Welcome to another new venture!

I have been called many things over the years that I have served in the church, however I have realised that when all is said and done, I am a leader! In the light of that and with the encouragement of a number of friends and colleagues, I decided to launch this separate Leadership blog. The King’s blog is where I can give the church access to my world. My plan is that the Leadership blog will be a place where I can make available some of the leadership lessons and insights that I have learned and am learning, with the aim of encouraging many to lead well!

Following a short but successful time of leadership in business I have now been involved in full time Christian leadership for 18 years, leading Kings church for the last 13 years. During that time the church Sunday attendance has grown from 200 to what is now regularly over 1000.

How to accommodate a growing congregation on a site that cannot be extended, either in its footprint or height, has been one of the major current issues for us at King’s Church. This blog will start a short series dealing with how we have dealt with this issue.

The Move to Multiple Meetings – Part 1

Just to give you a historical context, following the extension of our building in September 04 (which seats around 500) we grew rapidly so that we had to launch a second morning meeting a year later in September 05. Three years later, growth has continued so we needed to establish a third meeting (early Sunday evening) which happened in September 08. Steve Nicholson, a friend from the Vineyard movement, has been a valuable help in this – Steve is based in Chicago and much of what follows is drawn from his experience.

I have drawn together some key principles that have helped us make decisions and establish multiple meetings with at least a measure of success:

Guiding principle 1: It’s highly ideal that you do this in a context of some momentum and growth. If your church has not grown for the last ten years, it is unlikely that dividing what you already have into two will help you! Going to a second meeting should not be a decision taken lightly – for us it was as important a strategic directional call as our £2 million building project a number of years before.

Guiding principle 2: You do want to do it with a sense of God speaking so that you can move ahead with a sense of faith and anticipation that God will help you with the challenges that lie ahead.

Guiding principle 3: The move to multiple meetings reflects the missional motivation which is at the heart of the church’s life. Making room for more people to hear the gospel is what it’s about!