Update: Transition & Search Committees

“BUT I DON’T LIKE CHANGE!”

How often have you heard someone--maybe even yourself--say “Things need to change.” Then when things do change--including maybe yourself--there is resistance to doing things differently, BUT doing it differently is a good part of what change is about. I’ve heard people say “well, this needs to change-----but don’t make me change!”

Change is always unsettling. It’s never comfortable at first. It takes us out of our “comfort zone.” We can’t move into a new way of being or doing without stepping outside the familiar into the “strange.” We have to leave our own “status quo.”

Martin’s announcement last September that he was leaving St. Philip’s was a “change agent” that moved us off status quo. We entered into the third phase of a transition, that of “chaos.” Over the following weeks, I heard expressed grief, anger, consternation, puzzlement, curiosity, excitement, helplessness (as in “what do we do now?”), and disappointment. This is normal. The chaos stage is where our most vulnerable feelings emerge. In many there was a wish to return to the status quo and have St. Philip’s “be like it’s always been.” However, chaos to some degree is inevitable, both internally and in the external system, whether it be family, workplace or the church. Moving forward through the chaos is where the growth takes place.

A new priest will have his/her own ways of leading worship, preaching, celebrating the Eucharist. We have seen some of that difference since Father Barry has been with us. The “familiar” has become “strange.”

One priest’s way or another priest’s way of celebrating, preaching, distributing the bread and wine is not good or bad, right or wrong. It’s just different (and some congregants may like that better than others). To all it’s unsettling until we get used to doing it that way, and then a new way becomes a familiar pattern--the “strange” becomes “familiar.” Change is like that.

To move forward, we must look at new possibilities, fresh options, different ways of imagining the future. If we don’t look ahead, we stay mired in the chaos, always trying to get back to status quo. This is when we discuss the options, envision and articulate our dream for St. Philip’s, and stay open to one another in terms of talking, sharing ideas, and bringing recommendations along with any complaints or irritations we want to express. This is the “way through” the chaos stage. AND we go back and forth between looking at new possibilities and chaos. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t moved forward. It’s just not a nice, clean, linear process.

We will eventually arrive at an integrated place when our new priest has been called and has been here for a while, and we’ve become accustomed to his/her way of “doing church.” We will develop a new comfort zone, and be in a new and different place at St. Philip’s, ready once again to move into the future, always doing God’s work. We will arrive at a new status quo, and the process begins again, because change is a natural, normal part of life. It is to be welcomed and embraced.

Think about your own lives, and I’m sure you will recognize this process in the decisions that you have made that move you from one way of being to another--or in the situations that were out of your control, a death, or divorce, or a natural disaster like an earthquake or fire. The problem is not that “stuff happens.” Rather, the issue is in how we respond to it.

There is a process for moving through this transition at St. Philip’s, and we are all going through it together--now. It will take as long as it takes--or as short as it takes. The next step is gathering information, and the first step is for every member, including children, to complete the questionnaire that will be available in mid-August (see article titled “Parish Profile Questionnaire”).

Karen Krestensen