Our Family Mission Statement

Last night Marty and I sat down together and wrote a family mission statement.  We sat down together with a list of 'values' words, and decided on the words that we felt we really wanted to define our family.

Businesses and organisatons have mission statements.   They are there to give you something to work towards, they help guide your decisions, actions and motivate you to keep going.  They are a vision, they paint a picture of  where you want to see yourselves in 10 years time.

Often parents turn around when their children are grown up and go "that's not the way we pictured our family turning out - what happened there?!".  So recently we were challenged to consider writing a 'mission statement' for our families - to think NOW about what we want our family to value, treasure and guide us.

We had actually done this as part of a parents Inc "toolbox" course when Jaimee was about 1 year old,  but never displayed it anywhere and ended up forgetting about it - so I pulled it back up on the computer after writing our NEW statement - they were actually just about the same!  Nice to know that the things our family values haven't changed in the last 4 years.  Our new statement is going to be framed and put proudly up in our kitchen/dining area so that we can refer to it often.

Each year we plan to revisit this statement, and as the kids get older we will invite their input and thoughts on what we want to see valued in our family.

So what is our family mission statement?  Here it is:

Our Family Mission Statement

The main thing that will characterize our family

is that we love each other – no matter what.

In our family we will value honesty, kindness and time together.

We will try to always Honour God and put others before ourselves.

To those within our family we will be supportive and encouraging.

To those outside our family we will be friendly and caring.

Above all, we want to see each person in our family growing in their faith in God, and have fun doing it!

I would encourage you to sit down as a family and consider what values you want to see upheld and guiding YOUR household.  We need more intentional  parents out there who put thought and time into the children they are raising. And if your children have left home long ago, or are not even a twinkle in your eye - you can still write a statement that defines your own values and how you want others to see you living your life.