Few ideas in leadership are as widely affirmed as purpose. Most organizations try to articulate an official purpose statement. Popular books like Simon Sinek’s Start With Why reaffirm the principle that, without a clear sense of purpose, our work drifts, fragments, or loses heart.

Missional enterprise leaders are no exception. If anything, we may feel the pull of purpose even more strongly. And yet, there is a subtle challenge before us. We can easily take a standard, secular approach to purpose‑generation and simply attach a few Bible verses to it. Or, sensing that something deeper is required but feels unattainable, we might throw up our hands, and keep faith and strategy in separate compartments.

Neither option is satisfying.

What we need is not a superficial Christian gloss on purpose, nor a compartmentalized approach, but a re-grounding: locating our sense of purpose within God’s purpose.

A Bigger Story to Stand In

Scripture invites us to see our lives and our enterprises within a much larger arc of God’s work in the world, often described as a Four-Act Drama of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. This means our sense of purpose does not begin with merely a great concept or market opportunity, but with God’s intention for his world and our place within it.

When we adopt this perspective, purpose is no longer something we manufacture. It is something we receive and then faithfully express in particular places and practices.

The Bible Starts With “Why”

The opening chapters of Genesis describe God’s reason for making his good creation. The Greek word for this concept used in philosophy and theology is telos, and it refers to the design and purpose that God reveals to us in his creation:

“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28)

This is not a mandate for domination, but a calling to stewardship. Image‑bearers are invited to reflect God’s creativity and care, cultivating the world under his rule and in dependent relationship with him.

As Tim Keller puts it:

“we are continuing God’s work of forming, filling, and subduing. Whenever we bring order out of chaos, whenever we draw out creative potential, whenever we elaborate and “unfold” creation beyond where it was when we found it, we are following God’s pattern of creative cultural development.”

Big‑P Purpose and Small‑p Purpose

Genesis reveals what we might call Big‑P Purpose: God’s overarching intent for creation: to be filled with life, order, beauty, and flourishing under his reign and in loving relationship with him, with his image-bearing humans in a uniquely gifted role.

Our individual lives and enterprises participate in this through small‑p purpose in the particular corner of creation God has entrusted to us. That might look like:

• A company developing products that genuinely serve human needs and empower them to be stewards
• A workplace culture that resists exploitation and honors the dignity of people as image-bearers
• An industry approached with creativity rather than merely fueling mindless consumption

This distinction does not make our “small-p purpose” less significant. In fact, it makes it both freer and weightier. Freer, because our businesses are not asked to carry the full weight of the world. Weightier, because our work is rooted in God’s own purposes rather than personal ambition or market logic alone.

Rethinking How We Discern Purpose

What might this mean for something as practical as a purpose‑statement exercise?

Perhaps we would start by prayerfully lingering in Genesis 1–2, attending carefully to God’s original intention for image‑bearers? What if we asked:

• What does it mean to reflect God’s creativity here in our corner of God’s creation?
• How might care, cultivation, and fruitfulness look in this context?
• Where are we tempted to act as owners rather than stewards?

For missional enterprise leaders, strategy becomes a response to calling rather than merely a search for justification. Starting with God’s purpose reshapes everything that follows.

Verse of the Week:

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it…” Psalm 24:1 (NIV)

In the weeks ahead, we’ll explore how God’s promised future shapes our vision, and how faithfulness in the present informs our mission and values. For now, let’s linger, meditating where Scripture begins: with a God who creates with intention, entrusts with care, and invites us to join him.