Managing Change

Sometimes you have to do something, even if it's wrong.

I had a professor at seminary tell a class that, it stuck with me. I know I can get so paralyzed by analysis, gathering information, that I don't make any kind of change at all. With my perfectionist tendencies, I can keep working on getting things right and never move. Analysis is good, but there comes a time when we have to move on.

But I find that I'm not alone, especially in a church setting. We don't like anything to change, even if it's worn out furniture, paint, etc. The church can be filled with those who are the keepers of the status quo. We might offend so and so, because they donated that, or they painted that, built that, and the list goes on. "The former pastor liked to do it this way." When I was a youth minister, I replaced a youth minister who had been released at a church. One of the youth told me, "that's not the way Mark (former youth pastor) did it." My reaction: "I'm not Mark."

I like this quote: The church that fails to change fails to impact the culture of change. It becomes a dinosaur, a memorial to a world that no longer exists. That which is to be the salt of the earth turns tasteless, and its light flickers dimly if at all. Aubrey Maphurs, “Planting Growing Churches”.

There are enough dinosaurs.