Opportunist in part of church changing direction (7)
I believe the answer is:
chancer
'opportunist' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'part of church changing direction' is the wordplay.
'part of' says to take the initial letters (I've seen 'part' mean this).
'changing' becomes 'hance' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'direction' becomes 'r' (r is abbreviation for right).
The initial letter of 'church' is 'c'.
'c'+'hance'+'r'='CHANCER'
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for chancer that I've seen before include "One taking risks" , "opportunistic sort" , "Unscrupulous sort" , "Exploiter of opportunity" , "Unscrupulous opportunist" .)