The management guru Peter Drucker said famously that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” His point? Building a culture within an organization or company is really important. Despite the ubiquity of Drucker’s maxim, healthy organizational and institutional cultures — even among churches and church staffs — are often at a minimum. In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, Tom Nelson delves into the work of building healthy culture within churches and organizations. As the conversation unfolds, Tom discusses the place of mission statements and core values, and how leaders can reinforce them by embodying them.

Tom Nelson is the senior pastor of Christ Community Church in Kansas City, Kansas, and he's the president of Made to Flourish, a national nonprofit that works with churches and their leaders in the area of faith and work. You can learn more about Tom's work at www.madetoflourish.org, and you can find his new book, The Flourishing Pastor: Recovering the Lost Art of Shepherd Leadership — which is the springboard for this podcast — wherever you buy books.

***Get Free Books*** Christians often report that their churches don’t prepare them for the pressures, opportunities, or challenges of their daily work. At Made to Flourish, we call this the Sunday to Monday gap, an unhealthy divide that can blur our understanding of God’s work in the world — work we’re meant to join. To help close that gap, we want to mail you a collection of practical, theological books — completely free of charge. In this free box, you’ll also get the latest issue of the award-winning Common Good magazine, and for a limited time, Tom Nelson’s book, The Flourishing Pastor: Recovering the Lost Art of Shepherd Leadership. So whether you’re a pastor or layperson, claim your free books at madetoflourish.org/box.