The Main Thing: Values
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Leadership Straight from Bill Hybels
The Main Thing: Values
I stopped 10 years ago
drawing fine lines of distinction
between words like vision, mission, purpose.
I know some churches say
"Here's our mission statement, our vision statement,
our purpose statement..."
I am lost already.
I am 'glazed' over.
It will not fit on the front of a t-shirt.
No one will remember it.
We have a problem.
To avoid some of that nonsense
what I like to say is
what is the main thing
that God wants your church
to be or do in the next few years?
Call it purpose, mission.
Call it whatever.
What is the main thing
that God wants your church
to evolve into or to become?
Let's not mess with that.
Now I do make a distinction
when you start talking about values.
Values are how are
we going to behave
as we head toward mission achievement?
Values are behaviors.
What do you hold in high regard?
In some church cultures
they will say
as we move toward vision achievement
one of our highest values
is Biblical community.
We are not going to allow conflict
to go underground and divide us.
So one of our highest values is community.
Another would be excellence.
Maybe another is humility.
The best way to think about your values
is that you do not import them,
you discover them.
If you cut your arm,
what do you bleed?
When you sit around
in a circle sometime
and ask what are
the values in our church.
Then all you do is ask
what we hold dearly in our church.
What do we hold dearly?
Some churches will hold innovation dearly.
Some churches will hold tradition dearly.
Some values are current,
some are aspirational.
Is that clear?
We are not a culture
that appreciates excellence
but someday excellence
will be a part of our culture.
Or we are not a church
that innovates easily
but someday we would like to become
a church that innovates without a lot of drama.
So you have aspirational values
and actual current values.
We talk about these
things nonstop at Willow.
Our values conversations
are a lot of fun.