Remain True to Your Mission

Without careful attention, faith-based organizations will inevitably drift from their founding purpose and mission. It’s that simple. It will happen.

This is the simple conclusion of over two years of research on the topic of Mission Drift.

Consider just a few prominent examples:

 

1. Harvard 

An early mission statement of Harvard University reads, “To be plainly instructed and consider well that the main end of your life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ.”

Harvard’s seal still contains its motto, Veritas, surrounded by the words Christo et Ecclesiae, meaning “Truth for Christ and the Church.”

Harvard’s founders created it to be a ministry training school, anchored in Truth.

Only 80 years after its founding, Harvard’s identity was shifting. Concerned by Harvard’s secularization, New England pastors founded another university to be a new stronghold of Christian higher education in 1701.

Veritas (Truth) wasn’t a radical enough motto for them. These pastors hoped to avoid the drift they saw at Harvard. So the founders of this new institution made their motto Lux et Veritas (Light and Truth).

The school is known as Yale University. Today, neither Harvard nor Yale resembles the universities their founders envisioned.

 

2. The Y

A man named George Williams started a Bible study in 1844 for displaced young men on the streets of London. Rapidly growing, these Bible studies became a movement and the Young Man’s Christian Association (YMCA) was created. Its early champion in bringing the YMCA to the United States was the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody.

But along the way, the YMCA substituted its mission—to share the Gospel—for one of its outreach strategies: fitness gyms. I love the Y and have been a member. But the Y no longer resembles its founder’s passion.

 

3. ChildFund

Even having “Christian” in your name is insufficient to safeguard your mission from Drift.Consider Christian Children’s Fund.In 1938, a Presbyterian minister founded the child sponsorship organization to share the Gospel and meet basic needs of children. By 1994, the organization served nearly 2 million children through child sponsorships with a budget of over 100 million dollars. You may remember the iconic 1990s Christian Children’s Fund infomercials with Hollywood star Sally Struthers.

But in the 1990s, Christian Children’s Fund’s very identity was called into question.In an interview with Christianity Today, Thomas Naylor, a former board member, said, “This organization has nothing to do with Christianity.”A decade later, Christian Children’s Fund president, Anne Goddard, acknowledged the change in its identity: “An organization changes slowly, and then all of a sudden you realize the changes have happened so much that you need to step back and [see if you are] putting out the name that really reflects who you are.”

In 2009, it changed its name to ChildFund.

 

These examples are just the beginning of a very long list of organizations which were founded with a clear and compelling Gospel mission, yet slowly drifted. 

 

Choosing to remain Mission True

As prevalent as drift is, it is not inevitable. In our research, we discovered organizations like Compassion International, InterVarsity, the Crowell Trust, and Youth for Christ—organizations which have grown, professionalized, and changed, but still remain Mission True.

What sets Mission True organizations apart? First, they believe that Mission Drift will happen—unless they safeguard against it. Even more important, they believe that their Christ-centered identity is worth protecting. “Ministries need to remember how important it is not to sell off the vision when times are tough,” reflected Fred Smith, president of The Gathering, a community of Christian givers.

“It’s like selling the family heirlooms. You have some money but the loss is enormous,” he said.

​You and I can’t predict what will happen to our organization—and the churches and organizations we love. But we can make decisions today that can strengthen the core mission long after we’re gone.