CHURCH PLANTING AND CONGREGATIONAL CULTURE

It goes without say that when you plant a church you must have done so out of a deep desire to honor God and a strong Vision for the kingdom of God. Even so, I have still met a few church planters who jumped into this troubled waters hoping to simple make a profit.   Apostle Paul was clear about such church planters, and we will meet many like that. As a church planter what you never realize is that you are probably the only one at that particular time who is the constant. Off course, God never changes. Yet you are called to stick through the ups and downs of reaching and achieving your vision- that God vision of redemption, that amazing vision of changed communities by the power and Love of God. You are never alone at the end of the day because heaven backs you up, yet one big troubling challenge that you will have to deal with is;

# forming and championing a unified congregational culture (sort of Organizational Culture but used loosely)

For the record, congregational culture can be defined as, a system of shared values, beliefs, traditions that define how people collectively reach the congregations Vision which is to be Gods Vision for the World. On a micro level it defines and orders people interactions at the level of Love God, and Love Neighbor and the macro level it defines our interactions with the community, the wider body of Christ.

Consider this;

1.      Even if you plant and primarily reach the un-churched to be the core teams, you will have to contend with their raw and uncut nature, you will be called to write your new church culture. What you will soon realize is that it’s a melting pot and you are the cook who determines what you would like to go into that pot.

2.      If you are like some of us that our core team was made up of people who love God and were discontent members of other churches and loved the new kid in the block, then you have a lot to deal with also. You find yourself like David in the cave of Adullam, needing to redefine culture for so many people.

The key words here are Culture and Vision – that big picture, that God drive that needs to be communicated and be wrapped with a unifying culture. Culture is good, it’s your car that carries the important people who will get the job done, but the car can change. In my experience, the danger of church planting is that everyone who initially walks through your doors carries with them preferences, values and beliefs. They bear diverse ways of doing things. Some are amoral and some or out rightly dishonoring to God. You must learn to deal with the tensions of discipleship, forming culture and walking with leaders who will get the job done.

When we planted the church I was quick to assume that you go for people who are deep in their spiritual walk with God, strong men and women who will help the wheel move faster, but soon I realized it was the like David and his brothers affair, as they stood before Samuel the prophet, good looking in their appearance, strong and been there done that, but what God is planting needed a David, because its new. The experience for us was that most of the initial high tower spiritual friends actually ended up to be people who had a lot of baggage and were not readily there to adapt to a new culture, they were more concerned with doing things or interpreting everything in the light of what they experienced before. Successes came through people you discipled and were green behind the ears.

Case scenario: many churches have now adapted to small groups but all tend to have a difference in how they are executed. Take for example someone coming from the Catholic Church background and the moment they come to your small groups they see it in the eyes of a (jumuiya) which are totally different in their objectives and orientation. What we have found out is that strong voices in your small groups tend to define your culture; you therefore need to raise stronger voices that speak and stand for the true culture that you want to enhance.

Your work as a church planter is to gracefully manage these different traditions and in that tension manage to define your convictions and hence your culture. Much of what we call culture is actually developed from the church values and DNA. If you as a leader have no grasp of what is DNA, or values, you will be caught running everyone else’s race but yours.

Avenues of developing unified culture

• Pulpit 

Spend your first few minutes of speaking defining who you are, what you believe and where you are going. Do not forget to define how everyone gathered gets involved to help accomplish the mission. Pulpit is also the place you want to celebrate people that are “brand ambassadors” people espousing the culture. 

• Small group leadership;

Our experience has been that leaders make or break, you want to be a friend and a disciple to your small group leaders because they define culture many times away from your presence. You want to be sure you are on one heart and one voice.  

• Volunteers meetings:

Church volunteers need to be church culture ambassadors, a lot of what you say and desire seen will be strengthened by how your volunteers adopt to it. They are your early adopters and so influence the late majority. 

• Staff and Core leadership teams

You core leadership team should have been the first team to catch the vision, but its easier said than done, and for your first 4 years, it is safe not to create permanent places and positions, let it be a season of earning people. Let them grow in the place of the new culture.

• Events

The How of your events is as important as the values you want communicated through the events. This is where you put your best foot forward and you want to bend the iron while it is hot. Always see events in these eyes.

Be aware finally that church culture is not only communicated, it is lived and you are not the only one that defines it, but you are ultimately tasked with ensuring it remains progressively a vibrant vehicle to ensure Gods Vision and mission is fulfilled. At 3 years, we now begin to feel that a few have gotten what it means to be a Trinity Chapelite, what it means to be a reproducing believer who is growing Deep and reaches out Wide. It takes time to define culture, yet it also courage to steer the church to a change of culture.