The Pain of Change
As your new Interim Senior Pastor, one of my jobs at Calvary is to help the church leadership prepare for and walk through some needed changes that will improve the health of the congregation and her ministries. And, let’s face it, change is hard and often painful.
Nobody likes the idea of changing some old ways of doing church and replacing them with new ways. But most people who call Calvary their home know that change and transition is needed.
Over the next few months you will be hearing of changes that your church leadership has agreed to because we need to try to reverse the trend of attendance decline and worker fatigue and loosing effective contact with others who live in our community.
Last night the Deacon Board made some beginning changes in how we do ministry and what ministries we will do or not do. We began by changing Sunday morning meeting times for the fall and the strengthening of small group ministries.
Some may find the change in worship service time from 10:50am to 9:30am to be painful, but we are doing this on a trial basis to allow more people from our church and our community to attend. Younger individuals and families have expressed an interest and even excitement in the new schedule. This change will also allow more opportunities for small group meetings after the worship service and more possibilities for community ministry and service on Sunday mornings. Families may also enjoy having more time following the worship service to enjoy more of the day with family or friends. The new worship service time of 9:30am will begin on September 12th. This will go along with more worship experience improvements.
Another change that may cause some pain is our decision to put the AWANA ministry on hold for now until God directs us to restart this Children’s program or another one in its place. But for now we are not going to hold AWANA this next school year and instead focus the churches energies and resources on developing a dynamic children’s church experience during our worship service. This will also replace our children’s Sunday School for now. Please pray that God directs and leads us to reach out to more of our neighborhood children while we serve our church’s existing children and their families.
Paul Baker has blogged about more of the changes and you will be hearing more about them and others in the days ahead.
Someone once wisely said, we will not change until the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing. Let’s face it, if Calvary doesn’t change, there will be discouragement and more decline in attendance and ministry effectiveness. But, if we seek God and his plan for our church, He “is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in (our) church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)
