Moving to the next level is one of those necessary realities of life. For example, when our girls were young I told them to stop growing up because I liked them just the way they were. “Daddy,” they would say, “I can’t help it!” Before long they were rolling their eyes when I would insist that they stop growing up. By the time they were teenagers they would just ignore me. I have to admit that I finally gave up. It would seem that they were going to continue to grow up whether or not I approved of the process.
Who would ever take a job without hoping for advancement or looking forward to the next raise? How could anyone envision laying the foundation for a house without any intention of moving to the next level by constructing walls, plumbing the bathrooms or wiring the lights? Why would I insist on using a typewriter when I can use a computer?
Moving to the next level is just a part of the fabric of life. In fact, anything in life that stays the same is probably either an inanimate object or dead. Nonetheless, we often resist the forces of change, hoping to maintain.status quo for several reasons. First, the quote “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” makes sense when things seem to be working. The problem is that it is not necessarily a logical extension that what works today will continue to work tomorrow. Preventive or anticipatory perspectives that allow for the fact that things will change transforms the saying to “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” to “If it isn’t broken, fix it now!”
Second, visionary thinking allows a person or organization to strategically orchestrate change rather than to be orchestrated by it. Holding fast to core values, why not choose to use them to guide the change process rather than to react to it? The old saying “An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure” make great sense from this perspective and is very wise.Churches often go through these crisis transitions in areas such as, for example, technology. There is no doubt that our culture’s demand for technological innovation is insatiable. To speak to the present generation a church is well-advised to seek out ways to adapt to these changes. Yet, how many battles were fought over whether to go from the overhead projector to the video projection in churches across America? In and of itself, technology is morally neutral, perfectly capable of being used for holy and righteous purposes or their opposite. Churches can determine that a value they have is to maintain a measure of technological relevance in order to reach each transition that is occurring in our culture or they can choose to fight over each innovation in a serial fashion.
This reality plays out at so many levels. You canot parent a teenager in the same way you parented them when they were in pre-school. The needed changes can be anticipated, problems prevented and innovations introduces that will bring out the best based upon core values. In churches, you cannot administrate a church of 2,000 in the same way you did when the church was 500. The needed changes can be anticipated, problems prevented and innovations introduced that strengthen–as opposed to threatening–core values wisely chosen.
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