Thursday, April 14, 2016
What is your Family's Brand?
Be Brand Aware
If I spent time with everyone in your family individually, would I walk away knowing what you are up to together in this gift of life?
I have worked for a lot of different companies. Small, Medium, and Fortune 100. The companies that seem to get it right from an employee culture AND a brand awareness perspective are the ones who had the mission statement of the company clearly established and known throughout the organization so that there would be a shared vision and purpose across the entire team (whether there were 10 people or 10,000 people). More than that, our consumers and clients also knew who we were through our brand because it was communicated in the way that we worked with them and the customer service and support they received. Without a clear mission statement, each individual contributor for the company is left to create their own interpretation of their purpose and you can guess what happens. No clear brand is established across a wide consumer base because there is no consistent experience.
Lack of shared vision of a mission can derail big companies and small families alike. Its not to say that companies won't survive, and of course families will survive without a mission. We did for a long time and I have no doubt you have as well. But are these companies and families reaching the abundance and prosperity that our loving God has in store for us? Living A GRACE BASED LIFE is not about survival. Its about being and loving on purpose those in our lives that we have been graced
to spend our time with. An intention about what we are up to together built by the knowledge that we can do so much more unified than on our own. We can make a huge IMPACT on this world (whether we are 10 or 10,000).
Simple Steps to creating your Family Mission Statement, summarized from a Focus on the Family article that you can link to for more details:
Commit to make one: Schedule it during your family night, it will be fun!
Identify your family values: My husband and I did this over a date night out and seemed to create a laundry list of things that were important to us that we needed to streamline so that our children (young and old) could know, understand and live out this mission in all we do. For this it had to be simple for us.
Ask in Prayer for clarity and conviction that your family mission is aligned to His purpose
Consider the Bigger Picture; what are your long term goals for your family? What is your end game strategy for when your children leave your home or you leave this life? What is the imprint in your child's heart that you want to leave behind that will impact generations that will follow...
Determine how you can live this mission in the world. What types of ministry can you get involved in as a "mission"ary now that you have a defined family purpose. Where do you want to give your lives away to, gaining Life in return?
I will share ours, but there are many options you can find on google, pinterest, etc. for inspiration:
I pray that this exercise will give clarity and purpose to the families that create a mission statement together, led by God's will. I ask that His grace shine upon us and through us as we align our families closer to our Father and closer to each other. Let us be intentional and chose to live in our families as a town on a hill that lights up this dark world (Matthew 5:14) in all we do.
I have an exciting post planned for next week to dive more deeply into our personal life plan and mission, but I wanted to provide a potential outline for what could be your very first family night that we established earlier this week. Please SHARE YOUR MISSION STATEMENT WITH US!