Here is part 3 of asking questions to find answers to. You can read the previous ones here Question 1, Question 2.

I have tried to put together a quick overview of some questions that I keep on my phone in Evernote for just that occasion that I run into someone who I may ask questions to. Question number three for me is:

3. How do you or other leaders in your organization communicate the “core values”?

My answer would be: We do this in a few ways and I will admit we have not arrived to the degree and consistency that I am wanting us to be at yet but we are on our way.

First we teach on them.
We try to make it very clear about what we value and what we expect in terms of values-based behavior (all values must translate into actions being lived out consistently).

Second way for us is We reward and recognize when the values are being lived out.
Something new I have started to do is I have asked for a section of our weekly bulletin and in there I have my coordinators of each ministry position give me names weekly of people who lived out our values and what they did exactly so I will pile the names and add a couple of them each week into the bulletin and what they are doing. This helps us to not only honor them for living the values out but it tells those who read it what we do value. This in turn helps us to draw in those who value the same things.

This brings me to our third way, we recruit our teams based on our core values.
As we build our teams in each of our children’s ministry teams we look for competence, personal character, and a cultural fit. Values are expressed in the last two. We want to bring people on our teams who share our values. If the values don’t resonate with them, we know they are not going to be a long term good fit with our culture. It is better to avoid the problem on the front end than have to deal with it on the back end.

Bottom line basically is Leading by example is the most powerful communication method any leader possesses. While values are taught, they are more powerfully caught than taught while people observe our lives. We must be very intentional about how we model our values.

So share how do you communicate your core values?