Pastors Thoughts January 2022

Look at this, it is 2022 already…time to put the Christmas decorations away, and look forward to breaking those New Year’s resolutions!  Research shows that 88% of the people that make those resolutions fail, usually by March 1.  Personally, I made a resolution 15 years ago to never make another New Year’s resolution.  So far, I’ve been able to keep it!

There are times of the year when it seems right to be introspective and consider making changes for the better.  Even though I have decided not to make resolutions, I still believe that the end of one year, the beginning of another, is one of those times.  We, as a church, can take this time to look back at the previous year with an eye toward making the coming year one of growth.  But first, we have to define successful growth…

One way the performance of a church can be assessed is to examine how closely a church functions compared to the model of the church derived from Scripture.  Caring for one another is an attribute that can be separated out of that model and we, as a church, perform exceptionally well in that area.  

Our goal as individual Christians is to become more Christlike.  We will never, in these bodies in this world, become totally Christlike.  But our path, our journey, is to strive in that direction.  Similarly, as a church made up of individual Christians, there are always areas where we can grow. As your Pastor, I have an obligation to help with that growth.  Being deeper in the Word of God, the Bible will help us to become closer to God.  And as we draw closer to God we become more Christlike.  

In 2022 I encourage all of us to commit to reading the Bible daily.  I have a recommended reading guide to help us to achieve the goal of reading through the Bible in a year.  I know, we have done it before. But it is worth doing again.  Let me know if you are interested, I’ll share it with you.

I also encourage all of us to commit to being more involved in the community that God has placed us in.  We will be sharing some ideas as the year progresses.  

All in all, I look forward to 2022 being a year of growth for our congregation and the community.