How to change a church
The preacher stepped to the pulpit with dignity and passion. He
was articulate. He was persuasive. He was enthusiastic. He was here
candidating to be the new pastor of Old First Church. He was really
giving it his best shot.
At one point, he got particularly fired up. He raised his voice.
He raised both hands high in the air, letting his gestures punctuate
his point. "If called, I will lead this church into the twentieth
century!"
A hush fell over the crowd. Everyone was a little embarrassed for
him in making this gaff at such a crucial point in his message. They
were all cheering for him to do his best and cringed at this
mistake. None were more embarrassed than the would-be pastor's
wife. In fact, she couldn't contain her embarrassment and spoke
softy to her husband. Yet, most everyone could hear. "Psst! Honey,
you mean, 'Twenty-first century.' You said 'twentieth century.'"
"We are going to take this one century at a time!" was his quick
reply.
The story illustrates a basic principle of change. Many church
leaders want to change their church, and are deeply convicted that
their church needs to change, but they don't know how to change.
This story illustrates a one word principle that has two
applications. If you want to change your church, do so
slowly.
The two applications of this one word principle work like this:
- Don't try to change your church too fast. People will rebel,
get mad, and reject the change.
- Don't ever quit trying to change your church. Keep changing
your church--gradually, continually, forever.
The point is not a contemporary church.
The point is not to change the church into a contemporary church,
or into any particular kind of church. It is not to change the
church from this to that. It is that the church is alive and that
living things grow, and living things change. Growing relationships
change. It is not about moving to some ideal style. It is just that
the nature of life demands that we change.
As obvious as the point is, I am always surprised how often this
principle is violated. I am so often in churches that have not
changed at all in at least thirty years. They feel like the church
that I attended when I was in high school which, at the time, felt
old fashioned to me. It felt old fashioned thirty years ago, and so
many churches feel just like that. They have not changed at all in
thirty years, maybe more--maybe much more.
Living things change. Juan Carlos Ortiz illustrates this point
with an imaginary story. "Imagine," he says, "I go to
my wife and say
to her after thirty years of marriage what I said to her before our
first date, 'Sister Mary, I don't know if you have noticed or not,
but I feel differently about you than the other girls in the youth
group. Do you think I could take you to dinner some time?'"
This is a very normal and appropriate thing for a seventeen year
old boy to say to a seventeen year old girl before their first date.
But, if he is still talking to her in this stilted way after thirty
years of marriage, something is dreadfully wrong. Growth demands
change. Relationships change. Living things change.
Don't change too fast
One of the reasons why churches don't change is because they
tried change and it didn't go well. So, they quit changing. They
didn't slow down the rate of change. They quit changing altogether.
Mark Twain tells a charming story about this. "If a cat sits on a
hot stove, you can be sure of one thing. It will never sit on a hot
stove again. In fact, it may not sit on any stove ever again." The
paraphrase of that for church life works like this. "If a pastor
ever tries to change his church, you can be sure of one thing, he
will never try that change again. In fact, he may not try any
change again.
We change too fast--or try to--it doesn't work, so we quit
changing altogether.
Don't try to change too fast. The key word on how to change a
church is slowly.
By the way, how many Baptists does it take to change a light
bulb?
Five. One to actually change the light bulb, and four to
reminisce about how great the old light bulb was.
The other answer works like this: CHANGE? Who said something
about change?
Don't ever stop changing
This principle of constant, incremental, ongoing and forever
change is not only my opinion, it is also the opinion of smart
people.
Jim Collins has a whole chapter on this in the excellent book,
Good to Great.
He asks the reader to imagine an enormous flywheel--a great rock
on a huge, wooden rod. A large work force pushes against the rock
for a whole shift and, owing to the enormous mass of the rock, are
only able to move it one foot. The next crew comes in, and, building
on the work of the first crew, they move the rock two feet. After a
few days, each crew is moving the rock a quarter of a turn, then
half a turn, then a full revolution in one shift, then a full
revolution per hour and so forth. Each shift builds on the momentum
of the last and is able to push the rock faster and faster and
faster until finally it is whirling so that a whole shift could miss
a turn and its momentum would still have it spinning like a top.
The whirling flywheel is a picture of success. It pictures all
the effort necessary to create success, and it pictures the idea
that once some success is created, success tends to breed success.
Now, imagine someone sees this whirling fly-wheel and says, "Which
push was the key push that created this success? Which was the key
push?"
The question itself makes the point and needs no answer. There is
no one thing that creates success for a business, for an individual
or for a church. It is the successive effort of thousands and
thousands of pushes--those thousands of efforts to change that wheel
just a bit that creates the enormous, unstoppable, whirling
momentum.
It is so easy to look at a church like Willowcreek or Saddleback
or Northpoint or Fellowship or Lakewood and ask the wrong question:
"What is the key? What was the change that created all this? What
was the push that made it possible?
There was no one push. Thousands and thousands of individual,
heroic efforts by ordinary people over a long period of time made it
possible.
Gradual, slight, incremental change, if consistently delivered,
can result in monumental change over a period of time.
Three inches a week
A pastor was fired once for moving the pulpit from the side of
the stage, as it is in some churches, to the center of the stage. He
moved the pulpit and the church promptly fired him.
About a year later, he visited the church. To his shock, the
pulpit was resting in the middle of the stage--the very place where
he had tried to move the pulpit, only to be fired for doing so.
Overcome with curiosity, he waited for a private moment
afterwards and asked the pastor, "How did you get the church to go
along with moving this pulpit to the center? They fired me for
trying. How did you do it?"
"Three inches a week," the pastor replied. "They never noticed."
Want to know how to change your church? Three inches a week. As
easy as that sounds, don't miss the point. You have to change every
week. I am in churches quite regularly that have not changed three
inches in thirty years.
Gradual, incremental, forever change is the sign of life. How do
you change your church?
Slowly.
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