Change is natural in any organism; it is a sign of life. There is good change and bad change, planned change and unplanned change. Some get excited about change, some anxious – we need to recognise that. The church was created as a movement – a body that always grows, or dies. A maintenance mentality and church do not go together. But we are not always good at managing change.
From the world of philanthropy and development: “theory of change” to articulate more explicitly
(a) what outcome the organization wants to achieve in the world,
(b) what strategy it is going to use to accomplish that outcome, and
(c) what assumptions are made that lead it thinking that strategy X will result in outcome Y.
What outcome might we want to achieve? What is it we really want as a church?
[NB the use of the first person. If we ask what it is we want from the church, we talk about the church in the third person, in the language of outsiders.]
E.g., do we want for the resurrection of Christ to have a greater impact on us and on our society in the form of more new births, more growth towards conforming to the life of Christ?
The parish profile to be written in connection with the search for a new incumbent must be not only about what we want to preserve but about the change we desire.
The strategy depends on the outcome and the assumptions we make. E.g., if we want new births and accept that we are ‘born anew through the living and enduring word of God’ (1 Peter 1:23), the strategy must be for the living and enduring word of God to be released. This is why preaching has been a priority for me although I know of course that God’s word is not dependent on excellent preaching!
My assumption is that truly spiritual work is done by the Spirit of God, through us (God willing) but not by us – we need the means of grace. Prayer is the key part of the strategy: ‘You do not have because you do not ask (or ask with wrong motives)’ (James 4:2-3).
In short, if we want God’s transformation, we need to ask how God works to transform us.
What do you see as the most important part of your Christian life from week to week? What do you look for on Sunday, and what sort of ministry have you found most consistently helpful?
Different clergy have different theories of change. In the early church Pelagius thought that God worked in Christians through two means: Firstly, he had created them with a powerful will. Second, God had given them a blueprint for the flourishing human life in the Bible. His theory of change, then, was to read the Bible and then try very hard to do what it said.
Augustine found this view both naïve and at odds with what Scripture says about human nature. Drawing, e.g., on Paul’s statements about how the divine law which calls for righteousness is unable to produce it, Augustine argued that the core engine of human nature is not the will but the heart and its desires. And he pointed out that it is extremely hard to change hearts—so hard in fact, that only God can do it, through the Holy Spirit.
The way you change a person is by getting through not to their head or their will but to their heart. Which is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit: to fill us with new desires for the things of God, and to make us hate and flee from our bad, self-destructive desires.
Even the best clergy cannot do that. But it is useful to have an incumbent who knows that human beings are driven not by knowledge or will but by desire; who knows that we are creatures of the heart, creatures of love – and who will love you and seek to help you towards an emotional encounter with the God revealed in Jesus rather than just seek to convey accurate knowledge about God and will therefore, e.g., value the place of music.
It is useful to have an incumbent who knows that the human heart strongly resists direct efforts to change it and who will therefore rely on God’s Holy Spirit. (Have you ever tried to change someone’s mind about politics through rational argument? Have you ever tried to talk someone out of loving the person they have fallen in love with?)
It is useful to have an incumbent who knows that human beings are wired in such a way that judgment kills love. When we feel judged, we hide our love away, we put up our walls, we resist. A minister who knows this will not pivot on telling people what is wrong with them and leave them with a moral exhortation or a set of behavioural guidelines.
I make it sound as if the most important thing on the agenda for the coming year is to find a strong incumbent. But if, as I believe, Augustine has seen correctly that human beings are above all else creatures of love, then human relationships and human community are really important and this should not and cannot depend on an incumbent.
Remember also: the more diverse our congregation is the more the glory of God is manifest as the spectrum of his grace is revealed. And the more there is genuine, mutual love across that diversity – not just birds of a feather flocking together – the more evident will be the presence of Christ.
There will be fundraising to be done in the coming year, there will be the search for a new incumbent but the focus must be on remaining and strengthen us as a community centred on Christ.
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
(Ephesians 3:20)
