Home Outreach Leaders Articles for Outreach & Missions Southwest, Zappos, and Building Incredible Church Culture

Southwest, Zappos, and Building Incredible Church Culture

One of our primary goals at Church Community Builder is to be an organization with authentic community and a carefully cultivated culture—that rare organization that pleases its associates first so they in turn please our church partners. As we strive to fulfill that goal, we constantly analyze and evaluate the way we operate.

What do you think impacts our culture more than anything? You guessed it: our people.

Both Southwest Airlines and Zappos are organizations that are widely beloved by their employees and their customers. Many have even described their following as “cult-like.” I prefer to describe it using Seth Godin’s term: Tribe. Either way, it’s worth striving for.

Your church can develop this same kind of following, too! Just like Southwest Airlines, Zappos and Church Community Builder, your church is comprised of people who want to be valued and involved in intentional community and impact. This starts with the staff and translates all the way out to your attenders.

The organizations that have the greatest impact do two things really well:

1. Create an amazing culture for their staff.

2. Provide exceptional experiences for their “customers.”

Churches may not provide the same “experience” as Southwest or Zappos, but they can certainly offer value, significance and meaning through authentic community and high levels of care. This begins with the staff. A healthy church also has a healthy staff culture. And—by the way—having a healthy culture doesn’t happen by accident.

Products, services and programs can be copied, but the culture and passion of your people cannot.

It is one of the things that makes your church different from any other church—or at least it should.

I am humbled to say Church Community Builder is an organization that attracts and keeps people who are passionate about the most important thing we do—serving church leaders and growing the Kingdom. We make it our business to empower our team to do just that. This is what I believe makes us truly unique. It also helps us retain more than 90 percent of our church partners every year!

Our greatest asset is our people, but it takes a healthy culture to fully realize the potential of those people.

How have you seen a church’s culture influence its ability to make a Kingdom impact?