The Importance of a Personal Mission Statement (What Donald Miller Didn't Say)

Ten people read my blog---I’m being too hard on myself---maybe eleven.  Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller went Platinum, selling over a million copies.  In short that’s why I find his advice valuable.  For his newest project, Author Launch, he took part in a Webinar; ‘Ask An Author Anything.”  In that interview about writing a book he said, ‘new writers should practice by writing a book’, “Practice what you want to do.”  He advised not to blog or Instagram; but write the book.  I get it.  I just find it interesting that while writing his newest book, “Scary Close” Miller was blogging for Storyline and running Storyline conferences.  The reason for this is that Donald Miller’s vision is larger than writing a best-selling novel. 

“The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either,” so begins A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.  Miller’s heartbeat is to live a great story.  His mission is to stimulate others to live a great story as well.  Whatever your vision is; whatever your art is, it needs to be defined.  Your vision must be clear; your goal clearly established. 

My neighbor works all day at the Marine base; comes home, turns on the television and sits in his favorite chair while his wife makes dinner.  The television shows change but the routine remains the same.  My neighbor is a great guy—he goes to church, cares for others, loves his kids, and loves his wife.  Is his personal goal five hours of TV a night?  That’s doubtful. His goals are not defined.  He has no mission statement.

I don’t want to die like that.  When my last breath comes; however it comes (or doesn’t come) I want to have few regrets as possible.  I need to know I rode hard---even if it was only for one good season---still I want it said that I rode hard, played hard, tried living full, stumbled certainly, but pushed harder than most.  Focus means there’s a target.  Pushing hard means there’s a goal.  Beating my best means there’s a baseline.  Let’s take some time to dream and evaluate.  What’s our vision?  What fires us up?  What’s that look like lived out?  What dies if we succumb to the comfort of our living room Barcalounger?

Vinyl Connections

  

In the days before Google when everyone owned ‘vinyl’ we did this by reading the artist notes and the fine print. You would pick up the jacket of your favorite artist’s record. You would flip it over to the backside and locate the musicians that accompanied or contributed to the album. Then because YouTube and ITunes didn’t exist you would buy the album of the accompanying artist. Often this would lead to the discovery of new favorites.

Back in the eighties I was a fan of a singer named Steve Taylor. His lyrics were Christian but sarcastic. So much so that initially he couldn’t get either secular nor religious record labels to back him because “your lyrics will offend our audience.” His music remained controversial throughout his recording career simply because he often bucked the status quo. That being the case he went on to garner significant awards in music. He was edgy which is why I enjoyed him. He fell off my radar since then. I thought of him because I’d quoted his lyrics to a friend.

I am a fan of Donald Miller the author of Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles In A Thousand Years. Donald Miller, like Steve Taylor, is a controversial and popular Christian writer. He doesn’t fit into the safe normative Christian author mold. Blue Like Jazz was recently made into a movie. The reason that it was made into a movie was that Donald Miller was approached to make it into a movie. The guy that called Miller owned a movie company and made movies. Miller says this about him, “I realized that I’d heard of Steve before. He used to be in a rock band and when I was a kid I had one of their records.” It wasn’t until today when I Googled Steve Taylor that I made the connection.

After he ended his career as a rock musician Taylor continued writing and producing music with such groups as The Newsboys and Sixpence None The Richer. In 2010 he began collaborating on the movie Blue Like Jazz. In that intersect two of my favorite artists came together to create a movie that, like all their previous work, was outside the normative Christian box.

As in the days when ‘vinyl’ was king there remains a great happiness in discovering new artists that connect music and ideas to enhance and motivate. There is that joy of discovery and serendipity when the connection comes together. Today I was jazzed to discover the Taylor-Miller connection.