Change

"We have always had to agonize over the choice between making deep change or accepting slow death."

Those words have haunted me since I first read them several years ago.

My wife and I were speaking at a retreat for Salvation Army officers in the northeastern part of the United States several years ago and learned that each of the officers had been challenged to read a book entitled, Deep Change by Robert E. Quinn.

Change is OK, but deep change, that is another thing.

We have been thinking about change at church over the last couple of Sundays and trying to discover why it is so difficult to accept and embrace. The conclusions are inconclusive but we know one thing, change is difficult.

In the book, Deep Change, the author sheds light on one reason that change is challenging. He says we often spend more time thinking about "short term personal survival versus long term collective responsibility." Ouch!

The price of not making deep change is slow death.

Allow me to make some quick observations...

Managers make "course adjustment" changes, Leaders make "deep change"

People are willing to allow "tinkering" with the machinery but resist "deep change" that can radically re-orient their lives.

Relationships can be lost because we make "incremental change" that last for a few days when "deep change" could rescue the relationship.

Deep change can set us free from malaise and mediocrity that marginalizes the life that He provides for us.

And finally....

"Deep Change" reguires deep convictions, faith and trust in a God who never changes.

Quinn makes an astute observation about "deep change." He says it will require us to, "walk naked into the land of uncertainty." I like that....not the naked part or the uncertainty part, but the fact that this might be the best definition of trust that I have read in a while.

What do you think?