It's the Culture, Stupid

While many mainline churches are healthy, most are not.  They are in decline.  They share in a culture of decline that is marked not only by statistical decline but also by avoiding talking about their decline.  In a strange sort of way, they are acquiescing to their own decline and eventual demise.  Pastors play a large contributing role in all of this, but it is the churches themselves that play the major role.

Hold that thought.  When recently asked (here) why he has been so successful in turning around the football program at the University of Minnesota, head coach Jerry Kill answered, "I guess the No. 1 thing is the culture, trying to get everybody on the same page...That was difficult. It always is, by the way, when you take a new job.”  Football success wasn't possible without a change in culture.  That change didn't guarantee that the Golden Gophers would suddenly become a relevant program, but without the change in culture there was also no possibility that it would becoming a winning team.  One key cultural change Kill identified, for example, was improving the players' grades.

Returning to the church, it is clear that declining local mainline churches require a change in culture.  It is, unfortunately, far more difficult to sell that need to congregations than it is to young football players who want to win football games.  Churches are prone to actively resist such change.  They are frequently committed to the proposition that they can overcome decline by continuing to do what they are doing, but only better.  There is a reason.  Change might accelerate decline.  Better the devil you know than the one you don't.

Nonetheless, it is all about changing the culture of decline.  The problem with all of the how-to manuals and books and audio cassettes and websites dedicated to that change is that culture is a profoundly local thing, even the culture of decline.  What works in one place may well not work at all in another.  The one constant is the need to change the local church's culture of decline.  And one crucial place to begin is to talk about it.  Not talking means not changing.  Changing a church's culture also requires finding leverage points, which are easier to change and will promote changes in other places—such as introducing a small group ministry into the church.

In any event, it is all about the culture.

Wisdom From Coach Kill

Give yourself until midnight to be upset about the loss and then you turn around and just focus on how you get better and not focus on the loss so much.

University of Minnesota Coach, Jerry Kill

After the Gophers lost to USC, 19-17

Quoted (here)

Optimism Creep

Minnesota head football coach Jerry Kill

Minnesota Gophers' new coach, Jerry Kill, has taken Minnesota by storm.  Formerly at Northern Illinois and other smaller schools, his appointment as the next head coach at the U of M was initially received with something amounting to derision.  But Coach Kill is a down-to-earth, straight shooter who talks a good line by not talking a good line.  The Gophers haven't been much to talk about for five decades, and now everybody and their brother is expecting that to change—maybe not this year, but surely by next year.  The sports media in Minnesota is rife with optimism.  People are excited about the Gophers.  OK.

But, hold on—there's this thing called "optimism creep,"  a term I recently came across in an article (here).   The article describes how every year Washington Redskins fans get pumped up with what turns out to be an unwarranted, false optimism. The closer they get to opening day the more the optimism grows—of its own volition.  Then comes the actual season and, wham, reality returns.  That's optimism creep.


They know about optimism creep all too well in my home state of Minnesota.  Every April the Twins are going to win the World Series "this year."  Every September the Vikings are headed to the Super Bowl "this year."  Last fall, 2010, the men's basketball Gophers were sure to make it deep into the Big Dance "this year."  Optimism was in the air, as it often is in Minnesota before each season starts.  The results are invariably anything from mildly disappointing to disastrous—year in, year out, decade following decade.

So, now it's Saturday, Sept. 3rd, 2011.  The new season begins with a coach who has a record for transforming poor teams into good ones.  The Gophers' opponent, USC, is ranked 25th in the nation.  Minnesota is abuzz.  Everyone knows this year will be a tough one, but still they hope and now believe that Gophers' football has "entered a new era."  Well, maybe.  Or is it just our old friend optimism creep?  The hope that springs eternal says, 'no, but didn't I read somewhere that they're working on a new breed of pigs that fly?  Oh well, Go Gophers!