I recently graduated from seminary. The seminary I attended recently underwent a significanat transition in leadership. Dr. Bill Crews was president for over two decades and provided an incredible amount of stability for the school. However, he saw his time coming to a close in advance and led through a great transition process. Dr. Jeff Iorg (think Gorge without the first G sound) was selected as the new president and he served alongside Crews for between 6 and 12 mos. Iorg and Crews traveled together, and Crews offered his relational credibility to Iorg. As a result, the transition was stable and Golden Gate continued to thrive in the 2000s, launching new initiatives and expanding its presence online.
The funny part came when Crews was offered a job that Iorg held before his transition to Golden Gate. Recently, Crews has become the Executive Director for the Pacific Northwest network of Southern Baptist churches. And from the reports I hear, this 70-something leader is introducing significant change, calling for increased accountability, innovation, and results in places where mediocrity and the status quo had become normal. I love the fact that he is still leading innovative and outside-the-box thinking.
When I reflect on this process and the responses of these two men, what I find is that handling change well is very possible. We just normally encounter a lot of roadblocks in the way. Pride, arrogance, ego, desire for control, resistance due to fear, inability to redefine ourselves outside of our current job or role. I look at the example of these two men and I realize that humility, servanthood, patience, courage, risk, and an openness to God’s neverending work in the lives of his children go a long way in navigating change well.
And I remember one large thing. We speak a great deal about God’s work and interaction with our daily lives. However, moving from theory to action is a great difficulty for many of us. And we often fail to live as if the Holy Spirit we believe in so passionately is actually real and engaged with us, accomplishing what we could not do simply on our own. If the same power that raised Jesus from the dead truly resides in the lives of those who follow Jesus, then we should not resign ourselves to frustration, brokenness, and dysfunction so easily and treat it as “normal, acceptable, and just the way things are.”
Navigating change well is possible, but it does involve more than simply our own willpower and decisiveness. If we do not live daily in dependence on the Holy Spirit, then we are nothing more than practical athiests.
