Reading the Resistance
July 1, 2000
Everyone agreed it would increase the impact of our choir in our "best of blend" approach to Sunday morning worship. The choir would be more involved as worship leaders. They would lead congregational singing as well as sing anthems.
To accomplish this, we started doing things we'd never done. We required auditions to discern both the spirit and the talent of choir members. Rehearsals were extended to include time for worship and small group prayer. The workload increased.
The vision was great, but when the changes started so did the resistance. Several long-term choir members dropped out; in one section it was near mutiny. Others pointed fingers at certain staff members, accusing them of exerting excessive power. Some painted it as a philosophical shift: "We're becoming just like the Saturday night service." It was painful to hear our choir's contribution to greater depth in worship dismissed as, "They're just doing 'doo-wops' for the worship team."
Everyone had said the vision was great, but now …
I was getting another lesson in reading the resistance.
Sometimes it's just a phase
Change is the price of vision, and with change comes resistance. If there is no resistance, there has been no change; we've simply gotten around to doing what others were expecting to take place. The greater the change, the greater the resistance. In the words of one of my mentors, Dick Zalack, "People prefer the painful known to the uncertain better." Casting a vision involves that "uncertain better" that simultaneously stretches faith and invites resistance.
There are four stages to most transitions:
- Denial, holding on to the illusion that nothing will change and the pressures to do so will go away.
- Resistance. Far more painful than denial, it interrupts sleep, makes us angry, tempts us to withdraw. Many retreat back into denial, and many churches and leaders bounce back and forth between resistance and denial for years.
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