3 Critical Components Of A Healthy Church Culture
The statements below are just a few of the many statements we have heard over the past five years. They are statements that are being made as people finally feel like they can open up about their previous church hurt.
“I just have been burned so bad that I’m afraid to trust anyone in a church.”
“We just couldn’t believe the pastor would say that, and then would brush us off after being there for so long.”
“We loved the church, but we just felt so under-appreciated and no one listened.”
“Leadership just wasn’t honest.”
“I’d leave the church I am at, but the Pastor has dumped so many responsibilities on me that I don’t think they would even survive without me. I just come here for a break.”
“It felt like they just wanted us to attend because of our money.”
“I’m just so burnt out, I just need a place to breathe.”
“I’m just so burnt out, I just need a place to heal.”
“I used to run the kid’s ministry there.”
“I used to be the treasurer there.”
John 11: 34-35 says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
What if we’re getting our most essential quality for growth wrong?
It’s a sobering reality to hear tale after tale of how a church can deeply wound a devoted follower of Jesus. The sad reality is that we are not the only church housing victims of friendly fire. Satan has often worked to divide us in this specific area. In each of these instances, the progress of the gospel was delayed, a church body lost an integral member, and these individuals endured the hardship and shame of having to leave a church family that meant so much.
We started to notice the trend of church-wounded believers shortly after our elder board and staff landed on a key culture piece. We really had no idea how frequently this value would help someone make sense of their pain and at the same time welcome them into a new home. Our leadership team simply felt like God was leading us to value healthiness as a core component to what the church was called to be.
Through a process of prayer, brainstorming and reflection we landed on the value statement: We’re a source of grace not drama.
It was simple and punchy, seeking to make known that we pursue relational health. Just before we all agreed on it, I cautioned our board that if we went ahead with this value, drama would quickly rise to the top. Drama, by nature, wants attention and wants to get its way. If drama doesn’t get its way, it will make itself known and could even cause people to leave. Even with that caution, each elder insisted we move forward with unwavering support of a healthy culture. They believed that our church’s health was an essential ingredient for what God wanted to accomplish in and through us.
Fast forward five years and for the ninth straight Welcome Class we have witnessed tears when we got to the point where we talk about our culture. One of our teachers explains, “We choose grace not drama, deciding to do whatever we can to be healthy and transparent.”
Tears. We have learned to say it slowly and compassionately, knowing for many it is a key moment in the healing process.
The truth is that our church body and leadership (just like yours) are far from perfect. We explain that at the beginning of every class. It’s almost the first thing we say after we get everyone’s name. What makes the difference is that we are committed to being healthy in our imperfection. While we may be imperfect, we place the highest priority on the most important things…getting relationships right happens to be one of those. After all, Jesus told us that we would be known by our love.
WHAT IS HEALTHY?
Healthiness in the church context means that people feel safe and valued and view leadership as trustworthy and transparent. It’s a relational concept, and to put it simply, healthiness is the result of people who are loved by God loving people. God loves; we love.
Below are 3 critical components of a healthy church culture.
1. Health is a trickle-down virtue.
If your leadership isn’t healthy, you can’t really pretend that the church underneath it will be.
Take whatever steps are necessary to bring about health at the highest levels of your your church. Spend hours praying, have the most vulnerable conversations, bring in a consultant if you need to (reach out to the EFCA East leadership for referrals), and if that doesn’t work, make the toughest decisions.
The true challenge with this point is that health often begins with you. It begins with your ability to trust God to be secure in your insecurity. It relies on your ability to have difficult conversations in the most loving ways when you’d rather not. It means you have to let go of your ego, your claim on your own kingdom and your commitment to your own reputation. If you can’t let God work within you in a progressive manner to resolve the issues of unhealthiness within you, those around your leadership will often remain unresolved in unhealthy ways.
2. Health loves people past their flaws, even in the face of attacks.
We recently had a meeting with a couple from our church. They were hurting over something that happened in their family and were embarrassed. We could sense that while God was healing them of their pain, they were concerned regarding what we thought about them. I patiently waited for a moment when they stopped to gather their thoughts and simply said, “We want you to know that we respect your reputation and we promise that we will not share any details about this…more importantly, we want you to know that we love you beyond your reputation. We love you even if others think you’re unlovable. We’re just going to love you.” Tears.
These people had thought about leaving the church because of fear of what others may think about them, and yet in the end they chose to tie themselves more deeply to the community they needed. Our goal should be to foster the environment that lets other people feel safe when they need the church the most.
Still, people are people. We’ve also had our fair share of people who felt like our actions were wrong or that they were misunderstood or unappreciated. Those people have often come at us in a way that felt like an attack. This is a key moment for a culture of health and it’s important to remember that health even responds to attacks well. We can call this the Jesus approach as we model our response after that of Jesus. Consider this scene from His trial:
“When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.
“If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?”
John 18:22–23
We’d do well to ask questions in response to attacks. Nothing shuts things down or flares things up quicker than assumptions. Questions on the other hand? They demonstrate love and understanding. They demonstrate patience. Jesus, in the face of every attack, responded with precisely that variety of character. Seeing as we are filled with the Spirit of Christ, we respond best to attacks when we let the fruit of the spirit show up at the worst times.
3. Health never allows us to take credit for its existence.
I struggle to write articles like this. I want to share what has worked for us, but I don’t want to throw a spotlight on any success and act like we own it. We keep discovering what God wants, and He keeps showing us what matters to Him. A healthy church is only healthy because we move with God as He wishes.
The moment we begin to pat ourselves on the back and attribute health to our own ingenuity is the same moment that unhealthiness slyly sneaks past. We can’t afford to let our guard down. The most we can claim is that we have followed the Spirit’s leading to avoid the flesh’s division…and this only by His grace. Any success in the church is wholly to the glory of Christ.
SUSTAINING
We will never fully arrive at being a healthy church. It’s not like that at all. It’s like a plant that has been entrusted to our care. We must tend to it as long as we are here to tend to it. We can enjoy and appreciate the health of the plant, but not in a way that we stop caring for it. The plant is still a living thing and it will always need some new nurturing care to keep it healthy.
We have noticed a few trends about this healing process that have encouraged us on the journey we get to walk with them.
- 2 years is the average time it takes for them to be actively involved.
- They don’t just want to attend, they want to be home.
- When they are home they are far more likely to invite their friends/family to our church.
Through this all we noticed one very encouraging trend that stood out. The Spirit of God would not let them go until they found a healthy church, demonstrating how vital the church is in the life of a believer.
Matt Saxinger has served in the EFCA for 14 years. He currently is the Lead Pastor at Susquehanna Valley Church in Harrisburg, PA. He has a heart for the gospel and seeing the next generation rise up in leadership.