“Change” is a very popular word these days.  The concept of change has almost become fashionable as of late.

I’ve never been one who’s afraid of change.  In fact I generally seem to find change exhilarating.  But I’ve also never been one who enjoys change simply for the sake of change.

In the church world I hear or read people talking about change on a regular basis.  “We need to change the way we _____” or “We need to change how we ____”   Now I’ll be the first one to say that there is a lot in the church world that needs to change.  But I don’t want to fall into a commonplace trap that thinks that talking about change is the same as truly effecting change.  I think a lot more people are talking about change in the church, than there are people who are true catalysts of change.  You see for change to occur in the church in any form it takes people to implement it.  And for that change to be effective we need to truly understand what needs to be changed.

Now your opinion on what needs to change may be completely different than mine.  But I’d like to start the discussion about change here.  I’d like to hear what you perceive as the greatest need for change within the church.  I’ll start by telling you that:

I think the greatest need for change within the church is for the church to more effectively grow more people into true disciples of Christ, to truly fulfill the Great Commission.

I would dare say that we have more people in more churches today, than ever before. Yet in spite of our large numbers of participants, the number of particpants who are in a sincere quest for authentic relationship with Christ and living out that relationship on a daily base are significantly lower.  Now that may seem like a pretty broad conjecture but to back my claims I refer to a study that I read last year which was conducted by Willow Creek Commuity Church.  This study looked at the involvement of their participants hoping to find that more involvement in the local church equals spiritual growth.  But their results were not supportive of their hypothesis.  For a closer look at the REVEAL study click here.

So tell me What Needs to Be Changed?