The Most Feared Word

In the church, there is perhaps no word feared more than the six letter word - change. The word that Webster’s defines as a) to make different in some particular, b) to make radically different or c) to give a different position, course, or direction to. Change has been the cause of many an argument, a church split, and even a pastoral reassignment (firing or resignation).

In most “traditional” churches the concept of change is treated as if it is a dirty word. Any deviation from the “standard” that congregants have become accustomed to and soon the conspiracy theorists are out in full form. Soon your first elder is convinced that you have gone liberal or your board believes you are obviously too mentally exhausted to make an informed decision.

Change is to be avoided at all costs. To survive, we must settle for the status quo. If “they” want to come to our church they need learn sing our songs. If he wants to preach at our church, he must use our Bible! They must do “their” time before they can join the board or teach Sunday school. Sunday school in the evening…worship on Saturday night…we have never done that before – that’s just simply not Christian!

Yet, here is the irony. Change is the very centerpiece of the Christian experience! Change is the very heartbeat of evangelical theology - the promise that one can be changed from the inside out. We quote often, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The promise is that one can become radically different through relationship with Jesus.

So, why is that those who proclaim to have been “radically” altered so reticent to change?