Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Mission Statement Application

I believe it is good time for our church re-focus on our recently written Mission Statement. We have been “living with” our Mission Statement for a few months and we are learning to not only live with our mission but to live by our mission statement. It is a challenge that most churches are unable to fulfill. I believe we can do it.

Let me remind you that we have developed an awesome Mission Statement. In my many years of ministry in the local church and many years of consulting with churches across the nation, I can tell you, with confidence, that the Mission Statement of First Christian Church is the best and strongest statement I have ever seen.

We are Called and Empowered by God to Love, Serve, Grow, and Share God’s message of Healing and Hope with All

But the reality is, if we do not follow that our mission; if we do not apply our mission; if we fail to design ministries of the church that are informed by and planned around the Mission Statement; this well-formed Mission Statement will ultimately do the church and our ministries no good whatsoever.

Since we are not in the habit of being driven by a mission statement, learning to do this will take some time and focused effort. We have also talked about making decisions motivated by our core values. Core Values are more challenging because they come from our core and changing our values calls for some changes at the very center of our beings.

Our stated Core Values are: Radical Love (Loving others like God loves us.); Reach the Lost (We do church with a constant eye toward how we can best help those who do not yet know God get to know God.); Obedience to God (Making following God and living our lives to honor God our top priority.). These are great Core Values, but they are not yet the values we practice. We all struggle with these values because our basic core value is ME. For most of us our core value is getting what we want; making sure that decisions are made that please me. My happiness and comfort are what it is all about. Thus, changing our core values is a tremendous challenge. It is a challenge that many people and many churches never meet.

Let’s look at an example. This past week the Worship Committee announced plans to move the times of our worship services from 8:30 and 10:30 to 9:00 and 11:00 beginning on the first Sunday of September. This is a three month experiment that will be evaluated the first week in December. This change was made with the approval of our incoming Senior Pastor. The purpose of the change is twofold: to make it more convenient for some of our senior members to make it to the early service (An act of love.); to make the contemporary worship available at a time that might work better for the unchurched (Share God’s message of healing and hope with all.).

It was reported to me that following worship this Sunday some people were grumbling. I was not shocked. I, too, don’t like change and changing service times will impact my life. On the other hand, I don’t mind grumbling. I’ve been known to grumble myself. Here’s the deal. If you don’t want to change the times of our worship services and your reason is NOT about your personal comfort or your personal preference, tell me why. If your reasons for opposing changing our worship times are rooted in following our mission and your worry is about concerns for others and not about you, please tell me what you think. If not, pray about it and ask God to change your heart. I pray every day that God will change my heart – my core values. We are in this struggle toward spiritual maturity together.

Copyright © 2012, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved

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