Change or Die

In a recent blog post, Patrick Mead made the following statement concerning churches that die:

“While they wanted things to change, they were not willing to change. they held to their traditions and programs, answering questions the culture was no longer asking.”

I can’t seem to get that sentence out of my mind. It is just so true. And it needs to be heard.

I preach for a church that is rather traditional — not overly so, but more traditional than we should be (we are considered liberal by some other churches in the vicinity). There are certainly some folks in our church who don’t want things to change. They couldn’t care less if we impact our community, reach young families, or make a difference in the lives of hurting people. As long as we sing the songs they like, do church like we’ve always done it, and have a preacher who keeps them interested (and finishes on time) — they are happy and content. They just want to go on to their mansion on the hilltop in relative comfort.

Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I firmly believe that most of the folks in our church want things to change — i.e. they would like for us to reach some young families and make a difference in our community. The problem is, they don’t want anything at church to change in order to make that happen. The want to sing their songs, do church in the old familiar ways, and remain in their nice, warm, secure comfort zones. These are good people and I dearly love them. But they are overly attached to a certain way of doing church.

Don’t get me wrong — I understand the need to be sensitive. Change can be difficult and should never be shoved down people’s throats. And I have certainly been guilty of doing that very thing (to disasterous results). For change to take place, it must be handled correctly and done slowly.

But how do you get people to see that if things are going to change, they must change? That if we’re going to reach out, grow and make a difference in our community, that we simply can’t just stay the course and keep doing what we’ve always done? How do we help them to understand that if we don’t wake up and make some needed changes, our days are numbered?

I’m open to any and all suggestions.

We are currently building a new church building. I would hate to see a “For Sale” sign in front of that building in a few years because we were more interested in our own comfort than doing the work of Jesus and having an impact on our community.

The seven words of a dying church are: “We’ve Never Done It That Way Before.”