The Concept of Change

We really are creatures of habit aren't we? We may not openly admit this, or even consciously be aware of it, but when we take a good hard look at what we do day in and day out we have to acknowledge that we find ourselves a routine we are comfortable with and very rarely deviate too far from.

For me the past 6 months has been a total shake up of what I was comfortable with. Moving from one church to another, into a role of leadership, I found myself having to fit in with another community's idea of 'normal' and 'comfortable'.  To be honest I instantly wanted to change this environment to something that I was familiar with, something I had been comfortable with for so long - but obviously that was not an option as the people I was with now were happy where they were and would find my personal idea of the ideal community environment different and uncomfortable.

I'm still not comfortable - yet having observed the dBay idea of 'comfortable' I can see that there are some very good aspects of what they do.  I can now see that each community has a unique DNA or core structure to what it does.  Messing with that is dangerous.  That being said, as a leader of this community, especially as the one given the responsibility to minister to the younger generations I still see the need for change in the way we do things.  Those changes though aren't to reflect what I was comfortable with elsewhere, now I see how change can come about to enhance the local DNA of the group to better minister to young people.

That change is still somewhat painful however. We get so comfortable with where we are that we loose sight of how effective our ministry is.   Getting comfortable and taking out eyes off the ministry, off the very mission Jesus gave the church is very dangerous.  I feel even more dangerous than the risk of implementing change. I really believe that's where we need to be open to people coming from outside to give us their opinion and ideas, because they are not caught up in our comfort zone.  At the moment I still feel like one of those outsiders... but now one who has been with the community long enough to understand and sympathise with it's DNA.  In a sense I feel in the right place to implement change, but I am still scared of ending up with my head mounted on a wall.