Core Values

Integrity

We value diligence to live in the Truth and to do what we promise, striving for authenticity and transparency in our relationships with God and others.

What behaviors destroy integrity?

• Attempting to hide information
• Failing to practice what we ask of others
• Failing to fulfill our promises

What behaviors build integrity?

• Transparent relationships
• Never asking others to do anything that we would not be willing to do ourselves
• Fulfilling our promises
• Readily admitting mistakes with genuine humility

Trust

We choose to trust and assume positive motivations over the natural tendency of suspicion and negativity in our relationships with fellow workers. Our motto is to “fill the empty spaces in our relationships with grace,” meaning when we lack information or fail to understand our fellow workers, our default setting is basic trust in one another.

What behaviors destroy trust?

• Competition between workers
• Lack of follow-through
• Falsifying information
• Withholding praise
• Inconsistency and lack of predictability
• Making excuses rather than accepting responsibility for failures
• Failing to clear up misunderstandings as quickly as they arise in relationships

What behaviors build trust?

• Sharing information
• Openly discussing disappointments
• Soliciting and implementing people’s ideas when appropriate
• Refusing to assign motive when we are unsure of it
• Establishing and communicating expectations, standards, and ground rules
• Asking the prior question of trust: Are my words and actions building trust or undermining it?

Interdependence

We believe God desires that we work together in the spirit of unity as team players, partnering together to embrace a larger vision and accomplish a greater task that is beyond the capacity of any of the individuals involved.

What behaviors destroy interdependence?

• Encouraging leaders to believe they have all the answers
• Encouraging leaders to believe they must solve all the problems
• Allowing people to blame co-workers for failures or problems
• Allowing an “us” and “them” attitude to thrive in the workplace

What behaviors build interdependence?

• Win-win problem solving and the reduction of win-lose and lose-lose conflict solutions
• When procedural and communication errors transpire between people—apologize and forgive
• Deliberate efforts at teambuilding
• Allowing a process which can lead to changing ineffective work procedures
• Building a sense of responsibility and accountability among managers and workers

Accountability

We value the biblical principle of accountability because we believe it is vital for every worker and will help us to be more effective in accomplishing our objectives.

What behaviors destroy accountability?

• Poor interpersonal relationships
• Refusal to agree upon performance standards
• Neglecting suggestions for improvement
• Failure to enforce appropriate consequences for not meeting performance standards
• Any perception that everyone is not treated equally or held to the same requirements

What behaviors build accountability?

• Clearly defining personal key result areas and ministry goals
• Enthusiastically receiving periodical evaluations
• Faithfully turning in all receipts and financial reports
• Readily admitting mistakes with genuine humility

Flexibility

We are called to take the truth of the gospel, through the inerrant Word, to those who are in spiritual darkness. Our passionate desire is to lead them to Christ. Therefore we value the flexibility of our personnel to be culturally relevant and effective while maintaining biblical integrity. To enhance effectiveness, we give one another permission to try new approaches, in our driving passion is to bring people to the knowledge of the Truth and to stimulate church planting movements.

What behaviors destroy flexibility?

• Criticism of colleagues who take approaches different than ours
• Insistence to continue approaches after reasonable periods of ineffectiveness

What behaviors build flexibility?

• Encourage workers to try new things, even if they fail
• Management changes plans and procedures when they do not fulfill purpose
• A learning culture in the organization where workers are constantly studying, listening, and learning from colleagues, host-culture members, and best practices from the missiological and church-planting community

Affirmation

We will work diligently to create a culture of encouragement and edification by intentional and consistent words and actions of affirmation.

What behaviors destroy affirmation?

• Speaking negatively of fellow workers
• Emphasizing weaknesses of fellow workers
• Accepting negative comments about a third party
• Unwillingness/failure to deal with conflicts, disagreements, mistakes, and perceived errors in a biblical way (speaking the truth in love)

What behaviors build affirmation?

• Concentrating on the positive traits of fellow workers
• Speaking positively into the lives of our fellow workers
• Speaking well of fellow workers to others
• Working to fill the empty spaces with grace

Life-long Learning

We believe that workers who finish their lives and ministries well continue to learn throughout their lives, and for that reason value the cultivation of a corporate culture that encourages life-long growth and learning.

What behaviors destroy the spirit of life-long learning?

• Pushing for constant activity at the expense of stressing adequate time for reflection and preparation
• Discouraging further training
• Failing to stay current, i.e. neglecting to read new books and articles, or to attend pertinent conferences and courses

What behaviors build the spirit of life-long learning?

• Including personal development issues in yearly evaluations
• Approving requests for further training
• Suggesting additional studies or training to better equip fellow workers
• Purchasing and sharing books, journals, articles

Facilitation

We value the selfless efforts of servants to work for the success of others by taking supportive roles and by seeking first the success of the local work in each cultural context.

What behaviors destroy facilitation?

• Micro-management: insisting on doing everything, or having a hand in everything
• Poor delegation
• Creating unhealthy dependency
• Taking the leading role in mission contexts when others could learn to lead

What behaviors build facilitation?

• The attitude of a learner
• Helping weaker individuals succeed
• Taking supportive roles
• Good delegation
• Thinking about the long-term impact of everything we do as missionaries on the local work: Who are you training to take your place?