No.3 - Healthy Culture = Healthy Church/School

At last year's RCBC Staff and Leadership Retreat, I mentioned about the importance of culture for growing churches. Here is a quote that I used from Wayne Cordeiro:

“to make any kind of transition as a church, your church's culture can't be ignored... Culture can prevent your church's potential from ever being realised, or - if used by the Holy Spirit - it can draw others in and reproduce healthy spiritual life all along the way”.

A few decades ago, churches and schools heard a lot about vision and mission. Since then churches and schools have spent time praying and discussing what God's visions is. This has been good - but something was still missing. 

As a church consultant I have met with literally hundreds of people (in small groups and one-on-one). Many of these churches are faithful at preaching the Word of God and their ratio of members attending prayer meetings are higher than larger churches yet they are struggling. Their culture isn't healthy thus not allowing the Holy Spirit to freely move through preaching the Word and Prayer.

This week at Hillsong Conference, we were reminded again of healthy church cultures. One of the scripture passages I heard was from Mark 4:20, "Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop--some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown" (NIV). Often we refer to this parable on how people receive the Word of God. Maybe it can also apply to churches and christian schools? Look at the phrase "like seed sown on good soil". Can this mean "good culture?" I think it can.

While God wants to give the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6), the preaching of the Word of God, dependance on God through Prayer, and sustaining a healthy culture are pivotal for Kingdom growth.

Wayne Cordeiro has written: "The potential is found in your culture – the real and true culture of your church, not the quick culture you may so often be tempted to try. It all starts when you, along with other church leaders, accept that your key role is to be the tutor who stewards a culture that releases this deep spiritual potential into the lives of your people”.

In the coming blog posts, I would like to explore bad and good cultures.

For His Cause

David Moyes