4 Values Churches Must Model in Today’s Cultural Climate

When my wife and I started our adventure in church planting, one of the first things we did was write down the core values that would guide us forward. We considered these values to be like guardrails. We would refer to them every time we needed to make a decision about our direction.

If an option opposed one of our core values, we chose a different pathway. We often found ourselves saying “no” to what looked like good ideas or opportunities because our values wouldn’t allow us to say “yes.” Sometimes, sticking to our core values didn’t make sense to everyone.

For example, one of our values was that we would empower people to use their gifts and refuse to use people. We wouldn’t get so busy with events and programs that we would burn out staff members or volunteers. And we wanted families to spend more time at home with each other than they would at church-related gatherings and events.

Therefore, we would often postpone or turn down an opportunity to launch some new program because we knew our volunteers were already busy enough. Instead, we sought a healthy rhythm in our church’s life.

I’d heard plenty of language from other church leaders about how people needed to be willing to make sacrifices for the kingdom, but we felt that there was a big difference between sacrificing our self-interest for the kingdom’s sake and sacrificing personal or relational health to keep the church’s institutional machinery cranking.

I recently asked myself, if I were starting a church again today, what would be the values that I would consider most pertinent and timely in our current cultural moment in which the nonbelieving world is asking so many hard questions about the church. These four came to my mind rather quickly.

1. Safety

I name this first because I think it’s of first importance. Without safety, a church loses not only its credibility but its right to claim to represent the gospel of a Good Shepherd who is fiercely protective of his sheep.

And I mean safety as a value in two senses. First of all, churches should protect people from abuse, whether spiritual, sexual, or relational. There have been far too many headlines and investigative reports about the ways in which churches have harmed people and then, have handled those abuses appropriately.

Churches must absolutely adopt policies and practices that guard, as much as possible, against allowing someone to suffer harm at the hands of a church leader.

But I also mean safety in the sense of creating a safe space for people to struggle with issues and questions. Obviously, our Sunday gatherings are not the time or place for people to be randomly sharing their darkest secrets. But when it comes to small group ministry, counseling, recovery ministries, and discipleship systems, people must know that their confidences will be kept, their theological questions heard without judgment, and their mental and emotional health as a top priority.

2. Authenticity

We (in the West) minister in a predominantly capitalistic, consumeristic society. So we’ve shaped the church, to varying degrees, around that consumerism. This is old news.

One of the side effects of trying to be attractive to consumers is the need to polish everything up. We even apply polish and then call it doing ministry “with excellence”… for God’s glory, of course.

But there’s a trade-off. The more polish we apply, the less authentic we are perceived to be. And we’re living in a generation that expects… no, demands authenticity.

That means getting honest about our faults, committing to live with real integrity, and being willing to talk about spirituality and emotional health at a deep level.

3. Empathy

Empathy flows out of authenticity, for when we are authentic, we tend to care about people and their spiritual health so much more.

Brené Brown, in her book Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. says, “Remember, empathy is the most powerful connecting and trust-building tool that we have, and it’s the antidote to shame.”

Empathy is when a church leader hears someone’s sin story and is able to recognize that the person ultimately committed that sin because of their brokenness and their not understanding just how loved by God they were. Further, it’s having an understanding of the predicaments in which sin tends to leave us – hurt, bruised, and shame-filled.

Empathy is when a church leader encounters someone going through a deconstruction of their faith and is willing to identify with the circumstances that motivated the deconstruction and to acknowledge that sometimes, the faith we’ve received from our tradition is hard to reconcile.

Empathy is when we hear someone’s views on controversial issues and, instead of labeling them as the enemy, we seek to feel the burden that led them to a viewpoint with which we might never agree.

And empathy is a value that will always lead to a healthier staff, healthier small groups, and healthier volunteer teams.

4. Generosity

We’ve been trained, as church leaders, to use words like “generosity” instead of some of our more traditional terminology around tithes and offerings. But I’m not talking about mere financial generosity. I believe churches need to practice generosity that is always seeking to re-invest back into the people of earth for the sake of human flourishing.

The culture sometimes views the church as a sponge, soaking up money, land, and resources without really helping people struggling with poverty and other social issues. A generous church does more than set up a benevolence fund for people needing groceries. A generous church seeks out ways to add value to its local community and to address the issues that affect real people in their daily lives.

All four of these values work together. They feed each other. And when we’re deficient in one, we’re usually deficient in the others.

The gospel – the good news about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for the salvation of the world – hasn’t changed in two thousand years. But the values of our culture are constantly fluctuating. Wisdom dictates that we learn from our mistakes, listen to where people are feeling pain, and offer the good news out of a trusting relationship.

Safety, authenticity, empathy, and generosity are great places to start rebuilding real trust.

Photo by Abhishek Revis on Unsplash.