One of the most painful processes for me as a leader is the development of mission, vision, and values statements. Like me, you’ve probably met with a team of co-workers or volunteers to brainstorm for hours on end, trying to answer the questions: Why do we exist? Who are we? and What are we trying to accomplish? With enough prayer, whiteboards, coffee, and a few good wordsmiths, you can craft some meaningful statements for your church. But there’s actually something harder than getting the values down on paper, and that’s doing them. 

There’s plenty of disagreement about the exact definition of values, but here’s my take on it. Values are not the same as your mission or vision. Vision says where you’re going. Mission says how you’re going to get there. Values indicate the kind of church you want to be while you’re on the journey. Values can be a single word, like “Hospitality,” or a phrase, like “Making Disciples Who Make Disciples.”

Regardless of how they’re stated, the major tension associated with defining your values is simple: Values do not equal competencies.

In other words, sometimes we don’t actually know how to do the kinds of things we say we value. The problem with this is that values create expectations, and the distance between expectation and reality has a name: frustration.

Sometimes we don’t actually know how to do the kinds of things we say we value. 

When we say hospitality is a value, but guests don’t feel welcomed, guests are frustrated and so are we. If we say generosity is a value, but individuals in the congregation aren’t growing in the grace of giving, frustration ensues. Unfortunately, simply listing well-crafted values statements on our Web sites won’t positively impact our ministries. Impact follows implementation.

So the question is, how do we implement our values? To ask it another way, how do we actually become who we say we are? The answer comes down to the difference between values and competencies. Values are intangible and are based on the feelings of people in your church. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy to talk about them and they are the kinds of statements you use to energize and motivate your team or your congregation. Competencies, though are tangible and are based on specific things people in your church do. You can point to them. You can teach someone how to do them. They’re usually not the most exciting things to talk about, but when they’re done well, they make people feel amazing.

Here are two things you can do to start thinking about how to operationalize your values.

1. ASK yourself and others the right questions.

• Survey people inside and outside of your church. List your values for them and then ask if they think your values are actual or aspirational. They’ll tell you.
• For each value, ask: Who can teach us how to do this? It may be a local business person or someone in your church. Then go learn from those people.
• For each value, ask: What books can we read about this subject that may help us live out our values?
• For each value, ask: Do we know a person or organization that fulfills this value? What kinds of things do they actually do to make the value a reality?

2. BRAINSTORM an action bullet list for each value.

Actions are how you will “do” your values. Here’s what a bullet list might look like for the following set of values.

a. Hospitality

• Our volunteers smile as they serve.
• We walk people to their destination instead of point.
• We have clear and informative signage.
• We make sure there are plenty of seats available.
• Every volunteer can provide adequate information about our church to a guest.

b. Making disciples who make disciples

• We provide monthly disciple-makers’ training to our congregation.
• Every person in leadership is personally discipling someone.
• We publicly celebrate weekly (via story, video, etc.) those who are actively making disciples.
• We choose not to do ________, so believers in our church can have time to intentionally disciple others.

c. Excellence in all we do

• When something is broken, we address it immediately.
• We build evaluation into our weekly schedule and we evaluate everything we do.
• Staff and volunteers have permission and obligation to tell the truth about things happening in the church.
• We choose not to do ________, because we cannot do it with excellence.
• We choose not to do ________, because it would siphon off resources we need to do the most important things with excellence.

If you have stated values for your church, it might be time to take another look at them. Are they actual or aspirational? Would people inside and outside of the church say they are true statements? Does your church really know how to do them? Until you have the competencies to make them happen, values are only aspirational. I believe today is your day to take those values statements off the whiteboard and make them a realty!