Tim King Leadership

I saw these stats on line and thought them interesting. In the West, this is the season for consumers and is the season to spend huge amounts of money on food and drink, on Christmas presents and puppies that may be abandoned after the festive season is over. My grandchildren get more fun out of the boxes and wrapping paper than they do with the contents. What is interesting though is that much of the earth’s Christian population; do not celebrate with the West in the obsession with consumerism. For them the celebration is not about feasting or buying huge amounts of Alcohol. Nor is it about presents and gifts or family stress and arguments. To them it is all about Jesus and what God has done for humankind. Take a step back this Christmas and focus on the real reason for this celebration. In the year ahead let us forget the stress that comes from life and reignite the passion many once had for that little baby born in a stable and placed in a manger. Jesus, Saviour of the...

Are old people irrelevant in today’s church? This question was posed to me in a Christian youth forum that I had been invited to attend. Part of my answer was to say that I believed that old people in the church were no more relevant or irrelevant than they are in secular society. However, in many western societies old people were seen as non-entities or rather as an unseen sector of the community. When challenged to explain I put it this way; The world is getting faster, faster broadband, new faster technology that is unintelligible to older people. The world of older people is a lot slower they are about face to face encounters with friend and people, they don’t like talking to a faceless corporation and when they do talk to a human that human lives in India or the Philippians. Today it’s about being part of a global citizenship rather than a vital and productive part of a village community. Older people are being bombarded by new political and social movements. They are be...

Ramblings from my addled brain.   “Is it my imagination or has there been a sudden spike in Christian Leaders suffering from some sort of Mental Illness?” This question was put to me by a friend, the pastor of a fairly large church here in the UK. He explained that two of his team had taken time off, for stress leave, on the advice of their doctor. One of these men had admitted to my friend, that he had been prescribed anti-depressants. My response to my friend was to tell his people to man-up! A quick Internet search revealed that the last 10 to 15 years has seen a dramatic increase in mental illness across all sectors of society. The national average for the UK is 1 in 4 people suffer from some sort of mental illness. That is 16 million people. The same average affects Christian Leaders. More Christian leaders are reporting symptoms of mental Illness than ever before; Anxiety, depression, eating disorders, social anxiety and PTSD. In 2018 there was 71 million medical pr...

Part Two Further to my last blog post and carrying on with the idea of Christians in politics, I must add that I firmly believe that it is right for young Christian leaders to start to get involved in politics. But politics starts at the grass roots level, in the community. It is there that any young Christian Leader who is shepherding a church congregation must start.   If they are interested in knowing what is going on in the local community then it is at local level that the politics start. Many Ideas come from grass root local community groups. These are past upwards to people on parish, town or city councils, they are debated, appraised and in some cases legislated. For the young Christian Leader it is these ideas that they will have more hope of influencing, if they are involved. Not long ago I was working with a local charity that was primarily concerned with looking after the mental wellbeing of young people, especially young women. During one staff room strategy ...

Part one. I love talking politics, I am not sure I am very good at it. I don’t have the analytical mind or ego that seems to go with being in politics. I also come from a denominational background that discouraged any involvement in politics or political debate. But that was a different time and a different place. The world of the young Christian leader has changed out of all recognition to my day. The challenges they face are very different. The voice of Christian reason and values, its morals and ethics have in many places become a whisper. The left wing secularists and the media openly discourage Christians from expressing their views, as being out of step with modern society. I think that Christians in Europe are more reluctant to engage in politics than our cousins across the pond. While we aspire to uphold freedom of speech, we do so very quietly, a whimper almost. In the United States freedom of speech is ingrained in the culture and in their founding documents, Ameri...

"There is too much month left at the end of my pay packet." Pastors pay and salaries has always been an emotive issue. In the past, this most contentious of subjects has pitted congregations and church boards against clergy and preachers. The war cry was “God you keep him humble and we will keep him poor.” Last week, when talking to a group of young pastors this question of salary and pay came up. Questions such as How much am I worth? Is it right for me to ask for a pay increase? Firstly, let me say that for many, times have changed. The average pay for pastors in the UK is £25000 per annum and in the USA the average is about $46000. Secondly, let us also remember that when looking at the issue of payment, church boards have to remember that the pastor or church leader sends his children to the same schools, his wife shops at the same shops and goes to the same doctors as the rest of us. There is always a cost to that, and pastor’s fork out the same amount of mon...

Command and Control management is all about establishing and maintaining power and control over people. On the surface it’s a great management tool and principle. But that is all. What we have to remember is it is a secular management process, the question we have to ask ourselves is does it work for congregations? Churches and the needs of congregations are a lot more complex than what they were 20 or even 50 years ago. Most Christian Leaders will tell me that their leadership style is one of developing, empowering and inspiring people into leadership. "Do as I do follow me just like Jesus asked us to follow him!"However while this is true in part I often find that the unspoken tag line is one "I do all this as long as people do as they are told and adhere to our churches cultural expectations". Let me give you an example; a member of a worship team who was and is very faithful and conscientious was late for a worship team practice before a Sunday night meet...