For two years after the lockdowns ended, Pastor Daniel kept the same calendar on his office wall. It was the calendar of 2019. Sunday school at nine. Two services. Wednesday Bible study. Youth night on Friday. A women’s breakfast on the first Saturday of every month. Before 2020, his church in El Paso had about three hundred people on a Sunday. Now about one hundred and ten came in person, and he was determined to bring the rest back.
He preached a series called “Return.” He sent cards to every family on the old membership list. He kept every program running, even when six people came to Bible study and the volunteers were exhausted. Every empty seat felt like a personal failure, and every Monday he felt a little older.
The turning point came from an unexpected place. A deacon handed him the numbers from the church’s online service, which they had kept running almost by accident. Nearly two hundred households watched every week. Some had moved to other cities. Some were caring for sick parents and could not leave the house. Some were nurses and soldiers on Sunday shifts. A few had never set foot in the building at all and had found the church only through the screen.
“Pastor,” the deacon said, “the church did not shrink. It moved.”
Daniel went home and read Isaiah 43:19. “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” He realised he had been asking God to restore 2019. God had been offering him a new thing, and he had not known it.
Change is the only constant
The only constant thing in life is change. Where there is change, there will be a need to adjust, adapt and accommodate. Change is rarely pleasant, but it is an indispensable ingredient for reaching the destination God has for us. When it comes, it is transformative. It can alter the course of the future in a direction we did not plan.
This means our expectations will need adjusting from time to time. Some expectations are rigid, and should be. A commandment of God, a marriage vow, a promise to a child: these are not up for renegotiation because circumstances became difficult. Other expectations are fluid. The goal stays, but the route, the timing or the form can change.
Change can come to an expectation in several formats. It can change in expression, when you learn to say it more clearly. It can change in timing, when the season you set turns out to be too short. It can change in direction, when the road you chose is closed. And sometimes it changes by a paradigm shift, when God shows you that the thing you were expecting was too small, and invites you to expect something better.
Job understood waiting for change. “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.” He did not pretend that nothing had happened to him. He also did not give up on God. He held his expectation open, and waited for the change to come.
Two kings and a lesson in change
Scripture gives us two pictures of change that sit side by side in 1 Samuel.
The first is David at the court of Achish, king of Gath. David had fled from Saul and walked straight into the city of Goliath. When the servants of Achish recognised him, he was in mortal danger. So “he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard” (1 Samuel 21:13). It was not dignified. It was wise. David read the situation, changed his approach, and lived to become king.
Three principles for managing change
The first edition named three basic principles for keeping an expectation alive through change. They hold up well.
Wise planning. A wise plan makes room for contingencies. It builds the ability to change course into the plan from the beginning, which saves a great deal of time when change comes. Wise planning involves good listening, because a great listener recognises change early and adjusts quickly. It involves keen observation, watching for any trend that could force a change of direction. And it involves learning from past mistakes. Paul put it this way: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before” (Philippians 3:13). Forgetting what is behind does not mean ignoring its lessons. It means not living there.
Prepare, manage, reinforce
Research on organisations by the firm Prosci describes successful change in three phases: preparing for change, managing change, and reinforcing change. The same pattern works for a person, a family or a church.
Prepare. Before you change an expectation, be clear about why. Name what is fixed and what is flexible. Talk to the people who will be affected.
Manage. Make the change in steps. Watch what happens. Adjust as you learn.
What has changed since the first edition
The last decade has delivered more change, faster, than most of us were prepared for. A pandemic closed churches, schools and markets. Prices rose faster than many families could adjust. Young professionals in Nigeria left in large numbers for the UK, Canada and the United States, and the families and workplaces they left had to reorganise around their absence. Artificial intelligence began changing what office work, customer service and even creative work look like. Remote work became normal for some and impossible for others.
In a season like this, two errors are common. The first is Saul’s: panicking and changing everything, including the things God told us to keep. The second is the error Pastor Daniel nearly made: refusing to change anything, and trying to restore a world that is not coming back.
Reshape before you abandon
When an expectation runs into change, there are three honest choices. You can renew it, keeping the same expectation with a new season. You can reshape it, keeping the purpose but changing its form, timing or direction. Or you can release it, letting it go with its lesson.
Many people jump straight to releasing. The change felt like a door slammed shut, so they walk away from the whole house. Before you do that, ask the reshaping question: What is the purpose underneath this expectation, and is there another form it could take? Very often the purpose is still alive, waiting for a new ditch to be dug in a different part of the valley.
Dig this week
- Take one expectation and divide it into two lists: what is fixed and must not change, and what is flexible and could change.
- Write your Plan B as a rule: If ___ changes, then I will ___. Write it now, while you are calm, instead of deciding later in a panic.
- Make room as if it is coming. Choose one thing that belongs to the old way of doing it and clear it out, so there is space for the new form when it arrives.
Questions to ponder
- Do you take change with open arms, or do you fight it? What does your answer cost you?
- Which expectation are you holding in the form of 2019, or of some other year that is not coming back?
- In your situation, what is fixed and what is flexible?
- Recall a time you changed the wrong thing under pressure, as Saul did. What would you do differently now?
- Recall a time you adjusted your method and kept your calling, as David did.
More questions for small groups are in the book.
Lord, help me to hold fast what You have commanded and to hold loosely what You are changing. Open my eyes to the new thing You are doing, and give me the wisdom to reshape before I abandon.
How ready are you for what you are expecting?
Score yourself on all eleven elements in about two minutes. You will see where to dig first.