Can church culture change?

Today was a great day! We held a baptismal service at Lake Tapps and then went to Bob's house for a BBQ. It was a sunny day. 85 F. (29 C.) under clear skies. Cheryl and i decided to drive our classic 1968 Corvette. Sunscreen, top down, and lots of gas. i had a hard time keeping within the speed limit with this baby. It is just so responsive and powerful when you accelerate. i love fast cars!

Being rather new to the church, it was a great conversation starter. The most interesting dynamic for me to observe today was the interaction of two cultures that we are trying to bridge. Traditional Christianity and the younger emerging generations. i am sure we have all seen the relational polarizing that happens in a mixed group of teens, young adults, adults and elders. (even our language separates us) i saw it today but i don't think that it has to be that way.

Given that the church in an emerging culture is open to relationships, how do we bridge the gap? Not the generational gap but the mindset gap? As a youth pastor i always struggled with this one. It seems that the tendency in the IC is to polarize along generational lines. Those with the power and money usually win. But how can we change the status quo? i have been working toward an intergenerational ministry model for years now.

A holistic approach to community seems so elusive in North American culture. We seem to segregate everything on the basis of age. How do we transcend this state of affairs? While many pastors focus on teaching the bible, they often pay little attention to the culture of their own church. Those deeply embedded assumptions that dictate why we act as we do. These assumptions often tend to be located in the stablest parts of the organization. Ironically, they may hinder the vision and mission you espouse.

In the Corporate Culture Survival Guide, Edgar Schein notes that, "We tend to think that we can separate strategy from culture, but we fail to notice that in most organizations strategic thinking is deeply colored by tacit assumptions about who they are and what their mission is." Bringing about change in a system takes time as we need to understand the true assumptions we hold to. The tacitly understood values are usually not propagated via official communication lines. It is often the product of life strategies that work within the institutional church setting. These are learned by trial and error.

The strength of these assumptions comes from the fact that the entire church body shares them. They become a glue that holds a particular part of church culture together. To suggest changing a part of church culture is to ask a community to alter one of their shared characteristics. To remove the glue. To invite chaos. This will usually bring about resistance. So, developing a holistic approach to community is not just an issue of strategy (Like church BBQ's) as much as it is one of culture.

Culture is just as much a process as it is a product of tacitly understood values. A church culture is not an obstacle to be overcome. Working with that mentality will most likely doom you to failure. It lead to several of my past failures. Instead, think of your church culture as a resource to be shaped and worked with. Much like a lump of clay. Once the harmful tacit assumptions have been identified, reshape the clay. We begin to reshape them by changing the symbolic depiction of these assumed values.

As the symbolic understanding of their values is reshaped a culture changes slowly. The leader/pastor/apostle is to interpret and reinterpret the experience of the community. Church culture is shaped in the arena of symbolic representation, ritual, rites and ceremony. Don't just teach about an area of change. Reinforce it with symbols, stories, and examples. Embed the new values within the current cultural system.

For example. If you want your church to see themselves as ministers in the world and not just within a church setting. Set aside time in the service to recognize people in their various ministry outside of the church. Empower them, let them tell their stories, share their successes and failures then pray for them as a community. If you did this once a month for a year, you would begin to see an attitudinal change within the church culture.

The people you have recognized become a symbolic representation of a values you wish to reinforce. While doing this, find other ways to reinforces this new value. Make it as natural as breathing air. Once you have several symbols of the new value embedded with the church culture a tipping point will be reached and the culture of the church will change.

The church cannot mindlessly follow rituals like baptism as we have in the past. We must consciously reinterpret these rituals and symbols to reinforce the identity of our communities. In the emerging culture, we need to translate and reframe our symbols to become a Christian Tribe once more. To be a family and people of God. This is one step forward in bridging the mentality gap.

(Edited and expanded on 2 Aug 2004)
Addendum:
I should have clarified a few terms:
In the IC, our notion of what it is to be a church stems form a commonly held set of ideas that are often unspoken. That is a churches culture. The mindset gap consists of the difference between our institutional form and the free flowing spirit of God working within relationships.

Comments

[Bruce]

Good thoughts, bro!

But, it kept getting the feeling that your ideas were pointing toward church as something "we do" rather than something we "are". It seems to me, that when believers come together, there will always be a mixture of different cultures, and that the only uniting factor is the most basic common thread between us all... Jesus. Of course, His life is expressed in a slightly different way through each of us, and unless we're given room to allow that expression out, we will suffer as individuals. At least, that's how I see it.

So, when we structure the gathering around one person's idea of how it should look, we're prohibiting the individual expressions of those gathered. And, the way I see it, nothing builds our faith more than expressing it to others through our own individual words and actions. Not someone else's... only ours.

So, sing the songs "I" want you to sing. Listen to the teaching "I" want you to hear. Sit when "I" say sit, and stand when "I" say stand. And speak when "I" say you can speak. This isn't a coming together for mutual encouragement, this is attending someone's performance.

I say, just come together as believers, and let God do what He does best. He is capable, and even better, willing to lead us closer to himself.

[George]

your thoughts and Bruce's response raise a serious question that must be addressed in the discussion of the emergent church or in any church. What is the function of leadership? From Jesus' statement to Peter of "feed my sheep." to Paul's encouragements to Timothy of setting an example of Godliness and sound teaching, the New Testament is filled with men and women of God being called to teach and equip. The whole five-fold ministry is given for the equipping of the saints for every good work, and we're told that it was God who chose which gifts to give to whom.

I'm not proposing answers to the question. I'm simply stating, "What is the function of leadership in the life of the believer?"

[Darren D.]

Bruce ~ Good thots! i knew that a post on changing a church culture within an IC (institutional church) context would be a hard one. i probably should have been clearer on what i mean by church culture and the mindset gap. i think you may have missed my point. Let me clarify where i was going with this post.

In the IC, a church service is not just “one person's idea” but a commonly held set of ideas that are often unspoken. That is a churches culture. The mindset gap consists of the difference between our institutional form and the free flowing spirit of God working within relationships.

Your comments demonstrate the problem i was trying to get at. The church culture “prohibits our expression” as it defines the identity of our church. Hence the tension between the emerging and traditional camps. In my post i was looking at the “groupthink” of any body of believers. Those tacit set of ideas that shape how we are the church in an IC setting. BTW there is a groupthink in all families or friendship groupings.

Leadership (in an IC context) can and should examine and shape these unquestioned notions/values to be more inline with the Kingdom of God. To be a family and people again. Establishing a christian identity as a people. That is part of the leadership role in such a setting.

On a personal note: i am trying to help a pastor who feels God calling him to lead his congregation to BE the church as opposed to doing church. While i don’t think church is something “you do,” i have chosen to place myself in a context where many of the people do think that way. (if you look at the church culture) i’m like Neo reinserted into the Matrix. Therefore i write from both perspectives as i live in two worlds and am always dealing with that tension.

Thanks for helping me clarify things Bruce. i value your comments.

George ~ i agree, we need to think more about the function of leadership in a church setting. i was focusing on the structural element of leading change within an established church body and culture.

[George]

Aren't we all supposed to be Neo's? In the world, but not off it? A royal priesthood and a holy nation, walking in a new identity, serving the king in a realm we can only see glimpses of? Given the task of compeling and teaching and healing, and reconciling those who walk in the old world with the leader of the new?

We are called to walk in the identity and carry on the mission of emmanuel, the ultimate bridge-gapper between true reality and cultural group-think.

[SOPHIA BANKS]

I am seriously considering leaving my church because I feel that its culture has changed. I am a 33 year old woman who became born again about 8 years ago. My experiences have always been one of non denomintional settings w/ contemporary music. We have a new minister of music who is more of a traditional mindset in the African-American church. I have a hard time receiving from people who are yelling at me, or jumping up and down uncontrollably, or anything of that nature. i feel that leadership has comprosmised our beliefs because of a need. We needed a musician. I want to grow in my walk with God. I have always thought of myself as being open to change and new things but this new situation has me wondering if I am as openminded as I thought I was and should I be more open to a traditional style of church. This is a complex topic. I feel that for the most part we all choose churchs based off our personal belief system. If I wanted to experience a more traditional setting I would have found a church that had that kind of culture. As the culture of my church changes I seriously feel as if this is Gods way of telling me it is time for you to go. Can you please give me some insight into this.