Change has been demanded of us over these past fifteen months — in work, vacation plans, health precautions and community life.

How much change can a person endure?  What spiritual virtues are needed to absorb new information, adapt and change, endure and thrive?

To prepare for our new sermon series, The Good Fight, I’ve been reading Adam Grant’s book, Think Again, about how people and organizations face change.  His numerous examples from business and civic life emphasize a spiritual virtue:  humility.  Without humility to search for and face errors, respond to new conditions, and assimilate new ideas, change becomes impossible.

The irony is that the stronger an organization becomes, the more knowledgeable and experienced an individual becomes, the less humble they’re likely to be.  It seems that, at our apex of achievement, we carry the seeds of future failure.

For the next six weeks our sermons will focus on change and conflict, reading Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthian church.    The Corinthians created a church, but no one’s life is really transformed, and they certainly aren’t impacting the culture of Corinth. The church’s problem?  Over-confidence.  They are led by a band of supermen preachers, whose alpha-arrogance seeps into the church.

When change comes knocking at your door, do you respond like Superman?  “I’ll overpower this intruder!”

Beginning this Sunday, we’ll think together about changes coming to our life and culture and church, and the spiritual virtues we need.