Is it the congregation's job not to want to change?
Recently, I’ve been reading, and very much enjoying, Norma Cook Everist and Craig L. Nessan’s book “Transforming Leadership: New Vision for a Church in Mission.” It’s a really solid work on how congregations (or other like groups) form community, claim and test their identity, and are “unleashed” for mission. I recommend it, but….
In a chapter entitled, “Honoring the People: Congregational Realities” they make the claim: “It is the congregation’s job not to want to change.” Here’s how they back it up.
“We live in a world of rapid change, most of which is out of our control. Moreover, there is an essential serendipity to life that also renders life out of control: we get sick, accidents happens, people die. In the midst of a world that seems out of control, people seek security. We want to hold on to something unmoveable, especially our faith in God.”
I get it. In systems theory it’s called homeostatis. People want, quite sensibly, “to hang on to the things upon which they have depended in the past.” I get it. There are really good and faithful and even essential reasons that congregations resist change.
But I think saying it’s the congregation’s JOB to resist change is a little strong. It’s our congregation’s job to be faithful to God, yes. It’s our congregation’s job to be careful about the way forward, sure. But it’s also our congregation’s job to follow God who always seems to be doing a new thing. To follow Christ, who is about transformation and newness of life.
I also don’t like what this claim is saying about congregations. It dumbs them down. It assumes their “job” is to be less than their best. It also, consequently, sets pastors up as the necessary main change agent and the congregation as the entrenched system. That just doesn’t seem right to me. I’ve seen plenty of congregations who are eager, longing for change, and it’s the pastor who is holding them back. And I wouldn’t want to claim the corollary: “It’s the pastor’s job to want change?” Seems a bit limiting.
So I definitely recommend the book, and I’ll continue to think about this point….after all, it’s my job.
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That does seem a bit like saying that in the Exodus it was the job of the people to complain, their job to make a golden calf, their job to resist going in to fight the giants of the land, etc.
The job pain of leaders is that the people are living into rebellion, not living into the ideal. If we look at it like it is the job of the people to resist change, then perhaps leaders shouldn’t take it so personal when people don’t follow well.
Acts 4:27 For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servantj Jesus, whom you anointed, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
If you agree with predestination and redemption, then I think it is quite possible to understand it as the JOB of people to resist change.
I do agree that the “job” / “task” / “calling” of God’s people is to resist change – in that change means looking to anything other than God. The problem we run into is that people have an underlying mindset that the church is the answer to the struggles of life. But, the church is nothing more than the community itself. The issues of worship and mission and fellowship are activities of the people which we mistake for “true church”. Those are the things that are meant to connect us to, and keep us aligned with, the unchanging God. When the means becomes the end we come to the conclusion that the church is called to resist change – which is like saying I must always eat the same food in the same way at the same kind of table because I depend on that process to live.
Thanks for letting me think through this and respond. It helped me get the brain kicked into gear.
Thanks folks. @Pastor Mike, I like the distinction b/w reliance on the church rather than on God. That does seem like part of the problem here. On the other hand, I think throwing out “unchanging God” is a bit too simple also. In Job and elsewhere, God changes God’s mind. God’s love and grace and care for us is unchanging, but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t change, or do new things. Dan Milgiore describes this concept as God’s “constancy and changing actions,” on of his dialectical pairs to describe attributes of God.
@DennisS, I like the “living into” language. It seems that if congregations are living into no change necessarily, something is off. Living into faithfulness that incorporates honoring that past is something totally different. Thanks both.
As the author of this quote, let me make a brief comment.
The point that I think is important for leaders is this: Why are we as pastors so surprised when congregations don’t want to change? I have been to very many pastors’ meetings where the main topic is ragging on one’s own congregation due to its resistance to change. Systems theory should teach us about the power of homeostasis. We should not be surprised that people–even more in our current economic crisis–don’t want their church to change. Of course, the comments are right on target: that finally we are called to faithfulness. But pastors need to brace themselves that leading people in transformative change is hard and difficult work. If readers grasp this latter point, then they have understood the point I was trying to convey.
Great, Craig. Thanks for that helpful clarity. I will do my best not to be one of those complaining pastors one day! Thanks for your great book. I look forward to completing it, and for the class discussion next week. Peace — and stay warm in Iowa.