The Old and the New Church Org. Culture
The topic of my doctorate is change, in particular shifting the culture within church organisations. This is a key topic given how dramatic the shifts in society presently are. (See: The Digital Revolution and the Church (1348) for more detail.) As society changes so to do church orgs. need to shift so as to remain relevant and effective.
And culture shift is key. It isn’t just about changing a few programmes or getting rid of ties, but quite often it involves fundamentally addressing the personality of the organisation: the culture. Culture is the orgs. DNA, the unspoken rules and expectations of how to behave. Want to quickly discern a culture? Spend a day or two with the longest serving employee.
So church org. cultures need to shift, quite often from the standard old form to something more contemporary and appropriate to today’s world. This looks like:
Now the massive challenge in all this is how? How do you transition from the old to the new? Well subscribe to this blog to stay in touch as this will be addressed in future posts!
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6 Responses to “The Old and the New Church Org. Culture”
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looking forward to this, an area that needs close consideration.
Hi Mark - I love the fact that the Spirit of God delights in bringing unique creativity to the ordering of freedom and life - and what a joy it is to collaborate with what God is doing in and around us!!
The mission is always the same, but the strategy changes to best fit the circumstances and to give the glory to God - despite the success, Joshua only marched 7 times around one city - God has many more plans for other situations
“Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect” Romans 12:2
Happy Easter Brother!!
I love the way you thinK!!
[…] current entry from Brown Blog includes the table above & describes the effects of cultural shifts (ie, postmodernization, […]
Hi Mark,
I agree with much of what you have to say here, but I was concerned about your Old Culture/New Culture table as it appears to imply that people haven’t already been passionately engaging with God in the past, if this was the case Christianity would have died out long ago.
It also seems to imply that ‘fast paced radical change’ progressive than caution, when I think there is probably a time for both in healthy growth. And how things are done can be just as important as the results. Ends justify the means is a way of thinking that has been used to justify a whole lot of unpleasant stuff.
So, while I agree that the culture of many churches is in need of change, I think in need of God’s direction, I’m not sure we agree on exactly what that change should look like.
God Bless
Paul
I agree with your concept of the new culture, but at the same time I desire a certain amount of autonomy. I have found that accountability when posting to Christian websites is the discretion of the web host who may not agree with your views. Crosswalk will even delete scripture. For example I used Psalms 1 in response to the Clergy Letter Project because Evolution scientist do not consider God, the spiritual, nor the intellect in their research. Someone posted that they support evolution. It seems it should be ok to disagree. In Church it can be the same way. that is why we have so many different denominations that espouse their different interpretations and beliefs. I had to create my own forum so I have my book blog to say what I can’t say in some settings and can say in others. And it is biblically based not milk but the meat of the word. In a Christian Writers Conference I learned that most Christian author’s audience makes up only about 15% of Church readership. I want to reach the other 85% and perhaps they will find something interesting to read as well.
Thank you for listening, and please visit my book blog and refer it others if you are so inclined.