Just about everyone who went to Harding University has a Neale Pryor story. Dr. Pryor was a longtime Bible professor, chapel speaker, and administrator. More importantly, he was someone whose heart resembled the heart of Jesus an awful lot.

He passed away on Sunday, and today his funeral will, by necessity, be in a 4,000-seat auditorium.

One semester, when I had him as a professor, I went to his office to schedule an appointment. When his secretary gestured for me to walk right in, I was more than a bit surprised. He was in the middle of something, seated behind his desk, but when he saw me he smiled and motioned for me to sit in one of the two chairs in front of his desk. I want to say they were rocking chairs, but I can’t remember for sure.

Then, in a gesture I’ve never forgotten, he stood up, walked around his desk, and sat in the other chair, just beside me so he could listen with his full attention. I hadn’t scheduled this conversation. I wasn’t a familiar face. I certainly wasn’t his equal, but that’s how he treated me.

And that’s my Neale Pryor story.

After three posts on the topic of change (here, here, and here), it’s time to wrap it up. In recent months, I’ve been facing change constantly, leaving an established church I love to launch a new church. I’ve had to force myself out of ruts, do things in new ways, and trust God more and more. Even before this transition, however, change has been on my mind as for the last few years I was part of a leadership team casting a new vision for the church I previously served. At times we were more successful than others, but we learned a lot along the way.

Here then are five keys for anyone and any church trying to lead people through big changes.

Choose. Admit. Explain. Point. and Find. (Sorry they don’t spell anything.)

Ready? Here we go.

1. Choose your change.

Essentially, pick your battles. Most aren’t worth fighting. I know you know this in theory, but really think about it relative to what you’re championing. Leadership is like poker. Your credibility with the people you’re trying to influence determines your stack of chips. Every time you nudge, poke, or prod them, you’re handing over some of those chips. Sure you’d like it if your church would buy new carpet, but you’re also trying to birth this new outreach ministry. You probably only have enough chips for one or the other in a given season. Choose.

Translation: have the maturity to deal with the things that aren’t how you’d like them to be but aren’t worth going to battle over.

2. Admit the loss.

As the one pushing for change, you can see clearly the benefits ahead. Those listening cannot. What they can see, however, is what it’s going to cost them, and not just financially. Change costs people comfort, stability, essentially the status quo. You may not like to admit this, but most groups will pick a less-than-stellar status quo over an uncertain future every time.

Even more, change is often seen as an assault on the past: “If it was good enough back then, why isn’t it good enough for you now?” Again, loss is the hard part of change. No one wants to leave behind things of value, even if their value is more of a memory than a current asset.

There is no change so small that its not a loss for someone. You may look at that old carpet and only see old carpet, but I promise you there’s someone who can remember the person who donated/installed/selected that carpet, and if you get rid of it (which is a perfectly reasonable decision), you’re severing a connection between that member and that memory.

Translation: People resist loss because it hurts. Admit it upfront, “I know that this is a hard choice because…” If possible identify that you too feel a sense of loss. Present yourself not as an unsympathetic outsider, but as a fellow “loser” who believes in this change even with the cost.

3. Explain the new.

Don’t be vague, brief, or selective in sharing your plans. As Chip and Dan Heath point out in the book Switch, what looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. Assume the best about the people you’re trying to influence, and give them enough clarity about the change to make an honest evaluation.

If you want someone to behave in a new way, make sure you explain the “new way” clearly. Don’t assume that those new moves are obvious. They aren’t. I’m wondering if this is the number one mistake we’ve made with new Christians. Apart from telling them to pray and read the Bible, how often do we really spell out what new life in Christ looks like? Specifically, what’s different?

Translation: The more clear you are about the changes you’re proposing, the more resistance you’ll dissolve. Don’t assume that people will just get it.

4. Point to successes as soon as possible.

If you’re pushing for big change–culture or life change–it doesn’t happen overnight. At first, there will be a burst of enthusiasm, but soon–it’s amazing how soon–the energy disappears. It becomes critically important, that you point to successes, even if they’re just baby steps, as soon as possible. Even if you have to create artificial markers of progress, make them, share them, celebrate them, shout them from the rooftops.

Say you begin that new outreach program after all (the carpet can wait, you decide). How will you know when it’s working? What would be the very first sign? Surely it’s not when lots of new families are flooding into services. What happens before that? Is there an early conversation you can highlight, an enthusiastic member you can exemplify, a specific anecdote that illustrates progress?

Translation: Define success, and make progress toward it concrete as soon and as often as possible.

5. Find some friends.

For really big change to succeed, you can’t be the lone ranger. If all it takes to defeat a change that someone doesn’t like is for them to vilify or marginalize you, they will. That may sound horribly cynical. I don’t mean it that way. I place a lot of trust in people, but you’ve got to be honest that people–even those close to you, even you yourself–make their worst decisions when they’re scared, and, again, loss is terrifying.

Back to the poker analogy: Find some other folks who’ve got big stacks of credibility and ask them to donate some of their chips. Can you break the change down into pieces and have someone different champion each one?

Translation: The more friends, the more stacks, and the better your odds.

If God has called you to lead a church, company, or organization, there’s no getting around it: you’re going to have to navigate others through big changes. Even if you’re just looking to help a friend to quit smoking, that’s a big change. These five keys are huge.

Choose. Admit. Explain. Point. and Find.

May God bless you as you lead in Jesus’ name.

The last two posts have been about change (here and here). This post and the next are intended to wrap that up for a little while. This one shifts our focus a bit, and the next one will get practical about how you and the church you’re part of can successfully help people make needed changes. After that, I promise I’ll find something else to discuss…at least for a while!

You hear it all the time, “So and so just hates change.” Whoever ‘so and so’ is, it’s simply not true. No one hates change. At least, it’s too simplistic to say that people hate change.

In their book Switch, brothers Chip and Dan Heath remind us that people freely choose change all the time. Think, for example, about the choice to get married. It’s like asking to have your whole world rearranged, but people wholeheartedly make that choice all the time.

What about having a baby? Ask any parent if that changes things and get ready to witness a good, deep belly laugh. Babies change everything, but, presented with the choice between sameness and babies, people keep on choosing babies.

What about changing jobs? One of my shepherds at church recently made a career change after 27 years. To leave behind the same office, the same schedule, the same everything you’ve been used to for that long is a huge risk, and while I’m sure he had a lot of trepidation about that choice, the fact remains that he did make it.

From big stuff like job changes, babies, and weddings to little stuff like trying out that new place instead of eating at the old place, everyone chooses change–at least certain changes. (About the image at top: When was the last time you saw someone talking on a cellphone that resembled Zack’s from Saved by the Bell?) The idea that people (or even certain people) hate change just doesn’t hold up.

The examples above also show that it’s not the scale of change that frightens us either. People choose changes of all sizes. We choose little ones more often, but the big changes are the ones that bring us the most joy and satisfaction.

So what is the difference between a hard change and an easy change?

If we don’t hate change, how do you explain all the times we do try to avoid it?

Answer: We don’t resist change. We resist loss.

Going back to the story of Abram, the hard part of God’s call was the word “Leave.” Abram had to let go of what was familiar, what was near and dear before he could obey the other command to “Go.” Doing so meant the beginning of a whole new chapter in the Story of God, but still leaving meant loss.

And loss is hard to accept.

In Matthew 19, a man with a lot to lose walked up to Jesus, asking about eternal life. Before this encounter, by anyone’s estimation, he would have qualified as a good, righteous man. He was honest, faithful, and loving. At the same time, he knew something was off; something was standing between him and God. He asks, “All these [commands] I have kept. What do I still lack?”

What do I still lack?

That’s a huge question.

And a huge assumption.

This man who has so much assumes that coming near to God means gaining even more. He pictures himself as an empty vessel that needs to be filled with the right insights, the right ethics, the right habits. In truth, though, he is not an empty vessel. (None of us are.) He is a vessel filled with things both good and bad, and so the process of spiritual transformation requires not just gaining but also losing.

The man is looking to find out what he lacks –what else he can gain–not what he needs to let go of. On this occasion, however, Jesus tells him he needs to lose. He invites the rich man to sell all of his possessions. Then and only then will he have room in his life to follow Jesus.

Put yourself in that man’s shoes. In that instant, what would have flooded your mind? Thoughts of the awesome opportunities sure to come your way if you follow Jesus? Or thoughts of terror at being asked to sell everything?

I for one would have been terrified. I would have replied, attempting to clarify, “No, no give me one more thing to add on; tell me what’s missing, Jesus! Give me another commandment or bit of wisdom.”

But Jesus knows what we need to hear. The one thing we lack may be the courage to face loss.

“That’s a lot of vodka boxes,” she said.

Yes, yes it was.

In the weeks before this, Jessica and I had discerned that God was calling us to launch ClearView as a brand new church. After six wonderful years at Southern Hills, it was time to pack up my office and clear the way for whomever and whatever God has in mind for that group of his children next.

Jessica heard that liquor stores (not exactly our natural habitat) would give you really sturdy boxes for free, and so one Friday night a couple weeks ago we drove around to, I think, five different stores, taking every box we could find.

Packing up, at least for me, was an important ritual. I gave myself the freedom to linger over certain items as I came to them: the certificate of ordination the elders presented me with on July 3, 2004, printed materials that marked various milestones for the church or for me as a minister, encouraging notes that members had given me over the years (Thank you! Those mean more than you’ll ever know.), and even some less than encouraging notes I kept for one reason or another over the years. I would say whatever prayer was appropriate for each item and then place it into a box or into the trash.

Many hours after we started, Jessica (who did all the real work while I was “reliving the moments” like some character in a Hallmark movie) totaled it all up.

Six years of congregational ministry equals 68 vodka boxes of books, files, and knick-knacks.

Who knew, right?

Seminary taught me a lot, but where to get good boxes–it left me on my own for that.

Also, I don’t think seminary taught me about transitions like this, nor that it could have. I am sure that in more than one course we talked about pastoral care, ministerial transitions, and the importance of calling and discernment, etc, etc. But 68 boxes are sufficient to separate reality from theory.

Boxes like that are definitive, and what they say is this, “Your life will never be the same.”

That’s the hard part of change. The underside of starting something new and exciting is walking away from what’s familiar. Saying yes to something new means saying no to something else, and, because God is so good, often that something else is something very, very good.

The story of Israel begins in Genesis 12 when God comes to a man named Abram (not yet Abraham) and says, “Go to the land I will show you.” God invites Abram into His plans, His story. ‘Awesome’ doesn’t quite cover it.

But, actually, that’s the second part of what God says.

The first part is this, “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household.”
The story of Israel begins with God asking a blessed man to walk away from those blessings. The pain of this loss is seen in the increasing levels of intimacy described:

“Abram, I want you to leave your nation…and your clan…and your family. Now go…”

The call to “Go” we like. The call to “Leave,” well that’s another matter.

One lesson Abram’s story teaches is that we celebrate God’s blessings in our lives by holding them loosely. Abram trusts God more than God’s prior blessings.

Closing the office door, we were also closing a chapter in our lives, a chapter where we had built so many great relationships and seen God at work in countless ways. Given that we were married only weeks before coming to Southern Hills, it was an even more important chapter: the first chapter of life that was “ours.”

But God is honored when we trust him and not his blessings. Sometimes that trust just looks like a bunch of vodka boxes.