Change, Loss, and Grief
This time one year ago I was writing my final sermon for Water’s Edge. This time one year ago Tanya and I were packing up our home into boxes. This time one year ago we were saying goodbye to people we had been friends with for over a decade. This time one year ago everything was about to change for us.
And a lot of change has changed in the past 12 months. We moved to a new city. I hung up my guitar and stepped into the pulpit. Tanya went back to work full-time in a new industry. We are still in the process of learning where everything is in our new town. Which doctors to go to, the morning traffic rhythms, which grocery stores we like (HEB is highly overrated BTW, just saying it how it is). We are still in the awkward process of making new friends. There has been so much change. The reality of all this change is just now starting to sink in for me.
I don’t know many people who like change. Sometimes change comes by our own doing, like our decision to move to a new city and start a new adventure. But sometimes change happens to us, against our will. Either way, change is inevitable.
I think the reason many of us don’t like change, no matter how it comes to us, is that change is often accompanied by loss. Loss is always accompanied by grief at some level, and we don’t really know how to grieve well. We don’t know how to sit with the sadness that comes with the losses we experience because of the change in our lives.
I don’t know about you, but I often just put my head down and trudge along, thinking that if I keep moving forward, I won’t have to deal with the grief in my life. Well, that typically doesn’t work out too well. The losses we endure will eventually show up in our lives in one way or another, and often not in the healthiest of ways.
I particularly see this in churches since that is my day-to-day context. I don’t mean churches as in the 501c3 legal entity that gives me a paycheck. I mean the church as God’s people. A lot has changed in the life of many congregations over the past few years. A lot of loss has occurred. A lot of grief has not been dealt with.
As a pastor, I was told by all the talking head church leadership people over the last few years that my job was to lead people through the pandemic. To get them through to the other side. As if I were Moses leading God’s people to the promised land.
But what if we missed a critical step?
Grieving.
Maybe the reason so many church people are resistant to change isn’t that they are stiffed neck sinful people (which at times we all are). What if church people are so resistant to change because no one has given them the permission or space to grieve the losses they have endured over the last few years? The result of their lack of grieving often comes out as pushback to anything new, less than kind emails, gossip, and just a lot of complaining.
As a pastor, it is easy for me to say, “Come on! Let’s go! Let’s get to the promised land” like I am some sort of spiritual cheerleader. This can sound exciting and it can motivate some people for a moment, but after a while it becomes exhausting for everyone involved, myself included! I don’t think this way of ministry is sustainable for pastors or congregants.
What if as a pastor one of the greatest things I can do for my congregation right now is help them sit with their sadness, name their sadness, and process their sadness all in an effort to help them grieve the losses they have endured over the years?
That doesn’t sound super sexy or like it will sell as the next big successful three-step church growth program. But what if this is what faithfulness looks like in this cultural moment? What if slowing down and sitting in our sadness before God can actually build a healthier foundation for the next generation? What if this process actually helps us heal and enjoy the life God has planned for us in the here and now? What if it’s not about getting through the change? What if it is about allowing God to form us in the midst of change?
I am not sure what this would look like at the corporate level of the life of a congregation. Maybe it ought to start with individuals. The Scriptures often speak of offering God a sacrifice of praise. I have always wrestled with what that means.
Maybe processing grief is a sacrifice of praise. Maybe we can start by sitting before God with our sadness as we name our real hurts, our real fears, and our real frustrations and ask him to hold them for us because they are often much too heavy for us to carry on our own. And as we offer him this sacrifice of praise, maybe his Spirit can begin to soften our hearts and stir up praise from the most broken parts of our souls.
Again, this is all theory at the moment, but I invite you to try it with me this week. I invite you to offer a sacrifice of praise to our Lord by bringing him your grief, whatever it may look like for you. And maybe this act of sacrificial praise can help us all be a little kinder and gentler with one another as we become more aware that we are all grieving in one way or another.
Grace and peace ‘til we rise in glory.
