Finding The Purpose for Your Organization

18 Jul Finding The Purpose for Your Organization

Shared Goal Achievement

I was in my second year as Lead Pastor. Our church had recovered from some painful experiences and was now ready to move forward. We wanted to serve differently, with whole-hearted passion and a clear sense of calling in the direction God had for us. The question became, “What was the great purpose we could all rally around and run to?” In order to serve differently, we needed to learn to see differently. To find our purpose, we shifted our focus with a look up, and look in, and a look out.

A Look Up: First, we went through an extended time (6 months) of prayer and Bible study. Our focus was on gaining God’s perspective by studying the life and ministry of Jesus, as well as how he extended his mission through his followers in the book of Acts. This step gave us a picture of the positive ideal model for benchmarking our future direction.

A Look In: Second, we focussed our attention internally. We took inventory of our current strengths and the current needs of our people. The strengths allowed us to leverage the best parts of our organization while the needs gave us specific barriers to target our energy to breakthrough.

A Look Out: Finally, we turned our focus outward. We did a thorough demographic study of the neighborhoods within a 5-mile radius. The needs of those around us shed more light onto the unique role our church could play in making a difference.

At the conclusion of the process (about 9 months total), we had developed guiding values from the life of Jesus, an understanding of the needs of our community, and how we were uniquely equipped to minister to those needs. We shaped that purpose into a statement: To become a growing network of communities of compassion. The clarity we gained from learning to see differently, now drives our passion and direction to serve differently.

Finding the purpose for your organization requires that you see differently to serve differently. Clarity comes when you look up, look out, and look in.

#SeeDifferently #ServeDifferently