New Life, New Hope, New Mission!    

January 2, 2007

Happy New Year!

Wow!  That's how I feel at the start of this year.  Sometimes I have to admit that the new year depresses me since I remember all the failed dreams, broken hopes, lost goals of the last year, and all I can see is another year of the same disappointments.

But this seems so depressing and in effect so un-Christ-like.  Paul called the folks at Corinth to remember that in Christ we are a "new creation all together!"  Why would I not embrace this?  Maybe it is because time takes its toll on our optimism.  And then, is not Christ Jesus more than the experiences of mortality?  Is he not more than the discouragements, disappointments, lost goals, broken hopes and failed dreams? 

I guess the key is our heart.  What do we really rest our lives upon.  The stuff of this world that had the tendency to let us down?  Or the stuff of Jesus that always lifts us up?  This year I'm betting on Jesus.  Look at what he has accomplished with us each time we step out in faith in Him.  We found a willing buyer for the old building on Chestnut and Cabot when it seemed no one was in the market for a worn and tired building.  He managed to provide resources to enroll full time pastoral leadership when all that seemed logical was a stated supply.  He saw to it that 27 acres of land was available at an under-market price when all other opportunities for market-priced land turned sour.  He bring new members and new life to the church each month when our human imagination couldn't see this ever happening.  He provided resourced to meet a $10,000 mission challenge required for continuation of General Assembly Mission Funding three years ahead of schedule.  And we are now in the running for the Evangelism Award from Sam and Helen Walton (Walmart fame). 

So, I'm looking to Jesus as Lord of life, Lord of this little church and Lord of all that is a new creation for the new year!

Happy New Year,

Updated: 09/29/08