What a way to start the New Year! I had the honor of working with my partner in Leadership Roundtables, Pastor Tracy Weaver, to facilitate a Couple’s Family Charter Retreat this weekend. We had 14 Couples that spent the entire weekend focusing on discerning their family’s purpose and values with God’s intention for their family.

Many people start the New Year by establishing resolutions to drive themselves to new levels of performance in any number of areas. This can be a very positive practice, and certainly can lead to improvements in people’s lives.

The process we went through this weekend was at another level. This was a group of couples, composed of extremely high performing servant leaders,  that wanted to get very intentional about clearly articulating their family’s purpose and values so that it would give direction to their marriage and family activities.

Webster’s Dictionary defines a charter as “a written constitution or description of an organization’s functions”.  In the training I have had in the past from the Blanchard Companies, I have learned that key components to a great charter include purpose, values, norms, key responsibility areas, goals, and communication strategy.

With this in mind this group of servant leaders dedicated an entire weekend to the development of a charter for their family. It was a profound weekend. Through significant instruction, prayer, singing, worship, sharing, and personal reflection, all couples made significant progress on the establishment of their family charter.

This amazing weekend provided many significant lessons on servant leadership and the importance of intentional focus on purpose and values as the foundation for everything.

Servant Leaders:

• Commit significant time and effort to work on purpose and values. This is just as relevant and important in their personal lives as their professional lives.
• Seek help from a number of sources in the establishment of their family charter including spiritual, professional, and peer groups.
• Are vulnerable enough to be totally transparent which leads to break-through improvement, and extreme respect and trust from those in their life.
• Are willing to stretch themselves to areas that might be uncomfortable, but will lead them to new areas of performance and impact. Philippians 4:13 For I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power. 

I don’t know of all the positive impact that will come out of this weekend, but I do know that 14 couples left having a better understanding of their purpose and values, and will now be tracking their activity, decisions, and goals against their purpose and values, and will end up leaving a legacy in which they intended to leave.

Have you taken the time to form a charter for your family? I encourage you to do it. I guarantee it will provide focus for all you do and make a profound difference in your life.

Mark