How to Make it Happen

What’s the vision?

What is your mission statement?

Whether it is an annual conference (hosting more than 300 women for a day) or a weekly co op (teaching 45 kids every Wednesday), I have found that in order to make it happen, follow through well, and communicate well with others during the process, I need to have a written vision and concise mission statement. It is all about the WHY. When we see the gap we are trying to fill and the need we are seeking to meet, it is easier to follow through with filling the gap and meeting the need. And it can not be done in isolation. In order to delegate, to share the burden, even to bring in prayer partners – I need to have things written down for good communication.

What project is the Lord putting into your hands? And how are you going to move forward with it in order to bring about a harvest of fruitful grace? I would encourage you to keep your Christian worldview front and center, and write your vision in as wordy a way as you can. Don’t leave out details. Once you have brain dumped all the ideas and reasons and hopes for your vision, you can tailor it and trim it in order to create a concise mission statement that will be easier to communicate.

I even do this with my children. Why do we educate at home? Why do it this way? Why music? Why books? Why Collective?

I can have long drawn-out conversations with them filled with run-on sentences and interrupted twenty-seven times with four questions at a time… to share the vision with them. To explain. To bring them into the embrace of that vision. But then when they ask the questions again at a future time, I share a shorter version -more like a mission statement- to sum it up and get right to the point.

So how do you make it happen in your home, in your work, in your pursuits? Where do you write it down? How do you cultivate that vision? And when do you find it helpful to have a specific mission statement?