I don’t know if you’re a new year’s resolution kind of person. I used to be, with limited success. I picked the usual suspects. Stay fit, save money, yada, yada. But a few years ago I started a new tradition. Instead of picking 2 or 3 resolutions to focus on, I picked a single word.
Maybe you can focus on a few big things at once. I do better with one. One word for the new year. One guiding word to focus on. The past couple of years its been “discipline” and “presence.”
Over the next few days, between football and napping, take some time to reflect back on 2014. What were the moments of joy and celebration? Struggle and disappointment? Journal if that helps you or just share with your family. Then come up with a word for 2015. Think about what’s coming in the next year for you. What would be one word or idea that could guide you and keep you focused on loving God and loving others? One word as a lens through which to see 2015, helping you be intentional about life instead of just letting life happen to you.
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I love working at the Christian Campus Center. When I interviewed for the position, having the CCC was a major reason I took the job.
As much as I love it, there are times when I feel disconnected from the rest of the church, simply by geography. Because of this, much of the Kingdom work that goes on over here doesn’t always make its way back to the larger body. So I thought I would take this blog post as an opportunity to tell you, or remind you what the CCC is all about.
I like to think of the CCC as a Kingdom Outpost. We do kingdom work here – serving, worshiping, teaching, disciple-making, and being good neighbors in our neighborhood. Every Tuesday we serve a free lunch at 11:30. This is a great way to meet new students and give them a good free meal. Students like food, but they love free food. Every Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. we have worship and a bible study. Many of our Singing Oaks students come but we also have a group of students that are not part of SOCC. We are their community of faith. We also do game nights, movie nights, retreats, and with all of this we are reaching beyond the walls of Singing Oaks to build relationships which is what being a Kingdom Outpost is all about.
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I enjoyed going through The Story together as a church. It was neat to all be studying the same thing and to be reminded of the broad, overarching upper story of God’s work in the world.
After The Story it seems best to explore something that gives us a picture of what life looks like if you truly find your place in The Story.
Enter Acts.
When someone truly finds their role in God’s Story they live lives like those found in Acts.
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Chapter 17 of The Story brings with it familiar themes. God enters into a covenant with his people. His people are unfaithful to the covenant. Bad things happen. His people repent. Same song. Second verse.
Actually, third or fourth or sixteenth verse. God’s people are unfaithful to God over, and over, and over, and over. God’s people continue to choose something else other than God. I don’t know if you have ever tried to read through the entire Old Testament, it’s pretty long. But really, you don’t need to because this is essentially the whole Old Testament in a nutshell. You’re welcome.
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We all know the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We KNOW it in our heads but do our lives reflect this knowledge or something else?
In the book of Judges (and really all throughout the Old Testament) the Israelites are constantly doing the same thing over and over, yet they are constantly surprised when things don’t go their way. They sin and turn to other gods and as a result they are oppressed by other nations, they cry out to God and repent, God comes through again and rescues them. Then it all starts over. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
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