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Question 6: Culture

How Do We Change the Culture of Our Church?

In 1997 the company known as TriZetto was founded. Its primary function was to provide information technology for the healthcare industry. Its mission was to assist their customers to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve outcomes. In their short history, their technology solutions have grown to a place where they now touch over half of all insured people in the United States and over 250,000 health-care providers. They have absolutely dominated in their field.

In 2010, Trace Devanny joined TriZetto as CEO. He described the company as a place of “huge opportunity but with a huge problem.” The problem Devanny saw was that the staff of TriZetto had a “comfortable mentality.” Some might say that they had fallen into the trap identified by author and speaker Jim Collins as “hubris.” They had been successful, figured they would continue to be successful, and became very relaxed. Devanny knew that he must change the organization’s culture, that the comfortable mentality would not propel them forward and over time would most likely cause them to shrink.

Devanny started with a focus on attitude, driving his team to “listen, align, and act on client input.” He put a major effort on strategic business reviews with key customers and drove accountability and urgency around outcomes. He did this through several strategic changes:

Devanny worked hard to change the culture of a company that desperately needed it. He joined the team in 2010 and over a four-year period changed the culture, which ultimately changed the outcomes, and in 2014 positioned the company to be acquired for $2.7 billion. Not bad for a company that was only seventeen years old at the time.

The point is pretty clear. Culture wins every time. Culture wins over almost anything else we do. The culture of a place will always dictate the spirit, attitude, and results of that place. My very good friend Mark Cole (CEO of the John Maxwell company) once told me, “Chris, culture eats strategy for lunch.” It was his way of reminding me that in any church or organization, if you want to win, you need to develop the right culture.

I began my next session with Jeremy and the team by sharing this story and these thoughts. I wanted them to truly understand how important culture is to any church. We could have a clear mission, backed by a simple strategy, wrapped in healthy values, and packaged around the right metrics, but if we ultimately don’t change the culture of the church, then none of what we do will work. Culture wins every time.

Culture is created either on purpose or by accident. Usually if done by accident it is not a reflection of the pastor’s heart and sometimes not even a reflection of God’s heart. In many churches the pastor may have a desire to grow but the culture of investing and inviting those far from God isn’t in the DNA of the church. Or maybe the pastor has a desire for the church to connect through small groups but very few people are doing it, so although it is part of the pastor’s heart it is not part of the culture. The culture may be something you need to break: It’s traditional when you know change is needed. It is self-absorbed when you know a spirit of service is required. It is unfriendly to those far from God; it lacks generosity, passion, worship, spiritual vitality, and a heart for missions. At this point you can fill in the blank. What does the culture of your church look like? What needs to break? What needs to be developed? If culture is everything, then we have got to figure out how to create the culture that will help us fulfill our mission and create a church that experiences continual and sustainable growth.

At this point in my meeting with Jeremy and his team, I walked over to the whiteboard and pointed my index finger to number six of the seven unavoidable questions every pastor must answer:

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As I walked back from the whiteboard, one of the team members spoke up and said, “So what is the point of us working so hard on mission, strategy, and everything else we have done if in the end culture will always win? Seems like a waste of time.”

As he finished his statement, I quickly reached across the table and slapped him. (Just kidding, but I kind of thought about it.) I said, “Well, that’s a fair question, but let me ask a question back to you: What kind of culture do you want in this church? Describe it to me.”

I was surprised with how quickly he answered and how others jumped in to participate. “I would like to see our church inviting more people who are not believers and starting to strategically establish relationships with their neighbors and co-workers.”

Another person blurted out, “Yeah, and I think it would be great if our people began to see how important it is to create services that their friends would want to attend.”

Still another team member jumped in and said, “If we could get people to get connected in small groups—if that became our DNA—that would change everything.” The comments continued about creating a culture of passionate worship, a servant’s heart, and a place of generosity.

After hearing all this I said to the group, “What do all these statements about culture have in common?”

The room got fairly quiet until Jeremy spoke up. “They all describe our mission, strategy, and values.”

“Yes, Jeremy!” I said. “You are exactly right, and the only reason you know this is the type of culture you want to create is because we spent the time creating the mission, strategy, and values. The key is shifting the culture that reinforces what we are all about at this church. Culture and mission isn’t an either/or, it’s a yes/and. It’s not one or the other. The mission provides clarity, the strategy provides the system, and the culture provides fuel. They are all inseparable.”

That’s why you don’t talk about culture first. You don’t really know what kind of culture you want to create until you first identify the mission, strategy, values, and metrics. Once you do that, then you know what kind of culture needs to be either broken or developed. That was the revelation that Jeremy and the team had. They realized that all the work they had done was necessary to move them toward continual and sustainable growth, but now they needed to attack the culture issue.

Here are some practical steps to help you identify the culture you have, the culture you need, and how to shape the new culture.

Step #1—Identify What You Have

Take a whiteboard and draw a line down the middle. On one side I want you to write down the culture you currently have in the church. You are looking for the type of culture that is in direct conflict with the mission, strategy, and values you have created up to this point. You are not looking for the list to be clean or properly worded. As a team exercise, you are writing out the different thoughts each of you have about the current culture. For example, when I did this step with Jeremy and the team, we made a list that looked something like this:

As I stated, when doing this exercise, simply write on the board what the culture currently is that contradicts your newly formed mission, strategy, and values. This isn’t meant to be perfectly wordsmithed. Just allow everyone to participate and get the thoughts in writing.

Step #2—Identify What You Need

On the other side of the board, begin to write down the kind of culture you will need to help fulfill your mission, strategy, and values. Once again, this is a team effort and you are not looking for the words to be perfect. You are just getting the thoughts out on the board.

It is important for you to first revisit the work you have done so far. You have to think in terms of connecting the culture to the mission, strategy, and values. What actions and spirit do the people of your church need to have to make your mission possible? Two of the corporate settings that seem to get the most attention when it comes to culture are Zappos and Google. These companies create a place where people want to work, not where they have to work, a place that is innovative, creative, and fun. With on-site restaurants, gyms, child care, and unconventional team tactics, they have accomplished their mission by creating a culture that is different than any other corporate setting. Mission was accomplished by creating culture.

So, think about your mission: What are you trying to accomplish?

Think about your strategy: What do the people need to do to accomplish the mission?

Think about your values: What behaviors will shape the environment?

Now with those in mind, begin to brainstorm with your team about the kind of culture that your church needs to have. If you are still struggling with identifying culture, then look at it this way. What would you want people to say about your church? “The people at that church are all about reaching their friends.” “The people at that church are incredibly passionate about worship.” “The people at that church are so extravagantly generous.” “The people at that church are so connected to each other.” Whatever you want others to say about your church is the culture you want to develop.

These are some of the things I wrote down on the other side of the whiteboard with Jeremy and his team:

These may not be the same cultural statements you would write down, but hopefully they give you an idea of how to identify the culture you need in your church.

So you know what you have and what you need. Now comes the challenging part: How do we create this culture? Well, first I think you need to understand that culture is more caught than taught. I always liken culture to prison. Strange example, but hear me out. The behaviors and culture of prison have been created already, and if you go there, you quickly fall into line. No one tells you what table to eat at, what to do, or who to stay away from. The unwritten laws and culture of prison are imbedded into the environment and you simply follow suit. The same could ring true for your church. The behavior and culture of inviting the unchurched to attend or giving generously or connecting in community with other believers—if these things were imbedded into the fiber of your church, then people who become part of your church would simply follow suit. Culture fuels the mission, strategy, and values.

Step #3—Shaping Culture

Shaping or reshaping the culture of a church takes work. We don’t have to look any further than Jesus for an example. During his time on this earth, he was continually working to reshape the culture, primarily among those who were stuck in tradition and in their religious ways. This was no easy task, especially with a group who had been doing things the same way for decades. What Jesus dealt with is similar to what we deal with when it comes to this issue. We are trying to reshape people’s thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes, but the challenge is that they have been that way for years. Now it’s important to note that when it comes to shaping the culture in your church, it’s not so much what you need to do, but what you need to understand. We are often asked as we work with churches across the nation, “How is culture shaped? We know what we have in our culture and we also know what we need, but how do we even start to reshape it?”

Back with Jeremy and the team, I erased the whiteboard and wrote down three things that are absolutely fundamental when understanding how to shape culture. If you can understand these things, you can begin to reshape the culture that will fuel your mission, strategy, and values.

Here is what I wrote on the board:

Shaping culture happens through:

1. The stories you tell

2. The heroes you make

3. The things you celebrate

These are the fundamental truths to reshaping a culture in your church. Let me give you a quick example of what I mean. At South Hills we make a big deal about baptism. It is a giant celebration of life change that usually is accompanied by lots of shouting and cheering. In a typical setting only the pastor or one of the staff is doing the baptism, but at our church we don’t operate that way. When doing the baptism, we want the person responsible for bringing that new believer to a relationship with Jesus standing there at the baptism tank and in some cases baptizing them. As the baptism is about to happen, the host pastor will introduce the person being baptized. The crowd will shout and celebrate the decision this person is making. Then we will point out the person standing next to them who was instrumental in leading them into a relationship with Jesus. Sometimes it’s a family who has been praying for this person for years. In some cases it will be a co-worker or a neighbor who had invited the individual to church several times and they finally showed up a few months ago and ultimately gave their life to Christ. Once we identify how the person found Christ and clearly tell the story so the audience completely understands, we will say something like this: “We celebrated Jim giving his life to Christ and being baptized today, but let’s give a huge shout-out to Bill, his friend, who prayed, invited, and helped Jim find his way to Jesus.” The crowd then celebrates Bill and his efforts in reaching out and inviting his friend Jim.

Do you see what just happened there? We celebrated the behaviors we want repeated. We made Bill feel like a hero for reaching out to his friend. We made sure that the story was told and that everyone understood. Think this through for a moment: Stories we tell—heroes we make—things we celebrate. Isn’t that what we just did during the baptism? We told a story about outreach, we made a hero out of Bill, and we celebrated it. That’s how culture is shaped.

Now here is the best part. You can do this with any area of culture that you want to shape. If you want to create a church that has a serving heart, then tell stories about people who are serving, make heroes out of them, and celebrate them. If you want your church to engage in community through your small-group ministry or you want to see a greater heart of generosity, the recipe is always the same: tell stories about people doing it, make heroes out of them, and then celebrate it.

Please don’t rush through this point. It could literally revolutionize your ministry. If you identify the culture you want in Step #2 and you begin to implement Step #3, you will see things begin to change. Know the culture you want and then create ways to tell the story, identify the hero, and celebrate big.

Step #4—Driving the Culture

At this point in our strategy meeting with Jeremy and the team, I could see that they were really starting to grab hold of what this could do for their church. One of them raised her hand and said, “We could really change the culture of our church this way. It is a simple but powerful tool.”

I agreed with her, and as I did someone else spoke up and asked, “How long does it take before you start seeing the results and how long do you have to do it for?”

“That’s a great question,” I told her, “and here is an answer for you. When it comes to the amount of time it takes, the deeper your church is cemented into tradition, the longer it will take to change the culture. But understand, it can be done. Culture can and, in most churches I have seen, needs to be shifted. As for the second part of your question—how long do you have to do it for? The answer is forever. You have to continue shaping culture, because if you are not careful, culture can be like vision; it leaks and it drifts. Remember what culture is shaped by: the stories you tell—the heroes you make—the things you celebrate. So let me help you create a simple strategy that will allow you to continue driving the culture in your church.”

I went back to the whiteboard and I wrote this:

#1

#2

#3

#4

Then I asked them another question: “If you had to identify the top four behaviors you wanted repeated in your church and that you wanted to be deeply ingrained into your culture, what would they be?” They batted that around for a while and finally arrived at the top four, which I wrote down next to the numbers.

#1 Investing in and inviting guests

#2 Small groups

#3 Serving

#4 Generosity

(Note: The number of behaviors could be four or even as high as six, and it doesn’t need to be the four that Jeremy and his team identified. The key is to find the four to six areas or behaviors that you want your church to do, the things you want to be a part of your culture.)

I told the team, “Let’s remember that each month has four Sundays in it. Now what you are going to do to drive culture in your church is to tell stories, make heroes, and celebrate each behavior. For instance, on the first Sunday of the month you need to drive investing in and inviting guests. In week two you drive the culture of small groups. Week three you emphasize the culture of serving, and then in week four the culture of generosity. What this means is that you creatively identify a way to tell a story, make a hero, and celebrate one behavior each week. Then the next month you do it again and you continue each month driving the culture you are trying to create.

Here are two quick keys to remember:

It may sound overwhelming, but it’s not. Once you get into a rhythm it’s not that hard, and believe me, it’s worth it. Culture is the fuel to your mission, strategy, and values. You can reshape your culture by consistently telling stories, making heroes, and celebrating. Carve out two to three minutes each week in your service to emphasize the behaviors you want repeated and the culture will start changing. You can change the culture of your church, and if you do, you will win!