Our Family's Purpose Statement

We are called to glorify God in all that we say, do and are. We will fulfill this call as a family by pursuing Christ-like character, by creating and sustaining a welcoming home and by reaching out to serve others in mission.

Character

 - Be disciplined in our personal walk with Christ

 - Use our individually unique gifts to serve God and others

 - Encourage and build one another up

 - Exercise humility and be open to learning from others

 - Take care of our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit

Home

 - Utilize it as an active picture of Christ and the Church

 - Use it to relax, reenergize and prepare to go back out into the world

 - Take care of it so we can open it to serve and welcome others

Mission

 - Ceaselessly preach the Gospel through our words and actions

 - Serve collectively and individually in areas we truly enjoy

 - Be financially wise so we can abundantly bless others

 - Enjoy each other through quality recreational time

I owe the inspiration of this fabulous idea to Tsh Oxenreider, the author of my new favorite book, Organized Simplicity. To all the work-at-home moms out there, this book is for you!!! I highly recommend it for helping you get organized and give you a much more defined sense of purpose in your role as a homemaker.

Before this book, I saw my role as a wife and mom as just that - a role I am called to fill. I now see it as a job. And for every job, the best way to be efficient and get the most out of it is to be organized in a way you can understand. This book addresses exactly how to do that. I am totally a fan.

As for our purpose statement, I am really excited to use this in our everyday life. My goal is to display it on our wall somewhere so whenever we come into scheduling conflicts, tricky financial decisions or vacation planning we can hold them up to this statement and make decisions based on what we are truly all about. I am very excited to raise our family with a clear goal in mind - hung on the wall for us all to see and reflect on. Above all, our family is all about Jesus, but this will give us some more specifics to refer to when life gets confusing.

And then this is where you come in. I wanted to post this on the web so all our friends and family can read this statement... and hold us accountable to it. If you see us acting outside these goals please practice biblical exhortation and let us know where we are failing. Because I know we will... we're human sinners!