change

Yesterday and today, I was at two talks about change in the church. The present, Dr Richard McCorry authored a book, Dancing with Change, in 2004 and was the spark of my interest in how the change process works in the church. As I listened, it became clear to me that change is the core message of Christianity. Jesus came to show us how to change our hearts and enable them to be reflections of the divine image. We talk a lot about “conversion” and I wonder if we realize that this is about change, but the deepest change that can come from faith in God.

Church change seems to be a specialty because it is of the emotions that are mixed in. Corporate change affects the individual, but the corporation is not a reality that shapes and forms the soul on the level a person’s faith does. The place that has been the place where God has been encountered, where joys and sorrows have been experienced, and a place we can count on is gone; then what? Conversion of heart roots a person in God; but many people are formed into a religion but not into a relationship with God. Being in a religion can root itself into dogma, rules, and exact rituals. Being some of faith is rooted in a relationship that has shaped the dogma, rules are a response to the dogma and rituals are an encounter with the divine. For Christians, the dogma is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, suffered, died, and rose again for the salvation of all. The rules are making the teaching of Jesus (dogma) real, We are told that we are to feed the poor and the rule is doing it. Finally, the ritual is an encounter with the one we love. In a ritual, God is present to us.

Change is life. Often, the change is a letting go of the shoulds, oughts, and personas we think we have to be and we become the person God has made

us to be.