“Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.”
~ Frederick Buechner
Recently, someone asked me to explain my mission. They weren’t asking for a general answer, which would be “I am a follower of Jesus” or “My mission is to fulfill God’s Eternal Purpose.”
They wanted to know how my ministry and work is different from that of other Christian thought-leaders, writers, and speakers.
If you are in ministry and/or you have a blog and/or you’re an author of books and/or you travel and speak, people will want to know what your mission is and how it’s different from the millions of other Christians who blog, speak and/or write books.
So here’s the answer I gave.
All of my work is described by this tagline:
The Deeper Journey — digging below the surface and moving beyond the shallows in today’s Christianity.
Discovering that there really is more to the Christian faith.
It can also be described as “moving beyond superficial evangelicalism into the deeper things of God.” Hence, the name of this blog . . . Beyond Evangelical.
My mission is to help serious followers of Jesus know their Lord more deeply so they can experience real transformation and make a lasting impact.
There are seven chief ways in which I communicate and spread these “Deeper Journey” themes globally.
1. blog – over 1,000 blog articles (all free).
2. podcast – over 120 episodes (all free)
3. courses – my first discipleship course has been taken by more than 1,900 people.
4. events – I only travel 6 times a year to speak in various events.
5. mentoring network – I run a mentoring and connecting network that contains master classes, monthly Q & A sessions, hot seats, Scriptural game-changers, inside peeks, sneak previews, and more.
6. books – I’ve published over 12 books and continue to publish regularly.
7. masterminds – I hold several mastermind events each year, one for authors and another for people in ministry.
That’s the clearest way I can put it.
If you are in ministry and you don’t have a mission statement, I encourage you to give thought to creating one.
Two questions will help you toward crafting it:
1. What’s your greatest joy, passion, and burden with respect to the Lord?
2. What is not being said or heard in our time, but needs to be?
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Hi Frank. Hi all. John 9:25 I was blind but now I see. The movie Shawshank Redemption would perfectly describe my mission to date. After crawling through acres of mire and filth of self righteous religious non works, in a system of precepts and principles and dogmas and dead mens bones duty. Im kicked out of the religious temple of my own volition, and Jesus has met me on the street. (Oh my goodness, HE found me! I thought HE was done with me. No,not at all). Now I too am an amateur Christian (Joel Z brilliant!!) Jesus speaks lovingly and truthfully through Frank, a clear conduit. I moan and gripe from time to time of which I am not proud, yet can repent in a non soul crushing manner of condemnation. I still see a lot of ego worship out there in Christian celebrity land, and I do not think that is healthy. You do not see those who know The Lord well, bragging about it, humility marks their ministry.
I’d say you’re doin’ a pretty darn good job of following through on your Mission Statement. For me, it’s in the hum drum ordinary life with a very limited and personal Mission Statement that every once in a while I get to celebrate even one life moving forward out of despair and one step closer into His loving arms. Your influence has helped me grasp the importance of living life with purpose and defining what it is that God has for me to do. Thank you.
I fancy myself as an amateur Christian: I encourage and challenge ordinary Christians to join God in the extraordinary work he is doing all around us, rather than leaving it up to the professionals.
I can’t tell you how formative your writing and speaking has been for me, Frank. Jesus has revealed himself in powerful ways through your words.
Thank you love it even through I don’t write blog and may sound silly or do ministry as such … But What if you know your mission statement because it burns in your heart and never leaves and your function in a way fits it but can’t use it to the extent needed because of various reasons in a traditional church. Therefore discouragement sets in and uncertainty sets in confusion and the like. Yours in Christ LB
Frank,
This is one of the most simple and excellent explanations of how to create one’s mission statement. Thanks!
-bill