Restoring Kingdom Builders

There’s an old joke about a pastor who proposed a change to the governing board.  The board immediately rejected his idea, but it was part of the pastor’s strategy.  The pastor waited six months, a board member made the same proposal, the pastor vehemently opposed it, and the board immediately adopted it!

Facilitating change in a home, company, or church can drive anyone nuts.

Let’s imagine that you’re weary of the way your family members remove and drop their clothes anywhere in the house.  You want everyone to place their clothes in a hamper so they’re centralized when it’s time to do the laundry.

How would you institute that change in your house?  Here are four ideas:

First, model the change you want to see.  No matter what, you need to place your clothes in that hamper every single day.  If you mess up even once, your family will use your failure as an excuse to do the same.

Be an example, not an exception.

The same idea applies in a church.  If a pastor teaches that husbands should love their wives, he better treat his well – both in private and in public.  If he preaches tithing, he better deposit 10% of his income in the offering every Sunday.

Second, ask key players for their input.  In your family, you could call a meeting, describe the clothes problem, and ask everyone for their ideas.  While this may seem unnecessary, there’s great value in this approach.

The meeting highlights the problem, invites family members to see the issue from another perspective, and tells them that you value them enough to solicit their opinions – some of which might be superior to yours.

In the same way, when a pastor wants to make a major change, he needs to identify the opinion makers and solicit their honest input about the issue.  Leaders ask others what they think and genuinely listen to their ideas.  Dictators don’t care what others think and impose their own goals – and will – on people.

The larger the change, the more input a pastor needs to seek.  And he needs to hear from critics, too, because sometimes they see issues more clearly than the leader.

Third, explain the change over and over.  If you’re in charge of the CHP (Clothes Hamper Project), tell your family what you want them to do (put their dirties in the hamper daily), why you want them to do it (to keep their rooms clean), and what the benefits will be (a cleaner home, a happier parent, a ready wardrobe).

You can’t assume everyone will remember.  While you want to avoid nagging, you do want to remind and affirm them often.

21 years ago, I was the pastor of a church in Silicon Valley.  After much prayer, research, and board input, I recommended to our church family that we sell our property (we lacked a worship center) and use the proceeds to launch a new church in the light industrial area of our city.

I initially thought that I only had to explain the change once in a public meeting, but some were so taken aback by my proposal that they completely misunderstood it.  And those who weren’t present for our initial presentation were totally confused, especially when they heard faulty information from others.

It took me and the board a long time to put our plans together – and then we sprung it on the congregation.  So I needed to give people plenty of time to understand the proposal, challenge me, ask questions, rant and rave – whatever they needed to do.

For that reason, I went into “sales mode” and communicated the proposal in a variety of ways: through messages, newsletter articles, public meetings, private conversations, group meetings, and so on.  Since some people had misconceptions about the project, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, we had “a lot of ‘splainin to do.”

And it was a lot more than I envisioned we’d need – but it was the only way to keep everyone together.

Overcommunicating the proposal was boring for me but enlightening for everyone else.  Every time I publicly explained what we were doing and why, I gained a few more supporters – and they were able to correct the critics.

The greater the change in a church, the more ‘splainin the pastor and leaders need to do.

Finally, permit individuals to choose their responses.  With the CHP, there will be times when family members slip up.  Don’t yell at them or nag them or shame them.  Let them make their own choices about cooperation.

I used to tell my son, “If your room is clean by 5:00 this afternoon, you can go out with us to eat.  If it’s not clean, you can stay home.  It’s your choice.”  While I wanted him to come with us, I wasn’t going to force him to do anything.  He was old enough to make his own decisions.  (And most of the time, his room was clean by 5:00.)

The wise pastor will use a similar approach: “Here is the change we plan to make.  I hope that all of you will come along with us.  However, you have the freedom to choose your response.  You can join us or stay home.  We will respect whatever decision you make.”

That’s far better than to tell people that if they don’t comply, they’re sinners who are out of the will of God and fostering division in the church.

Over the years, I discovered that whenever I became impatient about instituting a change, some people overreacted and either attacked me or left the church angrily.  But when I took my time, gathered feedback, calmly answered people’s questions, and let each person decide what they were going to do – the church stayed united.

On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus reported to His Father, “I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me” (John 17:12).

The challenge for every shepherd is to keep the sheep God has given him while seeking to reach lost sheep – but he must reach the lost through the found, so it’s critical that he has their support first.

While our theology as Christians must never change, our methodologies must always change.

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How well do you adjust to change?

If you’re like most people – not too well.

Many years ago, our family lived in a comfortable middle-class neighborhood in Santa Clara, California.  Just down the street from us was a shopping center including a grocery store, a drug store, a Chevron gas station, a store that sold tropical fish, and a baseball card store.  (Yes, I was there all the time.)  Kids walked or rode their bikes there.  Families went there to eat.  And the center wasn’t located on a busy street, but was right in the middle of our residential area.

Our Old Neighborhood in Santa Clara, CA

Like most area residents, our family felt proud that we had our own private place to shop.

But then the owner of the center sold it to a developer, who began to raise lease rates so high that business owners began departing one by one.

After everyone eventually left, bulldozers came and destroyed our beloved Village Green Shopping Center – and there wasn’t anything any of us could do about it.  The developer constructed three-story townhomes on that property, and they remain there to this day.

I didn’t like that change one bit, and it happened at a time when I was making changes in the church I served as pastor.  The way I felt about the shopping center enabled me to better understand how some people felt about changes at church.

If you’re in a church that is making changes – and some of them make you feel uneasy – you are in good company!  Let me share four quick truisms about change in churches:

First, change is inevitable.  I initially resisted Facebook, but now I visit my site several times a day.  I loved video cassettes for years, but just threw several boxes of them in the trash.  E-books?  Love my Kindle.  Smart phone?  Just got a Droid 3.  iPod?  Greatest invention in history.

I even opened a Twitter account several weeks ago because of the importance of social media in ministry marketing.

My point: Christians can identify specific cultural shifts and use them to our advantage or we can drag our feet and appear culturally irrelevant.  Sometimes it’s better to get out ahead of the curve.

Second, change is painful.  Change can make us feel anxious, uncomfortable, and even stupid.  Think about how you felt when you first started learning how to use a computer.  I messed up so many times.  “What do I do when my computer freezes?  How do I get out of this program?  Where’s my typewriter?”

My wife and I have lived in four different places within the past two years.  We’ve had to pay for moving vehicles and packing materials.  We’ve needed to ask friends and family for assistance in carrying our belongings.  And my lower back has taken a beating.  The next time we move, there will be more discomfort – but pain is the price we pay for change.

And yet after a while, when things settle down, we forget about our initial pain.  I’ve been hauling around three computers with me for a long time.  Last Saturday, I recycled them – and watched as those hard drives were inserted into a machine and mashed.  It was difficult giving them up – but today, I don’t miss them at all.

Third, change is positive.  Thirteen years ago, I announced my resignation as pastor to a congregation I dearly loved.  Because many people didn’t see my departure coming, I was concerned how it would be received.  One wise woman, who was also an attorney, told me, “Change is good.”

I never forgot her words.

Change is good.  Most of the major milestones in our spiritual lives occur because of change.  We can wait until we’re ready to change internally – something most of us aren’t good at – or God can force us to change through the use of external circumstances.

The same is true of churches.  They tend to drift unless they are forced to change.  And if they resist, they can die a slow death.

Eleven years ago, my wife and I visited a church near the top of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland.  The songs were from the Psalter and sung accapella.  While the pastor’s message was biblical, he didn’t use any illustrations or make any applications.  The pews were HARD, the lighting was abysmal – and there were less than 35 people in attendance.  Some of the other area churches had already closed their doors, and I was concerned for this church’s survival because it wasn’t making the necessary changes to stay relevant.  (However, it’s still there!)

Church on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland

Churches can survive without making important changes, but they cannot thrive.  If a church is going to reach its community for Christ, it must embody corporate change before calling people to personal conversion, the greatest change of all.

Finally, change is biblical.  Eve was certainly a change for Adam.  The flood was an unprecedented change for Noah.  God called Abraham to move to a new location he knew nothing about.  Bethel marked a change for Jacob.  A pit, a prison, and a prime minister’s role were all changes for Joseph.  Egypt was a change for Moses.

The prophets called God’s people to change.  The best Jewish kings (like Hezekiah) instituted major changes in their kingdoms.  But Jonah ran because he didn’t want to see Gentiles change toward Yahweh.

Jesus brought all kinds of changes to Judaism, didn’t He?  And His apostles changed the world.

Thelogical liberals have tried to change the Christian message while keeping their methods largely static.  But evangelicals have guarded the gospel message while constantly changing their methods.

Which is the more biblical approach?

I think most Christians accept the fact that our churches need to keep changing methodologically.  But we struggle most with how change is instituted.

That will be my topic next time.

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