I see gr-reat changes takin' place ivry day, but no change at all ivry fifty years.

In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

More information has been generated in the last three decades than in the previous 5,000 years. Over 4,000 books are published every day. One weekday edition of the New York Times includes more information than the average person encountered in his entire lifetime in 17th-century England.

'Change' is scientific, 'progress' is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their correctness never does.

In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: You find the present tense and the past perfect.

THINKING ABOUT YAWNS In this excerpt, from the Introduction, I talk about what it means to think of the world in epidemic terms. A world that follows the rules of epidemics is a very different place from the world we think we live in now. Think, for a moment, about the concept of contagiousness. If I say that word to you, you think of colds and the flu or perhaps something very dangerous like H.I.V. or Ebola. We have, in our minds, a very specific, biological, notion of what contagiousness means. But if there can be epidemics of crime or epidemics of fashion, there must be all kinds of things just as contagious as viruses. Have you ever thought about yawning, for instance? Yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just by reading the two yawns in the previous two sentences--and the two additional yawns in this sentence--a good number of you will probably yawn within the next few minutes. Even as I'm writing this I've yawned twice. If you're reading this in a public place, and you've just yawned, chances are that a good proportion of everyone who saw you yawn is now yawning too, and a good proportion of the people watching the people who watched you yawn are now yawning as well, and on and on, in a ever-widening, yawning circle. Yawning is incredibly contagious. I made some of you reading this yawn simply by writing the word "yawn". The people who yawned when they saw you yawn, meanwhile, were infected by the sight of you yawning--which is a second kind of contagion. They might even have yawned if they only heard you yawn, because yawning is also aurally contagious: if you play an audio-tape of a yawn to blind people, they'll yawn too. And finally, if you yawned as you read this, did the thought cross your mind--however unconsciously and fleetingly--that you might be tired? I suspect that for some of you it did, which means that yawns can also be emotionally contagious. Simply by writing the word, I can plant a feeling in your mind. Can the flu virus do that? Contagiousness, in other words, is an unexpected property of all kinds of things, and we have to remember that if we are to recognize and diagnose epidemic change. The second of the principles of epidemics--that little changes can somehow have big effects and vice versa--is a also a fairly radical notion. We are, as humans, heavily socialized to make a kind of rough approximation between cause and effect. If we want to communicate a strong emotion, if we want to convince someone that, say, we love them, we realize that we need to speak passionate and forthrightly. If we want to break bad news to someone, we lower our voices and choose our words carefully. We are trained to think that what goes in to any transaction or relationship or system must be directly related, in intensity and dimension, to what comes out.. Consider, for example, the following puzzle. I give you a large piece of paper, 1/100th of a inch thick. (That's a typical thickness). I want you to fold it over once, and then take that folded paper and fold it over again, and then again, and again, until you have refolded the original paper 50 times. How tall do you think the final stack is going to be? If you ask people that question they'll fold the sheets in their mind's eye, and usually answer that the pile would be as thick as a phone book or, if they're really courageous, they'll say that it would be as tall as a refrigerator. But the real answer is that the height of the stack would approximate the distance to the sun. And if you folded it over one more time, the stack would be as high as the distance to the sun and back. This is an example of what in mathematics is called a geometric progression. Epidemics are another example of geometric progression: when a virus spreads through a population, it doubles and doubles again, until it has (figuratively) grown from a single sheet of paper all the way to the sun in fifty steps. As human beings we have a hard time with this kind of progression, because the end result--the effect--seems far out of proportion to the cause. To appreciate the power of epidemics, we have to abandon this expectation about proportionality. We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen very quickly.

Variety may be the spice of life, but it is not life itself. It is that bread of life, that peace of God which is the very staff of life itself, for which men's souls are starving in these days.

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator."

In the summer of 1962, young Dr. Madison Cawain, a hematologist at the University of Kentucky's Lexington Medical Clinic, went to the Cumberland Plateau of eastern Kentucky to see if there really was, as rumor had it, a "race" of blue-skinned people--with real blue blood--living in remote villages. After several months of unsuccessful searching, two blue-skinned people showed up at the Perry Clinic in eastern Kentucky while Cawain was present. Cawain examined the couple and found no evidence of heart or lung disorders. He began to suspect methemoglobinemia, a condition wherein excess levels of methemoglobin, an inactive form of hemoglobin, accumulate in the blood and impart a blue color that masks the red of active hemoglobin. Methemoglobinemia can have several causes. One is genetic and results in a subnormal level of the enzyme diaphorase, which reconverts methemoglobin back into active hemoglobin. Cawain drew blood from several blue people, tested for the presence of diaphorase, and found none, thus explaining the buildup of methenoglobin and the signature blue color. The trait is a simple recessive. A person must carry both corresponding genes from each parent for the blue-blood condition to manifest. Someone carrying only one recessive gene won't show the blue blood/blue skin trait but can pass it on through generations. In the early 1800s, the Fugate and Smith families of Kentucky intermarried, and by strange chance, members of both families carried the recessive trait for methemoglobinemia, and blue-skinned children were born. They were robust, healthy, resistant to disease, and lived to envious old age. Following his treatment of the two blue-skinned people at the Perry clinic, Cawain visited five others with methenoglobinemia, and cured them by injecting them with methylene blue, a common tissue dye that acts in place of diaphorase. Within a few minutes, their skins had shed the blue color and become a normal pinkish.

A December 2000 Fast Company article by David Dorsey focused on a change agent named Jerry Sternin. His job with Save the Children was to the change the face of malnutrition in Vietnam. I will refer you to the excellent article available online to tell the rest of the story. See: http://www.fastcompany.com/online/41/sternin.html The approach claims that one can never bring a permanent solution from the outside. "In every community, organization or social group, there are individuals whose exceptional behaviors and practices enable them to get better results than their neighbors with the exact same resources." The approach is almost the opposite of the "best practice" model of change agentry. Here are the steps in the article. "1. Don't presume that you have the answer." I think this is the biggest one for a change agent to remember. We become almost jaded by hearing the same stories and thinking we have some solutions. The first task is to always listen and learn. Solutions must come up within the culture or social set addressed. "2. Don't think of it as a dinner party." While it is true that we can learn from diverse backgrounds and approaches, in the case of most churches, the practices or innovations needed must come from another church that is viewed as a peer. They must identify with the other organization. They must feel they are working with similar enough circumstances and resources. It is possible to be inspired by a church very dissimilar from another church, but very difficult to implement some of their practices. "3. Let them do it themselves." The article advises change agents to set up situations where people can learn on their own. Change agents should raise questions, highlight or platform some of the positive deviants but let the group of those that need to change take it from there. "4. Identify conventional wisdom." In some ways this means clarifying what the average church in the group is doing. Many times conventional wisdom was very productive in a previous era, but is no longer. In the case of the Vietnamese culture, certain foods were deemed low class, even though they were nutritious. By showing how the positive deviants used these foods to improve nutrition, others then could lay aside their previous bias. "5. Identify and analyze the deviants." As you look at a group of churches, you can identify those that are getting the results that you seek. If you have defined the group correctly, then the rest of the group can as well. This allows the group to investigate the deviants for different practices. Help the group identify those behaviors that are leading to success. "6.Let the deviants adopt deviations on their own." The task of change agents is not to transfer the knowledge but to design an intervention that enables the targets to practice the new behavior. In the case of the Vietnamese villagers, they were invited to a cooking class held at the home of the positive deviant where they cooked meals using the low class foods for the entire group. In the case of churches, a change agent would have to enable a team from one church to learn from the deviant and then try the new practice over a period of time. "7. Track results and publicize them." The results from each village were publicized. There was a communications effort. But then the task is to wait until other groups are interested enough to want to learn for themselves. Turning the process into a program does not help aid change. A target group has to be ready to change themselves, curious about what could help make the changes, and willing to invest themselves in studying those that are positive deviants. Then they have to practice applying the behaviors. "8. Repeat steps one through seven." Disseminate the best deviant behaviors across the system but help people go back and look for new behaviors constantly. The answers are different for each group but they can form new groups with different peers. This article further pushes me in the direction of teaching congregations that serve as positive deviants where other churches can learn. However they must feel enough like a group in order to learn. These churches would have to examine their own conventional wisdom about what should work but isn't working now to bring the changes they desire. I am reminded of the model that New Hope Church uses through their practicum program as well as the "Doing Church as a Team" program. Both programs allow visiting groups to look behind the scenes, ask questions and watch the behaviors of a variety of persons at the church. The conference is the conference they do for their new members and attenders, they merely allow outsiders to be a part as well. The practicum allows pastors to follow their pastors around for 5 days and learn as they go. Then, pastors can adopt or try certain behaviors for themselves. It is not a perfect fit to the situation, but it's getting there. I am sure that most of you can create and devise even more interesting and important ways to apply this idea. After you try one, send it in, I would like to hear what you have learned in the process. A lot of this information is found around the nutrition literature. Here are a few resources for you for further research. http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80697e/80697E00.htm#Contents http://www.unicef.org/pdeduc/education/pdf/vol1.2_nov98.pdf

In his work Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers suggests that if 16 percent of a defined constituency adopts a new way of doing things, it creates a movement (262). The odds are in favor of the innovation--that in time upwards to 86 percents of the total population will adopt this new way of thinking and living. I don't know of any suburban church that has reached 17 percent of its households loctated within its area. My thoughts: is this the breakpoint for revival? Another quote from later in the book "Polls would suggest that only 16 percent of the people who live around us are truly immoral." (page 180, statistic cited from Gallup and Jones The Saints Among Us page 10).

Unrecognized delays can also lead to instability and breakdown, especially when they are long. Adjusting the shower temperature, for instance, is much harder when there is a ten-second delay before the water temperature adjusts, then when the delay takes only a second or two. During that ten seconds after you turn up the heat, the water remains cold. You receive no response to your action; so you perceive that your act has had no effect. When the hot water finally arrives, a 190-degree water gusher erupts from the faucet. You jump out and turn it back; and, after a delay, it's frigid again. On and on you go, through the balancing loop process. Each cycle of adjustments compensates somewhat for the cycle before. A diagram would look like this: [diagram omitted] The more aggressive you are in your behavior--the more drastically you turn the knobs--the longer it will take to reach the right temperature. That's one of the lessons of balancing loops with delays: that aggressive action often produces exactly the opposite of what is intended. It produces instability and oscillation, instead of moving you more quickly toward your goal.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Tom Bandy is one of the principals of Easum/Bandy and Associates and a great author and consultant too. He and Bill Easum facilitate regular learning forums for change leaders, church planters as well as denominational officials. I am a participant in several of their email forums. A few weeks back now, Tom addressed a concern in the forum about a positive role of denominational officials in helping churches in change. He was gracious to allow me to share it with you. If you are now apart of a denominational system, I think the same thing could be said for other interventionists that assist churches. ASSISTING SYSTEMIC CHANGE I agree that the terminology of "bottom up" and "top down" are probably no longer adequate to interpret how systemic change happens in the church. However, I disagree with the view that "bottom up transformation is a myth". It has happened ... and is happening ... all the time, and in all of the spheres of culture named. The initiative or motivating power for systemic change almost always emerges from below ... and also from the fringes. This is not because regional and national leaders are indifferent or insensitive to innovation, but because organizationally denominations (and other institutions) are designed for programmatic change ... not systemic change. We are caught up in portfolios and divisions and job descriptions ...and politics, and heritage protection, and preservation of denominational ethos. Recently I had the same experience re-enacted in another denominational meeting (I won't mention which). Judicatory leaders are most helpful, however, in maintaining MOMENTUM for transformation. While it may be initiated from below, strong leadership must accelerate the momentum. This leadership CAN be from the national or regional judicatories, but it does not HAVE to be. My experience is that if national or middle judicatory leaders cannot give systemic change leadership, then congregations will go around roadblocks to form their own networks (within or beyond the denomination), their own partnerships (within or beyond the traditional religious sectors, and even among business and non-profit sectors), and their own leadership development (with resources and mentors of their own choosing). In short, the water of change is rising, and it will find its new watercourse one way or another. Denominational leaders can be incredibly be helpful ... but do not in themselves initiate, channel, or control the rising tide of change. Let me test several ideas with all of you regarding the potential positive role of denominational leadership for systemic change in churches. 1) I like the comment from one of our participants that denominational leaders have the most impact by addressing ATTITUDE change, rather than TACTICS. They can teach, or better yet behaviorally model, a "new way of thinking" for congregations and congregational leaders stuck in old paradigms. 2) Denominational leaders can help channel change by offering help in synthesizing seeming opposites, breaking down old polarizations between "liberal" and "conservative", and helping congregational leaders (enthusiastic initiators that they are) to see a larger and more intricate picture when it comes to local and global mission. 3) The emerging configuration of leadership is the team. These teams may be formal, but are most often informal, partnerships between national and local leaders. As the micro/macro nature of change accelerates, middle or regional leadership may find itself marginalized unless they are very proactive and desire to participate. (I digress here to note that although I find middle judicatory leaders such as those in this forum who are "on board" with systemic change, they always express to me their own sense of isolation among their middle judicatory colleagues. Ten years ago I would have said that national leadership were among the most defensive and reactionary voices among denominations ... but I am not sure I would think that today.) 4) The most effective leadership teams not only model the macro/micro world, but they are often ad hoc or informal. They do not emerge through the institutionalized and politicized nominations processes of the denomination. They are formed at the initiative of a national or local leader "providentially", and may often contradict and alarm the actual official infrastructure. I think I have a different perspective from (another person), who suggests that denominational leaders can best lead systemic change through their own portfolios or spheres of influence. My personal experience, and that of colleagues, and my observation of others, is that denominational leaders best lead change when the STEP OUTSIDE their traditional job descriptions and begin to think and live holistically. Systemic change cannot be achieved programmatically, in the sense that various tasks can be divided among several offices. It happens when denominational leaders learn to shed their job descriptions and work in true post-modern teams of equals who individually and together share a holistic vision of congregational mission. A last comment about stress: If all of the above is true, denominational leaders who really do LEAD transformation (not just programmatic change) will be under tremendous stress from every direction. I am not sure that this is the place for me to tell my own story, and so I will refrain. I will only say that it is a very hard road to follow for denominational leaders, but that at least in my case it ended well. Attitudes and priorities in my national office did change ... people who formerly hated my mission became trusted friends and colleagues ... the division shifted toward team-based leadership. None of that came easily, and the colleagues who continue also experience enormous stress ... and joy ... as well. Thanks to Tom for his contribution. By the way the Easum/Bandy group has email forums as well as some new advanced learning options available this year. They have a brand new web-based seminar through the EBA Community as of January 1. There is a new topic in this EBA Community Coaching Seminar every month (except July). In addition, they are the featured presenters at The Easum, Bandy Convergence (Convergence - "The occurrence of two or more things coming together") EBA will hold two events in 2001 that involve all of the EBA team (eight). Dates and Places: April 24 -- Columbus, Ohio -- September 18 -- Baltimore, Maryland 8:30am to 9:00 pm. To get more information, check out their very cool web site at www.easumbandy.com. Warning though, Bill Easum's picture is on there so close one eye.:)

IDEAS: POSITIVE DEVIANT . . . LEADING CHANGE The December 2000 issue of Fast Company, featured an article called, "Positive Deviant." Driven by a need to effect change quickly in an effort to save starving children in Vietnam, Jerry Sternin came to realize that real change always begins from the inside. Driven by the reality that the TBU (true but useless) model of dealing with malnutrition would not work, Sternin turned to the theory of positive deviance: "In every community, organization or social group, there are individuals whose exceptional behaviors or practices enable them to get better results than their neighbors with the exact same resources. Without realizing it, these "positive deviants" have discovered the path to success for the entire group . . ." TRUE BUT USELESS . . . REPLACED We rarely talk with a church that is not dealing with change. Many are attempting to address the critical issues with outdated, "true but useless models." Have any of these hanging around your place? Listed below are principles for adopting positive deviance as a part of your leadership development and change model: Step 1: Don't Presume You Have the Answer: Approach the change issue with a beginner's mind, ready to listen. Step 2: Don't Think of It as a Dinner Party: Involve only those that are a part of effecting the change, instead of a broad, diverse audience. Step 3: Let Them Do It Themselves: Set up a situation in which people can discover, on their own, a better way to do things. Raise questions but the let the group come up with its own answers. Step 4: Identify Conventional Wisdom: Establish the norms and associated boundaries. Step 5: Identify and Analyze the Deviants: Allow the positive deviants to emerge as it becomes clear that they have found a better way. Step 6: Let the Deviants Adopt Deviations On Their Own: Don't teach new knowledge - encourage new behavior. Step 7: Track Results and Publicize Them: Post the results, show how they are achieved and let other groups develop their own curiosity about them. Step 8: Repeat Steps One Through Seven: Make the whole change process cyclical. To read the article for more in-depth insight go to: <http://www.fastcompany.com/online/41/sternin.html>

We have a friend of whom we are very proud; he has completely turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.

Q. What did the Buddhist Monk say to the hot-dog vendor? A. Make me one with everything. Upon receiving the hot dog the monk paid with a $20 bill, which the vendor promptly pocketed. "Why didn't you give me my change?" asked the monk. "Because," said the vendor, "change must come from within."

Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds water.

This is an ineffective solution to a non-existent problem.

English explorer George Mallory dreamed of conquering Mount Everest. He organized an expedition, but it failed. A second attempt also failed. A third expedition, launched after the most extensive preparation possible, was most tragic of all. An avalanche killed Mallory and most of his team. Back in England, friends invited the survivors to a banquet honoring Mallory and his valiant group. At its close, a surviving team member stood and looked around the room at photos of Mallory and his slain comrades. Then, in tears, he turned to face a huge picture of Mount Everest behind the banquet table. "Mount Everest," he said, "you defeated us once, you defeated us twice, you defeated us three times. But we shall someday defeat you, because you can't get any bigger, and we can!"

We have decided to have four worship services each Sunday. There will be one for those new to the faith. Another for those who like traditional worship. One for those who have lost their faith and are seeking to get it back. And, one for those who had a bad experience with the church and are constantly complaining about it. After long discussions we agreed to a name for each of the services: FINDERS, KEEPERS, LOSERS, WEEPERS!

If you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re a part of the road.

The only person who likes change is a wet baby.

Awkwardness is natural. If people aren’t feeling awkward doing something new, they’re not doing something new.

People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years, and underestimate what will happen in the next ten. – Bill Gates

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

We are afflicted today with what I call V.S. disease -- the Vanilla Syndrome -- going to Baskin Robbins 31 flavors and ordering vanilla.

For new technology to replace old, it has to have at least ten times the benefit. -- Peter Drucker

A passenger in a taxi tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him something. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb, and stopped jus inches from a large plate glass window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab, then the driver said, "Please, don't ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me." The passenger, who was also frightened, apologized and said he didn't realize that a tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much. The driver replied, "I'm sorry, it's really not your fault at all. Today is my first day driving a cab. I drove a hearse for 25 years." ________________________________________________________________________

If people behave in new ways, eventually theit attitudes change in the direction of their actions. Indeed, numerous studies have shown that one of the most effective methods for altering attitudes and values is by producing a change in behavior.

Just a caveat...what if the people "who don't want to change" don't want to change not because they are entrenched in a static enviorment without the freedom to dialogue...but are resistant to changing core belifs because they've thought them through, weighed them in the filter of personal experience and good bible study and have come to the realization -- they don't want to change? Does that just make them stupid because they don't want to change?

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.