Perspective:
and outsiders H
Insiders By Michael W. Rinehart
ere’s my hunch. Everything for me rises or falls on this bet. I’m putting all my eggs in this
basket: The turnaround of mainline churches will happen when we in those churches care as much about those outside the church as we do those inside. To embrace relevance, we will have to let go of survival. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. If I’m wrong, fire me now. I’ll die on this hill.
What does this mean? My theory is that mainline churches have ceased to be relevant to the culture because insiders trump outsiders every time. All decisions, even little ones, are made for the benefit of those inside the church. Insiders trump outsiders. Take hymns, for example. Musi- cal decisions aren’t made consid- ering what will attract spiritually hungry outsiders but what will
Rinehart is bishop of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod. A version of this reflection originally appeared in Connections, a monthly synod newsletter.
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please the card-carrying, bill-paying membership. Time and time again church lead- ers receive heat from insiders upset about this or that because they are trying to re-create a childhood church experience or simply have a rigid idea of church. Leaders cave in to these insiders because they control the purse strings.
Insiders are inherently change- averse. People don’t like change, especially those who have status in the church.
Peter L. Steinke, author of Healthy
Congregations (Alban, 1996), taught us that every church is an emotional system. Some people benefit from the system as it currently is. Some ben- efit emotionally. They are revered as church saints. Or everyone seeks their approval for decisions. By receiv- ing recognition, an emotional need is met. Or perhaps they are simply tirelessly defending “the tradition,” regardless of how new or unhelpful that tradition may be. People in power, who have privi- leges in the current system, resist
change and make life hard for any leader who seeks to be a change agent. Pastors are paid from mem- bers’ giving, so there is a potential conflict of interest. If they do the right thing, some leaders will end up losing their job (or up on a cross, to refer- ence an often-told story). Why is this happening? Church structures were set up to preserve what exists, not change it. These sta- ble structures work well when society is changing slowly, imperceptibly. If something is working, protect it at all costs. But what if it’s not working? What if the rate of societal change skyrockets and old patterns and struc- tures no longer work?
Management consultant Peter Drucker once said, “When the rate of change outside the organization exceeds the rate of change inside the organization, the organization is doomed.”
What do we do about it? Change.
Adapt. The church has adapted, survived and even thrived in times of tectonic change in the past. It can again.
Stable structures are a high value in a stable culture. But in a climate of rapid change, adaptability is the higher value. In a time of stability, experience is crucial. In times of change, experience can be a liability, especially if the experienced make the fatal mistake of assuming that what garnered success in the past guarantees success in the future. What got you where you are now won’t get you where you need to go in the future. Sorry. Leaders who don’t get this are in for some rough sledding. Let’s face it, change is hard. Change, however is non-negotiable. The only constant in life is change. There is no growth without change. As someone once said, “The only one who likes change is a wet baby.” Any kind of change creates con-
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