Monday, January 5, 2009

Family Mission Statement 2009

We're embarking into undiscovered territory for Family Home Evening tonight. In the LDS Church, our modern day prophets have all emphasized the importance of setting aside one night a week devoted to family (usually Monday nights.) Typically families (which come in all shapes and sizes-- with single parents or widowed spouse can and are encouraged to hold FHE regardless of your family situation) pray and sing together, have some Gospel instruction and have a refreshment at the end. It has been said that Family Home Evening is the only argument that begins and ends with a prayer. This would accurately describe the 7-8:00 hour in the Kelly home on Monday nights. Sigh. But I'm confident that someday it will pay off in dividends we cannot imagine. Anyway, last night Joseph and I were discussing what to do for FHE and we thought it would be a great idea to start the year off with a special family council: We are going to write a Family Mission Statement. I'm a little nervous about this, with our young children, but hopeful they will catch the vision of how it can unify our family. So here are my ideas for developing a family mission statement:

1. Include everyone, even small children.
2. Explain the purpose of a mission statement: "It keeps our family moving in the same direction and provides a sense of belonging." This should be treated as a road map versus a set of rules.
3. Define the family's values. (We love our family because...)
4. Brainstorm adjectives that describe the family (funny, quirky, honest, loving, etc.)
5. Develop the adjectives into thoughts and then into sentences with goal-oriented phrasing.
6. Post it where it can be referenced often. When good or bad decisions are made, tie it back to the family mission statement.
7. Reassess as often as needed, as the growth of the family changes.

Well, here goes nothing! I'll post our results (keeping fingers crossed) pending our quality of evening... this all looks good in writing, but can we carry it out successfully? Has anybody ever written one or read one that was encouraging?

8 comments:

Mindy said...

Awesome! I can't wait to hear your results. We did a similarly scary thing about 6 months ago... we gave each person in our family a "calling" or family responsibility. (Like Media specialist... bringing good media into the home and helping keep the bad out, or Historian... keeping family history, and helping the family learn more about family history.) It didn't do as well as we thought, but we're not going to give up on it yet. I can't wait to hear about your success!

The Taggarts said...

What a great idea! You'll have to let me know how it works. I've been trying to come up with a good way to reinforce good behaviors and goals. Keep me posted!

Kristine said...

That sounds so neat! I'd love to hear how it went!

Unknown said...

Good for you! We did the same thing when our girls were young. Our FHEs were nuuuuts. Must have done some good, even if we could NOT see it at the time. Maybe, it was just about going for it every week, and really trying. Never looked like the Ensign magazine, but dang if it didn't work! Something we added to our mission statement, the phrases from both parent's Patriarchal Blessings that spoke about the children that would come to us. We wanted the girls to see what Heavenly Father had said they would be like. (noooo pressure)

The Brown Family said...

Annalee, the link to the Real Heros poster site is:

http://www.ldsengine.com/magento/

I have a link on my blog on the words REAL HEROS but maybe it doesn't work, I'll check it out.

Also, I'm happy to report the crozzles are now under control!

Love
Kim

Howling Pickup said...

You are great for trying this out! We had a mission statement when I was growing up but we wrote it when we were all a little older and could articulate our feelings. I think that helps! Good luck. Let me know how it goes.

Chrishel said...

Cute blog. Since I started this blog stuff I have been spending a lot of time just reading blogs and catching up on peoples lives. I realy like your ideas and might have to copy them. Hope you don't mind. Do you care if I mention kaleb and post a pic of the two once in a while?

Annalee Kelly said...

Go right ahead, Chrishel:) The two of them could be the subject of quite a few blog entries on their adventures...