02 Oct 8 Ways For Your Church To Leverage Culture

Our culture is always changing and as a result, churches must learn how to adapt to the changes in culture. Now for a while, churches saw the word “culture” as being equivalent to being “worldly” and wanted nothing to do with it. But consequently, pastors have realized that culture really does make a difference in how we minister and if we ignore the impacts of culture our churches and their effectiveness will suffer.

If we want our churches to remain effective in reaching the community around us, we need to become students of our culture and adapt our approach for presenting the Gospel so that those around us can best receive it. It doesn’t mean we water down the Gospel, but rather we look through the lenses of the unchurched in order to make the Gospel make the most sense.

Sometime adapting to cultural changes just means tweaking how we go about doing things, but other times it means gaining a fresh new perspective. It’s not enough to know pop culture or use cool technology. It means looking outside of our “Christian lenses”  and seeing what life looks like to those who are far from God.

The book Simply Strategic Growth is all about leveraging culture in a way that causes people to be attracted to your church, helps grow your church, and directly impacts the community around you. Here are 8 of the best tips to help you leverage culture.

1. Catch some ZzzzZzz

Facing issues with parking or seating on Sunday’s? Encourage your members to sleep in on Sunday and instead come to an identical Saturday night service. Maybe even include a perk like extra worship time or super good food. And make sure to let them know that by giving up their seat on Sunday allows for more room for a visitor who might be far from God.

2. Are You an Inny or an Outy?

Churches typically grow one one of two ways. They either try to bring in the largest crowd they can and then help them find and follow Jesus, or they try to disciple all the members of their congregation so that they can reach people outside their walls. Both ways work, but the churches that bring people in first are typically more effective at reaching their community and much faster at it.

3. A Friend is Better Than a Postcard

While there are many ways to promote your church to newcomers, by far the most effective way is through personal invitation. Yes, your people might be standoffish at first dreading the awkward conversation of inviting them, but make sure you properly equip your people to invite their friends. Give them small (business card size) invite cards and make many on-ramps that create opportunities for your members to invite their friends.  (Church sponsored community events, Christmas/Easter invites)

4. Have Child Protection

The kid’s ministry is probably one of the most high risk areas of ministry and as a result you must compensate for it. Be sure to design your kid’s room to prevent injury (even when they are a bit rambunctious) and have the proper policies in place to protect the kids. There should never be an adult alone with a child and all your child workers MUST be background checked.

5. No More Rabbit Trails

At church, we provide people with a lot of rabbit trails in their thought. We send them a message in the parking lot, at the door, when they get their coffee or bulletin, during worship, through the message, and again when they walk out of the doors. Instead of confusing them, with multiple different messages, harness the power of one solid message that gets translated in everything you do.

6. Spiritual Growth is Not a One Way Street

As your church grows, it becomes harder for you to maintain a solid form of communication with everyone. But not everyone is comfortable with approaching church leaders to ask for personal help and questions so make sure you provide a couple different ways that people can communicate back with your church such as a communication card or even social media.

7. It Worked Before

If there is one thing that church leaders must understand is that ministry changes overtime. Methods that once worked can lead your church down a dangerous road as you continue to grow. One of the biggest things that must change is that the pastor must move from a “doer” to an equipper. Unless the pastor learns to grow other leaders and delegate, the church will stop growing.

8. No Speaky Christianeze

There might be nothing that is more annoying that is done on a weekly basis at our churches than speaking our own Christian language. If you are trying to attract a bunch of Christian people for goods and services, keep it up. However, if you are trying to reach those that Jesus tried to reach then stop using cliche, insider Christian phrases.

This is just a few of the many ideas found in this book. For even more, check out our video on Simply Strategic Growth!