First Blog Hop: Family Mission Statements | The Red Headed Hostess

Years ago I was a counselor for the Especially For Youth (EFY) program.

One week, while at BYU, our session director was a professor named Matthew Richardson.  After the week long session was over, he invited some counselors over to his lovely home.  I don’t remember what the house looked like, or how big it was, or how it was decorated.  I just remember that it felt good and that right in the heart of their home, they had a really large  framed “Family Mission Statement”.  It had statements of who they were, what they were about and a few family expectations. That has really left an impression on me – and I thank him for that.

I think it is really important to have clear statements like this that can guide our families.  I have something like this hanging right outside my seminary classroom door.  It is convenient because whenever I need to pull a student out and chat with them in a disciplinary fashion… the statement is right there and I can refer to it and help them understand how their behavior was violating some of the principles.   I find that is much more effective than just asking them to “stop it”.

If you are reading this thinking, “I’d like to do this…”

then let me give you a couple of suggestions.  First, let everyone contribute.  I think we all are more invested in the thing we are a part of creating.   Second, use the Family Proclamation as your guide.  And third, consider this quote by President Henry B. Eyring:

  • “Heavenly Father has assigned us to a great variety of stations to strengthen and, when needed, to lead travelers to safety.  Our most important and powerful assignments are in the family.”  (April 2010 General Conference)

I know that many of you have been working on family mission statements to share today.  Please link up below so we can all hop around and glean from you!

So – now it’s your turn to share! Do you have a family mission statement? Write a blog post telling us about it then link to it below. You are also welcome to link any posts you have written about the Family Proclamation. Please be sure to use the link to your post not to your blog’s home page. This linky will be up on all four blogs but you only have to enter your post once. It will automatically show up on the other blogs as well. Easy for you

 

 

Remember to visit the three other blogs hosting this celebration!

They have great things going on each day!  Montserrat from Chocolate on My Cranium,  Jocelyn from We Talk of Christ,  and Jaime from Welcome to the Madness.  Be sure to visit each blog every day!

 

27 comments

  1. Brother Richardson was one of my favorite religion professors!! 12 years later, I still refer to the scripture markings he suggested we make in our Doctrine & Covenants!

  2. It’s been great to see the examples people are sharing, thanks so much for the opportunity to hop around the blog world and see they way so many different families are strengthening each other.

  3. You guys are the best for doing this Celebration!!! Thanks for sharing all your ideas. I love how you have all come up with different ways to present Family Mission Statements. You all ROCK!

  4. My cousin and her husband have:
    1. Relationship with God
    2. Lifelong Learning
    3. Hardworking
    4. Look people in the eyes when speaking
    5. Time and Money management
    I have always enjoyed this, simple yet powerful!

  5. I just happened to stumble on here .. the day after my spouse and I wrote our family mission statement! I had Professor Richardson when I was at BYU — I took his Marriage and Family Relations class when I was engaged and it truly impacted my life forever. I’ll never forget the class where he shared his families mission statment (and talked about how they really truly lived it and incorporated it into their home and their lives!). A few years later I read Covey’s habits for families and I knew we needed a mission statement! Well, after many discussions and lots of talk … we finally did it. And it’s a wonderful feeling. And when we read it we know it’s “US” — it’s not something someone could copy and paste and apply to their family. It really is what our family is all about and what we value most. Now we just need to introduce it to the kiddos (6 and unders) to get their input and talk about what it means. I look forward to revising it as our kids are really old enough to understand and improve our statment together with us. Thanks for sharing!

  6. My wife heard someone talk in church about the importance of having a family motto/mission statement last year, so we sat down with our kids (5,3,1) during Family Home Evening and ask them to help us come up with something. Here is what we came up with…

    We are the Robbins family. We strive to be like Jesus and treat others with kindness. We are honest and true. We are loyal to each other. We are helpful and hard working. We never give up or take the easy way out. We have fun together. We are the Robbins family.

    We have this written on a poster board, and we read it each week at the first part of our Family Home Evening lesson. Often when we discipline our kids, we refer back to this vision statement. It’s been helpful for our family.

  7. I took several classes from Brother Richardson, and his speaking about his family mission statement is one of the things that sticks out most in my mind, as well. What a grand idea!

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