Take the Next Step

Learn how to work for genuine and effective change in your church without trying to throw out everything that has gone before.

Pastors and other congregational leaders are eager to institute meaningful and effective change in their congregations. They know that old attitudes and perspectives prevent the church from fulfilling its mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Yet too often church advocates insist that if genuine change is to occur in the church, then everything must change. The board must be wiped clean, and new technologies, new worship styles, and even new theologies must replace what has come before.

The problem with such calls for radical change, says Lovett Weems, Jr., is that they are not true to the way that genuine and lasting change takes place. Like every other organization, churches rest on a cultural foundation of shared assumptions, values, and practices. The paradox of successful change is that this foundation is at the same time the source of resistance to change and what makes change possible. Lasting, transformational change grows out of the congregation's current sense of its story and its mission. Transformational leaders know how to build on the church's identity, making new ministries and emphases the natural extension of what has gone before. In other words they know how to make the story of change the next chapter in the book of the congregation's life, rather than throwing the book away and trying to start over.

An astute student of management and leadership theory, Weems offers congregational leaders essential insights into how they can work with and through their churches' ministries to bring about authentic and faithful growth.

Lovett H. Weems Jr. is distinguished professor of church leadership emeritus and senior consultant of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Weems was the founding director of the Lewis Center in 2003, coming to the position after eighteen years as president of Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. A native of Mississippi, he was a local church pastor in that state for many years. He is the author of several books from Abingdon Press, including a revised edition of his classic, Church Leadership: Vision, Team, Culture, and Integrity. He co-edits the online newsletter "Leading Ideas."