Digging In: Cultivating a Health Church Culture
A
few years ago a local church sought my advice in reversing their
decline in attendance. As our conversation unfolded, I noticed all of
their questions were programmatic ones—What kind of music does your church play? What do you wear on Sundays? How do you present announcements? Do you serve coffee and donuts?All this church seemed to be looking for was the right superficial tweak or change in methodology that would attract people. They wanted a silver bullet…and there is no silver bullet…
While methods can make a difference in contextualizing the Gospel for this generation, programmatic changes alone are not going to turn a church around and move it forward. When a church is in decline, the problem has a much deeper root. So, I told that church what I’m about to tell you…what really needs to be addressed is not a program, a method, or a ministry, but the church’s culture.
Culture is the somewhat nebulous and complex blend of norms, beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and practices that define a congregation. Every church has a culture, and though it can be tough to grasp, it has a tremendous effect upon the potential fruit the congregation can bear for the Kingdom.
Culture Is Like Soil
In the parable of the sower, Jesus used soil as an analogy for the human heart when He said that the key to abundant Kingdom fruit is the ground in which the seed (the Word) is planted. It really doesn’t matter how you plant the seed; the main thing is the dirt where the seed falls. Without good soil, the harvest is limited. The culture of a church is comparable to soil in much the same way.
From childhood I have seen firsthand how this works. My grandparents were farmers in West Central Illinois, and a large section of their land was classified as top quality, Class A soil. A few miles away, my uncle’s land, though more visually appealing, was heavy in clay and, therefore, of a much lower quality. Every year before they ever planted their crops, my relatives knew that with the same seed, the same fertilizer, and the same weather conditions, my grandparents’ land would produce over twice the harvest as my uncle’s. It had nothing to do with sincerity, hard work, tractor size, or planting techniques. It was all about the soil.
Just as soil quality influences the potential outcomes of a field, the culture of a congregation establishes the environment that often predetermines the effectiveness of God’s Word in that body of believers. In other words, a church’s culture influences its impact.
That’s why two churches in the same town or even on the same street can have different results with similar ministries. They can have comparable buildings, sincere pastors and leaders, dedicated volunteers, and the same doctrinal bent. They can sing the same songs, have the same programs, and use the same Bible translation. Yet one church is thriving, while the other is dying. When this happens, the discrepancy is usually due to a difference in “soil”—the deeper, unseen issues that can be defined as culture.
Attitudes Are Contagious
I learned about the importance of church culture the hard way while pastoring my first church. The leaders had assured me they wanted their congregation to grow, and they were excited to have a young pastor with new ideas. So, I suggested a change to our music ministry in order to increase our outreach, but I soon discovered that an influential family in the church was adamantly against this. I thought they were simply opposed to the different style of music…but I would soon discover I was wrong.
A few months later, I was speaking with the woman who was the most outspoken in opposing the music change. We were discussing a new family who had moved into our small town. They were poor, loud, and didn’t care for their property well. I told the woman I was building a relationship with them and had invited them to church. She replied, “I don’t want those people coming to my church!” It was then that I realized our biggest problem wasn’t our music.
When this woman’s family told me they wanted to reach more people, I believed them. However, in reality, what they meant was that they wanted to reach more people who looked like them, acted like them, and talked like them—not the messy, difficult people who really needed Jesus the most.
Even though this lady did not represent the entire congregation, her attitude still reflected a problem within our congregation’s culture. Some members displayed a general attitude of resentment toward new people moving into “their town.” More than just that, they detested the thought of those people attending “their church.” God cannot bless such an attitude, and it eventually seeps into the rest of the church body so that it is felt and seen by people inside and outside the church.
Even if we would have changed the music, started small groups, or tried other new ideas, we were unlikely to bear much fruit because the bigger issue was not a programmatic one. It was one of culture.
A Healthy Culture Must Be Cultivated
So…can the culture of an existing church be positively changed? Absolutely. A primary way to encourage this change is to develop and enhance healthy values in the life of the church. Values shape, nurture, and sway the culture of a congregation. In essence, they provide the nutrients that help facilitate a healthy environment for God’s Word to impact in the hearts and lives of people as effectively as possible. Without healthy values, the soil will always have limited productivity.
Values are commonly held attitudes, beliefs, and characteristics that are at the core of what is important to a church. They undergird and bind together all the various facets of a congregation. More specifically…
- They are guiding principles that provide direction.
- They influence conduct, behavior, activity, and mission.
- They help define how things will be done.
- They provide a foundation for determining what is most important.
- They are passionately believed and emotionally owned.
There Is More Than One Type of Healthy Culture
Once a church understands the importance of culture and how values shape it, the next question is… what kind of values are essential for a healthy culture? To answer that, let me go back to the analogy of soil.
In my state alone, there are over 700 specifically designated soil types. Many of these soils are healthy and productive, even though they vary in nutrients, content, feel, and appearance. There is no one “correct” soil for growth. In the same way, there is no one culture that works for every church. Each congregation is a unique body of believers who must forge their own values in order to shape their culture in a way that glorifies God and enables them to reach their community.
The main thing is that a church must be clear, intentional, and committed to the values they espouse. Having this commitment over an extended period of time defines and molds the culture.
It’s Hard, But It Can Be Done
Changing culture by instilling healthy values is not a quick solution for a declining congregation. It can take years for new values to become rooted in the heart of a body of believers. Therefore, when I came to my present church, I tried to focus more on cultivating the culture than on changing programs and methods for the first several years. It was a church of 65 that had never been over 130 in average attendance. They were great people who sincerely loved the Lord, but some mindsets had to be changed in order to release our redemptive potential.
While I worked with the leaders to develop mission and vision statements, I asked questions, made observations, and began to take notes on the healthy values that could be build upon and the unhealthy values that needed to be changed. A handful of values needed to be addressed, but one that stands out was a flawed understanding of evangelism.
The church was so committed to outreach and missions that they were actually giving away 35% of their annual budget with a goal to give away 50%. While this indicated a seemingly noble commitment to outreach, it was actually a sign of what I call a value-gap—an area where healthy values are lacking or an unhealthy value is in place. Let me explain…
In spite of their generosity, the church was struggling to keep its doors open. They were not reaching people in their community or producing new disciples. Many members had no relationships with lost people, and the ones who did had no real burden to reach them. Furthermore, giving so much money to foreign missions was restricting their ability to reach their Jerusalem. In many ways, the church was a holy huddle that took up offerings to send to others who were doing the real work of evangelism. So, I began to teach, or re-teach, the values of growth and outreach.
I commended the church for the great missions work they had done and were presently doing, but I had to show them that outreach starts at home. I challenged them to build relationships with neighbors, co-workers, etc., and reminded them that sharing the gospel was an expectation, stressing that Jesus wants His church to grow locally as well as globally and that attempting to meet this expectation by giving money to others is in many ways a cop-out.
It took a long time to re-shape and instill a more holistic view of outreach into the heart of our congregation because it had to be consistently, creatively, and redundantly taught and modeled, but ultimately, the people were receptive, and the culture of our church became healthier and more vibrant as a result. The people began praying more for the church and for reaching the lost. They became more intentional about building relationships with people who didn’t share their faith and started to invest more time and money in local outreach. And they were more amenable to changes in our worship service in order to make it relevant to visitors and non-Christians. As a result, the church began to grow.
Today we are a multi-stie congregation with three campus’s and six weekend service, and we still believe our best years are in front of us. The challenges of cultivating a healthy culture continue, though. It is a never-ending process. But the journey has been worth it, and I am convinced that if your church will focus more attention on nurturing a healthy culture, it will be worth it for you as well.
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