All change threatens someone.

You’ve seen it happen in parishes. When a new pastor is assigned, everyone on staff goes into ALERT mode. How will he change the way we do things? Will he appreciate our music? He wants how many staff meetings a week? Is he a decent homilist? Will he listen to our concerns?

Or a new music director arrives. Changes will be made—but how will they affect us? Why do we only rehearse anthems now, and never the music of the assembly? If we have to miss rehearsal for good reason, we can’t sing on Sunday? Are you serious?

There’s always Catch -22 and -23: We’ve always done this. We’ve never done that.

We really don’t like change very much. It makes us rethink why and how we do our particular ministry, and sometimes the answers aren’t very comforting. Change makes us re-examine our commitment: is this the church I signed up for? Has the ministry I have served faithfully for years suddenly been dismantled?

The same feelings arise regardless of whether the changes are perceived as progress or regression. In Samuel Shem’s novel Mount Misery, about a young doctor’s internship in a mental hospital, someone has attached a small, neatly lettered sign to a recalcitrant soda vending machine:
WILL NOT MAKE CHANGE

Some joker adds:
CHANGE IS HARD

It absolutely is.

And that’s when we need most to sing Psalm 147: “Praise the Lord, who heals the broken-hearted.”