thom rainer

“It takes courage to be a change leader in the church. Opposition and resistance often come frequently and fiercely. But too much is at stake to do otherwise. . . . The choice is simple: change or die.”

Thom Rainer, in his book Who Moved My Pulpit?, couldn’t be more right in his statement here. The fact is, if there’s anything constant in ministry and in life, it’s change. (I wrote an article here on Leading Change in the Church).

If there’s anything constant in ministry and in life, it’s change.

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When it comes to introducing change, your change initiative will face one of three fates:

One of my favorite things to do is to help churches create alignment and momentum within their staff and leadership to move their church towards multiplication. In order to do just that, change needs to happen. There’s no other way around it.

Unfortunately, most pastors and leaders struggle with change management. This is because many forget to think through who all and what all is going to be affected by this change. As a result, people are overlooked, feelings get hurt, and easy wins are lost. Inevitably this results in unnecessary conflict that could have and should have been avoided.

Your mighty plans for change are then lost in the mire of relational trouble and politics. Nothing changes. Your church stays on the same course. And the next time you try to change something, you experience even more opposition and skepticism than ever before.

If only there were an easy step-by-step process to guide people through leading and managing change in the church.

Leading Change

John Kotter’s 8-Step Process outlined in Leading Change has heavily influenced the way that I process, think through, and lead change. I’ve implemented his 8-steps through precarious times and important shifts in churches, like when I helped my previous church make the shift to becoming more missional.

Here are his 8-steps, as now updated in his recent book, Accelerate:

Step 1: Create a Sense of Urgency
Step 2: Build a Guiding Coalition
Step 3: Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives
Step 4: Enlist a Volunteer Army
Step 5: Enable Action by Removing Barriers
Step 6: Generate Short-Term Wins
Step 7: Sustain Acceleration
Step 8: Institute Change

Leading Change in the Church

These 8-steps are a proven system for change management and they can certainly be contextualized for use in the church, which I’ve personally done, but it’s definitely not a perfect fit.

“It takes courage to be a change leader in the church. Opposition and resistance often come frequently and fiercely. But too much is at stake to do otherwise. . . . The choice is simple: change or die.”

Leading Change

Leading Change in the Church

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