Reformation, transformation and personal and institutional change take grit and courage and community and most of all faith. Why faith? Because any change means that there will be a death. Something that was the case isn’t anymore.
My mentor, Walt Bouman, summed up the impact of the gospel news that Jesus is risen in this way: Now that you know that death doesn’t win, there is more to do with your lives than preserve them.
When you face a death-dealing situation, ask not whether death will occur if a change does. If you are asking the question, death is already present. Ask instead what thing, what new way of being, what new person God is calling you to be. And then, with the help of the communion of the saints, go for it.
This message is excerpted from “Another Way to Be,” by Anna Madsen in the January/February 2017 Gather magazine.
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