Acceptance of Change

Welcome to this book blog on Dennis Bickers' The Healthy Small Church. Some leaders of small churches around the country, mostly in the EPC, are reading the book and joining in the online conversation. You're welcome to read and contribute even if you're not reading the book right now - I think you'll still find the comments helpful.

Bickers summarizes chapter 6 by saying, "A church's ministry has ended when it refuses to minister in the present. A healthy small church is committed to relevant ministry, and that church knows that regular change will be nececessary if it's to remain relevant. The healthy small church will change so it can continue to provide a viable ministry to the community God has given it." (62)

This chapter on accepting change takes my thoughts to two of the three big themes of the missional church discussion.  Although some regions of the country are not as far "advanced" as others, churches in North America are now ministering in a cross-cultural setting. That's a different ministry context than the one I knew in the 1970's.  There's still a cultural memory of Christianity, and it's basic moral framework is still embedded in many of our laws and national values. However, we can no longer assume that people in our communities understand our language or know the basic biblical storyline. Many of our neighbors are wide open to spirituality, but the idea of a spirituality with Jesus as the exclusive mediator between God and human beings is foreign. In the summer of 1989 our family was part of a mission team in Japan. In that context, we couldn't start talking about the gospel by saying, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." That statement makes a false assumption that we would both know which God we were talking about. We're getting to that point in North America.  In many regions we're already there. Assumptions are different now. Our cultural language and commuication styles are different now. To be about God's mission in our communities we have to start at a different place than we did 50 years ago. I fully agree with Bickers that if we insist on ministering the same way we did in the past because it worked then, we are on a course to decline and death. Even more seriously, how can we say we are obedient to the Great Commandment? How can we say we love our neighbors as ourselves if we insist on serving them in ways that are comfortable to us but completely miss them in the process? Ministering in the present means doing what the best cross-cultural missionaries have always done. We learn the language of the people we're seeking to reach and communicate in ways they can understand.

Another big missional theme is the church as a contrast community.  While we want to have relevant ministry, we have to watch for a suble trap. Os Guiness pointedly reminds us that change and relevance easily become ends in themselves (Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance, Baker, 2003).  When relevance becomes an goal instead of a method, we unwittingly - or maybe arrogantly and intentionally - pull up our own roots and detatch ourselves from fertile soil of godly tradition.  When we do, we ironically find becoming irrelevant because we're no longer a contrast community. We have become unsalty salt.  Someone wrote (if you know who, please let me know) that "he who marries the spirit of the age soon becomes a widower."  Our goal is not to change or to be relevant, but to see individuals and  communities transformed by the gospel. Seeing that goal come to pass and loving our neighbors as ourselves, will probably call for some necessary, significant, and uncomfortable change.

For your encouragement, and also for your prayer, listen to to the story of Morningside EPC and Visio Dei in Phoenix, Arizona.  Morningside is a small EPC congregation that is right in the midst of making some significant changes in order to reach the city.

I'm wondering if I can find any takers on my next suggestion.  It's not an easy one, so be sure to count the cost.  After reading this chapter on acceptance of change, the thoughts above, and any comments to follow, get a group of leaders together to consider eight questions.  The questions follow from the idea that "Our system is perfectly designed to get the results we are seeing."

1. What results is our church actually seeing?
2. Based on our understanding of Scripture, what results should our church be seeing?
3. When we compare our answers to the first two questions, are we content with the results we see?
4. If we aren't content, what necessary changes in our church system do we need to make?
5. Where do we start the process?
6. What strengths and gifts are already present that equip us to make progress toward the results we should be seeing?
7. What pockets of resistance are we likely to meet?
8. Where do we find help and encouragement while we're in the process?
9. Are we willing to see these changes through for the long haul?

If you want to suggest some improvements in the questions, please do.  If you decide to take on these nine questions, let me know privately, or you can let us all know by posting a comment,   Perhaps some of you working through these questions can link up to pray and talk through how it's going.