100 Days to a Healthier ChurchSample

  

The Culture Shift

Week 4

Day 22 (Saturday)

Today’s Big Idea: Addressing the Culture Issue. For a week now, we’ve been considering the culture (the soil) of the church. Now we start the process of asking, What will it take to change that culture from unhealthy to healthy? For the next week, in advance of our next Saturday CLT meeting, we will start writing down our thoughts about what needs to be changed, how serious that need is, and what initial steps might lead us there.

Knowing whether your church culture is Stubborn, Shallow, or Busy matters because each problem requires a different approach. 

A Stubborn culture (the dirt on the hardened path) is impenetrable. You won’t soften the hearts of a stubborn church by beating people up. That will just harden them even more. Instead we need to recognize that dirt gets hard because pressure has been applied to it over a long period of time. In the case of Jesus’ parable, the hardened dirt is a pathway. It’s not a road, which is a planned hardening for purposes of travel. It’s a path. Paths happen when people walk over them constantly. That must be how the most hardened members of your church feel—walked on. 

Most Stubborn churches don’t get there because people wake up one day and decide to be mean and unmoving. They typically get there from years of abuse or neglect. They used to be an active part of the field, ready for planting and harvest, but after being walked on by one difficult circumstance after another, they’ve grown hard. They’ve subconsciously decided they won’t let anyone hurt them again. That’s what their hardness usually is—a protective layer to keep them from being hurt again. So they don’t need to be treated harshly (as much as you may want to react sternly). Gently, softly, like a gentle rain on hard soil, their hearts need to be softened. The number-one way to get there is to earn their trust again.

A Shallow culture is soft on the surface, but only on the surface. There’s no depth or maturity. The members of a Shallow culture say yes to great ideas with their mouths, but there’s very little follow-through in their actions. The answer for a Shallow culture is depth and maturity. A Shallow church needs to go deeper in understanding what God’s Word tells us about how we as a church should behave. The exercise from our first Saturday together when we discussed Bible passage about the purposes of the church is a great place to start.

Be careful here. It’s tempting to think that what Shallow churches need is better teaching, but many Shallow churches are led by great preachers. What makes them Shallow, to re-use an old, but appropriate cliché, isn’t that they don’t know what to do, but they don’t do what they know.

A Busy culture is soft, maybe even deep, but they’re ineffective because they’re trying to do too much. Usually a handful of leaders are overwhelmed with busyness, while the rest sit, watch, and consume what’s being done for them. The enemy in this scenario (the thorns) isn’t the church members—not even the Busy ones. It’s the calendar. There are too many events on the schedule.

When you live in a Busy culture, it’s easy to think that the way forward is to implement an exciting new event, program, or activity. This must be firmly resisted. The solution for a Busy culture won’t be found in what we add, but what we remove.

Today’s verses and thoughts are divided into three buckets. Don’t attempt all three (although you Busy folks might be tempted to). Pick the one that’s needed for your church’s culture.

   

For a Stubborn culture

Key Verse: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).

Thoughts to Consider: What hurts caused our Stubbornness? How severe are those hurts? What will it take to start softening hearts and earning trust?

For a Shallow culture

Key Verse: Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says (James 1:22).

Thoughts to Consider: What caused our church culture to be Shallow? How severe is this problem? What will it take to start getting people to step up and follow through?   

For a Busy culture

Key Verse: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

Thoughts to Consider: What caused our church culture to be so Busy? How severe is the division of labor between those who are too Busy and those who are passive? What will it take to reduce activity and work smarter?