What Kind of Change?

This is the first in a series of posts in which I will explore the topic of change in general and apply the lessons to the specifics of church change.

Change seems perpetually to be a hot topic among leaders and organizations, no matter the sector of society: businesses, government, education, charity, etc.  As a consultant to churches and ministries for over 10 years, I know that the topic of change is incredibly important among Christ-centered organizations, especially churches.  I also know change is a complex topic.

We have to admit that not all persons in a church are in favor of change.  And certainly change for the sake of change is not an inherently positive thing.  Yet, many church leaders feel deeply that change is needed in the church.

In my experience, change is a tricky topic because there are different types of change and various leadership pockets within a given congregation or tribe of churches desire change at certain levels but not others.
To help flesh this out, let’s use a model that often proves helpful for thinking about change:

Paradigm → Strategies → Actions → Results/Errors

Let’s unpack each of these four elements in the change model:

Paradigm: How we see things.  As Leslie Newbigin said, we don’t really see our paradigm, we see through our paradigm.  Like the lenses of our eyeglasses, our paradigm clarifies or distorts our experience with the world and it can be difficult to distance ourselves from a paradigm in order to gain a perspective on it.

Strategies: How we approach things.  Our strategies flow out of the way we see things.  And we can only develop strategies that fit our paradigm.  For instance, if we see the world through a zero sum lens, we would not have access to a strategy of loving our neighbors as ourselves – such a strategy just wouldn’t make sense.

Actions: What we do.  Just as strategies flow from paradigm, our actions come out of our strategies.  Actions are the specific things we do (including ongoing programs and short-term projects).  For instance, if congregation had a shared strategy of “loving our neighbors as ourselves,” they might provide housing for the homeless on cold nights.

Results/Errors: What we get.  The things we do (actions) produce some kind of tangible results.  We can use the term “errors” to describe the undesirable results we create.  So our church that opens it building to the homeless on cold nights might create some results (a decrease in deaths owing to exposure, or a favorable opinion of Christ by those served) and/or some errors (homeless persons attending church ministries that do not address the unique needs of the homeless).

Start with the End

Now that we have the model, let’s leverage it for better understanding change.  Change can occur at any level within the model, but all such changes create shifts in our results.  The place to start understanding change is not with Paradigm, but with Results/Errors.  Why? Because results are the most obvious aspect of change.  There is no debating what results are produced – you just have to look around.

What is NOT so obvious about results is whether a church is creating the results they want to create.  Various church leaders and members can (and often do) believe differently about what are positive results and what are errors.

I once consulted with a church that was in the midst of a “worship war.”  Half the congregation wanted to ditch the traditional and rather “high church” service in favor of a more contemporary style of worship.  Meanwhile, the other half wanted to ditch the early morning contemporary service in order to commit resources and attendance to the traditional service at 11:00 AM.  At one point in the congregational session, a pro-contemporary spokesperson said something to the effect of, “Look, no one in this community is going to be attracted to a traditional service with pipe organ music and liturgy.  We will never attract new members with that kind of service.”  Immediately the minister of worship responded, “Who said anything about new members?  The goal of the worship service is not to attract new people, but to help grow the people who already attend that service and contemporary format will not help them grow.”  Clearly the two men had very different ideas of what kinds of results the church should generate, and these differences created a lot of division over specific actions and strategies for the church.  Of course, all of this flowed out of two very different ways of seeing things (paradigm).

In coming weeks, we will unpack more of this model.  For now, consider what Results you hope to see in your church.  How would you know your congregation was being effective?  And what would be some Errors that would indicate a need for change?

To help spur the conversation, consider the outcomes listed below.  Which are positive results for a church?  Which are errors that would indicate a need for change?  And which are neutral outcomes that are neither desirable nor undesirable?  Also, feel free to add new outcomes and share whether you think the outcome is a desirable result or an undesirable error.

• Increase in attendance
• Increase in giving
• Number of volunteers serving
• Positive reputation in the community
• Baptisms
• New members joining from other churches
• Metrics related to missions (meals served, homes built, orphans cared for, etc.)

Finally, a really tough question: In your opinion what is the ONE key result to which a church needs to pay attention?