New Years Resolutions

You always here about people making new years resolutions to quit smoking or lose weight. The advertisements switch from Christmas to self improvement the week between Christmas and New Years. I used to try to come up with resolutions, but I always found that ideal changes were way too lofty and broke most of them. So in recent years, I make myself some goals that should eventually lead to bigger changes.

I am on board with the people who want to lose weight. For me it has been a struggle in my changing lifestyle from college to career. I used to walk around the campus all of the time between classes and to different events. I was poor and didn't eat out that much either. So I got a lot of exercise and didn't eat as much. Now I get little exercise sitting at my desk all day and I tend to eat out more because of convenience. My starting goal for this year is to change some of my habits. I am starting with my eating habits because those will be easier to change while it is Winter time. The exercise thing will be a little easier when the weather is warmer.

One of my other goals revolves around Youth Ministry. I know that I talk a lot about YM on this blog when things are going on and my wife makes fun of me. Recently I have been a bit down about YM I think because I need little breaks. Its very hard to go full speed for 4 or 5 months on top of other life changes like having babies and changing jobs. Sometimes I feel like I carry most of the weight and it gets heavy after some time. The Christmas break is perfect for me because we had about 3 weeks off from YM and now that I am starting to let the YM juices flow again, I get excited. I just have one worry and that is stupid numbers. I admit that I hate numbers, but they are required to have a ministry of any kind. We have been slowly slipping lately and I think it is because our kids are growing up and finding other things to do. They can drive and get jobs so they can choose between making money or coming to Youth Group. I went through the same choices when I was in highschool. But it gets discouraging when only 2 people show up to your Christmas party even if they are cool people and we had fun watchin Frosty. I have side tracked from my goal idea a little, but this gives you an idea of where my heart is at. Back to the goal. My goal is to focus on keeping up with my YM responsibilities and taking time to renew my heart before reaching the burnout point. My team is helpful when I need a break, but I am still looking for something to keep me driven in the hard times. Please pray for me on that. My second YM goal is to do more reaching out. Because of my worry on numbers, I want to find ways to attract other kids to come. Don't get me wrong, it is not about having a large number of kids, but I want to have enough kids to have an effective group ministry. We will continue with individual discipleship if that is what we get.

So for those of you out there who are making resolutions. Good Luck with that and pray for me and my 2K7 goals.

c-dub