Q. #1 What makes your family unique?

This is the first big question from Patrick Lencioni's book that I introduced in my last post.

The answer to this question should be two to three purposeful sentences that describe how you/your family is different from any other person/family in the world. What makes you special and one-of-a-kind?

Dennis and I took a few minutes to randomly list our qualities/values, as suggested by Lencioni in the book, to help us discover themes to our uniqueness. This was a fun, simple exercise. These values, Lencioni cautioned, were not to be the following:

o Aspirational Values – desirable but not true
o The “Expected” or “Correct” Values – common minimum standards (like integrity, honesty)
o Value envy – values others have that we wish we were

The list was to be anything and everything that was true about us, no classifying or categorizing, just listing whatever came to our minds. Our list was long, but this will give you the idea.

• empty-nesters
• four adult children
• soon to be grandparents to 3
• love to travel
• extended family far away
• love coaching/mentoring
• ministry/vocational transition
• strong marriage
• church important
• faith is foundational
• giving
• responsible
• passionate
• simple
• risk
• love expressed
• affirming
• investing in our kids - time, teaching, encouraging
• developing the next generation
• both love to read
• love to hike
• enjoy nature
• drive used cars
• learners
• Teaching/preaching (Dennis)
• Counseling (Gwen)

From this list we came up with a few themes that helped us create the following statement that answered the first question.

We are a couple that are passionate and generous in investing in the lives of others, first and foremost with our children and grandchildren and uniquely in this generation and the next generation in persons involved in ministry. Particularly coaching, mentoring, and teaching in life, leadership, family, marriage and spiritual formation.

In our marriage we maximize our life resources – time, money, energy – by choosing a simple lifestyle. We find our grounding in Christ and in the expression of His life through the Church.

Lencioni says, "If you don’t know what differentiates your family from others, you won’t have a basis for making decisions, and you’ll try to be all things to all people."

Next entry we'll take a look at question #2.