Archive Entry #21: September 21, 1995

This entry is about change, a recurring focus in my columns over the years (see what’s coming next to the archive at the bottom of this page!). But this column was different from any other column on change I ever wrote.

Not once in today’s entry do I come out and say we’re all afraid of change. But as we printed the September 21, 1995, issue of our church newsletter that featured this column, I sure thought that message would be clear. It wasn’t.

Shortly after we mailed the issue I received a call from an editor at The Dispatch newspaper asking whether I had concerns about the paper and/or its delivery system that I wanted to share with him. When I told the editor no, he said he thought I did given the content of my latest column. He said the paper took seriously the feedback from its readers, and that my column suggested I was an unsatisfied reader.

Then he told me the real reason for his call: He and his colleagues were concerned that my comments as a leader in the community (!) could negatively impact the community’s impression of the newspaper, so if I had concerns, I should have brought them to the editors directly rather than publish them in a church newsletter mailed to hundreds of homes.

It took about ten minutes of additional conversation, but I finally convinced the editor that the column in question was nothing more than a satire on our very common resistance to change.

Still today, this archive entry is one of the memorable – make that deliciously memorable – columns of my FCCEM ministry. See for yourself.

COMING NEXT: From August 1996, another in a series of columns I’ve written over the years that demonstrate my awareness of the need for dramatic change in the church. Sadly, there aren’t nearly as many columns that demonstrate my awareness of how to bring that change about! Find it HERE.