Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision & Inspiration

CHANGING VEHICLES

Reinvent yourself every three years … so that you can remain relevant and able to make new contributions in a world of constant change. … Reinvention is the key to longevity.
—Stephen R. Covey

We’ve seen that changing the culture of a team or a church doesn’t happen by magic, and it doesn’t happen quickly. It’s relatively easy to change a program, but it’s more difficult to change the ministry philosophy and strategy that shapes the implementation of a program. But these are relatively easy compared to changing the culture because culture reflects our most sacred values of integrity, trust and heart, as well as how we implement our values in every relationship and program. Changing a culture requires clear thinking, concerted effort, enormous courage and tenacious consistency. But first, we need to recognize what needs to change.

Vision and Vehicle

If I wanted to travel to London from my home in Atlanta, it wouldn’t matter if I had a Lamborghini or a Rolls Royce—a car wouldn’t get me to Picadilly. A car could get me to the airport or to a port where I could get on a ship, but a car simply isn’t designed to travel across the ocean. No amount of wishing or claiming promises will make the car a suitable vehicle to reach the destination I desire. Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a car to get me to anywhere on the contiguous land mass. It’s perfect for that purpose, but not for ocean travel. If London is my vision, I have to abandon the vehicle I’m using and find another to get me there.

This analogy fits the situation for many church leaders. We may have a very good vehicle (our organizational structure and personnel) to achieve a limited vision, but the one we are currently using may not be able to take us to the place God wants us to go. Like the traveler, no amount of wishing or tinkering with the engine will solve the problem. We can try to put wings on a car, but it still won’t fly. We can attach a sail or a rudder to the car, but it won’t make the ocean voyage. We need a new vehicle, often a radically new one, if we’re going to achieve all that God has for our team and our church. This doesn’t make the current vehicle “bad.” There’s a difference between bad and wrong. The vehicle we’ve been using isn’t morally deficient or evil in any way. It simply can’t produce the results we need. It’s the wrong vehicle to take us where we want to go.

When I talk to pastors and explain this principle, they almost always instantly get it. The lights come on in their eyes and they suddenly realize that they’ve been trying to drive a car to London! No wonder they’ve experienced so much frustration. After a few minutes, I often ask, “Now that you see that the vehicle of your organization can’t get you to the destination of your vision, which one needs to change—the vehicle or the destination?” This may seem like a simplistic, rhetorical question, but actually, it’s crucial. When leaders keep butting their heads against a wall day after day—or, using our metaphor, they keep driving up to the beach on the East Coast and realizing they can’t go any farther toward London—many of them scale back their vision to match the capabilities of their organizational vehicle. That’s precisely the wrong solution! When they finally realize how their existing structure and personnel aren’t capable of achieving their vision, their frustration melts into a firm conviction to do the only reasonable thing: change the vehicle.

When I meet with pastors and discuss the principle of creating an organizational vehicle to fulfill their vision, I want to find out if their vision is clear and strong, and I want to help them see if their organizational structure and people can take them to reach that vision. Dr. Gerald Brooks (GrowingOthers.com) has helped me think through this issue by using a series of test questions.

1. The heart test: Is the vision burning brightly in the heart of the leader, both in public descriptions of where God is leading him and passionately in his heart?

2. The leadership test: Do the top leaders in the church share this vision, or are they apathetic or resistant? Are these the people who can take the church to the vision’s destination?

3. The organization test: How well does the current organizational structure work to achieve the vision? What are the bottlenecks? Which aspects are cars that can’t take you there? Which ones are planes or ships?

4. The recruiting test: Are new hires and volunteers on board with the vision, or are they still a work in progress?

5. The message test: Is the vocabulary of the vision consistent and strong in every part of the church? Is the message of the vision reflected in sermons, written materials, the budget, signs and conversations about the priorities of the church?

6. The planning test: Is the church’s vision your staff’s benchmark for strategic planning in every year?

7. The facility test: Do facilities, including their layout, design and décor, reflect the vision?

8. The money test: Does the budget demonstrate the vision’s priorities?

9. The pragmatism test: Does the vision make sense? Is it both God-sized and workable? Can you see it happening? Is it so global that it doesn’t capture anyone’s heart, or is it appropriately targeted?

10. The capacity test: How well does the capacity of the current organizational structure and personnel match the vision?

11. The clarity test: Can people throughout the organization articulate the vision clearly and with passion? If you ask people who come out the door after the service on Sunday morning to articulate the vision of the church, could they share it clearly and with enthusiasm?

12. The counsel test: Who are the outside voices that are helping to shape the vision and the vehicle to fulfill it?

13. The growth test: How do the ministries of the church need to be organized to capitalize on the next two stages of growth?

How do we know if a vision is from God? One of the measures is that it has to be something so big that it requires God’s wisdom and power to pull it off. Anything less is just a good idea. God’s vision is to redeem not only individuals, but the entire creation. He’s not just making new men and women; he’s going to re-create the entire universe in the New Heaven and New Earth. That’s a big vision! Small visions don’t enflame people’s hearts—yours or those who follow you. Don’t dumb down your vision to be something that isn’t threatening. If your vision is from God, it will blow your socks off and keep you awake at night! People instinctively understand the power of a big, compelling vision. When he was an old man, English sculptor Henry Moore was asked, “Now that you are 80, you must know the secret of life. What is it?”

Moore smiled and answered, “The secret of life is to have a task, something you do your entire life, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do.” That’s a good benchmark for visions too.

Some churches are rocking along pretty well. They have a bold, clear vision, and they enjoy a culture of creativity and experimentation, so their people are conditioned to embrace new ideas. Many churches, though, have been doing the same things so long that they don’t even know other vehicles exist. To change the metaphor, these leaders need to heal the infection before they can perform a heart transplant. If they attempt surgery before they’ve dealt with the infection, the patient—their team and their church—will suffer and die. The first step for them is to get the body as healthy as possible, and then take bold steps to change the culture.

Clarity, Congruence and Courage

When Raymond heard me speak at a conference, he asked to meet with me for breakfast the next morning. After we got to know each other for a few minutes, he began to pour out his frustrations. “Dr. Chand, I have no idea how our church got to this point, but I feel like I’m spending most of my time on things that weren’t the reason we began the church eight years ago. Can you help me sort this out?

“I’ll certainly try,” I assured him.

Raymond’s eyes lit up as he described how the church began. He and his team believed that God called them to reach unchurched people in the suburbs of New York. “We didn’t have to look very far to find unbelievers,” he said with a smile.

I asked, “How did things go the first few years?”

He sat back in his chair and shook his head with a big grin. “It was incredible. We saw so many people saved, so many families reunited. I loved every minute of it.”

“What happened?” I asked him. “What has caused your disappointment since then?”

“Somewhere along the way, we started doing good things instead of the best things.” I knew exactly what he meant, but I asked him to continue. “As more people came to Christ, we began discipling them. Soon, people wanted us to have a family life center, and before long, we had a bowling alley and a coffee shop.”

“These weren’t part of the vision God gave you?” I probed.

Raymond shook his head again, but this time without a smile. “I thought they were, and people assured me they were, but in the past few years, we’ve invested far more time, money and people into things like the bowling alley than reaching people for Christ.” He paused, then told me, “I’m not sure what to do now. I feel like we’ve missed what God called us to do, but there seems to be no turning back.”

“You can always do what God called you to do, Raymond. But you’re right. You’re going to have to unravel some good things so you can devote yourself to the best. It’ll be hard, but God will give you the wisdom to do it.”

Many leaders have faced similar circumstances. They joined a church with a passionate vision, but over time, the vision atrophied or shifted to something else. Let me explain the difference between the dining area of a fine restaurant and the restaurant’s kitchen. When I take my wife to a lovely restaurant, we enjoy the nice tablecloth, flowers, soft music, gentle lighting, courteous service and wonderful meal. But a few inches beyond that idyllic setting is a very different environment: the kitchen. That’s where people are running around cooking, preparing plates and fussing with each other so that they can provide the perfect dinner for my wife and me. In the same way, when people come to a church’s worship service, they enjoy the best and the most beautiful setting we can provide. Sometimes they say to each other, “Wow, I’d love to work in a place like this. It’s wonderful!” But they have no idea that the real work of the church is much more like the kitchen, and they are shocked to find that making a delicious entrée is a messy process. Leading a church isn’t much different from being a chef in a busy, chaotic kitchen.

Quite often, ministry leaders and board members have offered ideas, suggestions and plans that sounded great, but may not have been in alignment with the original vision. The leader didn’t want to discourage the creativity of those people, so he smiled and went along. “It can’t hurt anything, can it?” he wondered. But eventually the leader wakes up and realizes that too many compromises have been made and that the organization's vision is significantly different from his own. To remedy the conflict, too many leaders conclude that it’s easier to adjust their own sense of God’s calling and vision than to expend all the energy it would require to bring the entire leadership team, plans and programs back into alignment with the original vision.

Maybe he’s tired. Maybe he’s discouraged. Maybe he’s tired of fighting and feeling along, and maybe he realizes all too well that it will be a colossal struggle to turn the team around. But if he continues to give in and support a vision he doesn’t really believe in, he’s not being true to himself, to God, or to his people. The leader has subordinated his God-given vision to a group of people who are taking the church to a different place. The conflict probably isn’t between good and evil. Their vision and their destination are probably noble and worthy too, but the pastor has to own a vision, not acquiesce to someone else’s. We’re not talking about a dictatorship or heavy-handed style. We’re talking about the importance—the necessity—of visionary leadership. The members of the team must be in line with the leader’s vision and core values. If they aren’t, he can’t lead them. A pastor can’t chart a course, plan effectively and motivate his troops if his people aren’t on board with his vision and core values. Organizational congruence is necessary if staff members are going to achieve God’s vision and work effectively as a team. Without it, there’s only confusion and conflict.

When a leader’s vision and values are aligned with the organization’s goals and the hearts of the team members, the congruence will be reflected in everything they do. For example, a local Atlanta church states that one of its core values is missions. This value is demonstrated in planning, budgeting, personnel and even in prayer. The budget shows a large percentage of the church’s income going to mission projects, and the missions department has more staff members and volunteers than any other department in the church. A glance at the church calendar shows that it’s peppered with missions-related activities. Missionaries, mission trips and mission funding and prayer are high priorities on the pastor’s schedule too. This focus demonstrates organizational congruence at the church around a compelling vision.

As I’ve worked with church leaders, I’ve observed them moving through the following phases as they’ve implemented new strategies, especially in changing their cultures:

1. Entrepreneurial, or the discovery phase, when the strategy is seen as viable: It can be done!

2. Emerging, or the growth phase, when credibility is crucial: The leader can be trusted.

3. Established, or the maintenance phase, when stability is achieved: The systems are in place and functioning well.

4. Eroding, or the survival phase, when the church is vulnerable: Signs of decline are obvious.

5. Enterprising, or the reinvention phase, when leaders adapt to a fresh vision and new strategies: They adjust so they can grow again.

The only way to avoid eroding is to keep going back to being entrepreneurial. When leaders rest on their past successes, they become organizationally flabby—soft and passive. In fact, the more successful an organization has been in the past, the more likely it is to fail in the future. Without the constant infusion of entrepreneurial spirit, flourishing can lead to floundering!

Churches must “re-dream” the dream or discover a new compelling vision for their existence. For a leadership team and those they lead to continue developing and growing, they must focus on the organizing principles of the stages ahead. Leadership styles and the key issues to be addressed are different for each stage of the cycle. Effective leaders understand the cycle and are able to adapt their leadership to the corresponding needs of each stage.

The danger is that the old mental models will remain in place and that the desire for the security and familiarity of the past will win out over the opportunity of the moment to embrace and live out a new dream. Your thoughts will create your attitude, which leads to action. The Chinese characters that form the word crisis are a combination of danger and opportunity. Every crisis calls us to face danger, but we need to redefine it as opportunity. Olan Hendrix, author of Three Dimensions of Leadership, observed, “Generally, religious organizations start out with a goal orientation … deteriorate to a task orientation … and finally degenerate to a bottom-line control organization.” Don’t let that happen to you!

Your effectiveness will always depend on your ability to see the future. To be an effective leader, you must understand the difference between change and transition. Change is the event (for example, the first vision is realized, the founding pastor is gone, the community demographics have changed), and transition is the emotional, psychological and social response to that change. In most situations, not enough attention is paid to the transition side, and leaders often move forward without realizing that the congregation, staff or both are not processing the change at the same level they are.

Your future can be bright if

—You have a compelling vision.

—You have aligned the resources and ministries of the church to the vision.

—You understand the process of change and transition.

—You have the blessing of the Lord.

Strategic planning needs to be written in pencil because in a dynamic, changing environment, strategic planning needs constant evaluation and adjustment.

Congruence is a key component of an effective organizational vehicle. It is clear focus that organizes people, plans and funding, and it flows from the church’s vision, mission and core values, permeating every department of the church. Of course, some churches do a better job than others, but the fact is, most leadership teams never even consider the importance of congruence. They just think, talk and plan the way they’ve always done. The results are pockets of wonderful success, with some department leaders competing with others for resources and some apathetic about what happens in other parts of the church. The absence of congruence is like a plan with one wing missing, a ship without a rudder or a car with a flat tire. The organization can’t fulfill a God-sized vision, even in its local market, without the alignment of people, plans and funding around a common purpose.


Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint, from Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code, by Samuel Chand. Copyright © 2011 by Samuel Chand.

Samuel R. Chand is a leadership consultant and speaker who has written or co-written a dozen books, including Weathering the Storm: Leading in Uncertain Times (Mall Publishing), Futuring: Leading Your Church into Tomorrow (Baker), and Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration (Jossey-Bass/Leadership Network). He also serves as a board member for EQUIP, a Christian leadership development organization, and as president emeritus of Beulah Heights University in Atlanta.

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