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Click here to link to the KC website. .jpg)
St. Thomas’ Philadelphia and the King’s Centre have now joined together to become one church, working out of two main sites.
Read what this means and how it might look.
About the King's Centre
The King’s Centre (affectionately known as KC) is an independent ‘house church’ community of believers. It began as a church-plant in the early 1980’s as Nether Edge House Church, and renovated an old church building as its base there for the past 19 years. Today, it is a relaxed, contemporary and friendly church which attracts people of all ages from South West Sheffield and beyond, and has weekly small groups in homes across the city.
God took the church through a season of pruning for the community, during which time Alex Absalom took on leadership and with the lay leaders steered the church to create stronger foundations. KC realised that it would benefit from the accountability and support of being aligned with other bodies/denominations, and God led them into a relationship with St Thomas’ during Mike Breen’s time as leader. The two churches quickly realised that they shared similar styles, values and.jpg)
a city-wide evangelistic calling, and the relationship turned into an ‘engagement’ which in due course is now becoming a 'marriage'.
Today you’ll find a community becoming increasingly OUTward focused, with a vibrant and growing ministry to children, families and youth, as well as plenty of established members. With a worship and service style that is relaxed and friendly, the church knows a lot about how to be community and loves a good knees-up. We’re learning and sharing lots from our relationship with St Toms, and we are genuinely excited about what God has for us all through the act of joining the two churches. We believe that together we can do more to extend the Kingdom of God than we can apart.
How does the relationship work at present?
Over the past 2 years both churches have worked to align their vision and leadership teams together. This means that Nick & Marjorie Allan who lead KC are also on the staff team of St Thomas’ Philadelphia, and all staff and ministry leaders of both churches now work closely together. You will see different staff leaders preaching at both churches too.
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Our congregations are encouraged to mix as much as possible, to share in worship, fellowship and ministry (UP, IN, OUT). We’ve enjoyed shared services, half-nights of prayer and worship, shared training events like ministry-team training, and social events like watching the World Cup!
It is a process of getting to know each other and developing our thinking and actions to operate as one church rather than two.
What is the future plan?
After a season of consultation between the churches, we are nearing the time when we technically/legally join together – to become one new church. We have written-up our agreement for the basis of the new church, ranging from key practical points to structures and vision and values. These documents were shared publicly in the summer of 2006, and the final versions will again be shared (and approval sought from the St Toms council) in late 2006/early 2007.
Alongside this, we’ve taken the opportunity to update the legal identity of the new church (to become a charitable company) and the internal governance and accountability bodies – so as to best serve the future growth and leadership of the church.
Soon the two churches will cease to be! They will instead form one new church body – a joint Anglican/Baptist/House church… perhaps the first of its kind! We believe that this is a significant move of God – a prophetic statement of unity amongst churches united around a kingdom vision and a call to our wider city.