Chapter 2

The music at Community Church stunk. There was no way around it; it was awful. Pastor Ryan Stevenson contemplated this over a cup of coffee on Monday morning after a particularly bad Sunday worship session. Thankfully, the sermon had been good, but he was ready to enact some seriously needed changes to the worship and music. He had particularly been encouraged to make changes by several of the leading members who had expressed their concern over the music and singing on Sunday morning, and they were hoping to see some real improvements. Pastor Stevenson felt that the time was right and that change was necessary.

As he stood in the pulpit on the following Sunday morning, he announced that there would be some "new things" coming soon to the music and singing in their church. Across the congregation eyes lit up, smiles appeared, and hope was ignited. Nice job Pastor S., he thought, I am sure to be nominated for the "pastor of the year" award.

Over the next year, Pastor Stevenson formed a committee to begin the quest to improve the music in his church. The committee started by studying their Bibles, reading books on worship, reviewing new worship songs, and listening to countless CDs of contemporary worship music. Finally, they were ready. The following Sunday, Pastor Stevenson announced that the "great music improvement" was about to begin and that they would be singing a new song that morning. He looked down from the pulpit and expected to see shining eyes, smiles, and exuberance on the faces of those in attendance. Nothing. In fact, it was worse than nothing. The Smith family looked sad, the Selecrofts looked angry, and the members sitting on the left side of the church had flat expressions on their faces. What is wrong with these people? Pastor Stevenson thought. They have been asking for improvements to the music and I have spent a long, hard year preparing to bring them better music, and now they don't like it. How ungrateful. It wasn't better music that they wanted; they wanted to be entertained. Well, it is a good thing I figured this out. My next sermon will be entitled "Ungrateful People Who Want to be Entertained." I hope I can find a sermon text on it . . .

Have you ever seen a ministry or project that had no clear direction? Have you ever felt that a project had transformed from the initial project into an entirely different project? Have you ever felt like the team members of a ministry were pulling in different directions?

An amazing 60 percent of projects that fail can be traced back to a poorly thought-out "define mission" statement. You may find this surprising. It implies that a ministry is more likely to fail due to a vague and ill-defined direction rather than bad team members, too few resources, or even poor results!

Examine Pastor Stevenson's mission statement. What is it? "Change would be coming soon to music and singing." Sounds good, but what does that even mean? Has he defined the project he intends to undertake, or has he just proposed a broad ideal? Would a different mission statement have improved his project and/or the outcome?

In this chapter of the book we are going to look at three distinct elements of defining a project or a ministry:

What is a "define statement"/mission statement?

What is it made of?

Why it is so important?

In this chapter I hope to equip Christian leaders with the ability to set clear direction, create attainable goals, and defend their ministries and projects against drift.

What Is a Define Statement?

A define statement is a concise and specific statement that sets the direction, the scope, and the goals to be accomplish in a ministry. This define statement is the heart of building a healthy ministry or project, and is, in fact, more important than even the project plan itself. Every element in building a healthy ministry is derived and shaped by the define statement.

A ministry should never be defined as an afterthought or defined based on the results that are currently being experienced by the ministry. Rather, creating a define statement for a ministry or a project should be a conscientious, deliberate activity at the very start of the ministry.

A well-written define statement will act as the anchor to a ministry or project, and is the equivalent of paving a path for the rest of the project to follow. Ministries and projects build off of and follow the define statement, and the define statement helps keep the project on course and prevents it from drifting down unintended paths.