Who Moved My Pulpit?: Leading Change in the Church

by Thom S. Rainer

Hear me clearly. I have never seen successful and sustaining change take place in a church without prayer. Never. Not once.

You are not smart enough to lead change. You need to pray for wisdom. You are not brave enough to lead change. You need to pray for courage. You are not strong enough to lead change. You need to pray for strength. Please pardon me for being redundant. But I will say it one more time. I have never seen successful and sustaining change take place in a church without prayer.

Does your church keep records? Does it have the past ten years of data? Can you get the following information? Average worship attendance the past ten years. Number of conversions for each of the past ten years. Average attendance in your groups or Sunday school each year for the past ten years.

Leaders who embody hope in their churches have three clearly defined traits: They read the Bible daily. This first characteristic seems so simple and basic, and, in a way, it is. But too many leaders do not take time to read the Bible daily. Brad Waggoner, in his book The Shape of Faith to Come, presents a fascinating study about spiritual maturity. The essence of the study is that the most mature Christians have one common trait: they read the Bible daily. So it is with leaders as well. You can’t have hope if you’re not hearing from the Author of hope every day. They choose to communicate hope. While there are certainly times to be prophetic, leaders of hope are highly intentional about communicating hope to their congregants. There are always choices in the content and tone of communications. Leaders of hope choose to communicate hope. They look for low-hanging fruit. Leaders of hope regularly seek small victories for the church. They likewise seek stories of small victories that take place in the lives of their members and the ministries of the church. We will pursue this topic further in chapter 9.

Leaders are first to care for the sheep. They are to love the sheep. They are to serve the sheep. If change is attempted without love, you have failed already.

If you are not being criticized, you are not leading.

If you are leading a typical established church to change, many of the members will have gravitated toward change resistance. Such is the nature of an established church. In fact, I tell leaders of these churches to expect members to fall into change categories as follows: 5%: Eager for change. This group is wondering what’s taking you so long. 20%: Open to change. They need to understand the details of the change, but they typically will be okay with it. 30%: Followers. They tend to move where the loudest and most convincing voices are. 25%: Resistant to change. They like the church just the way it is. 20%: Highly resistant to change. This group is not much fun.

I was leading a coaching group of twelve church leaders, eight of whom were lead pastors. All of them were in churches that were inwardly focused. I gave the group one external assignment. I asked them to be intentional each week about inviting someone to church or sharing the gospel of Christ with them. They were to be accountable to me via a brief e-mail each week. The results surprised me, really surprised me. At the end of one year, ten of the twelve churches had begun to grow. All of the eight churches where the pastor made the commitment were growing.