Transforming Church

A big challenge that the church faces today, especially a church that is still trying to detox itself from a Constantinian hangover, is the connection between information and transformation. Information does not bring about transformation. Conversion does. I cannot become a proficient trout fisherman by reading books, watching videos on the subject, going to trout fishing seminars, or by memorizing all the names and hatch cycles of aquatic insects off of which trout feed. I can only become a proficient trout fisherman by fishing and catching trout.

We cannot become the church God had in mind nor disciples of the living Christ by having all the right information. The state of the church in North America, lukewarm at best on its good days, testifies to the reality that a century of Sunday School, a plethora of curriculums to help persons understand Luther’s Small Catechism, or having the best Bible study in town does not change people’s lives or transform them into disciples of the living Christ. For example, my experience of Bible Study Fellowship, a national movement of intensive and high commitment community Bible study for women, seemingly does not create better followers of Christ. I cannot name one person whose experience with BSF seemingly made them significantly more forgiving, more tolerant of others, less fear-driven, or more generous. Sadly, sometimes the opposite seems to be the outcome.

It is important to remember that the North American mainline, information proliferating, and over-programmed church is the church where, on average, folks give about 2% of their household income to the mission of the church and corporately worships in any given week about 23% of its membership. That data does not suggest that some sort of spectacular transformation has taken place.

Conversion, not information, is the cause of transformation. In the use of conversion here, I am not talking about the naïve miraculous one-time conversion experience. I am talking about a process that begins by acting converted. The Jesus formula for transformation is certainly not information based. Jesus did not put his disciples into classrooms or simply provide the right information as to what a disciple is. If that is all it takes to convert people to the God-life, then God could have sent a fax rather than a person.

The word became flesh and lived among us. He both showed us and called us into a new way of living that leads to transformation. Never does Jesus ask us to have it all figured out as a prelude to being a disciple. He simply says, “Follow me and watch what happens.” In Matthew 6:21, Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.” This transformational formula is seemingly opposite of what we seem to believe. Preachers often think that we need to first get persons’ hearts right and then they’ll place their treasure – not just money, but the treasure of their lives – in the right place. Jesus is saying, “No.” First act like a disciple and then see what happens. It is akin to my basic approach to marriage counseling. Instead of analyzing a couple’s “problem” by giving them all sorts of insights (i.e. information) from family systems theory or MBTI profiles, I usually listen a little bit and then say to them, “Why don’t you act like you love each other for three months and just see what happens?”

Matthew 28:16 says that the eleven disciples went to the mountain that Jesus had directed them, and when they saw him, they fell down and worshipped him. Then the text says, “but some doubted” (NRSV). People who are savvy with Biblical Greek will recognize that the NRSV mistranslated what the text actually says, because the Greek text precisely says, “but they doubted,” not “some” but “they.” The eleven doubted! Note that Jesus does not order that they go back to class and learn some more. Instead he commissions them. He tells them to “Go.” It is in the going and doing and taking Jesus at his word – behaving like we are fully converted – that we get transformed.

Adaptive Leadership is a converting leadership that brings about transformation. The unconverted church asks the wrong questions. Why can’t we get our youth more involved? How can we increase our worship attendance? Why don’t people give more? What new program do we need? Congregations that behave like Jesus and thus are converting congregations ask different questions: What is God doing in the world and how can we get in on it? What does God need for us to do? How can we make God proud? When congregations seek to join God conversion happens and transformation happens.

You are encouraged to also check out the previous two articles in this series about adaptive leadership: "What It Is" and "Finding Home in a New Story."
----
Rick Barger is Lead Pastor of Abiding Hope Lutheran Church, Littleton, Colorado, founder of the Academy for Adaptive Leadership and Spiritual Formation, and author of A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture (Alban Institute, 2005).