A Personal Vision Statement...

Our church developed a new vision statement last year: "Ordinary People Finding Hope and Purpose in an Extraordinary God".  It seems that when we are in an organization we work hard to figure out what our vision is and can spend hours thinking through what our vision statement will be.  We think about what this group wants to accomplish and what qualities we want it to have.  This is a good thing.

It was ten years ago when Randy talked at church about having a personal vision statement and identifying our personal values.  I hadn't really thought about it and I don't recall having ever heard anyone agonizing over what their personal vision statement should be.  It really resonated with me.  So back then I set about identifying what this would be for me personally.  That was in 2004. 

Since then Life decided to throw some curve balls and I sort of lost track of my vision along the way.  When I picked it back up, I was rather surprised how much of it had stayed intact and how much I was still following my vision despite my circumstances.  People whose writing encouraged me in the journey were echoing the same things I wrote down in 2004.  It shouldn't have surprised me, I suppose, because the theory of developing it has to do with who are and your core.

I would encourage you to take some time this year and try to think through a personal vision statement for yourself.  Here are some of the questions that I asked when I was developing mine:

- Who has God created you to be?  (identity)

- What has God created  you to do? (purpose)

- What do you love to do? (heart)

- What is gets you fired up? (passion)

- What are the guts of what you are about? List some individual words or phrases that you would use to describe what is important to you at your core.

This is going back to the foundations of who you are. You may have never even thought about it.  You probably aren't the person you want to be but that's not what we're talking about.  This isn't about what job you have or what relationship you are in, but who you are despite or in the midst of all that.  This crosses time and location and position.  Like an organization, it doesn't mean that you are quite "there" yet, but it's the vision you want to see realized in your life. 

It seems to me that this could be pretty important and I'm surprised more people don't talk about it.  I'm going to be reviewing my vision and values statement and thought I'd let you peek in and see what mine looks like in the hopes that you might be inspired to take a look at the treasures God has placed in you! 

Please let me know if you want to join me -

I'd love to dialogue about it!

Happy 2014!