Article by Teresa Chang
As church leaders, the best way to increase your church’s experience of God’s presence and power is by building a prophetic culture. Culture is the shared values, priorities and practices, along with the traditions, symbols and expressions that unite a community.
Building the right kind of culture is the first step in moving from vision to reality. Many of us have a strong vision of what we want to do and what we want to become, but vision alone will not get us to our goal. We need practical steps along the way. Culture takes time to build, but once it is built, it has an amazing power to steer large groups.
As a church leader, if you want to build a certain culture in your church, you have to begin to adjust your values—who you are as a church—at a fundamental level. These are some of the key values that undergird the prophetic:
- Intimacy (both with God and one another)
- Dependency on the Holy Spirit
- Integrity (which ensures the quality of the prophetic)
When values are combined with priorities (what has precedence in your daily life) and practices (what you actually do in your daily life), they become a cultural component. The three values listed above heighten our love and passion for the Lord and promote a culture of the supernatural and prophetic. They also give birth to the culture of honor, where we recognize the importance of each individual.
How to Build Prophetic Culture in Your Church
1. Define your values, priorities and practices around God’s presence.
As you work to establish a prophetic culture in your church, think about these questions:
- How much time are you going to devote to worship, ministry and people who are being trained to minister to one another?
- How will you explain to visitors who you are and how you do what you do?
- What is the main emphasis of your budget?
- Where is most of your energy going?
- Does your family experience the prophetic at home?
- Do you as a church leader go after God’s power and presence personally? Everything you want to bring to your church has to be real inside of you first.
2. Incorporate the prophetic in your team.
How much time are you spending in your elder and staff meetings waiting on the Lord, listening to His voice and sharing with each other the impressions you’re receiving from Him? Make sure your staff knows, “This is who we are. This is where we are going. We want more of the presence of God.”
Also, be certain your congregation understands that your church’s prophetic emphasis is not a human invention. This isn’t something your leadership team randomly decided to pursue. No, it emerged from prayer and prophetic guidance, and to the best of your ability, God is the architect of all you are building.
3. Make the prophetic a natural part of your church body.
Reinforce who you are as a church again and again. Keep the vision in front of the people and constantly refocus them on the church’s values, priorities and practices. Do these things in a way that has integrity, cultivates intimacy and brings forth the level of presence and power you long for.
As you walk out these steps, you will be amazed at the prophetic culture that grows in your church body.
