Creating Disciple-Making Cultures
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”
Attributed to leadership expert Peter Drucker.
“Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command.”
1 Chronicles 12:32 (ESV)
Recently, the city I live in opened a new City Hall and City Center Park. I was honored to be asked by the Mayor and City Council to offer the invocation at the ribbon cutting. As such, I was able to interact with city employees, architects, contractors, local business owners, and city and state politicians. Each conversation held a different nuance and emphasis. Some were appreciative for a local faith leader to be at a community event. Some, upon finding out that I was a pastor, politely curtailed their conversations and moved on to the next. Some saw the possibility of partnership with a local church and inquired about a potential future conversation. Some plied their wares encouraging me to consider how their product or service might be of interest to me and our congregation. Regardless, each conversation was a doorway into a different expression of our local culture.
A few days later, the city hosted the grand opening of the City Center Park. My wife is Assistant Director/Dean of Students at our local community college. As such, her school hosted a booth and an inflatable game for families to enjoy. As a good husband, I agreed to help set up, spend time running the game, and help tear down. In the in-between time, I walked around the new park engaging people in conversation. I saw many of our members both utilizing the park and serving as volunteers. I engaged some new neighbors who are opening a microbrewery right behind our baptist church (a story for another time!). I engaged with families whose kids were playing in the new splash park or on the new playground. I spoke with other local faith leaders, city officials, and just normal citizens. Regardless, each conversation was a doorway into a different expression of our culture.
As much as we experience different expressions of culture within our local civic communities, so we experience them in the church as well. The idea of “culture” has been at the forefront of ministry conversation for a long time, from Paul’s engagement at the Athenian Areopagus to H. Richard Niebuhr’s classic book Christ and Culture and a myriad of others. Over the past two decades within the church, we have seen the rise and decline of the “emerging” and “emergent” church movements, the constant re-invention of what it means to be “missional”, and more recently the rise of the “discipleship movement”, especially in Western Christianity. Each has its merits and demerits. Each is an attempt at understanding the gospel and Jesus’ Great Commission in the light of contemporary culture. In some ways, each has aspects of a fad, and each has aspects with lasting power. As emphases in the church change, what are we to do? What do we hang onto and what do we release or dismiss?
First, we need to have a good understanding of the general nature of “culture”. Andy Crouch in his book Culture Making simply defines culture as “...what we make of the world.”1 In other words, culture is how we define, interpret, and engage the world around us. A more complete definition of “culture” is proposed by J.R. Woodard in his book Creating a Missional Culture. Woodward says culture is the combination of “the language we live in, the artifacts that we make use of, the rituals we engage in, our approach to ethics, the institutions we are a part of and the narratives we inhabit [that] have the power to shape our lives profoundly”.2 Now, stop and think about that for a moment in relation to your ministry context. How do each of these six elements help to define your culture? Here they are again:
Language
Artifacts
Rituals
Ethics
Institutions
Narratives
I think many ministry leaders live in the tension between the church culture they desire and the reality of the church culture in which they live and serve. It is only when we begin to confront this tension, using the elements above or others like them, that we get a realistic picture of where we are and where we need to lead the people entrusted to us. If we desire to create a disciple-making culture, then we will need to address these elements and begin to lead toward a new or renewed vision for disciple-making. Woodward again challenges us by saying, “While management acts within culture, leadership creates culture.”3 So, how then, do we create disciple-making cultures in our ministries?
Let me address this question in two ways. First, we must understand how culture changes. To do so, we must be honest with ourselves about where we have come from, where we are, and where we are going.
1. Understanding your past and present
As a leader, you should know the history of your church or organization. You should know the key moments in the past, both positive and negative, the key players in its history, and an honest evaluation of where you are in the present. Such evaluation is foundational to leading forward.
2. Embracing God’s vision for your future
What is God’s vision for your future?
3. Committing to “a long obedience in the same direction”4
Are you willing to do the hard work of culture change? Are you willing to do the hard work of language change, defining and communicating clearly ad nauseam, life change, telling stories to inform, inspire, and send, and organizational change, developing a sustainable plan that doesn’t change with the trends.
A Warning
Change means loss! People don’t fear change simply because it is something new or different, but because it threatens the routine, comfort, and preferences they have established individually or corporately in culture. Tod Bolsinger says, “Growth, transformation, and adaptation always means loss. Change is loss. And even experimental changes signal loud and clear that change and loss—is coming”.5 As such, leaders need to help those who follow to adapt to the inevitable loss associated with change. Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky define such adaptive leaders as “disappointing your own people at a rate that they can absorb”.6 In other words, leaders must work the process of culture change if they want to succeed.
Second, we must develop a plan to lead people to where God wants them to go. The plan is the pathway in which people will engage and grow in the disciple-making process within a local church or ministry. It is where the foundation, vision, and disciple-making culture will be lived out in practical ways and lead to the formation of Christ-like character. So, what are the basic elements of a plan?
Your plan must be contextual- “…for a specific place at a specific time in history.”
Your plan must be intentional- “…if it leads people nowhere, they will end up there every time.”
Your plan must be sustainable- “…if people can’t see where it leads, they won’t follow.”
Your plan must be reproducible- “…if it can’t be multiplied in the lives of others, then it is done before it starts.” *
Two of the most asked questions regarding culture change in The Bonhoeffer Project are what is the “tipping point” for culture change within an organization and how long will it take? Malcom Gladwell defines a “tipping point” by saying, “The tipping point is when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. There are various studies that have attempted to define the tipping point, for example, when the number of minority committed opinion holders exceeds 10% then the idea will tip.”7 Everett Rogers says, “To be safe, the standard is 17% for an idea to reach critical mass or the boiling point”.8 In other words, 17% of the people in your ministry must understand, agree, and act in ways that promote a disciple-making culture for that culture to take hold.
In the Old Testament, the men of Issachar understood their times so that they might know what Israel ought to do. Will you do the hard work of understanding your ministry culture so that you might lead those entrusted to you to become disciple-makers, and by God’s grace and the power of His Spirit, create a culture of disciple-making?
* The Bonhoeffer Projects helps ministry leaders process both culture change and a disciple-making plan within the context of our cohorts. Sign up for one today at www.thebonhoefferproject.com.
1 Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downer’s Grove: IL, IVP Books, 20013), 191-192.
2 J.R. Woodward, Creating a Missional Culture: Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Books), 20. (emphasis added)
3 Ibid.
4 A quote from Eugene Patterson from the book of the same name. Eugene Patterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Press (20th Anniversary Edition), 2000.
5 Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains, 122.
6 Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (Boston, MA: Harvard University Press), 142
7 Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Boston, MA: Back Bay Books, 2002), back cover.
8 Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (Fifth edition) (New York: Free Press, 2003).
