“Cracking Your Church’s Culture” Review

I recently finished the book entitiled Cracking Your Church’s Culture by Samuel R. Chand. This book was an interesting read on how culture impacts everything that your church tries to accomplish.

He uses this acronym as the seven keys to CULTURE – Control, Understanding, Leadership, Trust, Unafraid, Responsive, and Execution.

I offer a quick summary of each area…

Control – “Strong, effective teams have a ‘Goldilocks approach’ to control: not too much, not too little, but just the right amount of checks and balances.” The leader will give direction, make assignments, delegate, and resource. They will also have an effective means of reporting updates, keep in touch with all involved, and stick with the project until it is complete.

Understanding – The leader clearly conveys the what’s that need to be completed and the why’s this is important.

Leadership – This entire process is built on discovering and developing new leaders who can help lead your organization down the path you have picked.

Trust – There has to be an environment of trust flowing throughout your organization for anything to get accomplished.

Unafraid – You cannot allow fear to keep you from attempting what you feel is necessary. Failure is not horrible nor is conflict the end of everything.

Responsive – Teams need to be aware of opportunities (whether positive or negative). This involves collaboration and open communication. Feedback and analysis is a good thing.

Execution – Simply put, you follow through with what you said you would do or were assigned to do. Clear delegation is crucial. Inspection is necessary.

These are just a quick glance of what is in the book. Dr. Chand adds more meat to each area. If you are planning on changing things (especially something big), I would encourage you to pick up a copy of this before you get too involved.