Adaptive change and I noted in my previous posting is sometimes called deep change or transformative change. There are a number of thoughts that this provokes:

1. Is it the case that adaptive change is already upon us because of contextual change?
2. Is adaptive change what we need to not break narrative identity in the midst of deep contextual change?
3. Is adaptive change something we prompt or something we navigate through?
4. Are we the agent or recipient of this change?

Adaptive Change in Second Temple Judaism In pondering adaptive change this morning my thoughts went to the New Testament. The longer I ponder the New Testament story the more I appreciate how violently Jesus challenged the narrative identity matrix of second temple Judaism. Luke aptly portrays the two gigantic movements in the books Luke and Acts. Jesus in three years changes the narrative identity of the people of Yhwh from a Maccabean traditional revolt orientation (spectrum from accommodation to resistance to the Roman Empire through withdrawal, symbolic resistance like the Pharisees, and violent opposition like the zealots) to a far more radical revolution that challenged not only the Roman occupation of God’s people and place but the age of decay’s grasp on the entire universe. In the crucifixion and resurrection the way of the sword is undermined because death is undermined.

This change is seen implicitly in the ministry of Jesus but becomes actualized in the Gentile mission exemplified by Paul (and others) in Luke’s book of Acts. In the Gentile church these transformations become real and in the offering of treasure and uncircumcised saints that Paul brings to a skeptical Jerusalem church the tensions are felt.

The language of the New Testament is totalitarian describing these changes. It is conversion. It is heaven or hell. It is life or death.

Adaptive Change Throughout Church History

Change of course didn’t stop with the death of the apostles. There was the change Constantine brought to the church and empire. There were the changes bought on by the dissolution of the Roman Empire and the conversion of the Northern European barbarians. There were the changes brought on by the monastic movement. There was the Protestant Reformation. There was the Western Enlightenment combined with colonialism. We are currently in a context of global change in the Christian church as the fruits of the modern missionary movements are maturing in the explosion of indigenous churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Ponder the amount of change that happened between Jesus’ baptism by John and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Within that span of 40 years changes began that would set into motion the conversion of the Roman empire leading to the church’s 2000 year story now culminating in Holy Spirit’s work in Africa, India and China today.

What does Minas Tirith Have To Do with The Shire?

One of the important discrepancies between Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson’s movie version is the fate of Saruman, Wormtongue and the Shire. In the book Saruman is able to talk is way out of Orthanc past the Ents and he and Wormtongue make their way to the Shire and subjugate the Hobbits. When the four Hobbits return from the dramatic events of Minas Tirith and Mordor they discover their work is not done. This time there is no Gandalf or Aragorn to fall back upon, they must deal with Saruman and his henchmen. The Shire, like much of Middle Earth was not spared the calamity of the War of the Rings, it needed to be fought for and restored.

When the movie skips this part of the book it indulges in the fantasy that change doesn’t hit home. “There’s always the Shire” one hobbit will say to another. Fighting the war at Minas Tirith didn’t mean the Shire would be untouched. That is how war is and Tolkien knew this in a way Peter Jackson did not.

What is my point? The world is changing fast and the CRC is part of the world. However Shire-like the CRC can be change is upon us. Our questions revolve around learning what to do when “solutions” are not available.

Conflict in Change

I think it is helpful to look at the New Testament in pondering change. Look at the level of conflict that surrounded Paul. He was participating in this enormous church planting movement among pagans in the empire. There were issues of meat sacrificed to idols to be worked through, sexual ethics to be worked through, gender and familial impact of the Gospel to be worked through, the issue of slavery (Philemon) to be grappled with. All of this was only on the Gentile side of the equation for him.

On the other side there was the Jerusalem church with Galilean apostles lead by James and Peter who seem to wobble back and forth over the Gentile question. Greek speaking vs. Hebrew widows to be attended, former Pharisees and Judaizers who had serious questions about letting God-fearers into the church without circumcision or dietary rules. Paul is under threat both from “Greeks” and Jews wherever he goes. This mission will cost him his freedom and eventual his life and Paul is just the most prominent figure of a whole generation of leaders whose work will change the world. This will be followed by hundreds of years of sorting things out, a process that we continue in today.

What our Annoyance Reveals

So we’re in a minor tizzy over a candidate for the Executive Director position withdrawing from the process. This betrays how Shire-like we are.

It is tempting at the juncture to assert a familiar activistic agenda to inspire and motivate. This agenda often tends to demean the little familiar church down the road where we find family jointed by the blood of the lamb (rather than Abraham), liturgy that affords deep comfort and joy, and a place to love our neighbors in common, practical, ordinary ways. We must not demean this Shire-like church because it sacramentally connects us with the shalom of our home in the age to come.

What we ought to be deeply suspicious of is the control-based idolatries that the Shire tempts us into. This Shire-like home is purchased and created by the priceless blood of the lamb. It is not in isolation from the bigger war, it is an expression of the created goodness for which that war is waged.

Our Shire longings must be informed by the churches Paul writes to in his Epistles and the churches John writes to in the book of Revelation. The Shire is not good because it is isolated, the Shire is good because it is purchased and sustained. It is not a stingy, miserly preserve but an expression lavish generosity emerging out of cosmic struggle. It is precious not because it is kept secret, it is precious because it is won. The bride’s white robes are white not because she has never seen harm, but because she is washed by the blood of the lamb.

In the end change must come and for Christians this ought to be welcomed. Christians believe that the series of cataclysmic changes that the world must endure will lead to a new heavens and a new earth.

Adaptive Change is about Following the Thready Narrative

Leadership through times of change, leading through adaptive change is about finding the narrative and following the thread. It is about following that lamb wherever he goes. It is about making a thousand concrete decisions that somehow lead through fire into glory. It is about a thousand conversations (and blog posts) that are quickly forgotten but slowly, indiscernibly progress the conversation until a community can reluctantly and sometimes fearfully arrive at its true home.