By Mark A. Taylor
Leading through change in smaller churches
Tom Ellsworth’s counsel at the ESCN Conference highlights a patient approach to change—listening long enough for leaders and congregations to own an idea. This editor’s note points readers to a book excerpt on guiding “town and country” churches through demographic shifts and unchosen change.
- Change takes time, and leaders must balance when to push and when to pause.
- Rural and small-town communities face both crises and demographic shifts that affect churches.
- Leading through change is essential for churches to carry out their mission.
Tom Ellsworth talked about change at the Energizing Smaller Churches Network (ESCN) Conference in Moberly, Missouri.
“Preachers have a way of pondering an idea for months,” he said, “and then getting upset when the church board doesn’t go for it in just one meeting.”
The better course is to talk and listen for a long time before trying to implement a new idea or a different way of doing things. “Leaders need time to make an idea their own,” Tom observed. The same is true for the rest of the congregation.
Accomplishing this is a fine art: Knowing when to push and when to back off. Sowing seeds for change without plowing up the whole yard. Leading without threatening.
Leading Through Change
As I heard Tom speak, I thought about this week’s issue and the book excerpt it contains. Written by Barney Wells and two of his colleagues, the book is called Leading Through Change: Shepherding the Town and Country Church in a New Era (ChurchSmart Resources, St. Charles, Illinois). The title was carefully chosen. This is a volume about not only how to initiate change, but how to cope with change you didn’t choose. (Click here to go to the first of three articles excerpted from the book.)
“Rural areas are experiencing changes that we are not seeking,” says the Foreword, “and we are left with no choice but to respond to them. Change is.”
Richard M. Crabtree, minister with First Christian Church in Odon, Indiana, would agree. A member of the ESCN steering committee, he’s said again and again, “Every problem you find in the city drug use, alcoholism, runaway kids, divorce, abuse we have in our little town too.”
But not all the changes are related to crisis or dysfunction. As this week’s excerpt indicates, much change in “town and country” communities simply reflects demographic shifts. Leading Through Change gives a thorough, thoughtful, easy to understand description of these changes. It’s full of good ideas to help churches respond in ways that will glorify God and help the church grow.
While some folks seem to thrive on change, many of us feel threatened by it. We may wish our churches wouldn’t change. We may wish church could be a refuge from the new and different confronting us at every turn. But “change is.” If we try to deny it, we will be condemned by the increasing ineffectiveness of our congregations.
Christ and his message and his gospel have proven themselves able to impact lives through every cultural shift in history. We can be God’s agents through whom that happens today.
As this book’s authors write in Chapter 1, “We must respond appropriately to the changes coming our way that are not of our making and out of our control. Leading through change is essential for the church to carry out its mission.”
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
