3 Reasons to Connect Each of Your Core Values to a Biblical Narrative/Story

This weekend I have been blessed to participate in a "StratOp" retreat with Stan and Gena Granburg, directors of Kairos Church Planting, and the Richardson East Church of Christ. This type of retreat helps the church define their mission, vision, and values--and just as importantly, make plans to live these out.

I want to focus in this post on Core Values. Core values are beliefs and behaviors that are central or core to the church and its members. They are the convictions from which most everything else flows. Or at least, this it is what it is supposed to be.  Unfortunately, these items simply become words on a page that do not impact the church and how it functions.  

At the retreat, we took some possible core values and put them in the context of a narrative. For instance, how did the people of Israel realize their God given mission and vision of entering into the Promised Land of Canaan and claiming it as their inheritance?

One of the ways that Israel accomplished its mission and vision of receiving the Promised Land was by being willing to take risks. This "taking risks for God" could be thought of as a core value. This value is well exhibited at many times in the biblical story of Rahab and the two spies who came into Jericho. The spies had to trust that God would protect them as they went in, and that Rahab would not betray them. Rahab also had to take a risk in joining into the spies' and Israel's mission. 

This narrative leads to a possible articulation of a core value of "taking risks" as the following: "Our bold God will lead us to take uncomfortable risks, partnering with those inside and outside our walls to accomplish the impossible [or to accomplish our mission and vision]"--and this core value is attached to the biblical story of Rahab.

Here are three reasons to attach a narrative like this to a core value:

1. Narratives make the core values memorable. It is often embarrassing how few people in a church, including its leaders, can articulate something like their core values. But narratives/stories are much harder to forget! 

2. Narratives help define what the core value really means. Just using "taking risks" as a core value, without defining, might lead to all kinds of different understandings. Take, for instance, using "sharing" as a core value. Does this refer to sharing our faith, sharing our possessions, sharing our sins? A biblical narrative story, such as the woman at the well who shares her faith, could very much help define with "sharing" means. Attaching a biblical narrative/story to a core value is much better than simply attaching a single verse which may be ambiguous without context and little defined.

3. Narratives help us see ourselves in them. That is why, for instance, Israel repeatedly referred back to the Exodus as their defining story. This biblical story gave them hope, and they saw how God could, just like with Israel in Egyptian bondage, powerfully respond and save them. So as a church assigns biblical stories/narratives to their core values, they can begin to also add to this defining stories on this core value from TODAY.

What if every church and all of its members decided to make this idea of taking risks for God one of their core values and lived it out? Would not many more people be reached for God? If we want this to happen, we will attach defining biblical and modern day stories to each of these core values.

What are your church's core values, whether written or simply assumed? What biblical stories/narratives could you attach to these core values? What modern day stories could be added to these core values as well?

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Comment by Jayaraj.E on January 27, 2015 at 5:57am

Great post! thanks for sharing this!!

Comment by James Nored on January 25, 2015 at 6:52pm

Darryl, the Exodus and the Christ event are indeed the two major acts of the Bible!

Comment by James Nored on January 25, 2015 at 6:52pm

Hi Darry! It is great to hear from you. You are correct that even narrative can be taken out of context. An example of this is "moralizing" certain passages of the Old Testament. As if the primary point of David and Goliath was how to be brave, rather than seeing David as an archetype of Christ who defeats the enemy with a single blow because God is behind him.

I do think, however, that it is harder to take a narrative out of context than a single verse. Still, your point is well taken.

Comment by Darryl Willis on January 24, 2015 at 9:43pm

I think the overall stories we should hitch our values on are what you mention in point 3: what Bruggeman calls credo and kerygma: the Exodus and the Gospel--which upon reflection are two sides of the same story. God's redemption and rescue of a people in order to redeem and rescue creation (all creation: human and non-human--Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 21-22). Everything in the Hebrew scripture points forward or backward to Exodus and everything in the New Testament points forward or backwards to Gospel.

Comment by Darryl Willis on January 24, 2015 at 9:37pm

I don't disagree with your overall point.

The danger is taking a narrative out of context and making it mean something it was not intended to convey. While I am a huge fan of narrative (and tying our own stories to the overall story of the Bible), it is possible to take not only a verse out of context but a pericope or even an entire section of a book out of its context.

Perhaps the best approach is to allow the narrative tell us what value we should own rather than determining what our values are and then attempting to find the narrative that fits the value.

Comment by James Nored on January 24, 2015 at 9:35pm

Thank you, Ron! I am glad that you find the posts helpful, and I appreciate you sharing this. It is always great to learn new tools and new insights to biblical texts.

Comment by Ron Furgerson on January 24, 2015 at 4:20pm

I found this very valuable.  It certainly is a method for helping to identify and solidify what our core values really are.  And, in the future when studying Scripture I'll be thinking more clearly about what core values may be embedded in the narrative that I should adopt as a core value.  As always I appreciate your postings. <>/p>

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