Video Transcript: What makes up culture?

Welcome back, as we continue our conversation about culture, the way we do things here. Now we've been in this discussion for a bit to talk about how things are defined as far as who we are as people together. That's what makes up culture. Just a reminder, we've been talking about this model for quite a while: the leader interacts with culture, to define a preferable future, and then provides the impetus for the planning and praying that needs to go into plans to make that future a reality. 

Now, I've been using this symbol as the symbol for culture here, it's something I got offline. It's not original to me, but it just lists all the visual elements of culture. In other words, what makes up a culture, what makes up the characteristics of an individual group of people? Well, there are things like mission statements, or we're going to talk about language being a very important part of what makes up a culture, what helps people to find themselves different than other people. Stories about folks, stories about history, and physical layout. physical space is important. It helps define culture, and then rules and policy, sometimes those are some of the written language that helped create a culture, and then rituals. Now, all of these things add up to the way we do things here. And most people love to gather together in groups, we have this need to have an identity and identity is bound up in the people that we gather with on a regular basis. And so we gather with these people, and over a period of time, our gathering with those people develops a culture. And we can believe that our culture is right, and others are wrong. 

Certainly that's true in the church world, right? I mean, I have a lot of friends who are different denominations. And we tend to grow up with the teaching that we're right. Everybody else is wrong. And all those those folks over there, they're wrong. And basically, a lot of the differences are not just theological, but they are cultural. They are the way we do things here. So what are the elements that make up culture? One of the primary things, if you want to identify your culture, a couple of sessions from now we're going to look at how you do that, how you define the culture that you're working in. But one of the things you look at is the language. Now, sometimes this can be the official statements of the organization, a mission statement is a good indication of what is the culture like but not always, as I'm going to say, in a couple of sessions. The mission statement, many times, it's just on the board. And if you actually go to people in the organization and say, What's the mission of this organization, very few people will be able to tell you, oftentimes, unless somebody makes the mission very, very clear. 

Now, sometimes, the mission statement is reflective of who that group of people are, what the culture or context of ministry is there. I had the privilege of attending church this past week. And I was surprised that as part of their regular order of service on Sunday morning, they have someone get up and recite the culture statement, the mission statement of the church, and it was a it was a general mission statement of any church in some respects. But it was reminder that this is why we exist. And the statement was that we want to bring people to Christ so that they become a member of his body, then we want to grow them in discipleship, so they become more like Christ. And then we want to equip them so they can do the work of Christ in the world, ministering to the total person that has an engaging mission statement. And every single week, they repeat that statement, and it becomes the guide for the decisions they make, what programs do they offer? Well, it relates back to their mission, what are their budget allocations while it relates back to their mission, all of these things go into who they are, as a particular group, it's a language statement. 

But then there are other areas of language that maybe are a little more difficult to pick up on. Here's just a few that I have found frustrating in my own life, for instance: acronyms. I had the privilege for five and a half years of chairing the missions department of our denomination, the board for that department. And when I joined that board, I was given three pages single spaced of acronyms that they used. In other words, the HMLT is going to make it work, meet in a JSB to discuss the MMJS. And you've got to look at your papers for what are we talking about? And it's only over a period of time that you understand all this stuff and you become enfolded into the culture, but that language is unique to that particular group, and therefore develops a culture around it in the church. This is amazing to me yet. 

But sometimes we use various language, aspects of language, that nobody else will understand. Those three things, there are descriptions of ministries within the church I just completed, serving and retire from Route 101, then you'd have no idea, if you walked in that church, what that is, but turns out it's middle school ministry. It happens on Sunday morning and happens upstairs on the second floor in our youth ministry area. And there's an area that says arrow that serve now youth ministry up there, but walking in Route 101, what's that? The Walk is our high school ministry, named wonderfully in the fact that, you know, we're walking with Jesus through life, as you perceive the Spirit, so continue to walk in him. Those kinds of ideas are wonderful. But if you walk in, you wouldn't know it's insider language. When when people talk about The Walk, or when they talk about Upstreet, that's our children's ministry, or Regata, which describes a sailing club, is a name for those special needs ministry of young adults with special needs and developmental disabilities. And so you walk in and say Regata, what is that? And then you meet somebody who can tell you, but it's insider language. And all of that goes into making us who we are as a culture that we're in the inside because we know this stuff. 

And this is what's important. In addition to the language that's used, sometimes it's helpful to look at the language that's not used, things that aren't said that will tell you something about the culture in which you are operating. I mentored a young man for a few years, he was just going through a rough time, he had to accept a call to a church in a city near mine. And we got connected in a variety of ways. And he just asked me to come alongside of him during this rough time in his life to say, when he was interviewing to become pastor of that church. The search committee told him how they'd been through a difficult time. The founding pastor left, and as a result, many of the families had left there. But now they were ready, they felt they were turning a corner, they were ready to go, they were ready to create the future. And so he accepted the call based on that language, based on what he was told. Well when he got in town, he was welcomed. And one week later, the chairman of the search committee just told him that he's leaving the church, he couldn't stand the conflict anymore. While the pastor wasn't aware of the conflict, nobody had told him about that. And as he began to get to know, people within the church, a dwindling number of people within the church, he began to realize that part of the culture there was, don't tell the truth. Don't acknowledge anything bad, you can only say what's good. And as a result, he decided that one of the things he was going to do as a leader was to change that he was going to speak truth. And so that's what he did. He was able to define reality for that group of people, he was able to move them forward. They ended up purchasing a building, they ended up making a restart of that ministry in a variety of ways. But it started with him making a difference in what they talked about, and how they talked about it. Language is very important. You'll understand by what's said, and what's not said, something about the culture in that place. 

Another thing that makes up culture is the use of space. Our space tends to do two things. One, it either defines who we are, or it presents who we are. There's a church growth principle called sociological strangulation, and that is that, you know, when a facility can no longer provide what's needed to support the growing Ministry of a church, the growth stops. Well, in that sense, the facility can define us or we define the facility. Let me just show you a couple of buildings here. I told you about the relocation that we did in Southern California. We, over a six and a half year period, moved into temporary facilities. And then after a two and a half year period of that temporary facility, we moved on to the property of this church. Now, if you look at this, you got to say it is a beautiful building. Seats 1500 in the worship center. It's got abundant space. Some rooms for children's ministry adult ministry. It's got a youth center. Its got a separate area for a Young Men's Ministry of boys ministry has a preschool connected with it because we figured out that families were very important in that connection. There's something about that building that we built in design with an architect to express our culture, as a church but also as a Southern California culture. In Southern California, one of the values is things have to look good. It's part of the Hollywood influence. And we can go into a long talk about the culture of Southern California. But things looked good there, and people won't give you a second look, if you don't look good. And so there was this desire to make a beautiful building, we were going to be put right into a area where 150,000 people were going to move over the next 10 years and we wanted to make sure that as they came by our place, that they were able to say, Hey, that looks like a place I can go to. So we're reflecting the larger culture, but it was also the culture of the church in very many ways. That's one instance of the space defining the culture. 

But the space can sometimes do something differently, too. Here's the picture of the inside of the church that I served after that one. You'll notice the rough brick, you'll notice that the brick doesn't match in some places. The building was a three story, 100 year old factory in which they have built pianos for many, many years, Story and Clark pianos. And when the church bought that building in 1996, they came in and decided, you know, we want this building to reflect who we are, and so they didn't make it pretty. You won't find carpeted worship center with nice, comfortable stadium seating; you won't find that, you'll find plastic chairs and concrete floor. You'll see here, look at the entryway to this place, you'll see the concrete floor, that's how we work. The idea was it was going to express as well, one time I had a visitor from Southern California friend of mine from the church that I served there, and he came and wanted a tour of this building. So I took them up on the various floors and showed him how the church was trying to retain that quality of an old factory. In the in the process of renovations on the third floor of that building, we have a full service woodshop because we have a group of men who build wood things to bless the community. They make bunk beds for families that aren't able to provide a bed that will meet federal standards and etc, etc. And saying you're everywhere. As I'm talking to him. I'm saying everywhere, we tried to reflect the fact that the building reflects who we are. And who are we one man put it? Well, it's a man who had a lot of difficulties in his life with his own moral lifetime. And he's on his third marriage. And he said, You know what? This building reflects who we are, it's about renovating. we're renovating a building. But more importantly, we're renovating lives. And so that's what we try to communicate by the space. 

And so by the space, you can understand something of, who are these people? What are these people like? Now that's true for who gets what office? Where's the parking and who gets what parking place and on and on and on. You can use to define the space but the space is very important. 

So is their signage. 1991 I was in Boston for six months, almost six months, I was a resident scholar at Harvard University there working on some historical study, which I eventually turned into a book, which is reflected on Revival studies, another class here at CLI. But we are amazed when we got to Boston, because the first night there we had moved into an apartment that we had arranged from Southern California, and had three little children, my wife, three little children, sixth grade, fifth grade and second grade kids. And the first night there of course, we got to get some of the basics to do household keeping in this apartment. And so I asked our downstairs neighbor, where is there a Kmart around here. And they gave me directions. And we started out and found that we couldn't find it. They have, in that area, roundabouts, and out of the roundabout will come six streets. And amazingly, sometimes the street that comes in the roundabout this way is not the one that goes out that way, but it's this one that goes out this way. And we ended up asking three times I stopped to ask directions, and never did find the Kmart that night. And we ended up circling back around and finally hoping that we can find our apartment again. But the idea in that area, that culture of that area was that, hey, everybody knows where everything is. They didn't expect new people to be coming in, in any numbers that would have to know where stuff was. And so, boy, this was the days before before the GPS and Google Maps, that I carry on my phone today. All of that reflects something of the culture the use of space. 

Here's another example of that. This church is the inside of Sunshine Church in my denomination; it was the largest church in the denomination. You notice this large Worship Center it seats, something like 2,223. Something like that. A couple of 1000 people, and I once did some interviewing with that church deciding whether I would become the second pastor. The founding pastor had left. And I was amazed to see this large worship center, it was an exciting place, a vibrant place. Here's later in their history; its not very full. But back then it was full of people. But amazingly, we then went from that worship center into their children's ministry area, and they had like 12 rooms, that's all. So we're like, where do the kids go, what was expected of the kids and youth ministry area, they had some room for that. But it was very limited. It turns out that the building was designed to reflect the pulpit ministry of the founding pastor. He was a very effective speaker, people came to hear him. And that's why they built this large Worship Center. Whereas in fact, the church, the real church, that one that they could depend on the core, as we'll talk about later, was much smaller than that. And therefore 12 rooms was adequate, although it was growing inadequate, but it was adequate at the time they started to build this building for their children's ministries. So look at the space, and you'll get an idea of something about the culture. 

Thirdly, as symbols, you'll find that symbols reflect something of the culture now. Symbols can be a variety of things. Had a good friend in Southern California. He was African American, he pastored a church that was 100% African American. And he and I somehow connected. We had done some, our churches had done some work together. And so we began to meet together for lunch and to pray. And I'd get invited to his church for any significant celebration that they had, like a five year celebration of existence. And so far, one of the symbols that they have there is that the wife of the pastor sits up on stage. And this was a time when skirts were a little bit shorter, they were above the knee. And so that Pastor's wife has a doily over her knees, so that it's modest. But that symbol of here's this person who holds no official position in the church, and yet she's up there. And a couple of the main elders have seats on the stage. That's very symbolic. It says something about who they are and what they believe is important. 

Names can become a symbol. We went through a name change in Southern California. We were Calvary Church for years and years and years. And turns out there was a movement in Southern California called the Calvary Chapel movement, and two very large churches from that denomination, had established themselves within a few miles of where we were. So there was just a lot of confusion about whom were we one of them? How does that work? And so when we relocated onto this new property, we decided we wanted to change our name, so that we could make a distinction between us and them. It was nothing personal. They were good churches. But when we talked about who we were, we wanted it to be distinct from who Calvary Chapels were. While we developed a wonderful process to go through that name, change, and you know, people suggesting names, we got a top five, we had people voting on it, and we came to the decision of the recommendation of the new name. And by that point, we all figured this is a slam dunk. Easy decision. So we didn't even schedule a congregational meeting about it, except between the services, we had about 30 minutes between two services that we had in the morning at that time. So let's just put it there. And we'll just have a vote to approve a new name and swear off. And so Crosspoint was going to be the new name.The thing that derailed in a moment, we had one person in the church got up and grabbed the microphone away from the person who was leading the meeting, and just began to rail on the fact that we were taking these kind of steps. And in this time of uncertainty dot the dot the dot, that's another person in tears, just talking how important it was it they came to know Christ through Calvary, now the cross of Calvary, and how important that was to him to have his church named Calvary and we are shutting it down and saying we're going to get onto the next service. And having a time later where we scheduled a meeting where we can fully hear what people were saying. But that name became a symbol for them. 

For some, the organ in our culture is a symbol. In other words if the organ isn't played, you really haven't had a worship service. And that's been really difficult because we've had worship wars, one after another, in our country, in churches, because people recognize it to be relevant to the larger culture. But the culture of the music within the church had to change. Because an organ in our culture, the only place it's ever played is in ball stadiums. When baseball is being played, and they sing in the seventh inning, Take Me Out to the Ballgame. And so churches were trying to move toward a more contemporary form of worship, it was called, and there were worship wars as a result because that organ represented something many times rooted in the people's childhood and the worship service back then. And so that became a symbol. 

Pulpit can be a symbol. Wearing suits can be a symbol of who those people are. Or if they come in cut offs and flip flops as, as many churches in our area are moving more to toward, toward more casual kind of way. Things that are sitting up in the sanctuary standing up in the sanctuary become symbols. 

Now, many churches in the United States have flags up in front, on one side of the stage, they have the American flag on the other side, they have the Christian flag, and the Boy Scouts would do a pledge to the American flag first when they would meet and then they do a pledge to the Christian flag, a pledge of their lives to Jesus Christ. Well, we were going through a time of a little bit of upheaval, we'll talk about that another time when we get into the vision and how you change things. But it was a whitewater time in our church, a lot of change going on. And all of a sudden, we got this complaint about the fact that we've taken the flags away, where are the flags anyway? We begin to think back to where are the flags whatever happened to the flags? Well, turns out, we didn't even have a Christian flag. We'd never done that. But for this person, that was a huge symbol of are we connected to the past. Are we connected to our country? Are we loyal to our country, as Christians, within this culture of America? Are we loyal to the church, and that became a huge symbol for them. You'll notice all kinds of symbols, as you deal with a culture.

Then there are the rituals, things that people do on a regular basis. These are affirming of culture in a huge way. And when you see rituals, you'll be able to sense a little bit about who these people are. How do they do things? Do they say the Lord's prayer every week? As a story, I don't know if it's true or not, of two smaller churches that decided to merge so they could gain the resources to have a greater impact. And hopefully, the two of them to get back on growing, growing membership once again. But they merged. And there were many things similar, they were of different denominations. But their theology was very similar, their backgrounds within that small town were very similar. And so they thought this would be easy. You know, when they got stuck. In this church, they repeated the Lord's prayer every single week, and one of the churches would recite the Lord's Prayer saying, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And the other church, prayed it Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And they couldn't figure out which one to use. Because it'd become a ritual. It wasn't all that important. It may be a big sculpt somewhere, but to them was important, because it reflected who they were. And they ended up, according to the story, calling off that merger. I couldn't believe that it happened that way. 

In my tradition, reading the 10 commandments, every single week in the worship service, was kind of a statement of who we are. And when we decided to discontinue that practice, as we were going through changes to become more relevant to the culture around us, so that people could come in and meet Jesus Christ in a significant way. We decided not to do that anymore. So we do it occasionally. And high, the people that were upset were incredible. And many left the church. And it's interesting to me that they went to churches where they didn't read the 10 commandments, but for them, that was a ritual that was so important that it identified who we were. And when it wasn't there, they rebelled. So what makes up culture, these kinds of rituals.

In the church I just served, we had a ritual, when I came there, of a baby being baptized. It's my tradition where we baptize children as a sign of the covenant with Jesus with God, falling down from Abraham through the New Testament, etc. We can talk about that theology a long time. But we had practice a ritual where once the baby was baptized, the pastor would take this child and weave them into the congregation. It was called going up one aisle, down the other, up one aisle, down the other. People would reach out and touch the baby and there'd be smiling, we'd be singing a song or something. And that was a practice. It was an important ritual. But it got to be a problem as the church began to grow, and we'd have five kids up there being baptized in a particular week, well what do you do then? And so eventually, we decided to stop it. It took a while; we went through grandparents carrying baby and etc, etc, etc. But we decided to stop it. Wow. The pushback we got, because it said something about who we are, that we're this family gathering together. And this is a new member of the family. And so this is a vitally important to identity. It's a ritual look at. Rituals, what what do they do regularly.

Heroes and recognitions, who was recognized as a hero? In the first church I served, this little tiny church and Plainwell, Michigan. One of the heroes was the founding pastor. He had come there, he didn't have a formal education for ministry, but he just started his church with love, and loved people into the church, loved people to Jesus Christ. And he was a hero. And his name was mentioned often. 

The church I came to in California that the pastor that preceded me and was there for a time of transition, was one of the heroes when I asked people tell me about the church. What about the church? Can you can you tell me? That give me an idea of who we are together, there was so well, this guy came. And the church had always wanted to reach the community in a significant way, but hadn't succeeded in doing that. And this guy came, and he had a gift of evangelism, and he was out there leading people to Jesus Christ. And as a result, he became a hero as new people began to come in, and adjustments had to be made to receive those new people meaningfully. But he's a hero.

Who are the heroes? Who's recognized within the church? This is a huge way, when you get into planning later, to recognize the kind of people you want to recognize the behaviors that you want to endorse, that will become part of the culture. 

Church I investigated a few years ago, I had a sabbatical period of time, and I was looking at churches in the eastern part of the United States, that had grown greatly through connection with a community through service, and one church in Cincinnati had done that very well. And they kept affirming it. So they would have an outreach. I'm not going door to door sharing the gospel but but handing out bottles of water, handing out frisbees with the name of the church on it at the park, those sorts of things. They said if they could get people to take that first step to do something that wasn't real threatening, maybe they'd be able to take another step later, to be a little more bold, in what they were saying and doing. And so what they do is they would get up on the next Sunday after they have an outreach event like that, and they would have some people share. You know, I never did that before. But I did it. And I was able to do it. And this is what happened as a result of it. And so that became a recognition of this is what we do at this church. This is the culture of who we are when people reach out and do kind things for our neighbors who you recognize is very important, who's recognized, we'll give you an idea of what the culture of that church is like. routines. 

That's a powerful one, routines. Try to change the time of services. During a period of my church in California, we did it like three or four times; we went from one service, when I came, there to two services in the morning. And then after a few years, we're running out of facility space, we went and moved to three services. And so that just jumbled everybody up. And then we moved into the temporary facilities, we went back to two services. And then when we moved into the main service, the new building, we went back to one service at 10 o'clock on Sunday morning. And all of the changes in service, everyone came with a sense of, oh, we're changing things. Again, we don't know who we are. And we started this early morning service 7:45 on Sunday morning, and we only had about 75 people who attended there, but then became over a period of time over the few years, we did it their culture. And so they met their friends there, it was a smaller group they could feel comfortable in rather than the hundreds that were gathering in the other services. And so their routine when we decided to discontinue that service, and offer only two. It was kind of a sadness and grieving that had to take place because the routine was thrown into upheaval. 

Sometimes you look through the week, and things will change times. You know what changed youth middle school ministry from nine o'clock to 10:45, a different worship service. And all of that upsets people's routines, especially you get into staffing and that sort of thing. So that becomes part of the culture of the church. 

And then finally, cultural networks. I don't remember where I got this, but I found it interesting, the creator of this list of cultural networks are describing people that this person has seen in various groups. And so he says, you know, wherever you are, you'll find these kinds of people, and they will be able to define the culture for you. For instance, the storytellers are those who define and change the reality by telling the stories of the organization. So there will be people who love to tell the stories about the organization, and you have to listen to them. There are the priests. These are the people who care about keeping the flock together, not necessarily the pastor, but they're people who don't want to offend people, and they're trying to just love people into the kingdom, then there are other whispers. And those are known as the power behind the throne. One of the things you find out if you come to a small church in the United States is that there are church bosses. And in other words, they are people who have a huge influence, much greater than many of the others in the church. And these people are often related to those who are in positions of power. But they are not themselves in power. My first church took me a while to figure it out. But the main power, the church boss, was a woman who played the organ, and I finally figured out that if I was going to move things forward, we were going to change that culture, I had to get I had to get Mary on board. And so I had to spend time with Mary talking to Mary, the whispers, the people behind the power, but there, they are are people with great influence. 

Then there are the gossips. These are what he refers to whoever we got this from as the troubadours of the organization, making sure the news gets out. The Gossip terms gossip is probably accurate. But you know, you can find these people. And my wife used to ask me in California, before she went to the hairdresser, she would ask, is there anything you want the community to know? There are several people in that organization who work there that cover that business, who were very good gossips. In other words, they would let people know what was going on and what they said they pass on to their next customers. And they just loved accumulating information to be able to share. A secretarial resources, are the people to whom others talk first and most detailed about. So these are the folks who are in the know, and they are likely to tell. So the gossips, we'll be in touch with them. Or if somebody wants to know something, who do they call? They will call these kinds of people. Now, it's listed as secretarial sources. But you right away, you might think of somebody sitting in the front office answering the phone, but that's not what's referred to here, it's just the people who are in the know, and are willing to share. And people know they're in the know, because they make a point of being in the know.

then there are the spies, the people who are liked and have access to many different people within the organization. Again, I'm not sure I like that term a great deal. But there are certain people that are going to be followed because they know everybody, and people know them. And they seem to have information. And so people will ask if there's something new that's being proposed, or what is so and so think about that. What are they? What do they think, of church in California that I serve? It was an elderly man, who had been there since the founding of the church in 1969. And people just knew they can go to Hubert, and they could get information from him. And he would share it. And then we tried to keep him in the loop to give him the right information to share. 

And then those the cobbles two or more people who secretly joined together to plot a common purpose, usually to advance themselves in the organization. Many times the common purpose is to get rid of the pastor. And that's just the way it is.

So these kinds of things are, what are the elements that make up culture, it's the language and mission statements and policies and rules and that sort of thing. But also the stories, the physical layout, the rituals, the kind of stuff that people do regularly. These are the kinds of things that make up the culture of the way we do things here. Now, next time, we're going to have John Burton here, a friend of mine, who is going to talk about what it means to be part of generational culture. In other words, what does the culture look like, from generation in our area, from the builders to the baby busters, to the baby boomers, to the to the Gen Xers to the millennials, etc. And he's just going to talk as we have an interview together, and so invite you back for that as we learn more about how culture is impacted, depending on your age.

Generational Culture Interview with John Burden

Bruce - We are continuing today to talk about leadership. And particularly, we have been in this whole process for a long time of a leader interacting with the culture in order to develop a vision for a preferable future and then providing the impetus to do the planning and the activities that are going to lead to that future. So, we've been talking about culture for the last several weeks now. And so culture is basically the way we do things here. And as I said, Before, I want to introduce you to some people in this process that will just give you a different light on a different view of this kind of culture experience of leader interactions interacting with culture. I am with my friend, John Burden, I got to know John, a few years back, and in a leadership kind of capacity, I think you called me first. And we had some conversation at Covenant Life Church where I was serving. And then I was looking to put together a group of leaders and a network where we could just be with each other and learn from each other. And John has been part of that. And so we've gotten to know each other a bit that way. And John is, as you'll note, considerably younger than I am. And so that will help us today as we talk about generational leadership, and some of the things to know about culture in that regard. But first of all, welcome, John. John is a husband. He's a father, and he is a pastor at Harbor Light Ministries, in Holland, Michigan. And so tell us a little bit about yourself? Well, you know, we've been talking about leaders here for a long time. And just tell us a little bit about some of the things that went into you becoming a leader in a church. 

John - Yes. So I think the big thing was growing up in a very small church. It was one of the few churches in a very small town. We had just enough money to afford a part time youth pastor. And he came into our church, and basically, through his ministry started a revival among within the town within our church, where he just started discipling people, he started throwing events at our church, and just watching how he led that youth group, both in the details of youth ministry, and then just the simplicity of doing relationships, and calling people to the next place and calling a youth group to the next place in the church to the next place. I was hooked when it came to ministry. And from that experience, to actually doing youth ministry, where you at least in the way that we did a young life, it was really about the message of the gospel, and then the relationships with individual kids. And so you see that at the end of the day, even though leadership is about having a vision to take a community of people, you can narrow it all the way down to what does this individual need right here and right now to move to the next place? And I think those were the big pieces for me really early on that sent me on a trajectory to go do ministry. 

Bruce - Yeah. And I know that that was not an easy call for you that there were some little side tracks along the way, and college and that sort of thing. But as you thought about becoming a leader, what were some of the formative formative forces in your life to say, oh, that's what a leader does. This youth pastor was obviously one of them. Were there others that said, Oh, that's what leadership is like. And I think I'd like to do that. What were some of those situations?

John - Yeah, I would say two major things. So when I was in college, they let me do the evening service at our little church in Belding, Michigan, which had about 25 - 30 people going to the evening service. But I was still nervous as all get out to get up there and give a sermon. And so I remember preaching my first sermon there, about Jesus, sending the disciples out into the world, his final, great commission at the end of the book of Matthew, and I'm sure it was a terrible sermon. And when I got done, one of the elders of the church walked up to me, and he was just one of the key leaders. It didn't matter if he was on council or on the board or not. His name was Lyle Weeks, and it's just, it's Lyle, he's coming up. And I thought, oh, man, is he gonna disagree with something that I said. Did I messed something up? You know, what, what is he gonna say to me, and he just walked right up to me shook my hand and he said, I heard the gospel today. It was clear, you did a great job, and you should do it again. And he always encouraged me, because there was a time and a place for him to give feedback if he was going to do that. But he knew that in that moment, what a leader needs to hear is I'm there for you and you did a great job. And so I think the support of having someone way older than I identify leadership gifts with cheering you and I think I mean, I think most of leadership is Seeing something in someone that they might not even see themselves, and identifying it, encouraging them, and walking alongside them as they start exploring these gifts. I think that's clearly what a leader does. And that's what Lyle spent his whole career doing as an elder at our church. And then the second thing would be meeting a senior pastor who had 25 - 30 years experience, and having an opportunity to be an associate pastor at that church. And he took two hours out of every week to take me out to breakfast or meet me for coffee. And just topic by topic, situation by situation, talk about leadership in real time. It wasn't just a theory anymore. We didn't just read a book. But here's a challenge we're facing at the church. What do you think? Here's the way I did it in that meeting. What did you think about that? Do disagree with the way that I did it? And just having these open conversations in the context that we were trying to lead was huge. 

Bruce - So what were some of those great moments as a leader, when you say, oh, man, this is so much fun. You have any of those that you just say, Oh, wow, this is just a great moment. I'm so glad I'm a leader. 

John - Yeah. So when I got a job as the Associate Pastor, basically, the senior pastor said, we hired you to do outreach, and help our church reach the community. So go figure out how to do that. And let me know when you figure something out, we have no strategy in place, we have no ideas. That's why we hired you. So go figure it out. And we had this idea to do an evening meal during the summertime where we would just grill out and we'd invite anybody in the community to come. And then the goal was, we would go around and every person on the team would have to come back with three names of someone they had met who they had never met before. And we wanted to create such a hospitable environment, that literally anyone could come and feel like they were welcome there. And so you have this idea. We want to do a community meal, we want people to come. And then you know, I brought this to Keith, the senior pastor, and I said, here's our idea, we want to do this community meal, he said, Great, what's next? You have the idea? And I said, Well, I think I have to find a team. And he's like, that's right. So you have to go inspire people to go and live out this vision. So go build a team, and make it happen. And I think, going and asking individuals who I thought to gel together as a team, and having one after another, say yes to this. And sitting down at that first meeting where where you really give that idea and you get the passion behind that idea and what you're trying to accomplish and have everybody just like we're in for the whole summer. That's right work. We're gonna be here every single Wednesday night for the entire summer. And we are committed to this. And you walk out of that first meeting, saying, We've got this we've got the idea. We have people so that when this summer is over, we have this measurable event that we tried to do and we could walk away saying, I think God really did something. 

Bruce - Wow. Those are great moments in leadership. What about what are two are really challenging situations where you say, oh man, you know, one of the things about leadership, we're going to get into culture in a few moments where you culture where you are. But one of the challenges is change is always difficult for people. And sometimes they don't want to change because culture is feels real good the way it is. Yeah. So what's one of the students, one of the things I want students to learn here is that there's a price for leadership at times too, and you've got to pay that price if you're going to move an organization forward. So maybe a situation or two where you say, oh, man, that's when I was about ready to walk away. 

John - Yeah, I think any time where you feel like people on the team, that were a part of this, in the beginning, have lost the passion for it. And there's really nothing you can do about it anymore. You've tried to rally them back to it, but it's run its course. And sometimes things that you're involved in, run its course. And the hard part is, is no one ever told you when that was going to be and so being able to step back and either shut down a ministry and walk away saying God did something there but the time has come and to embrace the fact that that happened on your watch and you failed. And that's okay. And because I think a leader will always know there's there's another one coming up. But I think that's one I think anytime that you have people on your team, or even yourself, where you put enough people in a room for long enough, there's going to be disagreements and people aren't going to get along and seeing the ministry be affected because people just aren't getting along. And it's personal. And you're like, I thought we were supposed to rise above this; we're the church, but having to deal with that kind of interpersonal conflict is, is pretty difficult.

Bruce - Very hard to move past the person. For many, many people. Yeah. Anyway, you've been at Harbor Light now, what? Four years, almost five years. Tell us a little bit about the culture. That particular it's a unique culture. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the culture that you work in there. 

John - Yeah. So Harbor Light Christian Reformed Church, started out as just like a lot of Christian Reformed churches, a Dutch heritage. The people who emigrated to Holland, Michigan, decided to name the church after their hometown, where they were from, which was Harbor Light in the Netherlands. And so it started out as, as a Dutch Christian Reformed Church, and for about 115 years, that's what it was. Meets in this beautiful red brick building, the pews, you know, the organ, white pillars in front, beautiful, but 25 years ago, two things happened. One is a group of the people who went to that traditional church said, we want to do a contemporary worship service, where they bring in a band, it's a little more informal, they wanted to do that and do contemporary worship. And the council said, Yes, I think the unique thing about Harbor Light is that they've always just said, yes, if you have a leader, who has a clear idea of what they want to do, Harbor Light just says, Okay, let's see how it goes. And so they started a second service, that service is now called Fusion. At that exact same time, while about five years later, the youth pastor of the church said, I want to do another kind of church that isn't just a contemporary service, but it meets around tables. And there's a lot of testimonies, and it's messy, and authentic. And that's how Watershed started. And so Harbor Light Ministries went from being this Christian Reformed Church that met in an old sanctuary, to having a traditional service. In that sanctuary, a contemporary service, and then like an alternative service. And it's been like that for 20 years, where you have three different communities really, three different churches in one church. So that was the first thing it was all about worship and the experience of going to church. The second thing that happened, though, was that a bunch of the leaders there said, we really want to do ministry in the community in a real way. We're ministering to broken people who are trying to figure out how to find housing, who are trying to figure out how to have programs for their kids, people trying to figure out how to become a citizen in the United States. And so these different ministry areas became a nonprofit, called Neighbors Plus, which is really how we do justice and compassion in the community where we are. And so Harbor Light has kind of these two major things where it's like mission, and we're going to create experiences for all different kinds of people in our community. So we're not limited to one kind of person. But we're also going to be heavily involved in our community, and especially ministering to people who don't have the resources that they need to get to the next place in their life. So yeah, those are big things. Yeah. 

Bruce - Yeah. Every time he explains that, to me, I think how in the world has that ever worked? It does somehow it works. Well, it works, because the leaders that are there, yeah. So you came into that system at a time when it was broken a bit, or at least battered and bruised. Yeah, at least, you're part of the Watershed part, maybe just share something about coming in and trying to understand a culture that's there. So that a preferable future can be experienced and what that was like to come into a situation where previous pastor had left and taken people with him and things are down and etc. 

John - Yeah, so the pastor who started Watershed was a very charismatic, magnetic person, amazing leader. And Watershed was really started for people who don't like church. And they even had a tagline where they said, Watershed, a church for people who don't like church, which is great until your church has been around for 15 years. Now, it's like a church for people that don't like church but still go to church. You know and so I think he even felt like, whatever this thing is going to become, someone else is gonna have to take it there. And so he moved on and took another position as the senior pastor of another church. And coming in there, it was very much a question of like, what is Watershed becoming? You know, you have this community that was founded with this kind of edge, like we are not a normal church, we are not a traditional church, we are authentic and messy. And this is not like how church should be, but we're still here. And it's kind of become, I would say, over the last, you know, five years, it still has kind that draw for people who are starting over in their lives, that's always been part of Watershed's target is people who are either burned out on church or at a transition point in their lives. But really, we've become more of a community focused church. And by that, I mean, we exist, as we gather here on Sundays, we are being sent back out into the world. And so we've really transitioned to being revolving around the words of mission, community impact, reaching our neighbors and our schools with the gospel. And so we still have a little bit of that edge, we've maintained that that core culture, but it's had to kind of change as you know, it's 20 years old. Now, these people who didn't like church have been going to church for 20 years. Right.

Bruce - But that'd be another identity somehow somewhere. 

John - Right, and I think that that was the big, the big question on how do we maintain and create what we always call, like, what is the natural progression? So what is the next step for Watershed that we don't abandon or react? What do we need to take with us so that it becomes a natural place that people will still come like the people who started this place? It's still Watershed. That was challenging. 

Bruce - So what were some of the steps in there this is you got to get a group together, that's going to go with you there, your new. So you don't really have all the chips that maybe you need in order to make change big changes quickly. What were some of the steps you took to say, Okay, we've got to do that evolving in the right way to a preferable future. What were some of the things that are on your action list?

John - Yeah. We were very intentional to select leaders, who could be both representative of the former Watershed, but also signing up for whatever was next. If we made a couple mistakes by signing up for people that wanted to hold on to what it was, and continued to tell stories of the glory days. And that that definitely was a huge setback for us. And so we became much better at selecting leaders who were forward focused, but understood where Watershed had been, I think that's huge. Anytime you're going to bring change, because people are looking, who are the leaders? Okay, they're going, Okay, I'll go. And I think that was big. The second thing was that we continued to just bring up people to give testimonies about what God had been doing in their lives in the last year. So showing that God was still moving in this place, even as we are kind of moving to the next place. And I think that was huge. And then the number one thing was, we got to get staff to completely buy into where we're going. Otherwise, it's not going to work. And so I would say that Watershed didn't like change completely, we didn't lead through like a cultural transformation or something like that. It was more incremental and natural in that way. 

Bruce - But, one of the things about Watershed was starting out with a youth group. Now, it's probably representative of a lot of different generations. And that's one of the thigs we've had conversation about before, as you work with all of these different generations with all of their understandings of what is the good thing going forward? What are some of maybe just some characteristics of generations that you'd say, Oh, those are things I got to keep in mind as I'm working with these people because they represent a lot of background that causes them to respond in a variety of ways. 

John - Yeah, I would say Watershed has probably three different generations that make up the community. And so we actually, for the first time, have had some people who have recently retired and have joined Watershed, they moved out to the lake shore. And they'll come in there and they will say, I've been a part of a traditional church my whole professional life. But now we kind of want to try something different. And at first, I was really nervous. I'm like, Oh, you don't understand what we're trying to do. I think you you're not gonna like this. But they really do because I think especially for people who are what you would call baby boomers, people who are I don't know what ages that would be now, but they're looking for something clear. Is this clear? And is this going somewhere? And can I be confident in the leadership? Right? The generation younger than them, which is the generation that started Watershed people who, you know, were in their 20s at the time, but are now in their 50s that these Gen X generation, they want to know, is this authentic? And is there it doesn't have to necessarily be edgy, but it has to be transparent. And those are kind of the big words for them. And then what we found with even the younger generation people that are 34, and younger, they want to know, does this impact the community, is this purposeful, is as part of a global movement? And I want to be older people in that generation. But you always want this feeling that you're caught up in something bigger than yourself. And I think if you can figure out how to connect with each group, then you can keep everybody on the same page. But the the number one thing for all of them is that you as the leader, have a clear idea of where it's going. So that they don't feel like you're just positioning yourself to each generation, right, where you are just trying to reach them specifically, but not you're not being true 

Bruce - We've talked once I know about when you have staff who represent various age, and the cultures that go with that, and how they are fulfilled by something different, right? So how do the baby boomers experience fulfillment working at a church?

John - Yeah, it has to be different. It's different for everyone, I find it better with like, depending on what their personality type is probably like, but to be as general as possible. Yeah, I think I think baby boomers are always asking the question, you know, is there a clear direction to where we're going? And is there a structure to bring it there? Otherwise, what are we doing? I can't. And we've always found that in the moments where we're struggling to figure out how to get there. If you have someone who is of that generation on your team, they'll either help you get there, or they'll be like, I don't want to part of this. Because I can't handle organizational dysfunction in that way. Whereas someone who's in Generation X, we're like, yeah, there's got to be some dysfunction. You know, we like it when it's a little messy. And so we found that, for them, it has to be, you have to be honest. So people who are Generation X, in those meetings, you have to be able to speak your mind, even if it's not popular, it does matter how you feel. And then I think the more millennial generation, like I said, is more interested in does this actually matter for someone else if we're growing, but it's only people coming from another church? We have no interest in that. That's not winning, that's not being successful at all. That's just, you know, yeah, it makes us bigger, but they have a much. I think they have a more connected understanding to the church as a whole in the community. They're not just interested in us growing, but what are we doing to partner with other churches so that we're all being successful? So it's, it's challenging, 

Bruce - Keeps you busy. Well, you've got a shot here, any thing you'd like to say to a group of people who are trying to improve their leadership skills, and they're desiring, they're taking this class because man they realize that they're in a leadership positions and what would you say to them about the joys and the challenges of leadership? 

John - Yeah, I would say, the two things that I've always come back to as a leader, because so many times you find yourself in uncharted territory, I think a leader has to be in uncharted territory, where you're trying to push into something new, but because of that, sometimes there is no playbook for it at all. And so the playbook is really being true to both yourself and the vision that you have. And so there's a couple little sayings that I always have, that a leader is passionately consistent over time. And so if you bring a passionate vision, and then you are a consistent presence to people, because people have all kinds of different expectations of you, what they need is consistency from you. So their expectations, kind of gear towards your behavior and the way that you are a leader. And so you do that over time, you're probably going to be successful. So passionate, consistent leadership, plus time is kind of the formula that I always come back to. And then the second thing is when you're hiring someone, my dad always said this, hire people that you trust, and then put out their fires. So you make sure that at the end of the day, it's not even the most important thing isn't even that they're the best possible person for the position, even though that's important and you hope that they are. It's not the most important thing, the most important thing is, can you trust them? And can they trust you? And then you support them with everything that you've got. And the leaders that I've seen at the end of their career, and at the end of their time, at a position, you know, that they've done that, when their staff members say, that leader always had my back, I would go anywhere with them. And I think that's always the goal of any leader and what they want to hear at the end. 

Bruce - Thank you for being here, John. And this is John Burden and just sharing a little bit about leadership from different perspectives. And next time we're going to continue to explore this whole idea of working within a culture and bringing change to the culture

Generational Culture Continued

I hope you enjoyed our conversation with John Burden in our last session. He's been a friend of mine for several years now. And I just appreciate the way he thinks through culture issues, as he goes about his business of leading a large and growing church. And so today, I want to do a follow up on his conversation, but just some reminders about what we're talking about what culture is found, in your note, the three circles their espoused values and the words What do they say they believe? What do they, a culture, a group of people, the way we do things here, what do they believe is important, then basic assumptions on the bottom, underlying, often unconscious assumptions. And unconscious assumption is, you know, as we talked before, about the company that had all these men who were five nine, and shorter, it was an assumed thing that went into who they were defining who they were as a group of people. So are they thought processes and actions and that sort of thing. And then the artifacts or anything that's made as a result of that particular culture products technology style of clothing, again, this is this model that I have up here is from the business world. And so you know, what are the myths, the stories, the rituals, want to take this session just to dig a little bit deeper into that idea of generational culture. Because in our world today, with all the technology, the changes in generations are becoming far more dramatic than they have been previously.

And so I just want to spend some time talking about the millennials, the generation right now, in my country, I have a deep abiding burden for the millennial generation because they are becoming unchurched. All the studies that have been done in the United States show that that generation is leaving church in unprecedented numbers. And before we used to figure like with the baby boomer generation of those born after World War II, that they would come back to church once they started families. But that's not happening with the millennial generation. So I want to look a little more deeply, keeping in mind some of the things that John said about his church and his experience and how he works with the millennial generation.

So who are the millennials? What does that culture like? Here in the United States, again, you're gonna have to translate that into your culture, if you are elsewhere. In the United States, millennials in general, this is a generalization. So it's not true in every case, but in general, they have a sense of entitlement. In other words, things that their parents and their grandparents had to work hard for, are now handed to them, are given to them. I just spent a week with my family, my son and his five children and his wife. And I see this younger generation, not my son so much, he's in the baby buster generation, but my grandchildren are given things. They're given computer access, they are given new sporting outfits, they are assumed that they can pay for registration in Little League to play baseball, or in soccer or in football, there's just a lot of assumption. At Christmas, they get not just little gifts, but they get they get tablets that they can use in their own gaming time, they watch TV on a large screen, there's a sense of entitlement to things that previous generations could only think about, maybe dream about, but not afford. They just feel like it comes with a territory because for them all their life it has. They have a lack of delayed gratification. Delayed gratification is something like in my case, when I decided that I wanted to drive, I had to save up money for a car. And so I began saving, I was working at that time as a busboy in a restaurant, and I saved money, I saved my salary, I saved my tips, I tried to save every dime I possibly could, because I had this goal of purchasing a car. And I knew I could not purchase that car until I had money saved up because in my family, there wasn't anything like paying cash or paying on credit for anything. But nowadays, it's assumed that we pay on credit. And then we pay back ourselves hopefully, rather than just keep the credit out there. But the millennial generation has a lack of delayed gratification. If they want something, they get it now; they don't put it off until they can afford it or until they have the cash ready to to purchase it outright. 

Now, all of these things I'm saying here sound negative. And I don't necessarily mean that to be true. I just want to give a generalization that they're used to getting what they want now. Individualism and isolation. It's a fascinating thing. Mark Zuckerberg the head the CEO of Facebook recently appeared before Congress and he shared the mission of Facebook, you know what he wants a mission to be? We're going to be talking about mission and value statements in the next part of this class, but he shared that his mission was to connect people around the world. It's a beautiful mission, and yet it's connected. And yet the connections are really, really tenuous at best. You know, what do you show somebody on Facebook, you show only your best side, you don't live life with each other. And in fact, you can communicate with each other by never speaking to each other. And so as a result, those who are studying the millennial generation are saying they are disconnected. They're isolated from one another, they are individualistic in their thinking, because they don't come together in groups very quickly or very easily. They are a postpone generation. 

When I got married, I was 22 years old. And that was fairly common. The common time of getting married was somewhere between 20 - 21 Well, now, the first job that a person holds in the millennial generation first full time job is generally speaking around 25 - 26 years old, and they don't get married now until about 29, on average. And so it's this delayed kind of reaction. A fast paced, unfocused, they live life of fast rap, and they're going all the time. And as a result, they have hard time sitting down and focusing on one task. And I even find that I don't have a baby. I'm a baby boomer. And yet I find after working for so many years, now that I retired, I thought I'd be able to sit back and read but I kinda have trouble focusing for a long time on a book, whereas I used to read these large tomes and just enjoy sitting there for hours reading, I find that I've become unfocused. Well, that's the way this generation grew up with all of this activity, all of this input, kind of a chaotic life of multiple inputs and sounds coming at them all the time. undecided and indecisive. In other words, they have difficulty making the big decisions. And they don't like to make big decisions. And so they try to blur that put that off blurred sex roles. In America now of the United States. It's law that men and men can marry a woman, a man can marry a woman or a man can marry a man or a woman, a woman. There's kind of this tolerance of all sex roles. And so there's nothing clear there for them. 

And they're comfortable with contradiction. They may sense this idea of not having absolute truth, you know, they no longer believe that absolute truth is absolutely true. And so what they'll do is create this contradiction that they're comfortable with. John Stott, a great English theologian, once told a story about walking in the park. And he ended up encountering two very young men, and began talking with them. And as was his practice, he presented the gospel to them, said that he was somebody who had come to know about Jesus Christ. And so he told him about the creation of the world by a God who created it beautiful and good, and how it fell into sin as recorded in Genesis chapter 3, and how Adam and Eve made that choice to disobey God. And as a result, all the creation is twisted by sin, but God still wanted to have a relationship with us. But that sin that had to be paid for that each of us now deals with in our bent nature toward sin. And so Jesus Christ came as the Son of God in the flesh to die for our sins. And now He offers us eternal life. If we'll just believe in Him, the resurrected reigning Lord will accept Him into our lives. And then he says, So and so what do you think? And they looked at each other and said, sounds like it's true. And so he said, Well, would you like to pray and receive this Jesus in your life? And the response is, no, we don't think that'll work for us. That kind of contradiction. They can say it's true, but it's not going to work for us. So we'll just ignore it. That's this generation. It's it's a very confused generation. Now, on the other hand, it's a very spiritual generation, even though we find that their church going is less than ideal. The builder generation those born before World War II in our country about 51%. attend church regularly. The Boomer generation, my generation attend 38% attend church regularly, the busters, my children, 28%, attend church regularly, millennials, somewhere around 17%, although it's hard to get those numbers down, because the studies tend to be flawed, especially with younger people who will answer questions the way that they think you want them to be answered. So you see, there's a big need there. And yet there's a spirituality that is vibrant in that group. They rejected church in a way, but they've not rejected God. 

I had the privilege of being in a concert just last two weeks ago, and it was a concert of a well known musical group, the Irish singing group Rend Collective, a Christian musical group. And I was shocked because I figured I must have been one of the oldest people, there was a younger gathering. But these people, these young adults were excited. They were engaged in the singing, they were celebrating the goodness and the greatness of God, and they were doing it with their bodies, and they were doing it with their mouths as they sang along with songs, they are engaged. They are engaged to spiritually not disconnected spiritually, it's just that church doesn't seem to fit them anymore. Why not? Well, because you're going to reach a millennial, you've got to keep this in mind. These are the kinds of things that you should look for in the United States. These are their criticisms of the church, as it exists right now in the United States, first of all, shallow worship. In other words, they are not comfortable with just coming in, sitting in a pew, singing a couple of songs, hearing somebody speak at them from the pulpit, and then leaving again. They say it's shallow. They say the preaching is confusing, is it's not very deep. And instead, what they would like to have is engaged worship, where they engage with each other in worship, or where they engage with the message in a different way where they have interactive kind of experiences in worship. One church that is reaching Millennials well in our country, does it by creating stations in worship, and they have a section in their worship time, where they just go to a station, and at this station, they maybe will paint a painting, or they'll write a poem, they'll do something creative in response to what they've been hearing. As far as the Bible being explained that day, at another station, they may have a discussion with a few other people about some key points to of what was brought up in the message that day, at another station, they might make something that they take home as a reminder of the message that they can put on the refrigerator or hang from their car mirror or whatever. They want to be engaged in worship. They say nobody listens to them, say when they talk, nobody cares what they say. And in fact, they don't see a great deal of people like them involved in the worship service. So if you're going to be involved in leading millennials, or engaging millennials in your church, they have to be heard, they have to be listened to. And they have to be empowered to be part of the worship experience. The staff in the church, I just completed my service in, we studied as a staff how we do this, because we realize that that we've got to improve in this area. One of our vision statements, parts say that we exist to reach the next generation. And so we began talking about that and realized that we've got to have these people in worship. And so our worship director just took that and ran with it. And so every week, there are teenagers who are up in front singing and playing instruments, there are teenagers who are in the back of the church who are running the sound and the visuals for that day. There are teenagers who are teaching in our education department as our our Director of Family Ministries, has caught on to this and is engaging them. So they feel part of it, they feel like they're heard they feel like they belong. 

Another criticism, they say helping the poor is not a priority. They see the church is taking in resources and just using it to keep on doing it. You know, there's that old statement about the well, where somebody came and saw this oil well, and the owner happened to be there and began talking with him and say, Well, how much do you produce, and he's produced enough to keep the well going. And that's the way they look at the church, we just produce enough to keep the church going. And they have a sense of the heart of Jesus for the poor, they don't see the church engaging, by trying to solve the problems of the poor. And so that's a criticism. If you're going to plan the Ministry for millennials, you've got to keep that in mind. They distrust the use of resources. In other words, they see money being given to the church, but they've had so many examples of church leaders who have abused that opportunity that they distrust, things that are given to the local church, and they'll seek other ministries to give their money to. 

They have a longing to be mentored. In other words, they want to have somebody come alongside them because their life is so confusing in general, that they want somebody to help them walk through a way but they don't know how to go about that. And so the ministry that reaches millennials is going to have to provide some mentoring, and need to be valued. That's very close to what I was saying with somebody listening, and no place for outsiders. They see the church as pretty closed. It hasn't been open to people coming in, who are like them. I was writing this preparing this lecture. I thought of the first church I served where we actually had a pew fall apart and it fell on the back of a woman And she sued the church as a result. And so we had to work through that process of a lawsuit. And one of the things we had to do was look at our pews and realize they were old. And they were crotchety. And so we decided to get new pews. And so we did this campaign with this little tiny church, it was only about 100 people. And we said, you know, let's each family that can, Let's donate a pew. And so they did. And we were in a short time able to purchase new pews that increased our seating, so we able to grow a little bit more on our worship attendance. And it also created some problems you see, because we had a couple of families who purchase pews, and they thought they purchased the pew that they were sitting in. And so they would come in, visitors would come in and would like to sit in the back, as they often would come in and try to get out. They really don't want to engage a great deal the first time. And yet, this family would come in later and say I'm sorry, you're sitting in my place, in my pew, so they don't see a church as being open to outsiders. 

So what kind of church do you build? If you're going to reach millennials, if you're looking at engaging that culture that the way we do things here? Well, one of the things you have to do is be Kingdom minded. In other words, what are the things that Jesus was really concerned about? You find that he wasn't concerned about political power, a great deal. He says very little about that. Does Jesus we got a couple of statements in in the writings of Paul, how we are to pray for leaders, even kings, etc. But Jesus only has this one encounter where they try to trick him by saying with a coin, you know, do we pay taxes to Caesar or not? He says, Give me a coin; whose images on it? It's Caesar's. Well, let me says Give to Caesar, what Caesar's and to God what is God's. We in the United States became obsessed, like to get political power over the years, and the millennials reject that entirely, things like the organization's that used to exist by the evangelical organizations like the Moral Majority, and sadly, don't want any part of getting political power, they want to make a difference in the world, they want to make a difference in people's lives. They want a tangible. In fact, there's some old statements about you know, why people will give to various causes. Well, the builder generation will give just because they're faithful and giving. And so my mother-in-law is 92 years old, is a builder. And she shops at the same stores. She buys gas at the same gas station, and she gives money to her church, and she gives money to the denomination and she'd go without food, if it meant she couldn't give regularly to her church or denomination. 

Whereas my generation said, We want bang for the buck. We're not just going to give money, we want to see that it's doing something and the next generation, the busters. And then the millennials more want to see that they are engaged in the solutions. They don't want to just give the money away, they want to see things that they can become involved in. In the church I just finished serving, one of the big things we did was ministry to Honduras. And these college kids will work, work, work, work, delayed gratification, but will work throughout the year would save throughout the year, so that they could take a trip to Honduras in June, and make a difference there among orphans. And among people who didn't have clean water to drink, didn't have the basics of life, like a latrine that was safe. So they want to make a difference. 

It's got to be communicable. They talk about relationships being a priority in their very related group of people. They are concerned about justice. And so they're going to stand for justice. And they have a nose for authenticity that if you're just playing a role, or playing a game of some sorts, they don't want any part of it whatsoever. And so how do you build a church like that? Well, the question is, Who are you trying to reach? I've given you just a couple of examples. I've tried to create a picture of American culture, but then within that American culture, a slice a generational slice of the culture, to try to give you an idea of how to go about this idea of thinking culturally, who are you trying to reach? What is their culture, like? What strategies might work in reaching them? 

Now, one example, I have a daughter, who is in a church in St. Louis, Missouri. When she went there, she was going to Washington University. That's why she and her now husband moved from Michigan when my daughter moved from California, my son-in-law from Michigan moved there in order to get an education at Washington University. They became part of a church and that church had a college age group within the church within the congregation. And so they join that college age group met in a bar on Sunday nights, it was rather interesting experience. I go to worship with them a few times. But that group of people decided that it was important to reach their generation for Jesus Christ. And so they decided to start a church. They looked around the neighborhoods and said, Now where would we feel God called by God to reach people who are our age who are in our generation. And they targeted an area that was being gentrified as Lafayette Square Lafayette Park area. And they ended up starting all of these single people, and they met for over a year trying to learn the culture, they moved into that community. And then for a year, they just met people. And they devised a church. First of all, the church was engaged in service, they didn't do worship for the first year and a half that they existed. But everybody in the church had a volunteer position in the community. In fact my daughter met people because she volunteered at working with animals. And there was an animal park nearby, she volunteered to clean it up. They had a dog and she'd bring the dog and she'd meet people there. But but it was this idea of service, how are we serving the community, and through that service to engage people who would hopefully see the service part of the church and become engaged in it. When they began worship, they define worship very carefully to fit the culture, they found that the area where they were living was a made up of young adults, of course millenials. But a lot of them were kind of artsy in their lifestyle. They were artists and musicians as well as artists who paint and artists who write. And so they research what would reach this group of people, they did surveys, door to door surveys, what will what would you like to see in a worship service. And they found that they were going to sing hymns rather than newer worship songs, because the story of the hymns was very important. So first, they do it in a little in an upbeat way. But that was a big decision for them. And then they said, you know, we can't just come and sit in our chairs at what, at the beginning. And we can't get we've got to have interaction, that communal interaction. So in their worship service, they have set aside time, that is part of their worship, but they just stop, you know, they've been singing some songs, they do some prayer together, and then they stop. And they also go and get a cup of coffee, and they get a doughnut or they get a piece of fruit. And they all sit in chat for a while to deepen community. And then in addition to that, everybody who's a member of that church becomes part of a life group as it's called, in other words, people with whom you do life, and they meet weekly on Sunday evenings. And so it's got this community aspect to it as well. And so each of those life groups adopts ministries, various places, in that idea of Kingdom building. Now, this group started, of course, they started all as single now they're old enough that they all have children, that original group, but the church has grown. Just a year and a half ago, they were able to purchase a building, which is right in Lafayette Square. It used to be a Baptist church many years ago, the building on the left is a picture of a school that they they recognized that it was important to provide some education in that area. So they created a charter school that is not officially a ministry of the church, but the church members served on the board of that school, because the schools in St. Louis have a bad reputation. So they thought here we can minister to this culture, we can touch this culture with education. They took that building, they rehabbed it, they've made it a beautiful place. It was it was derelict for many, many years. And now I got to visit there with them a few weeks ago. And now you see not just that original group of 30 or 40 people who started this church. But now there's a couple of 100 people attending. And it's downright interesting to go in there because I was by far the oldest person there. Now they complain about that they recognize the need now to become intergenerational, because there's nobody who's helping take care of their kids. And so they've been reaching out to other churches, seeking to get some older couples to come in and help with the outreach. But anyway, that's one example of a church that looks at the culture and says, How do we reach this culture positively? How do we reach it effectively? And they've done a wonderful job of it. 

So in the next session, we're going to talk about how do you look at your culture? How do you define in your ministry or ministry you're working with or our organization that you're a part of, how do you go about figuring out what is this culture that we're part of? And then how do you figure out how do we mold this culture that we're part of as leadership involves change, changing culture to a preferred future so we'll talk to you next time.