By Design or Default?: Creating a Church Culture that Works

By Kevin Gerald

You can be intentional about creating the right God-given culture for your church.  This book is intended to help both pastors and members engage in the never-ending process of creating a purposeful church culture that flows with the synergy of their vision for reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  You can create a culture that supports and champions the message you want to communicate to your city.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Jan 7, 2007
• ISBN: 9781418588939

Book preview

Praise for By Design or Default?

Kevin Gerald understands and lives out a fundamental principle about doing church creatively: Christ meets people where they are and so should we. As culture changes, the methods and ministries of the church must change as well. If we hope to make our ancient faith come alive to the people of today, we must dream clearer, design better and work smarter to keep the local church on the cutting edge.

—Ed Young

Senior Pastor, Fellowship Church

Author, The Creative Leader

How do you build a church that draws people to Jesus? We can see greater increase and growth when we understand the impact of culture on our churches. Kevin Gerald has written a book on a subject that no church leader can afford to ignore.

—Brian Houston

Senior Pastor, Hillsong Church

Sydney, Australia

By Design or Default provides a tremendous service to the church. Kevin Gerald’s passion for excellence and helping others understand that culture is created will improve the productivity and competence of those who embrace and implement this timely message. Everyone who desires to leave a lasting impact needs to read this book.

—Tommy Barnett Pastor,

Phoenix First Assembly

Co-pastor, The Los Angeles Dream Center

We live in a wonderful time of an explosion of knowledge. Many books are being published, but are a reworking of known truths. To discover a truth you haven’t been aware of can change your life. You need to read this book!

—Leon Fontaine

Senior Pastor, Springs Church

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Kevin is one of the great church leaders and pastors of our day. This book on church culture is a must read for all of us who aspire to advance God’s kingdom through the local church.

—Mark Crow

Senior Pastor, Victory Church

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The greatest thing about Kevin’s book, By Design or Default, is that it works. We see it in action at Champions Centre. Kevin is a great pastor, leader and mentor. He will help you build your team and grow to a new level.

—Casey Treat

Senior Pastor, Christian Faith Center

Seattle, Washington

Kevin Gerald has always been an uplifting, challenging and encouraging voice to me in matters related to church leadership and culture. If you are a leader interested in creating the most promising environment for ministry, you’ll discover how in this fascinating new book. Thanks, Kevin, for making us more aware of our limitations and showing us the path to true ministry fulfillment.

—Rob Koke

Senior Pastor and Founder, Shoreline Christian

Austin, Texas

Kevin Gerald’s teaching on culture is amongst the best I’ve heard. His understanding that people are not against the message but the packaging is a piece of priceless distilled wisdom for every church leader. Nowhere is this principle more true than here in the UK where 97 percent of the population remain un-churched due to our irrelevant packaging. By Design or Default is a must read for every church leader whose love for lost people is greater than their fear of upsetting the cultural status quo.

—Paul Scanlon

Senior Pastor, Abundant Life Church

Bradford, England

Hey, Leaders! Whether you know it or not—you have a culture in your church. A culture can be a bridge or a barrier to the people you want to reach. Kevin shows us how to define our existing culture and how to change it to reflect your Values and Vision. Great Stuff!

—Rick Godwin

Senior Pastor, Eagle’s Nest Christian Fellowship

San Antonio, Texas

Kevin’s teaching on church culture by design impacted me and my congregation on a grand scale. After hearing Kevin teach this material, I immediately went back to my church and made positive changes that have resulted in a vibrant, life-filled, growing church. It’s been said in the food industry that packaging is everything. The same can be said about the culture we create in our church.

—Jentezen Franklin

Senior Pastor, Free Chapel

Gainesville, Georgia

Title page with Thomas Nelson logo

Copyright © 2006 by Kevin Gerald

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. www.thomasnelson.com

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Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture passages are from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Other Scripture references are from the following sources: The New King James Version (NKJV®), copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. The King James Version of the Bible (KJV). The Message (MSG), Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved. The Contemporary English Version (CEV), copyright © 1991 by the American Bible Society. Used by permission. The Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT), copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV) copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

By Design or Default?

ISBN: 1-5995-1030-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gerald, Kevin.

  By design or default? : creating a church culture that works / Kevin Gerald.

      p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-59951-030-9 (trade paper)

  1. Church renewal. I. Title.

  BV600.3.G47 2007

  253—dc22

2006034945

1 2 3 4 5 6 — 10 09 08 07

Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

This book is dedicated to the incredible staff members and volunteers of Champions Centre who inspire me with their on-going, tireless commitment to make church an irresistible, beneficial community for people to belong to.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Know the Facts about Church Culture

2 Be a Culture-Creating Leader

3 Create an Attractive Atmosphere

4 Define a Clear Mission and Core Values

5 Establish a Life-Giving Platform

6 Develop Corporate Competence

7 Create a Culture that Values Men and Women

8 Create a Team Church Culture

Conclusion

Notes

About the Author

by design or default

creating a church culture that works

Every church has a culture . . .

by design or by default.

Acknowledgments

First, I want to thank the incredible Champions at Champions Centre who share our vision for an evolving and influential culture that keeps Christ’s message uncluttered and attractive in today’s society.

Second, I want to thank our leadership team and church staff for helping us navigate the journey each day into new territory. For resisting the temptation to settle into the familiar and pressing forward into fresh concepts and creative ideas. We love doing church with you.

Third, I want to thank the pastors around the world who share our conviction that our greatest responsibility is not to a past generation, but to this generation. You have inspired me with your energy and creativity.

Introduction

What Is Church Culture by Design?

The pastor standing in front of me was angry. All this talk of culture makes me nervous, he said. Needless to say, my message about the need to intentionally design the culture of our churches had struck a nerve in him. He continued, At our church we preach the same unchanging gospel that was preached in the early church. And if it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

His defensive words sounded familiar. As a second-generation pastor, growing up in a denomination that took great pride in its allegiance to the old paths, I knew that voice of reason well. I thought, How can I help this sincere, hardworking, fully committed pastor know that his church already has a culture? The question was not whether he wanted culture that was unique to his congregation; the question was (as Dr. Phil would say), How’s that working for you?

I wanted him to understand that every congregation of believers emanates a pattern of behaviors that communicates their beliefs to others. These social forms, rituals, and methods form a culture that is unique to their social group. Even though churches are established on the central beliefs in the Word of God, there are hundreds of thousands of churches because people cluster together who share similar attitudes, values, goals, and practices based on what they believe is important to them in God’s Word.

The question I pose to church leaders and laypeople who care about reaching their communities with the good news of Jesus Christ, is whether or not the culture of their churches is helping or hurting their effectiveness.

Consider, for example, the attitudes and atmosphere of your own church:

• Is the culture of your church in harmony with the message of hope you support?

• Is the culture of your church inviting to newcomers and magnetic in nature?

• Does the environment of your church generate an expectancy of good news or doom?

• Do the people in your church seem generous or impoverished?

• Are leaders and members of your church upbeat and positive?

• Are leaders and members of your church full of life or do they appear to be slowly dying?

• Is the atmosphere of your church happy and hopeful?

• Is your church old and rigid or fresh and flexible?

It is possible that you step into an uncomfortable culture every time you go to church. It is also possible that even your most loyal church leaders find the style and rituals of the church service to be incongruous with their everyday relationship with God. Perhaps you want to see a different culture in your church, but you simply don’t know how to change the one you have. Then this book is for you.

Church culture is most often created by default. It may come into existence through the life patterns and inherited habits of its founders and continue without much thought or consideration of whether or not some changes ought to be made. Typically a church’s culture is rooted in dated traditions and methodologies that appear too sacred to question or require too much effort to update with more relevant practices. As a result, most churches crystallize cultures that memorialize the past and focus their energy into preserving the methods of a