King's Daughters

In my previous post I mentioned my many mistakes and regrets! There are too many to write about but I will do my best to highlight a few as accurately as possible. Even though I know God has forgiven me and hopefully the people involved have too, I cannot fully forgive myself even though I know I should. I want to keep the sting real so that I never make the same mistakes again. It's not that I want to punish myself and I have tried my best to forgive myself, it's just that I don't ever want to hurt people again. Although church life had become difficult there was still much joy in the journey. We launched King's Daughters in 2009 and recorded our very first album, King's Square , with our original songs in 2010. We had so much fun both with King's Daughters and making music together as a church. Things seemed to be going well even though they were a little tougher than at first. My first big mistake was based purely on my own insecurity and it shouldn't su

If I could go back I would do just about everything differently! I am ashamed to admit how many mistakes I made in those early years of our church. Shame sometimes consumes me when I realise how me people I hurt simply because I was an immature and insecure leader. It breaks my hurt that I am the cause of some people's church hurts story. If I could go back I would take better care of your hearts, I am so sorry. Why did God even allow me to minister when I was clearly not grown up enough? With all my heart I only meant good, I only wanted to build a beautiful church and help many find and know Jesus. How did I go from such good intentions to such a mess? My only hope is Romans 8:28 " And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. "  I pray that prayer for those who I have hurt and for myself too. Here is another extract from The Tale of a Church Planter to recount the first bit of mess in o

King's Church was official born on 7th September 2008 under the watchful eye of our senior pastors. Leading a church was interesting. Mostly good at first, in fact I very clearly remember waking up each morning feeling on top of the world, wondering how life had become so good. Yes there were challenges but the joys of leading and building a church far outweighed the difficult spots. Eric and I were blissfully happy and so were our children. Everyone was flourishing and thriving. Our church was growing steadily, young people were growing in their faith and our lovely street people were getting to know Jesus too. Church didn't hurt - it was just as church should be, or so I thought. Looking back on those days now as I recount our story to you leaves me with a smile on my face. There really were a few years where things were truly great. You can read our full story in detail in my book, The Tale of a Church Planter . Here is a little extract with one of our many rewarding stories

Church was awesome! Our children were happy and loved it. Lorah got baptised. Daniel was born. We started leading a home group, which was awesome and meant less travelling too. One day, out of the blue, Lorah asked I we could lead a youth group like I did in South Africa. When she was little a did a lot of children and youth work and even though she was young it obviously had an impact on her. I immediately responded yes. It made sense to me and if it helped her make friends at school then why not. The Flood was born! It was a structured youth group that we help on Friday night's at our home. It started with just four girls and then they requested that the boys come along.  Gulp! I was a bit nervous to add boys to the mix but agreed and the following Friday we had twelve children (one of them named Samuel Beard.... who is now our son-in-law, but that's a whole other story). From there it grew and grew until we were averaging 25 children a week in our apartment. We enjoyed cooki

You never know who you really are until you get married! With all my heart, when I accepted Eric's proposal, I wanted to be a great wife! I didn't know that I wouldn't be and that I still had so much 'stuff' inside of me that needed working out. After all that God had done in my life, I was sure I was okay as a person and had a lot to offer my husband. Well I did offer him a lot! But not the good stuff I had hoped for. He had to put up with a lot of my crap! Sorry there is no nice way of saying it. But that is a whole other story and I am pleased to report that 12 years on I am a much better wife :) After about 7 months of marriage Eric managed to find a good job out in Cheltenham. We had never heard of this place before and it seemed a whole other world compared to London. After a visit and finding a lovely home we moved. Many of our church friends came over to our London home for a leaving party and since we were already packed up and ready to move the next day th

  On 17 September 2014 we began our happily ever after at a garden wedding in Cannizaro Park, London. It's not as grand as it sounds, we have no money at all and pulled off the most beautiful wedding very creatively. Our church friends really pulled together for us and if I had a million pounds to do it all over again I wouldn't change a thing! We did the legal side of our wedding in the registry office in the morning and then in the afternoon had the 'real' wedding in a public park. Our friends were so amazing at making our day perfect. One friend surprised us by buying and arch and decorated it with lace, she also created an aisle out of ribbing and organised our picnic as well as our pastor's picnic. I am sure she did so much more arranging and organising behind the scenes that I probably don't event know about, but that is just the type of amazing friend that she is. A lady from church who we barely knew offered to make our cake - and it wasn't any old c

As I looked up to the stage where the musicians were playing I saw this man who seemed to be surrounded my light. Inside I said, "Wow he is so beautiful!". I didn't mean it in a pretty boy way but I sensed purity and loveliness. It was quite new to me and I just knew that there was something special about him. I watched him closely as he played his guitar. Weeks passed by and God did the most amazing things in my life, He spoke so many things to me of the future and what would still happen. I no longer found myself repenting of the past and trying to make up for it but rather being completely and utterly overwhelmed by His love and filled with excitement for the future. It was incredible. At the same time I became increasingly 'aware' of the guitarist on the stage each Sunday at church. After some time I wasn't sure if I was excited to go to church to worship God or to see  him  again. It was a difficult infatuation as I desperately didn't want to be the p

It was time to move. I can't really explain why I felt this as my church had been a huge part of my healing and recovery, however, I felt that God was moving me to another church in London. Looking back now I know why but you will have to wait for this part of the story - it's really rather exciting! And so I moved on, with my pastor and home group's reluctant blessing, from one church in London to another one. Church became the highlight of my week, I counted the days until Sunday, that's how much I loved church. It was vibrant and lively, full of amazing people who were crazy about Jesus. I loved the worship, the preaching, the coffee, the home groups and got involved in as much as possible. Even though I hadn't fully walked through the consequences of the previous season I was already seeing a harvest from the new seeds I had sown. If you sow financially you will reap financially, if you sow in friendships you will reap in friendship and I had grown to love some

"see that you also excel in this grace of giving. I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love." 2 Corinthians 8:7-8 Generosity, tithing (10% of your income) and offering sermons are never popular. Could it be because we sometimes do not like when people mess with our  god , causing us to feel the need to defend it? Or perhaps we want to to be in control and do whatever we want with what does not even belong to us  in the first place?! I could be wrong but I sense that if we cannot give up everything (including control) we cannot be Jesus' disciples. Jesus never asked for 10%, or 50% or 99%. He asked for 100% . I teach my children to do two things with their money: To bring 10% of their income to the church. To put 10% towards savings. As Christians we have to be intentional towards generosity. We need to display it to our children and God's house (the church) is a great way to do this. Some people right now are teaching their children

Back to my church story and this part is a really happy part of the story :) It comes after the terrible mess I made of my life, after my first marriage failed due to my stupidity and after I moved away from Crawley London to start over with my girls. Just a quick glimpse into the low point so that you can appreciate how high the highs were. This is an extract from my very first book, Hope's Journey . "During a very dark and confusing season, when I was living a shameful lifestyle and going through a divorce, God spoke to me.   I was sitting in the hallway drinking wine and crying my heart out.  Sadness, confusion, helplessness and total aloneness was closing in on me. The razor blade was already bloody as I had attempted to hack into my wrists.  Pain consumed me as life had become completely unliveable!   Whilst I sat there crying in agonising pain, I cried out to God to help me.  I said that I didn’t want to live anymore and couldn’t see any way forward except to keep tryin

    Just came across these team training notes, and since my work involves team building and training, I thought this could be helpful. You cannot build a strong organisation without a strong team. You cannot build a strong team without building the people within the team. Sounds obvious, doesn't it? However many times we see our team as a whole module forgetting the components that make up that module. When dealing with a team I try to keep things as simple as I can. This helps towards effective communication. The chart below has helped me to quickly assess where a team member is at. You might find it overly simple. I like simple. I believe simple can help leaders to unclutter, to see clearly beyond the mess and focus on the results we look for. Every now and then via conversations I ask a team member the following: What is your main challenge at the moment?  This question helps to spot problems . What do you fell you need in order to perform better? This question helps to