Think Forward, Look back, Act now.

People are reactionary.
Human beings very seldom take drastic action apart from some action or initiating force that they respond to. This fact is present in most areas of life. We get angry because something happens to us that causes a negative reaction. We take action in defense of life in reaction to abortion. We go to war against terrorism when our country is attacked. We come to the altar when we hear a truth that convicts us. We take drastic religious action, positive or negative, because we are reacting to the message we hear, see, and experience.
People are reactionary.
The giant issue with reactionary thinking is that reaction is almost instant, generally poorly thought out, and directly related to whatever we are reacting to. For instance, someone bumps into me on purpose and doesn't apologize, I instantly get offended and ask for an apology which they do not give. When I do not receive an apology I feel attacked push them back without thinking about what would be best for everyone involved, in the end I wind up getting put in the hospital because I pushed a martial artist simply because he bumped me and didn't apologize. My reaction started instantly with being offended which led me to act offensively without thinking the entire situation through, and my action was solely based on the initiating action of the "bumper."
This is a hypothetical situation but I believe it  embodies many of the interactions we have on a regular basis and more importantly I think it embodies the way people throughout history, and in the church specifically have interacted.

If we look throughout the history of the church generally what we will see is a reactionary pendulum that is swinging back and forth with every great change that has taken place in the church. The most obvious example of this pendulum is the reformation. During this time in church history change needed to take place. Change was necessary. But what we see in the history books is that instead of taking slow calculated action to bring about constructive change we reacted to the wrong we saw and tore the whole building down instead of filtering through the structure to find what was sound.

In more recent history we can see reactions from Boomers to millennials in the church, from modernists to post-modernists, from traditional to contemporary to whatever we would call the current popular church genre. Each new generation looks back before us at something that was done wrong and we react to it. In this drastic reaction we instantly act, without thinking it through well, and we act based solely on the item causing the reaction. And when we react instead of act we always swing to the other side on our pendulum and set the next generation up to do the same thing to us.

These are my questions in all of this: Where are we swinging to?  What are we reacting to instead of acting on? What are we setting up the next generation to react to? and How can we lead in a way that allows the next generation to build on what we have done instead of tear down what we created?

Whenever God interacted with the Israelites in the Old Testament He was proactive and not reactive. When His people would sin against Him and forget all that he had done he acted based on His prior covenants that told clearly of the punishment for such actions, He acted based on His character and for His glory, and He acted on behalf of the generations to come. God never wiped out Israel, He brought punishment and necessary change so that the next generation could have a foundation to build on and return to Him. He was acting now based on the past for the future.

As leaders we must be forward thinking. When we loose sight of where we are going we become stagnant, but we must also look back. When we bring about change we must look back and ask if we are reacting to something we didn't like or acting to build on a foundation. Are we throwing out years of truth because of one severe wrong that we see? When we create models, lead people, build structures, and whatever else we do we must do so knowing that change will come. We must lay a foundation that the next generation can work with instead of building a structure they will just have to tear down.
Finally, we must act now. The beautiful thing about church history is that no mistake anyone has ever made has messed up God's plan or blessing on the church. He still uses us even when we don't get it right. For all the times we have had to tear down and rebuild God still has His hand on us and He still chooses us. The worst thing we can do is nothing.

First Step to Leading Change

Change is one of the hardest things to lead or be a part of in ministry. People, on the whole, don't really like change at all. We all get set in routines and blocked in to the way things always are and when something gets in the way of that routine it messes everything up.
I think that potentially the reason we dislike change so much is that it is virtually impossible to just make a small change, or for a change to just affect one area of life. We change what time we get up which changes how quickly we have to shower which changes how late we are to work which changes the mood our boss is in all day which changes the mood we are in when we get home to relax and spend time with family which changes the time we go to bed that night.
Even little changes seem to have drastic effects on life, so it makes sense that people would not be too excited about change, especially if they don't have a say in what it is that changes.

It seems that there is a deeper issue embedded in the hearts of people than simply a dislike for changing.

There is something inside of us that causes us to balk at the idea of having the routine broken and the normality upset.We see this illustrated beautifully in the story of the rich young ruler. A young eager man runs up to Jesus asking him what it is that he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds with an answer the man would have been thrilled to hear. "You know the commandments, follow them!". That was nothing new. He had being doing that since he was a boy, he probably did that out of habit and knew the laws inside and out. Jesus next words would have been crushing. "Then sell all you have, give the money to poor, and follow me."

Jesus did not ask him to do some extreme act of penance.  That would not have been all that out of the ordinary. He did not tell him to simply donate a large amount of money to the poor, it could be expected that this man gave regularly of his possessions. He told him to sell all that owned and follow. That is the key. This was not just a man who owned many things, this was a man who owned much land. The word translated as possessions or properties (ktema) is directly defined as property, lands, or estates. Jesus was asking him to give up his normality, the place and things that made him comfortable, to follow someone that was unpredictable.

It seems that the root of issue of change is not helping people accept a new idea, but guiding people in a lifestyle of constant change. Guiding people in a lifestyle that holds loosely to the things that make us comfortable and tightly to He that makes us righteous.

As pastors and leaders we must understand that it is not simply carnality that holds people back it is fear. It is not malicious intent that causes some to undermine and some to refuse to budge, it is a brokenness that is found in all of us manifested in the desire to be in control and the refusal to step into the unknown. Those that are complacent and hypocritical are just as loved and are offered the same grace by Christ as those that the complacent are judging and the hypocritical are condemning. We must also understand that we are just as likely to refuse change as they are. When we hold so tightly to our new plans and visionary goals that we cannot follow an unpredictable Savior down an unknown path we embody the mindset of the rich young ruler. We have many possessions that make us comfortable, and we rely on them.

The story of the rich young ruler ends with Jesus explaining how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom. I wonder if he was referring less to those physically rich and more to those who's hearts say "I am rich and in need of nothing." We who spiritually refuse let go of control and follow the unpredictable, yet completely trustworthy, Savior.

The first step to leading change is living a lifestyle of change. Living a lifestyle that only holds tightly to one thing, and that is Christ. The steps that follow are the steps of the Savior.

And the only thing harder than leading change is following something that is changing.