Over the Summer we have had a few guest blog posts from some of our pastors from across the sites. This is our final guest post from Hilary Dalziel who helps lead the Catford site.

Summer is the time for weddings, and this year we have had four weddings at King's despite the coronavirus restrictions. Yes, they have been very different: simple services with only thirty guests, chairs spaced out, and of course hand sanitiser at the ready. I even bought a pretty mask to match my outfit! But it has been so great to be in the building, to be part of the church community witnessing vows made in the presence of God, to hear the reading of scripture and to pray together for couples starting a life-long adventure. Those couples are just as married as any other couples who had tens of guests, a perfectly planned reception and all the other elaborate elements that usually make a wedding day.

All of us have also had to change our expectations about what the new ‘normal’ is for family celebrations, work and life during this summer! Our expectations around church have also had to change and will change again as we go into a new term. We do plan to have groups meeting in the buildings, but many will still be online. We can’t sing in church or hug yet, but we are still just as much the church as the days we sang with all our hearts and put our arms round each other and prayed together.

This September we will find a new normal as hundreds of us join groups, gathering around the word, encouraging each other and praying together. God will be there with us on zoom or in a room! We’re not just individual believers, we are his people, we are still being ‘built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.’ God still intends to display his ‘manifold wisdom’ through us, his church, whatever the circumstances – that has always been his eternal purpose. (Ephesians 2:21-22, 3:10-11)

Like the couples this summer who decided getting on with building their marriage was more important than waiting for the perfect wedding day, let’s step in and be the church - embracing the new normal, confident God is still at work building his church at Kings.

Hilary Dalziel assists in leading the Catford site and is the main driving force behind Groups at King's. She is part of the Pastoral Care Team, oversees marriage mentoring and organises much of the training of pastoral care staff and volunteers. Hilary is married to William and they have three grown-up children.

Here is a copy of the update that went out to King’s yesterday regarding Steve’s health.

Steve will now be taking a few weeks off to rest and recuperate and will not be posting any blogs during that time. However, there will be a final guest blog in the current series posted next week, so do watch out for that.


Dear friends

I am delighted to inform you that Steve is now home after five days in hospital. The pancreatitis is under control and he now needs time to rest and recharge. He is in good spirits and is very grateful for the skilful care of the NHS staff and for the prayers and love expressed by many at King's and the wider Newfrontiers family. Prayer is powerful! Can we ask you to continue to pray for a full and complete recovery for him?

We have agreed with Steve and Deb that, health permitting, he will return to work in mid-September, but we will continue to review and monitor this. Steve will probably need to undergo further tests in due course, but for now we are thankful for fantastic progress and that he is out of hospital.

Thank you so much for all your love and concern towards the Tibbert family. As we mentioned on Sunday, please do continue to pray, but also please be aware that we will need to give Steve and Deb some space during this next season. Can we ask you not to visit or phone them at this time? If you would like to send a message to Steve and Deb, you can email the church office and we will pass on your message to them.

I will continue to lead the church while Steve is recovering and will update you on any further news.

With much love,

Phil Varley
Senior Associate Pastor

An important update on how we’re responding to the issues of race and justice.

If you missed my message Racism, the Gospel and the Church, it’s available here.

During August, I have invited some guests to contribute to the blog page. This week, we hear from Andy Floyd, who leads our Lee site.

‘Do it again’ has become a familiar refrain in the Floyd household over the last few months. With four young children battling for our attention, Sarah and I have become experts at spinning, dancing, building, puzzle-making and storytelling, on repeat ad infinitum! Don’t get me wrong, there have been some delightful and precious moments among the craziness, but the overriding feeling has often been one of exhaustion. Repetition has that effect on the adult mind, but for young children there seems to be genuine zest for ‘doing it again’.

In these days of restriction we can very quickly see monotony as the enemy of a full life. We become weary of the same old routines and the same four walls. This new normal doesn’t seem like a very exciting normal. But there seems to be something in God that rejoices in the normal, repetitious, dare we say, mundane moments of life.

The well-known Christian thinker, G.K. Chesterton, put it like this:

'A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.’

It’s wonderful to think that our glorious, beautiful, loving Father delights in the repetition of what He has made. This is in no small part what Psalm 19:1-2 says:

'The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.'

In the day-to-day experience of everyday life, boredom / weariness / exhaustion / loneliness (delete as appropriate) need not be inevitable. Every day we can choose thankfulness and childlike wonder and a faith-filled outlook, as we live our lives exulting in monotony rather than wishing this season would come to an end.

Let’s delight in God today and find such fullness of life in Him that, like my kids, we find ourselves declaring, “Do it again!”


Andy Floyd is a pastor at King's and leads the Lee site.  He is married to Sarah and they have four young children.