The Core Values of VOMC
“Core values represent the fundamental essence of VOMC and
serve as a guiding framework for our behaviour and actions.”
At VOMC, our executive leadership team desires to cultivate an energetic, inspiring workplace that embraces and avidly promotes the mission’s core values. Collectively, we embody these core values by presenting them in an acrostic, using the letters V.O.I.C.E., to ensure that each team member feels inspired and empowered to pursue their calling – both within the organization of VOMC and beyond.
- V itality in Prayer
- O wning God’s Mission
- I mportance of Discipleship
- C ommitted to Fellowship
- E thical Stewardship
These core values are rooted in VOMC’s Mission Statement: Actively remembering and serving the “church persecuted.” The above-listed values are organizational because they help to define the mission’s internal structures, procedures and systems. They are also missional, since they reinforce VOMC’s overarching purposes. In other words, the key principles that shape VOMC’s internal workings are designed to deeply align with – and fuel – the external ministry work flowing from them.
The theme of guarding one’s heart appears repeatedly throughout the Bible. King Solomon’s words in Proverbs 4:20-23, for instance, offer profound insight into this notable admonition:
“…be attentive to my words;
incline your ear to my sayings.
Let them not escape from your sight;
keep them within your heart.
For they are life to those who find them,
and healing to all their flesh.
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life” (ESV).
The ESV Global Bible Study explains: "The commands in [verses] 20-21 all encourage making wisdom a vital part of one’s life. ‘Heart’ in Proverbs refers to the centre of one’s inner life. It is from this place that a person does all thinking, feeling and choosing. Taking words of wisdom into the heart is of the greatest importance (‘they are life’), because out of the heart flow all the thoughts, words and choices of a person’s life (‘from it flow the springs of life.’) See Mark 7:21-23; Luke 6:45."1
While many other Biblical principles help to shape the Godly direction of VOMC, these five core values have been selected to protect the hearts of our staff members. After all, for our ministry to be effective in its missional calling, the internal spiritual conditions of each team member must be nurtured and developed. This requires a commitment from VOMC’s executive leaders to foster and promote an environment of spiritual health and flourishment. It also calls on each staff member to personally adhere to and live out the values we prioritize as a mission.
Although spiritual growth and maturity are lifelong endeavours, they represent an exciting journey, particularly when shared with co-labourers who are dedicated to the same cause. Even so, VOMC does not replace the authority of the local church in the lives of its staff members, for every Christian should be committed to a local church community where they are spiritually nourished and encouraged to actively serve. VOMC is best positioned to fulfil its God-ordained mandate when staffed by dedicated followers of Christ from across denominational lines, aiming to glorify God through His “church persecuted.”
In my upcoming blog series, I will be delving deeper into each one of VOMC’s core values and illustrating why the principles of V.O.I.C.E. are vital to both who we are and how we serve.
Grace and peace,
Floyd A. Brobbel
Chief Executive Officer
Voice of the Martyrs Canada Inc.
Endnote: 1 J.I. Packer, Wayne Grudem and Ajith Fernando, eds., ESV Global Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012, p. 853.
