Last September (‘08) I spoke to some local leaders on 2 Corinthians 4 ‘We do not lose heart…’ and about leading in a time of crisis. These words turned out to be prophetic in nature! That week went like this:
Monday – day off!
Tuesday – all fine on the western front!
Wednesday – I meet with a local leader who is emotionally unwell following the death of his father.
Thursday – while I’m speaking at London Leaders we get a message that the wife of one of our Trustees - a valued member of our worship team - has collapsed at the Grand Canyon while on holiday in the US. By 6pm that day it is confirmed that she had died. Sue was in her 40s.
Sunday – I announce this tragic news to the church at our Vision Sunday, where I also cast the vision for the coming year and launch not only our week of mission but our third meeting.
These two events (Sue’s death and launch of the third meeting) shaped the year.
Romans 12:15 says, ‘rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.’ That’s what we were doing and this verse described that time.
Following on from this, within a few weeks we were discussing the possibility of Owen Hylton leaving us to lead Beacon Church – which was great for Beacon but at a cost to King’s! Owen started there in January 09 taking a small team – 10 of our members went with him at that stage (more have gone since!).
The impact of this on Kings meant that we had to totally re-engineer our staff team. We needed to strengthen our eldership at this point and look at the issue of diversity within our leadership. We are still working through this process. One of the recent developments in staffing has been that Malcolm Kyte (presently at Wimbledon) will be joining the team here at King’s to provide additional pastoral support in our growing church. His experience will be invaluable – we look forward to his arrival next spring!
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