Church Mission Statements: Theology in Action

Levi: foreign here with Pastor Tony Caffey how are things going

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Tony: hey Levi good to see you yeah absolutely it's been a minute since I've gotten to sat at the table and have a conversation with you about things uh we're going to talk about something that's come up recently within our church we recently had a business meeting as a church and you all and Elders rolled out a Church's mission statement and kind of we're talking about that and I'm curious I fortunately wasn't able to be here as part of the the meeting how did the meeting go how did the church kind of receive it

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Tony: it went good Levi I know you were busy doing other things and had some health issues that we'll talk about in an upcoming podcast but uh it it went really well I mean it's it's a good thing for the church to uh gather and report on kind of a state of the church kind of meeting uh we do that annually here so we're an elder-led church as you know and that's something that we've talked about even in podcast form before but uh you know as part of that one of the things that we like to do as Elders is inform and communicate and that's uh meaningful I think in terms of building rapport with our people and also talk about finances uh some people love talking about that and really feel encouraged by that some some people get bored by that so um but I think everybody in the church is is edified by those kinds of meetings where um where reports are given and and that was a big part of what we did this last meeting as you said because we're a five-year-old church now and we've uh had different I guess you could say iterations we've had two senior pastors now and we've been working I think with a convictional way in which church should function and we've been from the beginning committed to God's word committed to worship committed to uh to other types of things within our church body definitely preparing ourselves for Christ's return it's been a big big refrain within our church body so uh what we try to do as Elders is take our convictions and distill it in a way that would be memorable and what we're calling our mission statements so that's when we rolled out and I'll read it for you and we can continue conversing about it but so our mission statement is we li

Tony: ve as verse by verse Fellowship to multiply disciples who love God and each other learn from his word and long for his return yeah and I I love that I do

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Levi: I'm gonna step back for a minute kind of take like a 30 000 foot view as I guess business might say and I might be playing Devil's Advocate a little bit here yeah even even prior to uh this revision of our of our mission statement uh we came up with one whenever first by verse Fellowship was planted years ago and even then I had the kind of brief thought of that sounds very businessy it seems like such a business thing to do uh business statement Vision things like that biblically is what what's the correlation and let's kind of talk on like The Universal Church aspect of is there scripture base for The Universal Church what would be their mission and then we can kind of narrow it down to to us and use us as an example

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Tony: yeah that's a good question and and we're not necessarily saying that every church needs to have one or every church or The Universal Church should have their own um and it it might be contextualized within a western church framework for us it's it's a way to distill what we've been commanded specifically in Matthew 28 with Jesus sending out his disciples to say go replicate you know make more disciples who do certain things it's a way for us to Rally around that as a uh as a call to action yeah so and and we could say I guess theoretically you know our mission statement is the Bible you know yeah yeah we I think we've had that conversation with the doctrinal statement you know like our doctrinal statement is the Bible okay I mean that's true but that's a lot of content for people to work through and the reason doctrinal statements are framed is to distill uh the breadth of a material in the Bible into succinct convictional uh doctrinal statements that really identify who we are and distinguish us too from other churches that have different doctrinal convictions than we do similar with a mission statement these are the things that we're most committed to so somebody comes into our church they can see right from the beginning that we're about disciple making in our church body you know we're going to go all out for Matthew 28 we're about teaching

Tony: God's word learning God's word at all different stages of our church too from from children's ministry and what we're doing there all the way to adults Sunday mornings Wednesday nights and then longing for his return I mean that's that's been a distinctive of ours in terms of the way that we talk ever since the previous senior pastor was here that was a big refrain of Steve Armstrong's and I mean it's it's huge for me as well we we want Jesus to come back and we see the the biblical um framework for that too as as Paul was anticipating Christ's return um Maranatha is a significant uh word in the New Testament you know come Lord Jesus we want to be ready at any moment for Christ to return and to claim his church and and we're living our lives in in that way yeah yeah

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Levi: I I do love that we did form in both iterations we formed our our vision our mission statement around Matthew 28 that go and make disciples in that aspect I think especially in the American culture it can kind of be lost a little bit everyone wants to go on sir not everyone many want to go on the mission trips want to go build the school want to go even share the gospel or feel convicted and share the gospel in HEB and then leave and never talk to the person again in this new convert that doesn't know anything whatsoever is left of what are my next steps what do I do who do I turn to who do I try and it's real easy to connect to an unhealthy body or people that are going to teach you incorrectly in that way that's where I like I like the mission statement that we have in the fact that it is very much Matthew 28 and go make Go Make Disciples don't just get them saved and leave them is help them along and I I it applies to the gospel sharing as well as us in the church and the mentoring which we've talked about before of that and it it's a way of synthesis yeah

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Tony: I would it and I'm I'm a big advocate of this because the gospel you bring up a good example we should be able to share the gospel in five seconds five minutes 50 minutes you know five hours you could go on and on with what the gospel is and fully orbed explain all the different facets of it it's it's really like a diamond there's so many different ways to look at the gospel gospel implication

Tony: s the way it influences our life but we should be able to distill the essence of the Gospel down to a few short statements if we have an elevator conversation with somebody yeah you know we're centers who need salvation Jesus came to save us from our sins and faith in him saves us you know that that quick now it's obviously more than that you know and we can we can talk repentance which I think is really important to emphasize especially in the Western World when you talk about the gospel but uh yeah get that get that elevator pitched down and that's where it starts that's where I love to make the disciples is it's that partnering and now we've started here's what we go yeah that's and that's kind of the natural progression from conversion to disciple making so we want synthesis for the gospel we want synthesis for doctrinal statements we want synthesis as well for the call of the church the mission and so that's where this that's the Genesis of this and uh when we distill I guess to its core what what we're going after as a church yeah uh that's what we're trying to frame here kind of see it as it's not necessarily eliminating we don't do these other parts of the Bible but it's giving a vision of this is the direction we're going we're not kind of scattering it out it's it's what's the word I'm looking for it's kind of roadblocks in a sense but it's reminding of hey that's great you did that over here but let's come back and focus the church is going this way we're focusing on this task and in a sense you know there is that business aspect businesses do that as well and there's a reason that almost all businesses nowadays have a mission statement in that aspect and pointing forward right so you you touched on it and I was going to ask and we can kind of dig in a little bit more do you think it's important for all churches to have a mission statement

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Tony: it's helpful it's similar to what I said about the doctrinal statement so if you have a new person visiting or if you have a new believer you know to say our doctrinal statement is the Bible go read the Bible that's that's a long process it's intimidating uh and they're you know I've been a pastor for a while now so when people ask you know what's your doctrinal st

Tony: atement I know what they mean they're looking for certain distinctives and I want to help them because we do have distinctives and maybe our distinctives aren't consistent with the way you know they view let's say women in Ministry or the way they view uh the use of the the sign gifts and how they're appropriated in the local church just to give two examples so uh similar with the mission statement you know if if um if people come to our church and they are maybe resistant to disciple making as like a core value in the church maybe they just want kind of a comfortable place to go to church and to fill a Pew I mean I'm framing this really negatively sorry um you know that's that's not really the kind of church we're we're intending to be or if you know they see uh Christ's return as this like long drawn-out process where we're gonna slowly christianize the world and over thousands and thousands of years maybe Christ will come back I mean there are some theological positions that kind of tend that direction that's not us yeah but you can see in our statement that's not us so it yeah it drives that line and if they want a church that's uh you know we're also in our name is verse by verse Fellowship so if they're not comfortable with expository preaching or if they're used to another type of uh diet for uh for appropriating God's word and I'm not here to denounce that or anything I'm just saying they're they're going to struggle at our church to really feel invested as part of our body and so a mission statement like this is helpful for that and gives us you know in in a a distilled you know crafted statement this is who we are come come join us come be a part of this if if this is consistent where with what you feel like the Lord is calling you to yeah absolutely

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Levi: so let's kind of break down how did we come about our current mission statements like what what questions did you guys posed to each other and what questions were we looking to answer

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Tony: well Matthew 28 language has been a part of our church from the beginning before I got here so that was important to uh to The Men Who were part of this who were you know part of the church from the very beginning and it's it's what I'm giving myself to as well I when people

Tony: think you know what are you called to your your pastor called to preaching called to to do weddings do funerals lead the church yeah I mean I'm called all those things and and that's around what I think is the central thing and that is the making of disciples yeah so in obedience to what Jesus called his disciples to do and that doesn't mean that I that I'm personally discipling every person in the church I have a role in teaching God's word as people develop as disciples but you know what I'm committed to is helping other disciples make other disciples and and I'm also a growing disciple too Levi you know that like I got things that I'm working on and growing in Christ as well so we wanted that to be a part of the mission statement and and really a central component so right off the bat we live to multiply disciples we want to see people get saved because discipleship starts with salvation with conversion but it's not the end game you know it's not like let's just focus on conversions some Churches do that yeah we believe that God gets Glory uh when people get saved and we believe God gets Glory when saved people get Sanctified so in that way it's there's a doxological uh priority with what we're doing not a soteriological priority it's not just about people getting saved it's about uh giving God glory and seeing seeing Saints uh unbelievers come to Christ and seeing Saints grow as disciples and that's from zero to 70 years old at all different stages of life we want to see people grow as disciples and making disciples so we live to multiply disciples who love God and each other a big part of the discipleship growing process is that one another each other component yeah so we're not living lives in isolation and why do we have the body of Christ why do we have the church so that we can expedite and um you know intensify the the growth and the the maturation process of disciples so we're loving God we're loving each other we're helping each other grow and that's uh one of the beautiful things about the body of Christ and why we're kind of narrowing on that in terms of the the first statement in our mission statement

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Levi: great did you just curiosity did you guys did have any pushback after the meeting when you pres

Tony: ented this from anybody we didn't and what we tried to do because I was a new hire here uh and was working along the elders we had uh you know working mission statement that had been reframed several times even before I got here so we as part of an elder Retreat about a year and a half ago a few months after I got hired we all got together six of us as elders and we just hammered it out what what is the central goal of our church and we uh you know we went back and forth as you can imagine Levi you know we we word smithed and and argued and uh distilled and and and tried to work through not just this but also our core values which we'll talk about at another time and and it was good it was edifying and that's that's part of our role as Elders is that we're called to lead and Shepherd the church and set the set the vision for the church as well and so we came out of that that Elders Retreat feeling really good about not just it wasn't like we're trying to capture something totally different from what the church is doing and we're going to turn them in a totally different direction that was not that's not even wise really what we're trying to do is capture the heart of the church already in existence and and how do we not just capture it what we're committed to but elevate it elevate the the way in which we've we frame it and go after it so it's it's energizing for our church body yeah and so that that was really fruitful we see the Lord working in that uh the Holy Spirit even you know bringing us together and giving us something that that we're really proud of

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Levi: another curiosity uh the church you came from priorly you guys had a mission statement there

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Tony: we did how different was it was there a lot of difference in that it wasn't you know Harvest Decatur exists to glorify God by making disciples who worship walk and work for Christ okay so um and it was in many ways uh kind of something that we shared among other like-minded churches so we were actually a church plant out of another church we were the 28th church out of 150 churches and of those 150 churches they all had some variation of that mission statement and um and so that I mean it was a rallying cry for our church body not uh just us individually but you kn

Tony: ow there's other churches around uh the world even that are committed to this that are making disciples so you hear the disciple-making language yeah we exist to glorify God by making disciples and so I mean that's been ingrained in me as part of my DNA you know in seminary post-seminary pastoring a church as a young pastor now I'm whatever middle aged Pastor I'm still I'm still just as fired up about disciple making as I was in my 20s as I was when I was a youth pastor and I I think you know that's that's one of the things that the church does best I mean it's really hard to disciple people in isolation from the church or to to you know try to do Matthew 28 through a perish I love para Church organizations but you know try to do that through a paratro church organization or some other means um you know no this is something that the church has the tools and the ability to to Really accomplish we the holy spirit is here blessing us gifting Us in ways that we can accomplish this where it can't be accomplished elsewhere certainly can't be accomplished by a local business yeah you know or uh somebody who's maybe trying to co-opt that mission statement that doesn't have the the spiritual resources that we do as the church so yeah and answered your question it was it was similar um to my previous church but it does have a distinctive ring that's consistent with verse by verses uh history and uh the personalities that were part of this church as it got off the ground and that are present even now yeah

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Levi: uh something that in visual person so this really stood out to me uh whenever it was first presented years ago now four years ago maybe it might have been a year into US planted they gave rolled out our first uh the first version of the mission statement in in talking about it they were I think it was Tom at the time one of our elders was discussing what this looked like like the purpose of us having this mission statement so the worship team being over here and if you have a group going out and evangelizing over here and just everything outside this circle was these different Mission areas or these different areas of the church Church doing different things that they would all point back to if like we Kyle and I who's s

Levi: itting behind the camera here and a few others a number of times came and presented hey we're interested in doing this young adults group or we're interested in going caroling and we were always presented okay how does that point back how does that where's the disciple making how do we connect the disciple making to what you're doing and it was never a no it was a challenge and let's answer this question and make sure it fits in what we're doing and I I love that because it it very much keeps you focused on doing that and you see the importance of the disciple making in it yeah good it

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Tony: it's and that's if you want to frame kind of the negative ways in which not having a mission statement can can transpire there is something called Mission creep yeah yeah where you know people will if they don't have kind of a central focus and uh you know you can kind of co-opt any uh statement or thinking that you have and try to you know Jimmy rig it into the church and this really does help protect against that absolutely and I can imagine because I know Tom him presenting that in such a way that we want to be committed to this and these Ministries that are part of our church need to be anchored into this this overarching Mission absolutely and that that's healthy for a church yeah I I I I do think that is a I mean obviously God gets all the glory but I do think that it is a fiber that's been weaved into us that makes us the healthy version of the church that we are that it connects that and just that this you if if you've ever been here into the verse by verse Fellowship you can see that disciple making process taking place almost any day you come in here and you see the connections you come in here before Wednesday service there's people meeting consistently at some point in the building and one-on-one or in group sharpening and making those disciples out of one another and it just as a testament for me you can see that at work and see the health in that

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Levi: uh if there were a church that hears this and thinks well maybe we should get a mission statement built up what would you suggest they do are there any specific questions or focal points you think they should have is it an elder-led church I would suggest that the elders ge

Tony: t together and Hammer it out like we did because that's we are called First Peter 5 to lead Shepherd to church and so we take that task seriously but I mean it's galvanizing for the elders to get together and Wordsmith and think and try to craft something that does capture what the church is committed to but what we as men as well are committed to through the church and so that would be my my encouragement and and personalize it you know we tried to I guess there's a way that I could have just taken my mission statement from my previous church and said just slapped it on verse by verse and said well this is what I used to be committed to let's do this but no I mean this is a different context we want to we want to contextualize it personalize it make it authentic to verse by verse this iteration of God's the body of Christ and Jesus's um bride and so I would encourage them to not just cut and paste out of ours or somebody else's but to uh to to do the hard work of of generating something that's original yeah and not not too original I mean we're all kind of anchoring you should be uh what we're doing to the New Testament to the scriptures to I would say even what Jesus commands us at the end of Matthew 28 but there's a way to do that with with some originality yeah

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Levi: and even sit and thinking about it kind of Elder's Prospect and knowing that the elders went and had this Retreat and really focused on that I would imagine knowing our elders and amazing group of men variety of personalities and backgrounds I can that even gives them some Unity on when there is a difference of opinion no this is where we're going this is what we're focused on so it's not just the congregation it's every part of the church that benefits from this yeah

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Tony: and I should say this and this this could be kind of our segue for our upcoming podcasts um you know this is the 30 000 foot View and it's uh intentionally uh stated in such a way that it encapsulates a lot of things the core values is a level down from that we have five of them that tries to more explicitly and more precisely work out what we're trying to do with our mission statement so we'll spend some time in the future you and I Levi talking about our core values that that are grea

Levi: t uh built off of our mission statement right that's where we plug in the stay tuned for the future video I suppose uh that is all the questions I have you have any feedback here for to wrap it up

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Tony: I'll just say I'm I'm I'm I live for this uh Levi I'm giving my life to this I don't know when Christ returns if Christ returns tomorrow or in a week or 30 years from now however in many days I have I'm asking the Lord to Help Me Make Disciples grow as a disciple and be a part of a church that's doing this work of disciple making and so I I just want to invite our church and others who are tuning in right now come be a part of this let's uh let's make disciples for Jesus in San Antonio Texas

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Levi: awesome I love it it's motivating even sitting here talking about it that is all we've got today thank you Tony appreciate it motivating to even get to sit here and talk about it and going and making disciples if you guys are interested we've got a Theology and action playlist you can check over here we'll have other videos you might be interested in checking out uh what is expository teaching that is another part of the DNA of our church if you're interested in further content you can check out vbvf.org we live stream our Sunday and Wednesday services until next time