Missio Dei Suburbia

New Year's Project Question 18: Teamwork

Question 18: What's one new way you could encourage the people you work with this year?

To Jan, I'd give timely expense reports. To Bev, a proper foot stool for her to put her feet on during the day. To Jared, I'd suspend time whenever he reads so he can actually catch up on all the books he wants to read. To Aaron, his own recording studio.

In reality, what I hope is to create an environment where people feel like they have a clear purpose in what they're doing and the resources available to help them get things done. Oh, and the freedom to come up with completely preposterous ideas for the sake of God's kingdom.

New Year's Project Question 17: The Office

Question 17: What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?

Get my office organized. Seriously, I moved into my home office almost a year ago with grand delusions of applying lessons learned in David Allen's Getting Things Done. But I keep telling myself that I'll need a day or two straight to plow through everything and that simply doesn't happen around here. So manila folders are stacked on my floor and I still have books in boxes. Freakin' pathetic.

New Year's Project Question 16: Money, Money, Money

Question 16: What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?

As a church, becoming self-supporting. A wise friend once told me, 'The last thing to disappear when your church becomes unhealthy is people and money. Conversely, the last thing to appear when your church actually gets healthy is...people and money.' I'd like to think we're on our way to getting healthy, which would help with the people and money issue.

Personally, I'd like to eliminate all of our consumer debt as a family. Not adding anything to that total would be a great help - when I get really stressed, one of my many functional gods is buying stuff. Not big stuff - but the accumulated weight of numerous little things can become pretty big in a hurry. So my credit card bill usually signifies a lack of contentment...

New Year's Project Question 15: Belonging to Jesus

Question 15: Who do you most want to encourage this year?

I really hope that 2007 is a year in which my friends here in Watkinsville and around the world are encouraged because of the reality that we belong to Jesus (Heidelberg Catechism 1). There are a lot of particular encouragements in that, but they all come back to this one.

New Year's Project Question 14: Stomach Stapling for the Soul

Question 14: What habit would you most like to establish this year?

Quit planning my day around food. If you're a woman, odds are that is one of the more ludicrous statements you've ever heard. But I dare say most of the guys are with me on this one - I coordinate my day around when and what I'm going to eat. For instance, I'm eating at Mexicali tonight with Jared and Kaitie Bryant and I've thought at least half-a-dozen times about what I'm going to eat, even though I ate lunch less than an hour ago.

That's a problem. Nothing wrong with food; I've just made it into more than it is. Food is a means of relieving stress; something familiar and comfortable that's mine, which explains why I don't go to weird restaurants with David Hunt whenever I travel with him. I don't see food as a gift from God - it's a drug to numb the pain of whatever it is that's ailing me on that day. So rather than going to Jesus and giving myself to his care and concern, I run to food...or the gym...or the 360 (just wait 'til Guitar Hero II comes out in March - face-melting guitar solos there shall be!). Sometimes even my wife and son can move from being good things to ultimate things - a weight that neither of them can bear.

So I'm trying to do stuff like eat smaller portions and not go back for seconds - good for the gut and good for the soul.

New Year's Project Question 13 - I've Got Your Felt Needs Right Here, Pal!

Question 13: What’s the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?

I'd love for Christ Church to take some significant steps towards becoming a people and a place that truly love and serve the Watkinsville and UGA communities. We've worked very hard to create a process to move people into places of serving and 'seeking the good of the city' (Jeremiah 29:7); what's next for us - I believe - is to continue to connect deeply with each and work together for the sake of God's kingdom, which is crazy talk. There's nothing in our ecclesiastical DNA to suggest that we have the inclination or the ability to move beyond ourselves. For the sake of our church and the good of our friends, I hope I'm able to be part of a movement that makes much of God by putting broken things and broken people back together.

New Year's Project Question 12: Keep It Simple, Stupid

Question 12: What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what’s one way you could simplify in that area?

I sort of have a jump on this; back in the fall, I overhauled the way I do my time of personal worship, reducing the amount of material I was trying to digest in order to open up more time for reflection and meditation (praying through the Scriptures I was reading). I've moved more towards reading and reflecting on the Scriptures rather than focusing on alot of devotional reading (which I'm still doing, just at different times of the day and in far smaller chunks).

Oh, and Lindsey and I are in the midst of finally getting our house organized after living here for over two years. Nice to have a place to put all 25 of my hats and to finally get closets cleaned out and give away some clothes that other people need alot more than we do.

Now if I could only simplify yard work...

One really helpful resource here is Don Whitney's Simplify Your Spiritual Life.

New Year's Project Question 11: Decisions, Decisions

Question 11: What’s the most important decision you need to make this year?

Ooh, I get to give my first cryptic answer. The leadership at our church has some decisions to make in regard to our finances that have some significant long-term implications for not only our congregation, but for our surrounding community, as well.

I also know that my wife and I are having to make some decisions about where to fit a second kid in our house (should that happen - as far as I know, we are still responsible for only one small human).

New Year's Project Question 10: Words

Question 10: What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

Somehow I guess it will have little to do with my arm workout this afternoon, huh? Good to know there's a place for everything though. I think it's good to make sure there's something long-term on our radar screen - something we're giving ourselves to that's bigger than us and will bear fruit after we're stuck in a pine box and buried in the dirt.

Certainly the thing that will get the bulk of my time in 2007 is the preaching of the Scriptures, an activity about as popular as Nick Saban in the national media right now. I find that there is little confidence in the role of the Scriptures in putting broken people back together and transforming rebels into those whose greatest desire is to make much of Christ in all things. That's a shame because I think we miss something crucial in setting the Bible aside in pursuit of change by other means.

That might sound like elevating a book to the place of supremacy where Christ alone should rule and reign, but my concern isn't really with the book but in the fact that the Scriptures are the place where Christ is most clearly revealed. If we believe that we're changed by 'looking to Jesus' (Hebrews 12:2), then one would think we'd go to the place where Jesus can meet us most clearly and powerfully.

New Year's Project Question 9: Until It Sleeps

Question 9: What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

Sleep more. I tend to have a hard time not staring at the back of my eyelids when I get less than six hours of sleep, which happens a bit too often these days.

People will ask me on occasion what I do in terms of prayer. For the past couple of months, I've ended up praying as I read the Scriptures (seeing that time as a dialogue as God speaks to me and I respond and shape my prayers based on what he's just said to me), then using either The Valley of Vision, The Gadsby Hymnal, or The Westminster Confession of Faith's section on prayer to guide my words. I've also been making use of our kingdom prayer guide, taken from material produced by several churches, most notably Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. If you'd like to take a look at it for your own use, mash here.