Why we have a 'Vision Sunday'

After a few weeks out of the office during August it has been great to get back into The King's Centre and start preparations for the term ahead.  Kieran Dunne has joined the staff team this week and I am so excited by the contribution he will make to the leadership team.

VISION SUNDAY

This coming Sunday (9 Sept) at The King's Church Mid-Sussex is what we call Vision Sunday. We have Sundays like this once or twice a year at particularly strategic or significant moments.

Bill Hybels, leader of the Willow Creek Church and Association has written some excellent leadership materials over the years but one of the most helpful things I have learnt from reading his books is about vision and about the importance of regularly casting vision.  We all know that life is busy;  work, family, travel, illness and disappointment all take their toll and it can be easy to lose sight of why we do what we do.


So, this Sunday, as we begin this new term in a new building with a new team, I will be reminding us of what our vision is. To raise our eyes again to what God has called us to as a church. I want to encourage you to be there as we consider all the Kingdom opportunities we have over the coming months and years.

 

PRAYER WEEK

This will then lead us into our week of prayer which we have at the beginning of each term. We will start on Sunday night at 6.30pm. We have decided to run the prayer night in the main audtorium at The King's Centre. We are going to create some space physically and create some space in terms of time to simply worship and enjoy God. Before we bring our long list of prayer requests to him we want to create some space for him to talk to us. I am particularly excited about praying in the main venue and again would love to encourage you to be there.  There is nothing greater or more important that we can do as a church than create time and space to hear from our Father God.

We are on a big adventure together. I look forward to seeing you this weekend.

The King's Centre Launch

We have now had three Sunday meetings at The King's Centre.  Each week we are learning how best to use the space and make our gatherings as good as they can be. We have had an acoustic engineer in this week advising us on how we can improve the sound quality in both the auditorium and cafe area. We hope to begin to implement some of his recommendations over the next few weeks. 

We deliberately wanted to learn these lessons over the summer before we officially launch The King's Centre in September.

On September 14th we are hosting a champagne reception for local dignitaries and the business community. Nicholas Soames MP will be with us to 'cut the ribbon' and say a few words. Then on on Sunday 16th September we have...

Terry Virgo at TKC

Terry has been instrumental to our life as a church going back to our early days when we met in a home in Scaynes Hill in the 1970's. It is such a priviledge that he will be with us on our official launch Sunday. He will be be preaching at our 10.30am meeting and also at a 7.00pm meeting where we have invited other local churches to come and celebrate with us.

Its all about Jesus

Then on Sunday 23rd September we are going to start a new teaching series from the gospel of Mark. We are going to look at who Jesus is, what he did and what he taught. I can't wait to get into this incredible book as we focus on the person of Jesus week after week.

Its going to be an exciting month and remember.....Kieran Dunne is joining the staff team as well.

A new chapter begins

I am so encouraged.


After all the months (and years) of praying, giving and planning we have now had our first Sunday meeting in our new venue - The King's Centre, Burgess Hill.


It was such an electric atmosphere and it was so good to see the place rammed full and to hear the voices of people worshipping God. Though we knew that lots of people would be interested in seeing the new building, we did not fully expect that over 430 people would be there on our first Sunday. As I said, I am so encouraged.

It was a great privilege for me to be able to preach the first message in The King's Centre - reminding us to be more excited about the presence of God than a new building.  The picture to the right shows the view from where I was standing. It was quite an amazing moment for me.


We are on a steep learning curve in terms of running our own building. We recognise that not everything was as good as we want it to be. Please bear with us over the next few weeks, especially in the following areas:

ACOUSTICS AND SOUND

Our technical team did an outstanding job to get us up and running for Sunday morning - they had very little time and worked incredibly hard. We were aware that the auditorium would present some challenges regarding echo and reverb. However, until we were able to get 400 chairs and people in the building we could not fully analyse the sound. Please be assured we are aware that the sound is not as we want it to be. We are working hard on finding the right solutions and will be liaising with acoustic specialists, however, this will not be completely resolved immediately. Please be patient as we try to find the best short and long term solutions.

COFFEE AND REFRESHMENTS

We are aware that some people had to queue for some time to get their refreshments last Sunday. We will try different solutions each week to try and reduce the time people have to wait. We are requesting that people do keep lids on hot drinks - this is both for safety (we do not want hot drinks spilling over children) and to prevent spillages in the building.

PARKING

We were able to get many cars on to the site which was great news.  Again, we will learn over the coming weeks the best way to park the maximum number of cars. If you are arriving from the north end of the building (i.e. coming in from Royal George Road, Burgess Hill) please park in the spaces we are able to use at Sussex Central College which is right next to The King's Centre. This will help prevent log jams at the south entrance of the building.


Thank you for your patience as we work these things through. The reason we are not publicly launching the building until September is so that we have these weeks over the summer to discover the best ways of running these areas.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

This coming Sunday (15 July) is a big Sunday for us at The King's Church Mid-Sussex.We will gather for the last time in Clair Hall, Haywards Heath before we move into our new venue at The King's Centre, Burgess Hill.

It is going to be a significant morning as we have been meeting in Clair Hall for 35 years.

As I have been preparing for Sunday I have been reminded again of the men and women of faith who have gone before us and who have made it possible for us to enjoy the kind of church that we do today.

We are the fruit of what is known as the 'Charismatic Renewal'. In the 1960's and 1970's there was a new wave of Holy Spirit activity in the UK. Men and women were being baptised in the Spirit and the freedom and joy that resulted impacted normal Sunday morning meetings. Many existing church wineskins did not want to find room for this new wine and so small groups of people began gathering in one another's homes - building community, teaching grace and being open to the gifts of the Spirit for today.

We now enjoy all of these things and, to a degree, may take them for granted. However, we can only enjoy these freedoms because of the battles that the previous generation fought on our behalf.

David Coak and John Salmon, who led our church
when it began, standing outside TKC's first offices
 in Haywards Heath opposite Clair Hall

We truly are standing on the shoulders of giants.  

On Sunday 22 July we start a new chapter as a church, meeting in our new venue - The King's Centre, Burgess Hill. It is such a joy to be leading this church at this time. But I know I only get to lead us into this new chapter because of the giants that have gone before me, because of the foundations they laid and because of the values they built into us as a people.

These are exciting days, but as we look forward let us also look back and remember all those people who made these kind of days possible for us to enjoy

Unbelievable Generosity - Gift Day Feedback

Stunned.

That's how I felt last Sunday morning as our finance director (Paul Wright) gave me the scrap of paper which had written upon it the total from our recent gift days.

As I had been praying for our summer gift days I felt God say to believe him for £100,000. Obviously, this is a huge amount of money. The members at TKC have given out of their skin over the last two years as we have purchased and converted an old warehouse. So £100,000 - really? Was that possible? We are in a recession after all. It seemed like a very ambitious faith goal that God had given me.

As I looked at the piece of paper on Sunday morning I was stunned.

£91,955.99

At the time of writing we have now exceed £95,000. I am praying and believing that we will indeed pass the £100,000 target.

To be so close to £100,000 was incredible. I wanted to believe God for that figure but wondered if it was really attainable - I felt like the man in the gospels who said in Mark 9 “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

And still the gifts are coming in!

When King David took up an offering for the temple in Jerusalem he said this:

“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand." 1 Chronicles 29 v 14

I feel exactly the same. Who am I and who are we that we can give as generously as this. I am so grateful to God, so grateful to the church I am part of and, as I said, I am ...

Stunned.

The King's Centre is almost finished!

A couple of weeks ago we filmed a video which gives a sneaky tour around our new building - The King's Centre. We are only a few weeks away now from the redevelopment being finished - anyone that has driven past the building recently will know that is is changing colour rapidly! In fact, the site now looks so different to the video which was filmed so recently. However, this will give you an idea of what space we will have. Enjoy!

Another Amazing Healing: 'Since that moment, I haven’t had any difficulties walking at all'

A few days ago I posted a story about a lady in our church whose back has recently been healed in a remarkable way, this led her osteopath to say that it is in better condition now then when she started treating her a year ago.  

Here is another amazing story of God at work today from Bethan - a member of our church...

Bethan's Story

During the 16 months or so since I gave my life to God, I have received promises of healing from Him and prophetic words which have encouraged me and kept me holding on to those promises. When Julian Adams came to TKC, I arrived at the Saturday morning session on my mobility scooter with nothing more in mind than a great morning of praising God and learning. As I worshiped, I heard God ask me ‘are you ready?’ many times. I replied ‘yes’ each time without being quite sure what I was ready for! When Julian asked anyone who felt they were being moved to stand at the front and be prayed for, I went leaning on the arm of a friend. I didn’t feel any huge change over the next few minutes, but as we went to sit down again I realised that I didn’t need support any more!


For 8 years I have been living with a neurological illness. I had had diagnoses of M.E and fibromyalgia, and more recently Meniere’s. Throughout the years I have had relapses and remissions, but the relapses had been becoming more and more severe. Over the last 18 months it became obvious that the illness was no longer going into remission, and the possibility of MS was being investigated on the advice of my consultant. Although we were used to dealing with my condition as a family – indeed my 2 and 4 year old had known nothing different – I had been more and more wheelchair bound over the last year and we were really starting to wonder how much worse things were going to get.

'I am off all medication for the first time in a long time'

Since that moment, I haven’t had any difficulties walking at all. I felt that God was working on my other problems over the course of the next week or so – it didn’t happen all at once, but now (2 ½ weeks later) I am off all medication for the first time in a long time and I don’t feel that there is any of the illness left in me. We are all really enjoying life without it!


Eight years ago, my life was very much on the wrong track. I was too focused on earning more money and was living in a school where careers were far more important than relationships. I had lost the relationship with God that had been developing during my school days and, in doing so, I had lost an important part of myself. Although I know that God did not give me the illness, He used it to make many, many positive changes in my life and to bring me back to Him. I’m so much happier with the person that I am today than with who I was back then, and so grateful to our awesome God for everything He has done.



This photo was taken on the Sunday after the Julian Adams event - Bethan arrived that day on a mobility scooter, the next day she is on top of a climbing frame!