It happened that our congregation was in the same situation as several other congregations in our Presbytery in that our youth were not exactly numerous. For example, as the solo pastor of a small congregation, I was not only the pastor, but also the youth leader. The young people, however-oh, the young people are open to the new, open to taking chances, open to things being wonderfully different! But the sophisticated nuance the phrase brings makes better sense of realities. They are particularly stuck in their ways and have an especially hard crust around them that makes them somehow impenetrable by the movement of the Holy Spirit. Of course it is the old folks that resist change. The first harm done by the simplistic notion that people don’t like change is the inevitable generation bias. And it brings with it a release from what I believe to be not only unhelpful, but in fact harmful and hurtful ways of understanding congregations. Even if it might bring them what they say they want, for some reason church people (and it’s usually the old ones, isn’t it?) simply won’t put up with things being otherwise than how they have always been. Instead, I was of the completely normative opinion that, for some reason, folks in the church just don’t like change. I wish I had had this phrase ringing in my ear throughout my first years of parish ministry. People don’t resist change they resist loss. And more, it’s one of those phrases that make particularly helpful sense. People don't resist change they resist loss.
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