Why You Need Core Values and 3 Questions to Help You Find Them
If you've ever listened to any fitness-guru jargon, you've likely heard about the importance of having a "strong core." This refers to the set of muscles that support your pelvis, hips, spine, and back in general. What most people really mean when they use that term is that they want to have a chiseled set of abs! The science seems to prove that when you have a strong core, your overall health, flexibility, and stature benefit greatly. But no one obtains a strong core without giving a lot of time, effort, and sweat to developing those muscles. Thus, the reason that most of us just settle for some arm bands in the morning and a walk after dinner.
Don't worry, this blog isn't taking a turn towards fitness advice (I'm not qualified to give any) but this week I have been thinking a lot about developing a strong core to build our lives on.
THE WORD
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock." -Matthew 7:24-25
This past Sunday, as I preached yet another sermon on the dreaded topic of money and giving (*gasp*) it dawned on me that at the root of so many financial problems is a lack of clarity and vision about what's important in life. Actually, I would argue that a lack of clear vision and values is behind virtually ALL of the problems that arise in our marriage, families, and careers.
Jesus ended His famous Sermon on the Mount by instructing the listeners to not simply take His words to heart, but apply them and specifically to build on them. In other words, Jesus was giving them a set of abs to support everything else in their lives (it's a metaphor, just go with it).
WHY ESTABLISHING CORE VALUES IS IMPORTANT
The absolute best marriage advice Jill and I were given before we tied the knot was to discuss and nail down what things in life were most important to us. By establishing a list of core values, we would be laying out a blueprint of the kind of marriage we would cultivate and the kind of family we would raise.
Everyone has core values, the vast majority of people are just unaware of them. Most people are hesitant to discover what they are because they're not particularly happy with them.
Saying your core values out loud and being intentional about prioritizing them in your day to day life helps put everything else in order. Your values tell you what you should (and shouldn't) spend money on. Your values tell you where the majority of your time should be spent and they guide you in what things you should say "yes" to as well as "no."
Simply put, your values are what will help you accomplish the calling on your life.
3 QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU DETERMINE YOUR CORE VALUES
What Am I Passionate About?
Don't get too excited, the other two will not be as easy, but this is important to acknowledge. What makes you come alive?
Psalm 37:4 instructs us to "delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." As much as I'd like to think this means that I get what I want, in reality it means when I submit to God's ways, He shapes my heart to desire what HE wants. God is not only the giver of what we desire, He is the supplier of our desires themselves!
We tend to talk a lot about all of the sinful desires we're born with, and rightfully so. But we are also born with God-given desires and gifts that glorify Him and can be used for His kingdom. So ask yourself, what things in life am I really good at and what makes me come alive?
I once had a mentoring pastor give advice that I've never forgotten. He said, "We tend to focus a lot on growing in our weaknesses and as a result we neglect our strengths. You'd do better to surround yourself with people who are strong where you're weak and to focus more on becoming better at what you're good at."
Bottom line: lean in to the things you were made to do, and give them priority in your life!
What Do I Lack?
After you get done with your passion list, brace yourself for making a poo list. Here's the good thing about core values: they keep us healthy. But so do vegetables, and dentist appointments, and colonoscopies (sticking with the poo theme).
At first, you will lead yourself by picking and choosing what things will be at the core of your life, but the goal is that eventually these values will lead you. In setting core values for your life, you need to have enough self-awareness to recognize where there are major pitfalls in your discipline and day to day rhythms.
In 2 Corinthians 9 the Apostle Paul is taking up an offering (like a good ol' fashioned preacher) and as he is doing so, he instructs the Corinthians to give "what you have determined in your hearts" and not "under compulsion." In other words, don't let your actions be led by your emotions, let your emotions be led by your actions.
Setting in place a strong value-system is vital to setting in place a life that honors God and impacts those around you. Ask yourself the hard question: in what ways do I really need to be stretched?
What Does God Value?
When we are born again, the Father adopts us and we adopt the culture of Heaven. What God values, we value.
Jesus ended His sermon with one final instruction: obey everything I just said. For context, He gave roughly 30 different commands in that one sermon. Including, love and pray for your enemy, give to the needy, cut off anything that leads you to sin, and turn the other cheek when someone hits you.
This question is the MOST important question of the three. We've been given the Word of God as our governing authority and it's the lens through which we must see everything else in life. So before you begin establishing personal core values, it's most important to search the Word for Heaven's values. What meant so much to Jesus that He both repeated and demonstrated it often?
PERSONAL EXAMPLES
I won't share all of our values but I'll list a few that will hopefully provide some guidance.
STEWARDSHIP - Jill and I highly value stewardship, which means we want to manage well whatever comes into our possession. On a practical level this means we fix things around the house when they're broken and keep our house in order (as well as you can with energetic kids). But on a deeper level, this governs what things we say "yes" and "no" to. If we can't do it well, we won't do it at all. So, when opportunities, invitations, and requests come, we look at our calendar, we look at our workload, and we remember this value and if we are unable to steward it well, our value empowers us to decline. Many people struggle to say no because they lack a vision for what things are most important in their life. Having core values has empowered me to be at peace with "missing out" or letting people down" because every time I say no to a request, I'm saying yes to a core value in my life that is in place to keep me healthy.
CHURCH - I know what you're thinking, "Of course you value church, you're a pastor!" Well, just for context, I established this value before I was in ministry and even before I met Jill. I determined that one of the things I was looking for in a wife was someone who highly valued being a part of the Church. Regardless of whether we pastor the rest of our lives or not, the Church is a non-negotiable for us. We will raise our kids in Church, prioritize it over sports and extracurricular activities, and invest our time, treasure, and talents in the advancing of the Kingdom through the local body of believers. We don't just champion our own Church either, we are supportive and huge proponents of all Churches who are doing the work of the kingdom.
HEALTH - I love running. I'm passionate about it. Movement is also one of the main ways I connect with God. Jill and I have always both been highly active. We played sports growing up and we spent much of our first few years running together. Well... she said she was running away from me, but it felt like we were running together to me! Growing up, I watched many people go through major life transitions throughout the years and struggle to keep their health in check. Many people get married and naturally start gaining weight. Once you have kids, it can feel impossible to maintain an exercise routine while juggling all that comes with raising a family. But the moment we established this as a core value, it meant, in every new season we determined this would be a part of our routine and rhythms. As frugal (and some might say tight) as I am when it comes to money, we each hold gym memberships and I invest in running races a couple of times a year because it's what keeps me healthy and health is a value in our home.
MISSIONS - Jill and I would both probably tell you that we "fell in love" with each other on a mission trip. That might be a bit of a dramatic-retelling, but we saw each other's hearts on display and knew on our first time out of the country, while serving others, that each other was who we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with. However, that's not the reason we value missions. Our love for missions is about our love for Jesus and His command to go into all nations with the gospel and make disciples. In over 12 years of marriage, Jill or I have gone out of the country on missions almost every year. We give to missions, we champion missionaries, and we want this to remain a core part of our lives. We knew that once we started getting busy with leading in ministry and having a family it would be easy to neglect this call to the global church in our personal lives. So, we made it a core value and therefore it sits at the bedrock of our home. In our hallway we have a magnet map of the world where we mark the countries that we've ministered in. Our kids look at it often and get excited about putting a new one on each time.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this doesn't come off as preachy or unrealistic. If you've never thought about this before, my encouragement is to simply start seeking the Lord and letting Him speak to you. Core values will not be established over night, and they're different for everyone!
Our pastor team recently wrestled through a new set of core values for our church that will help guide our people relationally as we grow. Over the course of a couple of months we nailed down 12 different core values that we are going to begin teaching our people through in 2025. Nothing of value comes easily or quickly, but once you have them in place, even if it's just on a post-it note in your bedroom or on the backscreen of your phone, this will be a game-changer in your life!
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