For some reason the idea of legacy has been swimming all around in my mind lately. It’s funny because for almost three years a huge part of my job has been participating in and leading discussions from the wonderful Legacy Builders discipleship series. I don’t really know why it’s taken me all this time to really begin to care what happens to my family generations from now; probably I’ve been too selfish to care. But I’ve heard a few comments from others and had a few new ideas of my own and now I’m spending some real time thinking about what the lives of the great-great grandchildren of my four sons might be like. I’m thinking about what I can be doing now to help those people I will never meet in this life become all that God wants them to be. And as I think through this, one word has come up over and over: MISSION.
We’ve all seen
mission statements. Jerry Maguire stayed up all night writing one. FCA has one that I know well and love. Even in the aforementioned Legacy Builders study, the members of the group are encouraged to write a mission statement for themselves. I’ve gone along with the idea, written something down about loving God, loving my family and working hard. But for some reason, I’ve never come up with anything that really stuck.
I’ve been reading Better Dads, Stronger Sons by Rick Johnson, and the book is filled with really good, Biblical insight into the power of Dads to influence their sons. This is not a new idea of course, and as I read I’ve been thinking that while the father/son relationship is certainly unique, there are principles of leadership that apply more or less across the board. So if it’s good for a company to have a mission statement, then it’s probably good for a family, school, or athletic program to have one as well. At the same time, the value of the mission statement itself is minimal if the members of the group are unfamiliar with it or uninspired by it.
In thinking through what kind of men my sons and I ought to be, I’ve been working on a first draft of a mission statement for the men in our family. So far I’ve come up with this:
As a Krzykowski man, I will:
– Treat others with kindness and respect
– Protect the weak, both with my words and my actions
– Be courteous, polite and clean
– Do my best to allow God to eliminate any gaps between my public and private lives
– Refuse to be mastered by fear, and trust God always
– Change the world forever by being a man of honor
As I look at that list, I know there’s overlap between some of the points. I know it doesn’t read like a traditional mission statement, but I really like lists and bullet points. (Hopefully my children and their descendants will feel the same way.) We’re definitely early in the process; I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to go about incorporating the mission statement into everyday family life. But I can’t help but wonder, what if these ideas could last in my family and beyond for generations, even centuries?
I could take a similar approach to coaching a team. No doubt it’s a little different with athletes, having only a few months or a few years instead of 18-20 years to instill the values and build the mission into them. But there’s also no doubt that there is a tremendous opportunity to be used to create something great in the lives of people that could literally last forever. As a coach, what is this team/program about? Why do we exist? What do we want our athletes to take with them into their adult lives, and how do we achieve that result? Seems like it’s worth thinking about.
80’s Lyric
I’m on a mission, you better just listen