Getting the culture right in our churches.

The Leader sets the culture.

Whether we like it or not the Senior Leader of a church is the one that should be tasked with setting the cultural tone of the church, its vision mission and core values are all paramount to this. What is church culture? Church Culture is the outworking of the Senior Leaders vision and philosophy on how to move the church forward and accomplish what they feel is God’s mandate for that particular church and community.

I have said before that I have a Holistic view of leadership. I believe that ministry builds people but leadership grows churches. I believe that the leader of a church should have a calling, a vocation, a vision and a ministry an ability to lead. But I also believe that a leader should have a stable home life a supportive wife/husband and family. That the leader should stay fit through regular exercise, they should eat healthy foods and last but not least they should have a fresh and vibrant spiritual life.

Therefore a large overweight and unhealthy church leader who, during the course of their ministry, suffers a heart attack is not sending the right signals to their congregation. The culture they are portraying is; it’s OK to overeat, it’s OK to be overweight and unfit. Their leadership team and congregation will therefore follow in their footsteps. I know that this is a large generalisation, the point I want to make is that put simply, we as senior church leaders are the ones that set the tone and culture of our churches. There is a right way and a wrong way of going about this.

A few months ago I was at a leadership seminar and was discussing this very point with one of the key note speakers. He told the following story which I think illustrates the right intention of a leader to set the cultural tone in his church: Steve had been asked to take over a church- which twenty years earlier he had had the pleasure of planting. As he puts it, he had ploughed the field and planted the seed but another had come along and reaped the harvest. The church had a congregation of about 450.

At his first Sunday morning service the place was packed all wanting to see the ‘new guy’. At a particular lull in the praise and worship a man some rows behind the leaders bellowed out a prophetic word- these things are apt to happen in Pentecostal churches. The following week Steve stood up to give the notices and while doing so pointed to a form that he referred to as the praise, prayer and prophecy form. He asked the congregation to put their praise reports or their prayer requests on the form and these would be read out by the leadership for everyone in the congregation to rejoice in or pray for. He also pointed out that should anyone one have a prophetic word that they too write it down and submit it to the leadership before the start of the Sunday morning service. That way the leadership could determine whether or not it was in keeping with what the Holy Spirit was saying and was right for that particular morning, they then would read it out.

What was Steve doing? He was setting the culture of the church, not the prophetic congregation member, he was saying; The Sunday Morning service is the shop window of our church. We want visitors who come to not feel uncomfortable. If the prophetic word was of God and in keeping with the moving of the Holy Spirit then the leadership would judge the prophecy not the prophet, this he felt was in keeping with the New Testament teaching.

The result, of this cultural readjustment, was that over 200 people left the congregation in the first 12 months feeling that the senior leader was against prophecy, which he was not, he felt there were a time and place and other meetings where it could take place. However over the preceding 18 months over 250 people joined the church.

What are the things that define Church Culture?

1)      Wherever possible use the right words.

The words that we use and the language that we speak will be reflected by those around us. If we are always optimistic, those around us will tend to be optimistic. If we exude faith so will our leaders. If we are super spiritual and religious then guess what!?You got it, those around us will be just the same. Those who do not understand it will leave. We will reach those who are most like ourselves.

A few years ago I went to an Easter service at a particular Classical Pentecostal church. When I entered it was like going back in time to my teenage years. Nothing had changed. Afterwards I was asked by the pastor if I was ‘saved’ was I ‘washed in the blood of the lamb’. While I understood perfectly what the man was saying my daughters, who were with me did not. I translated for the benefit of my children. The Pastor did not use words that were understandable to my daughters’ generation. No wonder his congregation was small ineffective and full of geriatrics. His heart and his intentions were good his words and language were wrong. Thee’s and thou’s and thus sayeth the lord are not part of today’s English language.

Today’s generation of young believers know  what it is to be a Christian but they do not use phrases like being Born Again or Washed in the blood of the lamb or Amen- every time the preacher says something even remotely interesting.

If we want to reach this generation, then we need to get the culture of church language right, we need to learn to use words that they understand.

2)      The Philosophy of Ministry.

Senior leaders are tied to strong deeply held beliefs and attitudes that reflect their approach to ministry.These Beliefs are the things which are deep seated and held at the subconscious level. These are the beliefs we hold to when under stress. These act as our default settings, our education, the information we gather, our general religious beliefs,  the process of discipleship we have gone through, relationships and experiences that we have had, all reflect our philosophy of ministry. However not everything we believe is correct and we must be willing to change it. As part of setting the culture in a church we should be willing to change the perceptions of others. But changing someone’s belief system is rarely achieved by doing a course or going to a conference. This does not fundamentally change what a person believes. Change needs constant input and reinforcement by the person seeing new ideas and observing there implementation by someone they respect.

      3)      Setting out the Non-Negotiable.

Senior Church leaders need to lay out what they believe are the things they are NOT willing to negotiate on. These are expressed in the core values of the church. Not only that but they should also be reflected in the leadership team, areas such as innovation, creativity, faith, bold vision courage character and competence are the things that congregations want to see. Senior Leaders should not be indecisive, pessimistic and boring. These are not the values you want to see in a growing vibrant culture.

4)      Traditions, we all have them.

Even the most successful, contemporary, vibrant churches have traditions. These are not always bad; however you should be prepared to question them and their viability. Are there things in our churches that are there by default or by design that may NOT be conducive to church growth? “God help us address those things that are preventing us from growing, give us wisdom courage and grace to make changes.”

5)      Measurement.

We all like to measure success, senior church leaders are no different. How we measure that success reveals two things. One, it reveals our culture and two, it reinforces our culture. It doesn’t matter how many bums on seats we have or how much money we have in the bank, if these measurements are not aligned with the vision, mission, values, philosophy and non negotiable of our church, then they have no real meaning.

6)      Fashions and Behaviours.

Culture follows fashion and behaviours not the other way round. Now I know this sounds silly but few senior leaders I know can retain the youth in their churches on personality alone, if they insist that all the women wear hats on Sunday morning and the men wear suits and ties, they will lose their youth in droves. We senior church leaders have to be relevant to today’s society. We cannot expect to have growing vibrant contemporary churches if we insist that we follow the norms of a bygone age. If I have to wear skinny jeans and gel in my hair, and learn all about the latest technology to help me reach the next generation I will do so. It is all about doing real life together, not conforming to the religious overtones of my grandfather.

  

Senior leaders need to create culture; it needs to be there at the planning level. Culture needs to be prepared for, in other words, it needs to be deliberately reflected in everything we do, and it has to be intentional. If we do not create the right culture we will end up as paranoid, narcissistic, member satisfying and God dishonouring leaders. If you want to grow a church then grow it with the right culture.