This weekend we are handing out Bibles to all our second graders. I still have my 3rd grade Bible that I received from First United Methodist Church of Red Oak. I hope and pray that our 2nd graders treasure their Bibles like I have treasured mine. I look forward to this weekend every year and the chance to pray a prayer of blessing over our 2nd graders.

Tina Schramme, our Children’s Ministry Director always encourages our 2nd graders to invite parents, grandparents, other family and friends to underline or highlight their favorite stories or verses and then sign it and identify it as their favorite.

Today I want to share five scriptures that I would encourage parents to highlight and share with their 2nd graders in their new Bible.

If you were not present this past weekend and your child would like to receive a Bible, please let me know.

1. Psalm 139

When our daughter was born, we had a friend paint a few words from this Psalm over our daughters bed. Using the New Living Translation, she wrote, “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex.” Psalm 139 is a simple reminder that our life was created and shaped by the hand and blessing of God. This is a great Psalm for you to read with your kids and then share with them the excitement and anticipation you had leading up to their birth.

2. John 3:16

John 3:16 has been called, “the gospel in miniature.” This simple and short verse speaks to God’s love and affection for all humanity and the steps God has taken to bring us into relationship with God. This is a great verse for you to memorize with your child.

3. Philippians 1:2-6

In my bedroom growing up, my mom hung a poster of a young boy who looked like a total mess with the caption, “Don’t worry, God is not finished with me yet.” That picture reminds me of Paul’s words to the church at Philippi. Paul writes, “he who began a good work in you… he is going to complete that good work.” We are all on the journey together!

4. Matthew 19:13-14

We share these words each time a child comes to the front to be baptized. It’s part of why we care so much about families and believe we have a great responsibility to love and nurture kids. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, for to such as these belongs the Kingdom of God.”

5. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is known as the Shema, one of the most important prayers of Judaism that Jesus would have said every day of his life. When Jesus is asked by the religious leaders to tell them what was the greatest commandment, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 6. These verses are also a great reminder of how God sees the purpose and mission of families. “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Since my freshmen year in college, I have tried to maintain the discipline of setting goals for myself. In those days, those goals changed with each semester. Today, it has become an annual practice. Within our staff, we ask each of our employees to walk through a process of setting some measurable goals for themselves in the year ahead. Often, these goals extend beyond the work of one individual into a shared area of responsibility. We believe the key part of this process is helping each individual member of the team understand the ways in which they must contribute to achieving our overall goals and vision.

As a pastoral leader, almost all of my personal goals fall into an area of shared responsibility. I play a particular role across a wide spectrum of areas and I have found that taking the time to think about how I need to contribute to our larger initiatives is a really important practice for me. For 2011, I’ve set the following goals for myself.

Launch 5 p.m. Sunday worship service

This new worship opportunity has been a goal of ours for several years. We feel like 2011 is the time to make that happen. As the pace of life continues to increase in our community and the number of weekend activities continues to increase, we believe that expanding opportunities for worship is an important of reaching our culture today.

Upgrade GPS to a full line of resources for “growing disciples”

We have been very pleased with the growth of our GPS guide in it’s first 8-10 months of existence. Nearly 700 receive this guide by email every day and many more participate using the paper copies we provide in our weekend bulletins. In 2011, we hope to introduce some additional resources, writings and classes all designed around the idea of strengthening “growing disciples” in their journey of faith. This will include an upgrade to the way we deliver the GPS digitally each day as well as a full redesign of our website, www.growpraystudy.org.

Elevate the Saturday Night worship experience

With some of the work that we are doing in launching our 5 p.m. service, I want to continue to strengthen our Saturday Night worship opportunity. These potential changes should not only enhance the worship environment for Saturday but also more clearly communicate the gospel in this service. In 2011, I would like for us to end the year with an average attendance over 300 for this service.

Increase in my effectiveness as a communicator

Several weeks ago I made the statement in one of my messages that words are the “currency” of my life. It is what I do, and it is certainly the passion of my life. I love teaching. I love seeing individuals developing an appetite for understanding the Bible and deepening their commitment to growing in love and service to God and neighbor. In thinking about this area, I wrote down this vision statement.

“My intention is to invite people into experiencing a deeper relationship with Jesus by offering what I hope is a fresh perspective on faith.”

In 2011, I hope to grow in my effectiveness in this area.

Grow as a mentor/teacher for staff and other churches

I am blessed to work with some highly competent and talented young staff members. In the years ahead, I think they are going to be wonderful assets for our church and one of my areas is to help develop and mentor them. This is one of the areas of my life that is less visible, but deeply meaningful to me personally because of how many individuals took great care in nurturing and mentoring me in my first years of ministry.

Beyond that, about 99% of my work falls within the boundaries of First UMC Mansfield. I am a big believer that the majority of the pastor’s time, talent and energy needs to be expended within the local church. I do not speak outside of First UMC Mansfield more than a handful of times a year because I think the congregation I serve deserves that level of attention. At the same time, I am beginning to see that because of my work here I do have things to offer other pastors and church leaders in terms of church development. I have no idea what this looks like, but it’s something I want to explore in the year ahead.

Have you set your goals for 2011?

What are they?

Recorded live from the White Rock Marathon: the Big Announcement. Thanks to your generosity, we’ve raised even more than I expected for the ZOE Ministry. How much? Watch the video below to find out!

Watch it directly on YouTube.

Last week I shared with you about Alexa, an eight year old in our church, who had decided to raise money for Miles for Hope. Saturday Night she presented to me a ziploc bag full of coins and some bills. She had stapled to the front a post-it with the total amount she was able to raise.

She also handed me this note.

Dear Pastor David,

I know 26. miles or however many you are running is a lot but if you think that you are going to stop just think of the orphans and much you care about them and it should keep you going. I’m so happy to help you raise money for them. I am sad for them too.

Love,

Alexa

This morning I woke up early to work at Panera bread. My family and I are in Houston for the week of Thanksgiving. I started my day with coffee, reading the book of Mark and journaling some of my thoughts.

As tends to happen in those still moments of reflection, I also spent some time thinking about how “life was going” at this particular moment. Having been challenged by Jesus’ example of going off to a “solitary place” to pray in Mark 1:35-39 I was particularly focused on my own sense of balance.

It’s been a busy fall season for me. Sometimes our busyness increases because of some adversity that we are facing in our life or because of some negative consequences. That has not been the case for me in the last few months. My busyness has been directly related to some wonderful things.

I’ve been busy preparing to run a marathon in a few weeks for a great cause.
I’ve been busy because of the increase in the number of people I see for pastoral care.
I’ve been busy with some additional teaching I did this fall.
I’ve been busy trying to support some great young leaders in our church.
I’ve been busy with the normal stuff of church work…

Meeting with staff, preparing messages and teaching, thinking about how can be more effective in the future in fulfilling our mission…

All these things are things which I enjoy. I treasure the time I get to spend in each of these tasks. I look forward to them. I am energized by them. I could not imagine not doing any of them.

I believe in transparency so I don’t mind telling you, I’m feeling a bit drained right now. I’m worn down. I feel like I could use a vacation.

But the real truth is… I’m not drained because I’m too busy right now. My “condition” is not a result of working too hard or too many hours that I have no time to rest.

My problem is that I have not been consistently practicing what Jesus models so well.

I have not been withdrawing to my solitary place.
I have not been protecting my own sabbath rest.
I have not been creating and sustaining the sacred space that my soul needs to breathe.

In other words, it is no one’s fault but my own. I’m responsible and it’s on me to not only be aware of it, but to make the necessary adjustments to change it.

I am also sharing this today out of my own conviction that I want to be an authentic spiritual leader. I want my private devotion to Christ to live in harmony with my public ministry. I want the people I serve to see me as someone who not only loves them but is also faithful in my life-long mission to grow even more deeply in love with God.

I will confess that there is at times a sense of hesitation on my part to share the places where I find myself struggling. I recognize the desire that some feel for their pastor to be perfect and to have it all together.

But the truth is… that’s just not how it works.

Authenticity means telling the truth, and the truth is… right now I need to do better at entering the sacred space where my soul can breathe in the goodness and grace of God.

Because I’m no different than anyone else. I cannot survive without it.