Church and Ministry Culture

This study develops a cultwe index for measuring culture in religious organizations. The cultures of five churches/ministries were studied using the index. Ethics, social responsibility, values, and people were high scoring culture index components for all churches, while planning and goals components tended to be lowest in priority. This research demonstrates that religious organizations can use the culture index to make comparisons on two broad fronts. First, it allows a ministry to identify its views of the relative importance of various culture components within their congregation. Second, by expanding the number of participating organizations, churches can make meaningful comparisons of their culture against other ministries.