15 comments (+ Add)
How Do You Change the Culture? Part 1
Although this might sound obvious, before you can change the culture, you must identify what about it needs to be changed.
When leading toward a cultural change, I suggest you, as the leader, acknowledge what about your ministry culture isn’t what it could be.
Admitting to a weak area first is one of the best ways to strengthen a weakness quickly. Too often, many leaders are unwilling to acknowledge the weakness.
Call it what it is, then work on fixing it.
What is a weakness you’d like to change?
Visit 
Man have you opened up a can of worms! There are some major changes I see that need to be made but if I was to pinpoint one it would have to be how the folks here view their commitment to the local church. That goes back, I think, to their commitment to Jesus. How much does he affect their lives? We have too many folks who have no commitment to the fellowship (time, money, attendance) and would rather be “playing” than be committed to the ongoing outreach of the church. Not sure if I stated that adequately but hope so. Yep, the struggle is how to change that.
BILL…I HEAR YA! You can’t change people, motives and open their eyes so they “GET IT”. It is Very frustrating to watch people just float through life. But what a great place to be to challenge “The Church”…maybe you should do a series called “WAKE UP BLOCKHEADS!” LOL.
My weakness…me (I am an idiot…but a fool for Christ).
Since our inception we have worked hard to a create a culture of investing and inviting friends to join in our Sunday gathering or any of our environments for that matter. I would say we have done ok at this. We fight against the cultural challenge of keeping faith private (Canadians are pretty reserved) so I think it’s a little bigger challenge because of the culture. We keep working hard at this. I must say I need to hear a fresh from God on how we better achieve this. With that said we are growing and maybe I’m too over the edge on this one. Rather be over the edge than dead in the water.
One of the interesting things I have discovered in planting a church is that change must be a part of the culture from the beginning. If people understand that what is a sacred cow today is likely to become a hamburger tomorrow, it is much easier to identify weaknesses and make the necessary changes. We have also committed to being honest with one another about what works and what doesn’t. If it works, we go after it. If it flops, we kill it. The only way you can accomplish anything is to try…and fail sometimes. We are 10 months into our plant and we have already performed a couple of funerals for things that didn’t work. My desire is to keep this kind of culture as we grow.
Todd, Great thoughts! Thanks.
I agree with Todd, At TheBOD we try to tell everyone through regular communication to expect change, and then regularly re-communicate change so that as new people come in your doors they can grab that as well.
One of the biggest changes in our culture has been from taking our leadership (that’s includes me) from a mindset of doing to a mindset of equipping. Our Pastor said Sunday… “It’s hard, because it’s much easier for us to just do stuff.” But the rewards of equipping instead of doing are a church that creates growing disciples.
I understand the question asks to address a cultural weakness in the leader’s ministry, but if I could I’d like ask a question about the culture within my community. The population that has a reasonable drive to our weekend gathering is about 500,000. What I have observed is that our culture can be divided into 3 categories; traditional/conservative churched, charismatic churched and nonbelievers. The traditional and the charismatic will not identify and won’t agree with the vision and culture (most have left) of our church. I believe our growth has to come from reaching the local unchurched and those that have relocated from other communities and have already been exposed to a similar church vision.
I am not the lead pastor, but my pastor is a gifted communicator and we work hard together to make this thing happen. Our weakness is no staff and minimal finances. And the question is what does it take to attract staff to an unattractive community (geographically) and a church vision that is the minority?
Good words Todd and Jason. Iron sharpens iron, that’s why I love Swerve.
Thanks everyone for the encouragement through your posts. I’m someone who has recently left a church becasue it refused to change its culture to be more effective in our community. I think that this was through fear, that people would leave the church and it wouldnt look so ‘good’ anymore.
I was a leader there but I have felt strongly that I must follow God’s call on my life and that has led to my family leaving and still looking for a new church home. The Truth of the Gospel never changes, but how we communicate that truth must change if we are to be effective in sharing the Gospel!
Can I say though Craig a HUGE thankyou for making Lifechurch available online. Here in Australia my wife and I have been blessed greatly by being able to fellowship online while seeking a local community.
hmmmmm Jason, at least someone was listening. I believe equipping vs doing is one of the greatest failings of church leaders. There are many excuses but primarily we fail because it’s messy hard work. Most sacrifice the value of leading leaders for the instant gratification of a pat on the back for being
such a “hard worker”. It’s killing pastors and leaving the ministers (every Christian) frustrated in the pews. Eventually they find somewhere else to invest their lives. While leadership wonders why they fell away. Fighting for this culture shift HARD.
Chuck, I just read your post. Your “staff” will be sitting in the chairs on Sunday. Pinpoint the leaders, equip them, and release them to ministry. We have seven people, including myself, on “staff” with only one full time paid and two part-time paid. They are accountable and on mission. I’d suggest you get creative and re-think how you view the Body of Christ and their call to ministry. You’ll not hire someone outside your community that will have more passion for the people of your area than anyone who already lives there. Be slow to give out titles. Empower servants.
Thanks Johnny. We’re doing that now to some extent but we’ll have to take another look at our people to see how we can better equip. Appreciate the insight.
The culture change I’m working through is going from seeing evangelism and discipleship as two ends of a spectrum that are mutually exclusive, to seeing “go and make disciples” as being the perfect blend of them. Making disciples requires both evangelism and discipleship. My team can and must do both.
The cultural mindset that many of you already talked about of equipping instead of doing and releasing leaders and such is a big part of the answer. As church staff, I believe Ephesians 4:11-12 calls us to something higher than making disciples. We have to make disicples that make disciples.
As a curriculum developer, everything my team creates needs to carry the pure DNA of both evangelism and discpleship so that those we reach can and will “go” too.
I recently got involved in a new ministry. There is no culture of serve.
No you can’t change people and you can’t make a person submit to Christ, that’s the work of the Holy Spirit. You have to ask yourself are these people truly born again. How can your heart be touched by the Holy Spirit and made new and not want to submit yourself to Christ? Plus you have to preach the Gospel not self help doctrine. Also you stop telling people to change their habits, the Law tried that remember? You want to change culture, preach the Gospel; the uncompromising, not watered down Gospel. When the Holy Spirit leads you to repentance there will be change but as long as “men” are trying to lead people to apologies instead it will never change.