This seems to be my ‘7th Heaven‘ theme of this season in my life. I reflect back on the past few months and see it all as a time of clearing space in my life and putting things in order. I have a lot of clutter in my life — and most of it isn’t bad, but all together it’s been a burden. The more I think about it, this past year has been a season of getting rid of the clutter and creating space.
I finally wrote out a budget this weekend. It’s been one of those things I’ve been meaning to do but didn’t want to for fear of having to stick to it. To be honest, there was actually the reverse effect, it was rather freeing to know how each dollar would be spent before writing a single check or making a swipe of the debit card. John Maxwell says that a budget is “telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went”. It’s a miracle that I’ve been able to operate without a budget for this long. One thing that I have noticed from my budget is that I’m not underpaid, I’m just in too much debt! I’ve got a new car payment and no new car. If I were not in any debt I’d have an extra $450 per month to give,spend and save. Now that is some motivation to get out of debt!
At church today Josh Patterson gave a “state of the union” type address where he talked about the amazing things God did last year at the Village and the direction the church would be moving in 2008. I had actually already heard this talk (it was given at the leaders retreat last month) but it was just as affirming the second time around. He talked about how our theology should drive our philosophy which should determine our practice. It should be on the Podcast soon, so if you ever wonder how the Village operates, this would be a good one to check out. One thing that is changing is our ministries. We’re getting rid of a bunch of them. No more college ministry. So long single’s ministry. Goodbye men and women’s ministries. We plan to minister to singles, college students, men and women but not in individual ministries with individual budgets. The idea is (as I understand it) less ministries, more ministry. Ministry at the Village happens in small groups, so we’re pouring all of these ministries into our small groups. Less clutter. Another goal is to move our small groups into more multi-generational groups. Currently our groups are based around life stages — my home group is a single guy’s group with ages from 24-30ish. This is great for community and fellowship because we’re all realatively at the same place in life. That said, we’re nothing but a pool of ignorance when it comes to things like marriage, buying a house, or raising a family. The big goal in all of this is to build depth in our relationships; to answer the question “how do you have community in a church of 5000 people?”
I’ll end with some thoughts from Zig Ziglar. Go check out his podcast on iTunes. Ziglar often asks the question “are you a meaningful specific, or a wandering generality?” What he’s talking about is goal setting. Without goals in life we do a lot of work but often it’s aimless. We’re busy but we’re not productive. We talk a lot but we haven’t said anything. We make a lot of money but we’ve got nothing to show for it. We have a lot of ministries but we don’t do a lot of ministry… The more clutter I clear away and the more specific and intentional I become, the more excited I get at the thought of what God will do in my life.
