What is culture? It’s like the air you breath. The water you swim in. The strange, elusive smell of your house. It’s usually undetected by you—when you’re in it. But when someone else enters and experiences it, they can’t ignore or forget it.    

A toxic culture is like the smog you never see in your city until you fly over at 30 thousand feet. Then you realize you’ve been living in filth, breathing the fumes.

A healthy culture is like the fresh, alpine air of the mountains or the clear night sky you take for granted. Then you move into a busy city and long for what you took for granted: clear skies, clean air, and space to roam.

The culture I’m talking about is not just air, water, and aromas; it’s attitudes, thought-patterns, and conduct. In other words, it’s relational. 

Perhaps the best description of culture I’ve found is this: "The unspoken rules about the way we do things around here." Unspoken rules. Unwritten codes. Usually unquestioned, unanalyzed, and therefore unchallenged.  

So, culture is the shared values we embrace, protect, and promote—often subconsciously. Families have a culture. Cities have a culture. Companies and small businesses have a culture. Churches do too. The problem with belonging to a culture is that you’re usually the last one to know when it breaks bad. 

That's why J.I. Packer said, "It's beyond question that we believers do not think often enough or deeply enough about the culture of our congregations." 

For all of those reasons, we need to check our culture and see if it's healthy. We need to ask ourselves what kind of community we’re fostering. We need to dig deep to find out the “unspoken rules about the way we do things around here.” And then we need to ask: “How do we course-correct?” Let’s think deeply about the culture of our churches! 

I was saved in my twenties and have been part of five churches. That’s five congregations, five communities—five cultures. One lesson I’ve taken away from my experience is that once a culture takes root, questioning or challenging that culture to change won’t be easy. Especially if not everyone agrees the culture needs to be changed, and especially if blindspots plague the leadership. Sometimes, leaders are the last ones to own their own toxic culture. And by then, the damage has been inflicted. 

Why are we talking about this? What’s at stake? I believe the gospel itself is at stake. The message that Jesus Christ came to rescue and restore the world, beginning with us. Unbelievers lean in for a closer look and listen up when Christians gather. What they witness can either help prove or discredit the gospel. 

The Gospel is true whether we believe it or not, but our churches make visible what seems abstract. We showcase the Gospel message. We prove its power by our changed lives, the beauty of our relationships. 

Ray Ortlund, in his book, The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ, says it like this: “Churches don’t make the gospel true. It is true even when the household of God behaves badly. But people can see that it is true, and doubters are converted when ‘the sweetness of the Lord’ is upon us.” He goes on to say that the test of a gospel-centered church is its doctrine on paper plus its culture in practice.

Francis Shaeffer said, “Love is God’s final apologetic to the world.” It’s not unreasonable for an unbeliever to come to our churches to see whether or not the Gospel really is true—to see if it makes good on it’s boast. The church is the showroom floor for the message of Jesus. Does it really transform human hearts? 

It’s possible for a church to feature “sound doctrine” in its statement of faith or website, but display a tense, harsh, toxic culture in its community. We see this everywhere, not just in churches. Take the Nextdoor social media app for instance:  

Mission statement: “Our purpose is to cultivate a kinder world where everyone has a neighborhood they can rely on. Our mission is to be the neighborhood hub for trusted connections and the exchange of helpful information, goods, and services. We want all neighbors to feel welcome, safe, and respected when using Nextdoor.” 

Their motto: When neighbors start talking, good things happen. But do they? Here’s a recent post from the Nextdoor thread in my very own neighborhood. True story… 

Goodbye: Nextdoor used to be a wonderful site to get information and suggestions about our lives in Deland. I used to enjoy the comments and neighborhood news with my cup of coffee. Unfortunately, it has become a cesspool of nasty comments and arguments. I for one am signing off and will only come on if my dog is missing or I need a professional recommendation. Sad that the few ruin it for the rest. Stay healthy and find people who bring joy into your lives.

What happened? Nextdoor has good “doctrine" on paper. For all community members to feel welcome, safe, and respected. They exist to cultivate a kinder world. But in practice, Nextdoor can turn into a nasty gossip column, an ugly political back-and-forth, an open-season for petty neighborhood complaints. Unclaimed dog poop. Dead grass. Unweeded gardens. Cars parked in the wrong places. Houses painted the wrong color. Do you feel welcomed and respected? Has the world grown kinder? Not hardly. 

We know the Gospel is at work, not just when we believe the right things, but when beauty appears in the way we treat one another. When a church’s doctrine is clear and its culture is beautiful, that church will be powerful and attractive, an oasis for weary sinners seeking safety. Still waters and green pastures in the middle of a world rife with political rancor and social outrage. When the culture is ugly, we slander the doctrine we claim to believe.  

"If a message so good lies at the defining center of our churches, why do we see such bad things in those same churches—ranging from active strife to sheer exhaustion? Where is the saving power of the gospel?…How many people in our cities are ex-Christians, and even strongly anti-Christian, because they went to church to hear ‘good news of great joy’ but it was drowned out by strife and trouble? -Ray Ortlund 

For the next few weeks, we’ll do a “Culture Check” and see both what God says about the culture of our church, and how our church measures up. Two Sundays ago we launched a series by that name at GraceLife. If you want to go deeper, follow that sermon series. Or check out the excellent book Ray Ortlund wrote that I’ve already quoted above.

Check your culture.