Assignment:
Disicussion 1:
1. If change is inevitable, why do so many organizations, including churches, struggle to change?
2. Describe an organization you are aware of that could not change and what impact that inability to change had on the organization.
References
Bredfeldt, Gary. 2006. Great Leader, Great Teacher: Recovering the Biblical Vision for Leadership. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
Bridges, W and Bridges, S. (2016). Managing Transitions, 25th anniversary edition. Da Capo Lifelong Books.
Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change, with a new preface by the author. Harvard Business Review Press.
New Living Translation (2004). Holy Bible. Wheaton, III: Tyndale House Publishers.
Discussion 2: The Struggle to Change
The life cycle begins at birth and ends with death. In between the two is change. If change is inevitable, why do so many organizations, including churches, struggle to change? The short answer is our comfort zone. We are creatures of habit, which means we like things that make us feel safe and secure. Last week we talked about the difference between management versus leadership. In summary we learned that change leadership describes influencing and focusing on the change, whereas change management describes the processes for how the change can be achieved. Both are leaders however, the change leaders create an inspiring vision, and advocate for that vision throughout the organization.
When we talk about change in the church, what comes to this writers' mind are the words resistance and fear. This writer was a volunteer young adult pastor at his church for six years before being reassigned to a different duty station in the military. This group had grown from seven to over a hundred vibrate young adults. The pastor who replaced this writer, was on staff at the church for over fifteen years. He led this group for five years before the senior pastor called and asked this writer to come work on staff as the Small Group Pastor after hearing of this writer's retirement from the military. After accepting the position, this writer learned that the young adult group had declined to less than ten members. What happened?
The difference was this writer's leadership versus the leader who replaced him. This writer's leadership is described by Scott Ridout in his video's presentation, Assisting Your Congregation in Change, as an innovator.
These people make up about 2.5% in America who are good with change, in fact they come up with change. They are very visionary in what they do. Whereas the leader that replaced this writer would be described by Ridout as a late adopter. These people make up about 34% in America. Those are the people who ask the question, why are we changing, it's working right now, and it doesn't make sense to change. After this writer left, one of the comments the other pastor would tell the group, exactly how Ridout described it was, "I was here before Pastor Kevin and as you can see, I'm here after he's gone" (Ridout, n.d.). This led to the decline in numbers because this pastor was not willing to adapt to the things going on in the community and around the world.
While this writer was away in those five years, so much was going on in our world on matters of race, class, culture, and community. Those young adults were asking questions and wanted answers on how to respond. One of the reason the pastor didn't get involved was because of the church distinctiveness on issues that are divisive. During the time of 2012 through 2016, the topics mentioned above were as hot and divisive as they can get. Instead of engaging and embracing the possibilities of reconciliation, this pastor kept the status quo in terms of race, class, politics, and culture. He stayed the course of how they always have done things. It was not all his fault. The senior pastor, in his 30th year of establishing the church, had settled into the mindset of, if it's working why change. Because so much was at stake, the pastor that replaced this writer was determined to remain the same from fear of loss of power, position, and privilege. Both the senior pastor and the young adult pastor became city planners, as described by Dr. Bredfeldt, in his video presentation Leading Change and the Organizational Lifecycle (Bredfelt, n.d).
After this writer accepted the position as the Executive Pastor, the young adult ministry had only four members left in the group. The impact was huge! From this writer's assessment, he realized the reason this ministry failed was because they did not recognize, invest, or adapt to position itself for future need, demand, and opportunity. Bower and Christensen cite five factors that contribute to this type of failure: bureaucracy, arrogancy, tired executive blood, poor planning, and short-term investment horizons ("Disruptive technologies: Catching the wave Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard business review (January-February 1995), pp. 43-53," 1996). The failure of this church to address the future from a position of strength opened the door for complacency and comfort.
References
Bredfeldt, G. (n.d.). CLED 780, Week one, lecture one: The essence of leadership. Liberty University.
Disruptive technologies: catching the wave. (1995). Long Range Planning, 28(2).
Ridout, S. (n.d.). CLED 780, Week three, lecture three: Assisting Your Congregation in Change. Liberty University.