My family and I recently spent a week at the beach. It’s a little different than it used to be with two boys who are all grown up now (one who’ll be going to college in the fall, incidentally). It was quite the experience with young kids – especially mine- back then.
My oldest son shared his dad’s tendency to throw himself into the water with reckless abandon. The sight of a large wave is enticing to him. He loves the thrill of it all, and if he gets knocked around a bit, all the better. He knows the inherent dangers involved and is willing to assume the risk.
This is in stark contrast to my younger son’s approach. He might’ve wanted to follow his Dad and older brother, but the threat overrode the thrill for him. So he’d stand at ankle-depth, just enough to get a taste of things without fully jumping in. He knew his limits, what he was comfortable with, and he was not about to exceed them.
It’s a lot to manage as a parent. It actually feels a lot like being a church leader these days.
The waves of change are swirling around the church. It’s been this way for years – we’ve felt it in various forms over the past century. But in our post-Covid world, we are feeling it now. Much of this change has come from the outside: postmodernism and the loss of trust in institutions, racial inequity and systemic injustice, gay marriage and stances on homosexuality, and equalizing the human experience via mass technology and social media. I could go on and on.
The point is the church is all wrapped up in these changes whether we like it or not, and we are forced to address them one way or another. It’d be nice if churches were uniform in how they did this. Rarely is that the case.
Some folks are like my older son, feeling the urge to plunge head-first into the waves of change. Why delay the inevitable? Things like the emergent church, the decline of the church’s standing in our larger culture, congregations having to do more with less, and the shifting of membership and Sunday attendance numbers as accurate representations of a church’s vitality are all signs of the change at hand. So why not go and meet it? We know we can’t “change the change” any more than my son or I can alter the direction of the wave heading straight at us. As my friend and fellow songster David Lamotte sings, “The water’s gonna win.” As does change. Why try to fight something that will happen with or without you?
Hold on, say people like my younger son. For them, change – like the waves – is not simply a sign of something different but the essence of the difference itself. And the very fact that “it” can’t be stopped elicits fear – or, as writer Diana Butler Bass suggests, grief over the loss of what once was familiar and comfortable. There are degrees to this category of folks. Some remain stubbornly on the shore, plopped down in the beach chair, observing the change from a safe distance. Others, like my younger son, may wade in the surf, but only to a point. They engage change in the church with conditions and qualifiers. A new missional focus? Sure….but don’t touch the worship service. Women in positions of leadership? Okay.…as long as it’s not the lead pastor. Acceptance of gays and lesbians in worship? Absolutely.… as long as they’re not interested in joining.
And there’s the church leader in the middle of it all. They’re standing in the surf, calling out to one group of folks: come back, not so fast; wait up for everyone else. And they’re calling out to the others: come on in, it’s not so bad, you’ll be alright. They’re well aware of the threats that can be seen – all those undercurrents and rip currents swirling around them – and the hazards no one can see yet. They’re trying to care for people and help them meet their needs while caring for the church and fulfilling God’s needs.
Like I said, a lot to manage.
Years ago, I ran across this quote from The 70 Sent Project, and it still rings true:
The church is a paradoxical mixture between the desire to transform a world that clings to old forms and prejudices and the desire to find stability and peace in a world that is changing too rapidly. Often this paradox is found within the same person. The role of the church leader is to stand in the middle of this paradox, facilitating the flow of the Holy Spirit between the transforming and stabilizing impulses. (emphasis mine)
That’s the monumental task facing today’s church: not trying to be everything to everyone, a common misconception, but instead trying to bring everyone together into some sense of cohesion and mission when people are different (thanks be to God for that, by the way) and where people respond to change differently. That, along with facing the fact that change, like that big wave, is coming. It’s already here.
It’s a challenge, to be sure. But it’s also an excellent opportunity and privilege to stand there. We tend to interpret change in the church as bad, primarily because it looks like loss: declining attendance on Sunday morning, drop in giving, loss of members. But change means that God is doing something new – scripture is clear. Here’s hoping that wherever we are standing in the surf – right at the breaking point or a little further up shore – we all eventually get swept up in the wave of God’s change together.
In other words, time to get our sea legs under us.
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