How to Shift Your Church's Culture by Robert Lewis and Wayne Cordeiro with Warren Bird   [printer-friendly]

When we talk about making a culture shift, we are talking about changing the default. To take an example, on most computers the default font size is 12 point. If you prefer generally to read print that's a little larger, say 14 point, then you have to permanently modify the default setting. If you change it just for the document you're working on now, then the next time you use the computer, bling! It's back to 12 point again.

Culture shift is a lot like that. You try to instill a new program in your church, and you think you've succeeded, and then the next week — bling! — everything has reverted to the way it was. If this happens week after week after week, you have not really shifted the culture at all. You need to find the cultural default — which is what we worked on in the previous chapter — and reset it by doing hard work that involves not just you but other church leaders, and ultimately everyone in the congregation. Over a period of time, this culture shift occurs, and a new day will dawn.

Leading the Shift

As a leader in your church, you have the privilege, along with other leaders, of shifting your congregation's culture. If you assess that the culture isn't healthy, you have not only the privilege but the responsibility to shift it. The process of making the shift is not optional; it represents the process of incarnating the kingdom of God.

Jesus made a distinction between people of the kingdom and those who, like the Pharisees, merely hang around the periphery. The Pharisees went to church, prayed, and read the Bible, but Jesus said they had completely missed God's kingdom. He said, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 5:20). Jesus also warned, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven . . ." (Matthew 7:21).

You can have the right religious words. Your personal Bible may be underlined from cover to cover. You can spend your whole lifetime doing church activities. You can even be an official church leader. Yet with all these good things, you could miss the kingdom of God. You could think that what you're doing is for the kingdom, but it might not be so. What is God's kingdom? It is the point at which you come under the rule and reign of God. It's where you trade the treasures of this world and an attitude of looking out for yourself in exchange for the treasures and priorities of God.

But you have to make the choice for kingdom values. Doing so changes the quality of environment that you create. It causes your church to become more authentic and unique, less dependent on someone else's programs, and less likely to duplicate what everyone else is doing. Through a model of incarnation and organic development, kingdom growth marked by genuine life transformation is an inevitable by-product.

You can't steal second base with your foot still on first. We all need to make a choice. Otherwise, we're no better than the Pharisees who looked, acted, and even smelled like kingdom people (even when they weren't kingdom people).

It can't be "your" church if it's going to be God's culture.

A Culture Shift of Biblical Proportion

We're not asking you to do something new and untried. Shifting spiritual culture is as old as the nation of Israel. Indeed, Israel's story of movement from the wilderness to settlement of the Promised Land presents a timeless outline for any church or leadership team in how to move a culture from growth-at-any-price to kingdom vision and kingdom reality — from maintenance to health.

Belief in a Promise

For Israel, and for any spiritual community thereafter, culture shift starts with God's promise. It's the certain hope that spiritual compromise and wilderness wanderings no longer have to be the norm. It's the assurance that things can be better and will be better be cause God can make it so. But this promise of a new culture must be believed and followed, just as God explained to Israel: "I have set before you today life and prosperity [the promise] . . . in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply. . ." (Deuteronomy 30:15-16).

We believe this promise still exists today for leaders courageous enough to embrace it for their congregation, regardless of present circumstances.

Leadership That Embraces Kingdom Values

A transition in culture requires fresh leadership. In Israel's case, this meant a new leader whose life and values exemplified a new culture that was about to be constructed. Numbers 27:15-18 puts it this way: "Then Moses spoke to the LORD, saying, 'May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep which have no shepherd.' So the Lord said to Moses, 'Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him."'

Whether your situation requires new leaders is a question you must answer. But in every case, shifting a culture requires a fresh approach from leadership (whether the existing leadership or new).

Broad Support of Kingdom Culture

The transition requires a broad congregational commitment. The congregation must be informed and challenged, and the specifics of the change must be spelled out in detail. This may take time and patience, but in the long run it pays great dividends. The church's leadership must clarify and openly challenge the congregation with this new direction.

Joshua, the successor to Moses, does just this. He brings the people of Israel on board with this new vision of promise. As he does so, he seeks their full commitment. In response, "They answered Joshua, saying, 'All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go . . . . Only may the Lord your God be with you as He was with Moses"' (Joshua 1:16-17).

Successful Establishment of a Kingdom Culture

Once everyone is on board, you can do the work of setting up a new culture. In Israel's case, this meant war with opposing cultures and weeding out those like Achan (Joshua 7), who were a cancer on this new culture. In the case of a local church transitioning its culture, it may feel like war from time to time. The early days, in particular, have challenges and challengers. But with resolute commitment by a united leadership, perseverance, and most important a close partnership with God, in the end the land is settled, peace returns, and a new culture is established.

If making such a journey seems overwhelming to you, imagine what it felt like to Joshua. To succeed, the answer to the question "Is it worth it?" must be "Yes: I desire a rich culture where an authentic spiritual community lives out kingdom values in powerful ways in partnership with the living God." More important, how much less than that standard is acceptable to you? If you are still trying to convince yourself that you can solve a culture problem with a series of patchwork quick fixes; be warned, such an approach always fails.

Israel did not remain in the wilderness. The young country experienced resistance and obstacles, but its leaders believed that God had promised them a land. With firm commitment to that promise, Israel left the wilderness and eventually shifted the culture of Palestine.

You can too.

Will You Be a Present-Day Joshua?

Like Joshua (or Joshua's leadership team), you've got to believe that God has promised you a land. You may wrestle with traditions, structure, staff, and board. But kingdom values can help bring them around, and a unifying culture will result. Eventually it will release its potential. There is hope. Believe it.

We have met many present-day Joshuas. One of them was appointed to lead a mainline, denominational church with deep-set traditions. He quickly found himself mired in a church culture that was going nowhere.

Yes, this congregation loved his wonderful preaching, his helpful teaching, and the strong pastoral attention he gave them. But, no, they did not embody a healthy spiritual culture. Their forms no longer fit, a number of their lifestyles were compromised, and their focus of attention was inward. Worse, they liked it that way.

Our friend, however, could not rest in this wilderness. Bravely, he chose to believe that God would use him to shift this ineffective culture.

He began on two fronts. On the one side, he took the time to pray and think through the kingdom values he believed should make up this new culture. He made a personal commitment to authentically embrace them and live them out. At the same time, he wisely built strong relationships with his people without disturbing the status quo at the time. In this way, he not only began to understand in detail the present culture of the congregation and how it had come about but also built good relationships with them and earned their trust.

Over two years, he slowly replaced or converted much of the existing leadership to this new kingdom vision, again while maintaining the status quo. When new staff was hired, he made sure they embraced these new values.

He also offered a special class to anyone in the church who wanted it. The name was an advertisement in itself. "Envisioning the Church of the Future." The class went on for months, with lots of healthy dialogue. Many emerging leaders participated, as did some established leaders. They discussed ideas, possibilities, and opportunities. He shared with his class the kingdom lifestyle he was passionately pursuing. Many class participants told him they wanted that way of life too.

When the moment was right, he presented to his leadership team the values he was so passionate about. He offered it with a challenge: he voiced it as a new vision for the entire church. He knew the moment was right because a large majority of the leaders now around him had already been won over to these new cultural ideas. Now was the time to "take the land." A few longtime members objected. By this point, though, the leadership majority was for changing not just a few scattered programs but the very culture of the church.

We wish we could tell you everything went smoothly after that. It didn't. When the vision was presented to the whole church, several camps resisted like guardians of tradition. Some even left the church. Others were later won over because of the trust capital our friend had established in the years before the new vision was unleashed, when he simply loved the people just as they were. Some, however, were simply overruled because their previous power plays no longer worked. A few even remain to this day, unconvinced the church did the right thing and taking shots when they can.

But the good news is this: a new culture was successfully birthed at this church under our friend's courageous leadership. He did it! God did it!

Go there today, and you find a congregation that is vibrant and alive. They are reaching out to their community in bold, fresh ways. Their lifestyles exude an authenticity that is contagious and whole some. The people are of one spiritual mind. Gone are the days when traditions could not be challenged, when great preaching was the only measure of success, or where sin in people's lives was rarely addressed. It's a new church, born again from inside out.

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Robert Lewis is pastor at large of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, AR. Wayne Cordeiro is senior pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship O'ahu in Honolulu, HI. Warren Bird is an ordained minister on staff at a church in metro New York City.

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Excerpted from Culture Shift by Robert Lewis and Wayne Cordeiro with Warren Bird (Jossey-Bass, 2005). Used by permission. Click here for more information about this and other resources.