Book Chapter 9

 Chapter 9 – Handling Change

“In times of change the learners will inherit the earth, while the knower’s will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” 

Eric Hoffer

It was Christmas Eve a woman and her daughter rolled up to church. "Is it alright if she plays as people come in" she said. I was bit taken aback but said yes. Her playing was fine. It turned out this woman who I had never seen at worship had once been a member and she just rolled up. Her comment after the service was to complain that the service had changed from what it should be, and what she was used to. She never came again. On a few occasions I have heard similar comments from people who turn up out of the blue for a carol service, only to be disappointed because it wasn’t like they remembered years ago.  Somewhere in their head they have the words 

“Change and decay in all around I see;

O thou who changest not, abide with me!”

God doesn’t change so nor should the church, its worship or the way it does things. So woe betide the minister who wants to change things. I still recall an irate church member after my very first communion service complaining because the cross on the table had been moved. In fact it had been moved not by me, but by the person setting the table who had forgotten to put it back. So if you can be moaned at for a small matter which is not your fault, then watch your back when you talk about changing patterns of worship, how you do Sunday school,  facing up to the fact a building needs to close or circuits need to reorganise.

We live in world where change is happening at an ever increasing rate. This is quite frightening for some people though they would not necessarily admit to it. Church folk can fall into the trap of wanting to keep at least one thing constant in their lives and that’s their church and its worship. What they all seem to forget is that what they consider to be their churches tradition is usually no more than one or two generations at most. You do however have to be conscious of people’s deep seated needs for continuity and stability. Too much change and you can wreck the church community, not enough and it grows stagnant and dies.

Every Church is the result of its own culture within which it is set. This is why it is so important to get to know people and what has formed their church community. There is no one fit all culture. In fact you find churches can be a coming together of people from very different backgrounds, sets of values, schools they attended, the jobs they did or do. While knowing this it was brought back into sharp relief for me having spent some weeks in Ghana. I realised more than ever before that wherever I have lived and worked it has always been with multifaceted congregations in multifaceted communities. To lose sight of that is to miss an important ingredient when working with people. I used to lead an evening service at a small village chapel in the fens from time to time. At a glance and I must have done this, they were a small group of old people who had barely been anywhere but their village. I made an assumption. I came to discover how wrong I was. It changed my leading of worship and in particular my preaching. The little old lady was in fact a woman who had travelled the world in a way I never have, and yes travel had broadened her mind. Another had been a very important person in education a real bright spark intelligent but not in a way that made people feel less important.  Oh yes get to know people. Get to know their culture. Gain an understanding and you may, just may be able to communicate to them the Gospel.

I want to write about closing buildings. I don’t like doing it. It’s never easy and you always get the blame. When I went to visit my first appointment we were shown around the circuit and the section I would have pastoral charge of. On arriving at one chapel news had just come through that Mrs H had died. Now Mrs H was the mother of the church. She in effect ran everything and kept it going. When I arrived months later they were still working out the consequences of her death. They were the only chapel in the village which was a commuter village for Cambridge and London. The building consisted of a worship area, small hall leading through to another hall with kitchen etc. Worship was always hard work not least because the well intentioned organist could only play a few tunes. A small Sunday school did exist and they did have a fellowship group which I would go along to on a regular basis. It didn’t take long to realise that the various personalities did not get along with each other in that context. For too long Mrs H had run things, held things together, but, and it’s a big but, she had prevented others from taking on leadership and the consequence was once she died the chapel went into swift decline. Added to this the middle hall roof was found to be unsafe. Visitations to the village produced no benefit. I just knew they had to close. We arranged on Easter Sunday of my second year in circuit to hold the final service and then transfer everyone into my larger church. Well out of the wood work came people to the service sitting there crying about its closure while the faithful few looked on bewildered by the behaviour. The move to the larger church proved to be a liberating experience to the members. They all became heavily involved in the larger church, and were a factor in the larger church’s growth and development. 

The move to closure was not easy though it took lots of church meetings, visiting the community, and visiting the church members individually. So unlike when many chapels are forced to close and the membership disappear begging the question ‘Did they worship God or the chapel? We did not lose our members. But you still feel guilty about a chapel closing and when on my ordination retreat the leader of one session entitled ‘The minister as mercy killer’ said it will happen but you shouldn’t close a church in your first two years. I did worry that a mistake had been made. I know with hindsight it was one of the best things I did for those people.

What has to be remembered when talking about change and in terms of closing buildings is that it is precisely the building that is being closed not the church. For many people they cannot separate the two. Oh the look of horror when I announced to the morning congregation at one church that dry rot was rampant throughout the church and it would have to be ripped out. I was in fact kidding, but you could tell they could not separate their faith from their building. As a minister because of moving around you will not feel that closely tied to a building, but you do need to be aware of the sensitivities of the congregation, while all the time trying to educate them away from it. 

In an ideal world churches would want to ask of themselves ‘what it means to be church here today and for tomorrow? In my experience they never ask that without you or someone else posing the question. Change to buildings usually come about because of the need to repair, demolish and rebuild or because the work is no longer sustainable. That may be driven by money or lack of it.

The process of enabling change to happen reveals the need for people to acknowledge for themselves that change is necessary. You can tell them time and time again but it’s not until they admit it can something more creative potentially begin to happen. It is a bit like an addiction. Someone has to want to change and your supporting role is to enable them to undertake the process. 

In my third appointment we had nine churches, five of which were very close to each other. Of course they were the result of the history of Methodism and its various divisions that led to chapels being built on every corner, or every village having at least two if not three chapels. So it’s no one’s fault but it leaves an unsustainable heritage which consumes energy, time and money. But if people close a building they feel as if they have failed or let their parents down. So you have to be aware of the dynamics at work. We began a review of all the churches with the key question of ‘what does it mean to be church? The process was overtaken by outside factors as we suddenly had to make substantial savings. So often church life is driven by finance or the problem of the buildings, that we never get to act from the positive, That's because so often facing the future people don’t seek afresh the vision for the existence and purpose of their community. We sought to engage with each congregation in conversation with a visitation of members, and to some extent this time was well spent in helping some people begin to take seriously the need to change. We provided everyone through presentations at meetings and services the same information. This is key in my opinion. Too often too few people are in the know, some of course don’t want to know but know they must. By the end of the process the facts had been shared. We could no longer carry on with three ministers, we needed to save an immediate £10,000 and with one of the chapels already deciding to close it meant a further loss of income to the circuit of churches. A radical approach was put forward of three buildings to serve the area which was through conversation amended to four. In the end we were left with five chapels, as three buildings closed by choice and two chapels combined by closing and becoming a new church. We created in effect four centres for mission and one pastoral community. The pastoral community was in reality the chapel that refused to do anything. It wanted to stay exactly the same. We agreed, though it was never fully understood, that we would not resource the fifth chapel other than provide pastoral care and leaders of worship for Sunday services. Did we really succeed in changing anything? I could just say only time will tell. Honesty says we stopped things just withering away one by one, and that is no bad thing. We did not move people on enough in their thinking to make the break through to change attitude to what it means to be church.

In bringing about or handling change there needs to be something by way of a vision which is communicated effectively. First has to come the recognition of the need to change. Of course if you hope to take everyone with you then don’t even start out on the process. What you do need is to have good relationships with key people and to listen to what they are saying carefully. Good teams of church stewards or circuit leadership teams are vital as well as knowing as much as you can by having met people in their homes (that’s part of why you visit see pastoral care).

Having moved to Sheffield I found myself restructuring the circuit I arrived in which in itself was time consuming.  Then I got caught up in the reorganisation of Methodism across the city as The Methodist Church had set the ball in motion across the country with the challenge to ‘Regroup for Mission. So eight circuits of churches became one. looking back now in retirement I still ponder did we do right? ( See my blog post 'Regrouping for mission' - a personal view as to why it did not work.)

Throughout the process trying to communicate what was the vision, the reason for doing it proved a challenge. Taking people with you required endless conversations and explanations. If some key folk don’t participate in that, and some ministers did not, then even though the new circuit was formed, still many people were wary of the new circuit and you came across people who in some sense are not even aware its happened. 

What I have learnt from any reorganisation process is that good clear leadership is required.  A vision to drive it is essential. That what you say you will do you must do. The single circuit for Sheffield was about justice and sharing resources of Methodism justly across the city. It was about doing its meetings differently. What so far has happened is that the heavy hand of the past still has a grip. Fear of doing meetings differently leads to them being carried out almost the same as previously. 

In handling change it is all about working with people. Developing healthy relationships to build trust, but also to offer a leadership that is not afraid to say the hard things, and to strike out doing things in new ways.

In trying to develop worship this too requires you to give time over for consultation and opportunity for peoples voices and needs to be heard. You can try to railroad people into new patterns of worship but that is to ignore the local culture. There is of course a paradox in bringing about change. I am seeking to bring into being a community that might look like what I think Jesus was seeking to establish. So am I taking people backwards to the past or forward to the future? At any given moment the Christian community when being church can only seek to be faithful to live the life by the light it has received. We are trying to be authentic for today as we learn that we are still part of a human journey of discovery as to the nature of God. So we seek to express what forgiveness, justice, mercy, love should look like in the light of at least two thousand years of learning and making mistakes. Still we allow history and hurts to mar the image of Christ in our faith community. We cannot yet all gather around a communion table as one and partake. So we have to allow God to change us bit by bit While we adapt to an ever changing world where speed of communication and methods of communication can both bring people together and yet drive them further away. How can anyone have 2000 friends? Just because Face Book says you have? 

I believe ministry has taught me it’s about people struggling to be the faith community. Yet they are stuck within an institution that is formed by cultures which often are in conflict with the teachings of Jesus. When people are up close and personal it’s hard to make community. But as I wrote earlier that’s what Jesus invites us to do when he say's "come follow me".