Designed to Lead Quotes

“It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. —A. W. Tozer”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“If ministry success is our god, we are likely to take the shortest path to greater and greater “victories,” but preparing and developing people is never on the shortest path.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“It’s easy to forget that the failure of Adam’s leadership in the garden was passivity, not aggression.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“The Church is uniquely set apart to develop and deploy leaders for the glory of God and the advancement of the gospel.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“When the people of a congregation zealously hold convictions about time and space, the church will begin to change (and change fast)! There is a powerful grace that comes with the belief that this mortal life is terrifyingly brief and the life after death is gloriously infinite. This profound conviction moves the church to become a people of radical action, urgency, unction, and even risk.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“The Church has been uniquely designed to develop the leaders God intended for His glory and the good of mankind. God’s people, equipped by His Church, can unleash the full potential of leadership by leading in the image of God for the Kingdom of God.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Leadership is much like nuclear energy. It is able to warm a whole city or bring it to waste in death and destruction; it’s all in how it is used.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Paul, in leading change in the Corinthian church, utilizes this very tactic. After careful teaching on the proper use (and laying down of) freedoms in Christ, Paul offers himself as the model: “Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Our friend Tony Merida says it this way, “Let them see themselves in light of your struggle and show them the same grace that you have discovered. . . . You are not on display; the Living God is. And your goal is for others to love Him and be satisfied in Him.”10 The leader has more tools than just modeling to help solidify new cultural narratives. One of the most powerful tools for illustration is the use of heroes and villains. In the local church we do it through testimony and appreciation of faithful volunteers. We acknowledge when someone is embracing truth and obeying Christ, and we put them on display for others to imitate. There is a danger in any hero other than Jesus. We want to spend the sweeping majority of our time and energy making much of Jesus and pointing others to Him as the ultimate Hero for all righteous living. But a church can benefit from lesser heroes who show people what repentance looks like, how developing others can happen in the midst of a regular workweek, and how one can approach work with a holy sense of mission. If the local church is to become a force for developing new leaders, then our congregations will need to see the stories of these new leaders. If a church sees regular examples of people they know used by God as leaders, the Spirit will surely begin to stir many more to action. So many lies that lead to apathy can be struck down through the right use of story in the local church. God’s people are encouraged, strengthened, and stretched when the tide of God’s movement seems to be swelling around them. Far too many churches fail to tell the story of God’s great power, and in doing so, fail to use testimony for its intended purpose.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Leaders manage and change church culture most effectively and accurately when expositing the Word of God. God can, and does, change our presuppositions, our foundational beliefs, and our very core identities. He does it all the time. In the same way, if we want to develop cultures of leadership development in the local church, we will need to be renewed by the Word of God. We should not expect that the members of our congregation have any more capacity than we do to behave differently apart from the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. As we teach the text, we are utilizing God’s means to conform the Church to His glorious image. Managing culture through exposition is not simply a tool in the belt; it is the work of discipleship at the congregational level. There is a power in exposition that nothing else can match. When we lead our churches through exposition, we are leading them to grow by trusting God. What a glorious thing to join God in His work in drawing men and women to trust in Him. Whether we are correcting belief in the culture, affirming a crucial conviction, or training for a new behavior, it is crucial for the local church to shape culture according to God’s design. It will take time, but God is in the business of renewing our minds, as well as our lives. For a church to change into an epicenter of leadership development, God’s Word will lead the way. Strategic visions and professional frameworks will never have the power to replace the exposition of God’s Word. Illustration. To form culture, the leader must make the exposition come alive. As people born into history, born into a specific time and a specific place, we need to be able to touch, feel, and see ideas and concepts. We learn from a very young age that people learn more by watching than by hearing. For a culture to really change, it needs new stories, new heroes, and even new villains. As leaders labor for new culture or reinforce a healthy one in a local church, there are few tasks more crucial than providing concrete examples. This can, and should, be done first by personal modeling on the part of the leader. People will follow your example before they follow your vision.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Careful thought here will serve the Church for years to come. Churches often find themselves disconnecting their strategic plans from their grievances with church culture. Leaders see a particular problem, but we want to move past repentance right into obedience. Leadership like this only glorifies our own wisdom and righteousness. Appropriate corporate repentance magnifies the Lord of mercy in the church. Not only this, but members of our churches see what we see. When major unbiblical deviations go unaddressed, it only serves to undermine the membership’s view of the care, courage, or competency of the leadership. If we want to see something in culture change, we need to get specific. Exposition. This next stage of managing change will begin a circular process. In this stage, new identified elements of needed cultural change will be added to the existing healthy elements of culture being maintained and reinforced. The leadership team will find itself running around the process circle from exposition to illustration to incorporation to evaluation and a back again to exposition. It may take more laps than a NASCAR race, but culture will change over time. And the process must never end because the culture must be continually cultivated. Exposition is the step in the process that gives Christ-followers a tremendous confidence in the possible future for any church. While formation is always challenging, who better to understand than those the Lord is sanctifying daily? Every single day, we must come to our Bible expecting God to change us, renew us, and cause us to repent. It should be no different for the Church of God. And the means that God uses to shape individuals is the same means He will use to change a church’s culture. The teaching and preaching of God’s Word is our hope and God’s power for change. This step in culture change is so important. The Word of God is powerful to renew hearts and produce fruit among God’s people.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Vision Cast. Once the church culture is assessed, the hard work really begins. The leadership of the local church must take the next, daring step: casting a new vision for a healthy culture that makes disciples and reproduces leaders. As a vision is shared for developing leaders, the vision must be rooted in biblical conviction. The church must hear that she is on the planet to make disciples, that the mission is urgent, and that God has called His people as missionaries into all spheres of life. Changing culture is changing the fundamental narrative of a local body of believers. Casting vision is all the more challenging when sin must be confronted. For Christians, our unwanted behaviors are often not just unhelpful or nonstrategic; often what needs to be addressed is actually sin. This makes forming culture a gut-wrenching experience. We are not simply moving people past their previous mistakes and misunderstandings. Rather, culture change through vision-casting in the local church often means walking the church through corporate repentance. Churches, and church leaders, cannot be simple pragmatists attempting to get the most effective behaviors to produce the greatest return. Instead, we are worshippers, living under the kind rule of our Sovereign Father. The local church needs brave culture leaders. We need to paint wonderful pictures of future obedience, while leading our churches to repent of our past failures. In order to move our people into a new season of obedience, grief is an appropriate response. This grief in Scripture is not just an individual activity; it’s a corporate activity, led by church leaders. Peter preached the first gospel message with an aim of producing grief over sin. He accused them of crucifying and killing Jesus (Acts 2:23, 36). Their response? “They were cut to the heart . . . and said, ‘Brothers, what must we do?’” (v. 37). They experienced grief of sin, which produced repentance (v. 38).9 The path forward for the Christian church is through the road of repentance. The content of this vision will become a roadmap. What theological convictions need to be changed, added, or forgotten? What will it look like once the new convictions are embraced?”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“To offer a simple model for managing culture, we will work from the following illustration: Assessment. Churches are similar to “many organizations that neither understand their current culture nor the preferred culture which would best help them achieve their goals.”8 To know if your culture is helpful in creating leaders, you must first assess. Uncover the values that are really believed by observing the behavior, by listening to the stories, by seeing what is celebrated and what is tolerated in the culture. As you assess the church culture, look for values that are affirmable. Even in a ministry culture where change is necessary, there are values that are affirmable. Identify the values beneath the surface that you want to remain, values that are excellent and praiseworthy. What values existed when the church started? What values were prevalent when the church was the healthiest? It is unwise simply to bring a list of “aspirational” values and attempt to reverse-engineer them into the culture. Find what actual beliefs and values are affirmable and affirm, celebrate, and reinforce them. Starve and confront the unhealthy ones, but affirm the healthy actual values and the right beliefs. Leaders can bring new values into a culture, but if leaders are not lifting up actual values, they are not really leading where they are, but someplace else, some other group or church they dream about.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Managing Church Culture As leaders we do not just make big culture changes, we manage culture constantly. 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. More than just providing a picture of a future reality, culture-shaping leaders help establish the worldview necessary to bring about that future. Managing culture is an invasive, sweeping, and ongoing effort. All too often, leaders underestimate the time and the constant pressure required for managing church culture. 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. And changes in practice do not last if they are not used to help create a new culture and are not grounded in that culture. This challenging paradox points to the power of culture. The culture cannot be shaped easily, but it must be managed well or a new approach and vision can have unexpected effects on culture. Managing culture in the church is not simply an act of going from one strategy to another. It’s not just changing a mission statement or language to get a better result. We are not like the world who attempts to find the right set of values to maximize shareholder value or increase market share. Our desire to shape church culture is a direct action to lead the body of Christ to follow the rule of God. The worldview we are forming in our church is not an arbitrary set of altruistic values. The culture we form in our churches is the set of beliefs and behaviors of God’s people as they strive by faith to obey God’s Word. 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.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Culture, in John Kotter’s model, is not changed until the end of the change process. It is that challenging and that time consuming. As difficult as changing behavior is, changing church culture is even more difficult. We only need to return to Nehemiah to learn this painful reality. While he was able to lead the transforming of a wall, though he tried, he was unable to lead the transformation of the culture. A wall was constructed, but the culture was never transformed. After the wall was rebuilt and Ezra read the Law for the first time since the captivity in Babylon, the people responded to God in worship. In Nehemiah 9, they confessed their sins to the Lord. They admitted that their hearts turned from God, in part, because they forgot His great and gracious works for them on their behalf (v. 17). After their confession, they committed in a signed vow to be faithful to the Lord in a few very specific areas: they wouldn’t intermarry with others to preserve their Hebrew faith (10:30), they wouldn’t profane the Sabbath with merchandise (10:31), and they would give to the work of the temple (10:33). But the people were unable to live up to their commitments. When Nehemiah returned to Persia, as he promised, the people miserably violated each of their specific vows (Neh. 13). They were no longer valuing the work of the temple. The Levites, those who served in the temple, had to find another vocation because their needs weren’t met through the giving of God’s people. Work was occurring on the Sabbath again, and the people were intermarrying again, causing God’s people to not know the language of Judah. The people failed in every one of their vows. They couldn’t keep even one. There wasn’t one glimmer of hope, not one indication that they could be faithful to the Lord. Nehemiah begs God to remember him, and then the book ends. Just like that. The book ends with a painful picture of our inability to follow through on our bold commitments to the Lord. We’re left with the humbling realization that we can’t keep our vows. 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. What the people in the book of Nehemiah needed, and what we find in Christ, is a new covenant written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33). The ending of the book of Nehemiah is both humbling and hopeful for leaders in God’s Church. It is humbling because we understand how challenging it is to cultivate culture. It is hopeful because of Jesus. Because of God’s grace, because He replaces hearts of stone with hearts of flesh, we can have great hope for our church cultures. Who better to understand transformation than the people of God who have been transformed? Can anyone better than Christ-followers understand what it means to be changed? We are transformed people.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“7. Consolidate improvements and produce more change. Effective change gives leaders freedom and credibility for more change. The reconstruction of the wall was one aspect of the change that Nehemiah implemented. The overriding problem was the disgrace and destruction of the people. After their return from exile, the people did not initially reinstate the worship of God and observance of the Law. Furthermore, there were numerous social injustices that were tolerated and led by the officials and nobles. The completion of the wall was, in itself, a huge short-term win. It only took fifty-two days to complete, but its impact was enormous, as surrounding nations knew it was “accomplished by our God” (6:15–16). 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. Leaders do not create a new culture in order to make changes; instead, they make changes to create a new culture. Nehemiah inherited a culture of mediocrity, indifference, and oppression. The walls were in ruin, which made the people susceptible to attack at any time. The people were out of fellowship with God. They had lost their sense of identity as God’s chosen people. 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. “We are the people of God!” Every change led to the realization by the people that they were God’s possession, that God was their protector and strength. Every aspect of the change movement was integrated into the unified whole of being the people of God. As the deviant expressions of the church are diagnosed and the inaccurate actual beliefs confronted, right beliefs must be rooted in the culture. 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. For example, ministry leaders can initiate mission opportunities for people in the church. These right behaviors can impact the church to think externally, to love the city, to care for those outside the walls of the church. But if leaders are not simultaneously rooting the right behavior in the why behind the mission activity, the actual belief that the people of God are to join God on mission, then the right behaviors will be very fragile and short-lived. Don’t settle for artifact modification; go for cultural transformation. But to get there, the right actions must be connected to the right beliefs.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“5. Empower others to act. Leaders seek to empower others and deploy them for action. They seek to remove obstacles that hamper action that is in line with the vision. The rebuilding of the wall was a monumental task that took many people; therefore, it required broadening the base of those committed to the vision. Nehemiah involved many people in the project. He placed people in areas about which they were passionate. For example, several worked on the wall in front of their homes (3:23), likely most burdened for that particular area of the wall. Ministry leaders must empower others to develop leaders. Leadership development must not be only the responsibility of the senior pastor or senior leadership team. 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 to secure early wins to leverage momentum. Nehemiah and those rebuilding the wall faced immediate and constant ridicule and opposition; therefore, it was necessary for Nehemiah to utilize short-term wins to maintain momentum. After the initial wave of criticism, Nehemiah noted that the wall was halfway complete (4:6). The reality of the progress created enough energy to overcome the onslaught of negativity. Ministry leaders can create short-term wins by beginning with a few people, by inviting others to be developed. 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.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“2. Form a guiding coalition. Effectively leading change requires a community of people, a group aligned on mission and values and committed to the future of the organization. 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. Change will not happen with one lone voice. It is foolish for leaders to attempt to lead alone, and insanity for leaders to attempt to lead change alone. 3. Develop a vision and strategy. Vision attracts people and drives action. Without owning and articulating a compelling vision for the future, leaders are not leading. The vision Nehemiah articulated to the people was simple and compelling: “Let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” Nehemiah wisely rooted the action of building the wall with visionary language: “We are the people of God and should not be in disgrace.” 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. Possessing a vision for change is not sufficient; the vision must be communicated effectively. Without great communication, a vision is a mere dream. Nehemiah communicated the vision personally through behavior and to others through his words. Besides his communication, Nehemiah embodied the vision. His commitment to it was clear to all. He traveled many miles and risked much to be in Jerusalem instigating change. He continued to press on toward the completion of the vision despite ridicule (Neh. 6:3). Vision is stifled when the leader preaches something different than he lives. If a church is going to effectively communicate the vision to develop and deploy leaders, this vision must own the leaders. It must compel you to personally pour your life into others.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Without cultural change, we are hopeless to change existing results.5 Of all changes, cultural change is the most difficult. It is essentially changing the collective DNA of an entire group of people. To understand how to change culture, it is helpful to know how change works in general. Changing Church Culture Change is extremely difficult. One of the most vivid and striking examples of this painful reality is the inability of heart patients to change even when confronted with grim reality. Roughly six hundred thousand people have a heart bypass each year in the United States. These patients are told they must change. They must change their eating habits, must exercise, and quit smoking and drinking. If they do not, they will die. The case for change is so compelling that they are literally told, “Change or die.”6 Yet despite the clear instructions and painful reality, 90 percent of the patients do not change. Within two years of hearing such brutal facts, they remain the same. Change is that challenging for people. For the vast majority of patients, death is chosen over change. 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. And when ministry leaders speak or write about leadership, they often look to the wisdom found in the book of Nehemiah, as it chronicles Nehemiah’s leadership in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. Nehemiah led wide-scale change. Nehemiah never read Kotter’s book, and he led well without it. 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. With a leadership development culture in mind, here are the eight steps for leading change, according to Kotter, and how one can see them in Nehemiah’s leadership. 1. Establish a sense of urgency. Leaders must create dissatisfaction with an ineffective status quo. They must help others develop a sense of angst over the brokenness around them. Nehemiah heard a negative report from Jerusalem, and it crushed him to the point of weeping, fasting, and prayer (Neh. 1:3–4). Sadly, the horrible situation in Jerusalem had become the status quo. The disgrace did not bother the people in the same way that it frustrated Nehemiah. After he arrived in Jerusalem, he walked around and observed the destruction. Before he launched the vision of rebuilding the wall, Nehemiah pointed out to the people that they were in trouble and ruins. He started with urgency, not vision. Without urgency, plans for change do not work. If you assess your culture and find deviant behaviors that reveal some inaccurate theological beliefs, you must create urgency by pointing these out. If you assess your culture and find a lack of leadership development, a sense of urgency must be created. Leadership development is an urgent matter because the mission the Lord has given us is so great.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“For churches that observe behaviors from the list on the right, this is a strong indication that the associated convictions are not consistently held within the body. Leaders are often surprised when these deviant behaviors manifest, especially in a church with strong, biblical doctrinal and mission statements. We, as leaders, often assume that the things we hold dear transfer by osmosis to our church members. Sadly, it just doesn’t work this way. For example, many evangelical churches pride themselves on having a robust theology and conviction about the immanent return of Christ. And, if a majority of members in one of these churches was asked how they should live in light of that conviction, many would say something like, “I should live ready for His return any day.” Yet the same church may demonstrate consistently a lack of urgency. How can this be? Simple. People don’t always really believe what they say they believe. There is often disparity between actual beliefs and articulated ones. These cultural inconsistencies are pervasive and no church is immune. At Austin Stone, where Kevin serves as lead pastor, there was a time at the start of the church when this truth became so clear. For years, the leadership team talked about the call of every Christian to be a part of the mission of God. Yet, when looking deeply at the church, something was not quite right. The worship services were growing, but impact in the city was not. The team knew it needed more than just a sermon, more than just a class or a strategy. The church needed a cultural change. The Austin Stone was certain that God was calling her to be a church for the city of Austin, but teaching a list of “dos and don’ts” wasn’t going to get her there.4 The seeds for a city-loving, God-honoring church were in there, but until God altered some of the fundamental beliefs as a local church, nothing would have changed. 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. Culture change is key.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“For a leader to diagnose a church for a culture compatible for developing leaders requires a good bit of courage and even more humility. The leadership task of discovering problems rather than ignoring them is not necessarily a well-worn path in the world of Christian leadership. We struggle to admit something is off or wrong in our cultures. For many, “ministry success” is the only acceptable narrative, and the demand for it has been fertile soil for hubris that has plagued leaders longing for or envious of ministry celebrity status. But if we are to be churches that train the very best leaders, we must put our egos to death. For the leader who longs for the church to repent, change often begins with the leader’s repentance. While we are wasting our time if we only address behavior while ignoring the wrong convictions, to discover what a culture fundamentally believes, a leader must work backward from the behaviors. While it is foolish and futile to attempt to change culture by only addressing behavior, one can learn the culture by watching the collective behavior of the church, by observing what is applauded and what is seen as normal. By observing the aggregate behaviors of the people, one can get a good sense of what the church really believes. We offer the following framework to help church leaders assess if the culture actually believes in and values leadership development. While this list of attributes does not cover everything that can or should be present in a church culture, we believe this list includes critical cultural attributes necessary for leadership development. The framework was built from the theological beliefs outlined in the previous chapter along with potential deviant expressions that corrode a church culture. As you consider your church culture, do the attributes on the left describe the church or those on the right? Working backward from the behavioral analysis, it is possible to make some theological assessments for church culture.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Church leaders often mistakenly think of church culture as primarily a combination between articulated beliefs and the expressions of those beliefs. By doing so, leaders fail to look deeper to the first layer of culture. They fail to grasp the actual beliefs and actual shared values beneath the surface. Too many church leaders are betting the farm that church culture is a simple matter of “what we say” plus “what we do.” The strategy for changing culture, if this was the case, is then quite simple: If we don’t like what people are doing, then we simply need to say something different. This tragic error assigns organizational culture (and changing it) to the power of positive thinking and some form of “name it and claim it” theology. For the observant, there is likely a nagging suspicion that church culture, and the way to change, is something more. Culture is much more than what we say and do. Culture is formed by what we truly believe and value over a sustained period of time. If the stated beliefs of a church are at odds with the actual beliefs, the actual beliefs win. The actual yet unstated beliefs speak louder than the stated ones, if the two are at odds. Some examples may be helpful. If the stated doctrine of the church is that all believers are priests and ministers because our great High Priest has made us priests through His death, yet the culture of the church values only “professional ministers”—the culture will trump the doctrinal confession. A pastor preaching Ephesians 4:11–12 one time will not automatically remove the unrealistic and unbiblical expectation that the pastor is the one who does the ministry. If a stated belief of the church is that no one has anything to offer to stand holy before God, yet the actual beliefs are that we somehow contribute to our standing with God by our religious goodness, the culture will be one that does not allow for openness and confession. And someone who admits a struggle will be unlikely to experience mercy expressed from another. A graceless culture overpowers a grace-filled confessional statement. If the stated doctrine of the church is that we are to live as missionaries because Jesus stepped into our culture to rescue us, but the culture of the church focuses almost exclusively on what programs and events the church offers, the culture will attempt to squelch and suffocate desires to serve the surrounding community. Time and time again a little digging reveals that the outcomes of the local church contradict the ambitious vision statements. Why is this so? Why don’t our campaigns, rebranding efforts, and endless streams of mission statements change our future?”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“The artifacts are often what people latch on to most in a church, though they are expressions of so much beneath the surface. Imagine growing up in a healthy church. The church is generous, kind, nurturing, full of truth, and loving. You grow up loving your church. This church happens to have some programs that have deeply impacted you. Maybe it was a children’s program or a great worship ministry. In your mind, even without realizing it, your affinity for belief of the church is connected to the visible expressions of the church. Now, years long past that first church experience, artifacts that seem nearest to those original expressions will just feel right. Because of this, people are often really attached to the artifacts. While changing actual beliefs is the most difficult task, changing artifacts often creates the most pain. In order to understand culture, it is critical to recognize the differences in the layers. It is faster to correct unwanted behaviors or artifacts in a culture, but only addressing behavior is insufficient. Unless all the layers of culture are addressed, other deviant behaviors will pop up in the place of recently addressed ones. This game of behavioral whack-a-mole becomes an endless cycle of battling unnamed enemies underneath the surface. The unwanted behaviors are symptoms; an unhealthy culture is the sickness. Wherever we find stubborn sticking points in a church culture, there is always inconsistency between the actual beliefs and values and the stated ones. If there are deeply held assumptions and beliefs within the culture that are incompatible with the desired future that leaders are leading toward, then the beliefs beneath the surface must be addressed. If our churches are going to have strong cultures, there must be actual beliefs driven deeply into the church that are articulated and then expressed in artifacts. There will be harmony and congruence between all three layers of culture. The church won’t settle for mere alignment between the articulated values and the artifacts. The leaders will push for the actual beliefs to be deeply rooted in the church. The true beliefs and assumptions of a church culture are not only written on signs, posters, and e-mail footers. The truly embraced convictions of a local church are written in the lives of believers as they interact with one another and the world. Church leaders often”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“In his acclaimed work Built to Last, Jim Collins describes the culture of “visionary companies.” Two of the four traits he observed in the culture of great companies are related to their actual beliefs. A strong culture has, according to Collins, a fervently held ideology and indoctrination of that ideology.3 Surely a company should not have a more fervently held ideology than a local body of believers. Surely a company should not be more passionate about indoctrination than a local church. While not everything that is articulated is really believed, what is really believed is always articulated. If something is really valued, it is declared. Language and words help create the culture one lives in. When the Babylonians, for example, took Daniel and his contemporaries into captivity, they schooled the people of God in their language and literature (Dan. 1:4). The Babylonian leaders knew the power of words, both spoken and read, in attempting to form culture. The articulated beliefs and even how they are articulated help form the culture. How a church speaks of those outside the church, of the Scripture, and of the mission influences the culture greatly. The artifacts of church culture are the visible, tangible expressions of a church’s actual and articulated beliefs. Artifacts include common behaviors, informal rules for interaction, and other customs. Artifacts also include the formal behavioral management systems like policies, organizational structures, meeting formats, and required procedures. Church cultures even express their beliefs through artifacts that are nonhuman. Our buildings, technology, art, music, and other resources and tools constitute expression of our culture. Our programs and church calendars are expressions of who we are and are embedded in our cultures. Artifacts reveal a church’s worldview and simultaneously shape the church to continue believing it.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

“Transforming Culture It is easier to kill an organization than it is to change it. —Tom Peters Every gathering of people, every organization has a culture. Though a local church is much more than just an organization, every church has a culture. Some church cultures are healthy and some are unhealthy, but every church has a culture. Healthy church cultures are conducive for leadership development. They don’t merely say they value leadership development; they actually believe the Church is responsible to develop and deploy leaders, and they align their actions to this deeply held conviction. Culture ultimately begins with the actual beliefs and values that undergird all the actions and behavior. A church’s capacity for developing leaders relies on the collective worldview of the church and whether it is compatible with the ambition. A church’s culture has the power to significantly impede or empower its effectiveness in the Great Commission and the call to multiplication. Leaders create culture and culture shapes leaders and churches, even without recognizing it. Ministry leaders must understand the transformative power of culture if they want to have mature communities of faith.1 Organizational culture, and more pertinently church culture, is intensely potent. Church culture is a powerful force in the hands of those who shape a local church according to God’s design. If you are reading this book in any type of building, rebar is likely holding the building up and connecting the structure together. Glance up from the book and look for the rebar (short for reinforcing bar). You can’t see it, but it is impacting everything you see. You often can’t see culture, not in the same way you can see the doctrinal statement (the expressed convictions) or the leadership pipeline (the expressed constructs), but it holds everything in place. For better or worse, culture impacts your church more than you often realize. Building on the expert work of Edgar Schein, church culture can be seen in three layers, each layer building and depending on the layer below it.2 These layers move from actual beliefs to articulated beliefs, to the expression of those beliefs (called artifacts). All three layers make up the culture in a church. Actual beliefs are what the group collectively believes, not merely says they believe.”
― Eric Geiger, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development