A Little Closer to Home …

Leading through change may be the only real and true role of the pastoral ministry. As a pastor, I have experienced extensive schooling in the specific functions of serving as clergy in a local church. We required our clergy take classes on the particulars of pastoral care, preaching, and church administration along with the basic subjects of Bible, theology, church history, doctrine, and polity. As long as we have satisfactorily completed the classes, we are good to go. However, somewhere along the line we may have missed the point. As in all education, the focus should not be acquiring knowledge, which I admit is necessary and important, rather the point of our education is to gain proficiency in leading. Particularly true for clergy is learning to lead through times of change.

The church, our church, is in the midst of a season of profound and sweeping change. It is not the basics of our faith which are changing; but how we understand and experience our faith in worship, in disciple making, and in our mission to the world around us certainly has and is changing. We are not talking about a small stream of change that if we ignore it long enough it will slow and finally stop, as if it were a new garden hose that just needs to be tightened up a little. This is a mighty river of change that has the ability to re-arrange the landscape and make all things new. A few years ago the parsonage went on to city water. The next day the water heater decided to blow a hole in the side and flood the basement. The increased pressure, the new direction of flow, and even the difference in what the water carried with it all combined to cause the leak. We had to replace the water heater, rethink the pressure levels, and remain aware of the change taking place in the water quality. So it is with the church. Much of the knowledge and expertise from the last century just does not fit today. Like it or not, we have moved to a different water source and there will be changes.

We say we want change in the church. It is even politically correct to say we want change. However the truth is we are frightened by change. “If there must be change please wait until after I die, then you can do whatever you like,” she shared with me following her husband death. Some of this is very scary; such as the increases in health care costs and small congregations who find themselves unable to remain financially healthy. Change in the church also can mean position and power will move into other hands. You know this is no small item, which by itself it can tear a church apart. And yet change is always a part of the church, Holy Scripture is the book of change. Jesus offered in John 3.7b “(We) must be born anew.” and also in 1 Corinthians 15:51 Apostle Paul offers, “51Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed.” Change is the very fabric of the life in Christ. And yet change is hard for us all.

Is there hope for the church? Yes. Because of faithful people and faithful ideas and visions the church is in the midst of re-tooling and re-focusing. The church will continue to base it’s mission to the world on Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. We will continue to study our doctrinal heritage as a source of new directions. The church has experienced significant change in the past few years and more is on the way. I offer that as your pastor, along with a willing and able body of paid and un-paid staff, together we will encounter and engage the future so that we may lead through the changes ahead with grace and humility honoring God and bringing many others into a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. This ought to be fun!