Navigating Times of Change
Series: Navigating New Seasons
Brad Bailey – May 19, 2024
Intro
As mentioned... just 3 weeks from yesterday... is a very special event.
50th Anniversary Celebration... very unique opportunity... honor the founding lives... proving to
be so timely... and to install Josh Shaw as the new Lead Pastor.
It’s a remarkable opportunity to bless the past...and for the past to bless the future.
And this will culminate a change in the leadership of this community. As most of you
know...we have been in a process of succession in the role of Lead Pastor which I have had the
incredible privilege of serving as for the past 33 years.
This succession has involved more in the past few years than some may have been aware
of.
This succession doesn’t reflect my desire to leave in any way...but rather ...
• I believe we need generational change...and I am in a position to make it possible. (I
believe that most pastors wait too long to make generational transitions.)
• I believe that the future will be served by new leadership – with strengths that best
serve the next season. (I have shared a long lost of the unique fit and gifts that Josh
and Brianne bear.)
So today we are going to begin a short 3 week focus on Navigating New Seasons...
navigating times of change.
> We want to let God speak into this coming season... but we also recognize that...
Navigating seasons of change is a significant part of every life.
The truth is that we all navigate seasons of change.
When you are young... a new season could involve changing schools... changing where you
live.
A new season can come with more macro changes around us... major culture shifts that
leave us feeling like we are not in the same world we had been... or a global pandemic.... from
which we know nothing has been quite the same.
New seasons may come slow and naturally... such as arriving at new ages and stages in
life... and some may come more dramatically....with a change in employment... health... or
relationships.
Change comes to all of us... and so we do well to gain perspective on navigating change.
I know that the idea of change can have a kind of exciting draw to it... there is so much more
potential to achieve...but then... it requires ...change... and can be a little disorienting... until
we arrive at being reoriented.
“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” - John C. Maxwell
The story of God leading people is full of change... which God was in. The central point for
us to grasp today is this:
Change is inevitable... and what pulls us through seasons of change most... is the
unchanging purpose and calling of God.
What we find in God’s Word...is not a manual on how to navigate change...but the whole
story in which lives are called into seasons of change... and how God leads and guides them.
In fact... the Bible would look back upon what are often called the fathers of faith... or heroes
of faith ... who God first revealed Himself.
Many may recall that the life which is known as the Father of Faith is Abraham. [1]
Genesis 12:1-2a, 3b
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s
household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 ...and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show
you.”
This brief summary... may sound simple. But it would have been far from simple for
Abraham...and those with him.
It begins with leaving. What will he be leaving? His people...and his family... and all that was
familiar to him.
The destination? Isn’t clear yet? It will only be shown in in time.
There will be a stage of uncertainty.
But ultimately... there is a destination.
God is never simply calling us into a random direction. He is always calling us into His
purposes. [1b]
He was believing that God had plans.
What we see is a process. We could talk about the change as being announcement in this
simple statement... but what it represented was a process...which included... leaving...
uncertainty... brought to the next stage of God’s plans. [2]
1. Embrace seasons of change as a process of transition that involves an ending, an in-
between time, and then the beginning of a new season.
Change involves a process.
In his book “Managing Transitions,” William Bridges describes,
“Change is an event, but transition is the process you go through in response to the
