Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in The Pastor: A Guide for God’s Faithful Servant, ed. by Jim Vogel, which is available at rbpstore.org and other online retailers.

I’ll never forget a certain saying. Not because I heard it on a single, memorable occasion, but because I heard it often, and I heard it casually—off the cuff. The saying goes, “People hate two things: change and surprises.” At the time, I was a young associate pastor in my first ministry, and the person who said that is the person who taught me most about change in local churches.

Mike Augsburger serves as pastor of Soteria Church in West Des Moines, Iowa.