How to Create Your Family Mission Statement

Your Family Mission Statement

The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to set goals, build new habits, and make a mission statement for your family.

Coming up with a mission statement is not hard and can be one of the most rewarding tasks you’ll complete all year. Here’s a simple way to approach your Family Mission Statement.

How to Create

1) Gather Your Supplies

Paper and Pen – for writing

Worksheets – for thinking and writing

Bible – for reading and inspiration

Time – for talking and praying

 

2) Call a Family Meeting

Pick a time when everyone can be together with no interruptions. If your kids are little, like mine, you can have a meeting with just your spouse this year.

 

3) Pray and Read Some Scripture

After you gather, explain how important it is that your family has a mission statement and what that means. Then pray over this time and share some scripture inspiration. Here are my favorites –

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord, your God is giving you.

1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,and do not lean on your own understanding.

Deuteronomy 6 – This is a great chapter.

 

4) Talk through stuff

Talk through the Family Mission Statement Printable or let everyone complete them before gathering. It doesn’t matter as long as you do it. It’s valuable to hear from everyone in the house if they are old enough to provide input. It’s critical to get everyone’s buy-in. If your family doesn’t hear and agree, it will be hard to live it out.

 

5) Compile and Display

After you go through steps 1-4, go to your computer or write out your statement. Feel free to use the pretty printable to help. I recommend printing your statement on photo paper and framing. You could make a special ‘date’ out of the occasion and unveil to the family.

 

A family mission statement is a combined, unified expression from all family members of what your family is all about — what it is you really want to do and be — and the principles you choose to govern your family life. -Stephen Covey

 

What Your Statement Includes

A family mission statement should encompass your family’s core values and what you want to accomplish this year.

1) Core Values –

This should not be comprehensive but rather a summary. Boil down what you believe into one or two statements. This will make it easy to memorize. How fun would it be to teach our kids an easy phrase that teaches them all the wonderful things we want them to know.

This could also be a few rules that your family has or a motto that you live by. Don’t put everything you’ve ever told your kids to do or not to do. The list would be long and would include things like ‘don’t eat off the floor’.

Instead, think about how your family would fill in statements like these –

Our family works . . .

Our family values . . .

Our family supports . . .

You can also search for a list of ‘family value’ keywords. You will find a bunch, then pick your top ten or so. Let your kids pick what they think your family is about, too.

2) What to accomplish this year –

This should be more than planning a vacation. Vacations are fun and should be a part of your year if you can, but your family ‘goals’ or ‘mission’ should be more.

Try to think missionally, financially, or in terms of other broad family areas that need assistance.

Here are some questions you can ask your spouse or kids to help –

How can our family serve others? Who lives close by that needs us?

How can we simplify where our money goes? Pay something off? Go without something? What do we need to save for?

What could work better in our home? Meals? Cleaning? Quality Time?

Is there a Bible Study to do together? Verses to memorize?

What is something fun we can to do together? Maybe there’s an event that you’ve always wanted to go to?

What is a project our family can complete together?

What does each family member want this year? Depending on what it is, this may or may not happen. But, it’s nice to have their dreams down on paper.

 

 

Here’s Our Family Mission Statement –

Our Core Values

We live by God’s word therefore, we love like Jesus. This means we will treat each other and their belongings with respect and kindness. We will listen when spoken to. We will serve each other.

Loving God, Serving Others, Embracing Joy

What We Want

This year we hope to accomplish . . . 

Continued love and support for our spouse. We want to continue growing deeper in the faith together. We want to continue reading books we love (one per month) and we want to complete a Bible study together.

Continued love and support for our children. We want to help them become stronger individuals and more dependent on Jesus. We also want to continue enriching their lives through school which a great opportunity to teach.

We also want to deepen our individual relationship with God and we want to introduce our children to the concept of daily, individual Bible time. We will continue with family worship.

As a family, we will find people in our neighborhood that have needs. We want to serve more individuals through generosity.

We have several financial goals that I will not go into detail about here.

 

 

Feel free to download my family’s mission statement as an example and a blank one for your family to fill out.

After you complete your mission statement, print it out and hang it on your wall. This is crucial. If you are not reminded of the mission statement, you’ll soon forget it. Your kids will too.

 

Let me know what your family mission statements say below in the comments.