In my experience working with churches of all sizes, from all denominations, and located over the country, I’ve observed churches who assimilate newcomers very well. What do these churches have in common? They create culture, and they do it in by leveraging the following 7 elements:
- Language
- Icons
- Celebrations
- Relationships
- Borders
- Fashion
- Values
To wrap up this series of posts, I’m writing about the final two elements: fashion and values.
Fashion – Yes, I am referring to clothes. Fashion plays a huge role in culture. Many church leaders think that fashion is a no-brainer. Some don’t think about it because they just dress according to church tradition. Others don’t think about it much because they assume they know what is relevant to the unchurched people in their communities. Both of these approaches are flawed. Why? Because they don’t require thought.
Resist the urge to simply pick a “style” for your church without thinking about it strategically. Successful clothing retailers don’t carry all styles of clothing; they sell clothes that target specific people-groups. Think about the specific people God has designed your church to reach. Those are the people you should dress for.
If your staff wears shorts and t-shirts on the weekend, you are less likely to reach wealthy people. However, if your staff dresses like lawyers on the weekend, you probably won’t reach many lawyers (because they usually don’t want to wear suits after wearing them all week). If you are in a predominantly African American neighborhood, you may want to have a “nicer” dress code for your staff because many African Americans expect that in church. There are countless “Cowboy” churches who are reaching a very specific demographic and fashion plays an important role.
Fashion is probably not the deepest issue for your church, but it does matter. It deserves more than a passing thought. The people you desire to reach think about what they are going to wear, so church leaders should think about it too.
Values – Every strong culture has a shared value set. This goes waaaaay beyond writing a set of core values and putting them on the wall. Talking about values is not enough; they must be modeled. If you say you value small groups, then everyone on your staff should be in a group. If you say you value worship, then your leaders must set the standard as passionate worshipers. If you say you value evangelism, you must preach the gospel clearly and consistently. If you value new comers, you’d better be prepared for guests every time your doors are open. Values that are preached fall on deaf ears, but values that are lived really get noticed. When your staff and leaders exhibit your church values, everyone gets the message.
It’s worthy to note that cultural division usually begins with conflicting values. If your church’s values are not clearly lived out, conflicting values will emerge. When leaders don’t live out the values, people will identify their adopt their own value sets. Some of the values that should matter to our churches are evangelism, life-transformation, growth, families, trust, leadership, holiness, excellence, honesty, and faith. Sadly, in the absence of those values, too many churches have started to value things like traditions, pot luck dinners, caution, control, politics, mediocrity (in the name of “good enough”), and smallness.
The bottom line is this: culture can be created strategically or it can happen on its own. When leaders don’t think, plan, prepare and build culture intentionally, they will eventually find themselves in churches with self-focussed, member-satisfying, God-dishonoring cultures. As such, creating culture is, without a doubt, one of the most important aspects of Christian leadership.