What do we mean when we address the culture of an organization, such as a business, sports team or a church? According to an article by Gallup, organizational culture can be defined as “How we do things around here.” The writers state that culture begins with the organization’s purpose and mission — “Why do we exist?” Culture asks, “How do we want to be known to the world?” Culture reveals “How we do things, really.”  

The sermon text for February 16th was Acts 2:42-47. In the message, I suggested that this passage, written by Luke, is a summary of the “culture” of the early church in Jerusalem. Luke was communicating the purpose and practice of the first-century Christians, which is a model for us today. In the sermon, I proposed that culture might be difficult to grasp, but you know it when you feel it . . .Mission is what we do; Vision is what we see – where we are going; but church culture is how our church feels.   

Often, churches like ours spend lots of time on values, mission and vision. But how often do we address culture? If corporations devote entire departments to their culture, perhaps churches would benefit from this conversation as well.  

To motivate our thoughts on church culture, I am offering this “clipping from the sermon floor.” It’s an illustration by Brian Stoffregen, a Lutheran pastor, seminary professor and the author of Crossmarks Christian Resources. The theme, “Maintenance or Mission,” is both challenging and thought provoking. Stoffregen writes, “Churches need to be mission oriented but often fall into maintenance behavior and many times they don’t know they’ve slipped from mission into maintenance.” Let’s look at the following to gauge how much mission vs. maintenance exists in our congregation: 

1. In measuring the effectiveness, the maintenance congregation asks, “How many pastoral visits are being made? The mission congregation asks, “How many disciples are being made?” 

2. When contemplating some form of change, the maintenance congregation says, “If this proves upsetting to any of our members, we won’t do it.” The mission congregation says, “If this will help us reach someone on the outside, we will take the risk and do it.” 

3. When thinking about change, the majority of members in a maintenance congregation ask, “How will this affect me?” The majority of members in the mission congregation ask, “Will this increase our ability to reach those outside?” 

4. When thinking of its vision for ministry, the maintenance congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our past.” The mission congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our future.” 

5. The pastor in the maintenance congregation says to the newcomer, “I’d like to introduce you to some of our members.” In the mission congregation the members say, “We’d like to introduce you to our pastor.” 

6. When confronted with a legitimate pastoral concern, the pastor in the maintenance congregation asks, “How can I meet this need?” The pastor in the mission congregation asks, “How can this need be met?” 

7. The maintenance congregation seeks to avoid conflict at any cost (but rarely succeeds). The mission congregation understands that conflict is the price of progress and is willing to pay the price. It understands that it cannot take everyone with it. This causes some grief, but it does not keep it from doing what needs to be done. 

8. The leadership style in the maintenance congregation is primarily managerial, where leaders try to keep everything in order and running smoothly. The leadership style in a mission congregation is primarily transformational, casting a vision of what can be, and marching off the map in order to bring the vision into reality. 

9. The maintenance congregation is concerned with their congregation, its organizations and structure, its constitutions and committees. The mission congregation is concerned with the culture, with understanding how secular people think and what makes them tick. It tries to determine their needs and their points of accessibility to the Gospel. 

10. When thinking about growth, the maintenance congregations asks, “How many [Christians] live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?” The mission congregation asks, “How many unchurched people live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?” 

11. The maintenance congregation looks at the community and asks, “How can we get these people to support our congregation?” The mission congregation asks, “How can the Church support these people?” 

12. The maintenance congregation thinks about how to save their congregation. The mission congregation thinks about how to reach the world. 

Blessings and peace,