Growing in Change, Part One

This is a three part blog, I will be posting Part Two and Three later this week.

There has been a word floating around in the air in recent years. It has come from many arenas: business, church, religion, politics, and technology. It is a word on which some thrive and others cower in fear. A word that represents an idea that causes some to leap forward and others to dig in their heels. The word is quite simple, but carries immense complexities.

The word? “Change.”

As a leader in a local faith congregation I have heard time and time again, “People don’t like change.” Perhaps this is true, or perhaps it is only true because of the way that we have approached change.

Ask almost anyone about change, and they would be willing to admit that change does occur everyday. It is an inevitable part of our existence. Change comes naturally and is constantly happening all around us.

Ask that same person how they feel when they are forced to change, and I suspect you would get a different answer. When one is forced to change there is something that seems to suggest that who they are, where they are, or how they think is currently wrong. We are told to fix something if it is broken. Change then seems to say, “It’s broken.”

Ask most people if they are okay with being wrong, and I suspect they would say “no.” Research even suggests that if someone holds an opinion or belief about something and are presented with facts contrary to their opinion or belief; they will only cling more tightly to what could be called, “factually incorrect.” (For more on this click here.)

We simply don’t like to think we are wrong and need to change. We do not want to believe that we are broken and need fixing. Yet much talk about change suggests those two things. More than just being wrong, to speak of change is to speak of unfamiliar territory.

When a person speaks of change – whether it is implied by the speaker or imported by the listener – he or she talks of abandonment. The listener hears that we have to forsake our old ways, leave our dried-up rituals, and cease to use archaic language. We are called to abandon what we know, we leave what has gotten us this far, and we move on to something new.

Most people don’t like this. It’s not that the new is bad, but there is certainty, security, and connection to the old. More than that, often we speak of the new without properly honoring the old. When we speak of change we often can go to a place where we ask people to abandon what is near and dear to them.

In trying to effect change we point out all that is wrong with the old and why we need something new. What we fail to see is that many people like to the “old” just fine and have no intention of leaving it. Change means that things will not be as they are now, and for many this means a journey into the unknown. The unknown creates fear in most people. And people who are fearful are capable of doing some dark things to hold on to their security.

How then can we approach change? If it is part of life and natural, then we must do it. And as I said above, perhaps it is not change that is bad, rather maybe our approach to change needs to … well, change.