A Time of Profound Change   

Mar 05, 2025
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A Time of Profound Change   

The historic stones of Port Arthur stand as silent witnesses to Tasmania’s turbulent and challenging past. These disused relics, weathered by many a storm, remind us how life changes and time never stands still. And we feel it, don’t we? Over the past decade, forces have reshaped familiar foundations right before our eyes. Faith, community, and leadership particularly, leaving many disoriented and grieving.  

But what if, despite our discomfort, this cultural shift was part of something larger? A shift that hasn’t surprised God, who may even be helping it along. 

The 500-Year Rummage Sale 

According to author and lecturer Phyllis Tickle, the church undergoes significant change every 500 years. A “rummage sale,” she calls it, where Christianity sorts through its accumulated beliefs, practices, and structures. The process rediscovers some treasures, repurposes others, and sets some aside. New expressions also emerge, often turning to ancient wisdom in contemporary forms. 

These upheavals include Christianity’s birth from Judaism (1st Century), monasticism’s rise after Rome’s fall (5th-6th Centuries), the Great Schism (11th Century), and the Protestant Reformation (16th Century). 

That places us in the 21st Century right in the middle of the next “rummage sale.” If this is so, it helps explain our unsettled feelings. It also provides insight into falling religious membership and changing structures. And suggests why there is a yearning for real spirituality in the face of institutional distrust. Perhaps these aren’t signs of failure, but birth pangs of transformation. 

From Towers to Town Squares 

Historian Niall Ferguson offers another, yet allied perspective. Using the Protestant Reformation as an example, he describes how power swings between hierarchical “towers” and networked “squares.” Propelled by the printing press, a networked movement challenged the church hierarchy. 

He suggests that today’s internet age echoes that revolution of 500 years ago. No longer do pulpits and publishing houses exclusively transmit information; instead, digital networks move it. This then reshapes how faith is transmitted, questioned, and lived. 

Tasmanian churches, from grand tabernacles to small chapels, were built as “towers.” But today’s spiritual landscape increasingly resembles a town square—networked, decentralised, conversational, and horizontal in both authority and wisdom. 

Living in our ‘Rummage Sale’ 

What does this mean for us who live and lead in changing times? How do we navigate our way ahead when the maps are being redrawn?  

For our churches in Tasmania—where colonial history and contemporary challenges create a unique spiritual landscape—this is not a time for grand strategic plans but reclaiming grace: to live with uncertainty, to welcome questions, to pause in the liminality between what was and what is becoming, and to nurture rather than control. 

If I read the moment correctly, this “rummage sale” isn’t something happening to us, but something happening through us. It is a move of the Spirit reshaping the Church. Our task isn’t to solve a problem but to enter the mystery—not preventing change but discerning God’s activity within it. This is where an invitation lies.  

Two options tempt us—either to desperately preserve our traditions or rashly discard everything in the name of relevance. Neither response is helpful and both miss the invitation that lies within this moment. 

True leadership in a ‘rummage sale’ requires wisdom to discern what to preserve, what to release, and having the courage to hold space for questions. It means listening with humility, not only to younger generations, but to the whisper of the Spirit in unexpected places. 

From history we learn that effective leaders in times of transformation aren’t those who build higher “towers,” but those who nurture healthier “town squares”—not architects of new structures but midwives to what is being born.  

That’s why for the past few years our Tasmanian Baptist strategy has been encouraging us to Reengage in God’s mission through humble service and relational connections. Reimagine God’s Kingdom in everyday life, and Realign resources for a post-Christian world. 

Courage for the Journey Ahead 

As Tasmanians who have weathered many storms, we understand resilience and can weather this one. The transformation will test our faith, yet it invites us to deeper trust in the God who makes all things new. 

We walk in the footsteps of generations who have navigated their own moments of change. They didn’t have the answers, just as we don’t. However, they had what mattered most—a living faith in a faithful God. 

Let us step forward with courage born not of certainty but of a conviction that the Spirit continues to work in and through us today. The future may be quite different to what we can imagine, but it remains in God’s hands, and that is reason enough for hope. 

A Time of Profound Change   

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