16Aug 2017 by Nigel Ring

Happy 40th Birthday TKC

Church Planting, Kenya, Newfrontiers, News, Terry Virgo
Terry Virgo's first church plant On August 21st 1977 sixty-five of us met in the Bar Lounge of Clair Hall, Haywards Heath, at the launch meeting of the Mid Sussex Christian Fellowship, the first church that Terry Virgo planted. House groups had been meeting in five locations around Sussex for the previous few years. These started in Janita’s and my home in Scaynes Hill in May 1973 (photo). Others soon followed in David and Margaret Coak’s home in Balcombe, John and Joan Salmon’s in Uckfield, Ken and Audrey Dalgleish’s in Burgess Hill and Phil and Agnes Ball’s in Henfield. (Sadly John died recently, Joan having died several years ago.) So, in a few days the re-named Kings Church (Mid-Sussex) – there have been several other names en route - celebrates its 40th birthday.…
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02Aug 2017 by Nigel Ring

Coffee Cups to help Burundi

Burundi, Poor
Please take action! To help families in Burundi, one of the poorest nations in the world, just click on this link and scroll down until you find this cup. Then click on it. If you are in the USA you can also make a purchase. It is hoped that they will become available in UK shortly. Here is the story. Milk for transformation I have written previously about the initiative to help transform Burundi through milk and here is a video. By providing rural families with high milk-yielding cows they can generate a steady income.  This helps them in various ways, such as getting children into school rather than following the traditional long horned cows into the hills, as well as the obvious nutritional benefits. So far 400 families have been helped. One Grow…
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26Jul 2017 by Nigel Ring

Management of Change pt 9 – Leading Change and Transformation

Administration in the Church, Administrative Skills, Equipping, Management of Change
Writing as a guest author, Gary Borland concludes his series on Management of Change. He is happy to enter into communication with readers. Contact him by clicking on his name, above. In order to maximise the opportunities to unlock an organisational vision, it is essential to have a demonstrable and commonly understood way in which those in the church or ministry work together to deliver it. Strategy (the ‘how’) is the way in which this is done to maximise and optimise resources and to create clear line of sight for everyone in the organisation to align their contribution to in support of unlocking the vision and delivering the mission. A poor or absent strategy is seen in a lack of motivation to participate or contribute, disjointed activities delivered to varying…
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19Jul 2017 by Nigel Ring

Management of Change pt 8 – Never Let Up and Incorporate Into The Culture

Administration in the Church, Administrative Skills, Equipping, Management of Change
In the penultimate blog in this series guest writer Gary Borland touches on the final steps of ‘Kotter’s 8 Step Process for Leading Change’. The Strategic Planning Process and supporting plans should by now be ready to deliver and/or delivering a considerable amount of what the overall programme sought to achieve. Maintaining focus and momentum is vital; programmes become highly susceptible to reversing out the benefits if either is lost. Let’s look at the final 2 steps in ‘Implementing & Sustaining Change’. Step 7 – Never Let Up The challenge of maintaining focus and momentum can vary at different times of a change or transformation programme, but it’s important to realise that one of the most dangerous times is after considerable progress has already been made. Once we have in place a…
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11Jul 2017 by Nigel Ring

Management of Change pt 7 – Empowerment and Short-Term Wins

Administration in the Church, Administrative Skills, Equipping, Management of Change
My guest contributor, Gary Borland, continues his series on Management of Change. He is happy to receive enquiries. Last week, we continued our overview of ‘Kotter’s 8 Step Process for Leading Change’ as an overlay to a Strategic Planning Process. Concurrent and parallel activity is commonplace in major change or transformation programmes. In this blog, we will look at the next 2 steps step in ‘Engaging & Enabling The Whole Organisation’ which Kotter describes as: Step 5: ‘Empower Broad-Based Action’ Step 6: ‘Generate Short-Term Wins’ Step 5 – ‘Empower Broad-Based Action’ Embrace challenge The number of obstacles in the way of change are often seen only when you start asking people - and the best people to ask are not the leaders themselves! Leaders like to believe that they empower…
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04Jul 2017 by Nigel Ring

Management of Change pt 6 – Communicate the Vision

Administration in the Church, Administrative Skills, Equipping, Management of Change
Last week, we continued our overview of ‘Kotter’s 8 Step Process for Leading Change’. As an overlay to a Strategic Planning Process, these steps can be highly effective, and can take place concurrently, depending on the nature of the programme. We are now moving onto the first step in ‘Engaging and Enabling The Whole Organisation’ which Kotter describes as: Step 4 – ‘Communicate The Vision for Buy-In’ Irrespective of who defined the change vision the need to communicate it is a critical next step in engaging and enrolling people at all levels and in all areas across the organisation. Unfortunately, many leaders outsource communications to the ‘comms person’ or ‘comms team’ and then wonder why people ‘don’t get it’. Ownership of the communication process by the leaders is vital. Devote…
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