How Soon Should You Make Changes?

Hosts: TJ Freeman, Joe Wagner, and Josh MacClaren

Summary: In this episode of Rural Church Renewal, hosts TJ, Joe, and Josh discuss the challenges of implementing change in rural churches. They highlight the importance of patience, understanding congregation dynamics, and pacing oneself. The episode offers personal anecdotes demonstrating how rushing changes can lead to resistance and emphasizes the value of building trust and slowly guiding congregations towards necessary reforms. The conversation also covers practical advice for rural pastors, such as framing expectations realistically and leading with wisdom and compassion.

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Transcript

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TJ: There's a lot you wanna change in your church, but it seems like every time you try, it blows up in your face to sing a little Alanis Morissette for you, which I promise not to do on the rest of the episode. So stay tuned.

Thank you for joining us for another edition of Rural Church Renewal. My name is TJ Freeman. Not only do I sing a wonderful version of Alanis Morissette. I also am a rural pastor and have been for the last decade plus, and I'm happy to be joined with some other rural dudes. 

Joe: When TJ sings Alanis Mosset, it is always the radio edit. Hey, I'm Joe. I am a real pastor here at Christchurch. I'm in charge of discipleship in member care.

Josh: I'm aging myself with this one, but I had to Google who Alanis Mossett is. 

Joe: Oh, isn't it ironic? 

TJ: Don't you think? 

Josh: This is, uh, oh, she sings that song, isn't it ironic? So I know that one. I'm Josh. 

TJ: We've promised them not to do any more of that. 

Josh: I'm a young millennial and, uh, yeah, there we are. 

TJ: You're almost not. 

Josh: I'm almost not, but I, I just make the cut.

Joe: What does that make you? 

Josh: I know I make the cut. 

Joe: You make the cut.

Josh: I make it by like six months. 

TJ: He's allowed to say no cap. 

Joe: Tj, TJ just barely makes the Generation X cut. 

TJ: Right. I'm right on that line. You're right on the edge. Mm-hmm. We're a generation apart. And, and speaking of being a generation apart, you may be a generation apart from a lot of the people in your church.

You may just have an eye for some things that you'd like to see a little different, but you're getting some resistance as you lead. And I hate to break it to you, but that's super duper normal. And the problem I think a lot of us have as pastors is we tend to think that some of the things that are holding us back in ministry is the boomers, right?

Yeah. And like those are the things we need to change. And in the last couple episodes, if you didn't listen, go back and what it, listen to what it means to be a convictional leader. So you're actually trying to change the right stuff. Go back and assess kind of the heart behind why you wanna change. But once you get over that hurdle and you realize I'm trying to change some things that actually need to be changed in the life of the church, here's the bomb I wanna drop on you.

You're going too stinking fast. It's true. You are, you think you're not, you're convinced you've waited long enough, but there are some ways in which you are going too fast. Have you guys ever seen this happen? 

Joe: Just in the last half hour. Josh, what did I tell you a little while ago? I said will you slow down?

I, I need to be able to process this, that, that's true. I'm old. It's like, that was like a literal real life example right there. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I, I've often said, you're just smarter than me right now. Just slow down. I need to process, story. Yes. 

Josh: Say it like a redneck is what actually what you said.

Joe: Yeah, I did say that. 

TJ: You did. That's true. So I, I'll give you an example for my life and then you guys can riff on that. So I taught some things in the church when I first came here, and it, I thought it was received well. We talked about unity. We went through the book of Philippians together. We talked about how the strategy for our church is not to try to grow it, but to try to be faithful to the Lord.

I told them my vision for the next 20 years, and then I just like showed him my Bible. That was sort of a dorky thing to do, actually, in hindsight, but. 

Joe: So your mic drop was, here's the, here's the vision for our church. 

TJ: Yeah. I wasn't quite that overt, but it was along those lines. And anyway, the congregation responded well.

They had a desire. Historically to grow. They even hired a church consultant to help them grow. And they were able pretty quickly to say, Hey, it's not about that. It's actually about what the Lord wants us to do. And if he chooses to grow this thing, then praise the Lord. I thought I was at the point where it was okay to take a picture off the wall, and I did that and I, it was scary what happened.

Joe: What was the picture that? 

TJ: Pitchforks. Flaming torches. I mean they. 

Joe: So when you're talking about taking the picture off the wall, it was a painting, a picture. It was a decoration on the wall?

TJ: Correct. It was a decoration on the wall. And I thought I, I'll just tell you what I thought broadly in my head. I thought our building is in need of some sprucing up.

It has not been changed in any way since Nixon was in office. And for those of young, well, you know what that is. I know who I know. Not a crook. That's right. That's what he said. I resign. And so I thought, you know, if, if I'm like a young family coming to church here and I see 1970s paneling and this scary image of Jesus on the wall and some of these kinds of things, I'm probably gonna go, you know what, honey?

Let's just go be Catholic. So. 

Joe: Because there's nothing on the walls there. 

TJ: Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. They even have stuff on the cross there. I thought, okay, I'm gonna just work through this. I'm gonna take some of this stuff down that, that needs to be updated, and then I'm gonna go to the Christian Mecca, Hobby Lobby, and I'm gonna get some cool signs. And make our church farmhouse Christian chic. That's, that's the thing I was going for. 

Joe: I have all sorts of things, but I filter caught 'em all. 

TJ: The filter didn't catch 'em all for me in those days when I did that move and I got in trouble. I realize now, looking back, I was going too fast.

They were willing to embrace some theological shift, which is huge and awesome. They also were willing to trust me enough to let me take some steps in a direction. And I thought that that meant total buy-in. And what it really meant is, let's see how bad he's gonna screw it up and we'll jump in when we need to.

And taking a picture off the wall that was connected to the person who put the picture up that didn't go to our church anymore, but in a rural community relationships matter more than anything. And there was a fear that the person who that picture came from was gonna find out that we had taken it down and they were. 

Joe: And there was motive behind it.

TJ: What do you mean? 

Joe: Oh, they took it down for a reason. They must not like me. Love. 

TJ: Correct. That. Want me to back anymore. Assumption. If you change something, it's 'cause you didn't like it. 

Joe: So just, just as an aside, a lot of times in a rural context, you said relation is everything, but then also everything is tied into an emotion or an appeal or an emotion that goes with that.

Yeah. So if you do something, there are emotions behind that, and you must have a purpose that you're acting against somebody. 

TJ: That's right. Relationships are by nature connected with emotion and so you, yeah, you can't escape that. So you may think you're making a completely innocuous change. Is that a good redneck word?

Joe: We know what innocuous is. Okay, good. That's what you use when you go deer hunting and something is far away. 

TJ: Yeah. You look through your innocuous, that mono. So anyway, you, you think that the decision you're making is harmless. And then you find out no, there's a whole big mountain behind that thing that's about to come down on you. And that surprises pastors a lot.

So what I'm advocating for right now is not to not change things. I think that picture needed to come down and it needed to go anywhere, but on that wall in the sanctuary and the, the color of the, the walls needed to be changed and updated and all that kinda stuff. But that was not as important as what I made it out to be in my head. Or as harmless as what I made it out to be in my head, and I found that out.

Can you guys think of some other ways that rural pastors may push too hard, too fast and get their congregations upset? 

Joe: I've done so many things in the past. I remember I didn't even think I went away to a conference or read a good book. I just had all of these good things that I knew that the direction of the church church should go in and with discipleship and small groups and and liturgy.

And just a comprehensive 20 pages of the direction that I felt that the church would go in. And I called all the leaders together, made individual telephone calls, and let's get together and we'll talk about our future. And I laid this out and their eyes just glazed over. And I tried to do too much too fast. It did not even get off the ground. Didn't even leave the room. And I was so discouraged when I tried to do everything all at once. 

TJ: And there it is. That's the issue, right? You, you have grand ideas and they get you excited. And you start to change things and it feels like there's buy-in and then the other shoe drops and all of a sudden they don't like your thing. And because relationships and emotion can't be disconnected, how do you feel? 

Joe: Frustrated, discouraged, angry, upset, confused. All those negative emotions and feelings. You can begin to doubt your own wisdom. You can begin to doubt God's plan for you. And then the folks too, you can begin, they can begin to lose some trust in you as well.

Mm-hmm. And I don't know about this guy. What is the old, uh, we heard very, very, something very, very wise from an older brother that we had met. And he said, listen, when you're a new pastor, you got one bullet in your gun. 

TJ: Yeah. 

Joe: And you can kill one thing. You get one bullet a year. And when you use up that bullet, you don't have any more bullets left.

It's done. So then what happens when something really important comes and you don't have any bullets left? And each year you get one more bullet. And one more bullet. So you gotta save your bullets. 

TJ: That's right. Yeah, I think. What you end up doing too is you can either doubt yourself like you just said.

You know, you start to feel like, okay, I changed something. People didn't like it. You know, am I good enough to do this? Can I handle this? Am I the right man to lead these people? On the flip side of that, you can get annoyed with the people because they're opposing you and you can think of a hundred reasons why they shouldn't be.

Joe: You could start making ultimatums at that point too. 

TJ: Yes, you could. Have you seen that happen? 

Joe: Yeah, we have seen that happen. 

TJ: Yeah. What would that look like potentially? 

Josh: Could we just generally say it's my way or the highway, or, thank you, Josh. Yes. 

TJ: Yeah. Well I just wanted I some clarity on what you mean by ultimatum. So. 

Josh: Yeah. It's like I, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it this way. Right. Or I'm done. 

TJ: So if I would've said, I'm gonna go, I'm not just taking down that picture. I'm taking down every picture in this church. 

Joe: And by the way, the Christian flag and the American flag are leaving the stage. 

TJ: Yeah. And you can take me or leave me. It's up to you if you wanna fire me. 

Josh: 'Cause this, because this is biblical. Right. Yeah. Right. This is what the word says. This is what you're doing is wrong. 

TJ: Yeah. And that's the thing that bothers me a lot is I, I feel bad for the guys who can't see beyond their biblical argument to the heart of the congregation that they're called to shepherd.

And so you may be right. You probably are about some area where the church is biblically off and you need to bring the right kind of change 'cause this is what the Bible says and we care about theological precision and all that kind of stuff. And then you just whip it onto your congregation like a bull whip.

You crack 'em with it. And you're surprised when they didn't buy into this thing that you just taught 'em 'cause it's from the Bible. And then you start saying. Well, these people just don't wanna follow the Bible and they're gonna have to follow the Bible if they want me to be their pastor. And man, what a mess.

You, you could have worked toward that biblical thing over time in a way that made the people treasure God's word and want to do that thing. And what you just did instead was hardened them against it. 

Joe: My mind is just absolutely exploding with examples from my own ministry and ministry from other guys.

Everything from moving a congregation theologically from one particular point to another point. Mm-hmm. Whether that is so, soteriological or whether that is something else, man, it takes time.

TJ: Does it have to be soteriological or can it just be like a little teriological? Oh. 

Joe: So with Generation X brother?

Yeah. From. The flag example that I shared to hymn books to sound system to moving somebody out of a particular position where they have way too much ownership in and the tech booth is mine. There are so many instances where this comes to play and the bear in your life and you really gotta be careful and weigh things out.

Yeah, I think we're not saying not to change things. That's right. Especially if there's heresy going on. Yeah. You gotta bullet man. You gotta do. 

TJ: But how you approach it. Yeah. And the weight you put on it. 'cause 

Joe: Yeah, we can, this, this is a, this, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you're good. Like this literally is a conversation and takes wisdom.

Mm-hmm. It takes wisdom and sometimes it takes somebody else to come alongside of you and show you what wisdom is and the humility to listen. And the humility to listen. 

TJ: Yeah. 

Joe: Length of sermon is another example of something like that. 

TJ: Yep. If they ask you to preach a 15 minute sermon, you could in your mind think, well, they just don't love the word.

Yeah. Which is probably not true. It might be true, but the way to help them love the word isn't by saying, I don't care what you want. I'm preaching 45. Yeah. 

Joe: We have a dear brother who was in that exact situation in actually a shorter amount of time. And over many, many years, he's moved them to another amount of time, which is more, but still probably not where he wants to be.

But it took years. That's right. And it took good preaching. Mm-hmm. And it took meeting his people where they were taking the word of God so that they would be able to understand it and apply it. 

TJ: And here's a principle you can put in your old reformed pipe and smoke it. It's you have to meet expectations before you can change them.

That sounds like compromise. 

Joe: That sounds pragmatic, TJ, right? 

TJ: But it's not. It's understanding human nature and going. They need to believe that they can trust you. 

Joe: Which flock are we called the pastor and shepherd? 

TJ: The one that, God, you. 

Josh: I have it open right here. Say it. I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed.

Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising, oversight, honor, compulsion, but willingly as God would have you. Not for shameful game, but eagerly not domineering. What did we just talk about? Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock and when the chief shepherd appears, you'll receive the unfading crown of glory.

One Peter five, one to four. 

TJ: Yeah, I, I think we need to meditate on that verse a lot. That's your homework. If you have not meditated upon that verse recently and deeply, it's time to do it. The flock that God has put you among is probably not the flock you would've picked. There's no perfect flock out there.

And in a rural place, you gotta work with what's there. You don't have the luxury of having all these other options all over the place. You could go to your town might have one church and you're in it. Your town may have some legacy churches that are preaching a false gospel and you're in one that at least is willing to hear the right gospel.

And they might not even be in a super healthy place or even understand the right convictions, but if there are some Christians there, God's spirit is going to win. And those Christians will love the Bible. They'll grow in their faithfulness and over time you can help lead them in a better direction.

It just requires so much more patience than we realize. 

Josh: Do you think our brothers who are either here, maybe even they're candidating, just need to have a more realistic view of what they're going into? You know, I think of if we, if guys had a more sober view and realistic view of the situation they were going in.

'cause in one sense, they're in the church, they're in, God has sovereignly placed 'em there, but they've made the choice to go there too. Mm-hmm. So maybe, maybe our brothers need to just have a more sober view of what is go, like, it doesn't matter what they say in the interview.

It doesn't matter you know, how the people greet you. They're excited for a new pastor. Mm-hmm. You're excited for it too. But just have the, the, the sober. Kind of recognition that not everything is gonna be rainbows and unicorns. Yeah. The punch, punch in the stomach is coming. Yeah. So you just need to, don't think it's not, yeah.

Be prepared for that, right. I guess is all I'm trying to say. Yeah. Have better expectations or more clear expectations. 

TJ: And don't be surprised when you get like an upper cut, a punch in the stomach and an elbow to the temple all at the same time. 

Joe: Here's something that I would share too that helps you understand your framework.

Broadly, we're always reforming. Super. I think that we have a, I think that we have a, a pretty healthy church, but we still understand that there is more reforming that we have to go. You might be in a church where it's 15 17. Right. And you're at the very beginning of the reformation of your particular church.

Mm-hmm. And you're just getting things started. Right. I don't necessarily go pounding theses on the door all at once. That's not the point of my illustration. But the point of the illustration is there might be a lot of things to reform. Yeah. And so with wisdom and patience, begin with. Begin with something and, and, and work your way through that.

But knowing no matter where you are, we're always looking to get back to what scripture says and reforming to what the word of God is. So this is, I think it's a process. I think that that helps to frame the entire thing for us too. 

Josh: Maybe a good historic example is Charles Simeon. Maybe go research his story a little bit. Yeah. See the suffering he had to experience in 54 years of ministry at one church. 

TJ: Yep, that's right. Getting locked out of the, or having the people locked outta the pew so they couldn't even go listen to him. I mean, all kinds of revolt. And we would all probably say, well, that church just doesn't wanna be led and they don't wanna hear the Bible, and we'd be out at Dodge. And that is not gonna serve rural places well or spread the glory of God like you need to.

So, there's also a guy in the Bible one time who said. You've not yet suffered to the point of death. 

Josh: Is that Paul? Sounds like Paul. 

Joe: How about that for a smashing the nose? 

TJ: Well, Josh, since it was in Hebrews, who knows who said it? Yeah. But uh, the point is, you know. We're gonna suffer.

There's gonna be battles. Some of 'em are against the sin in our own heart. Some of 'em are against the world, some of them are against, sadly, people in our church who are misinformed. And the way we battle in that instance is as a shepherd. By fighting for our people, by caring for them well, by loving them, by being patient. To steal back or phrase the world is stolen by meeting them where they're at.

And by that I don't mean just like coddling them in their sin, but I mean, starting with where they are and figuring out a strategy to work them toward where the Lord would have them to be. And you can do that patiently over time, not overnight for sure. And honestly, most of the changes that we've interacted with guys on haven't been wild theological issues.

They've gotten beat up over length of sermons, over trying to change the leadership structure of the church too fast, over pushing back on why do we have to have, why do I have to go to the flower committee meetings? 

Josh: Even just something as simple as terms, what terms you use. 

TJ: That's right. Yeah. Yep.

Exactly. So it's usually those other things that we get tripped up over and then we double down. Well, the Bible says, and then we go to battle with our people instead of for them. And we just really need to think more carefully about what we're really there to do and meter that out over time. So some practical stuff.

Make plans like you do need to make plans, but you need to hold 'em with open hands. Submit 'em to the Lord's commands. Sorry, I was starting to wrap there a minute. Like I clearly am gifted at.

Joe: You started off with, so 

TJ: Save me Joe. Save me Joe, you 

Joe: started off with something. I was gonna go back. I think that that might be one of the golden nuggets in the entire podcast going to battle with them or for them instead of with them. That was super, super clear and I think that, that, so say that again somehow. 

TJ: Uh, I think that you should go to battle for your people instead of with your people. I. 

Joe: Yeah. Perfect. Okay. End it.

TJ: I somehow said it again. You know, the, at the end of the day, stop trying to, here's, here's what I think happens, and if I'm mischaracterizing you, please forgive me, listener. But we compare ourselves to what we see around us.

We compare ourselves to the book we read that has, uh, you know, the good theology in it, written by the author that we love. We compare ourselves to the congregation down the street. We compare ourselves to our own goals and objectives instead of saying here's the flock I've been given. Here's where they're at, here's where I need to get them to.

How do I, with God's help, do that patiently over time? So I would encourage you to just meditate on that verse that we talked about. You could read that whole first section of one Peter five. And go through that. Think about it. And then let that be your standard.

You don't really need to go read a bunch of other books on the topic. You don't really need to go picking everybody else's brain. You are the shepherd of that flock, and you need to sit down, hopefully with a plurality of leaders, but you might not have that yet. Don't whine and feel sorry for yourself and don't say tomorrow we're gonna have elders.

Figure it out. You're the guy that God's put there to do that. So you can do it with his help. Be patient, lead slowly through change. Last thing I wanted to say about this is that there's a very, very small chance you're in the minority of people who's actually leading too slowly. The people might be ready for change, but you're scared to make the change because one or two people might give you some pushback and could cause problem in a public meeting or something.

You think that the people love some tradition, so you're holding onto it, but actually they all hate it too, but you've never bothered to ask. You're afraid that if you change, you'll lose your job. I mean, there could be, there's a, there is a minority of people listening who you're too slow to change for a bad reason.

You need to figure that out too. So maybe a better idea is like pace yourself more carefully through change. But I think the overwhelmingly majority of guys are gonna move too quickly rather than too slowly, especially if they're younger. 

Joe: And whipper snappers out there.

TJ: All right. What, what did we cover on this episode? We talked about change. We talked about the fact that, I don't think we said it overtly.

So obviously when you're summarizing, you're supposed to add new information. But you know, you, you do. All churches need to change. I guess you did say it, Joe. When you talk about Seper veranda, we always need to be reforming. And that's true in your church. You just have to pace yourself wisely with the help of God and shoot at the right target, or you're gonna crash and burn.

Joe: Well said, brother. 

TJ: Before we go, can we encourage the, the brothers listening to head on, and there's probably some sisters listening, maybe, maybe certainly our moms, head on over to our website. How do they get there? 

Josh: Well, they could Google. Brainerd Institute or go to brainerd institute.org. 

TJ: What would they find if they went to brainer institute.org?

oh.com? Yeah, go. Go to.com. Yes. Do the dot coms. Josh. 

Josh: Go to brainerd institute.com. Thank you. We have this beautifully redesigned website. I've been looking at it, sending it to people. It's pretty sweet. 

TJ: Yeah, there's some articles on there. These podcasts are on there. I'd highlight a really helpful article by Ben O'Toole on burnout. So if changing has been burning you out, go read Ben's article. It's up there, at the time of recording on the front page, but you can just go to the articles and find it, information about our upcoming conference. And this is a good time for me to invite you.

Would you please join us October 10th and 11th in beautiful Wellsboro, Pennsylvania? Woo. For our rural ministry conference. We are looking forward to gathering with like-minded brothers and sitting under the teaching of God's word. As we think about the importance of rural places together, I promise you will not regret attending that thing. And if you do, Josh will give you money back out of his house building funds. 

Josh: Which is depleted. So that's probably not gonna happen. 

TJ: So whatever's left, you can have it. You know what else I should do, Joe? 

Joe: Raise your Ebenezer. 

TJ: Bye-bye.