Last week I started a series about 7 common elements in churches who excel at creating culture:
- Language
- Icons
- Celebrations
- Relationships
- Borders
- Fashion
- Values
Today I’ll address relationships and borders.
Relationships – Nothing allows immigrants to assimilate into a culture better than relationships. From 1892 to 1954, over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through the portal of Ellis Island in New York Harbor. Millions of those immigrants naturally segregated themselves when they settled in major cities. Irish, Jews, Italians, Chinese and Greeks (to name a few) congregated in certain neighborhoods because it was easier for them to forge supportive relationships.
Churches who create culture effectively have natural avenues for people to forge relationships with others like themselves. Small groups are the most obvious example of this. Serving teams also provide great opportunities for relationships. However, a less obvious example is multiple services. Saturday night services tend to draw a different crowd than Sunday morning services. The 8:30 am Sunday crowd looks very different than the 1:00 pm Sunday crowd. Each service seems to have a subculture of its own within larger culture of the church. A church with 5 smaller weekend services provides more natural opportunities for people to become friends than a church with 1 huge weekend service.
Borders – Nations are defined by their borders and so are churches. No, I don’t mean the church’s property lines. I’m referring boundaries that come from a clear sense of corporate identity. Some churches have ministries for everything: men, women, kids, singles, single parents, senior adults, youth, ethnic groups, finances, addiction recovery, drama, music, art, dance, missions, small groups, marriages, grief, divorce, etc. These churches almost always have a harder time intentionally creating culture because they are spread so thin. Churches who focus on 5 or 6 ministries find it easier to create culture. They choose to say “yes” to a few things and “no” to many other good ministry ideas because they know who they are and who God is calling them to be.
When borders aren’t clear, the culture creates it’s own borders. This is why it’s important for church leaders to be proactive in establishing borders. If leaders don’t intentionally create boundaries, the people of the church will eventually create borders haphazardly. Leaders who don’t intentionally mark boundaries for their church are more likely to find themselves in a church with a culture that says, “boys don’t wear hats, no one below age 25 is allowed in the ‘Ruth’ classroom, and the preacher can’t ever speak passed noon.”
Marking the borders of your church’s ministry is a healthy practice, that can yield great benefits. It helps everyone in the organization better understand who your church is and what your church does. It also gives leaders the opportunity to create a culture that is attractive to the un-churched rather than repulsive to them.