Change? Over My Dead Body

How many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb?

Change?  Who says we need to change?

Change is one of the greatest threats to our sense of preservation.  Ironically, the political ads we endured this fall were filled with demands for change.  But when we talk about change within other institutions (i.e., the Church) it is met with resistance and defensiveness.

I’m not exactly sure why the human condition is so threatened by change within the church.  Maybe it is because we hold some things to be of the Truth and so revered that anything that might challenge a practice or procedure is a challenge to the Truth.

We have to stop and excavate the situation.  What lies beneath a defensive response?  

Pastor Kathy was at a two-point congregation in South Dakota.  One congregation still had a “back altar,” an altar up against the wall of the chancel so that the pastor would have his or her back facing the congregation.  Pastor Kathy naively asked if a free-standing altar could be constructed so that she would be facing the congregation.  Emmitt became enraged at such a suggestion.  “It’s been good enough for the last hundred years, it will be good enough for another hundred.”

Wisely, Pastor Kathy visited Emmitt at his ranch and calmly spoke to him, “The discussion about the altar brought out a lot of feelings.  Tell me the story about the altar.”

Emmitt told her how his mother used to tell him about how his grandfather worked side by side the craftsman who designed, carved and turned the intricacies of the altar.  Sometime later, his grandfather was killed in a farming accident when his mother was a little girl.

Aha, the altar had a significant emotional connection and thus, the protective feeling about it.  Pastor Kathy then came up with a simple plan and patiently educated Emmitt and the leadership how the back altar would be preserved and a simple free-standing altar would be in front.  After doing a simple thing like educating the people Pastor Kathy was able to introduce change for a positive modification.

In a healthy congregation change will be constant.  It is part of the growing pains we experience.  But without the pains of change growth will never occur.  So, the change agents who are wise will massage the pains of change with education and conversation.

I wish I could say that this is a sure-fire formula to institute change.  I can’t guarantee that.  But, it is amazing what a little excavation can uncover and deal with.