In a previous post I promised that I would tell you how to write a family mission statement. There are plenty of great resources out there that will guide you through this process, so I don’t hope to have the final word on this. For example, my wife and I relied heavily on the chapter “A Family Mission Statement: Make Simple Living Personal” in the book Organized Simplicity. I’ve merely written down the steps, which in retrospect, we took to formulate our own mission statement.

One caveat: our journey to writing a mission statement was not as neat and tidy as these steps might make you think. We batted ideas back and forth, let it sit for a week, quibbled over the wording, and even lost the paper we were writing on at least once. My point is this: these steps will set you in the right direction, but they won’t give you turn-by-turn guidance. There are some things you’ll just have to wrestle through so that the mission statement becomes uniquely yours.

Before I get to the steps, keep these practical tips in mind:

  1. Schedule time to work on the mission statement together. Note the key words: time and together. When you schedule your week, block out an evening to sit down with your spouse and talk about this. And don’t try to do it on your own.
  2. Spread it out over several weeks. A family mission statement is not something you can to crank out in one evening. When you’ve talked through your family values and jotted down ideas, set it aside and come back to it a week later. And then another week later. When it comes to family mission statements, the process is as important as the product.
  3. Expect and deal with conflicts along the way. If you and your spouse have never openly communicated about family values, long-term goals, and the atmosphere of your home, you might find some areas in which your ideals conflict. This process might reveal unstated frustrations, fears or disappointments. Carefully listen to and understand each other as you seek unity on these essential matters.

Now, for the steps.

1. Identify what is most important for your family to be or do.

This first step should take the longest, because you are trying to figure out what you truly value as a family. To help you with this step, consider these two lists of questions. The first list is meant to shape your thinking according to Scriptural truths. If you already have a solid understanding of what the Bible teaches about the relationships between husbands and wives, children and parents, feel free to skip this step. If your convictions about this aren’t settled, be sure to answer these questions carefully from Scripture.

  • What is the purpose of life?
  • What are the purposes of marriage?
  • Which relationship takes priority: parent-child, or husband-wife?
  • What responsibilities does the husband have to the wife? The wife to the husband?
  • How do the roles of husband and wife differ?
  • What responsibilities do parents have to their children?
  • What responsibilities do children have to their parents?

This second list will help you think about how these Scriptural truths play out in your own family. Don’t worry about answering each question. Just choose the questions you feel are most helpful. Talk through your thoughts. Scribble down ideas.

  • What are the top three things we want our children to remember about their years growing up in this home?
  • If someone spent an evening in our home, what is one word we would want them to go away thinking about our family?
  • If we could make only one rule for our family—for parents and children—what would that rule be?
  • What part of being together as a family do we love most?
  • Think of three families we most admire. What do we find attractive about the way those families operate?
  • What do we want our family to be like in 5, 10 or 15 years? What do we want to be different? What do we want to stay the same?
  • Think about when our children have families of their own. Even if they did everything else very different from the way they were raised, what one thing would we want them to keep the same?
  • What aspects of our family life would be worth keeping even if it meant losing my job?
  • What three activities would make our family life more satisfying if we did them more often?

Now go back through your answers and see what stands out as the dominant principle or action. Then seek to answer the question, “What is most important for our family to be or do?” Make sure you can state the answer in a clear, concise phrase. It might be “living joyfully for God,” or “loving God and others,” or “being secure in who God has made us to be,” “finding satisfaction in a relationship with God and each other.” These are just ideas. Make sure your answer reflects your unique values and ideals as a family.

2. Break down how your family can fulfill that purpose.

Taking the phrase you wrote down in response to step one, brainstorm how you can make it real in your family. Comb through your answers to the lists of questions again, and choose two, three or four actions or values that are necessary to move your purpose forward. It might have to do with communication, sharing, love, hospitality, commitment to Biblical values, hard work, or selflessness. Whatever you choose, make sure they are specific, memorable, and will be applicable even as your family grows older.

3. Shape these answers into a mission statement

This last step is the easiest. Take your answers from steps one and two, and put them into this format:

The [your family name] exists to by

,

and

.

Once your mission statement is written out in this format, set it aside and come back to it a week later. Ask yourself, “Is this specific enough for us to live by? Simple enough for young children to learn and understand, but deep enough to grow with our children.” Remember, you haven’t engraved this in stone. Tweak it, simplify it, or even expand it.

One more thing. A mission statement means nothing if you don’t live by it. In addition to keeping it in front of you, it’s helpful to develop even more specific criteria by which you evaluate whether you are fulfilling it. For example, if your purpose statement includes the value of communication, you might need to specify exactly what that means at certain seasons of life. It might mean that you will commit to having one meal per day all together as a family. It might mean that you will devote 15 minutes every day in which everyone in the family will share a burden or a joy. Whatever it is, don’t let your mission statement collect dust. Make it connect with reality.

Have you written a family mission statement? Working on clarifying your family values? I’d love to hear about it, or feel free to share in the comments.