Culture Shifting With the Spirit

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Culture Shifting With the Spirit

• The Key to Unlocking Transformation in the Church

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Culture Shift Authors

• Robert Lewis
• Pastor of a Large Fellowship Baptist church in
  Little Rock, Arkansas
• Emphasis on Irresistible Culture

• Wayne Cordeiro
• Senior pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship
  Oahu in Honolulu, Hawaii.
• Emphasis on Leadership Training

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Erwin McManus--Foreword

• When I wrote An Unstoppable Force, conversations
  about church growth were dominated by models,
  systems, and processesall of which are
  important. It felt like I was spitting into the
  wind, but I was determined to a least move us to
  change the focus of our conversation from methods
  to essencewhat must be re-discovered is an
  apostolic ethos.

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Organizational Key

• Defining Church Culture (A)
• Identifying your Church Culture (B)
• Shifting your Church Culture (C)
• From unhealthy to healthy
• From uninspiring to irresistible
• From tradition to missional

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(A) Define Church Culture

• sum of attitudes, customs, traditions, core
  values and beliefs that make a people
  uniquethings the community treasures
• the way we do things herespoken or unspoken
  message, grid that determines what is permitted
  and prohibited
• the way things were meant to bethings a
  community is aspiring to

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Agricultural Metaphor

• Culture is the soil which determines what ideas
  will take root and thrive
• ex. Coming back from a conference
• Culture is cultivated like a gardenthe growth is
  organic, gradual and sustainable
• Church leaders are stewards of the church culture

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Key Distinctions in Cultivation

• Quick Fixes
• Quick fixes may inject a momentary spiritual
  high, but cannot deliver the more radical,
  transformational power you hope for.
• Program-Driven
• Cookie-Cutter
• Cut and Paste
• Plug and Play

• Culture-growers
• Stewards of a Culture
• Value-Driven
• (1)Kingdom values
• Contextual
• (2)Local identity
• (3)Unique setting
• Innovation
• Improvisation
• Local Implementation

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Key Quotes

• Gods kingdom sets the agenda for the
  churcheverything we do at churchincluding what
  we think and who we areis kingdom culture
  building.
• God has called specific people together in
  specific churches for specific reasons.

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(B)Identify Your Church Culture

• Culture announces its identity through
  everything you do. The values of your
  culturestated or unstated, thought out or
  unintentionalshape the feel, behaviour, and
  attitude of your congregation more than anything
  else
• Key Image Totems
• the totem pole announces to visitors and reminds
  residents this is our culture, this is who we
  are!

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Key Identifying Exercises

• Visit another church as an outsider
• Visit your own church as an outsider
• Invite a focus-group of outsiders
• Interview Leaders what do they value?
• Review Mission Statement
• owned?
• lived?
• Experience Worship
• Symbols
• Ceremonies
• Celebrations

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(C) Shifting Church Culture

• When we are talking about making a culture
  shift, we are talking about changing the
  defaultspermanently modifying them.
• About a refusal to revert
• About establishing a new normal

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2 Key Ingredients to Culture Shifting

• Leadership (1)
• The creation of a pastoral, ministry-capable
  leadership must become the core value of the
  church of the future, second only to listening to
  God.
• Culture shapes the church, and leaders make the
  culture
• A transformation of environment happens when
  church leaders embrace the shift in their heart,
  model it in their lives, and passionately
  disciple their congregations to become
  like-wise.

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Key Characteristics of Culture-Shifting Leaders

• blend of humility, creativity and courageous
  resolve (example p. 58-59)
• incarnational models
• living totems---people who wear their values on
  their sleeve.
• active disciplers
• Passionately disciple your congregation to
  become a life-giving church filled with
  Spirit-led people who minister from the energy of
  their life in the Son, who have been released and
  encouraged to pursue what their heavenly Father
  has called them to do.

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2 Key Ingredients to Culture Shifting

• Partnership (2)
• Who do you think is better at building a church,
  you or the Holy Spirit?
• Our first responsibility is to position
  ourselves to welcome and cooperate with the Holy
  Spiritafter all, the ultimate culture shifter is
  the Holy Spirit.
• Partnership involves
• Prayer- corporate and individual
• Guidance Acts 15 It seems good to the Spirit
  and to us
• ImprovisationAct 5 of 6
• Risk-Taking fear of the unknown and living by
  faith

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Key Questions

• How strongly do you sense the leading of the
  Spirit in recent important leadership decisions
  (scale of 1-10)?
• Do you have a sense that the Spirit is working
  through you?
• Do you feel like you are driving the culture
  shift or do you feel like you are culture
  shifting with the Spirit?

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Culture Shifting With the Spirit

• The Key to Unlocking Transformation in the Church