The Church Answers Podcast
#150 Why Some Church Members Hold on to Traditions and Refuse to Change
Welcome to the Church Answers podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. Now get ready for fast-paced insights on key issues affecting the local church today. We release three episodes each week, so make sure you've seen or heard them all. And now, here is the CEO of Church Answers, Tom Rayner. One of the words tends to bring fear in the hearts of many church members is the word change. I get it. You become accustomed to things being done a certain way. And it often happens when a new pastor comes in and a new pastor has all kind of new ideas. Or maybe the pastor has gone to a conference and comes back all excited and everything starts changing. I get it. I get it. We want to talk about the issue of change from two perspectives. We're going to talk about one perspective in this episode. And then we're going to have another episode to talk about how we can get church members willing to change. But in this episode, we want to talk about why some church members hold on to certain traditions and refuse to change. One of the most common questions that is asked at Church Answers Central, and let me just tell you this, if you're not in the member of Church Answers, not only do you get premium content, but you can have someone answer your question within an hour. So any question about your church, anything is an incredible place to be. It's like having your church consultant on your smartphone, and you're just able to ask a question at any time. It's $9.97 a month or $100 a year. So affordable, premium content, and just the community where you can answer questions. But I'm getting ahead of myself. But we got this question that comes up again about change. My church members won't change. What am I supposed to do? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. But just remember, we're here because Chaney and Associates is our sponsor. They pay the bill so that you can enjoy this free of charge. Thank you, Chaney and Associates, the accounting firm for the church. Okay, let's talk about why some church members hold on traditions, and they refuse to change. Well, let's just talk about everybody and change. First of all, I just church members. We all prefer most of us do some type of consistency or pattern in our lives. I do, even though I kind of pride myself at times, probably faultfully so, egotistically so, that yeah, I'm open to change. But I can find myself traveling the same path, and not even trying to new one when I go from one place to another in the car or even by foot. I can find myself and this is really, really for me. I can find myself eating the same types of food. I'm very picky, but I get into a pattern of that. And I can find myself going to my church and liken certain things just consistent the way they are. We all have some desire for consistency or patterns in our lives, whether it's a church issue, a family issue, or any other type. And when we break up that consistency and patterns, that disruption causes a disequilibrium in our lives that may be good because you need to change it or it may be bad because you don't. And here, here is changing the church. Many people have gotten accustomed to a certain way of doing church. It's not bad. It's just that they haven't gotten accustomed to it. And as a result, you start disrupting that order, that consistency. And it causes that disequilibrium. I'm going to ask a rhetorical question. Even if you didn't know the answer, you cannot answer because you're just listening to me or watching me. Do you know what one of the major reasons and worship services was for this disequilibrium? Yeah, you're going to say worship style of music. But that's one of them. But one that you may not have known that caused a lot of disruption and conflict was when the Offertory is taken is in the middle or is it at the end? That was a big issue in a lot of churches. And if your church doesn't have this particular order of worship, many churches did. And a lot of people put a lot of leaders put the Offertory from the middle to the end. Oh my goodness, you would thought the world was coming to an end. Well, what happened? There was a pattern. We've always done it this way. Am I defending people who got really angry about that? No, but I'm trying to explain what's going on. Our human nature, like some level of consistency and patterns. Okay, that's one reason. A second reason some church members hold on tradition and refuse to change. They confuse holiness with routine. Let me say that again. They confuse holiness to routine. Now, so maybe, let me give you an example in some churches. Your church may not have ever done this. But some of you may have been in a church that the Lord's Supper was distributed through wafers and juice, maybe wine, whatever the case may be. And there was the table that was set. And there was this blanket over the table or this covering. And part of the ritual in many churches was two people, sometimes deacons, picking that thing up and folding it like it's some type of military flag. I mean, it was, oh my goodness, that's a holy thing. It's covering the Lord's Supper. Well, it came about before air condition. When churches kept their windows and doors open, your hot times and flies would get in, that was to keep the flies off the elements. But over the years, many people translated that to become holy. So when you begin to look at things as holy, that are just tradition and you change them, then you can have conflict within the church. That's the second reason. A third reason, when you make change to the church, the church is seen as the antidote to the rapid cultural change, rapid pace of cultural change. It is seen as the stability and the mist of all of the mess of culture. I mean, we can talk about the onset of the internet and then artificial intelligence, mores changing sexual identity, becoming confusing. We can go through all of these things. And so church, for many people, is the antidote to cultural change. In other words, it's our stability in the mist of this. And if you start messing with my church, you've messed with my stability. The rest of the world is going crazy. I want my church to be sane and stable. Quite frankly, I can get that at times. Fourth reason kind of overarching is this familiarity. We like familiarity. We like the fact that it's not just patterns and consistency, but we like the fact that we can count on things that we are comfortable with and that we feel okay about. Now, why am I telling you all this? Many of you who listened to my podcast or watched the video of the podcast on YouTube, many of you are pastors and other leaders within the church and you're leading your church to change. Well, the first thing you need to know is why you might meet resistance. And the next episode, we're going to talk about dealing with the resistance and what you can do to deal with the resistance of change. But I think it's incumbent upon us to understand the why before we move to the what. So let me let me recommend a resource to you. It's my own book with apologies. It's the book by me, Tom Rainer, called Who Moved My Puppet. It is a book on change that I think is one of my small books. I don't write many big ones anymore because I'm not smart enough to. It's one of my small books, Who Moved My Puppet. And you can get that and you can read some of these things in a longer form than a 10 minute podcast. But just to know, in order to lead change, you have to understand where the people are and how they deal with change. If you do that, you are able to move forward and you're able to understand if you made opposition how you might deal with it. Okay, why some church members hold onto traditions and refuse to change? Next week, or not next week, next episode, we're going to talk about how to get stuck members, church members willing to change. So we're going to the from the what behind it to the how. All right, thank you, Chaney and Associates. Once again, for being our sponsor. They are the accounting firm for the church. You are the greatest listeners. You are the greatest viewers. Thank you for being at the church answers podcast. I am honored that you take a few minutes out of your day to come and be with me. Look forward to seeing you. Our hearing from you are knowing that you're there in the next podcast. 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