With a new year comes new opportunities and new threats.  Perhaps the greatest threat we face on a daily basis is that of change.  While visiting amazon.com I was reviewing the book Deep Change when I came across a review about change.  "Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death acknowledges that no one can deny physical death but there is another death which everyone can deny; the death which occurs when we become wholly preoccupied with fulfilling other's expectations of us."

Well, I'm not so sure that no one denies physical death.  Consider our infatuation with "extreme" activities, especially those younger folks (and I certainly had that mindset in my youth) that believe that death is only reserved for the aged.  The comfort of our society has made us ambivalent to the reality of mortality that confronts people on a daily basis in Third World countries who lack many of the essentials of life that we take for granted (e.g. basic immunizations).

How related is death and change?  Does change hurry death?  Maybe it has more to do with control and death is the one thing we cannot control.  So if we have ultimate control on our lives and we can limit change then we somehow feel safer.  Maybe it the thought that change = decline.  I know my body has certainly changed = declined in my 55 years on planet Earth.  Some of it is certainly my doing, however some is a process of life. 

Change is certainly risky.  Churches that are plateaued or declining usually find themselves trying to hold on to what used to be and by sheer effort bring it back.  So if churches age as do individuals, then perhaps we can minimize change and thus delay or even reverse the dying process.  Churches in decline are not necessarily doomed to death.  But churches in decline that avoid change may in reality be ushering in their own death. 

I am not so concerning about the church dying.  However, I do see the death of congregations and the resultant loss of witness in a particular area.  This likewise comes when a congregation relocates and leaves a community without Christ's incarnational presence.  In it's best efforts, relocation should be an intentional part of the multiplication or distribution process of the church.  This mindset understands that the church exists with community as a crucial partner giving life and meaning to all aspects of community. 

Death by other's expectations occurs when we "leave our first love" as was the condemnation of the Church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:4.  Somehow they lost the priority that was described as "first love".  Maybe it came when they were preoccupied with "others expectations" and what they ought to be doing.  Congregations often fall into a quagmire of ecclesiastical or denominational expectations of what it means to be a good Baptist, or Methodist, or whatever fits.  Even those in the free church tradition that describe themselves as autonomous or independent fall victim to expectations of power brokers within their own congregation. 

What is God's expectation of us?  This year I want to come back to Micah 6:8, "and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God".