It was a time of pressure for my wife and me. My evenings were filled with classwork, our small children demanded constant attention from my wife throughout the day, and challenges in the ministry weighed on us and occupied much of our conversation. It was the perfect storm for burnout and disillusionment.
That’s when my wife suggested that we come up with a family mission statement. I had heard of the idea before and admired it—from a distance. But it took these pressure-filled circumstances to make me realize that we needed something in writing that would clarify our purpose as a family and alert us when we were flying off the tracks.
After I realized we needed a mission statement, I wanted to come up with one quickly. Instead, it became a slow journey that stretched over several weeks, maybe even months. That’s when I realized something else: not only did we need the product (a family mission statement), but we also needed to go through the process of developing one.
The process and product of developing a family mission statement were so valuable to my wife and me, that I would encourage any couple who wants to be intentional about their marriage and family life to consider developing one as well. In a follow-up post, I plan to give you the steps to do this. For now, though, let me explain the benefits you can expect as you walk through the process of developing your own.
1. Unity on family essentials
First, working on the mission statement will bring you and your spouse together on the things that really matter. Foolishly, I had preferred to write the statement all by myself—cloistering myself away for a couple of hours with my Bible, hammering out a beautifully crafted, spiritually deep and doctrinally dense mission statement. I would have emerged triumphantly from my monastic meditations with the document, announcing to my wife that I had produced the definitive statement of purpose for my family.
While on my own, I might have produced a mission statement that would have been admired by theologians and literary scholars alike (OK, maybe not), it wouldn’t have helped Christa and me communicate deeply about our shared vision for our family. It might have been doctrinally profound, but it certainly would have been out of touch with reality. Struggling together on the project made it authentic because it was the product of our conversations, our prayers, our aspirations. If we had gone the quick route and wrote it individually, or adopted someone else’s, we would have missed the bonding and authenticity we gained by working on it as a couple.
2. An honest look at your family’s values.
Second, the process of working on a mission statement will force you to evaluate what your family priorities really are, and what they really should be. My wife and I had to square with the fact that our hectic pace did not reflect the values we wanted for our family. We had to set aside our ideas about what we thought we valued, and investigate the hard evidence produced by our schedules, bank statements, and the kind and quality of activities we engaged in. Having come to grips with reality, we then dreamed and pondered about what we believed God would want for our family, and how to change our family habits accordingly.
3. A vision for decades, not just days.
Third, developing our mission statement caused us to think further down the road than we would have otherwise. We wanted a mission statement that would grow with our children, that would endure even when they left our home and started families of their own. While our immediate burdens made it difficult to see past the next week, working on a mission statement compelled us to think ten, twenty, even thirty years into the future.
I understand that families can thrive spiritually without developing a written mission statement. But for us, it became an important tool for intentionally aligning our family values with the Word of God. And even if we somehow lost the mission statement and the exact wording slipped our memories, I believe that the process alone would have been worth the effort.
It takes serious effort develop your own family mission statement. But it’s not rocket science. Anyone can do it. In the next post, I plan to show you exactly how. Then you can get started on your own.
