Changing anything is a challenge.

Whether in your personal life, finances, marriage, work, or church. The reason isn’t that people hate change, even though that is what everyone thinks. On the contrary, as Ronald Heifetz says, “What people resist is not change per se, but loss. When change involves real or potential loss, people hold on to what they have and resist the change.”

But when you lead change in a church, the challenges you are facing are obvious and not so obvious.

The first challenge is authority and influence. You can only accomplish something with authority and influence. When they begin to make changes, many pastors think they have authority and influence but may not have what they need.

This is important because you will need authority and influence to change anything. If you are new to your role or church, you must determine who has the most authority and influence. For my first two years at CCC, I only made changes by getting crucial people on board first because they had the relational equity I needed. According to the org chart, I have the authority to do things but need more influence to see them through.

How do you know who has authority and influence? Listen to whose name comes up often. Who do people seek out for advice and input? When you bring up ideas, does anyone say, “I wonder what _______ thinks?” As you sit in meetings, see who sways the room and who people wait to hear from. The person with the most authority and influence in a church is rarely the person with the title but who has built the relational capital over the years. This person can make or break change.

The second challenge is tradition and how things have been done. Countless leaders can tell stories of new ideas that died on the vine of “That’s not how we do things around here.” Or, “We’ve never done it that way here.”

This doesn’t mean you don’t try something or do something, but you need to know what has been done and what hasn’t been done in the past. It is particularly important to know what has been attempted and has failed in the past at a church. Those have important lessons for you as you lead.

When you seek to change traditions or how things have been, you must do some groundwork to understand why something began and how effective that thing is, and also understand the sweat equity people have in a ministry or program.

To understand tradition, you need to look at who is involved, who has a passion for that ministry, and how much budget it receives. When you ask questions about a ministry or a way of doing something, listen to how people respond. When you ask why things began or have changed over the years, listen to any indication of people trying to change or take away a ministry or way of doing things.

Does this mean you should always keep something that falls into this category? No. But it does require care and influence, which will take time.

The third challenge is cultural. If you are new to the city your church is in, this is one of the hardest challenges. You don’t know what you don’t know about culture. I grew up in Pennsylvania, similar to New England but also different. Each state in New England has its flavor and way of doing things, which impacts how the church is done. The same is true in other parts of the country. And while some places are more transient, which lends itself to less tradition, there is still a culture there.

There is also church culture that you have to navigate. That culture has been built from Day 1 (even before) of your church. Was your church started as a plant or a split? What families built the church? How much power do they have? How has the conflict been handled over the years? How many transitions have there been in your church? Has your church experienced growth or decline in recent years? These things fit into the culture and “how things are done around here.”

Culture is simply what people do without being told. Culture can be shaped and changed, but that is a very intentional process that is a different blog post.

For now, you must become a student of your culture. Over the last two years, I sought out staff members and leaders who have left our church to find out what happened and looked for commonalities (which there are). That’s culture. Watch how things get handled, how decisions are made, and how things happen. That’s culture.

Make no mistake; culture can work for or against you, so you must know how it plays out.

The fourth challenge is memory. This one is the least obvious because it is so personal.

Every person in your church has memories of your church, for good or bad. They can tell you stories of the church at its peak, when the building was full, when this program or that began, and the excitement of it.

Many pastors find themselves working against the memories of the past. Those memories are real but only sometimes accurate. While you will hear stories of how full the building was for that program, you will hear from someone else about how that program burned them out or made a different part of the church challenging. Memories and stories are personality and people-specific. They are also never as great or bad as people remember them. So, ask for stories, listen for commonalities, and talk to as many people as possible inside and outside the church to get as many details as possible. 

These stories will help you as you lead change because they help you understand your church’s story and your people’s experiences. 

When you arrive as a new pastor, you will feel the pressure of living up to people’s memories. This is hard, especially after COVID-19, because the reality is that those memories won’t easily be replicated.

Is leading change difficult? Yes. 

Is leading change impossible? No. 

It will require a certain kind of leadership. 

To begin, lay out what will change and won’t change. This can begin just in your mind. Share it with trusted leaders, get feedback and help. 

A simple first step is laying out your top 3 priorities as you move forward. These are things that are ripe for change. Not everything is ripe for change. 

How do you know?

Here’s a simple question: If you don’t change anything about ____, will it matter in two years?

Not everything is worth changing now or maybe ever. This question will help you know where to begin, what to work on, and what to fight for.