This is a great podcast episode about company culture. The gist is, it doesn’t matter what people say or write about what the culture is. It’s what people are actually doing that matters. In fact, it may be even worse if what is said about the culture doesn’t match what people are actually doing.

There was one sound-bite that stood out to me from DHH at minute 7:15.

The more companies are eager to talk, talk, talk, about culture, culture, culture all the time, the more suspicious I am that there is a bunch of bullshit hidden under the carpet. … If you are obsessed with talking about culture, writing it down, it’s probably because you’re trying to cover something up.

Then it hit me. This is exactly how I feel when churches talk, talk, talk about “community”. In fact, if you listen to the beginning of this podcast and replace every time they say “company” with “church” and “culture” with “community”, it would be spot on.

There is a lesson here for us. If churches spend less time talking about community and more time simply doing things together, an authentic community will form naturally. And the actions of the leaders in the church, much more than the words, will be the blueprint for the rest of the congregation.