The 7 Cs – Culture

At Baptist Search Partners, we orient our partnership and search process around 7 Cs. They are:
1. Conversion
2. Calling
3. Character
4. Competence
5. Culture
6. Chemistry
7. Confirmation of the Holy Spirit

We’ve all heard it. Peter Drucker said it.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Culture is foundational. Strategy, programming, policies, and procedures are all anchored by an organization’s culture.

Every church has a culture. Every church exists within a culture. And those two domains define how you evaluate a candidate’s fit.

I don’t think it matters where you start. A big no on either front should lead you to end the conversation. A big yes to one, and you move on to the other. Let’s talk about the two.

Every church has a culture. Even if you haven’t tried. Even if you don’t know it. Your church has a culture. Whenever there is a vacuum in organizational culture, it will be filled. You can set it and sustain it, or someone else will (lead staff, administrative staff, a board, a chairman, volunteers, etc.).

Culture isn’t established in one day. It’s built like a house – brick by brick. And in an interview process, it’s important to have a clarified culture in your mind, understood by your staff and volunteers, and written in some way that can be communicated to a prospective candidate. Perhaps your next search will drive you to begin the process.

Culture is where you get past the bullet points of a qualified candidate to see if they want to be on your staff and if you think they will fit on your team.

Not evaluating a cultural fit with the church is one of the great fail points of a ministry leader search.

Next, we have the larger culture in which a church sits. This may be unique to the community, the city, the state, the region, or the nation.

Let’s take an extreme example. Some cultures have a different value of time than we Americans. Setting appointments and being “on time” is not a high value. Say you hire someone from a culture like that when your church culture is more on the structured side. How will it go when this new staff member consistently shows up late, disregards office hours, and doesn’t like a set schedule? Friction all around ensues.

Get my point?

Or how about one that’s a little more palatable? Let’s say your local community loves outdoor recreation. Though your church may not be focused on the great outdoors, it certainly is one of its strongest affinities. Now put a person on your team who was born and raised in the city and prefers air conditioning and an Embassy Suites over a cool mountain breeze and a two-man tent. This person will struggle greatly to relate in a number of ways.

They may be a fit, but they likely are not.

The challenge of a search firm is to determine the culture that needs to be communicated to candidates, largely because cultures are as varied as the number of churches that exist in our world.

When the culture (on both fronts) is communicated, clarified, and codified, your search ends up getting you to the right candidates.