“Where are my glasses?” she wondered. “I just had them!” She scoured her purse, the house, the car, and finally the back porch, where her daughter was relaxing with a book. “Have you seen my glasses, honey?” she asked in desperation. Glancing up from the book, her daughter offered this bemused reply: “Just above your forehead.”

Robert Lewis and Wayne Cordeiro have written a book for pastors and lay leaders who have been searching high and low for a way to produce lasting church renewal. “A rich culture … is the hidden treasure most church leaders are really looking for when they travel outside to workshops and conferences in search of transformational answers.” (p. xxii)

Answers are as unique as congregations, they say. “Every church is a little culture in itself. Jesus intended these cultures to be distinct, transformational, and even irresistible” (p. 44). Culture is ‘the way we do things here;’ color and flavor; “the shared software of our minds” (p. 12). Culture shapes the church, and leaders make the culture.

The authors are leaders who’ve worked through teams to create powerful congregational cultures. Lewis served for over 20 years as a teaching pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. Cordeiro is senior pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship O’ahu in Honolulu. Both congregations attract thousands of worshipers each week. More to the point, both congregations help newcomers become Christians and nurture them toward maturity.

Culture Shift has five parts: “Awakening to Culture” describes the power of congregational culture and calls leaders to steward its potential. “Birthing the Culture” invites the reader to identify the hallmarks of his or her congregation’s existing culture and offers advice on how to shift the culture toward “kingdom values” following the lead of the Holy Spirit. “Growing the Culture at New Hope O’ahu” and “Growing the Culture at Fellowship Bible Church” tell stories from the authors’ congregations, with practical suggestions for applying key concepts to other settings. “Advancing the Culture” exhorts the reader to expand the reign of God through his or her congregation by intentionally shaping its culture. “God gives his best in potential form, and the culture you set determines whether it will grow, stagnate, or die” (p. 190).

We appreciated the book’s assertion that “Transformation can never be brought in from the outside. Transformation is inside work” (p. xxii). Culture Shift is an evangelical version of Recovering the Sacred Center: Church Renewal from the Inside Out (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1998) by Howard E. Friend Jr., whose work may be familiar to some Church Over 40 subscribers out East.

We wish the authors would have said more about the reign of God and its impact on community and society. A sentence toward the end of the book names a profound truth: “True revival transforms society as well as souls” (p. 187). Sadly, little evidence is offered, save that the Welsh revival of 1904 bankrupted Welsh taverns. Justice and peace are cited as signs of the reign of God early in the book (p. 21), but scarcely mentioned thereafter.

Culture Shift will point leaders seeking congregational renewal in the right direction. It will help them abandon the frantic search for quick fixes and plug-and-play “solutions” that must be laboriously shoehorned into congregations. It shows the reader how to assess congregational culture and then work in God’s power to transform it. The book’s central message reminds us that, like glasses perched on our foreheads, the Source of all enduring transformation is closer than we realize. “The kingdom of God,” said Jesus, “is among you” (Luke 17:21).

Rev. Fred Oaks
Church Over 40