Why Mission Statements Don’t Lead to Becoming a Faithful and Flourishing Christian School—And What Does
Out of all my interviews, observations, and analyses of flourishing Christian schools, I discovered something that might cause a gasp in some rooms. Mission statements are less critical than some leadership and strategic planning books suggest. Don’t get me wrong. A clear, concise, compelling statement describing your school’s core purpose can be helpful. Yet, the typical process of writing a mission statement and how they are used are not necessarily central to becoming a faithful and flourishing Christian school.
Allow me to illustrate. Suppose your school decided to write its first mission statement or a new one. Maybe it comes from the Board, with strong support from the administration. You devise a thorough process that seeks to engage and invite input from various stakeholders. However, a small group will probably do the heavy lifting and detailed drafting. After months of conversations and wordsmithing, you come up with a statement, the board approves it, and it finds its way on the website and key publications. Select and motivated leaders probably recite it often in meetings.
Fast forward five years into the future. What now? How many people remember how the statement was developed? Who recalls why one word was selected, and another was omitted? What about those long, nuanced, and substantial discussions that led to the statement? Who remembers any of that? What role does the mission statement play in informing decisions and navigating competing priorities? How many people know and use the statement to inform their work and decisions?
Mission statements can be helpful, but they are not particularly good at telling the story of your school and inviting people into a deeper connection with that story and purpose. They also don’t get into depth about what you believe, teach, and confess as a school. They don’t help people understand what makes your school distinct and worthy of the time and effort. They don’t lead to deep understanding in a way that shows up and shapes the entire school. Too often, mission statements are caged, constrained, controlled, and tamed summaries of your school’s true mission. They reflect the mission in the same way that a caged lion in a zoo gives you insight into the grandeur of such a creation in its natural habitat.
Yet faithful and flourishing Christian schools have a purpose far from tame. They are clear about their shared confession. They embrace a purpose that is bold and relentless and will not be excluded from any aspect of the school. The people in these schools know why they are there, what makes them distinct, the nuances and complexities of living out their mission and being faithful to their shared confession. They get why the school exists and their role in it. They know the mission or purpose of the school with a depth and intimacy that could not possibly be reflected in a concise selection of eighteen to twenty-five words.
Maybe the words of a mission statement are an anchor or reminder, but these flourishing schools reflect a beautiful and inspiring purpose, courageously constrained by their shared confession, that displays itself across the school. It shows up in the stories that people tell one another. It is evident in their rituals and shared practices. It is an undeniable means of decision-making and prioritizing. People become protectors of the mission and shared confession, and many people, not just a couple of leaders, notice when something seems mis-aligned. You can’t possibly last as a faculty or staff member in a school like this for too long without embracing the purpose—because it is so pervasive.
If your school has a mission statement, that is great, but know that having a brilliantly crafted mission statement is not the key to being a faithful and flourishing Christian school. That requires having an all-consuming mission that is fueled by a clear understanding of what you believe, teach, and confess—and then letting all of that shape what your school does and how it does it on a daily basis. It is not easy work, but from my years of learning from such schools, I am confident that it is the best path to distinction and excellence in Christian education. More importantly, it is the path to fidelity and flourishing.
Disclaimer: Do you use AI to write the articles on Substack? The ethical use of AI is an important topic. When new technologies emerge, they often evolve faster than our ability to make sense of the ethical implications. As such, I offer this disclaimer to provide a transparent picture of my own journey and approach. I’ve already made mistakes, even embarrassing ones, but I will strive to quickly learn from them and provide a transparent view of my present approach. As such, this disclaimer will be updated over time.
The full initial draft (in writing or as an audio dictation), words, and ideas for my Substack articles always come from me. From there, I often use AI for editing Substack articles. Specifically, I regularly use Grammarly and/or Microsoft Word’s built-in Spellcheck or Grammar Check (both of which are a form of AI) to aid in proofreading and editing my work on Substack. In instances where I use AI for something other than background research or editing my original work, you can expect that I will cite or note it in the article.
I also regularly use DALL-E to generate the images for many articles. In addition, I sometimes use royalty free images. If credit is required by law, requested by the creator, or simply the courteous thing to do, you can expect to see the credits right below the image.
I continue to evolve in my experimentation with the use of ChatGPT, Grok, CoPilot (and various other ChatBot technologies) to serve as an editor for my Substack publications.
What does this mean? There are three common scenarios, though I hope to experiment with others in the future (and I will update this accordingly):
I write a full first draft in Word, Grammarly, or a word processor, and then submit it to the ChatBot, asking it to serve as an editor, akin to how I have one or more people edit almost anything that is published in my formal capacity. This is also similar to how editors review my manuscripts when they are submitted to a journal, newspaper, or book publisher. By the way, when I write for any of these partners, I never use AI beyond the basic spellcheck / grammar check available in Microsoft Word—not even to use and then cite it.
I record myself speaking on a topic and then place the recording in a ChatBot to transcribe, remove disfluencies, and provide a draft transcript that I can refine before publishing it. This is where I’ve made the most past mistakes. Because the ChatBot is transcribing, it adds its own grammatical interpretations and even takes liberty with sub-titles, organization, corrections, and adding clarifying language. As such, I’m still learning to use prompts that ensure my words, voice, style, and intent dominate—while also achieving a quality, personal, but streamlined approach to sharing ideas. Because this is an evolving practice for me, and also because it sometimes creates a final draft that can be flagged as AI-generated content, expect that when I use this approach, it will be noted at the beginning or end of the article.
I use ChatBots to conduct background research related to topics that I’m writing about, akin to an interactive and advanced search engine. If there are quotes or unique ideas that I include in the article, you can expect that I will give some sort of citation or in-text credit.