“Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

These two summonses, or better, invitations, are spoken over us as Christians are marked with ashes at the beginning of Lent. We are called to “repent” and to “believe.”

Repent is a translation of the Greek word metanoia. We also often translate it as “conversion.” Repentance or conversion is a call to change our ways of living, thinking, and loving. Repentance summons us to undertake a deep change.

Years ago, I read a book by business school professor Robert E. Quinn entitled Deep Change (Jossey-Bass). The author draws a distinction between two different kinds of change. The first is incremental change. Here we engage in surface or superficial efforts at improvement. It’s like painting the walls or exterior of a house. The basic structure is left intact. We simply change the color, or rearrange the furniture, or, if we are daring, buy new furniture to redecorate the room.

Deep change is altogether different. It goes beyond mere redecoration to a total transformation. Here we knock down walls; we gut the house; we totally redesign the floor plan. We create or buy a different house altogether. Deep change happens when we question the fundamental assumptions and directions of our life and embark on a new life path. As one author puts it, conversion means that we are going in the wrong direction and have to engage in a major course change.