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6 Ways to Guard Your Church’s Culture
Cultural drift can happen to any church of any size over time, but a growing church is especially susceptible to it.
I suspect most people in church leadership have had a conversation with a church member that started something like, “Man, remember when X-and-such ministry was so much better,” or “Things used to feel so much different around here, I miss those days.” Maybe this is nostalgia. Maybe this is resistance to change. Often, it is simply feeling the strain of a church moving from one stage to the next, as Tim Keller so helpfully addresses in his (free) booklet, Leadership and Church Size Dynamics. Such responses are not necessarily bad things, any more than it’s bad for a parent to miss the days when their grown kids were young, cute, and liked to cuddle. As churches grow and change, it’s only natural that things which were once possible and profitable in the church stop being so and other things take their place.
Conversations like these ought not be brushed aside by church leaders, though. If someone is bemoaning the loss of something once precious in the church, it’s wise to consider the nature of the complaint (and the complainer). It might be what I just described. Or it might be the canary in the coal mine warning of cultural drift in the church. If so, it is a matter of urgency.
Drift in Church Culture
What is cultural drift? It is a subtle but discernible departure from distinctives that once defined a church’s values and relational dynamics. It is not necessarily about programmatic changes, service order, or worship style. It is more about the feel, the tone, and the relational temperature of a church.
The answers to questions like this will help church leaders determine if cultural drift is happening.
- Are cultural values that used to be essential now treated as mere catch phrases?
- Are the priorities in decision-making different?
- Is the tone of leadership–both in public communication and between one another–different than it once was?
- Can new people to the church recognize and articulate your cultural priorities?
Make no mistake, it happens in every church. In the same way inertia stops momentum and entropy affects all of nature, churches drift toward unhealth. This doesn’t mean unhealthy behavior in the church is inevitable and we are all doomed; it means that unless we are vigilant and intentional about fostering and nurturing a healthy church culture, our churches will naturally meander into unhealthy behavior.
It is so easy to drift. Churches pursue the new and seemingly relevant over the timeless and true. Churches emphasize strategy and mission over culture. Churches lose mainstay members who have championed and fostered a healthy culture. And, quite simply, church leaders get bored and lose energy; it is difficult to continue emphasizing and being invested in the same things over time.
Cultural drift can happen to any church of any size over time, but a growing church is especially susceptible to it. What came naturally when a church was small and everyone knew everyone else, stops being so natural when it doubles in size. It’s difficult to build an organizational infrastructure that can support a healthy culture and continue to propagate it as new faces flood in.
Often, what happens is that the core of the church–leadership and long-time committed members–has a rich culture, but outer circles of new members and attenders are unfamiliar and unaffected by it in the same way. On top of this, the pastors are often only familiar with that inner circle, so we end up with a skewed perspective on the overall culture of the church and fail to address certain needs. As a church grows, it is quite simply very difficult to push healthy cultural values and realities all the way to the fringes of the congregation in a meaningful way.
In light of all this, what are we to do as church leaders? How do we prevent cultural drift in our churches once we recognize the risk? Here are six steps to take.
1. Root your cultural values in the gospel, and draw them from Scripture.
By “the gospel” I mean the saving work of God through the accomplishments of Jesus Christ. This is the central message we have as churches and is the reality-altering truth in which we exist. We will never outsmart it, out-relevant it, or out-clever it. So, let’s make our cultural values unambiguously tied directly to the work of Jesus. This will never change; there will never be other good news for sinners, so our values will be rock solid, for all time, for all kinds of people.
2. Preach the gospel.
What else do we have to offer? Be so obvious and celebratory and clear about Jesus that there is no question as to your priorities. And as you preach this gospel, from the entirety of Scripture, the sermon applications will inevitably support your cultural values (which are rooted in the gospel). As your church grows, it will become impossible to converse with every attender or offer personal direction. But your preaching will serve as clear counsel and a clear declaration of what kind of church you are.
3. Emphasize culture often and unambiguously.
Every church has a culture, whether or not it is emphasized, but to maintain a healthy one requires intentional, out-loud, frequent teaching and defining. When you say things from the pulpit like “At [your church name] we ____,” you are putting specificity on the culture and how it plays out. When you make commitments–such as being an honest church, a safe place for sinners to receive mercy, etc.–you are writing cultural checks that the church must then cash. Don’t be subtle from the pulpit or in writing or in conversation–describe the kind of culture your church is committed to and then teach it.
4. Develop tiers of leadership as your church grows.
Culture needs champions and trainers. It needs teachers and defenders. Your leaders (staff, elders, small group leaders, etc.) are these. And your job, church planter, is to invest in them. When the church outgrows your ability to invest in every individual, you need to have a means of investing in those who will invest in others. So, among your leaders, be the greatest cultural champion, celebrator, teacher, and defender. Empower them to do the same in their spheres of influence and authority and hold them accountable, both with praise and correction.
5. Create a feedback loop through congregational care.
If you are investing in leaders and those leaders are investing in various circles of congregants, you have this nearly in place. It simply needs to be a matter of emphasis: not only are the church elders pushing healthy culture out, they are also receiving and passing along feedback as to what is working and what is not.
- Where are the weak points?
- What are common misunderstandings?
- Are there elements of the culture that would benefit from greater emphasis to address a particular trend?
This feedback loop is how you know if the culture is making it out to the fringes of the congregation in a meaningful way.
6. Pray.
Healthy church culture is not a strategy. It is a result of the Holy Spirit transforming people and unifying them. All human efforts are downstream from this and in an effort to foster it. So more than anything, we pray that God would do powerful, inexplicable, miraculous, ongoing work in our churches.
