Remembering Our Why, Our Values.

Do you have a book, whether it is a book for fun, for work, or for spiritual development that you find yourself coming back to for inspiration? I hope you do. For me, one of those books is Start with Why by Simon Sinek. This book has inspired and challenged me frequently since I first read it several years ago. I have used it for a sermon series in the past (anyone remember the Rediscovering your Why series from 2020? Link here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX62ZV-iUcnuRPq_A99u0QyzEQMeRaz5l). For me, it is so easy to get bogged down with the doing of life, of work, or truly anything you do regularly. It is easy to forget the “why” behind your doing of said thing. We can focus on the what to do and especially the how do to it, but the why fades to the background. That is the reason I find the Start with Why book so helpful. It reminds me that beginning with the Why behind whatever it is we are doing is the most important first step.

I share this today because the current segment in our Lenten series is about our values, first personally and then corporately, as a Christian than a church. I am reminded of this quote from Start with Why, “But most of us, unfortunately, reach a place where WHAT we are doing and WHY we are doing it fall out of balance. We get to a point where WHY and WHAT are not aligned.” Friends, churches, Edgemont, are just like other organizations. We can get so focused on the WHAT that we can lose sight of our WHY. That is why we are spending time as a congregation reflecting on our Values. Of course, we know that our WHY comes from the call God has on our life, from what Jesus did for the world on the Cross, how the Holy Spirit guides us; but our values give some specific insight into what particularly motivates us. The concrete beliefs that make us who we are and WHY we do WHAT we do. That is why we need to hear from all of us just what we think those Values are, what those Values should be.

I hope you will plan to join us on Sunday, March 19th, as we will hear about discerning our Values as a church and participate in our Values Survey, which will be available on Monday, March 20th.

Pastor Henry