Kingdom (Culture) Builders

 

Pastoral leadership is about creating and nurturing culture - Kingdom culture. It isn't essentially about growing the church or even wining people to Christ (though both of those are important facets of the work of the church). It should be centrally concerned with transforming the patterns of value and relations of this world's culture into patterns of living and community that express the embodied and practiced character of the Kingdom of God. Effective pastoral leaders are Kingdom culture builders.

We have been too easily seduced by a production culture. The church becomes a means of producing a desired end. A secular Management by Objective mentality forms the life and directs the energy of the church. We identify an outcome goal - worship attendance growth, new members, etc - and work "backwards" to determine how we can achieve that goal. The measure of our success is our ability to produce that result.

My objection is not to intentional planning, or even to identifying significant outcomes we want to achieve. My objection is to the adequacy of that kind of thinking to express and reflect the full measure of the message of the Good News - that the Kingdom of God is at hand. The point is not  that we shouldn't plan purposefully (even using MBO strategic thinking) but that these tools should serve a higher vision of the work of the church. That vision needs to focus on the Kingdom of God breaking in to transform persons and the life of community to reflect the life and character of God.

One aspect of rethinking leadership in light of the project of Kingdom building is recognition of the critical importance of leadership as culture forming. Strangely, the business world has been more keenly interested in this than the church. Over the last 30 years the business world has engaged in an active conversation about the importance of leadership and culture creation. It has recognized the power of culture, its impact on productivity and effectiveness. Formal structures, policies, and leadership initiatives are forever interacting with informally expressed values, practiced patterns, and implicit definitions of identity.

In the church we often recognize these realities as problems to overcome but less often recognize the critical importance of constructively forming culture as a key function of leadership. We work to limit the effects of culture that inhibit productivity but our focus remains on being productive. Let me return to my opening assertion. Pastoral leadership is about creating and nurturing culture - Kingdom culture.

Corporate Culture

Corporate culture is essentially "the way we do things around here." It is the dynamic expression of the preferred values and priorities of a community in its life together. It may - or may not - be articulated or even consciously recognized. In fact, part of the power of culture is that it functions "organically." Through the patterns of a culture you can observe how persons are valued, what is most important to the community, how power is distributed, where authority is located, and how conflict is understood & resolved. These values, and more, are observable in recurring rites and rituals. They are often articulated in stories rather than formal statements. The culture identifies "heroes" who function as points of reference and measure (even long after they are dead). Key measures are reflected in what is required and what is rewarded. We can "exegete" the essential culture of a community by carefully discerning the values and priorities that are implicit in the patterns of community life. Accurately done, this practiced values statement will be more realistic than formal vision and value statements because this is what the culture actually lives by.

Corporate culture is very durable and is difficult to change. This is a reality that "cuts both ways." It means that changing a culture is labor intensive and requires patience. It also means that when cultural change is effectively done it does not revert easily or quickly. It persists.

Corporate culture has a life of its own. This means that it is self-perpetuating. It does not depend on regular intervention to keep it functioning. If values and patterns can be effectively embedded in culture they will continue without perpetual management. Do you remember the story about the pastor who rushed out after the Sunday morning service? It turned out that he wanted to watch the train as it passed so that he could see something moving that he didn't have to push! Culture is like that train. It keeps moving.

Leadership and Corporate Culture

If this is a new topic for you it may take some work to get your mind around thinking about community and leadership in this way. But let me provide some basic markers to help you think about cultural leadership.

Focus on Values vs. Outcomes - Cultures are actualized value systems. Outcomes emerge as a natural result of the values being lived out. An effective program or organizational initiative can produce results - for a while. Embedded values will produce "fruit" that reflect those values organically and persistently. Let me share an example. Leith Anderson shared a story in a School of Large Church Management session about a church plant sponsored by his church. The prospective pastor wanted to plant an strongly evangelistic church. So, he proposed that he be funded for a six-month study of the fifty most successfully evangelistic churches in America. The board agreed and he proceeded on his six month study. He travelled across America visiting churches, interviewing ministry staff, and researching these congregations. When his study was done he came back to the board and presented his results. His study revealed amazing diversity in worship and leadership styles, in fact, these churches had only one factor in common. Not one of them had an evangelism program! The conclusion? The fifty most effective evangelistic churches in America had successfully embedded the values of reaching and winning people into the culture of their church. They didn't need a program, it was in their congregational DNA.

Focus on Processes vs. Productivity - A focus on productivity shapes the processes that achieve it. This inevitably inclines to "means" serving "ends," with the tendency to justifying means to achieve ends. Of course we don't want to use inappropriate or unethical means but as long as they produce the desired ends without abusing important standards we have abroad tolerance for them. But this ignores the fact that "means" reflect and express values. A focus on productivity tends to overlook the meaning expressed in our means for the sake of the values we identify with our ends. This leads to a frequent disconnect, and sometimes outright conflict, between the values reflected in our means and those we are attempting to achieve as an end. Let me share an example. I remember, as a pastor, receiving an advertisement promising to expand my congregation and increase the relational quality of my pastoral leadership. That sounded appealing to me. But as I read the advertisement my interest flagged. They were marketing an automated calling system that would let me have "personal" contact with all of my parishioners every week. I would record a "personal" message that would be broadcast to our calling list. As a bonus, the message would conclude with an invitation to record any personal prayer requests following the recorded message. Every family in my church would have a personal contact from me every week. Personal intimacy through impersonal technology! I decided to take a pass on this resource - even though it promised dramatic church growth. The values implicit in the process spoke too loudly.

Focus on People vs. Programs - A leadership focus on programs - as a strategy to achieve our intended goals - tends to subordinate people to productive programs. People are resources to make the program work. Their value is proportional to their contribution to the effectiveness of the program (and program needs).  Let me illustrate this. We often approach people as subjects for recruitment. We begin with program needs and solicit willing workers to fill the "slots," Of course we try to connect gifts and interests. But, essentially, we begin with the program need and try to effectively allocate people as resources to enable the program to operate effectively. To begin with people will require us to ask a different set of questions and work from a different starting point. What has God given you gifts and passion for? How can we help you realize that calling? Actualizing people to realize their gifts and passions energizes them and embodies a priority for people.

Kingdom Culture

At its most basic the understanding of corporate culture is simply a descriptive model for the way human communities work. The business world's interest in understanding corporate culture is, ultimately, company profitability. Recognizing the dynamics of culture is values-neutral. Cultural leadership in the church, however, is not values-neutral. We have a definition for what our culture should look like. It should look like the Kingdom of God.

Pastoral leadership should begin with the Kingdom of God, shaped by the character and life of God. That Kingdom has values, an understanding of the significance of people, an understanding of power and how it should be used or allocated. The values of the Kingdom include, for instance, the importance of bringing people to Christ, but as part of a larger vision of what God is doing. God's Kingdom has an agenda for the broken, dispossessed, and poor. It realigns notions of importance and significance. It redefines our understanding of power and how it should be used. It places the problem of conflict in a new context. It declares new possibilities for human life, community and the world.

Cultural values are embedded in patterns of life. They are expressed in repeated rites and rituals in the community. One of the critical places that happens in the life of the church is in worship services. We "rehearse" the life and values of our cultural identity in our patterns of worship. But it is also practiced in our board meetings, staff meetings, conflict resolution, budget and property allocation, processes of permission and control, and stories about the church. All of them should be shaping and reflecting the character of God and His Kingdom.

Our challenge is that our congregations are made up of people who live in two Kingdoms. The priority of the world will inevitably assert itself over the life of the church unless we intentionally, purposefully, and persistently create and nurture a culture of the Kingdom. So we end where we began. Pastoral leadership is about creating and nurturing culture. Effective pastoral leaders are Kingdom culture builders.