What if I don't want to write up a vision or mission statement?

It seems like one of the most important things when putting together a youth ministry is taking the time to write up a vision statement and a mission statement. I can honestly say that after being a Youth Director for 6 months I just now finally wrote down the vision and mission of the youth ministry and I probably will spend the next 6 months evaluating and possibly revising the wording of different things within. But, even if it is more time consuming than putting together a sermon or worship set for a youth service, or maybe even longer than designing an entire month's worth of lessons for your Youth Min 1 class with Phil Vaughn at Simpson University, it is absolutely vital to take the time to do it. The reason being that no matter if you just starting up a ministry from scratch or if you are taking over a ministry that is already in place people will constantly be telling you things that you need to get involved in or how you should run things. In 6 months I have felt this constant tug of war going on around me about how things should be done or what I needed to be doing. None of these "suggestions," as people would call them, are really that bad but the problem would be that if I just did what others suggested I would get burnt out and the ministry would become something that God didn't intend for it to become. The mission and vision statement for the ministry help set up boundaries. They tell us and others that this is the direction that we are going in and these are the things that we will be doing, so if something doesn't fall within these lines then we will not be doing it. I'm sad that it took me this long to finally spend time listening to the Holy Spirit about the actual direction and boundaries of the ministry but I'm excited because I have so much more freedom to be able to say yes or no depending on how things fall into place within the vision. As a sidenote it is so important that we do take that time to listen to the Spirit and that we aren't just writing up something that sounds good because each ministry and community is different and has its own identity which means that each ministry should have its own vision/mission statements. Don't ever just latch on to something someone else is doing or has written down for their own ministry because it sounds good. Take the time to find out what it is that God has put on your heart for the specific ministry you are involved with. It is ok to have others give you advice or input about what they think about the statments, especially if they are also going to be involved in the ministry, but ultimately make sure that you are listening to the Holy Spirit and how He is leading you.

Seriously I am so excited that I finally have this thing written down.

B.