We people of faith seem to have an interesting relationship to change.

• We celebrate a God who makes all things new.
• In him, we become new creations- we are born again.
• We believe in the continual transformative power of the Spirit in our lives.
• But God is unchanging.
• And we regard our understanding of TRUTH to be absolute, and therefore unchanging.

We also organise our faith into religious institutions- and institutions are usually extremely change resistant. There seems to be something about the experience of faith that is threatened by the prospect of change. It is almost as if our faith, so deeply felt and yet so fragile, is protected by a scaffolding of external certainty that can not easily cope with any suggestion that individual elements may need to be re-thought, or re-examined.

However, change is a difficult process for most of us as individuals too. I can clearly remember the times of transition in my own life, and none of them were easy. Some where forced- by those life transitions that we all face. Some were made as a result of choices- either positive ones, towards something new and exciting, and/or negative ones, away from things that I have rejected.

One of those pivot point in my own life came about as I began a scary and painful exploration of the tennets of my faith. There was a negative imperative within this- my experience of faith in may new Scottish context had been fraught with difficulties. A church on self destruct mode, an encounter with American fundementalism, and a conviction that something just was not working. There was also a longing for renewal, and a faint hope that new things were possible. But the more questions I seemed to be asking, the more may own scaffolding seemed to be falling away. At one point, I did not know if my faith could survive this.

But it more than survived- I found that it exploded into something wonderful and new.

There is an interesting discussion about change in the introduction to Brian McLaren’s book ‘A new kind of Christian’ . This book has been transformative to many who have encountered it- and caused huge controversy. McLaren is a prophet to some, a demon to many. I devoured his writing like a starving man at a feast.

McLaren described a process of change that begins with disatisfaction and pain. We feel oppressed and captured by our experience- unable to move on.

This becomes funnelled into a narrow space where we begin to look forward, but have no clear idea of what might be to come.

Then the shape of possibility allows us to come out of a funnel. This can be exciting and highly motivating. We might also be very rejecting of the past.

As the new thing takes shape, it opens out into normality, and perhaps the whole thing begins again.

The Church in the west is caught somewhere in this process. Looking for hope, but resisting the unknown. How we need the Holy Spirit. And how we need pioneers who are prepared to head off into the unknown!