Living Different: A Family on Mission

Our Church’s Podcast recently interviewed Foster and I on the topic of “Living Different.” Through conversation, we explored what it practically looks like for our family to live by the values of God’s Kingdom. We shared our family mission statement, which has been a driving proponent in establishing our full and beautiful “different life.” A few key themes that came up were simplicity, hospitality, priorities, vision, community and daily rhythms. If you’d like to hear why I didn’t want to write a mission statement, why we don’t own a television and other interesting tid-bits, then give it a listen!

Mission Statement

Ready to write your own family or personal mission statement? A good mission statement should be able to answer the questions: “Who are we? Who are we becoming? and What is our purpose?” Below are some questions are what helped us, written by Andy Andrews in “Your Personal Mission Statement Action Plan.” You can download his full action plan by following the link provided.

1. What am I all about?

2. Who inspires me the most and why?

3. What does “the best” look like for me?

4. How do I want to act?

5. What will be my legacy?

Kingdom Considerations

As followers of Jesus, it is important to go through this process as it relates to our identity in Christ. Foster and I drafted these questions to focus your mission as it relates to the Kingdom of God.

• What are the unique spiritual gifting and passions we have as a family?

• How do we want faith to shape our decisions, routines and relationships?

• What words describe our home and how others feel while in it?

• What good do we want to bring to our neighborhood, church and community?

A few prompts you can use to engage your children’s input

“In our family, we always…”

“I feel loved when…”

“Our home is a place where…”

Putting it all together!

Draft something without putting too much pressure on it. Post it within your home and give yourself time to pray about it until it sincerely resonates.

A simple formula could be: “Our family exists to ____, by ____, so that____.”

To - your purpose

By - your practices

So that - your impact

Here’s ours as an example:

Our Mission is to Share the Good News of the Kingdom of God and the Love of Christ by Investing in Relationships and Living Intentionally.

Sometimes actually setting aside the time and energy towards the formation of something like this can be a barrier. If you need space to process or accountability to make it happen, let’s connect through coaching!

We’d love to hear what you come up with! Share your mission statement, ideas and questions below or click “Let’s Chat!”

Foster & Lauren