2/19/2021
In January, the Silver Lake Conference Center Board of Directors met for a planning retreat. During the virtual session, we engaged in exercises to help focus our discussion around evolving mission and vision statements for Silver Lake. These activities will help inform our project of developing a strategic plan for Silver Lake.
Mission statements are used by an organization to describe, in simple and concise terms, its purpose for being. It is usually one sentence or short paragraph. Focused and specific, mission statements are part of an organization’s foundation.
A vision statement is aspirational. What does the organization hope to achieve in the future.
And the strategic plan is the nuts and bolts of how the organization will be true to mission and achieve vision.
Organizations, and specifically church organizations, tend to make the mission statements long and wordy and this detracts from the ability to clearly define the core of our reasons for operating.
In a quest to develop a new mission statement, board members answered the following questions:
- Imagine the most successful year in SLCC history. What does it look, sound, and feel like?
- Campers leaving with a new sense of self.
- Feeling God’s love.
- Value of unplugging and taking that feeling and SLCC back to their daily lives.
- Not financially measured.
- Time to reflect and move on.
- Music.
- United sounds of Joy.
- Diversity.
- Be able to identify something that has changed tangibly and noticeably from our campers of color feeling at home.
- What is one word that represents SLCC mission, vision, values, goals for 2021?
- Inclusive
- Acceptance
- Transformation/Transformative
- Messenger
- Nurture
- Foundation
- Safe
- Hope
- Love
- Connect
- Playful
- Joyful
- Renew
-
What would a perfect year at Silver Lake look like?
- A place where people can connect with each other and with God.
- It’s not what we bring in, but what we send out.
- Environmental and Financial stability.
- Provide a safe and accessible experience of drawing closer to God and equip participants to bring that experience out into the world.
- Encountering God’s love in Creation.
- Equipped to go and transform the world.
- A welcoming, safe and transformative place where a diverse Christian community can bond, learn and grow.
- Accessible safe sustainable year-round vehicle for growth, transformation & faith formation.
- More accessible to churches (affordability, awareness).
- The most important thing is the people.
Our challenge is to craft all this into a mission statement that is short enough to easily remember and recite and broad enough to define and capture the importance of Silver Lake Conference Center. This will be followed by a vision statement that defines our aspirations for this ministry. And finally, a strategic plan that will harmonize the roles, functions, and activities of the ministry so we can fulfill the mission and vision.
Our work continues and as it does, I invite you to become part of the process. Consider the mission and answer the questions posed here. Do you have an idea for a new mission statement for SLCC? Your input will be heard.
Email your responses or any other suggestions to me, Cindy Cayer.
As the Board is working and wordsmithing our way to a new mission statement, we are challenged to keep it simple.
What mission statement will capture the passion of our stakeholders, be used as a tool for decision making and source of motivation? What is Silver Lake Conference Center’s purpose?
Cindy Cayer
Silver Lake Conference Center Board of Directors
"If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else” – Yogi Berra
