It’s Time to Get Uncomfortable!

Several years ago, I decided I wanted to get healthier. Like most people, I imagined the results, but not the process. I wanted strength without sore muscles, endurance without sweat, and change without discomfort. It didn't take long to discover those things don't exist together. Every improvement required stretching muscles that had become comfortable and complacent.

The same is true spiritually. We often pray for God to grow us while simultaneously expecting life to get easier. We ask God to grow our churches, while expecting everything to remain the same. Yet throughout scripture, growth rarely happens in comfort.

Your Relationship to Comfort

On a scale of 1-5 (1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest), how comfortable is your church?

Using the same scale, how comfortable does your church feel during times of growth, change, and challenge?

Have you ever noticed that during times of significant change and growth, your level of discomfort increases as your level of growth rises? Similarly, have you experienced times where your ministry is comfortable and lacks challenge, while your spiritual growth and the impact you have declines?

Why We Love Comfort

In the U.S., there is a “comfort epidemic.” Comfort is marketed to us every day.  From the most comfortable shoes to the coziest blanket, we are flooded with messages that our comfort should be one of our top priorities. We have a natural inclination toward comfort. We seek security. Predictability feels safe. Success often tempts us to settle and stop risking so much. All of this happens while our culture equates comfort with blessing.

In addition, we often mistake ease for God's approval. Yet some of God's greatest invitations came wrapped in uncertainty. Noah built before the rain came. Abraham left before he knew the destination. Moses confronted Pharaoh despite overwhelming fear. Peter stepped out of the boat before he knew whether the water would hold him.  God rarely grows us by making life easier. More often, God grows us by asking us to trust more fully in places we never would have chosen ourselves.

The Pain of Growth

A friend once told me, "There is no comfort in the growth zone and no growth in the comfort zone." I have found that to be true in my life, in ministry, and in the churches I've served. Significant growth is almost always accompanied by significant discomfort.

When my children were young, they occasionally experienced growing pains. Their legs would ache after seasons of rapid growth. As a parent, my goal was never to eliminate the pain; it was to help them endure it. The discomfort wasn't evidence that something was wrong; it was evidence that something was happening. In fact, I would have been more concerned if they had stopped growing altogether.

Spiritually, we often do the opposite. The moment following Jesus becomes uncomfortable, or the moment our church begins changing to welcome new people or embrace new ways of making disciples, we assume something has gone wrong. Yet James writes, "Consider it pure joy... whenever you face trials of many kinds... because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance" (James 1:2–4 NIV^[1]). God often uses discomfort to produce maturity.

The same is true in our churches. Growth stretches us. New disciples change the culture. New ministries require new approaches. Faithful obedience often asks us to release what is familiar to embrace what God is doing next.

Perhaps the question isn't, "How can we avoid discomfort?" but "What is God trying to grow in us through it?"

Comfort Can Become a Devastating Ministry Strategy

One of the greatest temptations in ministry is not failure; it is success. When a ministry begins to work, we naturally begin protecting what we've built. Programs become traditions. Traditions become expectations. Expectations become sacred. Before long, we find ourselves spending more energy preserving yesterday's successes than pursuing tomorrow's mission.

Churches rarely drift toward boldness when left to operate how they prefer. They drift toward predictability. We schedule fewer experiments. We become less willing to fail. We stop asking, "What is God calling us to do next?" and start asking, "How do we keep everyone happy?"

The tragedy isn't that churches become comfortable. The tragedy is that comfortable churches often mistake stability for health.

Jesus never called the church to preserve itself.  He didn’t tell us predictability was a sign of success.  He called us to make disciples, and disciple-making is inherently uncomfortable.

It requires meeting new people, trying new methods, welcoming different generations, crossing cultural boundaries, changing schedules, releasing control, planting new ministries, risking failure, and sacrificing what is certain. Comfortable churches naturally resist all of those.

Watch out for Spiritual Inertia

One of the most well-known principles in physics is Newton's First Law of Motion: an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. In other words, inertia is powerful. Things naturally continue in the direction they're already headed.

The same principle often plays out in our spiritual lives and ministry settings. When we settle into routines that require little faith, little sacrifice, and little dependence on God, comfort develops its own momentum. We keep attending the same services, praying the same prayers, serving in the same ways, and surrounding ourselves with the same people, not because God is calling us there, but because it has become familiar. Left unchecked, spiritual comfort can slowly become spiritual inertia.

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is constantly inviting us out of spiritual complacency. Through scripture, conviction, opportunities to serve, difficult conversations, and unexpected challenges, God lovingly applies the "outside force" needed to move us again. The question is not whether God is inviting us to move; the question is whether we are willing to respond.

Every ministry has momentum. Some churches have momentum toward mission.  Some have momentum toward maintenance. The frightening thing about spiritual inertia is that it doesn't feel like drifting. It feels normal.

But let’s keep one thing in mind: comfort isn't the enemy. Mission drift is. Comfort is simply the symptom that we have a problem. For example, a church can have padded pews, air conditioning, and coffee, and still be incredibly uncomfortable because it is constantly sending people, planting ministries, taking risks, and making disciples. Likewise, a church can be struggling financially and still be spiritually comfortable because it is unwilling to change.

The church has never changed the world from the safety of its comfort zone. Every revival required someone willing to leave familiarity behind. Every church plant required someone willing to risk failure. Every disciple ever made required someone willing to have an uncomfortable conversation.

If we are serious about making disciples for the transformation of the world, then we must become people and churches who embrace “holy discomfort.” The question isn't whether the Holy Spirit is inviting us beyond what is comfortable. The question is whether we are willing to go.

^[1] Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.