Purpose-Driven Teams Create Mission Statements

In the previous post I referenced Rick Warren's book Purpose-Driven Church, with a link to the PD website. Teamnet Ministries uses the purpose-driven concept, but drives it down even further into the organization of the local church by creating purpose-driven teams for conducting the mission of the church. As I noted before, each team is created to concentrate on a specific arena of church life. After the team is formed (more on that later), the very first action the team members must work on is to formulate their own "mission statement," aka "statement of purpose."

I have found that this exercise does more to bond the individual members of the team more quickly than just about anything else. The process is every bit as important as the final product. In other words, the resulting mission statement itself is a good thing, but the time, energy, and combined efforts of the team members is actually what forms the foundation for their effectiveness as a team.

Full Steam Ahead! is a great little book by Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner, that gives valuable insight into the components of a mission statement. You can easily order it from www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, or your local bookstore.