Initiating Change

Image by www.eci.com

How do you go about initiating changed? Some may seek to initiate change with the “royal decree.” The formal, or titular leader, may simply make a declaration that the old way will cease and a new way will commence. “As of tomorrow we will no longer use the latest version of the iPhone and must use landline phones.” That is one way to initiate, but what preparation was made to ensure everybody in the organization understood the reason for the change and had landline accessibility. Cell phones have become so ubiquitous why revert to landlines? There would be a great deal of organizational anxiety, and resistance (active and passive).

Some may seek to initiate change using the maxim, “Rub raw the sores of social discontent.”  What are people dissatisfied with, angry about, and fearful of? To initiate change one keeps reminding people of their dissatisfaction, anger and fear while magnifying it to ever greater heights. Keep pounding home how bad things are and paint a picture of how good things could be. In the current political environment and the U.S.A. presidential campaign, some are maximizing their message around dissatisfaction, anger and fear.

The strategy is to rouse the populace to the point of “revolution.” That is the way of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky. In some ways it is the model I was taught by my professor Hal Wareheim and (in my view) is used, in a modified form, by consultant Del Poling (http://delpoling.com/ministry_services.html)

in his Leading Congregations Through Major Change. It is also the means used by disgruntled congregation members when trying to get rid of the minister. Keep telling the stories of what you, and others, do not like about the pastor’s service until greater and greater numbers begin to adopt your dissatisfaction or come up with their own. The more logs which are thrown on the fire the hotter it gets. The solution is clear, get rid of the pastor and everything will be right, again.

Consultant Alan Hirsch proposes another way (http://www.alanhirsch.org/). In his blog entry Stir Up Holy Discontent Hirsch states,

Questing is the result of holy discontent, and more often than not, as in all genuine renewal movements, they are the result of the Holy Spirit working directly in our lives. And behind every good quest lies at least one really good question—we do well to heed Einstein’s advice to a young admirer when he said, “The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.”

(http://www.alanhirsch.org/blog//cultivating-learning-and-innovation-iv-stir-up-holy-discontent)

What is God calling us to be and do? What will expand the realm of God in our community? What would things be like if we sought a more peaceful means of resolving our differences? How might we improve our educational endeavors, from cradle to grave, for our members? What else could we do to proclaim and demonstrate the good news of the Gospel?

Questions are expansive, open, seeking a multiplicity of possibilities. Questions stir the imagination. Questions are non-judgmental. Questions are egalitarian, rather than the imposition of a solution from the “king on the mountain.” As Hamlet says to Horatio, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet (1.5.167-8)