How Do I Write a Personal Mission Statement?

00:00:00.000 | Hi, my name is Ray. I am a husband, father, and an animator at a video game studio, living

00:00:06.680 | just outside Raleigh, North Carolina. I've been a Desiring God ministry partner for five

00:00:12.040 | years. You're listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper.

00:00:21.640 | That was Ray, a friend of ours who animates video games. He has an interesting story to

00:00:26.720 | share as you can imagine, and that's going to be up here in a moment. But first, Pastor

00:00:30.640 | John, we have talked a lot on this podcast about personal productivity, and that leads

00:00:35.560 | us to today's question from a listener named Paul, who lives in Suria, Spain. Paul writes

00:00:41.320 | this, "Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for this podcast. Way back in episode 839, you mentioned

00:00:46.280 | the importance of writing out a personal mission statement for our lives with the aim of enhancing

00:00:51.560 | personal productivity. I agree completely, and I find this task entirely daunting. So

00:00:57.640 | how do I, as an average Christian layperson, go about coming up with a personal mission

00:01:02.800 | statement? Should we be strengths and talents oriented about it? Should we focus on roles?

00:01:08.640 | Should we mostly focus on spiritual needs in the church, both locally and globally?

00:01:12.960 | And how do we avoid letting this statement grow so broad that we get overwhelmed to the

00:01:17.600 | point that such a statement does nothing actually to help us focus our energies? Any help would

00:01:22.560 | be appreciated."

00:01:23.560 | When I read the Bible, I cannot escape the relentless teaching that God has purposes.

00:01:34.280 | He has goals in everything he does. He's not a God who is coasting aimlessly. He's not

00:01:40.800 | going in circles. The God of the Bible is pervasively pursuing accomplishments of his

00:01:49.240 | own counsel. So Isaiah 46, "I am God. There is no one like me, declaring, 'My counsel

00:01:56.980 | shall stand. I will accomplish all my purpose.'" So there it is. "I will accomplish all my

00:02:02.240 | purpose." God has purposes. He has plans. Isaiah 14, 24, "As I have planned, so shall

00:02:11.480 | it be. As I have purposed, so shall it stand." Plans, purposes. "I determined it long ago."

00:02:19.640 | Isaiah 37, 6, "I planned it from days of old, and I now bring it to pass." I don't

00:02:25.920 | think there would be any gospel, any salvation, any eternal joy if God were not a planner,

00:02:34.160 | one who lived with purposes and goals, because Acts 4.27 says that all the enemies of God

00:02:41.680 | were gathered together in Jerusalem at the crucifixion of Jesus to do whatever your hand,

00:02:49.160 | O God, your plan had predestined to take place. Now, when I step back from all of that vision

00:02:56.560 | of the planning, purposing God, the effect it has on me is to stir me up to really serious

00:03:05.600 | questions, like, "Well, what is God's ultimate goal then?" I'm sure he has millions

00:03:13.060 | of sub-goals and sub-purposes in everything he does. I like to say, "God's doing 10,000

00:03:20.680 | things we don't know anything about." Most of those goals and purposes are hidden from

00:03:25.080 | us, but what has he revealed as his main or his ultimate purpose? Where's everything

00:03:34.320 | going? That's the question that has burned in me ever since I was 22 years old and became

00:03:41.760 | a lover of the all-ordaining, all-planning God. And then the next question becomes, "Well,

00:03:52.720 | if I could discern what his ultimate goal was, how can I join him in it? I want to fit

00:04:00.080 | in to his ultimate purpose. I don't want to strive against it. I want to be right in

00:04:05.840 | sync with what God is pursuing in the world. Nothing seems more obviously reasonable to

00:04:14.040 | me or hopeful to me than that God's creatures should gladly fit into his purposes." So

00:04:24.040 | surely that's his call on us. That's what he's beckoning us to do. "Find my purpose.

00:04:31.440 | Join me in it." So that's my second question then. Is there a way I can join the purpose

00:04:37.760 | of God once I have found out what his ultimate purpose is? And then the question becomes,

00:04:44.440 | how do I do everything I am doing so that I help that ultimate goal come about or so

00:04:54.040 | that I can be used by God to make it come about? I want everything, not just a few things,

00:05:00.560 | but everything I do to somehow contribute to that purpose. So that's why mission statements

00:05:10.200 | seem helpful to me. They keep me focused on the great things of life. But let me caution

00:05:18.240 | us here. I think the particularities of life are too variable for our mission statement

00:05:27.680 | to be very detailed. I know our friend asked that it not be too general, and yet I might

00:05:36.280 | disappoint him because I find big, big general purposes really helpful if they're the right

00:05:41.440 | kind. So the more particularities about yourself and about your circumstances that you include,

00:05:48.760 | the more short-term your statement's going to be because so much changes, right? You

00:05:53.080 | change, your job changes, you have kids, you get sick, you move. Oh my goodness, life is

00:05:59.840 | just so variable that if you make your mission statement to include things about yourself,

00:06:08.040 | things about your circumstances that are going to change relatively quickly, then you're

00:06:12.160 | going to have to be changing your mission statement all the time, and that's probably

00:06:16.160 | not very helpful. So if you want your mission statement to last more than a few years, it

00:06:22.200 | will need to be high-level and general, and that's mainly what I have in mind when I think

00:06:30.680 | of my own statements that guide my life. I need to be reminded regularly about the big

00:06:38.560 | picture of life. What's everything about? What goals can I have that are in sync with

00:06:46.440 | God's goals and are so clearly biblical that they don't change? So let me give you a whirlwind

00:06:55.520 | process of arriving at such a statement, and then you can adapt it to your situation. In

00:07:02.400 | those crucial years of discovery for me, life-changing years, 22 to 25, what I saw and could not

00:07:11.560 | deny and have never changed my mind on since was that God was infinitely full of every

00:07:21.400 | perfection and could not be improved and was the sum of all excellence, all beauty, all

00:07:29.760 | worth, all greatness, so that his purpose never included people counseling him or adding

00:07:37.440 | to him or improving him or providing for his needs since he doesn't have any. Rather,

00:07:44.240 | what I saw was that God was the kind of God whose ultimate aim was that his fullness,

00:07:52.200 | his completeness, his perfection would overflow with the communication of all his satisfying

00:07:59.320 | greatness and beauty and worth and excellence to me. In other words, God's ultimate purpose

00:08:05.880 | is to be seen and savored and shown. Those are my three favorite words for describing

00:08:12.880 | it. God's ultimate purpose is to be seen and savored and shown as infinitely glorious.

00:08:21.040 | That's his ultimate purpose. This is not megalomania, by the way, because the communication of himself

00:08:28.960 | in all his glory is what the human soul was made to be satisfied by. So God is the one

00:08:36.240 | being in all the universe, and he's the only one for whom self-communication and self-exaltation

00:08:44.800 | is the highest virtue and the most loving act. So Isaiah 43, 6, "Bring my sons from

00:08:52.200 | afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I

00:09:00.320 | created for my glory." And so the very first thing that he teaches us to pray over and

00:09:09.160 | over is, "Hallowed be your name," that is, glorified, treasured, loved, honored,

00:09:16.760 | praised, admired, enjoyed, hallowed be your name. That's the first and foremost cry

00:09:24.040 | of every saint every day. "Make me a means, God, please make me a means of the communication

00:09:34.040 | and the display of your beauty and your worth and your greatness." That is, "May others

00:09:39.520 | hallow your name because I exist." That's why we come into being. That's the essence

00:09:47.120 | of every biblical personal mission statement, I think, if it ties into God's ultimate

00:09:53.960 | purpose. So that's where I start. And then the question becomes, "How?" And the

00:09:58.800 | Bible seems—that is, "How can I live that way? How can I join in to that accomplishment

00:10:04.480 | of that purpose?" And the Bible just seems to offer countless answers, like, "Whether

00:10:10.360 | you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God. Give thanks to the glory of God. Confess

00:10:15.440 | Jesus to the glory of God. Do good deeds that God may be glorified. Welcome one another

00:10:21.640 | to the glory of God. Be generous to the poor for the glory of God," and on and on. I

00:10:26.640 | have other texts listed here, but they're all over the place. Everything we should be

00:10:32.920 | doing with our bodies and our minds and our hearts should be something that makes God

00:10:40.840 | look glorious, because he really is. We're helping people see him, savor him, show him

00:10:47.880 | for what he's really like. So finally, the question becomes, "Is there a common denominator

00:10:56.080 | that runs through all of those deeds, all those attitudes, all those words, that turn

00:11:02.880 | them into God-glorifying acts? How does everything I do become worship? How does everything I

00:11:11.720 | do become a display of God's greatness and beauty and worth?" And the answer is given,

00:11:18.880 | for example, there are other places, 1 Peter 4.11, "Let the one who serves serve in the

00:11:26.640 | strength that God supplies so that in everything God may be glorified." So if everything

00:11:34.400 | you do is a service, then he says, "Let the service be by relying on the all-sufficiency

00:11:43.080 | of God's grace in your life so that when you accomplish what you just attempted to

00:11:47.920 | do, it's done in his strength so that he gets the glory." You get the enablement

00:11:53.280 | and the power and the guidance and the strength, and he gets the glory. So when we joyfully

00:11:58.740 | rely on God in all that we do in the service of others, God looks glorious in our lives.

00:12:08.120 | Same thing in 2 Thessalonians 1.11, "Let every work be a 'work of faith by God's

00:12:15.600 | power so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you.'" That's 2 Thessalonians

00:12:23.800 | 1.11 and 12. Same point as 1 Peter 4. We do what we do in glad reliance upon God for everything

00:12:33.480 | we need in order to love people. In other words, we live by faith in the promises of

00:12:40.640 | God in the service of love. So I would say, build your life mission statement by thinking

00:12:49.520 | through this much before you get to the details of your own gifting and your own calling.

00:12:58.960 | God is infinitely glorious. God means to communicate that glory to his people, to see it, savor

00:13:05.240 | it, show it. He means for us to join him in that purpose. That applies to absolutely everything

00:13:11.040 | we do, and we do it in humble reliance upon his grace and power, which come through Jesus

00:13:17.280 | Christ in the service of others. That will make him look great.

00:13:22.600 | Then, when you have crafted an overarching mission statement built on those purposes

00:13:28.520 | of God, then you can make some short-term mission statements. Say for a year, you're

00:13:35.560 | going to write a book, or you're going to change jobs, or you're going to pursue marriage,

00:13:40.320 | or whatever. Some short-term that then draws particularities up into that mission statement

00:13:48.800 | according to the season of your life.

00:13:52.240 | Thank you, Pastor John. That's helpful at the macro level and in the fine details of

00:13:56.400 | life as well. That's a great question, Paul. Thank you.

00:14:00.240 | Speaking of personal productivity, before we go, right now on the phone is Ray, a productive

00:14:05.640 | video game animator who lives in North Carolina. You heard his voice at the top of this episode

00:14:10.160 | because Ray is a friend of ours and a ministry partner, someone who makes this podcast possible.

00:14:15.720 | Ray, I'm thankful for you and for your time. Can you tell us a little about yourself? You

00:14:21.440 | got to tell us the story of how you found your way into the gaming industry.

00:14:24.560 | Sure. My wife and I grew up in a small town in East Tennessee. We met in high school and

00:14:30.440 | dated and been together since. I always had an interest in art and technology as a kid.

00:14:35.720 | I originally wanted to be a comic book artist, but then really got into computer-aided drafting

00:14:41.640 | in high school. Eventually, I became a computer animator. I've worked in visual effects for

00:14:48.240 | film for several years and have been working in the gaming industry for the past, I guess,

00:14:54.000 | dozen or so years. We live in North Carolina and have two wonderful children, an eight-year-old

00:14:59.480 | daughter and a two-year-old son.

00:15:01.280 | Yeah. Years ago, you met John Piper, so to speak, while working on movies in Hollywood.

00:15:07.400 | What was your introduction to John Piper content?

00:15:10.460 | My first animation job was with a visual effects company in Los Angeles. I was living and working

00:15:16.020 | a nine-to-five job in Tennessee and then got a call out of the blue that my work had been

00:15:21.160 | seen online and I was offered a contract. Just picked up everything, drove across the

00:15:26.320 | country, moved to Los Angeles and found myself a very long way from home, not just geographically,

00:15:34.760 | but culturally and relationally. I had a friend of a friend who lived about an hour away from

00:15:39.320 | LA and that was the only person I knew in California.

00:15:41.600 | Wow.

00:15:42.600 | I found myself in this strange situation and I'm in front of a computer with headphones

00:15:48.580 | on for like 12, 14 hours a day. The hours were just grueling at first. It dawned on

00:15:54.860 | me that I'm sitting here listening to music at a time it was Pandora. I don't even know

00:15:59.180 | if that's still around. I'd listen to Pandora for like 12 hours a day. It's like I could

00:16:04.460 | be filling my ears and mind with something much better than this. That started this process

00:16:11.420 | where I eventually stumbled across some of John Piper's sermons online. And then ever

00:16:16.560 | since I've just been a voracious consumer of Desiring God's content from the podcast,

00:16:21.680 | the articles, the YouTube videos, all have just been such a blessing to me and my family.

00:16:27.620 | So encouraging. Looking back over the years, how would you summarize the effects of Desiring

00:16:32.960 | God resources on your life?

00:16:35.520 | Yeah, looking back, I think there's been like two kind of main impacts that Desiring

00:16:41.020 | God has had and continues to have really. The first one, I've been shown again and again

00:16:47.000 | that my view of God is too small, that my outlook into the world is so self-centered

00:16:53.320 | and my appreciation for His sovereignty and His gifts is so superficial and based on my

00:17:03.200 | circumstances so often, so short-sighted. And the second major impact is that God's

00:17:09.400 | Word is deeper and richer and more beautiful and deserves so much more of my focus and

00:17:15.880 | time and attention than I've given it. And those two things have impacted pretty much

00:17:21.160 | every part of my life and the life of our family.

00:17:24.400 | Powerful, powerful. Thank you very—so you're talking to a bunch of listeners to the podcast

00:17:29.240 | right now, many who have never given in the past. What would you say to them in this opportunity

00:17:33.640 | for them to join you as a ministry partner with us at Desiring God?

00:17:39.040 | So in my personal devotion yesterday, I was in Psalm 102 and came across this and it just

00:17:44.560 | stood out to me so much. So I'll share that. And it's verse 18, I think. "Let this be recorded

00:17:50.560 | for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord." And

00:17:55.840 | it goes on to talk about how God looks down, heard the groans of the prisoners, He freed

00:17:59.880 | them. But to me, that sums up why we support Desiring God. We want to contribute in any

00:18:06.160 | small way that we can so that the God-glorifying message that Desiring God consistently puts

00:18:12.880 | out can be recorded for a generation to come so that people yet to be created may praise

00:18:17.720 | the Lord. Our prayer is that people all over the world now and in the future will hear

00:18:24.840 | the message and be as blessed and uplifted and as drawn to their Bibles and to their

00:18:29.640 | needs as we have been by it. And I just feel like how could we not try to support that

00:18:35.880 | in any way that we possibly can? And if anyone needs proof that that is happening, you can

00:18:41.800 | just glance at the YouTube comments on pretty much anything on Desiring God's channel and

00:18:46.840 | you see messages from people saying, "I desperately needed this. I've been in a dark place." It's

00:18:52.200 | like, how can we read those things from our brothers and sisters and not feel like this

00:18:57.360 | is absolutely worthy of any support that we can give it?

00:19:01.200 | Amazing. Yeah. And YouTube is our fastest growing channel for this podcast. A shout

00:19:05.520 | out to those of you who are listening right now to APJ on YouTube. Five years of partnering

00:19:11.440 | with us, Ray. Thank you so much for your role in supporting everything that we do at Desiring

00:19:15.440 | God, this podcast, the website, and of course, our YouTube channel. We appreciate it.

00:19:20.560 | Thank you all. It's been an honor. And we just thank you so much for the message that

00:19:25.360 | you put out, the charity and winsomeness and spirit that it always carries. It's been such

00:19:30.880 | a blessing to me and my family. Sobering and encouraging. Near the end of the

00:19:37.040 | year, it's a great reminder that we have generous friends all over the U.S. and all over the

00:19:40.640 | world who support this ministry, friends who have profited from Desiring God personally

00:19:45.840 | over the years, and then who eventually became partners with us to get behind a ministry

00:19:49.920 | well-positioned to serve a generation to come so that a people yet to be created may praise

00:19:56.160 | the Lord. That is an awesome perspective. And if you have found this ministry helpful,

00:20:01.760 | our articles, books, sermons, videos, podcasts, and if you want to help make all of those

00:20:07.280 | resources available for the world now and into the future, all free of charge, consider

00:20:12.640 | becoming a monthly ministry partner. Much of our financial support comes from folks

00:20:17.120 | who give on average $30 a month. To set up monthly giving, go to give.desiringgod.org.

00:20:25.840 | That's give.desiringgod.org. Much appreciated. I'm your host, Tony Ranke,

00:20:32.640 | and Pastor John and I return on Monday. We'll see you then.

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How Do I Write a Personal Mission Statement?

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