Look before You Lead: How to Discern and Shape Your Church Culture
Overview
Before you can lead your church, you have to know your church. Pastoral ministry is challenging work. It is made even more challenging when a pastor ignores the church’s “congregational culture” when seeking to minister to members or implement changes. Just as a pastor studies to interpret the Scriptures, he or she must also interpret the local church culture to better understand and move the church toward accomplishing its mission and vision.
In Look before You Lead, trusted church leadership expert Aubrey Malphurs shows pastors how to read their church’s unique local culture, how to change or revitalize it, and even how to combine two cultures when one church adopts another. This unique resource approaches leadership and discernment from a solid, biblical perspective and includes a number of helpful appendixes that are key to reading and understanding the culture.
In the Logos edition, this volume is enhanced by amazing functionality. Scripture citations link directly to English translations, and important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. Take the discussion with you using tablet and mobile apps. With Logos Bible Software, the most efficient and comprehensive research tools are in one place, so you get the most out of your study.
- Explains the importance of understanding local church culture
- Shows pastors how to interact with and revitalize their church’s culture
- Includes a guide to interpreting church culture
- The Basics of Congregational Culture
- Why Leaders Should Read This Book: The Importance of Culture
- What Are We Talking About? The Definition of Culture
- What We Do: The Church’s Expression of Culture
- Why We Do What We Do: The Church’s Cultural Values
- What We Believe: The Church’s Beliefs
- How We Respond: The Church’s Relationship to Culture
- Reading Congregational Culture
- Reading the Church: Understanding Its Culture Apple
- Reading the Pastor: Discovering the Pastor’s Culture
- Shaping Congregational Culture
- The Church Planter as Culture Architect: Creating a New Church Culture
- The Church Pastor as Culture Sculptor: Part 1 Preparation
- The Church Pastor as Culture Sculptor: Part 2 Personnel
- The Church Pastor as Culture Sculptor: Part 3 The Process
- The Church Pastor as Culture Blender: Adopting Established Church Cultures
Top Highlights
“I define the church’s congregational culture as the unique expression of the interaction of the church’s shared beliefs and its values, which explain its behavior in general and display its unique identity in particular. This is what I refer to as my long definition. However, I have condensed it into a short definition. In short, a church’s congregational culture is its unique expression of its shared values and beliefs.” (Page 20)
“the Godhead relates and operates in a cultural context” (Page 23)
“Some examples are the church’s physical presence (facilities), language (multi- or monolingual), clothing, symbols, rituals, ceremonies, ordinances, technology, and so forth. What is important here is that it’s easy to observe the expression or behavior but more difficult to understand it. The pastor or leader who wishes to discover the church’s culture must not only observe its expression but uncover its beliefs and values, which explain the behavior.” (Page 21)
“What makes us different? Because no church has the exact same beliefs, values, and behavior, each church will have its own individual, unique nature or identity. (It’s interesting that the same is true of apples—each type has its unique attributes.) And as we probe the culture, we will discover what that unique nature is.” (Page 22)
“My definition of congregational culture includes beliefs, values, and their expression (some form of outward behavior), which we can think of as three levels or layers.” (Page 20)
Aubrey Malphurs was one of the seminary professors who shaped my thinking in ministry 25 years ago. I have read everything he has written. Why? You would have to read two dozen books to get what you get in just one of Aubrey’s. He is a master of boiling a big idea down to the essential action steps. He has done it again with Look before You Lead.
—Randy Frazee, senior minister, Oak Hills Church
There’s no one better to bring a step-by-step leadership guide to pastors than Aubrey Malphurs. Look before You Lead sheds practical and biblical light on the subject of church culture, a concept that many writers leave in the dark.
—Will Mancini, founder, Auxano
A half century ago, no one in the United States was talking about church culture. Today church culture is a popular, but often misunderstood, concept. In Look before You Lead, Aubrey Malphurs assists church leaders to define, discover, and design a church culture that wins people to faith in Jesus Christ. Whether you are a church planter, pastor, or consultant, this book will help you develop a spiritually healthy organizational church culture.
—Gary L. McIntosh, professor of Christian ministry and leadership, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
Aubrey Malphurs (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is senior professor of pastoral ministries and leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary and president of the Malphurs Group. He engages in church consulting and training, and is the author of more than 20 ministry books, including Doing Church: A Biblical Guide for Leading Ministries through Change.