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| photo courtesy of the Willow Creek Association |
“CULTURE”
What’s the culture of my church?
CULTURE comes from the top - down. To get there, ask some questions:
What does it feel like to work here?
What happens to people when they come to my church?
How do we get things done around here?
Where’s the power?
How does action occur?
How are we with each other?
What’s the tone like?
What gets rewarded?
What causes people to grow? - the drivers of transformation
What is “maturity” in this church? before & after
In the culture of my church, can I find God, be myself, and do what God has gifted me to do??
OR
Do I feel like I have to go somewhere else to do one of those? Can the culture contain that?
Do people have to hide imperfection?
We often don’t realize a culture is forming unless we’re intentional.
*personality
*belief systems
I. We often end up with a culture that’s defined by:
1) the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees
a. If you do these things, you’ll get there. If you don’t, then you better hide it.
b. Neglect the supernatural realm - the absence of God’s spirit empowering everything we’re doing to work.
*Either you have to be really holy or “really messed up.” If you start to show brokenness, then you’ll get people who give you terminology like “if you had more faith, you wouldn’t have this problem etc...” -if I show struggle, my group will stomp that out. We don’t want to see too much of that.
Or if everything’s perfect, then “you’re in denial.”
2) Culture based on truth: “that you will be set free by the truth”
a. There is a belief system based on knowledge, but faith without works is dead.
b. Our brains are 2-sided: experience / knowledge
c. when we hear new information, we have to process it and interact with it and experience it... our minds map new pathways that change patterns - also known as our “character”
Until our 2 brains agree with each other, we’re going to have a disconnect. People can’t be told to “like God” before they’ve tasted God.
3)TRANSFORMATION comes from need states
Transformational moments: when the experience of someone who walks into my church who’s never been loved-lands in a small group where that happens; then they begin to experience a need for that.
“God you taught me to trust you at my mother’s breast.” -David
If needs aren’t met, people will die. But if a need is met, they will be back. If they’re confused about a relationship, needing guidance about an issue in life etc... - when they come into your church and experience something real, then they will EXPERIENCE the TRUTH.
BUT if we have a SAY-DO GAP, then people’s spiritual life deteriorates.
Life Change happens in the context of smaller groups of believers
2Cor 6 - “We’ve opened our hearts and lives to you... and we want you to do the same.”
We tend to operate on formulas but the teachings of Christ and his incarnation lived out is where transformation happens.
II. Cultivate a Forgiveness Culture
Luke 13 - parable of the fig tree
1) If we have a bad time, or others aren’t measuring up - then CUT IT DOWN
2) If teaching is all the people hear, but not how to get there, then:
-it only produces confusion and more sin. Telling people “how to be” and expecting them to get there - or raising a standard without a method only perpetuates the problem.
*this is the program for a lot of churches. People feel bad when they fail - and we call it “conviction.” Conviction is something that God does. If I’m under the law, I feel condemned and guilty but if I’m in Christ, there is no condemnation.
3) I can feel brokenness and loss, which is related to hunger and need, and it will drive me to repentance.
-This is where the vinedresser steps in and makes a “no fly zone” for guilt. NO CONDEMNATION.
*THE FOUNDATION for transformation in the Gospel: We are declared INNOCENT, NOT GUILTY, NO CONDEMNATION - BEFORE we even start to get better.
*Cultures that can’t have people experience this are under the law and the law kills.
Whatever is failing right now: can it breathe where it’s at?
Where is the message you preach being lived out and felt?
The cycle: preach>repent>forgiveness>preach>repent etc...ALL THEY HAVE in their methodology is to understand a position in Christ. As if getting into a mindset one will become the mindset.
But we need to become doers of the word, not just hearers... not just memorizing a position. It’s hard work, but it TRANSFORMS.
III. The Transformation Culture
digging around the roots - fertilizing the tree
1) Where can people go to get below the surface. We need to use the Word of God to dig - confess so that we might be healed.
-sometimes that’s not done so well.
a. GRACE: this is the fertilizer - doing for the plant what the plant can’t do for itself.
Over time, we need to give people truth and grace - this process produces fruit
eg: instead of “accountability,” have someone actually administer grace in its various forms. For someone needing to lose weight, show up at his house and take him on a 45 minute walk at lunch etc... THEN he will internalize it.
Who’s helping him mend a broken heart? Who’s crying with him?
b. MOSES came off the hill with a law, but grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. We can’t just tell people how to be or to read about it, but we need to create a culture that ministers the grace of God in its various forms - making it safe.
EPH 4: -the whole body is healed as each part does its job. The head tells the rest of the body to do for a severed body part that heals that part of the body, it doesn’t tell the severed part to read a book on healing or to “be healed.”
IV. A Culture that Grows People
1) This culture teaches people Grace & Truth in the context of relationship connection (there is no connection if condemnation involved)
2) Information: we need to teach - they need to hear it, get it from books, classes, small groups, God says “put it on the doors, talk about it with the kids” - need principals to organize experiences
3) Experiences: actually go out and practice things you read about - such as the spiritual gifts and disciplined tracks for people to run on: classes or materials - because our brains are organized like this - precept upon precept which produces discipline.
4) Structure: such as a conference call at an appointed time, a class etc...
There needs to be these things where transformation happens; when immaturity meets maturity from the outside - and from God as the head.
/// APPLICATION ///
ask the following questions:
1) What’s the IDEAL VISION of the church
2) What’s the REALITY of the church
3) Let’s unite that “we might be one” -holding on to the Spirit that indwells us - and we’ll close the gap of 1 & 2.
PART 2: How does our church take people to a place of faith?
stage 1: Non-Faith -looking for answers
stage 2: Institutional / external - they come to faith, but it’s very institutionalized,
*doctrine and truth
*black & white
*rules
*precepts
*discipline
*certainty
*security... finally life fits in a BOX. Very authoritarian - the parent knows everything. But Jesus said “don’t call anybody your rabbi etc...”
- eventually we start having experiences that don’t fit in our box, which leads to:
stage 3: The desert: there are situations in the universe that cause some laws to be superseded by other laws: “if your donkey falls in a hole on the Sabbath...” *doubt *questions *pain *loss *is God still there? You go through things that don’t fit the formula - the rigid black and white don’t know what to do with some situations.
stage 4: Mystical, worship, principles - back to believing everything in stage 2, but all summed up with “love the Lord your god with your heart, soul, mind, strength, and your neighbor as yourself...”
*We understand that God is unfathomable and uncontrollable. He transcends all we know. Though it looks the same as stage 2, it’s moderated by wisdom and maturity. Guided by love and truth in a different way. Truth is now ultimate truth in the reality of God in his ways.
QUESTION: How do you build a culture where there’s a big enough house to have all their own needs met at each stage? Do you define yourself as “we don’t do desert, we refer them...” or we only reach “non-faith” people then we refer them...
//
THE PROBLEM is when we think we’re all of the stages but we’re only one of them.
Let’s think about our church culture and whether we do want to meet everybody, and set up norms that support it. Such as “people who are questioning their faith” shouldn’t be questioning the faith of people who are non-faith. We need the norms or else we have a split.
HOW DOES OUR CULTURE ADDRESS THE STAGES OF FAITH?
-@coreydrose
Notes by Corey Rose during a “Transformation Intensive” general session May 4-6th. Notes on “Culture” by Henry Cloud may be the property of Henry Cloud.
