e2a8a.jpgA few weeks ago I took my staff on a retreat. We rented a great lake house on Lake Travis just outside of Austin, Texas. Initially I was taking the team to the PDCM conference… but it was cancelled. So I found this place and made plans to retreat instead of going to a conference.

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The strategy of the Purpose Driven model has helped me tremendously in ministry. Since I moved into my current position a year ago, I’ve made adjustments to ministry to reflect a more “purpose driven” strategy. Everyone has been on board for the most part; however, I wasn’t completely convinced that everyone understood why. This is the reason why I planned to take everyone to Saddleback. So when the conference was cancelled, I decided that we would watch 2 or 3 sessions from a past PDCM conference, and talk it out and make it reality for our church.

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One of the biggest things I wanted to come home with was a vision statement, mission statement and a list of values for our ministry. I know (from personal experience) how easy it is to get so busy with ministry that you never take the time to back up and develop mission and vision. I have felt a burden to get these things done. It can be challenging to lead a volunteer meeting when you have to dance around issues of vision and mission when there isn’t one written out.

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So, here is what we came up with. The challenge was to create a mission and vision that supported the mission and vision of our church as a whole, yet still accurately describe our process for ministry. Note that this is not the standard “5-point” purpose driven model mission, but it works with what we are doing.

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Vision Statement

 Partnering with parents to reach and empower kids for Christ.

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Mission Statement

CT Kids exists to reach kids for Christ, connect them with other Christians, grow them in their faith and equip them to serve their community.

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Values: (descriptions and references not written yet)

Safety

Truth

Fun

Creativity

Passion

Potential

Commitment

Believe it or not, we put a lot of work and effort into this, not to mention for me the years of working this out through trial and error. Since it was just my team at the Argyle campus who came up with this, it is still to be decided what happens next. Since the children’s ministry on each campus is autonomous, I will have to work this out with the other children’s pastors and then ultimately with the church leadership. However, this is at least the first step, something that needed to be done a long time ago!Â