Building a Culture of Adaptability in Your Church

On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, talks about how to build a culture of adaptability in your church while staying anchored to a clear gospel mission. He shares practical ways to navigate generational differences, hold methods loosely, and keep adjusting when changes don’t work the first time.

Creators and Guests

Host

Jeff Iorg

President, SBC Executive Committee

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Jeff Iorg: 00:00

Welcome to the Lead On Podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, continuing our conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. A podcast listener talked with me recently and gave me a really nice compliment. He said, when I listen to your podcast, I feel like you're riding in the car with me and we're just having a conversation. Man, that felt good.

Jeff Iorg: 00:29

I don't want this podcast to be preachy. I don't want to lecture you. I have no interest in adding to your burden of what you're not doing or what you need to do better. What I hope to accomplish on this podcast is a conversation about the practical issues of ministry leadership. The day to day grind of it, the ins and outs, the ups and downs.

Jeff Iorg: 00:54

And if I'm doing that, then I am thankful for the time that all of you are investing in listening to this weekly so that you can sharpen your skills as a leader on the challenges of day to day life in what we're trying to get done in providing leadership to churches and ministry organizations. So thanks for being a part of the podcast, and thanks for one more time tuning in and letting me talk with you about these issues. Today on the podcast, I wanna talk about building a culture of adaptability in your church. Building a culture of adaptability. Now you might also use a different word.

Jeff Iorg: 01:34

You might say a culture of flexibility or something like that. Now, I've taught a lot about change and change management, and I'm really not talking about some dramatic change today or going through some big kind of upheaval. I'm talking instead about having adaptability. Meaning that your organization has a pliability, a a willingness, if you will, to bend and to shape and to change and to get where you need to go even though it may be something that morphs more like a blob into what it needs to be rather than some kind of dramatic moment of change change change change change.

Jeff Iorg: 02:20

Now, a culture of adaptability, speaking of that in the positive, implies that gradual change is a good process.

Jeff Iorg: 02:32

You know, most change is gradual. Now it may culminate in a moment where you go from point a to point b, but in most organizations, it's more of a slow build up to point a and then a decision to morph toward point b. Let me give you a good example of this from one of the men in my life who really modeled for me this idea of a culture of adaptability. Many years ago, when my first pastor at our church started to grow, and we fairly quickly ran out of Sunday school space. And so we made the decision to try to find some additional buildings, and we came across some used mobile homes that we could bring onto our property and use for classroom space.

Jeff Iorg: 03:29

And we did that. And when those classrooms filled up and and our worship service filled up, we decided we we need to do something else, and that is we we need to go to to worship services. And this was a very big adaptability moment for us. But over a period of months, we prayed and talked and worked and finally made the choice to move to to worship services. And then some more time went by and those services started filling up.

Jeff Iorg: 03:57

And one day in a deacons meeting, I said to the men, look, we're we're running out of space again, and there's there's no more room to put any portable buildings, and there's no place to expand our auditorium, and I think we ought to consider the possibility of moving to another location. Well, two heart attacks and three nine one one calls later. Well, no. It wasn't quite that bad, but there was a lot of shock in the room that I would propose such a crazed idea. And there was an immediate, no.

Jeff Iorg: 04:30

We're not doing that. Then some more time went by, And the church kept growing, and the space needs kept getting worse.

Jeff Iorg: 04:41

And finally, we went into a deacons meeting, and Ralph Kearns, senior deacon, charter member of

Jeff Iorg: 04:51

the church, chairman of the pastor search committee that brought me to the church. Iconic leader in many ways. Down home guy, retired railroad worker. Said in a deacons meeting one night, you know, I've been thinking about the need our church has for more space.

Jeff Iorg: 05:15

And pastor mentioned some months ago that we might have to think about moving, and I've been thinking about that. And I think we ought to pray about it and select a committee of men to go out and look at the community, and just come

Jeff Iorg: 05:33

back and give us a report if there's any possibilities out there of any land that we might consider moving to.

Jeff Iorg: 05:43

That's a culture of adaptability. That's a church that is adapting to its situation. It is bringing in some temporary space. It's moving to multiple worship services. It's considering the possibility of relocating, and it's finally over about a two year time frame coming to the point where it's at least willing to ask the question about how it should go forward.

Jeff Iorg: 06:12

Now

Jeff Iorg: 06:13

the rest of that story is for another podcast because what happened next lapses over into the miracle

Jeff Iorg: 06:19

department. Within weeks, we were almost given property, which we were able to pay for within less than a year. And then the church was relocated over the next period of a few years,

Jeff Iorg: 06:36

and it's still in those new facilities today. But the focus of this podcast is not moving a church. The focus is that process of adaptability. How did Ralph go from, I don't think we'll ever think about that as a possibility, to proposing it as an idea he wanted to pray over and send a team out to study?

Jeff Iorg: 07:04

Well, I have thought a lot about that story and a lot about this dear man who gave such remarkable leadership in that moment.

Jeff Iorg: 07:17

And here's a few things that I've learned from that experience and over the years about how to facilitate this kind

Jeff Iorg: 07:23

of culture of adaptability. The first thing is to clearly articulate and be committed to a shared mission.

Jeff Iorg: 07:35

In those days, we just said we were committed to the great commission in our church and reaching the lost with the gospel and discipling those who became saved and building a strong church as a result. And we were all really committed to that. We really were. And when the church started growing and the facility became the shoe that was about to tell the foot how large it could become,

Jeff Iorg: 07:59

Ralph said, no, wait. The mission really matters to me, and our mission is being limited by these decisions that we're making about facilities and space and schedule, we

Jeff Iorg: 08:16

need to make some different decisions. So the foundation of all of this adaptability was there was one fixed North Star that was demanding our attention, and that was the mission.

Jeff Iorg: 08:32

And if that really is paramount for us, everything else has to adjust.

Jeff Iorg: 08:41

You know, there's really no replacing the clear articulation of mission for helping create this culture of adaptability because the mission becomes the fixed point, and everything else has to adjust. And if you really believe in your

Jeff Iorg: 08:56

mission, you believe in it with everything that you have in you, if you really believe it, then it will start impacting the decisions you make cascading out of that.

Jeff Iorg: 09:10

So the first thing to developing a culture of adaptability is clearly articulating mission and then having the courage

Jeff Iorg: 09:18

to let everything else be malleable except the mission and to take its form from accomplishing the mission.

Jeff Iorg: 09:29

And this becomes difficult for you as a leader because you have to set the pace in modeling this. Now here's one of the hardest things for you

Jeff Iorg: 09:37

to hear today. As a leader, you like things the way you like them. You like things the way you like them. And it's easy to interpret a culture of adaptability as everyone else needs

Jeff Iorg: 09:55

to adapt to the way I want to do things. Now if that's your definition of a culture of adaptability, you are going to have a lot of conflict and ultimately,

Jeff Iorg: 10:04

I think a lot of failure. That's not what I'm talking about today. I'm talking about you as the leader, as well as your followers, all having a spirit of flexibility and adaptability that says, I'm also going to be willing to change in pursuit of the mission. Mission, that's not moving. Everything else

Jeff Iorg: 10:34

has to be willing to morph,

Jeff Iorg: 10:36

including my perspectives, my feelings, my timetables, my desires in order to accomplish the mission. One of

Jeff Iorg: 10:47

the things that was a breakthrough for me both in pastoral ministry and also in leading the seminary over those years is that when the followers saw me struggling to implement what I'm describing to you right now, it gave them greater ownership and willingness to say, well, he's not just saying we need to adapt, he's saying he's willing to adapt also. We're all willing to adapt to make this work. So a culture of adaptability starts with a rock solid commitment to mission and a sense that all of us are going to adjust whatever needs to happen to fulfill that mission. Alright. The second thing that really helps the culture of adaptability is to speak openly and positively about generational change and generational differences in ministry.

Jeff Iorg: 11:45

One of the things that happens in ministry organizations is that an organization is birthed and enjoys remarkable success and in its day or in its era or in its generation, it does certain things a certain way. You know, I was once a younger leader. I I was once in my thirties. And in those in those years, I I was putting into practice what I thought at the time were cutting edge ministry practices. But now those cutting edge ministry practices are outdated relics of a bygone era.

Jeff Iorg: 12:23

But even though they may be outdated relics, I still prefer them. I know.

Jeff Iorg: 12:30

I know. You're thinking, oh, no. Not you, Jeff. You're a visionary leader. You're a contemporary leader.

Jeff Iorg: 12:36

You're a man of the future. No. Not so much.

Jeff Iorg: 12:40

That's what I am on my good days. But what I really like is for things to be the way I like them. I like my comfortable ministry methods. I like certain songs that I've been singing for three decades. I like a certain preaching style.

Jeff Iorg: 13:00

I I I like a worship flow that suits the way I think a worship service should be designed. I I like certain schedule. I I I like to go at a certain time

Jeff Iorg: 13:12

to church and to ministry, activities. I

Jeff Iorg: 13:16

I have a whole list of the way I like things to be done. And quite honestly, I would wish that everyone did things my way. But what I've noticed is that something is wrong with my children and really wrong with my grandchildren. They do not see it my way. How shocking is that?

Jeff Iorg: 13:41

My children, all adult Christians, see church ministry today through a very different lens than mine. Now my challenge as a leader is to view ministry today through the lens of what will reach a current generation, not through the lens of what feels comfortable to me.

Jeff Iorg: 14:13

It's so easy for those of us in ministry leadership to criticize others because they won't adapt, won't demonstrate flexibility, won't change, if you will, and not recognize that what we're trying to get people to do is to do it the way we like it. And because they don't wanna change to do it the way we like it, we say they're resistant. How about if we all change to do it the way rising generation of people who don't yet even know the gospel need it to be done?

Jeff Iorg: 14:39

That's what I'm talking about today. You know, I was teaching about this at a church a few months ago and I made this statement. I said, if you're 60 and you like everything about your church, your church is dying. Well, I'll tell you that got their attention. Man, did it ever.

Jeff Iorg: 14:59

If you're 60 and you like everything about your church, your church is dying.

Jeff Iorg: 15:04

Look, I'm way past 60.

Jeff Iorg: 15:07

And I'm telling you, there's things about church, even the one I go to, that I just wonder, what are these people doing? And then I look around.

Jeff Iorg: 15:17

And I noticed that same quizzical pained expression is not on anyone's face under 30

Jeff Iorg: 15:24

in the room with me. They are engaged. So one of

Jeff Iorg: 15:32

the ways that you facilitate a culture of adaptability is to talk openly and freely about these generational differences. And as a leader, you set the pace in modeling what it looks like. Modeling what it looks like to set aside your preferences, your methods, your ways of doing things, and what you like for the greater good of reaching more people, and especially people in a rising generation with the gospel. So culture of adaptability starts with clearly articulated mission and a shared willingness to be flexible, malleable, adaptable to reach that mission, and it continues by having open conversations about the differences of generations and how these different ways of looking at ministry are simply natural expressions of who we are in the generation when we're rising into leadership and having a willingness to set those things aside as we try to move forward to reach a newer generation. Now, another aspect of developing a culture of adaptability is really helping to distinguish between things that are convictions and commitments and things that are just preferences.

Jeff Iorg: 16:50

You know, most of us most of us have some strong preferences of what we like. We like a certain style of music. We we like a particular bible translation. We like a a a certain dress code or a certain work style. We like certain ways of information being communicated, whether it's by email or text or on a screen in front of us or handed to us on a

Jeff Iorg: 17:14

piece of paper. Now these preferences vary, and

Jeff Iorg: 17:21

they vary not only from leader to leader, but culture to culture to generation to generation.

Jeff Iorg: 17:28

Churches that have a good culture of adaptability are able to recognize that these are just preferences. These are

Jeff Iorg: 17:36

not convictions worth dying for or even commitments worth dividing over. These are preferences worth discussing.

Jeff Iorg: 17:45

Now, when you raise a preference, like, for example, a preaching style and make it a conviction, this is the only way

Jeff Iorg: 17:54

it can be and I will die on this hill, Well, you are demonstrating the opposite of adaptability. You're demonstrating an intransience that is unmovable on things that don't matter that much. A culture of adaptability emerges partly out of having the wisdom to know what really matters, and to be willing to stand resolutely without compromise on those things that really do matter.

Jeff Iorg: 18:25

But on other things, not so much. Having a pliability,

Jeff Iorg: 18:31

a willingness to move and change and grow and develop, a flexibility, that comes out of recognizing the difference between preferences and these other things. Now this is another area of modeling for those of us who are in leadership. It's easy to inflict our preferences on people and to shape everything to the way we like it or the way we want it to be done.

Jeff Iorg: 18:57

But again, a culture of

Jeff Iorg: 18:59

adaptability emerges when people see you as a leader saying, you know, I prefer it this way, but this is more effective for the gospel. I prefer it this way, but this is more generationally relevant to what's happening today. I prefer it this way, but this seems to be more effective. Let's do it this other way.

Jeff Iorg: 19:19

That's part of developing the same kind of culture. Alright? Fixed mission, and

Jeff Iorg: 19:24

we all adjust to that. Generational change, and we're openly talking about those. Preferences and not being locked in on those, but having a culture that recognizes that some things just don't matter that much. These things all contribute to a culture of adaptability. Here's another thing that helps, and that is speaking positively about change.

Jeff Iorg: 19:50

Now, I I know a lot of snarky comments and negative jokes about change. For example, here's one. I recently saw a bumper sticker. It said, change is good. You go first.

Jeff Iorg: 20:02

Oh, that's kind of the attitude a lot of us have. We're always making jokes about and snarky comments about and negative remarks about change.

Jeff Iorg: 20:12

But what if we changed our vocabulary

Jeff Iorg: 20:17

so that we spoke positively about change, so that we spoke, about being adaptable and flexible, that we celebrated examples of this, and that we had as a part of our church's culture and heritage or our ministry organization's culture and heritage good examples of change and how we moved through those and the difference it made going forward. I've taught about this on the podcast in different contexts, but it comes to mind again today. When Golden Gate Seminary became Gateway Seminary and relocated from the Bay Area to Southern California, we picked up one of the largest seminaries in North America and moved 400 miles and started over. And two years later, COVID happened. When COVID happened, I called the seminary together and said, we have to make major change in the next three or four days and reformat our teaching strategies to continue to serve our students and take us forward on accomplishing our mission.

Jeff Iorg: 21:18

And the response was, as one fellow said it to me, we got this. This is what we do.

Jeff Iorg: 21:24

We do big things. We can make big changes. We got this. I was amazed at what happened, but because our seminary had lived through this profound change and had learned to talk about it so openly and so positively, when we had another big change thrust upon us, the response was not, oh, me. Oh, it's not it's more change.

Jeff Iorg: 21:48

Oh, how can

Jeff Iorg: 21:48

we do this? Oh, I don't like change. It was, oh, you want us to make a big change in a few short days? That's okay. We got this.

Jeff Iorg: 21:56

That's what we do. We make big change.

Jeff Iorg: 22:01

So when you're creating this kind of culture of adaptability, one way to encourage it is to have vocabulary about change that's positive and have stories about previous changes or previous adaptations that you've made that that are positive. And that the lore of your organization is not, well, do you remember when you had that fight over this, or do you remember when we had the division over this? Remember when this came up and five people left? No. No.

Jeff Iorg: 22:29

The the lore, the tradition, the stories, if you will, about your organization is that we speak positively about change. We have great stories about change. We tell what God has done through us in the area of change in positive ways that reinforce what we're trying to accomplish.

Jeff Iorg: 22:53

Now,

Jeff Iorg: 22:56

when you do this, it changes the vocabulary, yes, but more than that, it changes the expectations of what can happen when change is brought forward for conversation.

Jeff Iorg: 23:12

Well, one last thing about creating a culture of adaptability, and that is be willing to adapt, but also to continue to adapt until you get it right.

Jeff Iorg: 23:28

Here's what I mean. You're moving along and and there's some situation that comes up and and you you know you need to change and and you think you know what you need to do and you you make the proposal, you have the meetings, the committees take care of it. Finally, there's a vote or there's a decision or whatever has to happen has to happen does happen, and

Jeff Iorg: 23:48

you adapt and you go forward with some directional change or some adjustment to the plan, and it doesn't work. What do you do? Well, you double down. You say, well, I'm not giving in. I fought long and

Jeff Iorg: 24:03

hard to get this change. I'm gonna make this work. I'm gonna keep forcing it until everybody starts to like

Jeff Iorg: 24:08

it or until they all change their minds about it or something. I'm just not giving up on this. Well, that's just your arrogant, prideful stubbornness coming through.

Jeff Iorg: 24:21

You're not always gonna get it right,

Jeff Iorg: 24:23

And the best thing you can do when you lead

Jeff Iorg: 24:29

some kind of adaptation, some kind of flexibility, some kind of change, and you start going a new

Jeff Iorg: 24:35

direction and you discover this just isn't the way we need to go. The best thing you can do is to stop and say, hey, let's stop right here. This isn't working. I thought it was gonna work, but it's not. I thought it was a good idea, it's not.

Jeff Iorg: 24:55

I was wrong, and I think we need to back up, reconsider, and let's go another direction. You know, there's an old saying, when the horse dies, dismount. Well, that's that's not what I'm talking about here. I'd say it this way. Adaptability is not when the horse dies dismount.

Jeff Iorg: 25:18

Adaptability is when the horse is headed in the wrong direction, switch horses. Don't wait until you've ridden it to death. Switch horses. Learn to admit you made a mistake faster and go in a much better direction sooner. You want to have a culture of adaptability in your organization?

Jeff Iorg: 25:53

Learn to remain adaptable even after you've made the first decision if it's not what it needed to be, and turn toward a new direction much, much more quickly. Well, today, we're talking about a culture of adaptability. We're not talking about making a big massive change. We're talking about adaptability so that you have a continuing, morphing, changing, shifting that accommodates the work you're trying to get done as a church or a ministry organization. It starts with clearly articulated mission and everyone, including you, being willing to be flexible, to adapt, to get that mission accomplished.

Jeff Iorg: 26:37

It includes talking openly about generational change and celebrating the fact that the way you did

Jeff Iorg: 26:45

it thirty years ago that worked so beautifully, maybe not so much anymore. Oh, you may still enjoy it, may still be your preferred methodology, may still feel comfortable to you,

Jeff Iorg: 26:52

you may just like it a certain way, but you're gonna take

Jeff Iorg: 26:56

the lead in modeling. You know what? Generational change is natural, and we need to model what it looks like to stay in touch with the generation we're trying to reach, not the generation we're trying to preserve. And then beyond that, advocating for accommodating preferences and separating those from convictions worth dying on. Adaptable organizations have a good sense of what really matters and what really doesn't matter that much,

Jeff Iorg: 27:26

and a flexibility to move and adapt and change fairly quickly and easily on these preference issues. Speaking positively about change,

Jeff Iorg: 27:37

creating a vocabulary that speaks positively about change, that includes stories about successful change and about how change has been a good thing, a positive thing, something to be celebrated in your organization,

Jeff Iorg: 27:50

and then finally, being willing to stay adaptable. Not just making the change that's put before you or demonstrating some flexibility in the moment, but being willing to say, we

Jeff Iorg: 28:04

were going one direction, we decided to adjust and go a new direction, that has not worked out like we thought it would, we see where we went wrong, now we're gonna back up and we're gonna adjust again. We're gonna continue to remain adaptable until we get this where it needs to be. A culture of continuing adaptability. You know, this kind of vibrancy in ministry organizations can be very difficult. People wanna settle in, stay the same.

Jeff Iorg: 28:37

Keep it like it's always been. Use the tried and true methods that never change. Well, unfortunately, that's not how God seems to be at work in his world. God made a world that's ever changing. There's four seasons, they're always rotating.

Jeff Iorg: 28:53

Life is always either being birthed or progressing or dying. All the metaphors of the Christian life in the Bible imply growth, progress and change. This is who our God is and what he expects of us. Growth, movement, adaptability, flexibility. Sure, There are some things never change, but not that many, quite honestly.

Jeff Iorg: 29:20

Most of life is ever changing, and learning to get in step with that is a vital part of what it means to develop a culture of adaptability that models flexibility and keeps moving forward in step with God as you pursue his mission. Adaptability is a positive quality you can facilitate it in your organization as you lead on.