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, 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 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, 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 t is going to  make it work, meet in a JSB to discuss the MMJS. And you've got to look at your papers or  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 mentor 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 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, 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 20-27 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, 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 a 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. 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  reflected in 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 is not very full. But back then it  was, 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 then that Pastor's wife has a doily over her knees, so that  it's, 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.That 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, 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 Oregon 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 boys. 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, rituals,  are 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 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 some 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. We 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 so  Heroes and recognitions, who, 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 the love people into the church, love 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 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 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, and done that very well. And they  kept affirming it. So they would have an outreach. I'm not 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, 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, 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, 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 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.