Tuesday July 27, 2010

The Challenge of Change:  It's Not as Puzzling as It Seems!

I’m not a big puzzle person. I enjoy games with my kids of course (because I’m with my kids!), but I didn’t grow up playing games on a regular basis. As a child, my time and interest were focused on Legos and books when I wasn’t playing outside. But one puzzle I did enjoy, and still do, is the Rubik’s Cube. It was and is still a popular puzzle among kids and adults. In fact, the world of Rubik has expanded to everything from larger cubes (16 and 25 squares per side) to the internet. It speaks to the challenge of the puzzle and the excitement one feels when solving it. As you study the plastic puzzle and how to solve it, you begin to realize, however, that it is much like leadership. Author Dr. Richard Kriegbaum, writing in the devotional “Leadership Prayers” (1998), said this about “the Cube” in relation to change that occurs in the life of an organization --namely, the Church.

• Some Things Cannot Be Changed
  The center square determines what color each side of the cube must be. Everything else about the cube can be changed in endless permutations, but the color of any one face is determined by the center. Every organization, therefore, needs a few faithful “reality therapists” who make sure we do not waste time and energy trying to do the impossible. Application: If you’re a reality therapist, what is the impossible for Fairlawn Lutheran Church and Preschool? What would be a waste of time and energy for us?
  
  
• You Can Never Change Just One Thing
  The only way to move any square on any face of the cube is to move twelve squares all at once. We may want to move one staff member or lay volunteer, rewrite one section of the strategic plan, drop or add one ministry, but every change has multiple results, planned and otherwise. Application: What results have we experienced with the following changes: moving all Sunday worship to the main sanctuary? Moving the Braille ministry upstairs? Starting a Kindergarten? What other results have resulted from changes over the years—good or bad?
  
  
• You Have to Give Up What You Have to Get What You Want
  Getting one face of the cube all the same color is not too difficult, but progress beyond that point requires losing part of the beautifully complete face. Most people fail the cube because they cannot (will not) destroy the first complete face they achieve. They cling to the lovely but unfinished present and sacrifice the future. Application: Is there a lovely, but unfinished present we are clinging to that is endangering our future?
  

Reading through Kreigbaum’s assertions and my application questions, what came to your mind as it relates to Fairlawn Lutheran Church and Preschool? Was there something he said that unsettled you or challenged you to think another way about a certain change or desired change you want to see happen—or not happen at all? How have his words “changed” your thinking? As the

As the Sr. Pastor, I speak for the future, and I love planning to get there. But planning and even talking about the future can be painful and threatening, even to me. Why? Because wise planning requires us to act before it is completely apparent that we need to do so. And for most of us, that’s hard to do; for others it is frightening. The reality is that the comfort and security of the present that we worked so hard to create seduce us. Nostalgia for our past tempts us to stay right where we are. Inertia derails us from ever getting to where the Lord is calling us to be.

In one of his prayers Dr. Kriegbaum writes, “Help us to let go of the present we worked so hard for, the present we asked you for, so that we may embrace a new and better future. Prepare us to accept some chaos in the short run in order to make things better in the long run, to take resources that could feed our present strengths and current welfare and risk them on an uncertain future.”

In reality, however, our future is not uncertain at all. First, being redeemed through the shed blood and resurrection of Jesus, our eternal future is clearly laid out—we will be with him for an eternity. Second, our future is not uncertain as long as we continue to make the Great Commission and Great Commandment a central part of our lives of faith. Of course, we don’t know the details of how that unfolds in the life of the church as year brings something new, but we do know is God is faithful and continues to work through you and me for the sake of His Kingdom as the world around us changes and as He calls us to adapt to that change—not to change what Christ has instituted, but to change how we carry it out.

Isn’t it true to say that most people want progress as long as they don’t have to change to get it? Yet, Fairlawn Lutheran has changed over the years. Staff, new members, a new sanctuary, a preschool, additional worship styles...the list goes on. Those of you who have been here for a long time have seen and experienced that change. Was some of it painful? Yes and no— depends on who you ask. Either way, look at the result! After 50 plus years we have a church well-positioned to do mission and ministry in the post-church age. It has survived when so many other churches have died. It has thrived in an age of decline. It has changed as God has guided it to over the years, not for change sake, but to reach the next generation of people.

As humans, no one knows what the future will bring—we don’t even know about tomorrow. But our Heavenly Father does and as we trust him to help us move fast enough to our best future in time for it to matter. We trust Him to help us claim it. We respect and cherish the past, but we head for our future together under the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the Kingdom.

In September we begin a new worship and teaching series based on our ministry statement, “Leading People to Know, Follow, and Be Like Christ.” During that series we’ll look closely at what “knowing, following, and being” look like in our life of faith and practice. Also, we’ll challenge you with some new ideas of claiming the future God has for us. It is a series that I pray increases our confidence in God and intensifies our feelings that we “need to do it” in order to reach people for Jesus. Don’t worry, I’m NOT talking about a lot of change—just an opportunity to hear more about how we can share the never-changing message of Jesus.

The Rubik’s Cube is a great puzzle, but that’s all it is. You may be able to solve it, you may not. But God has our future figured out! It is not a puzzle or game to him—it’s a promised reality in Christ Jesus and for that we give thanks!

In Christ,

*Dr. Kriegbaum is, president of the United Way of Fresno County, CA and former president of Fresno Pacific University, a Christian university in central California. He is also a former teacher at Wheaton College.

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