The Change Puzzle: Cracking the Code to Sustained Transformation
This is what I hear often from preachers.
(I’m not making this up; this is actually what they tell me.)
“My sermon messages come together so much more easily when I start my sermon prep early in the week — and then something interrupts that schedule just once and I’m right back to prepping on Saturdays.”
“My sermons are so much better when I apply BsP’s process of Lectio Divina and the Heart of the Message to crafting my sermon — and then I drift away to my old patterns and forget just how good it is until I use it again.”
“I got super excited about trying something new [e.g., preaching without notes, preaching from the Hebrew Scriptures, or being more intentional about gestures], and it went great — and then it was a big struggle one week so I never tried it again.”
In other words, “Why can’t I stick with what I know works?”
My dear preaching colleague, you are not alone!
If change were easy, we’d all be doing it!
Like everyone else I struggle, too.
Whether it’s sticking with a new preaching skill or prep rhythm, or with my dreaded office chore of taking care of paperwork so it doesn’t end up in piles that cover my desk, or insisting on sabbath rest, making change last is hard.
The PHASes of Change: From Status Quo to Excitement to Endurance—or Failure
Let’s step back and look at the process of change.
1. If It Ain’t Broke…
At first we’re not really thinking about changing at all.
We’re just living life, gathering experiences, and deepening the grooves of routines and homeostasis.
When we feel a groove is easy and serving us, we are content and don’t give it much mind.
However, if we feel that a groove isn’t serving us, like feeling increasingly stressed about prepping sermons on Saturdays, we start to pay attention.
2. Is It Broke?
The groove now has our attention, but is it genuinely a problem we need to solve?
For instance, prepping on Saturdays is becoming more and more annoying but is it bothering us enough to address it, or should we just power through?
At this stage we’re considering the problem and deciding if it’s worth our energy to fix it.
3. Yup, It’s Definitely Broke. Now What?
We decide that the problem needs to be addressed. Step three is making a plan and gathering the tools to hoist ourselves out of the groove.
What do we need to do differently?
How are we going to do it?
What’s going to be the process?
Who do we need to tell?
Who needs to be involved?
What gets disrupted while we turn our attention to fixing the problem?
We do our research, gather the how-to’s and maybe a professional who’s been through the same thing, tell everyone know who needs to know, and prepare to do the work.
4. Let’s Go!
It’s a lot of work to make the changes needed, but we get excited as the solution begins to alleviate the pain.
We start sermon prep on Monday and stick to a plan of prep, and it’s done on Friday! Hallelujah! We breathe, we play on Saturday, and our household rejoices!
Now we have the tools. We practiced the plan. We know it works, and we love the feeling of success that affects our entire well-being.
It was hard work, but taking action made us feel in control, and when we see the measurable results, we gain confidence.
Yay! The hard part is over. We’re good to go!
5. We’re Good to Go — Until We’re Not.
There’s a death in the parish on Monday and the funeral is Saturday. You have a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday that was scheduled months ago and landed in your new sermon prep time. At the last minute on Wednesday, the parish finance committee needs you to attend their meeting. On Thursday and Friday, you’re prepping for the funeral.
Here we go again: life is out of control. As usual, it’s back to prepping on Saturday night.
Our new-found confidence drops and we wonder what’s wrong with us. We can’t do what we know works better.
We might even beat ourselves up, telling ourselves we’re hopeless to change.
The #1 mistake that derails change
Here’s the mistake most of us make.
We think the hardest part—and where we need the greatest amount of support—is in making the change.
Not so.
The hardest part is what comes next. The hardest part is maintaining the change.
The mistake we make is failing to plan for the inevitable: when homeostasis tries to drag us back into the ease of old routines — even when those habits were painful ones!
That’s when we’ll need the most support and self-compassion.
The MAINTENANCE PHASE: Why we struggle to Sustain change
Deviating from our go-to strategies takes effort, energy, time. Though they may have had unfortunate side effects, those old habits worked for us. That’s why we relied on them. And while the endorphins of our initial successes may fuel our efforts at first, at some point, the honeymoon ends, and we’re left with the unglamorous work of laying and reinforcing new neural pathways—with actions that are less familiar and less comfortable.
Here’s how the challenge of maintenance manifests itself:
Decision fatigue wears us out. We can’t plan ahead for every surprise and circumstance, so we’re constantly making decisions about how to stick with the change in the face of disruption.
We experience fewer endorphins than in the initial change. Maintenance requires applying the new intention and skill over and over and over and over while experiencing only incremental change, which only drips the endorphins instead of flooding us with them.
“Maintenance is when we need the most self-compassion, the most planning and the most support, yet it’s the stage that receives the least amount of our preparation.”
We think there’s something wrong with us that it’s still so darn hard! It takes time for new practices to become routine—comfortable, easy, and smooth. We’re building new grooves, new habit muscles, which takes reps. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with us. We’re just like everyone else, and God never abandons us while we’re struggling!
We think it shouldn’t take so long. Most of us wish for the “Road to Damascus” moment of enlightenment and sudden change that lasts a lifetime, but rarely is such a gift bestowed. The truth is, it takes as long as it takes. (Paul may have been suddenly awakened to God’s love for Gentiles, but face it: he struggled for the rest of his life to curb his habit of run-on sentences!)
Maintenance is when we need the most self-compassion, the most planning and the most support, yet it’s the stage that receives the least amount of our preparation.
What’s a Preacher to Do?
Fortunately, empowered with this information about the sneaky sabotage of the maintenance phase, you can plan for lasting change:
Make the plan to change AND the plan to maintain.
Gather the tools and professional support you’ll need for the long haul.
Tell colleagues, friends, and loved ones when you’re struggling, and ask for their help — then let them actually help!
Make a realistic timeline, which is: there isn’t one. It takes as long as it takes.
Throw a party for yourself for no other reason than rewarding yourself for trying to do something hard!
Swap out the self-talk of frustration and failing for congratulations for getting back on the horse.
Pray for strength, perseverance, and self-compassion—and trust that God will provide.
Let your struggle to change cultivate empathy for your parish system and listeners, who also struggle against the tides to make change stick.
Real, lasting change is worth the struggle.
It’s achievable, and it will produce the desired fruit.
We just have to plan for the inevitable challenges of maintenance.
Want to Gather Your Tools and Support to improve Your Preaching or Preaching Life
—and Maintain the changes?
The Mentorship was designed for exactly this purpose.
Kick off your new routines and build new skills during a 6-week Sermon Camp, where you’ll learn tools and practices to transform sermon prep into a life-giving time of connection to God.
You’ll learn to develop sermon messages that resonate with your listeners in less time and with more joy.
Then, just as life invites you to slide back into your old habits, embark on 8 months of comprehensive support:
from 1:1 mentoring to help you manage the interruptions that threaten your progress
to small group support where you can learn from others’ experiences
to deeper content that provides more tools and helps you truly internalize the change.
By the end, you’ll have an overflowing toolbox of practical strategies, a deeper connection to your spiritual life, and experience tackling a program year’s worth of obstacles and stressors—so you can continue cultivating a preaching life that works for you, your goals, and your lifestyle.
You’ll have “done your reps” in the company of like-minded preachers so that those new grooves are well worn by the time you graduate—and headed in the direction of a joyful lifetime of ministry.
Is this the support you need for this season of change?