My personal and ministry goals for 2020

Some people are goal people and some people are not. I have not found a verse in the Bible yet that says, “Make goals for every calendar year.” There are general principles about goals that I outline in my latest book but I am not saying if you are not a yearly goal person you are not a good Christian. I actually find goals fun, but that is what the Strength Finders book would call Achiever. That is why I normally make my yearly goals to start December 1- so I can kick the tires on them and get renewed motivation when everyone else starts theirs in January.

Having said all of that I thought I would share with you some of my personal and ministry goals for your encouragement and motivation.

Health-

I have ten pillars to my health plan (or health Ten Commandments) that I have been working on for a while. Rather than lay them all here I have one main area that I am going to continue growing in for 2020. I have a different exercise for each of the muscle groups and my goal is to add to reps a week till I cross 100 a week. For example if I was doing 34 jumping jacks this week I will do 36 next week.

Mental-

I am continue on working on the goal to be able to speak Spanish well enough to preach it. You can read my reason for this challenge in another post. My 3 sub-goals for this is one-1. I have a certain number of Duolingo lessons I will have done. 2. I plan to take at least 5 lessons in the Italki community. 3. I am going to translate a manuscript of a message that I have already preached.

Spiritual –

At some point I would like to write a book on Spiritual Warfare for the Everyday Christian. So this year the research continues. This will include reading a 3 volume work on the subject by a Puritan (about 1000 pages).

Family-

We have a goal to visit a few more states that either my wife or daughter have not been to before.

Ministry goals–

Here I will put the big 3:

Podcast- I would like to see the podcast grow this year. 3 of the benchmarks for that are-1. Cross 10,000 total downloads. 2. Have at least one download from every state in the USA (3 to go). 3. Have had at least one download from at least 75 counties (about 10 to go).

100,000 Challenge– I would like to cross 100,000 unique visitors to the website. We have had all but 3 countries of the world visit our website (and those 3 countries aren’t known for allowing their people to use the internet. :-)) We want to continue to be a resource to people’s walk with Jesus around the world.

$700 in new monthly support from partners– I have been talking about going from adding to multiplying as a ministry for a while and this amount will get us above the tree line to take off and fly in this direction. This will allow us to add a 3 podcast episode a month and accomplish some of the other goals listed about. (To be on of those supporters)

So there are my main goals for the year. I didn’t include everything because some would just be strange (do you want me to write about looking for a plummer?) Are you a goal person? What is your goals for this next year? What assignments does God have for you to accomplish?

Praying for God to guide you and give you victory everywhere you go!

Some reflections on Christmas after my trip to Israel

As I write this I am just coming out of the fog of jet lag and an Israeli cold that I got on my first ever trip to Israel. This was a trip that I am sure I will be unpacking for quite some time, but I thought I would take a stab at some reflections on Christmas since we traveled so close to the holiday.

The location of our hotel on the trip was very close to Bethlehem. Out of our window you could see the wall that separated Jerusalem from the Palestinian area of Bethlehem. The bus stop outside of our hotel was called, “Bethlehem Check Point.” It was a constant reminder of the traumatic experiences that region has experienced for centuries. I imagine Mary and Joseph had similar thoughts as they saw Roman soldiers on their way to Bethlehem. Your Christmas this year may feel raw and messy, but that is okay. The first Christmas would not have felt anymore like a Hallmark movie than yours does.

Before we left we watched a kids Christmas movie called the Star. It really highlighted the messiness of the first Christmas. Talking animals trying to figure out what is going on when things felt chaotic and dangerous. Most nights of the trip my wife, daughter and I each tried to come up with two take aways from the day. On one night my daughters had one of her take aways was that we as a family needed to learn to trust God more in the day to day experiences of life. She was so right. The same would have been true of  the story on that first Christmas. It was a journey of trust in a world that did not make sense.

Traveling on this trip with my wife and daughter makes me appreciate in a small way what Joseph may have felt on his journey to Bethlehem. As we travelled I was aware of the needs of my little family and the challenges of being in a new surrounding. I read someone talk about how it was interesting that the angel did not speak to Joseph about Mary’s situation until after Mary had talked to him. We like nice and neat where as God is okay with our journey as we learn to trust Him.

So as I look to Christmas this year, I will try and walk with God in a new level of trust. I still like five year plans, but I will try to trust God when He simply says take the next step with me. I will try and remember those rolling hills of Bethlehem and know that it is not always about nice and neat, but about the presence of God coming to our messy and chaotic world.