LifeChange

2008 Goals - How did I do?

Before we go off setting goals, resolutions and plans for 2009 it's important to take some time looking back on 2008.  How did you do with those things that you wanted to accomplish this year?  Here is my report card.

Relationship with God

1.     Protect my Sabbath (day off) every week  This was a struggle, probably kept it 70% of the time.

2.     Fast at least one day every month  Didn’t do very well at this.  This is a focus for 2009… I realize I need to explore this more.

3.     Take a 1 night personal retreat sometime between May – July This was accomplished during our vacation.

 

Marriage/Family

4.     Have at least 1 date night every month with Courtney  Thanks to our parents and my sister being in town we had no problem getting time without Noah.

5.     Train (start March 1^st)and run 5k with Courtney in May  I supported Courtney in this but didn’t do it myself.  I have been consistently working out all year though!

6.     Get away for two nights for our anniversary in October We did this!

7.     Read 1 book on marriage Read His Needs Her Needs.

8.     Read 1 book on parenting Read Kid CEO.

 

Finances

9.     Setup a budget and use the envelope system every month Did this.

10.                        Increase tithe to 12% by June Did this.

11.                        Pay off 2^nd mortgage by end of year Did this in August.

12.                        Read 1 book on finances Read The Blessed Life.

 

Personal Development

13.                        Start taking classes towards Masters at Indiana Wesleyan Decided this isn’t necessary right now.

14.                        Read 2 books on communicating/speaking Read Communicating for Changeand Preaching on Your Feet

15.                        Read 2 books on leadership  Read Developing The Leader Within You, A Tale of Three Kings¸and a few others.

16.                        Attend Willow Creek Leadership Summit (Aug 7-8) or Catalyst (Oct 8-10) Went to Catalyst One Day.

The End of The Year - David's Final Words

Only a few more days left in 2008.  I plan to spend time this week doing those end-of-year tasks like cleaning out my office drawers, filling the stack of papers away and getting everything organized that has become disorganized.  I am also spending time reflecting back on 2008 and looking forward to 2009.  David final words in the Bible gives us a good model for what we should ask in a time like this:

"Is not my house right with God? [the question]  Has he not made with me an everlasting covenant, arranged and secured in every part? [looking back]  Will he not bring to fruition my salvation and grant me every desire? [looking forward]"  2 Samuel 23:5

[the question] How is my house?  Is it right with God?  These are good questions to ask ourselves.  I try and ask this question of several areas in my life:  personal health/growth, personal relationship with God, my job, financially, my marriage and now that I'm a parent, my children. 

[looking back] It is important to honestly look back at our life.  Our tendency is if we do spend time reflecting, it's easy to see the disappointments and things that went wrong.  However, there is also a lot that went right and a lot God did in our lives this past year.  I should spend some time giving God recognition for these things as they help me keep proper perspective moving forward.  I also look at my goals for 2008 and see how I did... I'll share those in another post.

[looking forward]  If I could write a sentence that would describe 2009 what would it be?  Instead of just jumping back in to life in 2009, I try and spend some time being intentional about how I hope the hear will go.  Some of this comes from my evaluation of 2008, some of it comes from the direction I feel like God is taking me.  I usually end up with some goals for the year that I write down to help keep me accountable.  I'll share these as well when I write them up later this week.

I encourage you to follow David's model this week.  evaluate how your house is with God.  Reflect back on 2008.  Look forward to 2009.

Life Church 2008 Video

This is a video we showed at church today reviewing a lot of what's happened over this past year.

New Family Photo Site

We have switched over all our family photos to a new website here. 

For those that are curious and tech savy, before we were using a free, open source solution hosted on a personal web server called Coppermine Photo Gallery.  It worked well but the process of keeping it updated and some feature limitations made me look elsewhere.  I evaluated both Flickr and Smugmug and decided to go with Smugmug due to how easy it is to view photos and the possibility of customizing my site in the future.

Merry Christmas!

Just returned home from our very first Christmas Eve service at Life Church.  It was a great time, and was so much fun to celebrate this occasion with both our families and our spiritual family at Life.  Many of the people there we have come to know over the last few years and consider them like family.  It is awesome when God brings people together for a common purpose.  The level and depth of relationships that form out of that are more real then any friendship I've ever had that wasn't God centered.  Thank you to all of you from Life Church!

Courtney, Noah and I want to wish all of you reading this a Merry Christmas!  We hope you have a peaceful and blessed Christmas in whatever way you are spending it.

Song: It Wasn't His Child by Trisha Yearwood

Just heard this song last night for the first time on an adoption special that Faith Hill did and Tim McGraw sang this song.  The song is about Joseph and his perspective with raising Jesus, a child that wasn't his own.  Many similarities to raising an adopted child, Courtney and I have had some of these thoughts.  Here is a version Trisha Yearwood did.

Home Study Done!

Today our Home Study was completed!  This is one of the last big items we're waiting on to complete our dossier.  Here are the other items we're waiting on:

• Scott's birth certificate (state of Indiana is always slow on this; Courtney got hers from New York in a few days!)
• Criminal Background Checks - these were run for our home study;  they are being sent to us
• Our USCIS approval from the U.S. Government; this is the reason we did fingerprints a few weeks ago; once they've done a federal background check they'll send us a letter approving us to adopt and bring children in to the U.S.

It's exciting as we're getting very close to being done with this phase. My best guess is by mid/late-January we'll have everything ready to send in!

God's Love - Jesus

On Christmas Eve I'm going with a few people from our Life Group to deliver our gifts and meet the family we adopted for Christmas.  I've been thinking some today about why I'm doing this.  Do I do it out of obligation?  Pitty?  Duty?  Or are my actions motivated by love?  The kind of love Jesus talked about, love for the poor, for my neighbor, even for those that are difficult to love.  I read the following quote by Frederick Buechner originally written in The Magnificent Defeat:

"The love for equals is a human thing - of friend for friend, brother for brother.  It is to love what is loving and lovely.  The world smiles.  The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing - the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely.  This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.  The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing - to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man.  The world is always bewildered by its saints.  And then there is the love for the enemy - love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain.  The tortured's love for the torturer.  This is God's love.  It conquers the world."

Jesus was the ultimate example of God's love for the world.  Jesus came to love those that would not love Him, those that would mock, threaten and inflict pain on Him.  He was tortured, and in response He loved His torturers.

Charlie Brown Christmas

One of my favorite Christmas scenes.  Simple.  True.  Something a child can understand (even better then us adults sometimes.)

Song: Joseph's Lullaby by MercyMe

I've been thinking a lot this year about Jesus' birth from the perspective of his Mom and Dad.  Probably because I'm now a father of a two year old.  This song tells the story from Joseph's perspective.  (this video is also a great summary of Christ' life)