Principle to Keep in Mind While Making Changes

Taken from "Healing for the Church". Harold Ewing Burchett, 1989.

1. Very real, steady growth will follow the real, steady investment of proper effort.
2. Right attitudes and wrong methods are generally to be preferred above right methods and wrong attitudes.
3. Never back into a position. (Your posture or stand on important matters must be positively motivated, or you might be repulsed into extremes.)
4. Knock against nothing legitimate until you have something better already going - then still do not knock.
5. Similarly, never discard something good for something better until that better thing is functioning.
6. It is generally not good to change labels (of various programs or structures) until that better thing is functioning.
7. Some friction is inevitable, but expressing appreciation for people of former days and older methods will ease much of the tension. Do not consider things of the past as necessarily evil.
8. Avoid frightening, agitating, driving, or forcing. Lead with life.
9. Let the dead bury the dead. Involve the more vital ones in spiritual functions.
10. New growth in love will make it easier to implement organizational changes, but mere program and organizational changes will not in themselves bring new life.
11. Watch carefully so that you do not trip over your new insights.