2/15/21 By Larry Barker
There is a time to step back refocus, retool, and re-evaluate. It is wise to revisit your core values, mission, vision, and strategies every two to three years. What are your core values and are you practicing them? It is easy to state your core values but do your actions back up your verbiage? Aspirational values (what we say we believe) are different from our actual values (how we actually live). Values are why you do what you do and can be determined by taking a closer look at your schedule and how you actually invest your time.
It is very important to begin this enlightening journey with core values because it demonstrates what you believe about the scriptures, your doctrine, the Great Commission, eternity, and your worldview. Core values are more than what you believe because they determine the direction of your life and how you behave. Values enable you to have a vision for a preferred future that is driven upon the word of God and directed by the voice of God. Values move you beyond doing church weekly to becoming focused more on being the church daily.
In Values Driven Leadership Aubrey Malphurs states that core values will drive you towards some kind of mission, so make sure it is the right one. They determine the bottom line and they communicate what really matters. Core values drive a stake in the ground as non-negotiable on where you stand and what you believe. They enable you to develop God-directed strategy and intentionality. They help you determine who you really are and move you past realization to activation in your church. They shape your life and ministry.
If you say you value lost souls who are dying and headed to eternity without Christ then you actively build bridges to them and strive to engage them by connecting with them. This core value reminds your church that you are not a fortress where you pull up the drawbridge and isolate. One church has stated this value well: “We are building bridges; not walls!” The big difference between aspirational values and actual values is the action you take to carry them out. Core values determine why your church does what it does!
Aubrey Malphurs defines core values as constant (slow to change), passionate (fully persuaded), biblical (never contradict God’s word), core beliefs (deeply rooted in who you are), and they drive the ministry to where God desires for your church to go. You must be vision-focused but you must also be values-driven. Values are the engine that get you to His destination and His preferred future in advancing His kingdom. When your church is not moving toward it’s preferred, articulated mission it is a values issue not a mission issue!
In Acts 2:42-47 the early church valued fellowship, discipleship, worship, serving, and mission. They were focused on these functions and valued them so highly that they saw them as imperative to the health of the church. These core values were not only discussed but they were practiced and demonstrated. It is very easy to get distracted by the form of worship (contemporary, traditional, etc.) more than making sure that worship (the function) actually occurs. Do you value worship enough to not allow anything to keep you from it?
Are you positive that you value what God values? Do the leaders and other members of the church have the same values? A great exercise would be for everyone to take a personal values audit (email us and we will send you one) and then compare your values with their values. Why are they different? How do you narrow the gap between them? What has not been communicated well on the core values of your church? If you define core values differently than the majority of the church it must be resolved as quickly as possible.
How do you and your church define success? Biblical success is obeying what God has asked you to do and doing it as well as you can. It is discovering God’s mission, vision, and strategy for your church in your context. Then carrying it out with excellence as best as you possibly can. God measures success by how faithfully you follow Him, not by outward accomplishments. He looks at our hearts and motives making sure that our actions are true to His calling. Your mission is to make disciples but your purpose is to glorify God in all you do.
In II Timothy 4 Paul is handing off the ministry to his young apprentice Timothy. In John MacArthur’s commentary he points to these characteristics as Paul’s core values. He does not focus on the visible success of Timothy’s ministry but on the excellence of his service. He does not focus on Timothy’s opportunities but on his commitment. He does not focus on personal prominences but on Timothy’s character. Paul expresses no concern for the young pastor’s acceptance or reputation but shows great concern for his faithfulness and goodness.
Paul did not emphasize the size, wealth, or influence of the church at Ephesus but rather he valued their spiritual life and health under Timothy’s care. Paul did not concentrate on Timothy’s spiritual gifts, as important as those were but instead on his spiritual vitality and spiritual service. Paul states what you should value in Philippians 3:8, “More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ.”