There are a couple people who are missing here today, and their absence is notable....Rick and Patti Snodgrass. They are unloading today in Idaho.
Even though we said goodbye to them, it will be today and in the next couple weeks that we feel the greatest loss. I am going to be missing them right along with you.
My heart for us is to get everything out of this transition that we possibly can. Months from now I hope we’ll be able to say, "I remember when Rick left. Through that experience God did some amazing things in my life and in the life of this church."
Some of us are going to have to do the hard work of letting go of a pastor who is dearly loved, and learning to love another one. Some of us are going to cry some tears. I want those tears to have a payoff. We are paying full price. Don’t we want to get everything we can from it? This is why I want to enroll us all in Change U
Transitions become much more powerful when we become educated about the change process. [Story of daughter calling home from college crying.] It would be a misunderstanding to say, "Oh, if you’re feeling badly, why don’t you just come home." There’s not way around it, you have to go through it. There’s nothing permanent except change.
When I went to college, a world died. It needed to die.
I heard about a family whose daughter went to summer camp. The mom was so distraught she slept in her daughter’s bedroom. The girl is in high school.
Those who have been through the change process have wisdom to share. I’d like to listen to one such person today. If you brought your Bible with you, I’d like for you to turn with me to Philippians 3:7-16, where Paul writes:
Philippians 3:7-16
Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ --the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
Paul indicates a time of transition here:
In which he is looking back, and looking forward
Letting go, and reaching out....
Changing in some ways, but not in other ways....
A key to change management is to know what must change, and what must not change.
We need to make careful choices....not everything should change
What’s Biblical cannot change; what’s Cultural must change
Principles don’t change; practices do change.
The purpose remains the same. Personnel can change.
The serenity prayer states, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. It’s the rare man who goes through life holding firmly to that prayer. And I would say it is also the rare church. But I believe CTK in Mount Vernon can be that church.
While we are going through a change in pastors here, there is far more that is staying the same.....I thought of five....
We still have the same....
Owner Org Chart
Christ (King)
Everyone else
Rick is in the bottom box.
We have many pastors, but only one king.
Some of you may have come here because of you. I hope you’ll stay here because of Christ.
Mission
That is what we want to be.
That is what we want to do.
If you are here because of the mission -- either because the mission has reached you, or you want to reach out to others, I have good news for you. The mission is not changing. The job is not done. The job is not mostly done.
Strategy
Everyone is a minister.
Small groups are the basic building block
Dream
Is to not be a great ministry, but a great movement.
More instead of bigger.
Principles
Culture of simplicity -- keep the main thing the main thing
Culture of recovery -- there’s forgiveness for the past.
Culture of authenticity -- we try to keep it real
We must adjust to changing times but cling to unchanging principles. The change process has a predictable curve to it, that follows the shape of a U.
The U
Suspending Crystalizing
Letting Go Letting Come
Redirecting
When you are moving down the U, your awareness is limited to the current field. As you come back out of the U you will have a much broader vision.
Oscar Wilde: "We are all in the gutter. But some of us are looking up at the stars."
The faster you get to the bottom of the U, the better. Some call this "getting to the end of your rope."
There is the "ending" phase, when people disengage from the past and
"the way things were." {Paul expresses this phase when he says, "what was to my profit, I now consider loss" and "I’m forgetting those things that are behind"}.
Then, there is a neutral zone, which he calls the "transition" phase, when people have to let go of the old but haven’t yet figured out how to live with the new {sounds like Paul...."I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it"}
And finally, there is a "new beginning" phase during which people learn to feel at home with the new {Paul: "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."}
It’s seasonal. Scripture says, "To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven."
Seneca
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
There is a great opportunity for us here in this transition if we’ll seize it. Paul was ready to seize it. "I’m letting go. I’m pressing on."
The problem of change isn’t learning new behaviors. It’s letting go of old ones. When you ask someone to change, they will focus on what they have to give up not what they will gain. Some even prefer the painful known to the uncertain better.
Midas Dekkers, Biologist: "To learn something new, one first has to unlearn something old. So learning is twice as much work for an old person as it is for a person with no experience."
Some people are still using cassette, while the rest of the world has taken two steps forward, to CDs, and to MP3. It’s one thing when that is true in the audio department. It’s another when this is where you’re at spiritually.
There are options that present themselves in the midst of change, two that I think of particularly....
1.) Embrace it or Resist it
Embrace change or resist it
What you resist persists. Be in charge of change or have change be in charge of you. Learning to love change is unnatural.
Steve Brown: "Our problem is that we keep trying to pretend that our transient city is a permanent one."
2.) Grow or Stagnate
If we won’t change we’ll stagnate
Go forward or backward
Be a Rear view mirror or windshield
[Sit in chair with wheels
- go backward, go forward
- going forward is much more challenging
You can grow up or get stuck. Some churches get stuck -- we need to put a fence around them and charge admission, "This is how church was done in the 1950s"
* Tradition is the living faith of the dead
* Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living
Jack Paar (TV host): "Looking back, my life seems like one long obstacle race, with me as its chief obstacle."
In one Charlie Brown comic strip, Charlie is complaining to Linus about his lunch, that it has the same thing in it every day. Linus asks who makes his lunch, and Charlie Brown says, "I do." When it comes to change, we all make our own lunch.
Let me suggest a couple things to make change as tasty as possible. To get all you can out of a time of transition:
A. Stay loose/tight
For a successful life you need a clear master and a clear mission.
Outside of that, keep your change muscles stretched -- low viscosity.
B. Keep a future orientation (have faith).
Look forward to what is coming.
Like swinging from a trapeze: You realize you have to let go of the bar you’re holding, to take the bar that’s coming. Like Tarzan swinging through the jungle: you can’t cling to the vine your swinging on
C. "Liminality"
limin -- the centerline of the doorway
Liminality is the moment of crossing over, it’s the transitional phase. Life is just a series of moments where we’re crossing over.
The bible uses the word fai. Paul put it like this....
Philippians 3:7-16
Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ --the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
