Prayer, Word, Spirit, Unity.

Culture above vision

We are called to be the preservers of everything that shows the image of God. Christians help preserve what is good in the culture around us and add flavor where the kingdom is lacking. Culture is what upholds and achieves the vision. Our saying at FOUNT is, we talk about culture four times as much as we talk about vision. How you instill and create a foundation of culture at the beginning will be what your church and members are built on.

This idea came before we even started. From my previous experiences around other leaders and churches, I saw the vision preached over and over again and it created real frustration in people. It created a gap between the leader and the people. The gap between where we are and the fulfillment of the vision is the people’s level of frustration if we don’t focus on culture. Culture is more about who you are becoming than where you are going. You never get to the vision if you aren’t the person who can foster the culture to hold it.

In a vision-preached environment without culture, people are constantly frustrated because all they hear is where we’re going, not much of where we are. It’s the present moments, the forming, where culture is built. Abram to Abraham is a culture-forming process, a shaping of character through the trials of the middle. The promise was the same the whole time. The person had to grow into it.

We were able to be content with the five people at our first Dinner Party because we did know the vision in our heart. God was going to build his church. What we were called to in that moment was to be faithful. I had big vision from the start, multiple locations, services in different cities, buying a building one day, all while we were five people. But what I was called to in that moment was to build the culture that would sustain the vision when it came.

Prayer

Out of all the things Jesus taught his disciples, the greatest was how to pray. They saw that the source of his strength was his connection to the Father. So they asked, teach us how to pray. If they needed to learn how to pray walking alongside Jesus, then a culture of prayer in our church is what will sustain and build it.

The strength of your church is based on each individual’s prayer life. We felt a strong word from God at the beginning that the church would be built from divine connections and according to our prayer. We’ve seen that again and again. A culture of prayer for you as a leader, and in the church you’re building, is the engine.

The people coming to build your church at the beginning will all be new in different ways. New to the city, new to church, or carrying experience from other churches that may have modeled prayer differently. They bring their own cultures to the table while you’re building a new one. Be cognizant of that. Build with people from many backgrounds without compromising the things you want to instill.

Prayer is one of those places where everyone has a different experience. You’re there to start it healthy and keep it strong. Prayer has to be an exchange. Teach and model that prayer is an exchange of what we’re carrying for the new garment we receive in Christ. You can’t just say from stage, let’s pray, and expect the room to erupt. Culture is never built from what we ought to do. It’s built from a revelation of why.

If your culture of prayer is built out of people knowing they are loved, out of each person in the room knowing they are loved by God, it becomes a natural part of the community. That’s where something sparks in an early plant, people start to feel I am loved. They feel loved by you, they start to see God differently, and the culture of prayer is really built. So start by showing people how loved they are. Start with revelation, and culture becomes evident.

The Word

The journey is important, and staying in the word is the key. We want to instill in everyone that his word is the engine room for our journey. Ensuring that his word is our foundation is what makes our churches different from the world. If we’re just a gathering around a positive subject, we’re no more than a club. But if we’re people of his word, gathering around the living breathing word of God, that’s when the church has impact. That’s when the church is living out Acts 2.

The word of God challenges us to finish what we started. Many believers stop reading the Bible not because it isn’t exciting, but because it’s challenging. The challenge is what will shape and build your church. It brings correction to our focus.

The word is detailed about how to build our lives and how to build the church. You don’t have to come up with a new shiny step-process. God is detailed, and he has given us a step-by-step for living well. Imagine hiring the best architect in the world, getting the designs for your dream house, and then deciding not to follow them. Making your own changes during the critical building moments. Then wondering why it’s falling apart. That’s building God’s church without his word as the blueprint.

The Spirit

It’s not just a culture, it’s a person. To have any level of care we have to understand that we need to desire the Holy Spirit. Life is a journey of discovering that we cannot save ourselves. Like a branch broken off from a tree, it may seem to still have life, but the source is broken, and what looks like life for a while will wither. We have to build churches on his Spirit being the life and source within us.

At the beginning of our church we had many new people, many new leaders rising up, who all came with different perceptions of the Holy Spirit. This was one of the key cultures in which people had the widest range of experiences coming in. I realized I could preach and teach on the Holy Spirit all I wanted, but it was the revelation of experiencing the Spirit that would shape the individuals and therefore the church.

We were intentional about creating safe spaces for people to encounter the Spirit. Moments of worship, of prayer, of lingering. Georgie and I leading people into that. If we wanted a culture of the Spirit in our church, people needed deep revelation of their need for him. They needed to know him as guide, counselor, comforter. They needed to know the person of the Spirit before seeing the gifts.

That’s why our church grew quickly in the early days. It was the first time many of them had experienced the presence of God. They hadn’t known the Spirit as a real person before, or actually desired to encounter him. We can’t shy away from this. People don’t need more talking about Godly things. They need God himself. We focused on teaching people how to connect to the presence of God and how to wait on his presence.

So often churches focus on the gifts of the Spirit, the outputs, what he does for us and for others. But we miss the person. Miss who he is. Create room in your community, whether it’s five or a hundred people, to experience the Holy Spirit and get revelation of who he is. Then you can build culture around the gifts and grow them in your team. You’ll see the fruit overflow naturally. It’s the who before the what. But the what comes naturally after the who.

Unity

Everyone’s coming from different backgrounds when you’re starting. Forming unity from day one will be the glue that keeps your church buoyant through every season. That glue is the church that’s in God’s heart. That’s the church he designed.

Many leaders think a culture of unity is built down the line, once you’ve got a few years under your belt, once a struggle comes. Focus on it before disunity comes. Focus on it before division or trial hits. Build it from the start and you’ll be strong enough to face what’s coming. The Church is called to be united on the things that matter. The enemy knows that, and will use anything, politics, societal views, to try to cause division. The devil wants us disconnected because our destiny is in each other.

We aren’t creating unity. We’re joining a unity that already exists. You don’t have to invent it. You’re founded on the word, where the unity of Christ already is. Reference his unity to build it into who you are.

That’s the unity we’re already part of. Point your church to this. Point them to the oneness we have in Christ. Because our community shines like a light when we can disagree and still stay connected in love. That speaks volumes to the world. That’s the kind of church that attracts a city. Don’t be afraid of disagreeing opinions, don’t feel that unity is everyone agreeing. Show how love, relationship, and unity is greater than opinions. If your focus is getting everyone’s opinions to align, you’ll just build a religious culture of rules, a control of control. If your focus is building relationships with love, grace, and unity, then differences become less than God’s word and his heart.

Within this, there are non-negotiables. I like to say you have to have closed fists and open-handed views. Closed fists on the core scriptures, the non-negotiables, the foundation of what we believe. Open-handed views on the things we may not see eye to eye on, where people can still be welcomed and involved. Our job as shepherds is to point people to the main thing. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, scripture. Not the rabbit holes and side views that create division.

Every church has leanings and passions specific to its city. Speak up for truth. Speak up for the vulnerable. Speak up for the issues of your city. But the foundation is not the issues. The unity we’re joining is Christ. The main point is that Christ is the cornerstone, not the issue. A church crumbles when the cornerstone is a topic or a platform rather than his word. Be united on the things that matter.