Mr. Jones has been a member of Trinity Community Church for 27 years. He has seen six pastors come and go during that time. They’ve left, but he hasn’t. He’s been there every Sunday without fail. He’s been a part of planting every flower and fixing every broken light fixture. He’s invested a lot of his money and life to make sure Crossroads Community keeps its doors open. He’s seen his kids grow up and get married in this sacred place. And now there is a new pastor who wants to change almost everything that seems dear. Pastor Tom seems nice enough, but he also seems insensitive to the needs of those who have been around for so long. He talks about changing so that the church can reach unchurched people and young families, but how he intends to do it just doesn’t feel right. Mr. Jones is caught in the transition dilemma. And so is the rest of the church.

Trinity Community Church is where almost every church in America is: struggling with the transition dilemma. Thousands of churches have tried to get through this minefield, but very few have made it. Thousands more are eyeing the terrain, but don’t know how to get through it without getting blown up.

Pastoral Search

In 1994, God called my family and me to pastor a church in Texas. I had just finished my Ph.D. and was ready to move to a church that was looking to gear up for the 21st century.

I have to admit: I like change. I really do. If I am faced with a choice where the two options leave me at the same place, I’ll choose the option that involves more change. So when I interviewed with the pastoral search committee, I told them right up front: “I am a change agent. Don’t even pursue this if you don’t want change.” They said, “Oh, we want change. We really do want change.” They gave me four or five examples that seemed to indicate they wanted change.

You know how these things go. The next step was to meet with the deacons. As I met with them, I noticed the deacon chairman’s eyes narrowed when I shared some of the ideas I was talking about. I told the deacons repeatedly, “I’m a change agent. Don’t call me if you don’t want change.” They assured me, “Oh, we want change. We really do want change.” Then I met with the rest of the leadership – the women’s ministry, the Sunday school director, the choir president, the janitor – and I gave them the same pitch. “I’m a change agent. Don’t call me as pastor if you don’t want change.” Again, they all assured me: “Oh, we want change. We really do want change.” But I could tell that the janitor was less enthusiastic than the rest. Later, I found out that he and the deacon chairman were not sure about the direction I wanted to take the church. Have you made that discovery yet? That there are two authority structures in most churches? There is the official authority structure that is identified in the church constitution made up of deacons, staff and committees. Then there is the unofficial authority structure that many times has nothing to do with the church constitution: influential members, the affluent and sometimes, the mean. The official structure in this church consisted of the pastoral search committee and the church council; the unofficial one was these two guys and a few others.

When we came back to the church a few weeks later to preach before the congregation in anticipation of the vote, there was a big dinner with the whole church. I shared a bit of my life story and ended up making the statement three or four times: “I’m a change agent. Don’t call me as pastor if you don’t want change.” I can’t tell you how many people sought me out after it was all over to tell me, “Oh, we want change. We really do want change.” The thing was, I believed them!

They weren’t lying. They were telling the truth as best they knew how. But the real truth was this: they had no idea the scope and magnitude of change that was going to be needed, nor did they understand the costs.