Turn up the Light

The response to last weeks post has been encouraging.  The appetite for change, the desire and expectation of “turning the tide” is high.  In a season like this we need a strong balance of two things; passion to fuel a lasting change, and focus to be sure we are aiming our passions at the right target.  Many of you have been stirred by that post and asked the question, “so what do we do now?” I want to answer that question with a series of posts to help us with the “focus” part of the equation.  Get stirred up, but let us all aim at the right target.  Let’s change the thing that needs to be changed.

Change is accelerating in every arena of existence and at an unprecedented rate.  Today, regardless of what arena you operate in massive shift is happening.  It is not just the United States, and it is not just human society.  It’s even more than just the natural world.  Politics, economy, human perversion, human achievement, natural phenomena, and the world religious climate, all these and many other arenas are in a state of upheaval.  I am fairly sure we need not fear, but I am equally sure we should tune in and be wise.

It is especially important to really understand what is going on in the religious climate.  I am not referring here to the thrust of Islam into multiple societies and the impact of the Muslim culture in those societies.   I do think this is an impactful change, and one we should not ignore, but not the one  I think we should most draw our attention to.

It is the Christian church that I think we need to attend to.  In many of the major Christian groups, change is happening, and it should happen on purpose.  Not just on purpose but on target.

People are leaving church. Church is changing.  It is difficult to miss this exodus.  In many instances, churches are leaving church.  Institutionalized Christianity is in a shake up.  One of my good friends declares, and I think rightly, “people are not leaving God, they are just leaving church.”  In fact, I would go a step further.  I think many are searching for God, and this search is part of the exodus.

As a result of this departure, as traditional forms of church lose people in large numbers, other churches are growing rapidly.  People who see this shift are trying to answer the question, “what do we need to do differently?”  “How can we attract these people to our church?” Churches and church leaders are also searching for answers.  It is this search that has me intrigued, excited and more than a little concerned.

As a counselor, I am familiar with change.  I am familiar with the kind of change that brings about problems, and the kind of change that solves problems.  I am particularly familiar with the kind of change people seek to implement when they become aware of problems.  It is this kind of change that can easily escalate disintegration, and precedes an individual or family seeking professional help.

It looks like this;  the problem(s) become evident.  Someone, or several someones define the problem whether consciously or unconsciously.  Sometimes they define it intentionally, sometimes they define it reactively.   Either way, this is a very important step.  The way the problem is defined directly affects the nature of the solutions that will be applied.  If the problem is defined incorrectly, every subsequent step will increase the intensity and complexity of the problems.

We are now at the stage on these changes in institutional Christianity where we can begin to examine the important questions.  Have the problems been defined rightly, and are these defintions leading to solutions that will bring about the desired change?

I see that most groups have tried to define the problem as this; the church as it was, had become irrelevant to the culture as it is.  Now the answers begin to flow.  We need to adjust the message, we are seen as too judgmental.  We need to adjust our services, people are not interested, or tittilated.   We need to adjust our technology, our strategy, or our look.  You name it, we should change it.  Whatever it is that people believe has made us irrelevant, can be adjusted.

This is the other thing I know about change.  As a counselor, I was more often helping people solve bad solutions.  By the time they were ready to pay my bill, the solutions they had been attempting had become far worse than the problem they had begun with.  The husband who was dissatisfied with his wife, decided to criticize her into changing, or the man who was unhappy with his life, decided to drink to deal with his unhappiness.  These and countless other “solutions”  can turn fairly simple problems into complex, systemic disintegration.

When solutions have become problems, it is time to go back and examine the definitions of the problems.  The longer people wait to redefine problems the more deeply entrenched the bad solutions become.  In my next several posts, I am going to ask the question…what is the target for the change we need?