Tim King Leadership

Santa or Saviour It is that time of year again where I reflect on the year just gone and where I also look ahead to the year that is to come. This year has been exciting and eventful, we have been blessed and as I look at 2018 I see great opportunity. It is though the season of reflection, so here are a few final thoughts for 2017, that I want all my readers to reflect on and maybe even act on; 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 car...

The myth that perfectionism is what makes a church great. One of the greatest dangers in the church today is those who believe that being perfect in everything they do and lead is a sign of a great church. Nothing could be further from the truth. Now there are here two concepts that need to be looked at, being perfect and perfectionism. There is no perfect church, the pursuit of it is futile. The moment we as imperfect human beings enter a church then by our very presence it became imperfect. The other concept that of perfectionism is a psychological issue, if this contagion is allowed to permeate a church then it could lead to disaster. Perfectionism can bring both great creative feats and also huge destructive failures. The question I ask myself, is grace sacrificed by Christian leaders for the sake of perfectionism? What are the dangers of perfectionism? There are a number but this is by no means an exhaustive list; for the perfectionist achievement and satisfaction...

The Myth of Christian Leadership. I have been teaching on leadership and related subjects for a number of years now and the more I do the more I feel that leadership or what we say is leadership, is in fact a myth. A quick Internet search showed that there were over 100 different definitions of leadership We talk about "great visionary leaders" but the fact is that these people were not born "great visionary leaders." nor do they seek greatness. Any greatness is projected on them by their followers, but these followers tend to ignore the pain, sacrifice and personal development undertaken to get to the place the leaders are now. However this does not mean there is no such thing as a "great visionary leader."   Someone once made the statement that leaders are good and effective in their leadership. To me these are two different concepts. You have good leaders and you have effective leaders. In the same way you get ambitious leaders and you get hu...

Five Further Results on Healthy Churches. There was such a great response to my health check blog and the healthy church results that I went looking through my archives and found the following 5 categorisations that I found were synonymous within healthy churches both big and small. 1.   In all churches visited, fellowship was both strong and warm. Both regular congregation members and visitors were made welcome, felt welcomed. Visitors were made to feel as though they were part of something vibrant and vigorous. They were greeted in the parking area, welcomed enthusiastically at the door and invited to sit near the front of the auditorium. After the service people took time out to speak to them, they felt that people in the congregation were really interested in them as people. Over 80% of congregation members attended a mid week home group. Over 45% were involved in some other sort of ministry within the church. 2. All churches had   deep and meaningful ...

Following my last blog. Here are a few conclusions that resulted from the health checks that I have conducted.. 1.       A healthy growing church is always willing to try new models for ministry in an effort to make disciples of Christ. 2.       Leaders of healthy growing churches always give permission to people within the church to conduct ministry and even make mistakes for the sake of winning the lost for Christ. 3.       Leaders of healthy growing churches always encourage full participation in ministry by any and all in the congregation while recognizing that the primary role of the pastor is for leadership, teaching, and facilitating such ministry. 4.       A healthy growing church never allows those with greater than normal pastoral needs to hold and demand the attention of the church and/or pastor for any longer than possible. 5.       A h...

Health Check Questions . Over the years I have been asked, from time to time to do a health check for a church. It is a way of seeing if the programmes and vision of the leadership is working, or if there is a need for adjustment. Please feel free to use or comment. Questions asked of congregational members were as follows:  ·          Is your fellowship/assembly/church a healthy place to be for your spiritual growth and relationships? ·          Do you feel connected into the life of your church? ·          How important is good biblical teaching to you? ·          How important is growing in Christ to you? ·          How much time are you willing to put into your faith development? ·          How much time are you willi...

Leadership types to watch out for. This blog may seem to be a little negative and also seem to put church leadership in a bad light. However the blog comes from a very genuine question asked of me by a number of young leaders about a month ago. "Are there dangerous leadership personalities that we should watch out for?"   The list below represents the type of leaders one MAY come across in churches. WHAT I WANT TO EMPHASIS IS THAT WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS AND HAVE A FALLEN NATURE! Read on. Narcissistic leaders   Narcissists are highly motivated people; they do this in order to gain the esteem of others. They want affirmation of their superiority. However these desires are driven by a need to compensate for repressed feelings of inferiority. Their self esteem is very fragile. In their quest for admiration, it is not unusual for narcissists to seek out positions of leadership. Initially, their boasting, charm, and sense of entitlement can be charismatic ...

Leaders get you discipleship right. A number of months ago I sat with a pastor discussing his leadership Development programs and evaluating their success. He then asked me a question that on the surface seemed easy to answer but when I thought about it I saw that perhaps we as leaders were getting some things wrong. He asked; "Can you teach discipleship in a class room environment." The right answer to be really honest is NO. Firstly you need to choose those you want to disciple Identifying those you wish to Disciple.   Look for character—disciples must be stable and humble. They should be teachable and have integrity (for example, the local gang leader probably doesn’t fit into this category!). Look for passion—a disciple needs to be passionate about what they do and to do it with energy and drive. It doesn’t matter if they are passionate about something outside the church (motorbikes or rock climbing, for instance). So long as being passionate is in someone’s DNA...

Christian Leadership needs effective team leadership " No individual even a monarch- like CEO, is ever able to develop the right vision, communicate it to large numbers of people, eliminate all key obstacles, generate short term wins, lead and manage dozens of change projects and anchor new approaches deep in the organisations culture." [1] In other words major visionary change cannot be accomplished by one person alone no matter how large or successful their churches and leadership styles may be. In order to see changes take place in a church and these changes take root, - the way you see those taking root, there is a need therefore for the creation of an effective team. Jagelman makes the following observation; "I have realised that inflexible structures that are legally or traditionally difficult to change    hinder rather than protect the work of God....The absence of a stable and well thought through structure does not create freedom, it create...

Making change exciting, expectant and urgent. Many of the pastors I have encountered in the past have told me very forcefully that people don't like change. They believe that the one constant in a person's life should be their church and therefore it should be the same yesterday, today and also tomorrow. I would disagree with this and say that people don't mind change- in fact they find it refreshing. As long as the change and need for change is vital, necessary and communicated well. One person alone will find it hard to communicate the excitement and urgency, but a group of like minded people all expressing the same thing- that change is needed and why, will be far more successful. The more people you have that agree to changes the easier the process will be.   The senior leader of a midsized church of about 450 wants to introduce changes that he feels will take the church to the next level. He calls a meeting of the elders of the church. The meeting goes som...

#Agenda 4 That the Leader Sets the Culture My last and final point in this agenda series. Whether we like it or not, the senior leader is the one who should be tasked with setting the cultural tone of the church. Culture is the extension of the senior leader’s philosophy on how to make the vision of the church a reality; it is the atmosphere in which everything happens. Culture includes the ideas, customs, behaviors, and characteristics of any given group of people. The Philosophy of Ministry We all hold tightly to a set of deeply held beliefs through which we individually determine a basic understanding of life. Such beliefs are usually held at a subconscious level and are incredibly powerful, often most evident when we switch to our “default settings” in stressful situations. They are shaped by the way we were raised, our education, the information we gather, religious and spiritual input, relationships, and general life experience. A senior leader will discover th...

#Agenda 3 Increasing your leadership Capacity. What is my agenda? I want to see Christian leaders be the best that they can be, and see real growth in their churches. One way they can do this is by increasing their leadership abilities and skills. I like what John Maxwell calls “the law of the lid. "In order to increase our effectiveness we need to increase our abilities" [1] In other words I believe that one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. Church leaders must learn to continually assess where they are in relation to their skills. If they are weak in one area, they can gain knowledge in it in order to grow. The key thing here is awareness—I’m not suggesting that we must become experts in everything. For example, during my business days, I was aware that I was not an accountant or a bookkeeper. Therefore, I hired people to do those things for me. However, I still needed to know how my money was spent and on what. I learnt through financial management courses to ...

#Agenda 2 Engage in Strategic Planning What is my agenda? My agenda is to help Pastors and Christian Leaders strategise and plan for the future I make no apologise for this. I am amazed by the number of church leaders I meet who don’t know how to strategically plan. Sadly, strategic planning is not something normally taught at Bible college. A few church leaders can tell me what they want for their churches right now, and some can tell me their plan for the next twelve months. However, most leaders I’ve met do not know where they want their church to be in three to five years’ time, and even fewer would have a plan for the next ten years. “God will take care of that,” they often say to me. Other leaders try to plan, but they don’t understand the concept or the detail required. They may find that they do not have the training or organizational skills to maintain a healthy, large church. They use a “pay-as-you-go” type of leadership. Then there are leaders who realize the...

It's all about people and the Gospel of Christ. I was asked the other day by a pastor, what my agenda was, in answer I related the following story; In 1982, I had the privilege to visit my friend Gary at Christ for the Nations Institute Bible college, in Dallas, Texas. This was my first trip to the United States, and I was excited to see how the college operated. I had heard such good reports, and in comparison, my own college had been dead, dull and boring. One evening at a youth meeting, the leader stood up and said, “Let’s sing the cockroach song.” Laughter erupted, and music started. With great gusto, the young people (about 1,500 of them) sang these words:             “They rush on the city, they run on the walls, for great is the army that carries out God’s Word.” It struck me afresh in that moment that the church is purposed to be a vast army advancing rapidly and taking ground with direction and ...

Christian Leaders waiting for breakthrough. For many Christian leaders waiting for God to answer prayer or a petition, is often frustrating. Waiting for God to open a door, or make a way through a particular problem, or even waiting for a promise to be fulfilled, can be stressful to say the least. People say to me that God is teaching me patience; unfortunately I have failed that test on countless occasions. Recently I have been reminded of the story of Joseph in Egypt. Joseph was in prison for something he didn't do. While there he interpreted the dreams of two people, for one it didn't turn out well but the other was released back into the service of Pharaoh. Joseph said to the man "Remember me....and mention me to Pharaoh" but the man didn't remember he forgot Joseph. (Gen 40:14 and 23). But God had not forgotten. Joseph was 17 when God first showed him the dreams that got his brothers all upset. For over thirteen years he worked as a slave and ...