When Church Changes and You Don't Like It

Change is one of the few guarantees of life in a church family — and it's rarely comfortable. In this episode, Pastors Wyatt and Steve sit down to talk honestly about what happens when your church makes decisions you disagree with, when programs shift, when doctrinal statements get updated, and when things just don't feel the way they used to. Drawing from their own experience leading Alderwood through a season of change, they explore why change is both necessary and difficult, and how we can navigate it without losing each other in the process.

Rooted in the wisdom of Romans 14 and the book of Proverbs, Wyatt and Steve offer five practical principles for responding well when things shift beneath your feet — from taking a breath before firing off that email, to understanding why an issue hits you the way it does, to knowing how to leave a church with grace if it comes to that. Whether you're the one pushing for change or the one wishing things would stay the same, this conversation is an invitation to pursue unity without pretending disagreement doesn't exist.

Native Exiles is a podcast from Alderwood Community Church, where we explore the tension of following Jesus while being in the world but not of it. For more questions and inquiries, reach us at hello@alderwood.cc or visit us online at alderwood.cc/ne/.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Native Exiles Alderwood Community Churches podcast where we talk about following Jesus and the tension of being in the world, but not of it. And we're talking about one particular tension today, which is this reality of we are a part of the church, we love each other, we're brothers and sisters, and yet we're still in this broken world. We don't all see things the same way. We disagree, the changes happen that we don't like. And so today we're talking about how do we handle change and particularly changes we don't like in our churches. How can we honor Jesus even in some of those difficult ways? Uh yeah, this conversation's been really a blessing to me. I hope it is to you as well. Here we go. Steve, it's great to be back in the studio with you once again. It's been a while.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Yeah. We've had some individual guests.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, it's been great. And uh and we're kind of getting towards the end of the season here and reflecting on what we've been talking about this year. We've been talking a lot about a lot of things uh that kind of just sprang out of a moment we're in as a church, uh, both pastors at Alderwood Community Church. And uh, we've been leading our church through some change this year. We've updated our doctrinal statement, we've produced some uh position papers, and so we want to have a conversation today about just how to handle change as a church, uh, as members of the church, as leaders of the church, because I mean it's obviously relevant to where we are right now, but part of what we were realizing as we were thinking through this is I mean, this is just life. Like this is just no matter what church you're at, no matter, you know, who your leadership is, whatever, like change is just a reality. And dealing with things changing that you maybe aren't even the biggest fan of is kind of a universal experience of people who are part of church families all over the country. And so uh we just thought we'd talk about how to handle that well.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, we've had you know a fair amount of questions and people inquiring, and we were kind of weighing out, you know, we could talk about this issue or that issue, but the overarching theme is change. And change is, like you said, it's real for all of us. I mean, even beyond the church context. If you're married, there's differences. You are asked to change or to compromise. If you're in a work setting, if you're in a club, anywhere you go facing change and the differences that life brings our way is part of being human. And it's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

It's tough, it's hard. You know, I we were kind of laughing about uh an illustration I used in one of my sermons a little while ago uh when we're talking about how to handle differences of opinion and disagreements in the church and all of that. And what I did was I went and I just kind of accumulated all the comments I've received as a pastor about things we should be doing, shouldn't be doing, the changes that have happened, how people feel, and just read them off. And I actually want to read that for us today as we begin, just so we can all just take a deep breath and remember this isn't easy, this isn't simple. Like we we have to live together with all kinds of people who are different than us. And I just want to reiterate this isn't hypothetical. We didn't like this isn't this isn't ChatGPT. This isn't, this is real comments that real people have made to me specifically, okay? At our church. Uh, we'll start in the worship realm, okay? I've had people say that the music is too loud. That shouldn't surprise anybody. I've also had people complain that the music is too soft, it's not loud enough. We've had complaints that the music is too modern, that it's too old. We've had people say that they love the haze in the auditorium, that they hate the haze in the auditorium, that people should move around more during worship, and people should stop moving as much because it's distracting during worship, that the lights are too bright, the lights are too dim, that women should be preaching and leading more in our church, that people that women should be preaching and leading less in our church, that we should have Sunday school classes that meet on Sunday mornings, that we shouldn't have Sunday school classes that meet on Sunday mornings because that keeps people from serving more, that we should go to such and such a place on our mission trip. And people say we should stop going to that place uh with our mission trips for different reasons. You know, our services should be aimed more at reaching unbelievers, our services should be aimed more at discipling committed Christians. We preach too many topical sermons. We never teach topical sermons. We should spend more money on this program or less money on that program. We should hire more staff for kids and students because they need more help. We should hire less staff for kids and students because then people will have to volunteer more. We shouldn't use the translation you chose, the CSV. We should use the ESV translation, we should use the NIV translation, we should use the NLT translation, the King James translation, we should use the message translation, we should be more politically engaged, we should be less politically engaged. The messages should be longer, the messages should be shorter, uh, we should have more of an elder-led governance style. We should have more of a congregational-led governance style. We should have a Moses model where the lead pastor just gets to do whatever they want. Uh I was a fan of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

I like that one.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Um We should uh give away more money through the Compassion Center. We should stop giving things out through the Compassion Center because it's enabling people. We should invest people, we should invest more in men's ministry, we should invest more in women's ministry, we shouldn't have gender-based ministries at all. We should start a bike riding ministry, we should start a kite flying ministry. Just again, these are real comments that people have made to me. Is that all you have? I could go on, but that's probably enough. Like, church is hard. Let's just acknowledge that church is hard. We all have our own perspective, our own view of things. And part of the reason why I love reading through that, and why I think it makes sense for our conversation today is almost everything I just read there, they're not just random opinions. They almost everything there is some reaction to change. It's either something's changed and I don't like it, and I wish it was the way it used to be, or it's you aren't changing things and you should. You should add this thing, you should do this differently, you should, you know. And so that concept of like our our congregation, our gathering, our church family changing, it is at the heart of so much of our disagreements with each other, what can lead to frustrations, what can lead even to divisions. And so thinking clearly about that is a really important thing. Uh, you know, if Jesus' desire for unity is is so crucial to him, and it is, then us being wise, being mature about how to handle this is a very reality. But the reason why uh people care about changes is because they care about the church, is because they care about the gospel. Like it's a good thing for us to be passionate, it's a good thing for us to care a lot about what is going on at church. So the the answer isn't like just everyone chill out and stop having opinions. The answer is something about how we treat each other in that, how we navigate this. And so we're gonna we're gonna dive into this conversation. And, you know, I think uh we're not gonna advocate just for like change is always good or change is always bad, or you know, any any simple answer like that. What we're really gonna try to talk about is okay, how can we be a healthy church family, whatever church you're a part of, wherever you are, like how can you contribute to health? Uh understanding it's a given that things are gonna change at times. It's a given that you're not always gonna like it. Uh, how can we represent Jesus well in the midst of that? So let's let's dive into that together.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Wyatt, I am an Enneagram 9.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yes, you are.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

And what that means is I like when things are stable and they say the same and they're predictable. For people who don't know the Enneagram, what is an Enneagram 9? It is a peacemaker and someone who desires stability in every realm of their life. Don't like conflict. Don't like conflict, and to be honest, have to learn to embrace change. And honestly, sometimes I feel like there's too much change in my life. Why it I mean, uh isn't there a time when change just gets to be too much? Do we really have to embrace change?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Well, yeah, I mean, can there be too much change? Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the delicacies of leading is you know, uh not changing things too fast for people to follow you. If people can't follow you, you're not actually leading. Um But that kind of impulse that I think some of us have of like it'd be so much nicer if things just didn't change, if it just stayed the same. Why do we have to embrace it? I mean, the the truth is actually you can't not have change. So uh I mean, one, uh in defense of change, like growth requires change. So if you if you want to grow as a person, if you want to grow closer to Jesus, if you want to grow in your trust of God, if you want to grow in loving your neighbor as yourself and in, you know, caring about people around you don't know Jesus, like by definition, that's change. That's saying like the version of who I am today is not the version I want to be tomorrow. I want to change into this person who has grown from where I am today. Um, as much as that's true individually, that's true of our churches as well. We want our churches to grow uh more into the image of Jesus and more into a community that reflects the gospel, like that's going to require some amount of change. So I think the idealization of uh of things staying the same is probably not the right way to look at it. Um, the flip side of that is okay, even if theoretically you could like not change anything for your church, if you could, you know, just say the way it is today, it's gonna be forever. We're gonna have the same worship, the same Bible translation, the same length of the message, the same style of preaching, the same decorations, the same pews, the same, I mean, just on and on and on. Like it's we're never going to change. Even in that scenario, things would change anyways. You know, it it might be slow, but like, I mean, eventually, you know, the person you have leading worship is gonna die or or move or whatever. You gotta put somebody new in. There, they there's no way for that person not to lead differently. You know, eventually uh you're gonna wear out the stuff in your church, have to replace it. By and large, what ends up happening a lot of the time in those kind of churches is they they stop attracting new people and the congregation just ages and kind of dies out, and eventually the church ceases to exist. That's one form of change. Yeah. Uh, but so like you really can't avoid just the reality of change. But when you think about why change is good, um that that concept that growth requires change, that it's also true that the mission that Jesus has given us requires change. So the church's mission is people. Uh Jesus, you know, tells us to go out into the world, into all the nations, to baptize people in his name, to teach them to obey all that he's commanded. Um people change.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah. No, that's so so true. Like I think about our community, right? And one of the things I'm so excited about is our compassion center. I work with Ari in Reaching Our Neighbors. And I had the most stark picture of the way our community changed when years and years ago, our kids used to meet for I over in the Alderwood Middle School. And on the walls, they had pictures of every year's graduating class from eighth grade. And in like 1964, every student was Caucasian, every student was white. And you saw this gradual transformation until you know early 2000s. I mean, you have this massive diversity. That's true for us and our work reaching our neighbors in the Compassion Center. We have a lot of ethnic diversity. So that's just one example of the way our neighborhood's changing. We have to, you know, adjust the ways we're reaching people and think that through.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yeah, I mean, in our in our context here in Linwood, Washington, I mean, Linwood has just transformed completely in the last 20 or 30 years. You know, it was a it was a bedroom community of Seattle for a long time. Uh, you know, it was a suburban single-family home uh type of city, so skewed, wealthier, not a lot of ethnic diversity. And like without any uh any input at all from our church, you know, no one has Linwood has just changed. Uh and there's apartment complexes all over the place, and there's people here from all different nationalities and ethnicities, and I think it's an amazing thing that we've got just. Yeah, I love it. But if if your mission that that the church that Jesus has given the church, if it's to reach people, if if it's to engage with the people that God has put around you, um when the people change, the mission doesn't change, but the mission has to adapt. And and how you accomplish the mission adapts. And you know, when you look at um what the Bible says about God and change, uh, there's a really interesting kind of uh dilemma tension. Right. Because, you know, we all like to kind of have our favorite Bible verse that we use for our opinion. And so people who don't love change will often bring out the Bible verse uh from Hebrews chapter 13. Okay, but slow down here. Let's remember God never changes. Hebrews 13, 8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Like God doesn't change. We love God, we shouldn't change either, right? And and so let's just acknowledge like that is a real true thing. God's character, who God is, is completely unchanging. He is always the same. But then you get the people who actually love change and like love new things, and they have a Bible verse too. Uh, you know, the the Bible verse they stitch into their pillow is Isaiah 14, uh 43, 19, which is when God says, Look, I am about to do something new. Even now, it is coming. I'm doing a new thing. And, you know, that's the verse you can attach to like any new program, any change in the church is like, hey, God's doing a new thing. Like, here's Isaiah 43. And so, how do we make sense of this world where like we have this unchanging God who does new things, who changes things, you know? Like, how how do you make sense of that?

SPEAKER_01 14:30

I mean, I think you said it a minute ago. The message doesn't change, right? The gospel doesn't change, the heart of God doesn't change, mercy, grace, forgiveness, all of that doesn't change. But yeah, culture changes and God does seem to come up with some new programs and and things that keep his people on their feet. I was, you and I were talking about this yesterday. I was thinking about the passage where Peter, you know, after Jesus has left, they're launching the church, the early church, and Peter's having a hard time accepting this idea that he's supposed to worship with Gentiles. And while he's in the home of a Gentile, which must have been a huge step for him, he has this dream. And in the dream, God says to him, Take this food and eat. And it's food that was unclean for Jews too.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

The sheet comes down, right? It's full of all the unclean animals, the lizards, the pigs, oh, must have been some lobster in there. Things he's never eaten. He's never eaten them because God said not to. Let's let's like remember that point. It's not like Peter just had you know some food uh aversions or you know, like God was like, it is despicable to me for you to eat these things.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

And the best part is Peter says to God, never will I do such a thing, right? So I mean, even Peter had a hard time changing, and and God does seem to bring new things for new eras in new ways, but the message of the gospel doesn't change.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

And I think you know that is reflecting like the heart of that tension, that God, who is unchanging, is perfectly willing to change how he's engaging with the world, to work in the world in new ways, in different ways. And it is actually driven by his character. It's driven by his desire that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It's his desire for the whole entire world to uh to come to understanding of who he is and receive his grace. And so, you know, whatever that takes, God's willing to do it. And, you know, I think of, you know, another example is, you know, Paul saying, like, I'm willing to become all things to all people that in order that I might save some. Like the message isn't changing, but what it takes to get that message through to a different group of people, a different nationality, a different culture, like I'm willing to adapt anything else other than the message in order to make it work. And so when you think about change in church, like this is where parsing out, like, okay, what kind of change are we talking about here? Like, are we talking about change that is for this purpose that we're talking about, to be more effective in the mission, uh to reach new people in new ways? Are we talking about, you know, change that's actually bad change that's like, you know, ceasing to be faithful to Jesus and to the scriptures? You know, like how do we sort through those things? And I think, you know, one of the things that's just good to recognize is uh wherever you land on whether you love change or not, there are bad reasons to change things. For sure. And there are bad reasons to resist change. And so like you can be wrong in either camp. I mean, we think first about like bad reasons to change things. Um, you know, one of the things I just think of is like just change things because like you're bored, you know. And especially when you find somebody who really does love to shake things up, like this can happen in churches where it's like, I'm just tired of things being, you know, I don't know, peaceful. I'm just gonna like shake things up. Let's do a new program. Let's like fire this person, you know, let's uh whatever. A few podcasts have been made about that. Yeah. And uh there's it can be really damaging to a church. Yeah, you know, and I think it's actually one of the challenges of leading, which is that uh you get tired of things so much faster than your people do because you know, you live and breathe it. It's your full-time job, you're in the house every day, like you almost never miss a Sunday. And so, you know, we actually before we recorded this, like just came from our worship planning meeting. And, you know, a lot of times we'll share our takes, our comments on uh on what songs we're choosing and whatever. And a lot of times, like some of us in the room will say, like, I'm so tired of this song. And the truth is that almost never happens to the church because they attend church a couple of times a month, they don't remember whatever. Like it's those of us that are in it every day, that are at the rehearsal, that are at three services, that are out of all of this, and we're the ones who go, like, I cannot take another single time of us playing this song. And so there is like this temptation of leaders to just always be changing things, switching it up and kind of keep people guessing. And and like that's not a good reason.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Um I I think another bad reason is, you know, sometimes it's an interesting one, right? The desire to be relevant or to be cool, you know. And I think there's a lot of good to be said for trying to be relevant if we're trying to love the people around us, but sometimes it's just I want to look good or I want to look cutting edge, or I want to look like I'm with it, you know. I mean, it's not unlike the way we lived our lives when we were in eighth grade, you know, trying to be popular.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

So I think yeah, there's definitely like a uh a fear of man thing there. Yeah. Where it's like, yeah, we want to be seen as innovative, as cutting edge, as you know, all of that kind of stuff. Um, you know, there's another version of that, which is, and it might even come from a good motive, but it's just it's uh, you know, really misguided. This idea of like, I'm gonna change not the method, but the message. I'm gonna I'm gonna change our the way that we talk about who Jesus is, because basically kind of Jesus needs our help. Like, you know, Jesus needs to make over. Some of the things that Jesus says aren't that popular. There's like some things, you know, especially you know, Jesus' sexual ethic is a common version of this where it's like the culture just really isn't gonna stand for this. And so we just need to kind of alter Jesus a little bit so that he's more palatable to people around us. And that's you know, not a good reason to change things. You can't, you don't get to change Jesus. He he is who he is, he said what he said. Um and and so like those are all things to pay attention to, but there's a flip side too, which is we resist change for the wrong reasons as well. And what's interesting is some of the same fears and some of the same kind of human tendencies are behind it. So, like that fear of man reality that could make you like want to change in order to be seen a certain way. The flip side is uh you cannot change things because you're afraid of what people will say if you do. You know, like you could have a biblical spirit-led conviction on something that needs to happen, but you're thinking of the families who will be mad at you, you're thinking of the people who might leave your church, you're thinking of the, you know, the negative uh reaction of the the board members who are gonna talk to you or whatever. And like that's not a great reason to change things. Um, you know, what else, Steve? Like, what are other bad reasons to keep this the same?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

There's the classic, this is the way we've always done it, right? I mean, that's that's leaning into tradition. Like we do it this way, we've always done it this way. It works for us, it's worked for a hundred years, you know, worked for a thousand years, why do we need to change it? I think that's a very real bad reason not to change.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, there's no safe place to be. Sometimes change is good, sometimes change is bad. Uh, but our our argument here is simple that if the church is gonna pursue the mission that Jesus has given us, if we are going to get serious about uh reaching people in the name of Jesus, helping people grow in their discipleship, change in some form is gonna be a part of that. And and so uh that's gonna produce conflict. Going to produce, you know, uh disagreement at time, at times. And thankfully the Bible speaks to that. And so let's take a break here. And when we come back, like let's go to the scriptures and say, what does God have to offer us and how to navigate some of those realities? Well, thankfully, dealing with change in church is not a modern problem we have to figure out on our own. It's been a thing ever since the beginning. And I want to go to one passage in particular in Romans chapter 14, which is really kind of hitting the nail on the head on this point in particular. Paul is speaking to a church that has is full of people who have had to go through just this tremendous amount of change. There are Jewish people who were worshiping a certain way. And then, you know, Jesus comes and dies for their sins and rises again, and they're Christians now. And not only has that just changed all kinds of things theologically, but now their gathering has changed. Uh, you know, the people that they call brothers and sisters has changed. This whole group of Gentiles has come into the church and they live differently and they think differently and they eat differently. And uh and it's not going all that well. They're they're kind of at each other's throats. Uh, there's a lot of conflict. And Paul has some words of wisdom of how to navigate that change, how to deal with those disagreements. Um, and Steve, I'd love for you to draw out some of what we can learn from that.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah, I'm so glad this chapter is in our Bible. I mean, we would be so much worse off not to have it because it, like you said, it speaks to these realities of not just ethnic tensions, but it's almost like you've got New Testament Christian and Old Testament Christian. You know, you've got your legalistic Christian, you've got your more permanent, you can put some modern context to it, but right out of the gate, Paul just opens with this great line and he just says, welcome one another. And I think that's so important to this whole conversation because the worst thing that can happen when we face off with people that are different than us, people who are asking us to change, or people we would like to change, is we can so easily get into that sort of crusty mold of this is all or nothing. I have to win, you have to lose. If I don't win, I lose. And Paul just says, you know, come with a posture right out of the gate of welcoming this person as a brother or sister in Christ. And that alone just it changes so much. Why I'll tell you a really cool story as we've been facing some of these changes at Alderwood. I was talking to a friend of mine and I knew that she was not going to be crazy about one of the position papers in particular. And I talked to her, I had texted her a few times, make sure you read it over. I'm really interested to hear what you think. And I approached her on a Sunday morning and I said, Did you get a chance to read it? And she said, Yeah, I read it. She said it kind of hesitantly. I said, What'd you think? And she said, I didn't like it. And oh man, I was like bracing myself. Here it goes. And I said, So, Han, tell me what you're thinking right now. And she said, Well, what I'm thinking is this church is my family, and I don't agree with a lot of things with my own family, and I'm gonna stick around because these are my brothers and my sisters, and I love that that welcoming posture, that open, kind-hearted, gracious posture is such an important starting point, don't you think? I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Uh just that starting point of this is my family, these are my brothers and my sisters. Um, and just the reminder like there's there's a more transcendent truth behind our disagreements. Like before we get to our opinions on this or that, we are brothers and sisters. We're in we've been adopted in the same family. And so, like the starting point of we we're gonna figure this out together.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

We're gonna we're gonna work another.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yeah. And I mean, we could go on and on, but there's just like some beautiful metaphors in this passage. Paul's basically painting a picture of almost like a household. He talks about being in the same household. Like we're guests of the same master, eating at the same table. And he's like, who are you to judge the master of ceremonies, the host, for who he invites to the table, whether they eat what you eat or not? It's just this beautiful picture, again, of us being a family, us celebrating being in the presence of Jesus, and that being so much more important. I mean, I think that the big takeaway from this passage that's really important for our modern years, maybe ears since the dawn of time, is loving people, especially those that have been welcomed by Jesus Himself, is more important than our differences, more important than the litmus test of that person's theological views. If they're my brother or sister in Christ, I need to recognize them as such and treat them like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Yeah. I think that's so good. And um, in addition to that kind of just posture, we do get some more specific instructions in this chapter. A couple of important verbs, right? Yeah, take us there.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Yeah, he says to the one group, you know, the group that might have been the more permissive group, they're not caught up in, you know, what days to worship or which food, which foods to eat. He says, Don't look down on those who have a more restrictive view. And for those that were a little bit more maybe uptight or really concerned that we weren't fully obeying God, he says, Don't judge your brothers and sisters. He's really specific. And those verbs carry throughout the passage. Don't judge, don't look down on, don't think you're better than, don't condemn somebody that Jesus hasn't condemned. Just such important words for us.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yeah, I think what really stands out to me in that is there's kind of a principle there of don't overmoralize these disagreements and these conflicts. And I think it's so tempting for all of us to do that. Like when we think things should be a certain way and other people think it should be that way, like it's so easy to go, well, the reason why we disagree is some version of like, I just am more serious about my faith. And I, you know, I've heard that. I care more about what Jesus said. Have you read your Bible? Exactly. You know, like I'm just not as comfortable as you are disregarding what the scriptures say and you know, such verse. And and you know, that that language of like, don't look down, like that is a don't don't moralize this. Don't think that what's behind this really is just that you're a better Christian, you care more, you love Jesus more, whatever. And the don't judge is like don't don't assume that what's going on here is that the other side is just morally deficient in some way. Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Or even willingly sinning.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Right. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, I think those are really good things to hold in that in that brotherly, sisterly way that we're gonna treat each other. We're gonna believe the best. We're gonna, we're, we're not gonna assign motives, we're not going to uh, you know, just attach a narrative to this that makes us the good guy and and the other side the bad guys. Um I I want to get maybe practical with you of just some of the ways we've seen this, like some of the the mistakes that we see well-meaning people make when they handle uh, you know, conflict, some of the fallacies that are out there. Um, you know, you you hear of a change, something's happening, a you know, a program's ending, a program's starting, a doctrinal statement, or whatever. And one of the easy things to do from the beginning is something called the mind reading fallacy, which is to assume that basically you basically know why this is happening, what's what the motives are in the heart, what the thinking behind it was, and not just because they're telling you. You haven't even really listened to what they've said the most. You're telling them, right. You just know, you know, uh and and like you know, we hear this all the time uh as leaders, you know, you just made this decision because you want to make everybody happy. It's always that one's a funny one to me, too, because it's coming from somebody that we've made unhappy. And it's like, well, clearly we didn't do a very good job. Uh if if our intent was to make everybody happy, uh, we didn't we didn't foresee this very well. Uh, you know, I people have told me it's just because I want to look more woke. Um, and I've kind of had to say, like, I don't know who you think is in my life, but like, I'm not winning a lot of points with the people I care about by looking more woke. I mean, that's just not one of my motives. Uh, you know, we want to appease such and such a group of people. Um, you know, just and you can see how people come to those ideas. It's not like they're crazy. It's just it, those, those assessments are made typically in a vacuum, in a lack of information and a lack of understanding. And so being able to come at these and believing the best, giving the benefit of the doubt to say, okay, I haven't heard everything. I don't understand. Rather than think that I know it, why don't I why don't I ask? Why don't I go and try to figure out what's really happening here?

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah, we call that curiosity, right? And it's probably the secret sauce in every good relationship. I mean, that's almost a footnote to welcoming one another. If you want to welcome someone and accept them, you're open to what they have to say without telling them what they already think.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

There's a specific version of like the mind reading fallacy, the or like kind of the uh the omnipotence fallacy. It's a favorite of I think every church leader. It's called the slippery slope fallacy, which gets thrown out a lot in every change, which is to say, like, if I see a direction you're moving, then I can correctly predict the ending point. If you change this, then it's only a matter of time until you do this and this and this and this. And of course, it's called the slippery slope fallacy because it's a fallacy. You know, it's it's actually not true. Just because you see the direction someone's heading doesn't mean you know the endpoint. They could stop, they could turn around, they could, you know, do anything. Um, and again, you can see how those things come about. Like it is a true thing that you can observe in the world that uh groups that people start heading a direction and don't stop and go, you know, totally far away from where they started. And so like that's an observable reality. You know, maybe everybody could think of a friend you've had or a child, someone who um you can give an example. Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, you know, I'm just thinking of like somebody who starts questioning something about their faith, starts questioning a certain doctrine. Uh, you know, what one of the ones that I I got kind of early on in student ministry when I was teaching that, you know, literal six-day creationism was not the only way to understand uh the scriptures. I got a lot of slippery slope complain complaints from some parents who had a story of like, you know, I my my niece, my nephew, like she started questioning six-day creationism, and then and then it was the authority of the scriptures, and then it was Jesus', you know, a divinity, and now she's not a Christian anymore. And now she's, you know, doing drugs on the street somewhere. And it's like basically, you know, you saying we don't have to believe in six-day creationism is the slippery slope to being on the streets doing drugs.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

And that's what I mean. They always have an example, you know, that they they can quote. And it's not like those didn't happen, but yeah, I mean, it's it's it has a sinister side to it too, that's a little bit darker than what you just presented. It kind of is more in overlap with the mind reading fallacy, but it's like, we know that you did this so that you could get to you went to point B so you could get to point C. We know where you're really trying to get to, and it's inevitable gonna happen. Don't try hiding it from us. Uh, unfortunately, I've had a few conversations like that in the last couple months. And those ones actually hurt a little bit because the person's not just attributing motives or assuming they can read your mind, they're attributing pretty malicious motives. So, yeah, that's kind of an ugly one.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

We could go on and on about all kinds of ways uh not to treat each other well as brothers and sisters or handle change and conflict. But uh, why don't we actually talk about some positives for a second and and we'll go to some principles of how we think we can really live out this principle from Romans 14. So let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll we'll dive into the positive side.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Why, like you said, I love that the scriptures give us so many jumping off points for this. Clearly, it's a very human problem. Clearly, disagreements and the need to change have been a real pressing issue throughout history. What are some of the scriptures and principles that come to mind for you?

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah, I mean, uh we kind of came up with five principles just for anybody in any circumstance. When something's changed at church, when there's a disagreement, when you're when your leadership's doing something you don't like, like just kind of five steps almost uh to work through that come from biblical wisdom. And so uh we actually have a proverb, which is one of those wisdom books uh for each of these. Um and yeah, I almost like any issue, any topic, anything that's going on, you can't go wrong by applying some of this biblical wisdom. So the first thing we would encourage people to do if you want to handle change uh well, especially change that you don't like, uh the first step is take a deep breath. Don't say anything, don't write that email. Uh or at least don't send that email. Don't send that email. You can write it. Don't talk to all your friends. Uh the first time you hear of something that you don't like going on, uh take a deep breath, slow down. Um take your time before you respond and before you act. I love Proverbs 14, 29. A patient person shows great understanding, but a quick-tempered one promotes foolishness. Like that hot reaction that you want to give when you hear something, it almost always ends up making you look like a fool. And so the the most, the best that you can do to resist that urge, the better. So start by taking a breath. Um the second thing I would encourage people is ask yourself why this matters to you. So a lot of times when something's happening that we don't like in particular, um the fact that we care a lot becomes apparent very quickly. The why behind we us caring a lot is actually a lot harder to discern. Um we're not as uh simple sometimes as we think we are. And so, you know, before you just kind of assume that you have a really good reason for being as passionate as you are, it actually is a good thing to slow down and to be a little bit introspective and to say, okay, what's actually going on in my heart here? Is this all about this issue? Is it maybe something else? Um, again, Proverbs speaks to this in Proverbs 16, verse 2 All a person's ways seems right to him, but the Lord weighs motives. And why I love that Proverbs, because what that's implying there is that your own motives may not be apparent to you. Right. Like God is seeing your motives, He's weighing your motives, you might be blind to them. And so the more that you can slow down and actually ask God, would you, would you show me the full picture here? Why, why do I care so much? Why am I so upset about this? You know, and it could be a lot of different things. Uh sometimes, you know, we're dealing with fears that we have about the future. Sometimes we're dealing with, you know, feeling a lack of significance or that, you know, our voice doesn't matter, or um, you know, we're feeling like things are out of control. Um, and if you can get to those heart things, then whatever ends up happening with the change or with the decision, you at the very least could be in a spot to say, okay, I see these things going on. Jesus, what do you want to do in me in that? What do you want to refine in me right now? What are you actually up to?

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yeah, and I think, you know, prayer is obviously the best place to start, but talking to a trusted voice in your life, I think can be really helpful here. Someone who maybe knows you pretty well and can slow you down a little bit. Even journaling, I think that's really helpful for me sometimes when I just I know my motives are a little bit murky. Absolutely. And sometimes it goes along with that first one, slowing things down. The third one kind of builds off of that too. Um, trying to understand the why behind the change, just being curious, you know, which which we already touched on. Um, and I mean, this is a fairly simple practice to do, but hard to get our hearts there. It means just asking questions. Yeah. I've had some wonderful conversations with um some of our folks at Alderwood who've, you know, had some questions and some disagreements, but they took the time to read carefully our position papers. They white, they listened to our podcast. You know, that that was encouraging. And and the best part of it was just they asked me a lot of questions in good faith, really trying to understand. And so, yeah, the proverb we've selected for this one is the one who gives an answer before he listens, this is foolishness and disgrace for him. You can look pretty bad when you just start with the assumption.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

And we've all been there. I mean, but yeah, like the listening needs to come first, then the answer. That's the order. And I love that proverb because we've all been guilty of violating that. Um okay, so those three so far, take a deep breath, ask yourself why this matters to you. Try to understand the why behind the change. Um you may get through all those and still kind of be more or less where you started. You know, your church is doing something you don't like, uh, something's happening, something's stopping, whatever. You you've heard it, you've listened, you still think it's a bad idea, you still, you know, at that point, what we'd suggest in point four is put this issue in perspective. How big of a deal is this? And uh sometimes the answer is gonna be rightfully. This is a huge deal. The wise thing to do is actually to let it go. Uh so, like, you know, Proverbs uh 1911, uh a person's insight gives him patience, and his virtue is to overlook an offense. Now the context there is maybe like someone who's wronged you, but that virtue piece of like, I don't have to engage in every conflict. Like I don't have to argue everything to the death. There is a time when you can overlook something, and that's actually wise to do so. You know, another version of that, Proverbs 20, verse 3, honor belongs to the person who ends a dispute, but any fool can get himself into a quarrel. I love the bluntness. Yeah. Um Yeah. Like sometimes the wise thing is not actually to start the argument or to like, you know, make sure your opinion is heard or whatever. Sometimes letting it end is actually the wise thing to do. Um, you know, we've talked about this in a number of different ways, but like trying to sort things into categories, how big of a deal is this? Uh there's four words we we use often to describe issues.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

I'm glad you're going there.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Is this a die for issue? Is this a divide for issue? Is this a debate for issue, or is this a decide for issue? And uh we'll we can throw a link to another podcast of ours that kind of gets way more into the details of those four things in the show notes. But you know, high level, it's like there are some things, pretty small lists, that legitimately are worth dying for. Yep. You know? Um, if the change happening in your church is like uh we no longer believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again, like we think he was a good moral teacher or whatever, like that's worth causing an issue over, you know. Uh in fact, and if somebody was trying to force you to deny that, like you should die for that belief. Um there are on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are issues you shouldn't even bother arguing with people about. They're not even they're not even worth debating over. Like, make up your mind if you want to, but just keep your mouth shut. There's no point. Um, you know, I who wrote Hebrews? I don't care. Uh no one knows. Like, don't waste your breath arguing over that with somebody else. Um, I think where it gets really sticky is those middle options of like there are issues that they're not die for. Um we're not saying we disagree, and because we disagree, like, I don't believe you're a real Christian or anything like that. But there's they're important enough, they're serious enough that we're willing to divide, we're willing to say we're not, we're not gonna be able to do church together if we can't come to terms on this. Then there's issues that are worth debating, that are worth arguing, that matter, but where after the argument, even if you don't come to an agreement, you're still gonna say, okay, but we're still we're still worshiping days. Hang out, worship. Yeah, you know, we we can still do church together. And so um everybody's gonna sort things differently. And that's that's not even really my point here. My point is uh you do yourself a disservice if you don't make some sort of assessment there, uh, if you don't even ask the question, is this actually that important to me? Where where does this fall? Do I have a good reason to put it in this category? And so try to put things in perspective. And then our last principle um is just if you have to leave, leave well.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

Uh let me let me talk about this one for a minute. Why? Because I'm I'm still stuck on something. I want to double-click on something you said just a minute ago. I've had some really sweet interactions with folks that really dovetails well into this last one. But like you said, on the die for, decide for, debate, that spectrum, we're not all gonna land in the same place. So there's issues that I would say that's that's for sure a debate for, probably even a decide for. And for other people, that's a divide for. And I've had some conversations with dear friends where what I think is a decide for, they think is a divide for. But the beauty of it, um, and a couple of them are are gonna be. Moving to a different place to worship. But we were able to have those conversations in good faith, like we said, and we're leaving as friends, as brothers and sisters. And we see the issue differently, but that doesn't change the fact that we love each other. We recognize that we're both in Christ. We're brothers and sisters. We're part of a family. And it gets ugly as we know at times. Uh, and the Proverbs speaks to this so well. Proverbs 17, 9. Whoever conceals an offense promotes love, but whoever gossips about it separates friends. It gets really ugly when people are walking out the door just saying the worst, most malicious things about those that they've left. So this does have an ugly side to it. Why what what do you think it looks like to leave well?

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Yeah, I mean, I think there's actually a way to fight for unity even when you're dividing, which is kind of a weird conflict to say. But um, you know, you can leave a church and actually still fight for the unity of the capital C church of Jesus. I'm saying, you know, like I I may not feel comfortable being here for X, Y, Z reason, but even though I'm making that decision, I'm gonna make it in the understanding that these are still brothers and sisters in Christ. Uh Jesus is still here doing good work, the spirit is still here. Um, and so uh yeah, we're we're gonna leave not as enemies, but as friends, like you said. And I think um I've seen that as well. And it it's actually one of the most touching things, you know, when somebody who is maybe even hurt enough, offended enough at a change or something like that that they're willing to leave. I mean, that's a it's a huge deal to them, but even though it's a huge deal to them, they're still gracious, they're still kind, they're still loving. Uh, that can actually be a great way to represent the love of Jesus to your brothers and sisters.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

I have some really close friends, as do you, who are worshiping at other churches. And there's still people I stay in touch with. I love dearly, I have the highest respect for. And, you know, when Paul wrote Romans 14, there was only one church in town. You know, we live in a time and a place where we're fortunate to have different options. And if somebody feels more comfortable worshiping at that other church and they're serving Jesus, that's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

Well, Steve, let's wrap this conversation up. Uh, what's the last word for folks as we leave here?

SPEAKER_01 46:18

Man, I just was thinking about Paul's words, and we've talked so much about unity as we've we've gone through this. And in um Ephesians chapter four, Paul, who's in prison at the time, which I think certainly adds some perspective to these words, Ephesians 4, 1, Paul says, Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity. Some versions say to guard the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. And I think we have to be vigilant. You know, we have to fight for it, we have to pray for it, we have to check ourselves and make sure, as we've said, that we're not just flying off the handle for selfish reasons. And Jesus is gonna give us his spirit and he's gonna protect the unity of his church when we stay close to him. Amen. Thanks, Steve. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Native Exiles. The Bible says it's a beautiful thing we live in unity, but as we discussed, it's tough, it's difficult. We put a lot of time into thinking about this, praying about this, and hopefully offered you some very practical, tangible ways that we can maintain that beautiful unity in the body of Christ. We hope it's helpful in your life, and we look forward to seeing you again next time on Native Exiles.