Developing a Personal Mission Statement of Faith

In the past few weeks in worship we have talked about living out God's purpose in our individual lives, as well as our life together.  I believe a personal mission statement of faith is critical for engaging our life in God fully.  While there are a lot of templates for creating your mission statement, I found this one and adapted it for our purposes:

1. Ask God to be present.  Approach writing your vision statement with a prayerful heart.
2. Answer the following questions to help clarify your thinking, as well as listen to God:

• Do I feel God has a purpose for my life?
• In what ways has God been working in my life?
• What brings me joy or satisfaction?
• What is God challenging me to leave behind or are there any bad habits to break?
• What would I do with my time if I didn't need to work for an income?
• What would I do if money was no object?
• If my life ended now, would I have regrets?

    3.  To help focus on your gifts, answer the following questions:

• What do I know more than others know?
• What can I do better or could teach others to do?
• What do I love more than anything in terms of ministry or service?
• What are the gifts God has already given you?

   4.  Using your answers write about recurring themes they reveal in the following areas:
  spiritual growth, ministry opportunities, direction by the Holy Spirit, relationships and any other broad  categories that you wish to add.

   5.  Think about how you can use information from your past to shape the future.

   6.  Distill information in each category into one or two actionable statements.  For example under spiritual,
"I am deepening my relationship with Christ through scripture study and prayer" or "I am experiencing the joy of drawing others to Christ through love."   Write concrete statements that are based on your core values.

   7.  Now... in 1-3 sentences, write your mission statement from what you have learned from above.

I will share mine next week.  Happy visioning!

On the journey,
Alecia