Church Mission Statement
January 31, 2008 8 Comments
In an effort to make some changes at our church we have decided to develop a mission statement for our church. We made this decision almost 3 months ago in a Deacon’s meeting [I know this in not the appropriate place but this is how our church works]. At that time the Chairman of the Deacon’s was to appoint a committee to develop the mission statement. I volunteered. 2 months later I volunteered again. I was frustrated by the delay….can you imagine a Baptist committee being slow to act? I decided to appoint myself a one man committee and started to work on the mission statement. This past Monday at our monthly meeting, I was asked to head the committee to be made up of one other deacon, the pastor, and one church member at large. I accepted.
Jesus gave all churches their mission statement in Matthew 28:18-20 (a.k.a. The Great Commission) so that is where I decided to start. I debated on whether or not to simply use these verses but chose not to primarily because we were wanting something that we could put on bulletins and signs and that would be easier for people to remember. The means I could try to restate these verses or go in a completely different direction. I decided to stay with the Great Commission and try to restate it. It is also my goal to present a strategy when I present the mission statement. I have a working draft of the mission statement. Tell me what you think.
Proposed mission statement: To equip Christ’s people to do His ministry.
In the strategy I plan to define Christ’s ministry and present plans on how we can accomplish the individual elements (broadly, not in detail). Right now I am thinking about building the strategy around the 5 purposes of the New Testament church – Evangelism, Discipleship, Ministry, Worship, & Fellowship.
Does your church have a mission statement? How does it affect how you church operates? Do you have any suggestions as to how to improve my mission statement or strategy?
The Everyday Christian 
i think a mission statement should be vertical and horizontal, stating someone we do in live towards others and our mission toward God, how we are to live…
but thats just a home engineers statement and i dont know too much about the working of the church behind the scenes.
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Hmmm…. restating the word of God……
Anyway, keep it simple, keep it relevant to what you want to do as a church, and keep it spirit-led. In other words, you will not be able to do it yourself. You will need to meet and pray like you’ve never prayed before with your elders and deacons. Then, get interested members of your congregation around a round table and discuss what they think a good mission statement is. Provide lots of paper, pencils. Use an overhead to write out the ideas or hang flip chart paper around the room so people can write their ideas out. But most of all, and first of all, don’t think. Pray.
The purpose of having a mission statement is two-fold – to allow a church to incorporate legally; 2) to give it focus and clarity in its direction, and allow the people to understand a little of what you want to do as a group of people. Let the statement be developed by your congregation, or you will have people leave cause they had no part in it. Take your hands off, and get their hands on. You must meet with live bodies to discuss this, or it will be fruitless. Have fun with it, don’t know any ideas, pray over good statements. Don’t be rash. And be gentle when questions come.
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Hmmm…. restating the word of God……
Anyway, keep it simple, keep it relevant to what you want to do as a church, and keep it spirit-led. In other words, you will not be able to do it yourself. You will need to meet and pray like you’ve never prayed before with your elders and deacons. Then, get interested members of your congregation around a round table and discuss what they think a good mission statement is. Provide lots of paper, pencils. Use an overhead to write out the ideas or hang flip chart paper around the room so people can write their ideas out. But most of all, and first of all, don’t think. Pray.
The purpose of having a mission statement is two-fold – to allow a church to incorporate legally; 2) to give it focus and clarity in its direction, and allow the people to understand a little of what you want to do as a group of people. Let the statement be developed by your congregation, or you will have people leave cause they had no part in it. Take your hands off, and get their hands on. You must meet with live bodies to discuss this, or it will be fruitless. Have fun with it, don’t throw out any ideas, pray over good statements. Don’t be rash. And be gentle when questions come.
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I am take a class on advanced strategcic planning at Liberty University. We are studying mission statements for churches. Expand your mission statement to include the 5 purposes in some way, but keeping it short. The statement you have is simple but perhaps too simple and does not say enough about worship, evangelism, discipleship, ministry and fellowship. Hope this helps.
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Pastor Lawrence C Olsson
Fire House Ministry Inc. June 6/7/2011
Any bible teaching church that is “Spiritual” Should always give reference to The Word of God. Our mission should be the assisting in spiritual discipleship , Administrating the love of God to others , and actively demonstrating the operations of the Five fold ministries to The Body Of Christ. Everything done in pray and faith , so that the members will all learn to hear the small still voice of The Father , and in obedience begin to follow him.
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It is doubtful if any church can follow the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19 First of all you must be of the house of Judah as the one remaining family of God. From these Jesus selected and trained his learners. Jesus dispatched them to go to the ethnee. the righteous gentiles who were the house of Israel who were scattered among the unrighteous gentiles. These learners were Hebrews taking the message to their brethren, the lost sheep of the house of Israel the other family of God who was now pardoned from being without the covenants but scattered among the unrighteous gentiles of this world. The message was that they could now be remarried to the Lord for he had died that he could remarry his divorced wife of her youth. If you notice that in this verse there is no repentance, no forgiveness, Nothing was required on the part of the ethnee (nations) except teach them all things that I have taught you and baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. At this time there had been no outouring of the Holy Spirit that was promised to the whole House of Israel. The outpouring was only to the whole house of Israel. No gentiles were listed in the book of Joel. It was a symbol who the children of God are. They were to do many things read Joel chapter 2. It was not to the unrighteous gentiles seeking eternal life which they could never have for God considered them to be dead and rejected from the foundation of the earth. The church has never gone seeking the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Just try it and you will get the left foot of fellowship real fast and be ask not to return. The church was born out of the very invitation that was given to the ethnee. See Matthew 16:18 when Jesus says in the English “I will build my church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” Here is the very first invitation and it was changed to the church of the gentiles and “she” was called an “it”. Here is the generatl translation without proof at this time. “I will home build the wife of me, being the one being the ones invited out from among the gentiles where they were scattered by by father, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. The invitation is the word ekkleesian , being the ones invited out. as a phrase I use “she is not an it and her name is not the church” for 2000 years the invitation to the ethnee has been lost in the word church, ethnee ton ekkleesian. In the old Testament there were two kinds of gentiles when it was closed but they had no name to identify those gentiles which were the children of the divorced wife those being scattered, the other gentiles were those that were rejected from the foundation of the earth, the unrighteous gentiles. In the NT they were given a name that was never revealed for the church did not want to go search for the righteous gentiles for they had destroyed the invitation. In the NT the righteous gentiles were called the ethnee and the other gentiles were called the ethnoon. 53 times the message was to the ehnee and never to ethnoon. in one verse the word gentile is used twice for each of the two types but you as a reader will never know the difference. It has been hid for 2000 years. The church will never satisfy those who know the old testament and and that the New Tesatament is the same message just a change of language. Another thing the New Testament is not yet in force just because the church label the the Hebrew section the Old Testament and the Greek as the New Testament. Hebrews tell you in chapter 8 verse that the New Covenant will only be made with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, And it has not yet been fulfilled. So to those of the heathen rejected gentile church you can never have a missionary purpose going to the gentiles for Jesus said not to go in the way of the gentiles.
See my web page for more details at http://www.myprivatelib.com
Jerry collins
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Do you not know that some of his disciples where in fact Gentiles. Heres the key . You have studied obviously….Have you received the FULL baptism of the spirit ? You may say yes because your Jewish, but I have too and I was a Gentile. Yes I said was ! I am now engrafted into the vine.Here’s another thing for you. I have experianced Gods spirit many times while being around people that practise Hindoism.. Please don’t limit our God.
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