Leading Through Transition   

"Transition is a part of the fabric of existence. Existence does not simply contain transitions but is continual process. When certain kinds of transitions cease to occur with the human body, life ends. To preach is always to preach during a time of transition." So declares Ronald Allen in the excellent new book Transitions: Leading Churches Through Change.

David Mosser, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Arlington, Texas, and adjunct preaching professor at Perkins School of Theology edits this excellent collection of essays and sermons. He includes work by well known preachers and theologians such as Joanna Adams, Thomas Troeger, Thomas Long, David Buttrick, and John McClure.

He notes the underlying theme of change and grief that runs through all transition, a reality that preachers need to face squarely, beginning with themselves and then being aware of how parishioners are experiencing loss.

Most pastors and churches with whom I work are helping their churches deal with change, loss, and grief. These changes are both systemic and personal.

I'm a geezer - ordained in 1968! How the world has changed since then! When I began my ministry at First Presbyterian Church of Evanston, IL, the Chicago Tribune even had a brief write-up about this new minister for youth. The church's Senior Pastor, Harold Walker, had a regular column in the Tribune.  Church held a special place in the culture. 

Now a church rarely makes headlines unless there is sexual misconduct or something really unusual. Recently, the Washington Post ran an article about how Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church is suing the TopGolf entertainment complex for being a public nuisance. This past year, TopGolf patrons have rained 2637 balls on to the church property, hitting even its members and staff!

What a vivid metaphor for the church's transition from bulwark of the community to catch basin for the side effects of fun, fun, fun!

So part of our job as church leaders is to describe the cultural changes and start a conversation about how God is leading us to follow Christ in this new world.

Thomas Troeger declares (in his essay Long Enough at the Holy Mountain): "Religious leaders need a theologically sound spirituality for change because the resistance to change is often rooted in theological and spiritual convictions about the sanctity of the way things are. Dismissing these convictions as wrongheaded or backward looking is seldom an effective strategy for change. It feels to those who are resisting the change that what they hold most sacred is under attack. Deuteronomy's imagery of leaving the sacred mountain to continue on the journey provides a metaphor for reconfiguring people's holy commitments. It invites people to remember and honor the holy mountain by extending its impact on their lives into a wider world. Their changing becomes a way of living out the highest and holiest desires of their hearts that were so strongly awakened at that sacred spot."

So it's critical to recognize what was holy. It was good (most of the time anyway). But times have changed. Those of us who experienced the 50's and '60's can say to folks still stuck there "things were good, but life has changed, hasn't it! Let's explore: how is God leading us in a new landscape???"

Personal issues have an enormous impact on how people deal with transition, too. I mentioned the impact this move has had on my flexibility. A pastor colleague told me of a leader who, normally reasonable and even tempered, lost his temper with another key officer, reducing her to tears. Turns out the man was facing open heart surgery in just over a week. He had lost control of his body and stress and anxiety got the best of him.

So what are some questions you might ask as you encounter resistance to change? Some that occur to me are:

• To what extent am I resisting change and why?
• Am I or are others clinging to some idealized past, some holy mountain?
• Are cultural or demographic changes sweeping us into a position of increasing irrelevance?
• Are there extenuating circumstances in my life or the life of someone resisting change that engender over-reaction to change? (e.g. illness, financial pressures, family problems)
• What stories of transition in scripture seem to speak especially to the transition and resistance that we are dealing with? How might I use these scriptures as a basis for sermons and conversations about possible changes?

If you are dealing with some interesting transitions (and who isn't?) and would like some coaching, get in touch.

Email or call me and we can set up a demonstration coaching session by telephone (or in person if possible).

If you find this article helpful and think of friends who would benefit from it, please forward this to them.  

Transitions: Leading Churches Through Change - edited by David N. Mosser

Mosser divides their 26 essays and sermons into four parts, prefacing each section with a compelling summary of its contents:

• The Clergy in Chaos
• The Congregants in Adaptation
• The Congregation in Crisis
• The Community in Transition

Back when I attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Swiss theologian Dietrich Ritschl admonished us, declaring "You Americans think you have to read so much! Rather than read 100 pages/night, I want you to read 10 pages and think about them." That's good advice for this book. Scan the sections and read a selection or two every week or so and think about them Let them speak to your situation.

I found that some especially spoke to me as an interim pastor and leadership coach. Some would speak especially to an urban pastor whose neighborhood is changing dramatically, others to pastors new to a church. Each author shares important insights about how we might lead through the transitions in which God has placed us.

Here are some additional morsels from this excellent book:

Frederick W. Schmidt (in Led By a Pillar of Fire): "William Bridges...argues that those who navigate transition take one of two approaches to the challenges that they face. Some are disillusioned; other are disenchanted... The disillusioned are people who never realistically examine the difference between their unrealistic notions and reality to determine the extent to which this enchantment has shaped their expectations.   ...When they confront a difference between their expectations and reality, they are "disillusioned" by it. ...Disillusioned people, Bridges argues, go through multiple relationships and jobs, looking for the optimal experience, yet never quite have it.... they are forever the victims.

"By contrast those who are mature go through a process of "disenchantment." The disenchanted .. confront the degree to which their expectations are shaped by magical and unrealistic assumptions. As a result, they are able to make realistic changes, hold themselves and other accountable, and avoid the perils of a life dominated by unrealistic desires."

David Buttrick (in Preaching to the Elderly): "Christianity is not therapy; it's faith. So we will not begin by asking what are the psychological needs of the elderly and then try to shape a modified Christianity to provide fulfillment of such needs. If God is defined by our psychological neediness, God becomes a great therapist strung up in the sky, with no more definition than our struggles."

I commend this book to you as you deal with transitions in all aspects of your own life and those of parishioners and the church.

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