A confession: I have a love-hate relationship with the church.
I love what it has given me and many others: hope, peace, joy, and love. But I am saddened by how it has left so many people confused, frustrated, sad, and judged.
That’s an uncomfortably stark contrast, but I don’t want those of us in the church to get defensive too fast. The church isn’t perfect, and it never will be. It’s a painful but unavoidable truth that the church has simultaneously served people and hurt people.
Why? In my experience, the biggest reason is the way the church handles change, or fails to. That is to say, the way we handle change, or fail to, because we are the church.
Today our world is changing at lightning speed. None of us can keep up. Not as individuals, not as families. We’re all flying by the seats of our pants. We guess, adapt, hope, and regret. We pray for guidance and pray for forgiveness. We help, and we hurt.
So why would we expect the church to handle rapid change any better?
There’s no magic solution. When the church changes and adapts, people get hurt. But when the church refuses to change and adapt … people still get hurt.
It’s not quite a no-win situation, though.
It’s true that the church can embrace change, or oppose change, for the wrong reasons, which means more people get hurt. Unjustified fear will never be a good reason to change or oppose change. Neither will reckless ambition.
But what if there was a model of living in anticipation of change, and willingness to change, while remaining focused on the present moment?
Thankfully, there is a model. It’s called Advent.
Advent is the act of living in anticipation of huge change. And at the same time, Advent is the act of focusing on, and living in, the current moment.
During Advent, four traditional candles—hope, peace, joy, and love—light the way.
What happens if we take this focus on anticipation of change, viewed through the lens of hope, peace, joy, and love, and apply it to how the church navigates change? If hope, peace, joy, and love are the reasons we change, we will make our choices with more clarity. We will live out our decisions with more empathy. And we will, no matter the results of our change, retain more credibility.
Sadly, people will still be hurt. Even a church that learns to change better will never be perfect.
But fewer will experience confusion, frustration, sadness, and judgment. Plus the hopeful, peaceful, joyful, and loving way in making change will make reconciliation more likely.
So if you or your church have decisions to make about change, embrace the model of Advent. Focus on hope, peace, joy and love.
To be fair, I suck at doing this. But it’s part of the long, perplexing, wandering road trip of following Jesus.
And it is, at least in part, why I wrote my latest book about Advent.