planning...

One of my favorite ministry responsibilities is planning for the future. Sometimes the past bores me and there are times when the present frustrates me. But tomorrow, now that’s a topic I can embrace! Every fall, we enter into a time of dreaming and praying and visualizing about what next year holds for us. Specifically this week, I am zeroing in on some outreach and mission ideas for Maranatha Church for 2010. My preaching schedule and message sequence is pretty much set for the new year. Our activities calendar is already full. Now I get to work on some things that really get my heart pumping.

Outreach and Missions
We are strategizing about ways we can make the love of God obvious in our community. Things have changed in our culture and what worked a few years ago is totally ineffective now. A fresh approach is necessary. The needs have evolved, so must our efforts to reach people. One of the things that is at the forefront of my mind is our motives. We must reach out to people with pure hearts, not with ulterior motives. I think people see right through our expressions of conditional love and concern. We have to love and serve people as Jesus did; No strings attached. We will serve them in an effort to show them God’s love, but if they do not respond the way that we would like, we will still love and serve them.

Our missions work will, as God allows, expand next year. We did great in ’09, but I have some goals that will take us well beyond what we accomplished in the past. I would like to expand in 3 areas: the number of people involved, the amount of money we give and the geographical areas we serve. It is all quite exciting!

Who knows what the new year and new decade will hold? Only God! My job is to hear His voice today and everyday in order to follow Him and help others.

I love planning for the future!