Fresh Bread and Core Values

By David Faust

Has your church identified a mission statement and a list of core values—principles and beliefs you consider of central importance? Many organizations have statements like these; but unless they actually shape our behavior, they are little more than clever-sounding slogans posted on a wall.  

We can be flexible about many things, but in Scripture God has given us bedrock, unbending truths that don’t change no matter how much time passes or culture shifts. If the church is here 50 years from now or 500 years from now, the Lord will remain the same, providing a spiritual compass to guide the beliefs and actions of his followers.  

The apostle Paul listed three enduring core values in 1 Corinthians 13:13 when he wrote, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (New International Version). 

License Plates 

On the wall of my garage at home, I keep a little collection of license plates I have owned over the years. Each one reminds me of a particular season of my life and the car I was driving at the time. 

Those 14 license plates represent different states, and they sport different color combinations. One of them—from the years when our family lived in New York—includes a picture of the Statue of Liberty. I never bought vanity plates that spell out a name, slogan, or Bible verse, but one tag started with UHU (which to me sounded like “You Hoo”), and I joked that the one ending with IOB meant “I Owe the Bank.”  

My favorite license plate is a rusty one I found in the farmhouse where I grew up. The date on it says “1925.” Long ago, someone used that metal plate to patch a hole in the closet of our old house. 

Those license plates displayed in my garage have lasted a long time. Some of them still look pretty good. But none of them give me the right to drive my car today. They stir some nostalgic feelings, but none of them affect where and how I live now. What would happen if I fastened one of those license plates—like that old 1925 tag—on my car today? Can you picture the reaction if I drove past a police officer with a 100-year-old license plate on my car? 

Faith, hope, and love are lofty core values, but they must be more than rusty remnants of the past. They must shape our attitudes and decisions every day. Are we currently living by faith, trusting Christ to lead and provide? Are we hope-givers whose lives demonstrate authentic encouragement and joy? Do we love God with all our hearts and love our neighbors well? 

Daily Manna  

According to Exodus chapter 16, God provided miraculous bread from heaven, but the Israelites had to go out and gather a fresh batch of manna every day, six days a week. They couldn’t store it up and eat manna they gathered five years ago—or even five days ago. God gave them daily bread, and each morning (except the Sabbath) they went out and gathered fresh bread for that day. 

It’s fine if your church puts together a mission statement and a list of core values. But do those lofty statements actually shape your attitudes and actions every day? Stale bread sitting on a shelf nourishes no one.  

Are those core values truly your values?  

David Faust serves as contributing editor of Christian Standard and senior associate minister with East 91^st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of Not Too Old: Turning Your Later Years into Greater Years.