change is death

For three days in lovely Kirkcaldy, Scotland, 12 PCUSA pastors and 12 Church of Scotland pastors met with authors and practical theologians, Diana Butler Bass and Douglas Gay, to talk, think, and share about changes in church and culture. Three days is a lot of content, especially with two theologians and 24 pastors, but here is my biggest takeaway...

Change is Death

We talked about whether what we are seeing in Scotland and U.S. culture is "secularization" or "transformation," but I think we agreed it was change. We talked about the process of groups undergoing change and I recognized much of the stages of grief, not unlike what one might experience as one approaches death, not least of which is the realization that "this is the end of _____ as we've known it" (or more short-sighted, just "this is the end of ____.")

The ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral, one of the key sites
where John Knox preached to incite the Protestant
Reformation in Scotland. Thanks to a friend for sharing
this unique photo vantage point with me - it is taken
from the 3rd floor men's room of the St. Andrews
Ph.D. building overlooking the cathedral ruins.

We also talked about what was on the other side of institutional/structural death, including whether to call that "new life, revival, awakening, or transformation." And we recognized that, like it or not, we and our churches and our neighbors and communities are facing the change.

We talked about institutional failure and innovation out of community; we talked about letting go, carrying (some things) with, and letting come... all parts of the journey, not TO death, but THROUGH death. We also touched on the extreme resistance to that reality of death (of something).

Today I'd like to highlight one observation I had in response to this thought-provoking content. Tomorrow I will share three examples from life in the Presbyterian Church (USA) that illustrate three different approaches to the reality that change is death.

OBSERVATION(s)

Even as we think in the mist of crisis about institutions failing, new visions being envisioned and lived out in fresh expressions of community, and a transformation on the other side of the change-which-is-death, I believe there are underlying questions we must ask ourselves. And perhaps these are the "bits of tradition we carry with us" that Diana Butler Bass mentioned, though I don't think "bits of tradition" quite gets at the root importance of these questions. 

As those created, loved, redeemed, called, and sent by God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit...

1. Who are we?
2. Why are we here?
3. What are we doing and why?
4. To whom is our allegiance?

I am drawn to questions like those because institutions are just place-holders, structures that have for a time sustained us in asking and answering questions like those.

New visions, if they are anything more than clever human novelties, are fresh understandings of old, old questions.

And communal innovation and transformation (whether of church or culture) is new life at work answering those kinds of questions, eventually in search of new place-holders and structures to sustain the asking, answering, and living out of questions like those.

Or so it seems to me. Our stimulating discussion of the transformation process and even historic realities like the Great Awakenings leaned toward the WHAT, WHEN and the HOW... good points, important points. But we must also take notice of the WHY (and the One the biblical witness recognizes as the WHO behind the WHY).

Said another way...

Of course change is death. Everything we make and touch is dying, encased in the only structures and shells we humans know to construct to house what is from God. But we should also not be surprised to find God at work, bringing life from death and hope from ashes. That's the good and hopeful Word to which we cling in faith.


See also:

• Change is Life
• Change is...what you need to ride a Scottish bus
• Can You Spare Some Change?