Family Mission Statement

Family Mission Statement

A couple months ago now, James and I took a retreat to reprioritize our family. “Good things become bad things when they crowd out the best things,” am I right? We prayed and spent time in the Word and in conversation with each other and were so blessed to have been given one mind. Thank you, Lord! God brought us back to one passage over and over, and it now serves its role as our “Family Verse.” Might this change in a few years? Maybe. We have no hold on this passage as the one and only, but it is the one we are focusing on for now, filtering many decisions and actions through it.

Colossians 3:12-17 (NET)
“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if someone happens to have a complaint against anyone else. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others. And to all these virtues add love, which is the perfect bond. Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body to this peace), and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

James is working on arranging it typographically to hang in our dining room, serving as a daily visual reminder of the direction God has given us. Here’s a little sneak peek. Disclaimer: he’s an artist and a picky one, so in the end, it’s liable to look nothing like this at all!

Screen Shot 2013-09-26 at 2.26.47 PM

After reading and meditating on this passage for the weekend, we were finally ready to put words to where the Lord was leading us. I’m choosing to take this paragraph to describe the process we used to start, because it was just that helpful for us. We followed a form Dave Ramsey (no eye rolling, puhlease; you come to the Steele’s blog, you’ll hear about Dave Ramsey!) created for writing business mission statements. First, we wrote listed our collective and individual strengths–where our skills meet our passions. Then we wrote character traits we have OR value (James has some that I value). And lastly, we listed three individuals we highly respect along with the qualities we admire about them. With these three lists, we were able to go back through and find some common themes, repeated phrases, synonyms throughout. Then we just started listing what’s important to us and what should be important to us. Lots and lots and lots of erasers were demolished in the making of this mission statement.

Some thoughts:

  • The goal is to make it one sentence; keep it simple. Ours reviles the paragraph-sentences of Paul!
  • It cannot possibly encapsulate every important thing. Don’t make it.
  • We chose to make a big-picture statement (the bolded words) and add some detail after.

And now. Here it is. What we poured and prayed over for many weeks. Our Family Mission Statement.

“We, The Redheads (oh yes, we did), are committed to thinking of others before ourselves in thankful service as unto the Lord, to stewarding Gods resources with a content heart and an open hand while maintaining a debt-free lifestyle, and to knowing and applying Gods Word so that we may be better equipped to encourage and instruct one another.”

All I want to do right now is explain each phrase, word-by-word, so you can know the intense thought behind it all. I don’t believe that’s necessary, though; it’s not the point. Because this vision is for our family. Even though all of these things could/should be said about every believer (it’s from the Bible, and that’s how the Bible works), these things are also specific to where our family is being led, the ways that God is shaping and molding us right now. So if you’d like to hear why this for us, we’d super love to share!

The last few months have been so refreshing for us. Sure, some stress still; that’s life. But there’s a renewed intentionality, a renewed focus in our lives that has been so exciting to us…and exactly what we needed!

Anticipating what He has next,
Sarah

2 Comments
  • Not ashamed to say it: It’s our anniversary!
    Posted at 15:21h, 06 January Reply

    […] worked pretty well for our purposes. James sees design inspiration in everything. Remember our family verse that he’s working on designing to place in our dining room?  It’s been a real challenge to fit so […]

  • Courtney Hutchens
    Posted at 10:22h, 17 October Reply

    Love it!

Post A Comment