Tim King Leadership

  My Ten Outlook Predictions for 2023. What will happen in the church and Christianity over the next 12 months and beyond. The simple answer is I don’t know. However, there are some very discouraging pointers as to what might occur. These I have listed below. Firstly, let me insert my disclaimers: I am not a prophet so I cannot claim any deep spiritual insight or any divine revelation for these predictions, nor can I guarantee that they will all come to fruition in 2023. Some of my predictions are obvious others not so obvious and may not come about in the next 12 months, but I fervently believe that they will eventually all come true. 1)       Sunday service numbers will continue to decline. More folks will say that they attend online church services, but the reality is that this is not the case. The Spiritual decline of Christians in the west, will continue. 2)       Churches that have multi-generational congregations, whe...

Bells and Baubles are so prominent at the moment on our Christmas trees and in our shop windows. The glitter and the tinsel sparkle in the festive lights, seductively drawing us closer, enticing us to buy more to stash more presents under the tree. After all it's the season for giving, or is it. Bells may ring and baubles dangle but Bethlehem is where my thoughts are at the moment. Not on giving but on sacrifice. Remember the sacrifice that Joseph made when he took Mary, already pregnant, to be his wife. Or the sacrifice, Mary made to reveal to her family that she was carrying a child, despite the ridicule and shame that would result from this revelation. The sacrifice that the Shepherds made to leave their flocks in the hills, at the mercy of predators, just to get a glimpse of God. Let us not forget God who made the ultimate sacrifice to give up His son to a sinful and forgetful world. Let us also remember the hundreds, if not thousands of people, who give up their day to serve u...

  Composition verses Performance. What is the difference between perfection and a great copy? When I look at the life of Christ and read what the Gospel writers wrote about him, I see a perfection that we as Christians can never hope to emulate. We are imperfect human beings, we have flaws, we have failings. But, every now and again we humans come very close to that perfection. Think of the great composers of the 18th century, men such as Mozart or Beethoven, Elgar (my own favourite)   and we must not forget Bach. All these men composed music, they created music and as they composed, it is said that they heard the whole orchestra in their minds perform it. They brought about perfection that over the centuries has been performed by many others, but never to the same level. Some have come close but they could never perform to the same stratospheric standard as that original performance conducted by the composer themselves. So, when I look at the life of Christ I see p...

 Here is something I published a few years ago, I was reminded of it recently , it is still relevant. An Extract from my book "In Search of Ophir" Peter Dodd was diagnosed with Leukaemia when he was 3 and given a 15% chance to make it! I was a Christian; the rest of the family weren’t. Pete got a fungal infection that spread throughout his body, was taken off his leukaemia treatment, and put into isolation. Drips that were supposed to last twelve hours only lasted six! Treatment was still experimental, but the choice was to have no treatment and die, or try and see what happened! There was also the chance he might go into organ failure! He became very ill and was dying; all he could move were his eyes. You could not touch him as he was too sore. It became a waiting game. Peter’s mum, Diane Dodd, saw the Easter convention was on at McChlery Assembly and the minister had a healing ministry. Diane went to church as a “last resort”. As she walked to the church, she was met by Yvo...

  Holding these truths in Tension. Jesus tells us two things. One in Matthew 28, we must spread the good news and make disciples of people and secondly he tells Peter, in the Gospel of John, to feed his sheep. In the fields and on the hills that surround my house you will see many sheep. They eat the nutrient rich grass, on which they grow fat. They have their lambs in spring and like all herd animals they bleat. For the most part they have a rather placid, quiet life. The sheep dog on the other hand is a working animal. It has a job to do. At the command of the shepherd, this lean mean working machine rounds up and directs the fat docile sheep in the direction that the shepherd wants them to go. In my mind this is a perfect picture of the church. The sheep are the congregation. The sheep dogs are the leaders and the shepherd, as always, is Jesus. While this may be a perfect picture of the church, is it a true picture of the church?   Let me try and equate this to ma...

  Ideals of a Progressive Ideology. I am White Heterosexual Male and I am a Christian. These are the four most dangerous characteristics a person could have at present. This   means in the eyes of those who follow a progressive ideology, that I am the lowest of the low, a scum bag and I swim in the filth and slime of all that is wrong in this world.   I am an oppressor, a racist and I have white privilege ingrained in my DNA. I am a Transphobe   who, by my very existence are a violent threat to those who have no idea what gender they are. I am violent   through my language and my micro-aggressions, these are offenses so slight that just standing in a person's presence could offend them.   I am by definition a misogynist and as a male I am unsafe when around women or those that identify as a woman. I am also a bigot, a real and present threat to society, the LGBTQI+ community and the world at large.   However I am told that there is ...