Leading Change in the Church - Lesson 6

When we're going through change, even in the best of initiatives, there're going to be some reactions, and we can talk about these. The grapevine activity is going to increase; you can expect it. There's going to be a blaming of others that takes place in change initiative in the church. There's going to be more need to talk to leaders, and so leaders in the process are going to need to expect to spend their time in the hallways and with people to allow people to process out loud what's going on. There's going to be a lower morale for a time; you can expect that dip in morale to happen. There's going to be talk of the good old days, even though the good old days might not have been such good old days, but Egypt looks pretty good when you've got nothing to eat, and so the good old days are what they are. And then there's a higher absenteeism; people just don't show, and so those kinds of lags you can expect through the change process. 

So when you are experiencing change, have you seen any of these actions take place, these reactions in churches that you've been part of when change happens? Yes to all of them? 

STUDENT: We were talking related to the grapevine in this example, the Johnson shoes. Even if the board had not been doing things behind the scenes, if they were just stumbling their way through it, you could still create that grapevine activity, so the concern can be, well, what are they doing if they're not telling us, as part of the grapevine conversations, so you can be poorly led but innocent, with the assumption being well, there’s stuff going on, and we’re not being told.

Right. That's true. 

STUDENT: It requires strong, intentional leadership that’s not secretive. 

We're going to talk about the informal communication process when we get to communication, but just as a precursor, this grapevine thought is often looked upon by leaders as sinful. We tend to look at it as a negative thing in the church, the grapevine, you know, all the grapevine is active, the grapevine is going, it's passing down through the grapevine, and so we don't generally see it as a positive thing. The history of the grapevine, of course, comes out of the civil war in the United States, where the troops were trying to figure out how to communicate when they were across the valley from one another, and so they created this line that would traipse through the trees and, you know, very informally, they would they would drape this line, and they could actually communicate through these cans, and they could communicate very informally through these systems, and that's how the grapevine concept came about, and in the church world, often we equate grapevine with gossip, but the reality is that it's really helpful as leaders, particularly when we're going through the process of change, to learn how not to resist the grapevine, but to learn how to manage it, and we'll talk about that.

When I was going through my Ph.D. work, one of the tasks that a colleague and I had was to do a communications audit of the Tennessee School Authority, and it was a huge group, and we went in and did a communication audit to find out, in effect, how the grapevine worked and then to advise the leadership on how it worked, where the what we call centrals and peripherals were in this grapevine process, and then help them learn how to manage that effectively for the best of the work that they were doing, and it's fascinating. I'll tell you more about that when we come to communication, but grapevine is a critical thing to understand and to manage well when you’re going through change. 

Well, this is a discipline to stay in the zone when you perceive as a leader the change is positive and that this is a great idea, and even, this is of the Lord – if there can be agreement on that -- to stay in the discipline in the zone, giving people the time and the space to work through this death and dying process of change, this disruption, particularly if it's significant, is really important in order to function in a way that honors the bride of Christ. 

So how do we help others cope with change in practical ways? Number one, communicate a consistent message. It's very important in change to continue to communicate, and when I say communicate a consistent message, not only does an individual need to communicate a consistent message, but the leadership, plural, need to communicate a message that is the same; if there are various messages coming from various leaders, that can really, really make it difficult. Well, are we going to change or aren't we? Is this disruption for real? Is it worth it? And so forth. So, communicating a consistent message is critical. 

Secondly, provide as many details as possible. This is a very important principle. I was with a friend of mine recently, and he was telling about his own church, and they had just gone through the loss of a youth pastor, and that was a significant disruption; it was a significant change in the church, and so there was this open forum that wasn't necessarily about the youth pastor, it was just about kind of like an annual meeting, or whatever it was. The pastor was moderating this -- that may have been his first mistake -- but when he was moderating it, a question came from the floor, because this happened so abruptly and so unannounced, and one day the guy was there, the next day the guy was gone, the youth pastor. So one of the families of youth simply asked the question, can you share with us, Pastor, what happened to the youth pastor? And literally, the pastor looked at the man like this, turned away and said, next question? You can imagine the devastation that that created. There are some of our cultures in the Christian world that are on a need to know basis, and you don't need to know kind of thing. 

As followers of Christ and of respecting people, I would suggest to you that we share everything that we absolutely can, and we communicate in such a way that we communicate to people we’ll only not share with you what we cannot share with you in order to either protect you or individuals or the church itself, but otherwise, we're going to be open with details as much as possible. Does that make sense? 

STUDENT: Yes, but is so difficult to apply with a delicate personnel matter. I'm not saying that the pastor you described did it very well, but I imagine what he was thinking was, I can't -- there's nothing I can say, so how do you -- you don't want to speak for 20 minutes and then not say anything at all... 

I think it was a fear that came over him in that moment, and so his response to the fear was controlling the situation, so that was the only way he knew to do it. You're absolutely right, though. I agree. I think in saying something as simple as, you know, I think you have a great question, it's a legitimate question. We were all so sad to see this crumble, and we all loved (name his name or whatever), and if it's a delicate situation, it's simple enough to say, you know, there there's just things, folks, that we cannot share because we put the church in jeopardy. It's personnel issues. We would be potentially creating a situation that's just not healthy for the church. But I think saying something like that, even in that context, I mean, I've been in situations where there were illegal things that were happening and, you know, a person's here one day and gone for another because of child pornography or whatever the case may be, and very, very difficult situations, but the reality is that people are going through a grief process, again, and to give them time to talk, to share their grief, to share their pain, to share the hurt, the sorrow, sadness, the fear, what's going to happen to our kids, is really what people are looking for in those moments, and I think a pastoral approach to that is very helpful. Does that make sense? 

STUDENT: Assure them because they’re interested in what's going to happen to them, so trying to reassure them with what you say about the children or something would have been a good response, although it doesn't answer the question about why this person's gone. 

STUDENT: We've had some experiences. 

Yeah, sure, it is tough. 

STUDENT: They were very tough. 

STUDENT: And it kind of depends on where you are in being informed, like, did they learn at that meeting that this guy was gone? You know, there's also a time element as to how crucial it is, but you want details and want to move to realizing well, maybe it really is in the best interest of somebody, but that is a desire immediately, is I want to know details, what happened here? 

Right. So, provide as many as you can. Listen; simple, but listen. We're going to talk about responsible listening later. Give people time to adjust. Going through this process is not overnight; the significance of the change, the experience of the loss increases, and it just takes time to move from that denial through the whole process to acceptance and working through it. Keep talking about the change; keep sharing about it. Don't push it under the rug and hope that if we just don't talk about it and it just happens that it's going to be okay; that doesn't really help a great deal. Expect people to be emotional through the process. And finally, look for people doing things right. It's important in change to recognize and champion healthy behavior. Questions about those? Other ideas about helping others cope with change? You guys have had a lot of experience with it? Curious. 

STUDENT: I was part of an organization that had a very sad change occur. It was a death in the community, and it was a large organization, and our leadership was very good about wanting to share and to keep things as normal as possible in terms of the day-to-day activities, so that was important for the community to both talk about it and listen and look for opportunity for people to do things right, continuing the norm, if you would, as opposed to taking a break, that that could actually be an impediment to people processing, or trying to gloss over it to both/and, not an individual work.

Good. Excellent. 

STUDENT: In that example you gave, if that person had just done the listening part and just let them know they were heard, that would have really benefited the ignoring part.