Faith and Family First

By Katie Nyhuis, Vigilant Founder

A Vigilant Values Series

"Our faith and our families always come first. This is the foundation of who we are and keeps us rooted in our mission."

In so many ways this company value speaks for itself. It is about keeping first things first. It is about remembering the WHY in the midst of the hows and the whats.

First, let’s pull those words apart:

Faith and Family. These are loaded words. They overflow with meaning. They are among the most important words in all of the human story.

When we started Vigilant, we had had experiences in many other companies and watched how easy it is for an organization to lose their way. So, from day one, we wanted to remember the most valuable things: faith and family.

What we do flows from them.

Faith.

If someone acts from greed or selfishness that says a lot about what they actually believe, deep inside. You see, from our faith comes our choices, our choices lead to change and that change fuels our purpose, our true purpose. I am not talking about the purpose written on a bumper sticker or a motivational poster in your office, but the purpose that others witness in you and through you. Faith is the starting point for all we do. Faith is the substance of who we truly are.

Family.

Companies can swallow up people’s lives: long hours, unreasonable demands and the false identities careers can create. Families are made up of the ones we are to love most. Families are the rock on which the rest of life is built. They give us grounding and a foundation that leads to stability in every area of life. We all know what happens to a house built on sand… it won’t stand when troubles come. We know that for Vigilant to be as strong as it can be, our team needs to be as healthy and sound as they can be. That is why we encourage everyone to put their families first. (It is also why we insist that families feel protected so we provide good wages and generous benefits.)

That is why Faith and Family come First.

The Families we Create, the Faith we Choose