Dealing With Constant Change

We Know We Need to Change, but We’re Tired

Change or Die

What if you were given that choice? For a moment, don’t take this lightly—let’s just say this was true. If you don’t make significant change, your time on this earth will be over. Would you change under these life-or-death conditions?  

Most of you are probably jumping at the yes, but statistically speaking, only 1 in 9 of you would be capable of making the needed changes to live. The other 90% of you would inevitably choose death. Sounds harsh right? Alan Deutschland, in his book, Change or Die: Three Keys To Change At Work and In Life, has a central thesis that is both profound and disturbing: If given a choice between life and death, most people and leaders choose death if living requires substantive change. Even with a pathway to life, the resources for life, and the choice to live, 1 out of 9 people still choose death.

Among the hundreds of thousands of patients who undergo heart bypass surgery each year, most are said to be able to make a full recovery, but 90% surveyed refused to make any change in their eating and exercise habits despite being strongly directed by their health care professionals. 90% would rather risk death than change. Many of us can change our behavior, but we rarely ever do. I wonder if you can see any parallels between these bypass patients and the Church?

Pastors are Exhausted

The idea that the Church will need to change or die isn’t often received as good news. Making substantive change requires a lot of effort, which requires a lot of energy. What happens to the possibility for change in our churches when we are exhausted? When pastors are asked what the hardest thing about the Covid pandemic was, most seem to agree that it wasn’t Covid, but rather the way the pandemic plunged us into constant adaptive change. Not only has this constant change begun to burn out leadership teams, but it also created resistance, sabotage, and division within congregations. Whole generations of younger people have disappeared, and our worship attendance is likely nowhere near where it was in March of 2020.

Roughly 7,000 churches close each year, and that number is growing quickly. That’s 20 churches closing their doors every day. Thom Rainer’s research in “Anatomy of a Revived Church,” indicates that 19% of all churches in the U.S. are deemed terminal or near terminal, and more are on their way. Thom Rainer seems to agree with Alan Deutschland that we, as churches, will need to change or die.

In our work with churches at Cyclical Full Circle, we are seeing these things play out every day. Leaders are exhausted, and many lack the energy and capacity to take on the challenge of moving forward amidst this barrage of constant change. Hope for their beloved churches is waning and many would prefer to stay the course, inevitably leading to the death of the church. One church leader we worked with in WA simply threw up his hands in exasperation and said, “We just don’t have the energy needed to deal with all this change.” At Full Circle, we want to help leaders discover hopeful pathways forward in our ever-changing world.

Wisdom Like Smoke

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…
Ecclesiastes 3:1

God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, God has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11

The book of Ecclesiastes has been called “dissenting” or “skeptical” wisdom. Weary of life’s changing circumstances, the writer went searching for wisdom, but instead finds “vanity” (the Hebrew “hevel,” meaning vapor or smoke). He seeks significance in temporary, human things; but instead, nothing worldly gives him any sense of meaning at all.

This story reminds us that there are limits to what we can know, and that humility is required to live a faithful life. Change can make even the wisest among us feel overwhelmed by the absurdity of life. But in the end, the sage realized that God had created and ordered everything; that there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. Instead of being overwhelmed by the chaotic nature of life, we should embrace it as stewards of faith, and recognize it as a season for us to pass gracefully through.

What Can We Learn?

1. Both change and God will be with us in every season.
2. Change is an opportunity to practice the presence of God by looking for God in the ordinary.
3. The variety of seasons can enrich our appreciation of the fullness of life.
4. Keep perspective that whatever season you are in, a new one is on its way.
5. Change is an opportunity to practice resilience.

As the seasons change, we in the church will need to learn to become more resilient, able to maintain core purpose and integrity in the face of rapidly changing circumstances. Church change expert, Todd Bolsinger, says, “resilience is not found, it is formed in the crucible of change” (“We Are Vineyard” Podcast, 2.23.22). Resilience through a crisis is built in finding purpose and meaning in the crisis, or in the change itself.

“Resilience is not found, it is formed in the crucible of change.”

Todd Bolsinger

There is no doubt that dealing with constant change will be hard. If you are facing the challenge of a constantly changing world, consider the following questions, designed to help you and your team deal with the crisis of constant change.

Reflection

1. My church is willing to do ___ in order to choose to live.
2. How resistant are you / your church to change? 
3. What is keeping your church from taking next faithful steps toward making needed changes?  
4. What season is your church in right now?
5. How resilient would you say your church is right now?  
6. What is most needed to build resilience in your context?