How to Clarify Your Church’s Identity
In Part One, we looked at the danger churches face when they try to be everything to everyone. That desire often comes from a good place—we want to serve, reach, and include—but it can lead to confusion, burnout, and a loss of direction. Churches without a clear identity tend to drift, imitate, and react rather than lead with conviction.
If your church feels scattered, reactive, or pulled in multiple directions, it is not always a sign of rebellion or resistance. Sometimes it is just a sign that people have lost sight of who they are. Churches with a clear sense of identity do not just make better decisions—they make fewer wrong ones.
Here are some practical ways to begin the process of clarifying your church’s identity:
1. Listen to the Right Voices
Start by gathering honest feedback from your congregation, not just your inner circle. Ask questions like, “What do you think makes our church unique?” or “What would you miss if our church were not here?” Pay attention to repeated themes. They are often signals of what people are experiencing, not just what leaders are projecting.
But do not stop with internal voices. Also talk to people in your community who do not attend your church. What do they think you are about? What reputation do you have? That gap between perception and intention is often where identity work begins.
The Church and Community Surveys on the Resources page can help you get this information.
2. Look Back Before You Look Forward
Every church has a story. Understanding your church’s history—its high points, its pain points, its patterns—can give you clues about the identity God has been shaping over time. This does not mean you are bound to repeat the past, but it does mean your story is part of your calling. Some churches were born out of bold evangelism. Others were started for a specific neighborhood. Trace the thread.
3. Look Past the “Regular Church” Values
Most churches say they value things like preaching, prayer, community, missions, or biblical truth. And those are good values. They should be present in any healthy church. But if every church says the same things, those values alone will not help your church understand what makes it distinct.
This is where many churches get stuck. They stop at “We believe the Bible” or “We want to reach people.” Those are starting points, not identity statements. In your search for identity, you are not ignoring or minimizing the core values that make you Baptist. Those are important. But you also need to look farther—to the values that make your church unique in your community. Ask questions like, What burdens us? What keeps us up at night? What are we uniquely passionate about? That is where you begin to uncover values that are not just Christian, but truly yours.
4. Define, Don’t Describe
Avoid the trap of describing your church with vague, feel-good words like “friendly,” “welcoming,” or “down-to-earth.” Those may be true, but they are surface-level. Go deeper.
Also resist the urge to define your identity by what you do. Programs, events, and outreach efforts are important, but they are expressions of identity—not the source of it. A church is not defined by its calendar, but by its calling.
Try to answer three core questions with specificity:
Who has God called us to reach?
What are we uniquely positioned to do well?
What convictions shape everything we do?
When you answer those clearly, you are not just describing what your church is like; you are defining who your church is. And when identity is clear, actions start to make more sense.
5. Name What Matters Most
This is where core values come in. Not aspirational ones, but actual ones. What values consistently shape your decisions, your culture, and your behavior? If you say you value hospitality, how is that seen on a Sunday morning? If you say you value diversity, how is that reflected in your leadership?
Clarifying values is not about creating a list to hang on a wall. It is about identifying the heartbeat behind your church’s actions so you can build with intentionality.
6. Write It Down and Share It
Once you have worked through these questions, distill your church’s identity into a clear, shared language. It does not have to be catchy. It just needs to be clear, consistent, and memorable. Then talk about it often. Let it shape your preaching, your planning, your training, and your decision-making. If no one remembers it, it is not leading anything.
Clarifying your church’s identity is not a one-meeting process. It takes prayer, patience, and honest conversation. But once you get there, everything else gets a little clearer.
In Part Three, we will look at how to let your church’s identity shape your actual ministry—your structure, your strategy, and your purpose.