Perhaps it happens every year and I just haven’t been noticing, but doesn’t it seem like the phrase “New Year, New You!” has been everywhere in recent weeks?

A quick google search show the phrase to be in heavy, diverse use, promoting everything from dairy-free diets to exercise plans you can do while sitting on the couch. Feng shui to fashion makeovers. Beauty tricks to belly dancing lessons.

What really caught my attention, though, was its appearance as the top headline on a tennis magazine I read:

New Year, New You – Tennis!

Let’s hit the pause button for a minute.

Think about the people you know. Coworkers you mingle with in the hallways, high school acquaintances that put their whole lives on Facebook, fellow parents in the drop-off/pick-up line, friends with whom you can’t seem to ever have a “quick” lunch.

Now, not in a spirit of arrogance or superiority, but in the interest of empathy, think about the struggles they face. Think about the topics they bring up a little too often, the words or names they can’t say without pausing first, the wounds and soft spots from the past, and the promises they make to themselves that they’ve made a hundred times before.

Now, let’s push play again. Do you think tennis lessons are going to do it?

You are surrounded by people who face very real challenges. Relationship messes that never seem to resolve, self-image issues that go back to adolescence (if not further), and doubts about talent, purpose, meaning, significance, value, security and a dozen other sleep-stealing questions.

They’ve had these struggles so long, they’ve tried so many things, they’ve been disappointed so frequently, that they teeter on the edge of giving up entirely. And someone out there is telling them to get their hopes up one more time? For what? Calf stretches that can be done in a La-Z-Boy?!!

This is the culture–hyperbole on the one hand, hopelessness on the other–into which we speak the Gospel.

We can’t afford to waste anyone’s emotions on more hype. So, why the Gospel? What’s different? What makes it worth our singular attention?

Listen to the language of God as recorded by one of the prophets of Israel and notice the difference between the Gospel and the products of the pitchmen:

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36:26-27.

In a world of hype there is hope, for there is a God who wants to change us from the inside-out. This is not one more offer to sculpt your abs, bring out your eyes, or any such superficial thing. This is an offer to abide in you, the core of you, the heart and spirit from which everything in your life flows and upon which your every hope relies.

The ads and commercials seem to scream so loud. The Gospel, in contrast, seems so intimate. God whispers, “Your life can be better, you know. It would be my joy to make it so. But you’ll need to stop with the makeovers. Let’s start with your heart.”

New Year, new you? I kinda doubt it. I mean, I’ve heard it before.

New Heart, new you? Now that’s an offer.

As John Ortberg points out in his book Know Doubt, one of the ways you can divide up stories in the Bible is by how long they last.

Many of the Bible’s stories are three-day stories. They are fast-moving stories that communicate urgency and drama. They put on display the amazing power of God to rescue and redeem. When Israel was in slavery, Moses asked Pharoah’s permission for a three-day journey into the desert. Before Esther appealed to the king to prevent the genocide of her own people, she fasted for three days. When Jonah was in the fish, he was there three days, and when Jesus was in the grave…yep, you guessed it, he was there three days.

Other great stories, however, are forty-day stories. When Noah is in the ark, it rains forty days. When the Israelites reach Sinai, they wait forty days for the 10 commandments. Before Jesus begins his ministry, he fasts in the wilderness for forty days, and before he ascends into heaven, he spends a final forty days with his apostles.

What do these forty-day stories have in common? They are stories of preparation. Stories of powerful new beginnings, the God who makes all things new, and the consecration necessary to journey with him in this world.

In forty days our core group of about 50 folks is launching ClearView Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. That Sunday–October 24, 2010 if you want to mark your calendar–is the day that the training wheels come off, so to speak. The day we open our new community of Christ-followers to the world, inviting people of all backgrounds and beliefs to come and discover a clear view of the goodness of God.

Launch Day will be a powerful new beginning. It will be a celebration of the God who makes all things new. It will designate the start of a new journey with God in this world. But first comes the season of preparation. The season of consecration. The season where we lay our ignorance, incompetence, and impotence before God and say, “This is only possible by your grace. We have no hope except our hope in you.”

After forty days the rain stopped and a new world began to emerge. After forty days the Israelites (re)discovered that the universe was room enough for only one true God. After forty days Jesus announced that the Kingdom of God is near, and after forty days, he entrusted his disciples with the same message.

What will God do with us after forty days? How will he show himself anew? Whom will he rescue? What will he redeem? We do not know. For forty days we wait, we pray, we prepare, we hope.

And we remember that God has done some of his finest work in forty days.

Would you remember ClearView and our launch on Oct 24? It would mean more to me than you know if you would enter into this season of prayer and preparation with us. You can also listen to some of the recent podcasts on this site to hear more about the vision for this new church.

If God is putting it on your heart to be part of this new beginning, please contact me. You can do that through the contact page on this blog, or you can join us Sundays at 10:00 a.m. for our pre-launch worship gatherings. We are meeting at Camp Forbing on Ellerbe Road, and are so excited for the chance to launch in such a great space. See below for map/directions.

Forty days…one great beginning!

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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.

I’ve thought about blogging longer than most people blog. Why now?

I’m in the midst of a pretty big transition in my life, one where I’m trying to sort out the old from the new, and it seems like committing to something a little frightening would do me some good.

In some of my future posts I’ll give more backstory. For now, thanks for reading!