What’s The Point?

Mission statements can be the worst. A company goes on a retreat, decides on some vague statement, and then goes home and never looks at it again.

So, you may ask, why do I have a personal mission statement?

I’ve found that mission statements are helpful if they’re actually used to both imagine and execute a vision. Which means they need to be worded in a way that makes them usable. Core values are the same way.

For a number of years, the following has been my personal mission statement:

“Live a post-resurrection life here and now in a pre-resurrection world.”

If after the resurrection I’ll enjoy true fellowship with God and my neighbor, why not do that here and now?

There are probably other ways to state it, but that mission statement resonated with me, because if I’m looking forward to a post-resurrection life—and I am—why not get as much of it as I can and as soon as I can?

However, lately I’ve been focused on designing an estate plan so that I can give my children and grandchildren an inheritance that doesn’t add any sorrow with it (Proverbs 10:22). And I decided to change it to something that would resonate for my whole family and not just me:

“Build a legacy of joy and harmony with sons and daughters to a thousand generations in the God who is festival. That is, live a post-resurrection life here and now in a pre-resurrection world.”

I like that (and maybe I’ll let you know about some of the why’s behind it someday), but it was too long.

So my current iteration is simply:

“Glorify and enjoy God to a thousand generations.”

This is part of a prayer that have I prayed over our kids every night since they were born (and even before that), so it’s already built into our family culture.

You’ll probably notice that this is the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 1 combined with God’s thousand generation blessing (Exodus 20:6, Deuteronomy 5:10, Deuteronomy 7:9, Psalm 105:8).

This is the point. I’m not just glorifying and enjoying God for myself, I’m teaching my children to teach their children and so on, so that not a single one of our descendants is lost, but all of them will glorify and enjoy God forever.

I use our mission statement to inform every decision I make.

But ultimately it’s not about serving the mission statement. It’s about serving and growing closer to God. And if God grows me to see something bigger, I’ll modify our mission statement again.

What do you think?
Joseph