Culture

It is my experience that the culture of a group of people is far greater than the sum of its parts. Now by culture I don’t mean the group’s level of sophistication. I’m not talking about its art, its combined knowledge, or its cultural anthropology. What I am referring to is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize a community. Thus, a group’s culture is more than the combination of individual personalities in the crowd. It involves their interactions with each other—their relationships. One may have a bond with another, but how is that relationship affected by the introduction of a third, a fourth, and/or a fifth person.
Interestingly, I’ve found that the larger the group, the more likely it becomes that a certain hierarchy will naturally begin to appear. And such a perceived pecking order may be determined by the simplest or the most complex of means. Things as diverse as money, beauty, position, power, and personality may affect one’s place in such an unsanctioned caste system. It is an extraordinary sociological pattern. But it is so much a part of who we are that we seldom notice or acknowledge its occurrence. However, when it is pointed out, we recognize it immediately.
For example, the wealthy get listened to. The beautiful hang together. Smart people get together to talk about smart stuff. While the shy, the plain, and the average give mental and sociological assent to the perceived worth of the perky, the beautiful, and the exceptional. And the higher up the ladder one goes, the more influence he or she wields in the shaping of the future attitudes, values, and practices of the larger group. In other words, the people at the top of the heap have the most influence on the culture.
But what if a culture could be established that would do away with the natural order of things? What if it were possible to begin with everyone in the group at the same level of influence and worth? What if money, beauty, position, power, and personality were no longer forms of measurement? And what if the poor, the plain, the lowly, the weak, and the introvert were valued as equals with them? And what if it were possible to maintain that kind of altruism? What would that look like?
I think it might look like the church that Jesus intended for us to be—without hierarchy, rank, or privilege. It might look like a people who are united despite ethnicity, socio-economic status, or gender. (Galatians 3:28) And that might lend itself to producing a citizenship which embraces everyone, regardless of their status, influence, or behavior.
What would a church be if everyone looked like priests, all with equal access to God? And what if everyone in the community were equal partners in leadership and had an identical empowerment for service? And what if the community’s meeting spaces looked more like real life places than specialty buildings constructed exclusively for the use of “Christians?” But that’s getting away from culture…sort of.
This is the premise upon which Agora was started. It was and is intended to be a foundation of love, mutual respect, and understanding.
We have found that everyone has a story. And that we have no right to judge someone if we don’t know their story. And then once we know their story, we have no need or desire to judge them. This is the power of authentic relationships. True relationship not only brings judgmentalism to an end, it also takes away the power of gossip. Because we are all invested in one another.
When a community shares attitudes, values, goals, and practices, a culture is formed. But if that culture is to be perpetuated, it must faithfully carry out its values and practices, embrace new members, and thoroughly train its progeny. That also sounds like church.
Thus, for the above reasons and some others we will enumerate, I have found that an effective ecclesiology begins with a culture, more than a doctrine.

The Plan

On Sunday, October 31, 2004, Pastor Phil gave us the whole day to make a presentation to the church at Carbondale. On Sunday morning, we announced my resignation and provided the people a dialogue about the next generation. Our primary text came from the Old Testament book of Judges. It is an accurate description of many who live in our city today. “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10) We talked about the need to reach to people in our church-rich city who would never walk into a building full of “Christians” any more than a robber would go strolling into a police station.
That night, we talked about how we might strategize to accomplish this task. At the time, I had formulated a few ideas. By that I mean, I had read some books. So I shared some fancy power point pictures and diagrams that I had probably copied from either Ed Stetzer, Ralph Moore, or Frost / Hirsh. And we told the people of Carbondale that in the coming days they would all be invited to go with us—anyone who felt so led.
By January of 2005, we had already begun to meet weekly with a launch team that had been assembled. We also held Q & A meetings at Carbondale every Sunday night in January one hour prior to the evening service for anyone who was curious about the new endeavor. Carbondale also sent us to a church planting “Boot Camp” that helped us to clarify our vision, our mission, and our strategies.
Now, if I had it to do all over again, we would have taken a lot more time to plan and to prepare before a launch date. But we didn’t know any better. So, on Sunday morning, February 6, at 10:00 am, we gathered for the first time in the Zarrow Regional Library meeting room right across the street from Carbondale. It was, all in all, rather inauspicious. I probably sucked. I often do. But we had a couple of things going for us.
First, we had already answered “yes” to the big question: “At the end of the day, did God call us to do this?” So, there was that. But second, out of the 40 or so people who had decided to come with us, there were more than a handful of us who were determined to figure this thing out.
So maybe that’s another thing we had going for us. We never claimed to know for sure what to do or how to do it. What we found out was that we had a group of people—some of them any way—who were willing to suspend expectations and to dive into this grand experiment together. What we had was an assortment of folks who would become a community which was willing to help us develop the culture, the values, and the praxis that would become Agora.

Everything Changes

Everything started to unravel the day Darryl told us he was taking a hike. He had been asked to return home to the church (First Assembly of God) in which he grew up in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He had already seen from his experience with Phil and me that you can “go home.” It was explained to him that this was an opportunity to eventually become the pastor, because the senior pastor there was getting ready to retire. That’s a whole other story that I’ll let Darryl tell.
However, Darryl’s leaving meant the death of the “Dream Team.” It was a great nine year run. But, as they say, “All good things must come to an end.” For me, it was the end of a very good thing.
With all the stuff Earl Creps had put into my head, with Darryl’s departure, with major staff modifications, and my own growing discontent with the “status quo,” it was inevitable that things would come to a head. To Phil’s credit, he recognized it for what it was.
A staff disagreement over changes that were being made, some not for the better and I had a melt down. This could have gone a lot of different ways, but Phil saw what was happening. He called me in one day, and we sat down and talked like we had so many other times. When “stuff” happens, like it always will, it really helps to have a mutual respect and a sincere love for one another.
We talked about the church. We talked about the stuff we were reading. We talked about the changes and the clashes.
He said to me, “You know, I’ve been doing things this way for a long time, almost 30 years. And I don’t think I’m ready to change everything. Because that is what it would take.” He said, “But I’ve heard you say so many times, ‘If I ever pastored a church… I’d do this or that.’” He told me, “Plus, you know how much I love this church and all of its people, many of whom would have to be dragged through this kind of change.” And then he added, “But what if you did it? What if you started something new based on the stuff we’ve been reading? What if you planted a new church and we helped you?”
I was stunned. Was he serious?
What’s really interesting about all of this is that before I ever came back to Carbondale, Phil and I started talking about planting a church some day. In the late 80’s, inner-city churches were the cool thing to consider. So we had talked about that. In fact, the youth pastor before Darryl had left to plant an inner-city church in Oklahoma City. But, up until then, I had never thought about it being me. And I don’t think either of us could have anticipated that it would be this kind of church.
I left his office that day with my head spinning. I had said, “Are you serious?”
He said, “Yes, very serious. Go talk to Vicki, pray about it, and then let’s get back together and talk some more.”
So I said I would.
Almost immediately the wheels started turning. I wasn’t sure where it all was coming from. I started talking about the culture of a church and its core values over programs and doctrine. This was long before I read about it. I started thinking about the failure of preaching to achieve any appreciable change in behavior. And I started asking what a church would look like and feel like that would embrace all who walked through its doors.
From before the beginning, the seeds were planted that would become Agora. But there were still several steps to be taken and more questions to be asked before we discussed anything as drastic as a launch date.