Challenging the Myth of “Change Resistance”: Employing Pastoral Storytelling to Empower Prophetic Imagination for Ecclesial Futures

Churches often frame conflict as “resistance to change,” casting younger generations as disruptive and older generations as entrenched. This paper argues that such framings misdiagnose the problem and constrain the church’s prophetic imagination. Instead, what is labeled as resistance is more accurately grief over loss, of status, meaning, tradition, or belonging, and that prophetic futures depend less on argumentation than on pastoral practices that engage story and emotion. Bringing Walter Brueggemann’s prophetic imagination into conversation with adaptive leadership scholarship that identifies the power of narrative in change management, the paper challenges technical approaches to change that bypass empathy, lament, and other affective dimensions. It argues that storytelling, ritual, and pastoral care are not ancillary but constitutive of prophetic ecclesiology. Through case studies from congregational contexts, the paper shows how narrative-based pastoral practices can transform conflict, foster intergenerational and intercultural connection, and open space for more just and imaginative ecclesial futures.