You can spin it anyway you like. You can avoid the C-word. Instead of saying, “We’re going to make some changes,” you can talk about improving things. You can pull out your thesaurus and use every word in it to avoid the one that no one wants to hear.
That won’t change the fact that the people in your church know what you’re up to. All the wordsmithing and spinning in the world won’t change one fundamental fact:
Your attempt to implement change is a threat to the people in your church and they will inevitably have concerns about what you’re doing.
(If someone has not concerns about your change initiative, you should be concerned about that. It probably means they are an early adapter, a group which typically have very little influence with the rest of the organization. They are perceived as being a little flighty and flaky.)
A 1978 study conducted at the University of Texas maintains that people who are faced with change experience six sequential and predictable concerns:
1. Information concerns
2. Personal concerns
3. Implementation concerns
4. Impact concerns
5. Collaboration concerns
6. Refinement concerns
Until you are prepared to address the concerns that change always brings, you’re not ready to lead a change initiative with your congregation.
