Skip to main content

2022: A Year of Growth

At the beginning of last year I preached a sermon, a subsequently posted a blog, about my theme word for the year. Every year I try to have a word or theme to focus on and better understand. Last year's word was grace, and boy was it appropriate. With our society, and sadly many Christians, unable to have meaningful disagreements and conversations anymore it was easy to forget that we need to show people grace and depend upon God's grace and not our own righteousness.

This year my word is growth. I want and need to grow. I want to grow closer to Jesus. I want to grow personally in many areas. I want to expand my horizons and push myself to grow as a Christian and as a man. I want my congregation to grow closer to God. 

I'm keeping it short this week, but I encourage you to find a theme word for the year. It doesn't mean limiting yourself to just things that directly have to do with that theme, but it does help focus our attention a bit. We can't do everything at once and sometimes need to take things one step at a time.

Pray for me as I try to grow in all areas of my life. I would be happy to pray for you and your endeavors and striving to be more like Jesus. May the love of the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...
3 comments
Read more

We Need More Images

What is your favorite way to describe God? Is there a particular name of God in scripture that you are drawn to? What images and pictures come to mind when you think of God? These are questions I don't think we ask often enough. We all have an image of God in our heads that we work with. It may not be a literal picture, though it might be, but ideas and concepts we tend to associate with who God is. Some of those images and associations may come from the Bible, but some may not. These things are influenced by our upbringing, Bible reading habits, personalities, relationships, culture, and more. The way we picture God has a dramatic impact on the way we live our lives. For example, if the primary idea you have of God is "Healer," when you hear or read that you are made in God's image you will likely feel called to heal, be it physical ailments or spiritual wounds. But, if your primary image of God is "Judge," that changes things. You very likely might tend to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Augustine of Hippo: Historical Friday

We pause our overview of the history of Christianity to talk about an extremely influential figure, whether we realize it or not. Augustine of Hippo, so called because he lived in the town of Hippo Regius, has had a tremendous amount of influence on Christianity in the western world. Many of the theological conversations we have in our churches today have been directly shaped by this man. Many of the terms and ideas we throw around originated with Augustine.  Today we are going to look at SOME of the ideas that Augustine has shaped. In reality this man has touched in some way or another every aspect of Christian thought. If I had to choose the most influential people on Christianity outside of Jesus and the Apostles, Augustine might very well be number one alongside Martin Luther. Before we get into the theological ideas, a brief biography is in order. Brief Biography Augustine's story is actually very interesting, one I cannot hope to do justice here. If you are intereste...
Post a Comment
Read more