Live With Eternal Perspective Podcast Episode 039 Family With A Mission
Welcome to the Terri Hitt – Live With Eternal Perspective Podcast
Episode #039 – Family With A Mission
Thank you for entrusting and investing your precious time with me to grow in Jesus together. I am blessed to be back with you today to discuss more ways to live with eternal perspective.
I’m so happy to bring this episode to you today. Before I get to the real news in the podcast, though, I want to share what I believe to be very exciting news! My website is about to launch! If you visit terrihitt.com today, you go ahead and enter your name and email address so that you will be notified when the site is fully launched.
At that time you will be able to receive some beautiful and helpful free resources to encourage and equip you to walk in a more mature relationship with God. The best part? You also easy get access to my blog and past podcasts through the website and more resources and material will continue to be added. I am truly thrilled to be able to begin presenting material that I believe God prompted me to write that I pray will speak to your heart as it has mine. Time spent with God is never wasted.
Now, back to the episode. Today, I have something a little different to discuss. I think I’ve shared before how much I love to listen to podcasts. Long before God called me to begin the “Live With Eternal Perspective” podcast, I was already listening to a variety of others when I got ready in the mornings or cleaned house.
Quite a few months ago, I was listening to the Building A StoryBrand podcast, and was inspired by one of the business episodes I listened to, to create a personal set of Core Christian Family Values, as well as Vision and Mission statements. During the time we were stuck at home during Covid isolation in March or April, my family and I sat together and brain-stormed about what we wanted our statements to be. The idea is to use them to help us move more closely together, in unison, to the goal that we feel Jesus has set for us as a family unit.
I want to mention that our family has made very intentional steps to make Jesus known in our home and to mentor our daughters to know Him. While our girls each have a personal relationship with Jesus, it is our goal to enable them to continue growing and deepening their walk with God through Jesus and to establish strong faith that shines and follows where God leads them in life. However, we are always looking for ways to make not only their walk stronger, but the faith and walk of our entire family, including our extended members, such as my son and grandson. With this end goal as my deepest desire, I often ponder new ways to establish eternal and permanent steps to walk more closely with our Heavenly Father in very constructive ways.
Just like a business model will institute core values, as well as a vision and mission statement, families can greatly benefit from the guidance this set of tools provides. I believe Christian families who deeply desire to pattern an eternal lifestyle for their children and home will benefit enormously from this small step.
What gets super exciting for me is the reason for them. Listen to this. The vision statement describes what the organization will look like in the future. A mission statement, on the other hand, describes what an organization does, and for whom.
Did you catch that? When I thought about it, I was really fired up! How greatly these tools can be used to guide and grow families together in the same, eternal direction!
If the vision statement describes what the family will look like in the future, it offers us an opportunity to establish exactly who and how we want to be for Jesus.
How amazing! Of course, we will have a greater chance of pleasing God with this clear plan in the front of our mind and heart. It serves as a guiding compass straight north to the heart of our Father.
Next, is the mission statement. It is used to establish what the family does and for whom, and we know that there is no greater “whom” than the Great I AM!
Also shaped at the same time were the core values that completed the statements we created. Core values are what support the vision, shape the culture and reflect what our family values. Our core values also educate others outside our home, those we come into contact with during the course of different days, showing what our family holds dear. The core values also help to clarify the identity of our family, hopefully brightly shining Christ and our desire to be more like Him.
We also chose to add a key verse that we each agree sets the heart and tone for our family, as well as for each of us, as individuals.
We chose to call our completed project, “Hitt Family Principles.” Of course, you can choose your own name, and some may select to call theirs a creed or something similar. I prefer “principles” because the meaning of the word speaks to my heart.
The definition of the word principles means “an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct, a person of good moral principles, a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived.” I felt this definition perfectly explained what we are trying to put together to ensure that we live for God in the highest ways we can.
Although there are many ways families could use this exercise, I will share what we did. Please feel free to change things to suit the style and needs of your family. While the wording of our mission and vision statements could have been reworked or edited to sound better, I am pleased to present them now as statements the four of us crafted together. How important that is! The words reflect the heart and desires we want to craft together in our journey through life. I was truly filled with joy to do this activity together and to peek inside the hearts of my husband and children while we worked.
These are the principles our family came up with.
Core Value: We strive to live with eternal perspective through Jesus.
Vision Statement: To love, trust, honor, and obey Jesus and grow in faith through Him.
Mission Statement: Our family strives to honor God, intentionally pursue God, and show love and respect to Him, and others, while remaining obedient to Him.
Key Verse: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:5
When a family has worked together to set core values, a vision and mission statement, and a key verse that signifies a command or promise from God that sets the tone for you as individuals and a unit, it becomes a permanent guide to check your heart and actions against. No matter how old your children get, if you are a family that works to grow in the Lord together, you will face challenges and opportunities with wisdom and strength, wearing the armor of God as protection against the storms of life.
There is nothing more important than setting a firm foundation for our children and family. Creating a clear set of family principles together is one step in forming an atmosphere of love, worship, and reverence for God in your home.
The set of principles you create will be a template on which decisions will be made that determine the direction of your family, keep individual goals aligned with what is pleasing to God, and for evaluation and improvement of individual journeys with the Lord.
Ecclesiastes 6:12 says, “For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?”
None of us know the number of our days. Every moment we use to praise God with our family and instruct our children and grandchildren to know, love, honor, and obey the Lord is like depositing gold in a treasure chest. There is nothing better we can devote our time to.
I’d love to share a few verses that speak to the importance of focusing our intentions and actions in eternal ways.
James 4:14 says, “Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”
Psalm 39:5 says, “You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure.”
Psalm 144:4 says, “Man is like a breath; His days are like a passing shadow.”
1 Peter 1:7 says, “That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Father God, only You know the number of our days. Help us to make each one we have count as blessings to You, bringing us nearer to Your heart and purpose for us. We thank you for the relationship You crave with each one of us. Help us focus on knowing and loving You more and modeling the joy You place inside us for others to be attracted to You. Give us Your fullness of joy as we seek and abide in You. Help us grow our families in the way You desire and let us mentor and protect the gentle spirit you place in our children so that they long for and follow You above all else. In the precious name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
Did you enjoy this episode? Would you like others to hear weekly encouragement and learn how to live with more eternal perspective? Can you think of a friend or family member who might enjoy encouragement? If so, please share this podcast with them and take time to leave a quick rating and review wherever you listen to this podcast. Until next week, keep looking Up and finding new ways to Live With Eternal Perspective.