By Grant Crawford
Culture is the invisible tide or momentum that builds and shapes the church while leaders are not present. Here are a couple of points we think are valuable when it comes to this subject.
In order to purposefully build a leader needs to use the following tools:
- Opinion leaders, people like John the Baptist, will set culture
- Repetition of meaningful activities such as breaking bread will set culture
- What you celebrate, for example, the things that Jesus got excited about on the return of the 72 in Luke 10; think baptisms and testimonies and stories will set culture
- Consistent outcomes, in terms of successes and miracles will set culture
- Supporting ideas are needed to set culture, i.e a culture is reinforced by multiple allied ideas
- Experiences & encounters will set culture. For example, Jesus let his disciples experience the kingdom
- To reach the whole church you need to appreciate some are motivated emotionally, others intellectually and others spiritually.
- You need to be able to define and articulate the principle idea in order to set culture. For example, “the kingdom of God is at hand”
Culture killers:
- Watch your vocabulary when using words such as “unsaved” and “sinners” in a meeting. Think of these words from an unsaved sinner’s point-of-view.
- Repeated defeats
- Sporadic attention
- Distraction in a meeting
We hope that this resource blesses you and the way you set culture in your church. Feel free to print, edit and distribute this document.