2007 and 2008

Well, it is that time of year again. That time when we look back on the year that was, and look forward to the year to come. It is a time of reflection and a time of optimism. For many it is a time of resolutions and plans to change things.

I am not sure how I handle things like this. I feel, like most, that resolutions are something you look back at with regret as many new years resolutions don’t make it too far into the year. As a matter of fact I don’t think I even had any resolution make it past the first thought let alone the first week.

Somewhere in the midst of my busy life I do get to spend a few minutes alone with Father to see what He thinks about things. It seems that He gives me some type of theme every year and that at the end of each year He shows me how He was doing that theme. 2007 was “the year of big things.”

How did “the year of big things” pan out? Some of the things were truly big, but some of them were of lasting impact, making them much bigger in different ways than they appeared. I will put together a quick summary of some of them:
• Our best financial year ever
• My best sales year ever (I grew my territory over $500,000)
• Starting to get over the hump of our oldest going through “life changes”
• Our most widespread church outreach year
• Bible College
• Bass guitar
• Seeing some degree of spiritual growth in each of our children
• Our oldest son’s first mission trip (Peru)
• My wife being able to leave work in the medical transcription field
There were also a number of things that I thought would happen but God did them in a different way:
• I thought this would be a year of numerical growth in our church. God has our church in a “Gideon’s Army” state. What is going on is truly of the Lord at our local assembly. He is breaking down the “8 Mile divide”, and the racial and socio economical issues that will hinder us from being effective in ministering in our community. He is causing us to move from “suburban church doing urban things” to real understanding of the community we minister in. We are not just a church in a community, but we are a church who has purposed to be multi-cultural and multi-socio economic. In order to work out this vision we have to deal with our prejudices and He has been doing that over 2007.

• I thought this would be a year of explosion among the children, youth and young adults. We did outreach for them. I had hoped to see numerical growth. Instead, I lost a lot of key people who minister to children and youth for a number of different reasons.

This is where being a salesman is bad. It seems like everything is focused on numerical growth but there is another aspect I didn’t see until later in the year. As we lost those key people, and some of our children moved out of the area things started to seem hopeless. Toward the end of the year we got hit with some tough news that the family we had hoped to pass the children’s ministry on to needed to take a break. This was like a last straw for us. How was this a “big thing” other than another “big bad thing?” Well, at this time I still don’t have an answer to everything, but I must stop and see what Father is telling me about the situation.

Our children and youth ministry is named “The RAD Project” for a reason more than the fact that I am an 80’s BMX has been. It stands for Redeemed And Discipled. For a number of years we had been walking in the Redeemed portion of that name. I thought this was going to be a year of Big things in that half of the ministry. I was expecting more numerical growth and seeing more lives Redeemed. Father had decided this was a year to move into the other half of the name.

As we were losing hope about everything (in some sense), my wife happened to see one of our pastors who teaches in the children’s ministry in the hallway with one of the children talking about a passage in the Bible. There was a lot of one on one interaction and it ended in the two of them praying together. I can attest to the things in the youth ministry as well. As the youth pastor I can tell you there has been significant growth among the youth. They have not been exempt from the things going on in our church. Instead of looking like a typical youth ministry, these youth are dealing with their junk. God has orchestrated each of our youth dealing with issues in their lives at an early age as they walk with Him. This is much bigger than anything I thought possible.

• I thought this would be a year of big time to deal with issues. Father had different plans. I have been busier than ever. I was thinking that I would have all these “coffee moments” with Father and He had me running like Forrest Gump. I thought I would slow down and He had me speed up. I am still not sure about how and why all of this happened but at least I have learned that I can hear Him on the fly and that I can do more. I also learned that I need to rely on Him more in doing more.

So where do we go in 2008? I believe 2008 will be “the year of getting fit.” It will be a year of exercising in a lot of new ways.

• As I have been going to Bible College I am seeing myself getting fit. I see all this running as a way of getting fit. I believe this will spill out to our church as well. With our workers worn out, this is a great time to rely solely on Him. This will be a time that He moves as opposed to us moving.

• I lost nearly an entire year of mountain biking and feel physically horrible, so I determined to get a bike built for winter training. I am happy to report that I have been training for at least three times a week for the past four weeks. This is another way of getting fit, obviously.

• I have to get fit at work. My marketplace in Michigan is drying up. Industry is leaving at a record rate here. I have to learn new markets and diversify my understanding of the business. I have to exercise my strengths and build up my weaknesses.

• Our family has to get fit. As I sound totally consumeristic here, we have to learn to maximize our time with our kids. We have to help them exercise their faith. We have to look for more opportunities to train them in Jesus’ way. We can’t let time slip away from us with being idle.

• I also believe this will be a year Andrea and I will be exercising a lot of new things. We met with our pastor and his wife last week and discussed a number of things. One of them was the growing desire to plant a church. We are now in the place of praying about that with another couple and we will be looking for a location to do some satellite work. I don’t know where this will lead, but it will definitely be an exercise.

Well, those are the things I see on the horizon about getting fit in 2008. I am sure there will be more, but I wanted to get some of them down on paper.