Tim King Leadership

The last few weeks have been eventful. I have come down with the dreaded Coronavirus Covid 19 and survived. I have had a dry irritating cough, a very high fever, shortness of breath and a very tight chest. Along with this I appear to have lost me sense of smell. Fortunately I have no under laying medical conditions and am relatively healthy and fit for my age. Like most Christian Leaders my job revolves around meeting with and interacting with people. Like every Christian I know, I shake hands so it is not surprising that I caught the virus. I have come into contact with the unseen monster of horror and apocalypse movies, this plague that moves through the population as easily as putting a hot knife through a slab of butter. Yet at no time through the last 14 days have I ever felt fear or the hand of death. Why? You may ask. Well I believe that God hadn't shown me it was my time to die, and also the science said that if I was fit and healthy and had no under laying ...

Last week I listened to the announcement made by Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK, in regards to the Coronavirus. He was surrounded by the scientists and the line was follow these steps and try and be safe. He said it was a once in a lifetime event that the world had not seen in generations. But unlike other Prime Ministers in the past he did not call the nation to prayer. Over the last 12 months we have had as a nation a political decision that divided us and now is the time to heal. The floods we have experienced have been once in a life time events, but these events are happening every few years. Crops and agricultural lively-hoods have been destroyed The UK fisheries industry has had the worst winter in living memory. Now of course the nations of the world are being laid low by a virus that we cannot see. Self isolation is the call. Food is being hoarded by people who live in fear. It is time Christian Leaders, Arch Bishops and politicians to call the nation to prayer....

I was reading a number of blogs this last week, where the authors were discussing and disparaging the need for 5 year plans. One of them thought that it was impossible to do any forward planning for churches, because of the inconsistency of human beings and therefore the inability to predict with any certainty the future. The other blogger was a little more circumspect saying that the maximum he could future plan was 2 years. They also discussed the God factor and the need to be open to the moving and working of the Holy Spirit and how human plans interfered with this. Both bloggers were right but both were also wrong. Church Planning, particularly Strategic Church Planning isn’t about setting firm, guaranteed targets or goals. Nor is it about stepping in the way of any move of the Holy Spirit. Planning is for your benefit and the benefit of those you lead. In churches you would ask yourself, as leader, where you as a church would like to be in 5 years’ time. You look at the visi...