Live Life as a Mission with a Vision

Olyotya,

Today I was reminded of a very important concept from my business school at Carson-Newman College. In several classes, we learned about the importance of mission statements and vision statements. These are two subjects that are not discussed as widely as they should be. These are foundational to any business. Before you can use them, you must understand what they are.

Mission statements and vision statements are not the same. Mission statements are meant to direct what you want to do now. For a business, it would include your target market, products, marketing, and other business elements. Vision statements are meant to give you a goal to strive towards. For a business, vision statements would include future endeavors such as market share, profitability, stock valuation, etc. (PLEASE HANG WITH ME...THIS ISN'T GOING TO BE A BUSINESS LECTURE).

Taking into account the importance of mission statements and vision statements, why can't we use these as individuals? I mean, if these are good enough for Fortune 500 companies to use time, energy, and money to develop, why can't we use these in our church, homes, and most importantly--our personal lives.

We, as Christians, should develop our own mission and vision statements according to God's purposes. Let me illustrate... My mission statement is to "love God and love others" and it's taken from Matthew 22:37-39(NIV). When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus replied:

³⁷ ...“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

If my mission in life is to "love God and love others", I can avoid a lot of the heartaches that Christians suffer from. If I gauge all of my actions against this metric, then I should be able to decide what would be God honoring and what wouldn't. Suddenly, all of the things I thought were important aren't so important when judged against this mission statement.

My vision is something completely different. My vision statement requires me to think ahead and develop what, or better yet who, I want to become. This requires me to set clear objectives for my life. To be effective, your vision statement should include things that can be measured.

Good vision statement: "I want to be a missionary living abroad by the age of 29."

• That is measurable and completely objective.

Bad vision statement: "I want to be the best Christian I can be in this one life that God has given me."

• That sounds good, but it cannot be measured. It's subject to your biases.

By using mission/vision statements, you can focus your life to accomplish what's important to you. You can run your thoughts and actions through the filter of the mission/vision statements and hope they come out unscathed. No matter if you run a church, run your home, or are a single adult, you can benefit from applying a mission/vision statement to your life. More than anything else, you will be able to live your life as a mission with a vision.

Nkwagala,

Adam