I think I blogged about this sometime in the past few years, but since I can’t remember for sure, you probably can’t either.
Yesterday I spoke to 30 of our Victory Manila and Every Nation Philippines admin staff about the corporate culture we are trying to create. Here’s the culture we intentionally build in our Manila-based Every Nation, Victory-Manila, Lifebox (campus ministry), and Real Life Foundation admin/mgt/ops teams.
1. A MISSIONAL CULTURE: The Passionate Vision of a World-wide Church-planting and Missions Movement.
– missional simple means to think and act like a missionary
– we must think and act globally, not just locally
– we must realize that we face spiritual opposition
– our work, evangelism, and church planting, is spiritual and requires a miracle and the grace of God
– if satan was able to stop the Apostle Paul at times (1 Thessalonians 2:18) then he will certainly try to stop us
– all of the above applies to everyone working in our organization whether they are on the front lines as a campus missionary or in the office working on financial reports
– “the share of the men who stayed with the supplies is the be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.” –David (1 Samuel 30:24)
2. A PROFESSIONAL CULTURE: The Organizational Excellence of a Multinational Corporation.
– A professional culture means the way we handle finances and facilities must be at the highest international standards
– A professional culture starts with a biblical view of work
– Work is a blessing, not a curse.
– Originally work was part of man’s purpose, not punishment for sin (Genesis 2:15)
– Man was made to work
– We rest one day so we can work the other six. We do not work so we can rest.
– If we have a biblical theology of work, developing a professional culture will be relatively simple
3. A RELATIONAL CULTURE: The Caring Atmosphere of a Church Family.
– how do we create a culture that is both professional and relational?
– The starting point is to acknowledge that churches and ministries are in the “people business”
– People matter to God, so they must matter to us
– Jesus died for people not for organizations, logos, policies, and vision statements
– Learning to forgive is essential to creating and maintaining a relational culture
If leaders spend more time and energy building a healthy corporate culture based on biblical values, then we will spend less time enforcing policies and rules. I am not sure we always succeed, but that is what we are trying to do.