What is this? Every Life Team is trained to exhibit these general characteristics: gospel-driven, unified, consistent and multi-faceted initiatives, trusted within the church, resourced, interfacing with agencies, and influencing the church as a whole. Given these general traits, the Team must ask God, "What are Your specific plans for us, Lord?" We recommend the following roadmap to answering that question. There is a Mission Discovery Template at the bottom of this roadmap that you can copy for Team members to use in navigating this process.
How does this work? It is often best to review one step per Life Team meeting and assign homework related to that step to be due at the next meeting. For example, review what it means to observe God (#2, below), hand out the Mission Discover Template, ask Team members to record their observations before the next meeting, and bring their observations back to the next Team meeting for discussion. Then, review what it means to assimilate (#3, below), ask them to record and bring back their assimilation insights to the next Team meeting on the Mission Discovery Template, and so on until you’ve completed the roadmap.
How long does this take? It takes most Teams about 4-5 months to complete this roadmap. They all say it was enjoyable time well spent since it helped them seek God and discover His plans for the Team. If you need help navigating this roadmap, please contact Churches for Life at info@getintolife.org.
1. Relate and Pray
God walks with those who have a real relationship with Him through Christ (see John 15:1-11) through the gospel. Godly, trust-filled prayer helps us abide in Christ and puts us in a posture of readiness for God’s self-revelation. Maintain that posture throughout this process.
2. Observe
God has a plan. He is already at work in and around your/His Team. In this step, the Team acts like Sherlock Holmes, looking for and writing down the “finger prints” and “clues” of God’s activity revealed in the gifts, stories, passions, and opportunities represented in your Team, pastoral staff, church, and community.
3. Assimilate
Next, as Sherlock Holmes, the Team must put together God’s “finger prints” and “clues” to figure out what He’s up to. To do this, discuss overlap, commonalities, patterns, and trends in your observations. Notice repeated phrases, gifts, talents, and experiences like one looks for a collection of clouds to form one shape in the sky. You will likely see several shapes emerge from overlapping clues, like “We see a theme of adoption throughout our observations.” Notice the two or three strongest “shapes,” which likely indicate God’s emphasis for your/His Team.
4. Write
Use the Mission Discovery Template below to assign, discuss, and decide on these important parts of discovering God’s mission for your/His Team.
- Strategies: The two or three strongest, clearest “shapes” indicate God’s strategies for your Team. Based on the assimilation example above, a strategy might be, “Equip our congregation to adopt.”
- Goals: Discuss how the gifts and opportunities you have observed indicate God’s desire to specifically progress in your strategies by answering the question, “How?” Given our example, the question is, “How can we equip our congregation to adopt?” The answer yields goals. Goals are specific, measurable, and attainable actions attached to a person(s) responsible for completion. Not a goal: Spread the word about adoption. Goal: Susie to write and enter a paragraph about the Life Team’s future plans to encourage adoptions in May’s church newsletter.
- Mission Statement: This is a simple, one-sentence summary of God’s overarching agenda with your Team. Marrying these three elements usually yields a reliable, godly mission statement:
- Your church’s mission statement +
- Your Team’s strategies +
- Every Life Team’s call to equip their church as a gospel-driven champion of life
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3 Elements
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Example: Church #1
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Example: Church #2
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Your Church’s mission +
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We exist to glorify the triune God by embracing the Gospel, building our community, making disciples and transforming societies.
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We exist to make, mature and multiply fully-committed followers of Jesus Christ in our community and beyond.
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Your Team’s strategies +
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Equip w/ life-affirming worldview, promote sexual integrity, reach out to post-abortive women/families
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Realign life arena as holistic & gospel-driven, encourage adoption, nurture church communities to be life-affirming
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Call to equip =
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Our Team exists to equip the church
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Our Team exists to equip the church
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Life Team’s Mission Statement
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The Life Team exists to glorify the triune God by promoting a life-affirming biblical worldview in our church and community.
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The Life Team exists to make, mature, and multiply gospel-driven life-affirming disciples.
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5. Refine
With your written strategies, goals, and mission statement in hand, the Life Team Leader should dialogue with your pastoral oversight, inviting input, refinements, and blessing. This step builds trust, demonstrates respect, can yield valuable refinements, and often activates your pastor(s) as your biggest champion! Then the Leader returns to the Team, and helps the Team refine its mission, strategies, and goals based on pastoral input. The end result is a set of very practical, God-directed, shepherd-blessed ministry statements that will guide the Team’s ministry.
6. Implement
After all the work above is completed, your Team will likely be unified around God’s mission, strategies and goals. As you implement, remember step one: relate and pray. Do not let your plans become your god! Seek Him continually, and remain close to Him as you implement. The Mission Discovery Template can be used as an “evergreen” document that where goals are constantly updated to reflect the Team’s ongoing pursuit of its strategies and mission.
A Note to Life Team Leaders, or Anyone Leading This Mission Discovery Process
It is your job to lead the Team’s mission discovery process. To do that, clarify the destination (to discover God’s plans for our/His Team, church, and community) and guide the Team through each step outlined above. Be purposeful. Keep moving. Continually encourage and remind your Team of the destination and their progress along the way – which is important because this process takes most Teams that meet monthly about 4-6 months. You may require homework between meetings – for example, assign team members the task of writing down their own observations (step 2, above) and bring them to the next meeting for discussion.
It is not your job to be God! It is not your job to bring visions and overarching power to the process. You are a steward of the process and a pointer to God. He is quite capable of guiding you and the Team, and is very interested in doing so. So, relax. If you need help, contact Churches for Life at info@getintolife.org. We will be happy to walk with you in the process.
You and your Team can do this! Remember that God is more interested in and capable of revealing Himself to you than you are in finding Him. So, as you enter this process, take heart. And when you are finished with it, remember that it is your job to remind the Team of its/God’s mission, strategies, and goals at every meeting. Yes, every meeting. These statements should be used as filters for ideas and opportunities. Doing so will bring vitality, focus, and unity to the Team.
Mission Discovery Template
1. Observations
a. What are our team members’ unique gifts, talents, passions, stories?
b. What are our church community’s overall gifts, talents, core values, passions, stories?
c. What sort of life-affirming experience or passions has God given our pastoral and other church leaders?
d. What specific life-affirming opportunities or challenges are already right under our noses?
e. What other contacts, resources, or “God-like signals” can we observe around us regarding the life arena?
2. Assimilation
a. Overlapping theme #1
b. Overlapping theme #2
c. Overlapping theme #3
3. Write
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Marry these 3 elements…
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…to discover the Life Team’s mission.
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Your Church’s mission statement +
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Your Team’s strategies +
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Call to equip =
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Every Life Team exists to equip the church
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Life Team’s mission statement!
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STRATEGIES >>>
These are action-oriented statements that reflect the main “shapes” you observed/assimilated regarding God’s activity.
Example: Equip our congregation to adopt.
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GOALS >>>
Goals must be:
1. measurable
2. specific
3. attainable
Not a goal: Spread the word about adoption.
Goal: Susie to write and enter one paragraph about the Life Team’s future plans to encourage adoptions in May’s church newsletter.
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