In the last issue of ChurchLink, I described a process for developing a Core Values Statement for a church. The next step in developing a long-range plan for a church is to develop a Mission Statement, so I will describe how to do that in this article. In the future, I will explain how to develop this into a more detailed Vision Statement. And then the next step in the process is to develop a Strategic Plan that will accomplish the vision and the mission.

The Purpose of a Mission Statement

A mission statement explains why your church exists. How does it contribute to God’s mission in the world? What is your church supposed to be doing? Why has God called your church into being, and why does he want to see it continue to exist? Actually, the mission is the same for all congregations, but each congregation should attempt to state this biblical concept in its own words.

At first, we might think the answers to these questions are obvious, but in fact many members of our churches may answer these questions differently. For example, a national survey of 200 churches across America asked their lay leaders the following question: “Why does the church exist?” About 89 percent responded that the church exists “to take care of me, my family, and my needs.” The response of ministers of those churches was very different. The majority of ministers said that the church existed to win the world for Christ, and only 10 percent said the church’s reason for existence was to take care of its members.

If church members do not agree on a question as basic and fundamental as this one, we cannot expect them to agree on many other issues that are more complicated. Without a clearly defined mission, members of a church will possess competing and contradictory agendas, and they will be struggling with one another to take the church in different directions. The process of developing a mission statement will help them to think explicitly about their unexamined assumptions about the church and work out together a common understanding of God’s purpose for their church.

Here is a list of reasons why a mission statement is vital for a church’s growth and health (see also Malphurs, 1998, pp. 13-25):

• It encourages church growth.
• It helps people think from a biblical and theological perspective.
• It helps people develop a biblically based worldview.
• It builds enthusiasm for the work of the church.
• It encourages church leaders to concentrate their energies on ministry planning.
• It attracts cooperation.
• It provides a standard for evaluation.
• It guides the distribution of church resources.

These are compelling reasons for investing the time and effort to develop a mission statement for one’s church. The process itself will prove beneficial because it will force people to study closely what the Bible says about the nature and purpose of the church. If carried out properly, it can be a unifying and energizing project.

Characteristics of a Mission Statement

For the church to have a mission implies that the church wants to change the world in some way. The church is dissatisfied with the world in its current state, and so it is determined to invest resources in an effort to improve it with God’s help. Asking the following questions will help a church to identify its mission:

• What is the problem or condition that needs to be changed?
• Who will benefit from the change?
• What is the nature of the change that is desired?
• What are the means or methods of producing the change?

Aubrey Malphurs offers a helpful definition of ministry mission: “a broad, brief, biblical statement of what the organization is supposed to be doing” (1997, p. 63). As church members work on the mission statement, they should fulfill these three important criteria.

First, the statement should be biblical. To prepare for the process of developing a mission statement, the church may want to engage in a three-month study of what the Bible says about these questions. During that study, members should consider what the answers to these questions will look like in their own particular context. Then the group can work on expressing these ideas in their own words. Alternatively, a church could engage in a five-week study of the purposes of a church, as described in Rick Warren’s A Purpose-Driven Church (Warren, 1995). These five purposes are worship, fellowship, evangelism, discipleship, and service.

The second criterion for the mission statement is that it should be broad. The mission should be stated in a general way so that all the activities of the church can fit within it.

The third criterion is that it should be brief. It should be only one sentence. Some call this the “T-shirt test”: If it cannot fit on a T-shirt, then rewrite it until it does. It should also be easy to memorize. The members of a church should be able to repeat the mission statement off the tops of their heads.

The basic format of the mission statement is to begin with “Our mission is to….” A verb should then follow, for example, assist, create, craft, convert, develop, empower, energize, equip, establish, help, lead, prepare, produce, promote, provide, or share (Malphurs, 1997, p. 83). Because of the desire to be comprehensive, the group will be tempted to keep tacking on prepositional phrases and dependent clauses until the statement could wrap around a T-shirt two or three times. It is important to avoid information overload. The mission statement is not the place to describe or explain thoroughly the ministry of the church. It should not include the strategy or means for accomplishing the mission, so avoid prepositional phrases that begin with “by” or “through.”

The Procedure for Writing a Mission Statement

Before engaging in this project, church leaders should determine who should be involved. One option would be for the minister to write this in his office and then present it to the church for adoption, but this approach will result in either apathy or opposition by the congregation. A second option would be for the elders to work on this as a group, but this approach would also mean that the majority of the members would feel no ownership in the statement and therefore no responsibility to carry it out. Some writers, such as Aubrey Malphurs, recommend keeping this group small because “too many cooks spoil the broth” (1997, p. 74). Malphurs says that “too much input from too many people will only serve to neuter a good mission statement” (p. 75).

I strongly disagree with this attitude. An important principle of decision-making in the church is that the more important the decision, the more people should be involved in making it. Evidence supports the fact that more cooks actually improve the broth, not spoil it. James Suriewicki (2004), in his fascinating book The Wisdom of Crowds, has shown that the more people who have input into a decision, the better the decision tends to be. A theological rationale for opening up the decision-making process is that each believer possesses the Spirit; therefore the more believers who participate in these decisions, the more the Spirit will be allowed to work. No decision is more fundamental or important than determining the mission of the church, and so the whole church should be involved in the process. I suggest inviting anyone who is interested to attend the meetings. Malphurs argues that involving too many people will make the process unwieldy. But a process that divides people into groups will solve this problem, no matter how large the church.

The process can be carried out in two meetings. At the first meeting, divide the participants into groups of three or four people either randomly or intentionally so that each group has a cross-section of people. Explain how to write a mission statement and then allow each group time to write three different statements.

To prime the pump, a list of sample mission statements can be provided to the group. The table below contains a list of mission statements that I have used for this purpose.

Table 1: Mission Statement Samples

After the meeting, the mission statements generated by the groups are compiled as a master list that is provided to the participants before the next meeting. Ask them to pray over the list and select the top three from the list. During the second meeting, tabulate the results to see which mission statements have risen to the top. Participants should discuss what they like and do not like about each statement. Perhaps rewriting one statement will make it acceptable to everyone. Or perhaps two different statements can be combined to form one statement acceptable to all. The goal is to reach consensus so that everyone involved can support the final statement. This statement should then be presented to the entire congregation and formally adopted. Then the mission statement should be included in all of the church’s printed materials.

To provide two final examples, here are mission statements that were developed by churches under my guidance:

• The mission of Agape Christian Church is to worship God by sharing His love with all people in word and deed so that they will journey with us as we grow together in Christ.
• The mission of Woodbridge Christian Church is to honor God, serve others, lead all people to Christ, and grow together in the Spirit.

In the next issue of ChurchLink, I will explain how to continue the strategic planning process by expanding the mission statement into a more detailed vision statement that relates the mission to the church’s local context.

Sources:

Malphurs, A. (1997). Ministry nuts and bolts: What they don’t teach pastors in seminary. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel.

Malphurs, A. (1998). Developing a dynamic mission for your ministry. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel.

Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations. New York: Doubleday.