Leader's Insight: Your Church's DNA

Aurora Advent Christian Church, located just outside of Chicago, was stuck. The church was dynamic in many ways. The leaders were talented and highly motivated, but as a unit, something was wrong.

The first things I noticed were the signs—in the office, in the gymnasium, on the doors to the bathroom. The place was plastered with “do not’s.”

Do not bounce balls on the wall.
Do not wear black-soled shoes.
Do not leave the lights on.
Do not sit here.

Each notice was signed: “The Trustees.”

The meetings I attended were formal, focused on procedure and rules. Yet everyone seemed so friendly, warm, and passionate about ministry. When I took a direct, left-brain approach and told leaders they were overly focused on the business of the church, it did not go well.

On a return visit, I focused on trying to understand the church’s code. I took a more intuitive, right-brain approach. In focus groups, I asked people to go back as far as they could in memory and recall first or powerful experiences with church. I was amazed to hear their stories.

“It was the one place each week where Mom and Dad were with me.”

“I remember holding Mom’s hand, and it was the only place where I held her hand each week.”

“I remember going to Grandma’s house after church.”

Nearly all of the people told me of deep experiences relating to family. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out: the church’s code was all about family—warmth, caring, and connection. In leading the church like a business, Aurora Advent Christian had become a stranger to its own code.

Meeting with the leaders, I explained what I’d heard and what I sensed was their code. Then I asked: “In your board meetings, do you function more like a government agency or a family?”

There was a long silence. One by one, they admitted: government agency. They vowed to be more like a family.

By appealing to their code, I gave them “permission” to change, to operate more in line with their DNA.

MyCode, not McCode

What is code? It’s the essence or soul of a church. We can talk about what code does, which is to shape the face of how the church displays itself to the world. Code is the often unspoken assumptions that shape a church’s vision, values, and mission. It’s subtly mirrored in a church’s symbols, stories, and history. It is difficult to define because it is invisible, like the air we breathe.

But perhaps code is most easily understood when things are out of alignment, when something isn’t quite right. In fact, a church incongruent with its code is the single greatest cause of conflict I see, and it creates far more damage than clashes over worship styles or even theological differences. Incongruence with code can be highly destructive.

For example, several years ago when Sears launched “the softer side of Sears” campaign, it landed on deaf ears. Why? Because when people think of Sears, they think of tools and appliances, not nightgowns and dress suits. It didn’t fit their code. Healthy churches have a clear sense of identity. They know their code. And they don’t readily deviate from it.

That code gives a church a sense of collective personality and uniqueness; it defines each fellowship as one of a kind. Churches must work at keeping their operating culture in alignment with their code.

Unfortunately, too many churches fall prey to formulaic approaches, becoming McFranchises of something else. If a Quarter Pounder, fries, and Coke taste as good in Denver as they do in Dayton, then why can’t a church in Charlotte do ministry just like a church in Tacoma?

Or so goes the thinking. But simply adopting the Next Big Thing exposes a number of negative unintended consequences, as the church:

Slides toward mimicry, which inhibits true community;
Can’t find natural ways to bond folks in shared ministry;
Loses the critical ingredient of local context to focus a church;
Depersonalizes ministry as leaders spend all their time keeping the machine running smoothly.

The tendency to import church models and styles in an attempt to reach the same results as a church across the country contrasts with God’s desire for each church to embody the gospel in its own cultural context—to live by a defining and aligning code.

Digging deeper

If we think of code as the collective identity of a given culture, we can look for code at both macro and micro levels.

Every church is connected to a macro code within the larger context of biblical narrative and church history. I see within the Bible a series of short stories, each providing context and meaning, all connected to a larger story. Tolkien called such a framework “the metanarrative”—the one story that explains and encompasses all other stories.

So the Scriptures form a metanarrative for the church. Reading throughout Old and New Testaments, we find those same themes of redemption, covenant, revelation, and promise. In these overarching ways, we should also be like and look like our Father. That is our DNA.

Our response is fourfold:

Every church is to participate in God’s work of redemption: sharing the gospel and working to redeem a fallen world.
Every church is to function as a covenant community, caring for each other with self-sacrificial love.
Every church is to understand how God has revealed himself and continues to reveal himself.
Every church is to cling to an eschatological hope that drives everything toward God’s promised future.

When any church lives outside these elements, it strays from its genetic and experiential relationship with its Father. Beyond this “macro code,” each church is formed uniquely. It has a “micro code” that is identified by listening to the stories of the people.

In the churches I visit, I ask

Who are you as a church?
What first attracted you to this church?
What is most different about your life since coming to this church?

The answers people give to these and other questions help crack the code. Then we can determine whether a church is living outside its code, or if the code itself should be changed.

Epilogue

Six months after my meetings at the Chicago-area church, the pastor sent me an e-mail saying the board meetings were the best they had been in his 12 years at the church. They took a few minutes for business, and spent the rest of the time interacting like a healthy family—sharing with each other, praying for each other, reading together.

At times, the only way for a church to move forward is to look back. Paradoxically, change can come only when the best of its past is guarded with passion. Code shapes church culture, values, focus, and mission. It creates a context for vision and strategy to emerge.

Kevin G. Ford is the author of Transforming Church: Bringing Out the Good to Get to Great (Saltriver, 2007) from which this column is excerpted. A full-length version of this article appears in the Summer issue of Leadership.

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