Knudsen Family Mission Statement:"Calm, Kind, & Confident in a Gospel Centered Home!" -adopted circa 1992(ish)
Steven Covey popularized the Family Mission Statement when our kids were little. We liked the idea and toyed with several variations on the theme above.
We wanted something brief; one sentence maximum. We wanted to make sure the gospel was the central theme. Then we tossed around attributes that felt important and fairly overarching to us.
We narrowed it down to calmness, kindness, and confidence. It wasn't just the alliteration but those traits seemed to encompass the kind of character we hoped for ourselves and our family. And just imagine the alternative to our statement; which would be something like "Angry, Mean, & No Self Esteem in an Uncentered House." (sounds a little frightening!)
Calm: This doesn't come naturally in our high strung personalities so it seemed like a good preface!
Kind: The importance of kindness can never be overstated!
Confidence: Confidence give us the ability to try hard things and to stand up for things we believe in!
We never made a plaque with our mission statement which would have been a nice touch! We probably spent a couple of Family Home Evenings talking about it.
Lately there are lots of posters with the "Keep Calm and Carry On" mantra! Apparently, the slogan was a propaganda poster produced in 1939 by the British government to be used during World War II. But the posters were never put up and someone discovered them in 2000. Now it has become a popular theme for posters, mugs, sweatshirts (of which I'm a proud owner), etc.
I hadn't thought about our family mission statement for awhile but seeing the Keep Calm and Carry On logo reminds me of our original family statement. And, like the unused WWII posters, we probably didn't utilize our mission statement like we could have. But we can certainly always reinstate it! Perhaps, it will take on a 2nd life not unlike the popularity of the British poster!
