Tim King Leadership

The Myth that Advancement and Self Esteem Are Related This last week I have been spending time listening to the heart of a young pastor. His heart's desire is to serve God by planting churches and making a significant impact for God in the community he wishes to influence and serve. However his problem is that he has been asked to consider taking over another church, this church has no pastor or leader at this present time. My young friend wanted council and advice. In the denomination he is a part of the way a young person advances is; to be actively involved in his local church, do some theological training (get a degree), become ordained and then take a church that is offered to you. If you succeed at that church (whatever that looks like), after a few years you are offered a more substantial church. All very commendable, if not a bit predictable. The only problem is that it leaves out heart and ministry and perhaps to some extent the calling of God on their young l...

All Christian Leaders are decisive. Why is this a myth? Why is it that all Christian Leaders are not decisive, when they should be? The simple reason is that congregations expect their leaders to be decisive, it indicates being in control. That those who lead us know what they are talking about. A Christian Leader being decisive creates an atmosphere of clarity and focus for those that follow. However the myth becomes apparent when we mix decisiveness up with indecision. Most Christian leaders would consider themselves to be decisive, because in reality they would consider that only they have the right answers. The problem isn't that they are indecisive the problem is that often they lack the ability to make a decision or even make the right decision.   In essence, in order for Christian Leaders to be great decisive leaders, they have to learn to be great decision makers first. Decisiveness doesn't mean making all the decisions all of the time, this is just b...

  Working on Murphy's Law. (Apologise to anyone called Murphy.) Christian Leaders like to portray themselves in total control, nothing knocks them over. In church at a Sunday service, they stand head and shoulders above everybody and everything happening around them. Issues that trouble us mere mortals wash over and off them like the proverbial duck. Sometimes they give the impression that they are succeeding in everything they do; unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. To be in control often means that at some point you had to be in a situation where you weren't in control. By its very definition the Christian Leadership journey means that at some point something did go wrong, situations occurred that stretched the leader and caused them to question faith and creed and leadership and even church. If they hadn't they would never have come out the other side a better leader or pastor. A crisis can either make you or break you. Even fail...

How much am I worth? I am often asked this question by young pastors and leaders and even some of the smaller denominations. What value do we place on those that serve us in the spiritual arena? Should pay reflect the size of the church or on the work being done in the community? What other ways are there to remunerate our Christian Leaders? To be honest I try to avoid these sorts of conversations because money like many things is a very emotive issue. However, let me try and dangle my toe into the water of financial reward within church organisations. I hope that I won't get too ravaged by the sharks that patrol the sacred aisles of our most holy places. When it comes to reward, we seem to have no problem with the vast sums of money that celebrities make. Nor for that matter do we appear to have a problem with annual salaries of footballers (soccer players). Some young new players can make up to £5 plus million a year or £10 thousand a week. The top players can make £400 tho...

I hope this weeks rumination communicates well! I have written on a number of occasions on this question and it still amazes me how many Christian leaders consider themselves to be great communicators, I count myself among the great. However in reality, this is not always the case. Just because a Christian Leader may be a fantastic preacher, who can hold congregations hanging on every word, does not mean that in everyday life that Christian leader communicates well. It is this 'split personality', as it were, that I want to deal with. Preaching is one thing, life in a church organisation is very much another. Communication flows out of who we are, that EQ thing I am always talking about. Very often Preachers are well trained orators but in real life they have difficulty in expressing what they want and how they see their vision being implemented and worked out. In the 21st century, communication has been limited for the most part by social media and various...

The rumination of the week. This question was put to me a few weeks ago by a friend and clinical psychologist. I profess no expertise in this area and have left it till now to blog and ruminate on it. The immediate thing that comes to my mind, when someone mentions psychopath, is serial killer! All the bad, amoral and violent sins rolled into one individual. However there is a body of academics that feel, that this neurological condition can result in there being good psychopaths walking among us. This neurological condition affects 1% of the adult male population. A survey conducted by Forbes listed the top ten professions that you will more likely than not find psychopaths. Number 1 was CEO's (who wants to build a tower.) 2, Lawyers (no surprise there and many go into politics which also explains it) 3, Media TV/Radio personalities. 4, Salespeople (Those dreaded double glazing and solar heating people that hunt down and prey on old age pensioners.) 5,Surgeons (Thi...

IQ, EQ or PQ. Late last year I had the privilege of lecturing on Emotional intelligence to a group of highly gifted students, in Malaysia, many of them far more clever than I. Over the week it became apparent that one of the students just wasn't getting it.   When interacting with him, he confided in me that he just didn't understand how EQ was going to help him with his particular ministry, dealing with a number of young pastors. "I just don't know how EQ will help me with this" He kept telling me. My telling him to look to his own character, nature, life experience and how he deals with others for the answer just wasn't good enough. I realised that what this man wanted was a scientific formula or process that would help him sort his problem out. The man was a professional having been university trained. Systems, projects, structures and highly complex issues were no problem to him, he was a highly intelligent person. IQ wasn't the issue. His i...