Many of the churches in our community have participated in an initiative that we called “Bold Faith.” The churches, which come from various denominational perspectives, focused on the same biblical texts during their sermon time each week for a month. Congregants were encouraged to integrate what they were learning on Sunday into their daily life.
Everyone who took part in the initiative was asked to wear a brightly colored “Bold Faith” wristband throughout the month. Whenever they saw someone else wearing the same wristband, they were asked to talk with them, find out what church they were from, and encourage them. It was not uncommon to see people wearing our colorful wristbands in the bank, the grocery store, or the restaurant.
My wife and I were in the checkout line at Walmart when I spotted a wristband on the arm of the young woman working the register. I asked her where she went to church, and she told me. I said, “Your pastor is a friend of mine. He is a great guy!”
She smiled and said something to affirm my comment. That was when a mischievous idea struck me, and I acted on it immediately — to my wife’s chagrin. I said to the cashier, “And I so admire the changes your pastor has made in his life since he got out of prison.”
Of course, her pastor had never been in prison. He was raised in Sunday School and church and went off to Bible College after high school to prepare for ministry. He was the white sheep in a family of white sheep. But the cashier did not know that. She gaped at me open-mouthed, apparently in astonishment.
I quickly said, “I am just joking. He was never in prison.” She seemed relieved but, like my wife, was unamused. But when I told my pastor friend what I had said to his parishioner, he got a kick out of it.
I have since wondered if the woman I joked with was surprised because she knew her pastor’s history and was sure he had never been in prison or if she was surprised at the idea that her pastor could ever have done anything bad. Did she think that her pastor, or pastors in general, have always lived morally blameless lives?
One of the foundational beliefs of Christianity is that people can change. But this does not go far enough. One of the foundational beliefs of Christianity is that people will change. An encounter with God is necessarily transformational. In a normal Christian life, wherever it begins — in prison or in church, when one is fifty years old or five — people experience change, growth, renovation.
It should not surprise us that converts need to change. Change is not only normative; it is necessary. Whether a person is just starting out or has been at this discipleship to Jesus thing for decades, he or she will need to overcome selfishness, fear, anger and a hundred other faults. To be happy, to be whole, requires change.
The biblical writers took for granted that change would be ongoing in the lives of their readers. They assumed that they would “grow,” “mature” and even “put to death the misdeeds of the body.” Church members were expected to increase “in the knowledge of God” and “grow up into [their] salvation.”
But what happens when a church holds no expectation for growth, when its people act as if all their changes and growth have already taken place? This kind of church looks good on the outside for no one acknowledges failure — to do so would amount to ecclesial suicide. But people remain stuck in destructive habits, and the relational fallout is continual.
Church members’ unhappiness and failure cannot be seen; it is too well hidden. Outsiders think, “I could never be a part of that church. They would not want me; my life is too messed up.” And so, people miss out on the change they so desire because they assume that they must be perfect before they can enter the church.
The church needs leaders who expect church members to change, who talk about it openly, and model it in their own lives.
— Shayne Looper is a writer and speaker based in Coldwater, Michigan. Contact him at salooper57@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Shayne Looper: Faith enables people to embrace change