Podcast

047 – Cultures of Growing Churches

Church Growth

Posted on August 24, 2020December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

What’s the magic formula? I mean, I’ve seen it happen where some churches have it. Others don’t have it. What is it? Why is a pastor successful in one church and one city, moves to another one, and bombs completely? Well, we’re going to talk about cultures of growing churches in this episode of the Church Tips Podcast.

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:24
Dr. Sam Chan in his book, Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code, makes this statement, “culture trumps strategy every day of life.” And I’m telling you, if you look at churches across the country and across the world, that is true, true, true. Culture is everything. That’s why a pastor can be a very successful pastor in this community and in this church, move to another one and bomb and vice versa, because of culture. So we want to take some time today to talk to you about the cultures we see are absolutely necessary for your church to grow. Now, I want to put a note here, and you really need to give careful attention to this. We’re going to talk about three cultures. Having these three cultures in place does not guarantee your church will grow. Not having them does guarantee your church will not grow. So you’ve got to get these cultures in place. And when we tell them to you, you’re gonna say, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I want you to really take them to heart because they are absolutely critical for the success of your church. There you go Jonathan get us started.

Culture #1: Culture of Prayer

Jonathan Hardy 1:38
Well, the first culture that churches have to have, and these are cultures of growing churches, is a culture of prayer. And so you may say, oh, yeah, well, we will we pray. But is there a culture of prayer and I think there’s a distinguishing, you have to distinguish between the fact that we pray as a church, and even if you do corporate prayer, and there’s a culture of prayer. And so why don’t you tell us a little bit about what that culture of prayer looks like in your mind?

Dick Hardy 2:06
Yeah, typically when I’m talking to a pastor on this kind of subject, and they begin to rattle off to me what they do in prayer, oh, well, we have a Wednesday night prayer service, or, oh, our Tuesday, women’s Bible study prays. The men’s, you know, Bible study that gets together, you know, 5:30 on Thursday morning, they pray. Okay, what they’re doing is they’re articulating things that they do that are praying, and those are all good. We’re not going to say negatives on any of those. But they’re not really striking at the culture. The culture is this thing inside. You know, here’s one of the things I’d asked pastors, you know, when you’d say to someone at the church, what’s your church all about? How quickly will someone say we’re all about prayer? Now, that doesn’t happen very often. Now, they would agree that prayer is important in their church, but until you can begin to get that to the top, you still have a ways to go. And let me just state it this way. Even if you’re the best of the best of the best and have developed the greatest culture of prayer, have you arrived? Nobody has. So giving attention to growing this internal culture of prayer is going to serve you very well.

Jonathan Hardy 3:19
And it’s not just praying at these various events that you’re part of. It’s teaching the people that prayer is an essential part of everyday life. And every time you get ready to start a business, before you go into your business meeting, or you’re getting ready to meet with someone, you know, you’re teaching people to pray for that meeting and pray that God gives you wisdom and helps you to be an encouragement and all those things. Those are just practical examples. But the idea is, it’s just, it infiltrates our everyday life. And that’s when that culture really starts to then become evident in the church as a whole.

Dick Hardy 3:53
Well and I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this one, but in this community, I’ll leave the guy nameless, of course, when I began to talk to this pastor about developing a culture of prayer, he immediately got offended. Like I was suggesting that he doesn’t pray. That’s not… here’s what I will say to people. The pastor will say, well our people know how to pray. Your people don’t know how to pray. You don’t know how to pray. He doesn’t. I don’t, we don’t. We’re all learning how to pray. And it’s our role as pastors to help develop that as we’re developing this culture of prayer. So you can probably get the drift. We’re pretty big on this. This culture.

Culture #2: Culture of Change

Dick Hardy 4:31
Second culture, you’ve got to have a culture of change. Now, you’ll know we’ve had episodes in the past that we’ve talked, past episodes of Church Tips, where we’ve talked about elements of change, particularly I’m thinking of Episode Five and six, where we walked through nine steps to help people buy into change. Here’s the deal until everybody in your church can articulate that the only thing permanent around here is change. You’re not there yet. Developing a culture of change where you’re holding, here’s the deal, you want everybody to hold everything loosely. You don’t want people to begin to get possessive and not be willing to release something that’s maybe even been part of the success of your church in the past. Because I’ll just tell you what worked last year is not going to work this year. And particularly in the age we’re living in, and you’ve got the whole COVID thing going on. You’ve got to be a church that can move on a dime. And you’ve got to develop a culture of prayer or cultural of change.

Jonathan Hardy 5:31
I might jump in there and talk about, you know, change. And we talked about this in some of our other episodes, but we’re not talking about changing the gospel, changing, you know, doctrine, theology, or any of that. It’s we’re talking about strategy or tactics or methods to reaching people and to discipling people and all of that, and that’s the culture that you want people to hold loosely. That’s what you’re talking about.

Dick Hardy 5:55
Exactly, exactly. You’ll get people in the church that, particularly if you’re a denominational church, they get married to the, the program and everything. And they’re good. I’m not, we’re not against programs, but they’ve got to change all the time. And when you’ve got that culture, believe me, as a pastor, it’s going to be much easier for you to be able to cast vision and move the church forward. Because you want people to be anticipating the future and not holding on to the past. So you got to have the culture of prayer, a culture of change. And then Jonathan the third culture.

Culture #3: Culture of Ministry to Young Families

Jonathan Hardy 6:29
Culture of ministry to young families.

Dick Hardy 6:31
As the young family guy, let’s speak to that, and I’m going to support it.

Jonathan Hardy 6:35
Okay. Well, it’s very important you know, if we want to keep reaching the next generation, if we want, if we want the church to continue in the years to come well then that means we have to be reaching young families and so that means we’re equipping them we’re discipling them or you know, whether it’s through parenting efforts, or even helping the young families with their marriages because we know that obviously the bull’s eye is on people’s backs. And so then keeping the families, not only together, but keeping the families growing. And so that’s critically important. That doesn’t mean we neglect other you know demographics by any means. So we’re not neglecting you guys and you gray haired folks. But you look like you’re about to say something.

Dick Hardy 7:17
Well, I mean, I want to say as the dad to this guy that, and we’ve talked about it in a previous episode, but I’m telling you, I stood in their lobby at Summit Park Church with another gal, a family friend, and we’re in our 60s, and we looked at all these grubby little kids running around, and our kids. We both have sons, and what do we feel here? Well, we love this. As people our age, we love being with them. And we were energized by this. And then we asked the reverse question, how would our sons and their families feel if they came to a church that was just that looked all like us? And they said, and she said, rightly, they would say this is a great church for mom and dad, but it’s not for me. That’s not what we want. We want a church for everybody. And so therefore, you have to if you’ll aim at ministry to young families, you’ll get everybody. So that’s an absolutely critical component.

Jonathan Hardy 8:16
And as we’re talking about churches growing, you know, that’s kind of the context here. These are cultures of growing churches. I mean, this isn’t, you know, supposed to be I’m not, this isn’t a negative thing. But most growing churches aren’t comprised of a bunch of 60, 70 plus, I mean, it’s the young families who were coming to the church, bringing their kids, they just started having kids like, well, we probably ought to get back into church, you know, and you’ve heard that before, I’m sure. And I mean, I’ve seen that a zillion times. I feel like that’s just part of that next step for some young families that are maybe you know, on the fringe or whatever they realize, well, we better get back and hey, what a great opportunity for us to get them back in.

Dick Hardy 8:56
Now I know there’s going to be pastors out there, maybe you’re one of them, that are saying ah, but just wait a minute here, who’s paying the bill around here? People paying the bill tend to be the 50, 60, 70 year olds, not the 20 and 30 year olds. You can’t be driving the ship by who’s gonna pay the bill. If you’re driving the ship that way, I’m just telling you, you’re not going to minister to young families. You’ll end up with money in the bank, and you won’t be growing. So the issue, build these kind of culture. And believe me, the money will follow the money will follow.

Jonathan Hardy 9:27
That’s right. Okay.

Recap:

Dick Hardy 9:30
Give us a summary!

Jonathan Hardy 9:30
Three cultures, culture of prayer, culture of change, culture of ministry to young families. So you get those three things down, and that’s going to help position you to be growing in the months and years to come.

Dick Hardy 9:43
Exactly.

Jonathan Hardy 9:44
I want to mention one final thing real quick is Wednesday. This coming Wednesday is a big day.

Dick Hardy 9:49
Big Day!

Jonathan Hardy 9:49
And we’ve got a huge announcement that we’re going to be sharing with you. Be sure to tune in Wednesday for the Church Tips podcast and if you’re on our email list, then you’ll be receiving an email with notification about what’s happening. We’ve got some major, major announcements that we’re going to be sharing with you. So stay tuned for that. And then finally, hey, be sure to hit that subscribe button on YouTube or subscribe on whatever podcast you are listening to this and give us a five star review. We really like five star reviews. We’ve got five star reviews happening on Apple podcasts all the time. In fact, Bill wrote this, it said, “excellent content, stuff to grow on, helpful today.” And so Bill, thank you for that review.

Dick Hardy 10:30
Thank you Bill!

Jonathan Hardy 10:30
And we’d love to have your five star review with comments, be sure to do that. And you might just be the next person that is read on the Church Tips Podcast, we’ll give you the props for that review. So with that being said, thank you so much for being with us today. We’ll look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.

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Podcast

047 – Cultures of Growing Churches

What’s in this Episode?