About a month ago, I picked up a book off of my bookshelf that I’d read a number of years ago now, to remind me of some leadership principles that I have tried to incorporate into my life and ministry, as I navigate change within the church context.
Exploring what it means to really be ‘ahead of the curve‘ and ‘pivoting‘ (key buzz words / phrases of today), adapting, transforming, morphing in a continually changing environment that we find ourselves in.
The reality is, we all have to navigate change, for change we must! Not only to survive, but to strive!
Morph! The Texture of Leadership for Tomorrow’s Church is a book written by Ron Martoia, pastor, author, speaker, coach – After 18 years as pastor of a church he planted, Westwinds Community Church (WCC) in Jackson, Michigan Ron Martoia’s ministry has shifted to that of a “transformational architect,” equipping leaders to deal with change.
The thing is, the world today is constantly going through change (or as Ron says; ‘morphing around us‘), be it the environment, cultural shifts and population relocations, technological change, political maneuvering, and dealing with a pandemic that is sweeping across the world almost in waves as we try to get one step ahead of it.
In these moments we come up against all kinds of opposition and numerous challenges, and yet if we don’t embrace the change we have the tendency to end up watching from the sidelines as others all of a sudden, take the lead.
Leaving us to wonder why, and how we missed another moment in time to take our leadership or even our church to the next level.
You see, God is continually changing, developing, growing, and moving us into whatever it is that He is doing in this space and time, so that we are ready for what He has in store.
All great revivals have come about because people God has inspired or provided insights to, have taken advantage of the prevailing winds of their times and morphed, adapted, pivoted, changed. They have been captured by the Holy Spirit and taken a huge step of faith, often in the midst of unenviable strife, concern, or even danger – taking the bull by the horns (so to speak), and stepped out of the boat and started walking on water. Trusting in God alone!
I was recently reading a “Report of the Christian Mission“, contained within the book “How to Reach the Masses with the Gospel” from ‘The William Booth Collection‘, which is available from Salvation Factory, it says;
“This Mission had its origin in a few services held in a tent in White-chapel. No plan had been laid down for future operations. A week’s evangelistic work only was intended, and then the writer proposed to leave for a distant field of labour; but the blessing vouchsafed was so striking, and the harvest so promising, that the friends who gathered round urged him to make the East of London a permanent sphere of labour.
The call seemed to come to us from God, and from the souls of hundreds of thousands of dying men and women, sunk in poverty and misery. And after much prayer, deliberation, and conference, we accepted it, and settled down in this desolate and destitute part of the vineyard.”
What followed was the birthing of The Salvation Army, which continues to impact the hearts and minds of people the world over as men and women continue to be released through the transformational power of the Holy Spirit.
It is in these moments when we truly see if we are captured by the Spirit, if we truly have faith or if we are merely watching from the sidelines.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says; “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (New King James Version)
The Israelites when leaving Egypt at first were hollering and whooping and celebrating as they walked out of the oppressive masters that they had served under for many moons – but that celebratory persona soon faded to grumbling, moaning and cursing.
Throughout the Bible God instructed His people to follow Him, to follow obediently even in the face of adversity. The trouble is though we, just like them can quickly become bitter and discouraged if we don’t keep our eyes upon Him.
The people of Jesus’ day were in awe of the many wonders, signs and miracles that he was performing in their midst, that made the religious leaders of the day stand up and take notice, and as He entered the Holy City the masses were greeting him with such a fanfare that even the Romans were a bit taken aback, but within a day or so those very same people were demanding his death.
When we first experience change we get a little excited, the idea of new growth and or new anything can be quite exhilarating, then after a few days we start wondering what all this change might actually mean. All those things that we once held dear may be threatened, they may be taken away, they may be cast aside and forgotten, the gloss of excitement starts to fade.
We may start seeing that the change that we anticipated, doesn’t quite measure up to what we had initially expected and we start to get discouraged, and or disappointed and we start asking more questions about the validity of why we have to change. It’s not long before we are wanting to go back to what we have become accustomed to, because we were actually quite content with what we had.
The Israelites wanted to return to Egypt because the Manna didn’t quite measure up to the Meat and Gravy that they had grown to like, they couldn’t wait for the milk and honey, or just simply weren’t prepared to do whatever it took to get there – because it wasn’t what they wanted after-all, it was what that Moses fella wanted, it was what God wanted for them.
I wonder in today’s world of constant change are we like the Israelites – we don’t want to experience what God wants to take us through to get to where He has wanted us to go all along “His kingdom here on earth” because we have become to settled with the environments that we have created for ourselves. It is not that we have purposely moved God to the side, but we aren’t as excited about what God brings into our midst when we truly want to experience a move of His Spirit.
It is a heart issue according to the book of Ezekiel, we have allowed our hearts to become callous, we no longer see the joy, the excitement, the encouraging signs of growth when things start to change – we see a seismic shift and we simply don’t like it, it is as if we want to return to what is familiar. But God warns “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.” Ezekiel 36:26 (New Living Translation) But only if we let Him!
The kind of shifts that we are starting to experience within the church universal are really moving us back to a more biblical view. Many of the views that we are holding onto in the here and now are just long lasting trends that were very culturally-conditioned.* Our styles of worship, our models of ministry, the way we do what we do has had to adapt to the changing dynamics placed upon us by contracts, funding and the like – the very essence of who we are as a church, or as in our setting a Corps is being challenged. In the light of Covid many congregations and people have had to embrace change regardless if they like it or not simply so that they can remain connected.
(* Adapted from an interview entitled ‘Preaching in a Changing Culture‘ with Ron Martoia on crosswalk.com)
The reality is, we all have to navigate change, for change we must! Not only to survive, but to strive!
Another interesting read is Strategic Church – A Life Changing Church in an Ever Changing Culture by Frank Damazio.
’til next time – God bless
Whitney Hopler in an article posted on 
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