Disciple: Culture Shift

St. Martin’s, Charlotte, goes deeper into the foundations of relationship

By Christine McTaggart

When the term “culture shift” becomes part of any organization’s conversation, it is usually understood that accomplishing it is not an overnight process. Culture itself reflects behaviors, attitudes and habits ingrained in the fabric of the organizational environment. To effect change, the tapestry must be rewoven, either removing strands that no longer work or embedding new ones to reflect a new picture or brighten what already exists.

What prompts the work of a culture shift? For St. Martin’s, Charlotte, it was the desire to change their approach to ministry and deepen the relationship with those with whom the church is involved.

[A temporary artistic installation of paper doves at St. Martin’s, Charlotte, is part of the church’s culture shift. Photo by Johnny Wakefield]

THE ART OF MISSION

St. Martin’s is a vibrant, diverse, mission-driven church located less than a mile from Charlotte’s city center. It has a long-standing dedication to housing justice and the LGBTQ+ community, along with a willingness to adapt to changing times while honoring the traditions of The Episcopal Church.

“St. Martin’s is an exciting church to be a part of,” said the Rev. Josh Bowron, rector of St. Martin’s. “We’ve always sort of punched above our weight class when it comes to mission. The passage from Matthew 25 that talks about ‘when you do this to the least of these’ is kind of a guiding scripture for us. That, along with the story of St. Martin, who was a Roman soldier. He responded to the poor by using his sword to split his cloak, sharing it. He then had a vision of Christ wearing the cloak, a sort of instantiation of Matthew 25.”

So why would a culture shift be needed in a church with strong roots that continue to flourish? The answer had its own seeds sown more than 12 years ago.

“I read a book called Toxic Charity when I was still in seminary,” said Bowron. “It basically looks at how a lot of the ways that we engage in traditional ministry or mission work is not very helpful, and can, in fact, be detrimental to the health of the people we’re trying to help. Where you basically tell them what their problem is and come in to fix it without actually advancing with them.”

Then came A Nazareth Manifesto: Being with God by the Rev. Sam Wells. It, too, highlighted the tendency of well-meaning people to “do for” rather than “walking with” those they try to help. “It really opened my eyes about the importance of ‘being with’ as a starting point for relationship,” said Bowron. “If you’re missing ‘being with,’ then other ways of relating can be oppressive. If you’re an advocate for someone without knowing who they are, it’s going to be pretty ugly.”

The misplaced approach of “doing for” was one Bowron easily recognized in churches, and he saw elements of it when he arrived at St. Martin’s. Long involved in serving the homeless population in Charlotte, the grounds of St. Martin’s itself is home to several people. The desire to “fix” things or make things better for those who lacked shelter clearly came from a place of love, but the approach, no matter where it happens, puts priorities in the wrong place.

When ministry starts with check writing or attempts simply to do for others, it’s a form of advocacy that becomes patronage. That has its place, says Bowron, but it can’t be the starting point.

When you prioritize friendship, he explained, “you prioritize getting to know folks. And you have to do that to know who they are and what they might need. If you don’t, you’re just trying to make people, people that are poor or homeless for example, like us. You’re just saying ‘let me turn you into a middle-class person, let me show you what works for me.’ And of course you want everyone to have a home, but when you actually get to know people, and you help them understand that’s enough, that you don’t want anything from them or to ‘fix’ them, you find that homelessness, again as an example, is a circumstance. It’s not the most interesting thing about them.”

Ironically, it’s the developing of genuine relationships that provides the opportunity to offer meaningful assistance. At St. Martin’s, those living on the grounds have asked for such things as a place to shower or do laundry, or to use the church as an address for mail delivery. The church itself is not able to provide those services, but the trust built allows for the receptive redirection to resources such as the Urban Ministry Center, a nearby organization that does provide those services and, more importantly, offers to those who want it a coordinated assessment, looking at every possible facet that a person might need to thrive.

FIRST STEPS

So where does one start when shifting a culture rooted in love so that it might become more effective? In what might seem like a contradiction, the heart of any organization is exactly the wrong place. At St. Martin’s, the shift began with those most involved with outreach: their mission board.

Primarily responsible for tending and allocating the funds of St. Martin’s ministries, the mission board did a lot of good work but wanted to do it better. The shift began with a simple question: who are the people we want to help? Not in terms of identifying communal markers, but the actual individuals themselves. It was in realizing the answer to the question was unsatisfactory that the seeds of shift were sown.

Immediately “there were a few people in that group who really understood what we were trying to do with ‘friendship without fixing’ and the idea of ‘being with,’” said Bowron. “We thought about it terms of what grows, and in no time that language was adopted and being used in our conversations.”

The group took a hard look at the ministries of St. Martin’s, forgoing “good or bad” labels and instead identifying those with a “being with” component and those without. Using that metric, discussions around those efforts identified as rooted in “being with” turned to how those roots could be nurtured for the efforts to grow. For those still following the patronage approach, questions were asked around whether there was an opportunity to change that. Taken together, it became a shift in methodology, a fundamental change to the way ministry was approached.

It may sound simple, but there is an element of the approach of which it is crucial to be aware. Any healthy relationship is a two-way street, with each party participating in the give-and-take. Traditionally, churches have done much of the giving without asking for anything in return. This patronage approach, while seemingly altruistic, also reflects a power dynamic in which the church maintains control and doesn’t often—if ever—put itself in the position of need. When a church or ministry chooses relationship, it may feel like the more vulnerable way to go, but the impact can be powerful.

An example of this took place just a few months ago at St. Martin’s. Once a year, the church has a “clean-out” day, where it shreds unneeded files and clears clutter. This year, however, because of staff shifts, there was a need to move a great deal of furniture, requiring a lot of heavy lifting. Three men who lived on the grounds of St. Martin’s were told of the project and the need for help, and all three agreed to be that help.

“We provided lunch and paid them,” said Bowron. “But I think they would have helped us even if we didn’t. We could have gone and hired someone else to do it, but we needed help and they knew that. They responded, and they did meaningful work.” Rather than a transaction, the day was an example of relationship.

According to Bowron, it’s about creating opportunities for a different dynamic. “Yes, we have a lot of power and privileges, and we’re trying to leverage ourselves to share that,” he said. “But it starts in relationship. It’s about letting those with whom you’re in relationship know that we don’t have all the answers, and we need them as much as they might need us.”

THE GUIDEPOSTS

Once a church makes the intentional decision to make relationship the focus of its approach, there are several guideposts to help build upon that foundation. Many of them can be found in the approach of the “four C’s” of HeartEdge, a ministry founded in 2017 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, England, where Sam Wells, author of A Nazareth Manifesto, has served as vicar since 2012. St. Martin’s, Charlotte, has found these to be key guideposts in its own transformation.

“God has already given us all the gifts we need to do the work he wants us to do,” said Bowron. “It’s a powerful paradigm shift from the approach of seeing an issue and going directly into problem-solving triage.”

It is about understanding the difference between technical and adaptive challenges. Technical challenges tend to be concrete and straightforward. If a light bulb goes out, the question is whether there is a spare bulb available and the know-how to install it. If the answer to both is yes, the bulb is replaced.

Adaptive challenges don’t always have such clear-cut issues and answers. They often require patience and a willingness to learn at every level of leadership. This is where relationship is fundamental, for it provides a space for those involved in the work to discover their gifts and how they might be applied. If the use of the gifts available aren’t immediately apparent, it can indicate a need for more time to understand each other better. Often we can’t see the gifts within ourselves, and the trust that comes with being in true relationship is necessary for those gifts to be seen by those who possess them, especially when the existence of those gifts is suggested by others.

“It’s the difference between a ministry revealing itself and going out to find a problem to solve,” said Bowron.

Once the available gifts are understood, an application of HeartEdge’s 4C’s can come into play: congregational life, culture, commerce and compassion. There is no particular order in which they must be applied; what is important is the fact that all are needed to accomplish a fundamental shift in thinking and the application of gifts already at hand.

Congregation is where many start, for with it is found the community of which Jesus and prayer is the center. The fellowship found in congregation builds the bonds between those who would go out into the world, and it is there that relationships begin to be built.

Compassion is a natural follower of congregation. If building and nurturing a congregation is where a great deal of effort and time is spent, the foundation of prayer and the teachings of scripture tend to lead toward compassion for those with less and a desire to do something about it.

“I think that’s where most churches stop, at those first two C’s,” said Bowron. “Once a congregation is founded and compassion is there, traditional mission work—the patronage approach—begins.” To say it stops there is not a criticism; mission work born of desire to assist those in need, to love thy neighbor, is working to live out the teachings of Jesus. It is simply that in stopping there, opportunities to go deeper, to provide even more for our neighbors of every stratum, may be lost.

Culture provides some of those opportunities. While one collective “C,” it actually represents and brings together two complimentary ideas and definitions. The first is the culture in terms of the environment created, the “culture” of the “culture shift.” It is the way an organization operates. Is it one that communicates to the world by telling all that they do, or is one that lets its actions speak on its own behalf, with any information provided serving as an invitation to others to be a part of it?

[Image: The Split Cloak Little Free Pantry is one example of a community-based ministry at St. Martin’s, Charlotte.]

Wells describes culture as the confluence of the world and the church to create an estuary of sorts, a unique culture with a place unlike any other. One of the ways that happens is through the second definition of culture, the one more tangibly associated with the creation of beautiful things, like art or music. It is not about the spending of a great deal of money or the collection of material things, but rather the creation of beauty.

An example of how this is accomplished can be found at St. Martin’s itself. The building was built only in 1911 but has a much older feel. When you walk into the space, said Bowron, it can feel like you’re “walking into Europe” in a time long past. It is now enhancing the beauty of the space with newer cultural additions.

The congregation recently hired a director of community engagement, whose focus will be on the cultural aspects of St. Martin’s and building relationships with Charlotte’s artistic community. One of the first projects to be completed was the installation of more than 400 origami doves, created by the people of St. Martin’s for Pentecost. The church held events where the lights were turned off to create the effect of a night sky, which those in attendance enjoyed along with live music.

It stayed up for only three weeks. “There was a great hue and cry when it came down,” said Bowron. But removing it was necessary to make room for what comes next. As he explained, “We’re trying to help our congregation and the people of Charlotte understand that when things like the installation happen here, you need to come be a part of it, because it won’t be permanent.”

The impermanence of artistic offerings balances the constants of St. Martin’s: its culture of inclusivity, its approach to “being with,” its physical location from which its compassionate work is done. The beauty added by its artistic cultural efforts creates an overall transcendental space, an invitational avenue to God.

“I think the Church ought to have a pretty strong distinction from [the rest of] the world,” said Bowron. “Producing [artistic] culture is, in its way, like returning to the Church as a source of beautiful things. The Episcopal Church is distinctly advantaged in this, because we have, since our founding, been interested in beautiful worship, beautiful art and beautiful music. So our attempt to produce and celebrate beautiful cultural artistic endeavors is, maybe, a way to show people that God is beyond our own ways of speaking.” Their application of this “C,” he said, “is about being a distinct culture in conversation with the culture at large.”

The final “C,” commerce, was the last to be actively explored by St. Martin’s. It has a practical aspect to be sure, as commerce can certainly become a revenue-generating resource, but it doesn’t have to be that exclusively. When done with relationship at its center, it, like congregation, compassion and culture, reveals gifts that take a starting point far beyond original ideas.

St. Martin’s found this to be true when it looked to one of its biggest assets, a parish hall with several empty office spaces. The decision was made to rent two of the offices to local therapists. It provides welcome income, but even more beneficial, the tenant therapists agreed to hold congregational workshops four times a year. As relationships are built with them, Bowron can envision a time when their expertise may be something the congregation can call upon in times of need.

Another of the offices is rented to the Charlotte Folk Society, a nonprofit that uses the St. Martin’s space as an instrument lending library. The church charges little and delights in the monthly jam sessions that take place. In the nature of a relationship’s give and take, when St. Martin’s has been in need of a band or a specific kind of music, they turn to the society with whom they have become friends, and those friends have responded with whatever they need.

Then there’s the preschool that rents the entire first floor of the parish hall, replacing the preschool St. Martin’s once ran and closed during the pandemic, turning a former cost into income. The latest endeavor is adapting the availability of their professional-grade kitchen; negotiations are underway with a local organization.

SELECTIVE IMPATIENCE

What the four “C’s” look like will differ from congregation to congregation, but one thing is the same no matter where they’re applied: for them to help a church or ministry thrive, they must be rooted in genuine relationship.

For St. Martin’s, that now means deepening existing relationships and fostering connections among them. “What I want to see next is the growth of organic partnerships between our partners, with us being not the matchmakers but the meeting place,” said Bowron. His hope is the more his partners find in each other, the more it will “yield gifts within the parish.”

As for churches embarking on their own culture shift, they are encouraged to remember that the shifts don’t happen overnight, and, when beginning the journey, not to try to do it all at once. Start small, and give yourself the time and space to explore and experiment.

Start the shift with just one thing. Plant the seeds, and give them room to grow. For when it comes to institutional change, Bowron says, paradoxically, it’s not about patience. It’s about “being impatient about one thing for a long time.”

LEARN MORE

For more information on the HeartEdge 4C’s, visit heartedge.org.