I have spent a great deal of time developing mission statements for other ministries or endeavors that I have been a part of. By mission statement I mean that thing that drives the organization. That of our church is "Doing whatever it takes to develop fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ." That Mission statement is inspiring and also has a spirit to make you want to get involved. Our middle school ministry (being a ministry of the church) has the mission "to do whatever it takes to develop MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS as fully devoted followers of Christ." Notice that we get the opportunity to focus in on our target audience. Anyway... the main purpose with a mission statement is to keep the main purpose in front of the people of the organization.

I was challenged when I was in college in a lot of different areas of my life and faith. I had a professor talk to us one day about personally developing a mission statement... being in a well oiled student ministry and church I knew what a mission statement was and never had related it to something I needed to do for myself. Long story short, I started to pray and seek God to put words on why I exist and His answer to me was middle school ministry. My mission statement is "to lead middle school students to experience and serve God beyond their own and others expectations." Granted this has been many years of whittling here and cutting there to get it this concise (I even wrestled with God for a long time of "why Middle School?"). This is my passion this is where God has brought me and this is why I exist.

I remember when I started working in my first church, I went to sunday school on the my first day and hadn't yet met all the leaders. As I was introducing myself to leadership and students I noticed a very old lady slip into the back of the room with a thing of brownies and thought to myself "one of the senior adults has come to welcome me and bring me brownies, how sweet." To my surprise after I dismissed the students to their classes I walked up to her (as she was gathering her things) and introduced myself, looking intently at the brownies. After she told me her name she offered me one brownie and said the rest were for her girls... girls? I was talking with one of my leaders, not just any senior adult. She then introduced herself. Mrs. Dora at the time was 84 years old and looked me in the eyes and said, " Steven, I know I don't look like a Middle school sunday school teacher and I've been trying to get out of it for a long time, but God keeps bringing me back to love these girls." She was arguably the best girls sunday school teacher I've met, and her close attachment to God and the mission that He had given her was inspiration for all that she came in contact with. After she so poignantly shared with me her mission I said, "I've been trying to get out of it too, and God keeps doing the same thing to me."

Two things 1) Get close with God. 2) Find out who He created you to be.