Lon’s Blog

Yet another year is coming to a close.  After anticipating it all year, Christmas is over.  And I got through my first Boxing Day without taking a single punch!  Seriously, I hope everybody had a nice time with family and friends.  Did any of you get a chance to share Christ through this holiday that celebrates His birth?  I did, and it was a really cool Christmas Eve experience.  If you’ve got any stories along those lines that we could share with the Impact family, email it to me.  So now it’s on to New Years Eve!  I pray that you are all safe and find a fitting and fun way to ring in the New Year.  With that in mind, anyone up for some New Year’s Resolutions?  I know that many of you are so thoroughly counter-cultural that the idea of doing something so clichéd as making New Year’s resolutions is not on your radar.  Being a fellow counter-culturalist, I understand that sentiment.  But I do them. I like new beginnings. I like landmark dates and decisions.  I love making New Year’s Resolutions.  So, below, I’ve given you my list for 2008. More than once I have considered the wisdom of doing this, because this is making my life pretty a pretty open book with a whole lot of people!  I guess that brings a whole lot of accountability.  Oh well, what is better than a lot of accountability to help me reach these important goals!  And I think that maybe, just maybe, you might get inspired to make a few goals of your own this year that could bring you the change you hope for. If you do, I’d love to hear about them. So, without further adieux, here’s my New Year’s Resolutions for 2008:

First, I have one overarching goal:

To make relationships the uncontested #1 priority in my life: with God, my wife, my children, my friends, my church, my mentee’s and the lost.  This means serious quality time, doing lots of listening.

My ten resolutions/goals:1)      Learn to depend more on God: a) Begin and end every day with prayer, b) get up before everyone in the household and spend time in the Word and in prayer for one hour every week day c) read the Bible from cover to cover this year d) journal. 2)      Help my family grow closer to God. a) memorize one scripture and/or scripture story each week with my whole family, b) pray with each of my children nightly and c) have a more consistent weekly family night (with devotional)3)      Nourish my marriage. a) Take Amanda out on dates more often (goal: 1x a week), b) offer more words of praise, less words of criticism. 4)      Nourish my kids: a) spend more planned, quality time with my kids: take each child out at least once a month for one-on-one time, b) give them more loving discipline/structure5)      Organize, simplify and maintain:  Throw away stuff, make a place for everything and put everything in its place in my office, shop, and household. 6)      Reach 100% funding of our Budgetary Needs (we raise a majority of our own support each month, and I need to find some new supporters to help us meet our budgetary needs here). Contact supporters more consistently. 7)      Meet with as many church members and leaders each week as I can schedule.  Encourage, pray and vision together.       Engage more lost persons relationally for Christ through a) Prayer-walking b) “Exploring” and c) Storying in
Montreal at least once a week and d) deepen existing relational avenues of basketball, scouting, and neighbors. 9)      Get into better physical shape: a) through walking/jogging, elliptical and playing racquetball and basketball and  b) eating better and taking vitamins regularly (goal: lose a total of 50 lbs by Dec 31, 08). 10)   Grow musically: a) take guitar lessons  b) record an album of original songs c) involve music more often personally, with family and in ministry. Okay, so there they are. I’ve bared my soul.  That’s what I want to see happen in 2008.  There are more, but those are my top 10.  A few will be pretty tough to do, but hey, if they were easy, they wouldn’t be goals, they would just be reality.  It is exciting to see these on paper. But I can’t imagine how exciting it will be if I reach each of these goals.  Wow.  How about you?  What goals do you have for 2008?  What does God want to do in and through your life?  I look forward to hearing about that as we travel this journey together.  

Your Fellow Traveller, Pastor Lon