More Than a Habit: Building a Culture That Understands

I spent the first week of my first job in a meeting room dedicated to cultural orientation. The company that hired me instilled its values and priorities into every new hire. The organization was so large that it had its own postal code. My orientation classes included accountants, advertisers, artists, tradesmen, and lawyers. There were people like me with no real-world experience, and there were career veterans with decades of experience. All of us were in the same room. And for the first two weeks of all our positions, our mission was to learn what matters, what was expected, what we celebrate, and what we would discourage. We were learning the company culture.

      Every hire I made went through that exact same orientation process before they joined our team.

      Years later, when I was working for a start-up-sized company, we didn’t have a cultural orientation process. Our approach to leadership was night-and-day different. Rather than explicitly setting expectations, we focused on hiring people who seemed like a good fit. The problem with that approach, of course, was the difficulty of evaluating what kind of a fit a person would be after a couple of rounds of interviews. Sometimes we got it wrong. We had to learn that every person we brought on changed our team’s culture completely.

      Every church has a culture. It isn’t always written down in a handbook or explained in a membership class. In many churches, the world people were raised in has shaped their congregational life.

      What do you do when someone joins the church and asks questions you’ve never thought of before? People are not likely to be content to observe and comply when joining a church, especially younger generations who have been shaped by an instinct to ask and understand.

      For some of us, these questions can feel unsettling. I’ve seen it too often when a sincere question is mistaken for a personal criticism. I’d contend, though, that a culture becomes healthy when curiosity isn’t punished.

Questions Reveal More Than Conflict

      Usually, when a younger person asks, “Why do we do it this way?” they are not asking, “Why have you been doing this wrong?” They are trying to understand the life of the church. They want to know what matters here. They want to know whether our practices are rooted in Scripture, wisdom, habit, or preference.

      Many faithful church members hear a question as an accusation because they feel responsible for preserving what has been handed down to them. I understand that instinct. Past generations have sacrificed to build what we enjoy today. Their labor deserves our respect. But if every question is treated as a threat, we’re not protecting the church; we’re making it harder for people to understand and love it.

      “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19) is good counsel for church culture. We should be quick to hear the questions being asked before deciding what they mean.

What Must Stay and What Can Change

      One of the pastor’s tasks is to help a church distinguish between biblical conviction and inherited custom. Some things in church life are plainly governed by Scripture. Other things are wise patterns that have served congregations well over time. Trouble comes when we treat these categories as if they carry the same authority.

      We should be careful here. Just because something falls outside that scripturally governed category does not mean it should be done away with. At the same time, explaining why a practice exists often strengthens it. If a custom is wise, say why. If a conviction is biblical, open the text and show it. If something is merely a preference, have enough humility to admit it.

Making Room for Understanding

      Healthy churches make room for explanation. New members will inevitably affect the life and culture of the church. Nevertheless, our goal shouldn’t be to make the church endlessly adaptable to every generational preference. We are stewards with the responsibility of passing along, with care and clarity, what we have received ourselves. The goal is to cultivate a people who are grounded enough to know what must remain and humble enough to discuss what may change.

The Work of Pastoral Leadership

      What would it look like if we always thought biblically, spoke charitably, and listened patiently? How much would it help the church if we made room for sincere questions?

      It is easier to preserve familiar patterns than it is to hand down deep convictions to those we lead. Discipleship can’t be accomplished through practices alone. It requires understanding, not just repetition.

      If we want to hand down more than habits, we will have to make room for understanding. We must build churches where questions can be asked without suspicion, Scripture can be opened with clarity, and convictions can be formed with patience.