When things change there will always be people who are uncomfortable. That’s true in the market, where disruptive companies make old business models obsolete. It’s also true in the church. In fact, sometimes God is the chief disrupter. We see an example of this in Acts chapter 10 when God drags the church, against its will, into opening up to non-Jewish believers. Even though God is the instigator, some of his people struggle with adapting to change.

What can this teach us about ourselves? Over the last several generations, cultural forces have forced the church to adapt. We no longer find ourselves at the centres of power or influence. Instead, we’ve been sidelined. We might want to take back what we’ve lost. But maybe we’re exactly where God wants us to be. After all, Jesus and the disciples changed the world from the margins, not from the centre. God has a history of using people in positions of weakness to show off his strength.

But living in this reality means we need to adjust our expectations for what it’s going to be like to be in the church. We have to make do with less. If we’re determined to keep our Sundays the same as they always were, we’ll fall into the trap of inter-church competition. We’ll pillage other churches because we care about our congregation and its worship experience more than about the body of Christ. In order to live faithfully, we have to make our peace with the necessity of change. We need the wisdom to see what is central to being the church and what should be negotiable. We also need a willingness to endure a little discomfort. Only then can we do the hard work of adapting to change.