Is your mission statement still relevant to the life of your church?
When you wrote your mission statement, the whole leadership team likely spent significant time crafting the precise wording that would best summarize your church’s unique purpose and calling. But after working so hard to create a mission statement, you may have also wondered if it made any difference.
Part of the reason some churches do not find their mission statement to be useful is because the statement is too vague or too broad. But even when a statement clearly communicates who a church is and what they are called to do, sometimes it ends up being more of a lofty aspiration than an achievable goal.
Creating a mission statement is a valuable discipline that can help determine the course for an entire organization. The key is to perform regular mission audits to ensure you’re working in harmony with your purpose. If you currently have a mission statement that you haven’t addressed in more than a year, it may be time to rewrite or re-clarify it.
Here are four questions you and your leadership team can ask to audit your mission and ensure that it is relevant to the life of your church:
1. Are we communicating our purpose well?
Don’t fall into the trap of expending time and energy on creating a mission statement only to put it on your website and forget about it.
Your mission needs to weave its way into the fabric of your church. People need to hear about it, understand it, and identify with it. It isn’t until your church body associates themselves with your purpose that it will begin to take shape.
Consider how you are reinforcing your church’s calling to your congregation. Do not forget to use channels such as:
- Sermons
- Social media
- Pre-service slides
- Membership classes
2. Are we saying yes to the right things?
To audit your mission, take a close look at what your church is doing. How are your teams spending time, energy, and income? Are you inadvertently choosing programs that run contrary to your priorities? If your mission statement does nothing else, it should at least equip your leaders to make wise decisions about how you use your resources.
When people come to you with ministry ideas, their pitch should articulate how their suggestion or opportunity will move the church toward its unique calling.
Are there ministries that are not moving your mission forward yet your leadership is reluctant to cut them? This might be a sign that you need to readdress your statement. You want a purpose that makes sense in light of your actions. If you are committed to work that you have not prioritized, it is probably time to make it a priority.
3. Are we manifesting our mission more and more?
A mission that is simply inspirational is not beneficial. The whole point is to craft a short statement that creates real-life impact. While it should be ambitious, it should not be so grandiose that it is impossible to express.
A good mission statement can help you visualize the goal, decide on a route to get there, and, over time, allow you to see your progress. If a year has passed and you are no closer to your mission than the day you wrote it, there is a problem.
You may need to reset your course, or you may need to take a fresh look at your mission statement.
4. Do we need to make any adjustments to our mission?
While you do not want to create a continually evolving mission statement, you do need to determine whether your mission is still relevant or useful. As we have already seen, the organization may show you when the statement has become unhelpful.
In addition, your community may go through a change that requires a pivot. For example, if your mission is focused on evangelism, but people in your community are struggling to put food on the table or experiencing difficulty navigating government services, you might consider a change in focus to be more service oriented.
The point is that sometimes a situation occurs that encourages us to reimagine who we are and what we have been called to do. Remain open to respond to what God is doing in those moments.
Your mission matters.
It is essential for a church to identify what they have been called to do so they can make the best decisions possible in order to grow the Kingdom. If you have taken the time to create a mission statement, great! Go a step further and commit to regularly auditing that mission; in doing so, you will achieve clarity and momentum.
