Change?

On July 1st I began a ministry as Intentional Interim Senior Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Tacoma, Washington. This is one of the ministries that I do as a Church Planting Coach in the Pacific Northwest. And, Sunday was my first opportunity to preach to and begin leading the congregation of 140+ people as their pastor for the next six months or perhaps a few months longer.

The message was intended to be an introduction to a series of talks on Ephesians as well as to my ministry as interim pastor. The Lord led me to focus on the necessity and importance of change as we build together a foundation for the future of the church. Three kinds of change were highlighted.

Change is simply doing something different. For example, change happens when we grow up as we move from crawling to walking. The Christian life is filled with small steps of following Christ as we grow into maturity and Christlikeness. And change in the church is required as membership increases or decreases or certain programs or ministries no longer work like they used to.

The second kind of change that is needed is transition or moving from one place to another. We transition we change jobs or when one pastor leaves a church and another comes. Neighborhoods change as people and businesses move out and new people and businesses move in or disappear. Churches have 2,3 or 4 generations and churches transition as one generation becomes leaders and an older generation no longer leads.

The third kind of change is radical change called transformation. Transformation is becoming something different. The Gospel of Christ is designed by God to bring radical transformation in the individual where she or he becomes a new creation ever becoming more like Christ in thought, word and deed. Churches filled with transformed believers are designed by God to go through radical changes to reach new people with the Good News of Jesus Christ. And transformed churches possess the power of God that can transform a neighborhood or community if ministry “ruts” can be avoided or overcome.

My role at Calvary Baptist is to be a change agent helping individual believers and the church change, transition and experience transformation with God’s help. It’s no small job but with prayer, God’s enablement and empowerment, all things are possible.

How do you handle change?