Family + Function: The Two Sides of Healthy Culture

0:01 There's a description. It's not just in the church, but in business as a whole quiet quitting For selfish motives. You stay in an organization that you don't believe in but your heart's not in it. That doesn't help the environment and it doesn't help the individual. So, you're just advocating for. Let's be people of integrity. If we're going to be in an environment, let's embody the culture of that environment. Well, once again, I want to welcome you to the Lead to Win podcast, where we help you win in life in the areas that matter most. We're once again joined by Pastor Jeff. Thank you so much for being with us today. Today we're going to talk about something that's very important. You hear about it all the time. It's lots and lots of podcasts dedicated to it. Let's talk about culture, so important.

0:41 You know, drucker famously said culture eats strategy for breakfast. It can become a buzzword. We talk sometimes about the difference between aspirational culture the things that you put on a website or on a wall but then the actual culture of your environment. Talk to us as leaders. Why is this so important and what do we need to understand if we're going to effectively? build the kind of culture we want. Yeah, I think a lot of times, even what you're describing where we wrote about this in some of our material, talking about aspirational and actual is that now we have a lot of branding and marketing and tools and platforms and brands and those things. Again, I'm not against any of that, I'm for how to get your message out.

1:25 But I think what happens is we start writing down mission statements and mantras and brands and then we end up kind of getting the cart before the horse Right, because we're actually at a place as an organization for us, where we're trying to work on how to make the culture more accessible and explainable. But I would rather be in a place where I want to continue to make it easily delivered than to look up and say I don't like what it is. I'd rather be working on the delivery of a product that I believe in than have a great delivery system for something that I don't believe helps anybody.

2:08 So I think that's important. So I think we get busy in the deliverables and the delivery system instead of the essence of what it actually is Doing a bunch of stuff instead of actually like thinking about. what are the people experiencing? Yeah, what are the people experience? Because, really, if you think about culture, culture is what your staff, your kids, your wife a podcast, or you may have a digital message or you may have some other way you're connecting.

2:52 Social media website online different ways that people are interfacing yeah, a book or whatever, and you can connect through that. But still, at the end of the day, culture comes out of what people experience when they connect in those spaces. Yes, what you value, how you talk, the words that you use, what you celebrate All those things are going to give us a window into the culture that you actually have. And an aspirational value would be to put authenticity and then it's like wow, this feels fake. It doesn't feel very authentic. I mean, quite honestly, I think that's a very interesting aspirational thing with churches that there became a season where churches actually believed that if you overly connected with people, that you kind of minimize their ability to maintain their anonymity, which they cherish.

3:45 Yeah, I get it. I get it. I understand the nuance, but for us, at milestone we chose a culture that said there may be some people who pull back from our desire to, to connect you know people and be like hey, we want to. We want to be friendly to you, you matter, we want to super serve you. We just chose that. Hey, there may be a few people a little intimidated by that and we got better over time, you know in the early days we'd be tackling people. I mean a dog run by. we'd be like hey, come to our church, so I think we've gotten better at the deliverable but it's really back to what was really in our heart. What's really in our heart is we really believe that we need each other.

4:31 We really believe that if you isolate yourself, you rage against all sound judgment, according to the word. So we believe in these cultural things, so we were even willing to work through the awkwardness of delivering those things right. Well, you're asking the question not just how are we giving that out, but like how are the people experiencing? it so you have enough self-awareness. Every business we talk about businesses and culture you know they're all going to say, well, we value the customer, right, and they may put that on the website, they may put that on the wall, but you're not going to find out once you have a problem, how much they really actually value the customer. exactly, exactly so the the point is a home has an ethos a, a, a oxygen level a, a culture level, a, a and you can, you can feel it right.

5:23 It's like a restaurant has a culture, a business has a culture, a church has a culture and, by the way, not just the church the staff has a culture right, there's a team culture within the staff. In fact, many times when you find a very cold church, what you really find is the staff are only treating the people like they get treated every day. So there is this very sensitive, very challenging, very fragile, this organic, relational, like I said, a marriage. I've been married this year, almost right at 30 years, I know you've been married.

6:05 I mean, there's this, there's this temperature, there's this, this work that it takes place to stay constantly connecting and evaluating there's a there's a culture to the marriage that can quickly turn to shift. We're taking one another for granted right, or we're we're being, uh, too too hard, or too too we're not being kind enough, or? gracious toward one another. All of that is real life, and so I think there's a lot written about culture, a lot of tools, but I think one of the biggest things we have to admit is you are the culture, Wow. Things we have to admit is is you are the culture, Wow. Like you are, at the end of the day, it's going to flow out of the people of you.

6:56 Um now, if you're a team member for a business or you're a part of a church, like I believe it's important I think it's a lack of integrity to not believe in the culture or the vision but stay there and still out of your own self-interest or a paycheck, which I've never understood why you would do that. I think you know. So I think we need to have integrity. That's very good, and I believe in the culture. But if you believe in and you know God's placed you there and you're submitted to that, your job is you're a carrier of that culture. It's really good, you know. So you're a distributor of those cultural values and that's your stewardship and responsibility.

7:39 Yes, every team member has a response. Every team member, every person has a culture, and so if you have an integrity this is what you're talking about ultimately, a lot of times it's with younger staff members. They're frustrated because they're wanting to be a certain kind of an expression in their church and they're like well, my church just doesn't get it. Well, if that's the case and you really feel that strongly about it, and if you don't, feel like that's the place that God's placing we're not calling people to be flippant, but it's so common, there's a description. It's not just in the church, but in business as a whole. Quiet, quitting, it's what you were talking about. For selfish motives, you stay in an organization that you don't believe in, you're not very fulfilled, but you're benefiting from the salary, the experience, whatever, but your heart's not in it.

8:20 That doesn't help the environment and it doesn't help the individual. So you're just advocating for let's be people of integrity who, if we're going to be in an environment, let's embody the culture of that environment. Exactly so. If you're, if you are, if you are the leader of a team and you're part of an organization, your job is to carry that culture to that team. If you're the president of the company, the pastor of the church, you know you are connected to your pastor as the youth pastor and have that culture, then you're the culture setter for that youth department. You're setting the temperature. And I recently had this dialogue with some youth pastors and young adult different ones and go hey, I appreciate that you have all your perfect light cues.

9:06 Those things are great. The messaging, the media of the event was amazing, but the people, the experience, the intangible, like the engagement. Your primary job is to consistently be measuring the culture of that environment, how people are responding, what is the temperature of that environment spiritually, and that's a big responsibility as a leader. You should be able to understand culture. You should be like a a, a taste tester on one of these food shows.

9:47 You know what I? mean you should be one that sits. If you, if you're, if you're going to grow in leadership, you should be like the one that's invited to go. Hey, taste this and give me your opinion on it, Right? And and and. The Bible does give us a metaphor when it's talking about the body of Christ, because I think this applies to culture. There's different parts of the body and they're not all the same. We're all part of the body of Christ, but there are different expressions, there are different ways to do church. But just be consistent with the culture and just be clear on what you're trying to do. There's fine dining, there's fast, casual, there's all different kinds and genres of restaurants and all of them can be great if there's a clear sense of here's our culture, here's who we're trying to be, here's what you can expect and here's what we're trying to deliver when we come into an environment.

10:31 I think that I mean being true to who you are, because I'll go back to who are. The culture right and if you're like you know, my main goal is to see as many people saved as possible. My main goal is to get content out. Then you're going to have a lot of content, but you also have a lot of turnover, right. So if your goal is, I want to have you know evangelistic church, then maybe a lot of times would be hey, how are people being discipled? I mean it's going to flow out of you. How are people being discipled? I mean it's going to flow out of you. And I think that's why we have to grow as leaders, because we can't say well, you know, I'm just a selfish person. Well, I mean, you've got to become more unselfish. You've got to become more humble.

11:17 I'm not talking about godly character, but I am talking about wiring and gifting. Don't despise it, maybe Like lean into it, and the worst thing you could do is be trying to build a culture that doesn't fit with what you're passionate about right, because you're going to find incongruence and you're going to find people feeling confused in that area. We could talk all day about culture, talk about aspirational, actual, be the culture. You know, very simply, our people are not generous. I mean, I ask every pastor are you generous? Right. Our people are not kind. Well, are you kind? Right. I want our church to be more friendly. Are you friendly? You have to go first. You're the leader. They're going to, they're going to follow your lead.

11:59 Reproduce, what to reproduce, what's in that culture. So I think sometimes it's more like explain it to me, and I think, if I explain this because I just had to have a very important gathering as the pastor of Milestone Church to help with people understanding culture and who are these people and who is this guy. And so we had a supernatural thing for our church in that we were going into an area, we were doing pop-ups, and I have compassion because a church went through a struggle but in the result of that, uh, their leadership and elders, their church became a campus of our church.

12:48 But you have, this church was fairly, it was 90,000 square foot building and property, and so you know, you had a lot of people who'd been through a lot of stuff, right, and so I have the responsibility of going there after all of this is closed and settled and and and I just I'm offering this to people like to to when you go into that team meeting or that new team or you become the new leader of XYZ. This is years of just growing. I don't know how to be as good at this, but I've grown a lot right. But I started with acknowledging where they've been. You know, you guys have been through some challenging things. And then my message title was I'd like the opportunity to be your pastor.

13:33 I want to say, because I was there with you and we were talking about this and when you landed on that idea I don't know if you've ever heard anybody call a message I'd like the opportunity to be your pastor, but I think it communicates so much. I mean the message you continue to talk about who is Milestone Church and what does that mean and what are our values, what is our culture like? But you started there because you're thinking about them. You know you didn't come with a badge and a gun and be like there's a new sheriff in town. You came and you said guys, here's what we, here's what we're doing. I recognize where you're at. I want to invite you. I think that language is so important because that's family, that's relational, that's considerate language that makes a big impact.

14:13 How did that? How do you think that changed the way that room received what you said to them? It's been a long time since I did an interview, you know. So I was very much an interviewed person in that moment and I think they're asking the question. And I was at a big event the other day where I heard a leader speaking and I just felt like, you know, you're missing an opportunity. People are not looking for your expertise many times, especially when you're new You're new to a team. You're giving you know. Your introductory speech, like my largest advice, is like they're asking the question who is this person? What do they care about? And do they care about me? And if I sense that their heart is turned toward helping me, then it's amazing how they're much more open to listen to what you have to say.

15:00 And so I started with you know, can I have the opportunity to be your pastor? I then and this is just an idea that I think can translate For me I see in the Bible, there's several things in the Bible that relate to the culture of the individual, what it means to follow God. There's all kinds of seasons in the life of God's people. Context, you know, there's gardens and wildernesses and exile, and you know, it's just it's quite a dramatic book of all kinds of different people from different places, but I see two cultural pictures.

15:43 One is family. When he talks about his church he's talking about a family, and then the other one I see is he talks about being a body and I see I see the connection between those two influencing culture. So I think it still can apply to business here. I really do. But I was sharing this with this group of people. I just want to share with you. I want an opportunity to be your pastor. I would love the opportunity to be your pastor. Then you're asking me hey, what do we care about? What do we prioritize? So I did. I talked about the whole Bible being centered around Jesus and talked about, you know, the great commandment, the great commission and these, these major principles reaching people, building lives, a mantra to us.

16:28 But this family and body is where they start connecting to the ethos. Bible starts with a family. God is known as our father right, then father Abraham, and Psalm 68, six he sets the lonely in families, but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. We live in a lonely world today, and um it's. We could go on and on, for sure, about young adults and college students and the need to know how to make friends. Epidemic of loneliness is the way it's described. Is what they're describing it right. So this is going back to the OG, right, Like it's going back to God's heart, right? Paul Timothy, my son.

17:10 Yes, you know, like there's father, son, family, you know. The entire New Testament, brothers and sisters, it's family language. Family language. The last verse of the Old Testament he turns the hearts of the fathers to their children. And so it can be. Family can be a painful word. Yes, and it's a loaded word. A lot of time people bring their baggage. When they hear you say family, they're not thinking what you're thinking. They're thinking what they experienced in their own family of origin, which is such a big part of how they filter what that communication means. But again, God designed us and created us for family. He did Right. Jesus could have come any way he wanted he could have just descended into the earth.

17:53 Yeah, came as a baby. Yeah, to a mom and dad. In a family In a family. And it was complicated With brothers and sisters and the whole deal. It was complicated, right. So he lived relationally, he had friends. So I love that cultural concept of family. You know a lot of guys like to lean on community. This is just me. I'm pushing a little bit. But community can also be something. Again, there's civic, there's community, I understand. There's coinity a Christian fellowship. but the average person community can be a set of casual relationships, but this idea of the family of God it's just a totally different responsibility that I carry.

18:36 So I talk about being a family. There's this love, the acceptance, there's this, this, this, this atmosphere. Now, again, I came from not a perfect family, but you know, I was loved by my dad, I, I, I build family, culture, um. But then this other side is body, right and so body. When you see the new, you know the shin bones connected to the knee bone, it's like we all can't be an eye and what if we don't have a year and and there's this family language joints supplying. You know every joint. It's there. We keep getting this, you know operation game you know exactly, remember that that's a whole throwback. That is a whole throwback, yeah, yeah.

19:17 So it's like we're trying to get all this stuff connected without, without you know. So it's a, it's, it's, it's God piecing these, these, these parts together to stand in the maturity and the fullness and, uh, and the stature. And so I mean, in today's world again, you know, me and Jesus got our own thing going right. Well, that's hard to justify from the Scripture. You can't be the body of Christ by yourself. You can't be the body of Christ, and if you really read the New Testament it's so much about one another and walking together and being the body Like. You can't mature disconnected from the body of Christ, right, it's true.

20:03 So he puts us in his body and then we all know, practically, right, you become who you hang around, right, you learn. You learn way more about what you catch than what you're taught, and so there, there's both of those. But here's what I see is, if there's only family, it can kind of be enablement, where you're, you just sort of have this. There's a lot of cultures that are man, we're real, loving, and we, we have a lot of team activities and trust falls and all that. But like the, the person out there who's an, an activator, a action oriented person, is going to be like what are we doing? what are we trying do? Right, and after a while that can break down. It's true.

20:43 I had a guy recently asked me he goes well, you know, now you're, you're, you guys are starting campuses. He goes well, is there? Is there a problem, maybe, with just dilution of the vision? I was like, well, we, we're fighting against that, trying to keep the culture and and maintain that culture. But I said I would give you another way to look at it. We spent 20 years building family, building sons and daughters, raising up this environment. It could also, conversely, be said, if you study the New Testament, that if we only stay together just to be together, but don't get missional, we could get dispersed. It's true. So actually what we see from the New Testament, if you don't go out, you get forced out.

21:27 It's true, right, so both are true. But it's not just a relational codependency of me and my little world, but it's also not just effective function, where it's all performance. And one of the things I think that's come into leadership today is there's a lot more pragmatic techniques and there's the potential for your team to feel like you're just concerned about your plan but you're not concerned about them, and when you are concerned about them, but you also have a plan, but you're not concerned about them, right, and when you are concerned about them, but you also have a plan, it becomes pretty dynamic. That's the dynamic marriage, yeah, yeah.

22:07 Well, you have the. We're doing it together, but we're expanding and we're growing, because the other thing is, too, is that as it expands, it creates new opportunities. When you're talking about the other model, that it's really tight and we've been together forever if there's not expansion, there's not as many opportunities for new people to use their gifts and to contribute what they're trying to contribute as well. That's so helpful. Talk to me for a minute now. Let's think about this as we're wrapping up. Can you get a little bit more practical? How could somebody out there whether they're talking about their business, their team or their church how could they be honestly like okay, let me look at the culture of my environment. How are we doing relationally, that's the family side? How are we doing functionally?

22:48 How would they know how they're doing? Well, I think it's a very humble question to ever ask, right? I think that people who really want to grow are more open to say well, tell me what your experience. Now, you have to be careful. You want people that love you. You're not talking about people that just there's, people that nowadays just go around and tear down everything Just for no reason. But I want the people who love me, or even people I would trust their opinion, to invite their feedback, because I think we can easily, as as leaders, lose touch with reality. We tell ourselves things that are not true. So I would think one of the best things you could do is culture is what's experienced by you.

23:33 So if you say I want a good team, well, ask your team, like, how do you feel about being on this team? Give me feedback, talk to them, or your congregation or congregation or others, like get feedback from that. And again, we're not talking about negative Nancy or this person over here. We're talking, though, about that, that culture, and I think I think, as you begin to spend time with the people that you're serving, you begin to get indicators of the effectiveness of the culture, and I would say that every leader probably leans strongly to one side or the other. You know one of the things I marvel at about Jesus he was full of grace and truth, full.

24:14 Yes. That means he had maximum input, he had maximum capacity for grace and truth. But he is the son of god, right, we tend to lean to one or the other. We, we probably would lean toward, hey, let's just all kind of you know, everybody get together and it'll be pure and it's just us, or we lean over here. To effective function function get over it, yeah lose, lose a lot of eq. Yeah, I would say you know a lot of a lot of EQ. Yeah, I would say a lot of leaders probably err more on that side. Yeah, you could probably impact your culture a lot more by slowing down a little bit, taking some time, spend some time with your people. I tell a lot of our senior team a lot of times it's good to be efficient, but sometimes healthy relationships and family is not very efficient.

25:02 It's true. I got one going into freshman year high school. She's not very efficient. She wants to talk at the wrong time of the day I mean it's just building strong relationships are not exactly according to plan. No, it's inconvenient, yeah, and it doesn't happen on your schedule. But when those moments and those opportunities present themselves, they know whether or not you really care about them or not. It's a good point. So I think, to kind of sum it up, you are the culture. The people are the indicator of the actual culture, not necessarily what culture you want it to be. And you have to ask yourself why is the culture that way? And making cultural shifts is challenging, like you have to be willing to pay a price to change a culture that's been set.

25:49 That's true, okay, and it can be very costly. And you got to decide. You know what? What do I want this atmosphere to be? I tell a lot of people I I pastored three other churches, right. So when I started Milestone, it's like man, I was more vigilant. I paid a heavier price on the front end it's not fair to put that. That's a sovereign thing of God but I was like, look, I'd rather build a church I want to go to than just have a church full of people that I don't want to be a part of the atmosphere just because we're just trying to get more people. So I think you have to pay a price for it. But I do believe that if we're willing to lean into heart, it's just like parenting.

26:35 We sometimes can be overly focused on behaviors and miss heart, miss parenting, the heart right. So culture is developed by being willing to talk about heart stuff, like being willing to still think about behaviors but also work on heart. So it's both right, I love that yeah the combination the relational strength is so important, but also the function and the effectiveness of what are we trying to do and marrying those things together. It's not easy. There's a little bit of a push and pull, there's a tension. Those things are held together. I think anyone listening if you're you're responsible for culture would be to evaluate which which side do we lean and how could we bring in the elements of maybe the part that we're weaker at to develop a healthier culture.

27:28 It's so good, Whether you're a senior leader or a young leader or a new team member, wherever you're at. One of the great things about culture is we all influence culture. So, wherever you're at in the organization, you don't have to be the top person to make an impact and to bring a positive change to culture. Well, thank you so much, Pastor Jeff, and thank you for joining us again on the Lead to Win podcast. We'll see you next time.