Does Your FaithBrand Teach Community Core Values?

The Third Biblical Discipline - Community

The first great digital FaithBrand, the Presidential Prayer Team, was launched in 2001 with simple core values for people of faith, patriots, and prayer warriors.

The prayer team rallied over two million people to pray together weekly for President Bush and other American political leaders of the time. In the wake of 9-11, it was a time when America was more unified behind fundamental core biblical and patriotic values.

Ministry core values provide a stirring catalyst for accomplishing its mission culture. These core values regularly describe the differentiation of the mission. One constantly explores, discovers, and identifies the FaithBrand purpose and community goals in God's leading. It is a never-ending process while the ministry is fulfilling its mission.

That's the point. A unique mission provides direction to an ethos and culture. Only the koinonia working out God's direction together through methods and teamwork glorifying Him, holy and righteous, can succeed.

As one pursues corporate life in Christ, the most outstanding leader constantly reminds and repeats FaithBrand's core values. As a corporate leader, she creates a culture of God-glorifying values. Good ministry leaders understand this. They revere the values of the original ministry founding. They don't take the ministry into wild shifts of purpose, values, and objectives.

Mission core values reveal the ministry's narrative, community character, and distinct culture. A healthy community requires hard work to teach, mentor, and maintain. God works within the community to achieve his purpose. The brand community builds relevancy and trust with those it is trying to help. Leaders share consistent core values, two or three main ones, from generation to generation, including the mission.

Patrick Lencioni says, "The importance of values in creating clarity and enabling a company or organization to become healthy cannot be overstated. More than anything else, values are critical because they define a company's personality. They provide employees (and customers) with clarity about how (they) behave…."

Some ministries allow new leaders to express core values that depart from the original calling without heritage, continuity, or legacy. That is why one sees such brand shifts across generations.

Lencioni says, "There are the few - just two or three - behavioral traits that are inherent in an organization. Core values lie at the heart of the organization's identity, do not change over time, and must already exist. In other words, they cannot be contrived."

This overlooked feature explains why brands change from leader to leader. Apple shifted from an innovation brand to a technical brand from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook. Compassion shifted from a Church-centered brand to a Christian professional-proficiency brand from Wes Stafford to Jimmy Mellado. Focus on the Family shifted from a combative brand to a bridge-builder brand from Jim Dobson to Jim Daly. Boards need to find better leaders who keep brand core values constant during succession times. Organizational cultural tests exist to monitor such a smooth transition.

We have said that the FaithBrand accomplishes a great prophetic mission in its time, applying God's Word and Christ's power to a contemporary situation. The fight for a godly vision might take several generations. For a ministry's effectiveness, it builds community for both the short and long hauls. It rallies people who are striving for the same mission together. The same motivation within the ministry drives them.

The ministry's core values, strategies, and alignment unify its culture, and the fruit of the Spirit is evident weekly.

Let me know your thoughts!

The 5 FaithBrand Disciplines: Mission ? Narrative ? Community ? Outreach ? Praxis.

Karl Schaller has worked with many iconic ministry brands in the last 30 years: Billy Graham, Campus Crusade, Focus on the Family, Compassion, New Life Church, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Central Christian Church, and many others.