Becoming a Family of Mission
- We’re glad you’ve joined us for MOF.
- I hope you’ll plan to make this a regular part of your spiritual routine.
- MOF has been an important part of the backbone of our church...
- The fact that thats true exposes some key philosophy of ministry emphases of ours:
1) The importance of discipling men.
II Timothy 2:2 - The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
- of course we’re interested in discipling ladies, and discipling children....but we’re especially interested in discipling men, because if the men of the church are growing, they will be setting the pace for their wives and children.
2) The Bible is a practical book, and is to be taught in a practical way.
- In MOF, our scope is very narrow, on purpose.
- we’re going to be studying How to be a better man, a better husband, a very father, and a better employee/employer.
- Those of course are some of your key roles, and the Bible is filled with practical, down-to-earth, understandable truth for those key areas of life....and its our purpose to study those truths together and challenge one another with them.
3) Every believer in Jesus Christ is to be growing.
II Peter 3:18 - But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
- One of the reasons you’ll see men in this room who have been saved for years and years, and some who have been coming to MOF for years and years...is the belief that none of us has arrived...and that everyone of us is to be growing in these key areas of life.
4) The church of Jesus Christ is a body.
- To me, MOF is local church body life at its best.
- There’s a lot of discussion that goes on in MOF.... we use a lot of Question and Answer format...
- but we do that on purpose....thats what the Scripture means when its talks about fellowship....
- stimulating one another to love and good works.
- Its also a great way to meet other men of the church
- its our hope that some new friendships will be made out of this group...and I hope those of you who have been around for a longer period of time will look for occasions to great and to meet those who are new.
- this morning I’d like to talk to you about…Becoming a Family of Mission
- I should probably tell you at the outset -- I’m going to be encouraging you to think through a mission statement and a strategic family ministry plan.
- now, I don’t mean that to be intimidating in any way....
- this will take a lot of different forms depending on the person involved.
- some will just keep these truths in their minds and hearts, and act on them and make decisions based on them, but there won’t be formal discussions taking place or things actually written down.
- others will make this much more formal....you’ll sit down with your wife or your family and have dedicated meetings about all of this…
- I’m going to leave the exact application of these principles up to you.
- but I certainly believe it is biblical and right for a man to have thought through these principles in one way, shape, or form.
- also, if you’re single, these principles can easily be applied to your “one-man family”, so we’re not going to leave the guys who are in that situation out.
- now, let me explain where this idea came from.
- if you’ve been around our church for any period of time – you know that we always have a 5 year strategic ministry plan…honestly, humanly speaking, I believe it’s one of the most important things we’ve done together over these last 25 plus years…
- there are so many things a church can be doing....we don’t want to just be busy, we want to be effective.
- the first time we did this – back in 1996-97...we were also getting ready to go into the summer as a family…obviously my kids were a lot younger, my wife Kris was a lot younger – I was about the same age…
- thats a time of year that always concerns me because there’s so many things to do...so many things to get involved in....
- that I’ve often said at the end of the summer....
- how much was accomplished for God?
- I know we did a lot of things....but was our time, money, and energy spent in a way that positions us to give the best possible account at the Judgment Seat of Christ?
- With that in mind, we sat down and worked through a strategic ministry plan.
- so Kris, Bethany, Karis and I got our Bible out...and we wrote a family mission statement....
- and we wrote out our family’s core values....
- and then we set goals for the summer.
- then as we made decisions on what we going to do, how we were spend our time, our money, etc....
- we had a biblical frame of reference to guide us.
- it has been a great help to be able to ask questions like....
- how would that fit the mission?
- would does that help us accomplish our biblical goals?
- I think we had one of our best summers ever as a family and I believe this is one of the reasons.
- so I’m going to be encouraging all of us to do that in some way, shape, or form.
- this morning, let’s think about:
Biblical Reasons For A Family To Go Through A Strategic Planning Process
I. Thats Part of Your Job as a Husband
- please open your Bible to Ephesians 5:25-26.
- here’s a verse that contains a very important statement for a husband and father.
- READ Ephesians 5:25-26
- let’s think through the argument of this passage together....
INPUT - Who is a husband’s love for his wife to be modeled after?
(Christ’s)
- we could say a lot about the second half of verse 25, where Christ’s love is described as “sacrificial”, but for sake of time I would especially like us to zero in on is verse 26.
INPUT - What does verse 26 tell us about our Lord’s loving leadership of His church?
- that it is goal-oriented....
- that it is “love with a purpose”
- its “love with a plan”
- Now, what does that mean to our discussion this morning?
- [fill in the blank] - If a man wants to love his wife/family like Christ loved the church, his love must be ________.
- goal oriented...
- love with a purpose....
- love with a plan....
- It is our job to be leading our families somewhere.
- [if time, could develop how surprised we were at the number of churches that were doing a lot of good things -- thats why we contacted them -- who were not doing any strategic planning]
- [perhaps there’s a lot of husbands out there, who are good men in a lot of ways, but who’s families are not going to be as effective as God wants because they’re not doing any planning either...
- and at least in that sense....they are not being like Christ, and they are not doing their job.]
II. Godly Men in the Past Have Done So
A. Moses
- the book of Deuteronomy is exactly the kind of document we’re talking about this morning.
- now obviously yours won’t be that extensive....but Deuteronomy is a book where Moses is doing strategic ministry planning with the people of Israel.
- the interesting thing is...he knows he’s not going with them into the promised land...
- cf. 1:37, 3:27
- still, he wanted them to act in a way that was consistent with the mission God had given them after he died and they went into the promised land....
- read 1:1-3, 32:44-47.
- the point is --- godly men today ought to do strategic family ministry planning because godly men in the past did so.
B. Joshua
- we won’t take time to look at this passage....but can anyone give me the gist of Joshua’s famous speech to his family that fits what we’re studying this morning?
- Joshua 24:14-15
"Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
- we also won’t take time to read this one either, but its very interesting to read Jacob’s dying words to his family...
C. Jacob
- Genesis 49
- so why should men consider doing what we’re talking about doing in this series?
- because godly men in the past have done so.
- now, let’s take this a different direction:
III. Because of the Benefits of Doing So and the Consequences of Not Doing So
- let’s brainstorm that together.
- [white board -- benefits/consequences]
IV. What Does the Process Consist of?
A. Mission statement
B. Key Ministry Emphases
(an expansion of the mission statement explaining what’s especially important to the family]
C. Core values
D. Assessments of strengths and weaknesses
E. Assessment of present and future needs and opportunities
F. Ministry plan
