An Eight-Word Mission Statement -- FPC sermons excerpt

Jesus was a man on a mission.

He healed the sick, fed the five thousand, gave sight to the blind, raised the dead, washed the feet of the disciples, commanded them to love one another, and showed them the way to God.

His mission was clear. But did he have a “mission statement”? A short and memorable expression of his purpose?

Something like: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit”?

No, that can’t be it — that’s the mission statement of Starbucks. This coffee company is on a mission “to inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

That sounds awfully spiritual, doesn’t it? In the inspiration business, we Christians have some serious competition.

Mission statements have become big business, with a wide range of organizations crafting them in an attempt to capture their core values, purposes, and goals. The problem with most of them is that they wind up sounding complex and boring, such as the one that reads: “Our challenge is to assertively network economically sound methods of empowerment so that we may continually negotiate performance-based infrastructures.” What does that even mean?

Jesus would never want his mission to be so complex and boring. As followers of Christ, we can do better.

A man named Kevin Starr has seen a ton of mission statements. He is executive director of the Mulago Foundation, which matches investment dollars with socially-minded businesses. “Most companies, regardless of their sectors, have a mission statement,” he tells the Harvard Business Review (October 22, 2010). “And most are awash in jargon and marble-mouthed pronouncements. Worse still, these gobbledy-gook statements are often forgotten by, misremembered, or flatly ignored by frontline employees.”

If you want to receive some investment dollars from Kevin Starr and the Mulago Foundation, you better have a clear and compelling mission statement. Fortunately, Starr gives some excellent advice: You must express your mission in no more than eight words.

That’s the max: An eight-word mission statement.

He also requires that applicants follow this format: “Verb, target, outcome.” Start with a strong action word, name the target of the work, and describe the outcome. Verb, target, outcome.

Some good examples:

“Save endangered species from extinction.”

“Improve African children’s health.”

And since this is Memorial Day weekend, a couple of examples from the military. The mission of the United States Marine Corps: “Win our Nation’s Battles. Develop Quality Citizens.”

And the United States Air Force: “Fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace.”

Clear and compelling mission statements, using eight words or fewer. Such statements are not likely to be forgotten, misremembered, or ignored.

So what should be included in a mission statement for the followers of Jesus, based on the words that Jesus spoke on the night before his death? “If you love me,” he says to his disciples, “you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). That’s a punchy start, but this first verse alone exceeds the eight-word limit.

“I will ask the Father,” promises Jesus, “and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever” (v. 16). Advocate comes from the Greek word parakletos — one who exhorts, comforts, helps, and makes an appeal on another person’s behalf. More than one English translation exists for parakletos, which is why one Bible will render the word “Advocate,” another will say “Comforter,” and still another, “Counselor.” All of these English words describe the “Spirit of truth” that God will send to the disciples, and Jesus predicts that “you know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you” (v. 17).

This is a good start to an authentic Christian mission statement: Love Christ, keep his commandments, receive the Advocate, Comforter, Counselor, Spirit of truth.

Just One Drop -- FPC sermon excerpt

The water looked clean, but the children kept getting sicker and sicker.

No one knew what to do.

“One time, I had four children all in the hospital at once.” So says a pastor named Justin, in the African nation of Rwanda. He did not understand about germs and disease transmission in the local water.

Then a couple named Larry and Carolyn McBride showed up on a mission trip from Saddleback Church in California. Saddleback is one of the churches I visited on sabbatical, the megachurch led by pastor Rick Warren. After seeing children carry dirty river water over long distances, the McBrides returned home with a deep desire to do something for thirsty African children.

The McBrides gathered friends for prayer and planning. They began to craft clean water systems for hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and pastors’ homes. Their project, called the Clean Water Initiative, also created teams to equip hundreds of Rwandan church volunteers to improve health and sanitation in 116 communities.

The Clean Water Initiative provided a water filter for Pastor Justin’s home and funded a well in the community. “We have people coming from all over to get clean water and we haven’t been back to the hospital since,” reports Pastor Justin. “It has changed our lives and given us hope for the future.”

Teams are now taking Clean Water Initiative technology and education around the world — from Argentina to East Timor. They are even going to Haiti, to help combat the outbreak of cholera. Larry and Carolyn McBride dream that “no child would miss another day of school or die of such a preventable death.”

New life begins with just one drop.

Jesus knows this, which is why he cries out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37-38). Whenever the Bible speaks of “living water,” it is pointing us in several directions. Living water can mean fresh, running water — water from a spring, as opposed to a container. It can also mean life-giving water. In this case, Jesus is suggesting both, since he knows that fresh, running water is also life-giving water — something that everyone needs for a life of health and vitality.

Just ask the children of Rwanda.

But there is a third meaning that is offered by John in the very next verse. “Now [Jesus] said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (v. 39). John is convinced that the living water offered by Jesus is nothing less than the fresh, running, life-giving Holy Spirit of God, which comes to the followers of Jesus on the Day of Pentecost, which we will celebrate next month.

Living Water. Holy Spirit. Both change our lives. Both give us hope for the future.

400 Years of King James -- FPC sermon excerpt

“Thou shalt commit adultery.”

That’s what the King James Version of the Bible said, when its 1631 edition hit the bookstores. Adultery, instead of being forbidden, was suddenly required.

It was a typo, of course. The printers were heavily fined, a correction was made, and the 1631 edition became known as The Wicked Bible.

But this was not the only mistake in the King James Version, which was published for the first time on May 2, 1611, and is now celebrating its 400^th birthday. The 1612 version says that “Printers have persecuted me without cause.”

Oh, those bad, bad printers.

The word “printers” was a misprint, of course — Psalm 119 should have complained about “princes” (v. 161).

A few years later, printers caused problems again. In 1795, the King James Version had Jesus say, “Let the children first be killed” (Mark 7:27). What he really asked was that the children first be “filled” — that is, fed.

Just six years later, the “murmurers” of Jude 16 became “murderers.” “These are murderers, complainers, walking after their own lusts,” said Jude. This edition quickly became known as The Murderers’ Bible.

The Wicked Bible and The Murderers’ Bible. Both are slightly botched editions of the King James Version of the Bible, the most influential Scripture translation of all time. The publication of this version was huge, and despite printing errors it has had an incredible impact on Christian faith and English literature for the past four centuries. When most of us conjure up the 23^rd psalm, we hear the words, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul” (vv. 1-3).

Nothing else will do. I’ve been reading this version at funerals for 25 years. For many of us, Psalm 23 simply has to be in the King James Version, the KJV. If there was a Scripture verse on a Mother’s Day card this morning, I bet it was the KJV.

As poetic and comforting as this version is, it was born in a time of conflict. When King James took the throne of England in 1603, the country was embroiled in theological controversy. The establishment Anglicans were feuding with a group of reformers called the Puritans, and King James made the decision to side with the Anglicans — the group that posed the least threat to his authority. But he was a shrewd politician, and knew that he needed to extend an olive branch to the Puritans. He agreed to commission a new translation of the Bible, one that took seriously the original Greek and Hebrew texts. The result was the Bible that we now call the KJV.

So what does it mean for us to take the Bible seriously, not only as a political and cultural force, but as the primary source of God’s word to us? This 400^th birthday of the KJV is an opportunity to reflect on the power of the word of God — a word that has sidestepped conflicts between Anglicans and Puritans, survived printing errors in numerous editions, and retained its ability to bring a message from God straight into our hearts and minds today.

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?” asks the KJV of Psalm 119, verse 9. “By taking heed thereto according to thy word.”

Wherewithal … taking heed … thereto … this is the King’s English, certainly not the language we speak today. But the raw power of this verse punches through such flowery expressions, reminding us to keep our way pure by living according to the word of God.

America, the biblical -- USA TODAY, May 2, 2011

The civic life of the United States was first defined by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and later modified by documents such as the Emancipation Proclamation. But whether religious or not, Americans have also been shaped by the King James Version of the Bible, which was published for the first time exactly 400 years ago, on May 2, 1611.

It was commissioned by King James of England, who faced a theological controversy between the establishment Anglicans and the reform-minded Puritans. James sided with the Anglicans, but extended an olive branch to the Puritans by supporting this new translation of the Bible, which took seriously the original Greek and Hebrew texts.

The King James Version is the most influential Scripture translation of all time, molding Christian faith and English literature for the past four centuries. It has also played a role in political and moral debate throughout the history of our country.

John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, spoke in 1630 of a "city upon a hill" -- an image drawn on by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in their descriptions of America, with Reagan famously speaking of a "shining city." This line is based on the King James Version, which says, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid" (Matthew 5:14).

"Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof" is inscribed on the Liberty Bell and on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty (Leviticus 25:10). During the Civil War, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison changed the motto of his anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator to this verse from the King James Version. Facing the prospect of a nation half slave and half free, Abraham Lincoln said, "a house divided against itself cannot stand" (Matthew 12:25).

From Jefferson David to MLK

On the other side of the Civil War, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, said that slavery was established by God and "is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation."

Lyndon B. Johnson was fond of quoting Isaiah 1:18, "Come now, and let us reason together," as he would attempt to build consensus. Not surprisingly, preacher and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted the King James Version when he said, "I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; 'and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together'" (Isaiah 40:4-5).

More recently, President Obama has challenged us to treat others as we would like to be treated, and to be our "brother's keeper" (Genesis 4:9).

"The Bible has played a prominent role in shaping American culture," says John Fea, a historian at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., and author of Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? "Throughout American history the Bible has been used to justify war and peace, slavery and abolition, civil rights and political liberty, secession and union, and the idea that America is a Christian nation."

The King James Version has been used in a variety of ways to justify a wide range of views — not all of them constructive or morally acceptable.

America is grounded in the Constitution, which never mentions God or Jesus, and forbids the establishment of religion. Because of this, we will never be a Christian nation. But our use of the King James Version has made us a biblical nation, and we will be such a country as long as we turn to this book for inspiration and guidance.

So what does it mean to be biblical but not Christian? In such a nation, we are inspired by lines of scripture such as the verse on the Liberty Bell, "Proclaim Liberty throughout the land," as well as Reagan's vision of America as a "shining city." The Bible also persuades us to become a more just and compassionate society, as we rise to the challenge of the scripture-saturated dream of King and the ethical appeal of Obama to be our "brother's keeper."

Whether Americans pick up the King James Version or a more modern translation, they should feel free to use the Bible to inspire and persuade. It is a religious text that permeates our history and traditions, and offers a common language for the discussion of spiritual and moral concerns — as LBJ said, "Come now, let us reason together."

A religion-free zone

But citizens in a country based on religious freedom must always be allowed to disagree with scriptural admonitions. The Bible should never be used as the basis of legislation. Sarah Palin was wrong, in May of last year, to challenge Americans to "go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant — they're quite clear — that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments."

God does not appear in our Constitution, and no more than three of the Ten Commandments would be appropriate for civil law — specifically, "thou shalt not kill," "thou shalt not steal," and "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" (Exodus 20). The legislation of other commandments would either create an inappropriate and unenforceable law ("honor thy father and thy mother") or violate the Constitution's rule against making laws respecting an establishment of religion ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me.").

I celebrate the birthday of the King James Version, and look forward to its continued use in public discourse, to inspire and to persuade. But I do not support legislation based on the Bible, or any effort to label America a Christian nation. And I say that as a proud and practicing Christian.

Our nation is well served by the Constitution's guarantee of the free exercise of religion, which gives us unrestrained liberty to gather for worship and read the King James Version, or any other sacred text we want.

Henry G. Brinton is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia and author of Balancing Acts: Obligation, Liberation, and Contemporary Christian Conflicts.

Sidebar:

'Salt of the earth'

In his book Bible, Gordon Campbell points that the King James Version

is present in our daily language in unexpected ways:

- When people say they are "at their wit’s end," the source is Psalm 107:27.

- An escape by "the skin of my teeth" has its roots in Job 19:20.

- "Salt of the earth" comes from Matthew 5:13.

- "Riotous living" comes from the parable of the prodigal son, Luke 15:13.

- "Thorn in the flesh" is grounded in 2 Corinthians 12:7.