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Managing church culture is ultimately a pastoral function.
Serving to cultivate healthy church culture in a local church is the regular work of uncovering disbelief or wrong belief among God’s people and working to commend true faith to God’s people. Church disbelief must be transformed.
The leaders of God’s Church must approach church culture as a doctor caring for the patient but wanting to remove the sickness from the body.
Leading culture in the local church is leading a whole church to purity in doctrine and in deed.
For a leader to diagnose a church for a culture compatible for developing leaders requires a good bit of courage and even more humility.
By observing the aggregate behaviors of the people, one can get a good sense of what the church really believes.
There is often disparity between actual beliefs and articulated ones.
The church needed to really believe the urgency of the mission, needed to really believe that the Lord was inviting His people to join Him on mission in all spheres of life.
Yet leadership is often about change, about moving a group of people to a new future. Perhaps the most recognized leadership book on leading an organization to change is John Kotter’s Leading Change.
Nehemiah led wide-scale change.
The Lord well equipped Nehemiah for the task of leading God’s people. But it is fascinating to see how Nehemiah’s actions mirror much of what Kotter has observed in leaders who successfully lead change.
1. Establish a sense of urgency.
Before he launched the vision of rebuilding the wall, Nehemiah pointed out to the people that they were in trouble and ruins.
Without urgency, plans for change do not work.
you must create urgency by pointing these out.
Leadership development is an urgent matter because the mission the Lord has given us is so great.
2. Form a guiding coalition.
Nehemiah enlisted the wisdom and help of others. He invited others to participate in leading the effort to rebuild the wall.
As you diagnose the culture in your church, do not lead alone.
It is foolish for leaders to attempt to lead alone, and insanity for leaders to atte...
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3. Develop a vision and...
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Vision attracts people and drives action. Without owning and articulating a compelling vision for the fu...
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The vision to build leaders is more challenging than building a wall, but the motivation is the same: “We are the people of God. We must spread His fame to all spheres of life and to the ends of the earth.”
4. Communicate the vision.
Without great communication, a vision is a mere dream.
Nehemiah communicated the vision personally through behavior and to others through his words.
If a church is going to effectively communicate the vision to develop and deploy leaders, this vision must own the leaders.
5. Empower others to act.
Others must be invited to embrace the opportunity to invest their lives in creating and commissioning leaders.
6. Generate short-term wins.
Change theorist William Bridges stated, “Quick successes reassure the believers, convince the doubters, and confound the critics.”7 Leaders are wise ...
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The reality of the progress created enough energy to overcome the onslaught of negativity.
As leaders are discipled, people in the church will take notice. People will begin to see that the church does more than produce programs and events.
7. Consolidate improvements and produce more change.
Effective change gives leaders freedom and credibilit...
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The success of the reconstruction allowed Nehemiah to lead bolder changes under the banner of eliminating the disgrace and destruction of the people.
8. Anchor new approaches in the culture.
Nehemiah diagnosed the culture of the people by observing their behavior. He confronted them on the incongruence between how they were living and who they said they were.
Initiating the right behaviors in a church can help change the culture, but the culture will not be crystallized unless the right behaviors are rooted in the right
actual beliefs.
the right actions must be connected to the right beliefs.
We’re utterly incapable, in our own merit, of delivering on our commitments.
The abrupt and bitter ending is intentional. The written Word is shepherding us to our need for the living Word—for Jesus.
To manage culture, church leaders will need to influence and shape the foundational beliefs of the church community, while helping those beliefs find meaningful expression.
Managing culture is an invasive, sweeping, and ongoing effort.
As a culture is forming and old worldviews are being transformed, there are adjustment periods filled with tension, trial and error, and lots of rehashing of conversations.
Changing practices or strategies is one thing, but driving change while protecting and shaping culture is quite another.
Our desire to shape church culture is a direct action to lead the body of Christ to follow the rule of God.
So, church leaders who labor to lead church culture are actually leading our churches to repent of common idols, to reject common lies, to forsake ungodly behaviors, and to embrace the lordship of Jesus over the Church.
