor should also become in the ministry because there are many pastors children who have not got into ministry. They have done well in their various fields but yes they have also you can also be in the business field and yet you know you can win the mountain of business for God you know so wherever we are supposed to be a royal priesthood in that sense we are supposed to bring about God's kingdom reign, presence, rule activity, everything decrees but you know we have our own calling where God wants us to and God wants us to go into the marketplace in the sun. So good question, good thought and I thought of it too. Yeah very good. Anyone else? Questions? Okay, Jehachan says, children do not follow the ways of the Lord in spite of him setting an example how are we as children God we persist in praying for our children with faith in spite of not seeing a true change within them. Okay so we really don't know whether it doesn't say if Samuel and Eli really taught their children because the Bible says if you teach the children in the ways of the Lord when they grow up they will not depart from it they will not go away from it. Okay so that is God's word. You know we always go back to what's word is standard so yes they will not depart from it and also when we inculcate values in them and when we pray you know there are sometimes when we just need to let go and just let the spirit of God work in the lives of the children. So it's the spirit of God who works and trains and teaches them. So we can we can do our best in teaching them in training them in the ways of the Lord getting them to love the Lord not as a ritual you know but you know not as a ritual but a real love for God. So like Paul writes we have a form of godliness but denying its power so maybe what Samuel and Eli's children saw was you know they just saw them their fathers doing the rituals for God they learn those rituals but maybe they did not inculcate them a love for God okay and that is what was even missing with the Israelites right God says you are all bringing all these sacrifices everything but you know your heart is so far away from me you know there's no love for me and that's why God says I will remove my heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit will cause you to keep my laws and commandments so it's maybe these people had the love for God but they were not able to translate their love for God to their children all the children learned was this and they had no true relationship and that is why it's important for us that our children to build a true relationship with God okay so that is what we've been saying that when you know when they watch your life for example you're doing what God's word is teaching you you're living it out then your children that becomes a norm for them that becomes a lifestyle for them because they're seeing it at home so sometimes we can be praying for our children but we can be doing time to spend with them you know we are not living ordering our lives the way God wants us to and you know children are able to see I remember the pastor was giving this example once you know somebody asked his son I think so what do you think about your dad ministry and all that he says one thing I know is you know my dad practices what he preaches because even if the sign is the signal sign is orange and it's going to turn red he will just stop he will not go past the red signal so even the small signal thing has pastor observing traffic rules has made such an impact in his son's life it was small that time so children are actually watching the little little things that we do more than what we say and preach to them so if they're seeing the love of God in our lives and what the love of God is translating into then you know they will learn faith they will learn to love God they will depend on God so basically I had I have very God the parents and all what I learned about faith and trusting in God and walking in honesty and integrity is what I have seen in my father's life he was in a key position you know he could have done so many things they can so many bribes and things like that but he was a man of you know deep honesty integrity times when we needed finances but he did not venture into dishonest means and that is what has been instilled in all his four children to the core integrity and honesty because of what we have seen in our parents like they taught us faith they taught us the love of God they taught us what it means to depend on God to trust in to see miracles happen in your life did that help Jechi okay very few students attending class today only seven of them okay any other questions or good questions yes ma'am you told that priorities are God God family and ministry I know a pastor that he he thought sorry he got a vision from God that they are calling but to go to mission trip for 10 days go for a mission to mission for 10 days so on the same time his wife is about to deliver a baby so she is in hospital and the wife parents are Gentiles the wife's parents are Gentiles Gentiles okay so on the delivery on the delivery day somewhat she the day is her last bit of the wife so the day is the the day is the last bit for her wife she was in labour and it is really bad so she wanted to see his husband on the last day but she told like no it's a vision from God for me it's a calling for God for me and their parents got too rude to him and after that she died and it broke up the relationship has got broke up so when we prioritize the things you said like God family and ministry right on that particular situations how we can prioritize things there's a God calling for a mission trip and there's a family issue also okay that's a good thing okay God there is this pastor who's had he's gone on a mission trip okay and God is saying he that God is telling him to go for the mission trip same time it was time for his wife who was pregnant to give birth and sadly she passed away you know while giving birth to the baby right and that was kind of very heart breaking for her parents and it broke the relationship what do you think the pastor should have done so okay Rin you can say voice your opinion nothing wrong go ahead it's God telling you okay you can come visit and go back okay yes you would see to your wife and then join later to the ministry what about the others I think I would do the same people are not going to go everywhere the mission field is going to be really there people are going to be there we can go later on and minister to them but at the time your wife needs you to be there the children need you to be there yes the the tribe the village the people group they are not going to disappear they are not going to be raptured they are going to be there you can go in 2-3 days and minister to them but I think you know God would want you to be there with your wife yes yeah you have to God has given us a mind right that's what it's a mind God told him to go for a mission trip but does he did God say for the mission trip during that labor days is the question to ask God told him to go for the mission trip the mission trip could be before the labor could be after the labor it does not mean that God told him to go for the mission trip then very next day like Abraham right unless he said go the next day the mission trip is there God tells him I wanted to go for a mission trip maybe God is telling him in advance to prepare for the mission trip not that he has to go during his wife's so that time you use common sense yeah as simple as that and it's so sad yeah it's too late God told him to go but did he say go during that time yeah Nina says you have to be with his wife pastor should be there with family at that time yes so my question is did God tell him to go during that labor time for the mission trip he just told him to go for the mission trip it could be even later on prepare for himself right okay good questions anyone else answers might please any more questions from our online students I know we need to get the wireless mic yes yeah it's might be similar to Anand's okay it's related to the calling so if the husband and the wife if they differ in their calling so how should they pursue it good question pastor says in his book I didn't mention it but pastor says in his book that he has a calling to be a pastor he also wanted his wife to help in the ministry and all of that she was doing for certain years but her calling is to be a she was a tree you know study to be a doctor see so for a few years the children grew up and all she was at home not pursuing her her medical field and you know her pursuing her call as a doctor and also helping out in the church office in ministry and all that but once the children grew up then she knew it was a time for her to launch out into doing what she had studied and amazingly she got a call from one of the hospitals in Bangalore ministry and now she's pursuing her calling as a doctor and so pastor says there are times when she gives in to accommodate his his you know time schedule and all of that and the times when he accommodates his time schedule for her so you work it out you're in the same field and it works perfectly well but if you're in different field you know you encourage each other support each other given and allow the other sometimes rework your schedules just to accommodate if your wife has to go for a meeting you stay at home take care of the children like that the wife is busy finishing her report cook or you know pastor cooks or sometimes get food from outside or take the children out for the day out the wife is free to do her things well god calls to god calls one of the spouse to go to a country to minister to one place and the husband has a different call what if the husband has a call to go to a different place to minister different country to minister then he takes the whole family along it's very dangerous to leave your family behind your wife and children and go alone to a new place it's not safe what if it's not the wife's calling and she has a different call the wife's calling is to follow her husband to submit to her husband that's the biblical principle wife submit to your husband out of reverence for Christ okay so we also learned in receiving God's guidance remember God says he will the council that he gives the leader he will also pass it on to the other people in the team you know collective inner witness of the Holy Spirit we learned that remember you need to read your books so you know collective inner witness of the Holy Spirit sometimes I've known husbands who have you know God is giving them a major move and you know the wife he already knows will not be ready the children will not be ready but he spread about it and said God you speak to my spouse and God has spoken you know they're amazed to see how God works if the Spirit of God is speaking to you he can even speak to your spouse right he works together with the family doesn't work individually yes Sean yes suppose if you're like ministering to a lady and you come across this topic about this verse about like why should submit to their husband in this day and age how do you convey that to that lady in this day and age everybody has to submit to everybody else I submit to leadership I submit to the senior pastor what he says even though sometimes I want to do something I submit I submit to my parents even though I'm quite old enough but I stay with them and listen to what they they say we submit to the government you know the you know what rules have the government has bought we submit to the government we submit to civic authorities that's what civil rights and first Peter chapter 2 we read it Paul writes even to Timothy in Romans chapter in Romans chapter 13 Paul writes about the whole thing both chapters dedicated to obeying civic authorities and Paul is saying submit to civic authorities I will submit to the government don't resist the government because they are appointed by God so we're all in different stages of our life submitting so wives have to submit to their husbands their husbands submit to their bosses their husbands submit to their own parents we all have all in submission and that is God has all placed us authority structures authority structures at home authority structures at home in the workplace in the local church in the body fright and even in the the government that we stay having to say wives you need to submit to a husband is biblical because you all submit to different in different areas of our life and that is God's kingdom governmental structure that is placed yes Nina yeah it's it's right that my wife has to submit her husband but now I've seen in general they don't want to submit actually they're like Bible okay Bible it's an old book how do you do that now you know there's always here from all the yes so Nina saying some women don't want to submit their husbands they're saying why the Bible is an old book they don't want to submit well such women are basically being rebellious because they want their husband to submit to them so you can ask them when you don't want to submit you expect your husband to submit to you it's not going to happen you want to you want your children to submit to you it's not going to happen now everything happens in we learnt about positioning right and we position ourselves in the right time the right place we receive the blessings from God so if we are not submitting you know we can't expect people under us also to submit to us no they are thinking like now I have learned I'm also working but some cases okay some cases husbands are treating their wives very badly that also is really bad but otherwise even I'm like equal with you why should I yes that's a good question but you need to show them from the Bible that in the Bible it mentions that in Christ there is no Jew nor Greek male nor female man nor woman okay all are one in Christ Jesus so even in the context of the governmental authoritative structure that God has got about in the kingdom of God where he has got about this authoritative structure authority structure in the home in the local church in the body of Christ in the government yes so the home we husband and wife are equal equal in the sight of God we have equal anointing we all can flow in the gifts of the spirit nothing we have access to the word of God everything is equal but even in that God has placed man as the head and so we need to we need to obey that so even in the local church we are all our ministers of God we are all called a royal priesthood but there is a priest who God is appointed there is a pastor and we are he's the shepherd we are accountable to him we respect him we honour him we obey what he says same also in the government in the government we might be having our own rights and all that but then there is a leadership that is there and we all need to adhere to that leadership even if the government is evil wicked that's what Paul is telling to the church at home the Roman government was extremely wicked and evil but what does Paul write in Romans chapter 13 submit to governing authorities don't resist them so does Paul know what kind of government yes he knows what kind of government but even in that about your deliverance even though God can see you are suffering you are struggling but you do your part don't resist the government you know you submit to them so we are all equal in God's sight but yet we have this authority structure and it also says in the Bible why you submit your husband in reverence to Christ just as husband submits to Christ and Christ as Christ submits to God so even Christ submitted himself to God so that's fine for us to read God's word you know we've been looking at all of these picture passages we've been seeing all of these so we need to interpret them and take them into the truth because the evil one has actually blinded them the truth so we all are equal but yet we have this authority we have to give in to submit to the authority yes there's somebody else had a question we're already yeah it's okay go ahead yeah please take the mic like here is like we are learning family before ministry so when we saw example at Matthew 8 so some God told someone to follow me and he told like I'll read this then another of his disciples said to him Lord let me first go and bury my father but Jesus said to him follow me and let the dead bury their own dead so and the other thing is God is telling if you want to if you want to follow me take your cross so we have to leave everything meaning of that so my question is this so how can we put family before ministry okay good question I've already thought about it you've already read about it you've already done an assignment but doesn't matter we all forget so look at this point in family three postures okay three postures one life there are three examples what you said is one of the examples and other two examples and so which time do we take so if you read that you will understand okay so you read it now and you let me know if you still don't understand I'll explain to you okay okay everyone thank you for joining we've passed five minutes of our time we'll meet up the break thank you


Okay, okay, so we've been looking at the life of Jesus and also his methods or the Lord as a kind of example that that That he was in raising up disciples and in making disciples, right? So we saw that so I just wanted to hear from you personally, you know in your life What was your experience of being? Discipled by someone, you know was there someone in your life who actually? You know not just led you to the Lord but but taught you you know some of those things some of the early doctrines or You know how to follow the Lord Jesus and Not just told you from a distance, but also followed with you made the journey with you so if I just wanted to hear what was it like and Was it the group of people or was it maybe? Individuals maybe somebody in the family just to for us to you know here and Also learn So, yeah, just want to open this time up anyone anyone can go ahead and share Thomas Dave Kiran said anyone Aaron Conan like Prince Neelam from the time you you know came to the Lord and Till now right or maybe it was only during the early days and then you know you Was there anyone who a journey to you? Yeah, thank you Now after the salvation My tender church called this chapels pastor Michael work is he's in coconut now He used to take a discipleship class every Thursday witness There's a usual Bible study for everyone, but those are disciples classes for me. Maybe we can probably find them to Sitting and listening faster. So this kind of teachings will come as you explained in the morning Jesus said make disciples This is based on the T to teach the foundational doctrines and things and all especially from Hebrews chapter 6 verse 1 and 2 is to extra share More than everything he explained about the righteousness of God especially I came from the throne and I never heard the word righteousness.  So after that I step into the ministry I got a wonderful mentor. So through their life Every time used to teach about the ministry it takes how to deal with the people how to speak with the people how to maintain the good relationships and how to bear in some crisis when you get scolding went to Kind of top situations how to handle things in the ministry Disciples personally one side. I got the teachings Disacus teachings that helped me and building very strong and I'm a saint and mentors Journey with them for the mission journeys of things and all personally they guide so many things in the ministry So I'm blessed with a such a one once in my life Thank you. Thank you Thomas. Yeah, it's wonderful to see that At the early stage, you know people who are there to speak in so it was not just one person Maybe for one season, you know initially there's one person who taught And then, you know, there were others who came into Further build on that. No, just like we see in the Corinthians. I build on further build on another man's labor But that's that's perfectly Scriptural as well. So we see that Excellent wonderful Anyone else Actually for me when I first came to know the Lord It was in a youth group in the church where I was in the CSI church where I was worshiping in the stone Coimbatore so in the youth group there were many You know like Same age, you know people who are of the same age students. We are all students People who are of the same age, but who are you know, who had become Believers earlier, so they were a lot more mature Christians believers who love the Lord. So One of the things was that Just by observing their life how they prayed They would share about especially one person, you know, he would I'm sorry share about how How what he would do, you know, like how he would Live the live his life and how he would what he would do his prayer time His Ministering is testifying. I remember every time he spoke to me that so there would be some stirring within, you know There'd be like a fire that is lit up and we would typically As a youth group, we would meet every Saturday for prayer worship prayer And Excuse me, and I was a young believer, you know still dabbling in sin struggling with sin and all that and Having my ups and downs, but every Saturday We would meet in the you know outside the church in the church compound. We would meet and pray but this this friend would actually come home and He would spend some time and we would go to the church together, but he would come home He would spend time talking to me just You know narrating his life story and how what he did how he followed the Lord how he prayed and Also, you know, he would say about you know, some new things, you know, this is what is happening in You know, this is what is happening to Christians. This is what you know This person is ministering this way and these are some testimonies.   You know correct me and so on So so it was good to see that so that was the early life of you know learning to follow the Lord, right? So not so much in terms of In terms of teaching right Teaching was of course of just loving the Lord of Reading his word and those kind of things, you know disciplines of prayer and so on So that that came much later and the Lord would You know send Again a person to ground us, you know in scripture and we it was much later in life we had started working and You know, we were I think considering marriage and you know that kind of a stage when this person You know the tortoise grounded us in the word grounded us in scriptures in the deeper spiritual truth. So yeah, this happens. So again, it was a mix of teaching and Spending time with that person and also seeing this teaching being Lived out in that person's life, right? So it was a regular thing again every week. We used to meet and So they so something that I also took back is that you know when it comes to Following the Lord when it comes to Making this journey as a disciple. It's so important to have other others who are making a similar journey Around us who can speak into our lives and you know, we can we can observe we can see and We can be encouraged as well, you know by this company of believers. So That is something that happened for me. Yeah anyone else Anyone else who wants to share Dave Conan your experience Prince I Think we'll have time for just one more person and then we'll continue with the class. Maybe you want to share Sid anyone Yeah, yeah Yeah, I have a mentor too. So his name is George work is Okay, I know working at the campus cross-eyed And I mean he's even I mean he's even mentoring me now like weekly ones will have I will study and all that stuff I mean when I was going through this struggle with my thought life That's when you know, he came into my life and he's been helping me out personally He'll be playing with me and you know talking and teaching me about God and We'll always ask about my personal life how I'm going through present and Yeah He's a good mentor It's always there for me Right Thank you, thanks for that, thanks Okay so It's it's it's good to hear that, you know, I don't think any one of us I grew up in isolation, right? Maybe there are but but we grow faster and And and things are a lot more Become a lot more fruitful and you know, we mature When we do this together because that is what we see in scripture as well, right? Okay. Let me just Share the screen and then okay, so we looked at the first three That the Lord sent them out to do what he taught them Okay, so they they learned from him and they went and did that I'm did the same thing like they went preach the gospel taught people about the kingdom of God Then also went about ministering to them in healing and so on deliverance and so on, okay But they of course we see that they learn through their mistakes and a classic example is You know they learn through their experience, you know, whatever the limit is limitations where the shortfall was like they Especially they could not cast out a demon and the and the and the father of that of that person of that son who had The demon came and asked them and said, you know your disciples could not and the Lord again went ahead Ministered and they asked him in a private moment. They asked him questions. You know, why could we not? Cast the demon out and the Lord also answered. It was because of your unbelief and then went on to explain, right? So So they learned together From their experience from the mistakes Whatever and all that that happened, right? But we also see that Just a minute. Sorry Yeah, but we also See that the Lord um See the dead as disciples Who are learning to follow him who are following him now they had many limitations they they had No, they they did mistakes, right? See we read about Peter Peter denied him Even after the Lord saying, okay, you know, you will deny me He actually he actually said that this is what will happen. So even after that when that moment came Peter denied not just once but thrice and A couple of night, I think they are three times So So we see that yes, they made the mistake But the Lord Would his heart was for restoration Right his heart was for restoration. We see that the Lord Jesus restores Peter strengthens him and And Peter's the one who actually takes the lead in After they are filled with the you know, the Holy Spirit and he takes that lead in in addressing that gathering and Talking to them about this new experience and talking to them about Christ and what they should do in order to be saved And you know, he gives that message Right immediately right after immediately after they are filled with the Holy Spirit. So we see that the Lord never gave up on On his disciples His heart was for restoration. Of course, it involves the choice of the disciples as well Like Peter had to come back. We had to repent And in order to be restored, but the Lord's heart was that He would repent that he would be restored. Okay. Okay. Now, let's look at so that is about The Lord Jesus and what we can learn about how he raised up Disciples like the process of disciple making Now, let's look at what are some of the disciplines of a disciple Okay, what are some spiritual disciplines, right?  What should be some of the disciplines of a disciple? Okay You know when we we read Right now just a little while ago in Luke chapter Sorry, not in Luke chapter 9 when we looked at Okay, just going back up Mark chapter 3 Mark chapter 3 You see that one of the things that the Lord said, you know, right after he appointed the 12 The purpose the Lord mentions there is that they so that they might be with him and that he might set them out Okay, so very clear This is why I'm appointing you so that you can be my disciples and So that you can be with me and I can send you out Okay, so the Lord is very clear. So so the one of the We right at the top You would if you want to say that okay, what are some? disciplines or You know some good life patterns that I need to have as a disciple The first thing I'll write at the top is time with God because that is why we were chosen as disciples That is why, you know, even before we get sent out to do the job To do the work to do the ministry Right before that is to be with him So that he might commission us out. So So that is very very important very crucial. So time with God and How do we do that? No, it's of course just being in his presence and specifically in the word reading the word meditating the word Confessing the word and in prayer Okay, so Today if we are called, you know, if we are calling ourselves as disciples of the Lord Jesus, of course We don't have the physical You know the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus is not there. So so we The Lord has sent his Holy Spirit to be with us and we know when he when he said the Holy Spirit You know, I will not leave your office. He said but I will send you another Comforter Who will be with you forever? so in his place The ministry of the Lord Jesus continues with the ministry of the Holy Spirit right So he is with us. He is doing the work that Like the Lord Jesus, he's another I lost our clay toss another is like is a comforter Who'll be with you. He'll be with us forever Okay So the thing is that it's it's very very important that we take time to be with him and Then he will send us out that sending us out the ministry will be an overflow, right? overflow of our time with him so if you look at You know accept it 20 and Verse 32 Okay Paul prays his prayer for the efficient believers.   So So as disciples We need to be in the word because the word of God is able to build us up Okay, and I'm sure you know, we know many things about the word of God what the word of God is can do The word of God gives us faith the word of God produces faith in us The word of God is living and alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword The word of God is is like is nourishment because the Lord Jesus said man should not live by bread alone But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God the Rema You know that the word of God is also the sword of the spirit. It's a weapon. So so all this right You know, we know so we need to be in the world or have let the word be in us It's very very important. So it's it is a discipline even you know, sometimes we So sometimes you might have this You know reasoning saying, okay, I wanted to be When I feel like it if I feel like it Because it's it's a relationship with the Lord. Okay now Now this when I feel like it and if I feel like it will You know, we'll we'll just leave the disciple to be a very shaky disciple and Disciple who has a lot of ups and downs if there is no commitment if there is no discipline on the part of the disciple to to read the word of God to You know to do To to spend time in the word whether he or she feels like it or not, you know, that's why we're calling it discipline So whether we feel like it or not whether we Want to or not we just still go and and sit with the word of God and then things change as we begin to read As we begin to meditate So it so that is why you know, it becomes a it is necessary for this to be a discipline, okay, so let's you get a couple of other verses one John chapter 2 and Verse 2 and verse 7, okay, let's One John chapter 2 verse 2 and he himself I'm sorry chapter 2 and verse September 1 and verse 2. I'm sorry The life was manifested as we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the father and was manifested to us that eternal life which was manifested Which was with the father and was manifested to us talking about the the person of the Lord and and Us being in the presence of Of God this eternal life that was manifested was seven But if we walk in the light as he is in the light We have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin, okay now So this is This is something that You know as we walk in the light as disciples we have fellowship Now we're going to talk about that fellowship with other believers but also that The fellowship with the Lord to be in his presence right and and that is what will Will really build us up refresh us strengthen us and Jude verse 20 also talks about that Building yourself up, you know, it's talking about praying in the Holy Spirit Jude verse 20 Jude chapter 1 I mean only one chapter, but you beloved Building yourselves up on your most holy faith praying in the Holy Spirit Keep yourselves in the love of God. Okay, so building ourselves up So when we pray when we pray in the Holy Ghost when we pray in tongues, we are building ourselves up. So this If you ask the question, okay, do I you know, do we will be always feel like praying every day? The answer is no. Sometimes we don't feel like praying. Sometimes we are emotionally down Maybe there are some challenges. We don't feel like doing things, right? But if we would discipline ourselves to and commit ourselves to do it Whether we feel like or not then we would reap the benefit of it, right? And we are built up in faith we are in the presence of Of the one who is life and whose life is manifested to us and We have fellowship with him and we see that you know The word of God is able to build us up the word of his grace is able to build us up and give us an inheritance among all the saints right so Time in his word and prayer it's again It's a commitment. It's a discipline like for a disciple of the Lord So as disciples ourselves, you know, if we are going to teach others This would be something that we teach and this would be foundational This would be something very important that we would teach others as well. Okay Secondly, we see fellowship with the other believers. Okay Hebrews 10 talks about not giving up This fellowship not forsaking this assembling together this fellowship and you know, just like how We see in the life of Jesus we see in the life of the disciples who followed the Lord Despite all those difficulties despite all those relational tensions and so on They journey together and they learn together and they function effectively Right as teams and we see in the book of Acts the outflow of that, right? They were filled with the Son of God and they went about and they continue to do that, you know, Peter John continue to fellowship continue to minister together and As the Lord had taught them So it's very interesting to see how how they would minister like the way Peter raised up The person who died when Peter raised up it is It is similar to how the Lord did it You know, if you when you have time you can just go and start, you know see that It is very very similar to how the Lord would do it He went and he would he would send out all the others and he would pray and raise up the person so so what he learned right very very Thing by joining together with the Lord, okay, then the second thing is fellow shipping with the other believer So he will say talks but don't give up this thing don't give up this Don't forsake this assembling together. We see that at verse 25 and also in 26, right? so that is a Something for us an instruction for us That as believers as disciples that we will continue to meet Continue to fellowship so that we can See one of the things that we see is that we are the body of Christ Right spiritually, we are the body of Christ as believers No, it could be a local church. It could be a small group that is meeting together It could be the church in the city, whatever, you know, we are the body of Christ So in one Corinthians 12 we read about All stating, you know, how every member functions and how we give strength and receive strength Right being the spiritual body of Christ. So so as believers, you know, when we fellowship, this is what happens the third thing is as believers to have as a discipline is Is what we see in Romans 12 that we share our faith and we serve the kingdom of God with With the gifts that he's given us with the grace that he's bestowed on us So Romans 12 verse 4 For as we have many members in one body and all members do not have the same function So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. Let us use them if prophecy Let us prophesy in proportion to our faith and so on, right? So So the thing is this that we are members, but we are one body individually members of one another We have gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us and these gifts are given so that we might use them so you know as members we we share we help one another and as People who have been raised with these gifts. We use them Okay, we use them within the body of Christ. We use them as As a means for people to come to know the love of God So these gifts are used within the body outside of the body of Christ These gifts are used. So we see that so that also becomes Discipline of the disciple Okay If I if we would discipline ourselves and say, okay, this is what you know, what is expected of me This is something that the Lord wants or Lord desires of me whether I feel like it or not And then we would step in and carry it out do it out Then Then one of the things is that when we as we share as we serve we also learn through What lives experiences like Romans 5 verses 3 and 4, okay Romans 5 3 and 4 Not only that but we also glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation Produces perseverance and perseverance character and character. Hope now hope does not Disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit to us given to us Okay, so it says we also glory in tribulations and and all these things Tribulations It what does it do it produces perseverance perseverance character and character hope so So when when when in lives journey when there are difficulties in life Now when there are challenges in life then when I persevere When I persevere as a disciple then it produces it develops my character. So there is a path There are tribulations then if I persevere through that then it builds my character and character produces hope and so on so What is happening is that despite these difficulties despite these challenges as a disciple? One is learning even through those difficulties even through the experiences of life Then we look at James chapter 1 there's 2 and 4 2 to 4 My brethren count it all joy when you fall into various trials Knowing that the testing of your faith Produces patience But let patience have its perfect work That you may be perfect and complete Lacking nothing if any of you lacks wisdom. Let him ask of God who gives to all Liberally and without the approach and it will be given to him. Okay, so we see Here again something similar to what we saw in Romans chapter 5 that You know you count it all joy when there are troubles when there are when there are difficult times This is how you face it You count it all joy As a disciple, you know, this is for a child of God a disciple of God disciple of the Lord and So there are these testing times. There are these trouble times So James is writing and he's saying, okay, know that this is what will happen the testing of your faith produces patience And let patience have its perfect work You know go through it that there is something that is happening in you when you When you are patient in tribulation That you know, there is something that is happening There is some strength that is coming in and there are some changes that are happening in you Which would not happen otherwise But let it have it perfect. Let it have its perfect work that you may be you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing and of course to remember that the Lord Jesus never gives up on us it again gives us strength and and and motivates us to to keep going and to be disciplined enough to keep going, okay okay now Now this is for us Right because the Lord never gives up on us And we have we understand understand that that this is how he We as disciples are built up. So so when we disciple others, you know, if we are developing others Maybe new believers, maybe young believers as disciples Well, these are some things that we would same things these disciplines that we would develop in them right So which means that We teach them to spend time with the Lord with this word in prayer We teach them, you know, if we notice that okay, we so how do we do that?  First of all, you know, it should be part of our life, right? As ones who are discipling others as ones who are developing others to be disciples now this needs to be ingrained in us part of our life Maybe it's not as consistent as as it should be we make it consistent Right, we make a choice we make a decision and we make it part of our life then Secondly, when we teach others when we develop others We make sure that these things are developed in them as well So we you know as pastors as spiritual leaders, maybe as you know, Bible study group leaders, whatever If we would do that for others, okay, we are actually Fulfilling the Great Commission Like we are obeying That instruction that command which the Lord Jesus gave his disciples teaching them To observe all things that I taught you Right, so these are these all things some of the all things Some of the important all things that the Lord Jesus taught Right when we observe his life, we see that yeah, he spent time In prayer all night in prayer extended times in the presence of the father Right, he heard he made sure that he heard his Word or his voice his instruction and then he carried it out. So So yeah, the first thing is to teach others to spend time. How do we do it? Etc teach them to develop a daily devotional personal devotional life and We would connect them to church or a group or you know group of believers And And make sure that they continue with the fellowship They continue the fellowship. So in the time of fellowship with other believers They learn they are corrected. They correct others. They They learn to relate to people a lot of things happen out of that fellowship Right, they begin to extend, you know use their gifts And they begin to discover the gifts and it's a blessing for others. So all these things happen. So fellowship thirdly Teaching them to share their faith to witness and test and testify to others about what God has done maybe with their own family members, maybe with others and and And then to serve God's kingdom To serve God's kingdom to use whatever Gifts of grace gifts that God has put in us to to be able to use that for his glory right Fourthly to also help them to learn from life experiences, you know difficult times Testing times very trying times challenging times now What do I do with them? Do I Give up And go back to my own ways Do I get discouraged and completely stop whatever I was doing? right so so as As disciples we we teach them that okay these can be used for You know so that the the perfect work of patience can be So we will have the you know the the fruit Of the perfect was work of patience in us right there be patient in tribulation and persevere in tribulation so that There is strength in us there is strength build up right so so these experiences these challenges can actually help the disciple So we need to be able to teach and say okay. This is actually doing something In you in your spirit.  So don't give up right Keep your heart fresh keep your spirit, you know Keep your spirit free of all offenses don't become bitter so we teach the others as they Follow the Lord. This is part of being a disciple that the other thing that we see is That we don't give up on them We don't give up on them. It's a choice that they need to make But we don't necessarily give up on them now as You know if you look at our own lives, we know that we We've made many Some of us have made some bad choices, you know as Disciples of the Lord as followers of the Lord Jesus made some bad choices made some mistakes So the thing is when we are Discipling others We tend to not tolerate those things in others lives, right? So we tend to be very very intolerant Despite the fact that we ourselves committed those mistakes right We tend to be very intolerant and sometimes just Just give up Give up on people you're making the same mistake over and over and over again, you know 10 times 20 times, you know How many times and I'm sure you know if you're a pastor if you're a you know Maybe you're leading a small group of people you would have experienced that because you're meeting them regularly You know their life, you know some of the things that they are going through challenges, etc and You see, you know, you've told maybe many times, you know, this is something that you need to deal with This is something to be dealt with. This is something to be changed and yet Maybe after months or maybe even after years You see them go back and do the same thing Right So the thing is as the lord was patient with us as the lord continues to work with us. So also we We continue to be patient. We hope the best for them, right and And yes, it depends on their choice. They might not want to journey. They might not, you know It depends on the other person's choice, but from our side We can always keep the door open Okay, meaning if you want to come back You're welcome If you want to come back if you want to You know, this is this is what it is. This is what it takes If you want to rebuild The lord's heart is for restoration. Yes, there will be consequences That you might have to experience in the natural because of disobedience because of, you know, um, maybe Time is lost So much of time so much of opportunity has gone by all that is there, but the lord's heart is to Rebuild your life restore your life despite all these setbacks right, so We don't have to give up on people the same way the lord has not given up on us Okay, so these are some some things to think about some things to put in practice in our own lives when we um when we consider The life of the lord jesus How he raised up the disciples and how we can go about making um disciples, right? So we'll stop here. So the next class What we will do is we will look at one more aspect of discipleship that is um this thing of Be from a that the path the growth path from a believer to To a minister From believe when being a believer to be a leader to become a minister So we will we will look at that so that we can understand. Okay now as I You know teach and build others now. This is what I can Uh, I can do right. I can from okay. They are new believers We can develop them and bring them to a place of being leaders ministers and then you know, we can bring them to the place of Being leaders so that they can they can lead others as well. So believers ministers leaders and so on. So um So we will look at it the next class and then we'll continue, right? Okay, so we'll stop here Thank you God bless Thank you, sir. Thank you


Hello all, this is Satish KS, part of Privacy Mode Fellowship Program driven by the privacy community of Haskell. This community works on data privacy with focus on engagement with policy to improve overall privacy ecosystem from consumers and providers perspective. The upcoming data production bill brings a spotlight on data privacy across all domains with adequate compliance needs. This fellowship program is set around the same context and as part of this, I'm going to present my company, Ziotap's Journey with the GDPR regulations, more from a product and tech perspective and what we have done towards the compliance of GDPR. Ziotap runs primarily a data business both from a data as a service perspective and data platform from a SaaS perspective. This is going to be a three-part presentation, the part one being an introduction to data privacy, GDPR and the regulations and part two being more like a reference study of what we had done within Ziotap and part three is like a cross fitment towards how the learnings could be cross applied for the upcoming data production bill in India. It's a brief intro, so we are mainly going to talk about GDPR and compliance for data business and I am currently the CTO of the company and with that, let's start with firstly, what is a data business and at a high level, what exactly every data business more or less does, right? So they source data and they do multiple processing on top of it, which I have largely defined as refining data and they deliver data for various use cases. And this could be both within the company as well as in inter company as well. So sourcing the challenges that there are going to be varied sources of data on which you have to run the integrations and refining is now a huge area where you do lots of standardization, cleaning, enrichment and intelligence additions both heuristic and AML driven and whatnot, then you might do couple of your own enrichments based on your quality makeovers, profiling and stuff like that and temporality is the time dimension of the data on which we act upon. So these are the various processing needs and finally, you deliver the data, this sort of enriched data or the enriched intelligence is delivered via integrations, it could be a cloud exchange or AP mode and you take care of the reliability of the data, you guarantee the SLAs and you take care of various modes of data exchange. When I say modes, it is like you could send this in real time mode, batch mode, which are the primary modes which generally people talk about and how you organize the data as a whole. So it could be something as simple as a CSV format to something very complex as a binary format which is for specific use cases. So largely this is the landscape in terms of how a data flow and thereby your data business operates and if you put the compliance lens towards it, there are two primary categorizations of any data at this point in time, as per the regulations across any countries which is upcoming as well as which is already available which is one is the people-centric data that does any data which could be a device data or product data or anything but which has a linking to a real life person behind the scenes. Say for example, if you have a mobile and if I have your mobile identifier that means I have some sort of device identifier which is linking to an activity of a real world person behind the scene and some direct identifiers could be your first name, last name and the email and whatnot. The second team broadly in the categorization perspective is the non-personal data which could be say for example, weather data or say your city traffic data which is not exactly tied to any particular person but it is tied to some other team so that this is a broad classification and the data flow could be either purely people-centric or non-people-centric or a combination thereof. So this is primarily how you can look at the data business landscape. Then a brief introduction on GDPR. This law came into EU and it became active on May 25th, 2018. So this is the EU data protection and data privacy bill. And when the bill was passed, it not only affected certain parts of the organization but it had a effect across all the legs of organization. Say be it your marketing teams, be it your HR teams, the legal team, the infra and the secure info-sec teams as well as the product and tech teams. So it had a profound effect across many businesses in Europe and what it talks about is first case, this bill is talking about the personal data and its handling. What are the rights if a company is collecting personal data and the personal here in question or any citizen who is part of the EU member countries. So that is the scope of this particular personal data. And what it talks about is it gives a couple of rights to the user which we'll talk about down the line in terms of what are the rights like right to erasure, right to portability, right to transfer and right to know what data a company is storing about them. Then the second thing is it prescribes a couple of things in terms of access rights which is to be given. Then the third is definitely on terms of how you're going to handle the data. So here too, it does not say you have to encrypt it. You have to do asymmetric encryption or asymmetric encryption. It is just prescriptive in terms of how you have to handle the data. Then if you're doing data transfer either cross-border or within companies or as part of any second party data exchanges, what other things you should take care of. So this is things which is handled in the GDPR law. Then finally, the audit requirements. Audit requirements is again prescriptive. There is no primary certification which says that oh, this is GDPR certified. It is a combination of multiple things which we'll again see when we go more into the presentation in terms of whatever things which could help a company say yeah, now we are GDPR ready and this is because of these and these reasons which we have put across say the IT organization, the legal organization, as well as the product and engineering organization. And the last thing which is very important is it talks about penalties for data breaches. So the penalties are pretty huge and especially if you're a startup which you're operating in any of these regions, a single penalty which could arise out of a suit to your business could more or less shut down shop for us. So that is the kind of impact it could create on the organization in terms of penalties. And in terms of the roles with GDPR talks about, it primarily classifies as a data processor and a data controller. So data processor is broadly you could define as he just doesn't store the data if you have to fundamentally talk at a very, very fundamental level. So it is like a transition of data through some processing stages and it moves on. He's not exactly responsible for the data. So he has certain responsibility when I say not responsible. It is not like he's the primary owner of the data. The second thing is the data controller. Data controller becomes more or less the owner of the data because he is procuring the data himself. And some companies can become both a data processor and a data controller in terms of how they're operating as a business.  So that is a brief introduction to GDPR. Now, just to understand what is happening and how the landscape is changing. There's a couple of slides I have put through to figure out how in this, there are many parlance running like data is a new oil and many companies are investing in their data strategy. So what exactly is a value exchange in terms of data? So the one is you have the business context, couple of business teams, marketing teams, sales teams and other teams which need data in specific formats and specific insights and analytics to be driven out of it. So they give the business context to the owners of the data. Now the owners of data could be product and data teams within the organization or across other organization where you need the data to be taken out or it could be subdomain vessel. Say for example, you're a conglomerate and you want to cross position your say lending data towards a investment banking data for something like credit scoring. That is again a business context on which a value exchange happens. So now prior to any regulations, what was happening? This team say for example, a marketing team, they will say, hey, I want to work on a customer acquisition scenario. This is my business cost and I probably need the last two years of data for me to calculate certain attributes, say something like RFM model or something. And the data teams either provide it as raw data or if it has data science and other capabilities, it is able to provide the additional capability and rich data to them. So this was the original scenario. Now with regulations coming in, what happens in this scenario is the flow which we saw in the previous slide does not happen easily. So when the actual data exchange comes, there is a new entity or in many companies in you at least this is called as a data protection officer. So he needs to assess what is the impact of sending this data from this particular layer to this particular layer. And when it goes to them, a bunch of questions and he, mind it, he is responsible for protecting the company from any data suit. So he has a immense responsibility. So I have put a very small box here which talks about the policies which he needs to be aware of, he needs to be aware of the business context requirements, the regulations, the standards, the laws which is applicable in there and what are the rules he needs to operate on and it's a pretty humongous task which is sitting on it. So he'll come back to the product team. When I say product team will ask us some simple question, can I share this data? And there is going to be a bunch of exchanges in terms of do you have consent? And do you call it as customer preference? Do you have some sort of privacy protection in case you are collecting raw PIS? And what are the controls you have put in terms of data security? And do you have a data retention policy? Suppose say I have a particular identifier which the client says I shouldn't be storing more than 90 days, do we have these policies in place? And many a times in current scenario when companies were in two other hands with all the data regulation policies and stuff like that, the answers would be, oh, yes, probably I need to check with this guy. Could be, oh, can I get back in a month's time? So now when this exchange is happening, the value exchange is completely curtailed because there is this team on the right hand side who is waiting for all this value exchange to happen which is not happening because of all these. Both the cases are important. You need to adhere to the DPO because he is playing the trust and the protective play for the organization. And the other team on the RHS is trying to bring value to the organization. So this is where we are trying to solve the problem in terms of how exactly we could reduce this friction. Now, couple of other jargons which has come up which was that, but which is getting a good amount of highlight. When you go to any website, you will see accept cookies, rigid cookies, that's a baseline, but if you want to say manage my cookies, it'll take you a different screen which throws up a bunch of items there in terms of can I use your data for analytics? Can I use for marketing purposes? Can I use for targeting purposes? Can I use for statistical surveys?  There are some certain standard framework. These are called the cookie consent and there are other ways of collecting consent. It depends on the company's strategy. This is not something which is going to be scope of my talk, but just for the understanding in terms of how exactly the trust between the customer and the company is being established. This becomes, I would say more like the facade or the front part of it of having a very clean cookie consent or a consent strategy. I need not explicitly say as cookie consent, but a consent strategy and a marketing preference strategy. So, marketing preference is a little advanced level in terms of consent. Now, what is consent? As per GDPR or even the upcoming data protection bill, in the past, the consent was more or less implicit. If customer had to opt out of something, he can go and opt out. The default was in many companies, it was like opting. He is opting in himself for any activities which the customer can derive out of his data points, but that has been completely flipped. What they're saying is the consent should be explicit in the sense when I go to the website, I need to be explicitly aware of what all consent I'm giving. So that is why it even expands on the definition saying that it should be informed, it should be active, and it should be unbundled. I cannot bundle multiple things, say stats, marketing, targeting, and machine learning, all these things bundle together in a singular consent, though consent should be granular. So that is the granularity is another requirement. And it has become mandatory. And the consent collection and the logging and able to non-repudiate things is a legal requirement in terms of the consent, how it has changed. Coming to other thing, the marketing preference is I would say one level deeper in terms of each company trying to understand what are the personalization strategies which it can take for a particular consumer. Say I'm a consumer and another person is a consumer, I don't like receiving too many emails, I can go to my marketing preferences as part of the same consent box which is thrown up to me and say that don't send me emails, I'm okay if you reach out via say YouTube ads. So that is a marketing preference and that kind of personalizes the way the company is gonna reach out to me for any offers, promotions or anything in terms of how they are setting up their website even changes. This is not mandatory. And this more or less acts as a support to the consent. It is not directly legally implicated but it acts as a support for the consent. But the consent is a direct legal implication which is a must have for any organization which is embarking on any sort of compliance challenge. Now, coming to one double click in terms of how exactly consent or for that matter even the marketing preference is managed is from purely from a data pipeline flow. You could bucket it into three major flows. So this is again coming in terms of if you remember consent is again a data, right? You're collecting from various things probably somebody gave a phone call over IVR and pressing a one button that is a data point saying he has given this concern. Now the same source, refine and deliver applies for consent as well. And that's exactly what I have put here in terms of how the consent has to be internally managed. So you have all the collection touch points it could be a multiple customer touch points say the cookie, the connected TVs call center as I just mentioned email. And now in the last three years thanks to all the regulations there are softwares coming up very, very nice softwares coming up in terms of setting up and administering the whole constant. And it has to have transaction audit because the consent is a transactional thing. It has to be more or less in database parlance as it compliant in terms of if I give a consent it has to be really recorded. If not, I need to get it recorded from the customer again and I need to have a history of that. So that is why I mentioned it as a transactional audit capability. Then optionally in terms of collection concern so for example in Europe there is something called a TCF which is driven by the IAB IAB is a consortium of ad tech players so they have a framework like that. Then you could have additionally a taxonomy support. If you remember in the previous slide I talked about informed consent. So how do you inform? So that means you are creating a taxonomy for the information exchange. So that is another one. Then you can have standardization say for example, you have invested in a CMP software but your customer care is operating on a little old school software. So how do you standardize these two consent which is coming into this thing? Then you can optionally have the preference management. This is a marketing preference. Now once you get all this consent in the refinement of the consent what you have to probably invest on is how you're going to create a singular view of all this consent. Why the singular view is important we'll see in the third bucket. This is fundamentally data playing and there aren't any out of the box softwares available at this point in time. There are certain customer data platforms, CMPs, this is like a downstream roadmap for them. And a couple of data warehouses which the teams themselves or the in-house teams themselves they invest on to achieve this mastering. And this is another thing which is happening in terms of what we have to define consent mastering you are creating a singular view of all the consent points captured from the various customer touch points to create a singular view of what the customer has given us consent for us. Then optionally on top of mastering once you master your data obviously the analytics and the risk assessment and all these can be put on top of it in terms of if a particular data is flowing out what are the risks and what are the concerns I need to be really aware of. Coming to the last one, this is the delivery. How do you make consent? Because if you look at any data-driven system even in a I would say very, very medium-sized company you could have anywhere between 100 data pipelines flowing from your primary data warehouse or if some company has directly invested in a data mesh architecture again it's the same. So there could be hundreds of data pipelines flowing out. Now when the downstream is not exactly a transactional consumer and it is going to be any business consumer which is going to use it for anything beyond what the consumer is transacting on the system. Say for example, if the data is flowing within my session to serve me something say it could be a financial transaction or a purchase or subscription whatever that is a transactional thing. Beyond that anything what we do with the data is like a downstream system you could run anything on top of it. Now the mastered consent has to be available across all these systems otherwise they won't. If you remember the friction causing factor was a DPO was asking certain questions whether this is available that is available this is available. So this orchestration acts more like a filter layer saying that hey this data flow I can send only these amount of users because from my customer care center he has given me marketing preference as use me for targeting and from a cookie consent this thing he has given allow all the targeting cookies. So I combine these two rules and say that from orchestration perspective this consent acts as a filter so the data can flow from this particular the system A to the system B. Again here there aren't many softwares which are just out of the box available. There are a couple of new data platforms not new they have been around for almost five years now which we are investing again in this orchestration layers as well. Coming to the other aspect the privacy here we are talking about data privacy it is a different from data security data security helps in achieving data privacy from one particular angle but privacy is a little deeper than say plain data security so I just wanted to give a primer on what exactly is a privacy management from a data context. So for privacy management data context largely this framework has been taken from data governance frameworks and if I remember correctly I picked it from Lyndon and NIST and these frameworks in terms of what is the recommendation they give to start a privacy management journey. So first and foremost obviously for data governance or privacy or anything you wanna do with data going forward you need to really identify what is the data assets and DPIA is data protection data privacy impact assessment and third is a discovery semantics on top of the data. So primarily these all can be achieved by investing in a very good data catalog and some kind of audit tool on top of it. Then you have to plan in terms of what are the policies and procedures. Say for example if you have to create a consent strategy to collect the consent data what is the policies and what is the procedure whether you wanna go with website how many website you have and whether you want to have similar level of consent across all the websites and if you want to give a offline consent management how we are gonna do that. Then you need to the second part that is just the collection part. Now in terms of the value exchange part the part two and part three is very important. So how are you gonna manage that? And third is the roles and permissions in terms of how it is and the trainings across your organization in terms of how they should handle data. So why they are talking about training is say for example we always talking about customer as I end this thing but if you look at a scenario for a HR even the employee data they have to collect the consent going forward and know how to manage it. So the training across organization becomes important and tooling is an investment you need to look at various softwares which has mushroomed in the last three years across cybersecurity, data security privacy enhancing techniques as well as data catalogs and all these and figure out benchmark which exactly works for us. Then you need to work on the control and protection semantics in terms of the what is the data security tech which is needed. Of course if you're gonna go completely secure you may not be even able to realize many business case. So security is more about how adequate you are protected in terms of this thing and many times it is compensating controls rather than really a direct control in terms of saying, oh no I'll never give access to the data that doesn't work because it is like one of the primary fuel in terms of the business running. Then if you're talking about data security identity and access comes and response and recovery of the data and privacy enhancing technique is a highly researched area in the past two years there has been lots of papers and lots of improvement in this particular area. We'll talk about that as well going forward in terms of privacy enhancing techniques. Then you need to have the audits in place both internal as well as external audit. So that kind of reinforces your commitment towards the whole privacy management for the company. As I mentioned in one of the intro slides neither GDPR and probably the upcoming data production bill of India is not going to exactly say these are the things audits you need to come and give back to me as certifications but the onus is on the company to figure out, okay if I am playing with this person later in this manner say probably for healthcare I probably better get a HEPA certification. If I am in the auto industry probably I should get a PSAC certification on a general basis for any kind of data I'll take the ISO 27,000 series certification. So that is the management division which is part of the planning and it has to be executed as well. Then the other things which any security or privacy expert who is in the company will talk about it in terms of how the model is conducted and what should be the review guidance. So this is a cycle this keeps on happening. So over a period of time say the company changes a business then you are suddenly acquiring more biometrics that means the data asset changes and you have to plan the same thing. This cycle goes on, right? This is like a you could plan for your business it could be quarterly, annual, by annual basis. So this is a cycle in terms of how you are constantly managing your privacy. As I told the privacy enhancing tech this is I would say more or less past two years it has caught many researchers attention largely this is classified into two areas in the X axis in terms of input privacy that is when the data is flowing into the system what are the certain enhancing techniques which can be or what are the certain techniques which can be put in place for the privacy to be controlled and when the data is flowing out of the system what can be controlled? So any data flow if you look at it there is always two semantics you can either pull the data or you have to push the data. So that is what is the Y axis showing in terms of if you look at the Y axis on the top it is talking about pushing of the data where you publish or you export or you give an API where they are able to programmatically access things, right? So this I won't delve deep into this each of them is a research area if you look at differential privacy it is a research area in terms of adding statistical noise so that identifiability of a data to a certain individual is not possible and again on T closeness again all I would say various research areas where a couple of companies have even come up with products which we are also evaluating at this point in time. So this is mainly for FYI I didn't want to really explain these slides but largely if you understand the data flow in terms of input privacy and probably you may not be investing on all the four legs initially but you could choose which leg is very important to you with your current business use cases and look at the certain softwares which are coming up and the last compliance management is not like a singular thing as I told you there are three different angles especially from a data end of things you have the data security angle and the privacy is a very, very upcoming area in terms of in the past privacy was more about protecting your data with perimeter security and encryption all these things now there are privacy enhancing techniques as I showed in the previous slide where they could actually make your data completely anonymized and still achieve the value exchange for the downstream things so that is other leg and the third leg is definitely the data governance leg so all these three work in tandem to achieve your real compliance in any company and of course whatever you put in place better have an external audit scrutiny to reinforce one internally that you are confident it is like a developer writing many test cases so this kind of reinforces we are in the right direction and you also gain to learn a lot in terms of the external audit and that could sometimes add as a feedback and a backlog system to this whole circle which you are talking about so with that I will end the part one introduction which I wanted to set the context in part two we'll talk about Ziotap's journey specifically from a product and tech angle in terms of what we did to achieve the GDPR compliance thank you


While the 2018 flu season hit hard all across the country and although the virus is starting to fade out locally, it is not completely gone. Ascension health in Brainerd had one flu related hospitalization still just this week. Now since the start of the flu season, the hospital in Brainerd has seen more than 130 hospitalizations for influenza. That is more than double last year's 52. Ascension health was all hands on deck as the hospital had such a high volume of patients throughout this last flu season. It does affect things. I mean it just increases your staffing needs and you have to be able to flex your staff so that you have adequate staff to care for all of the patients and it does create some challenges sometimes but you know the whole team pulled together and everybody did a great job of working together and making sure that we provided all the care that the patients needed. The state of Minnesota as a whole had the worst flu season in years with more than 6,000 flu related hospitalizations.