2012, The Road Ahead

An article by Matt    3 Comments

Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.

-Habakkuk 1:5

And so starts 2012.  I am genuinely excited for what lies ahead this year… more so than I have been for the start of a new year in quite a while.    As I enter 2012 the opportunities and challenges that are in front of me are enormous, yet at the same time i am relishing the opportunity to take them on.

So what is the difference this year?  This year I am three months into a new adventure.  Church Simple is up and running, and I am getting ready to fully launch Plant Simple.  The momentum for these two projects has been building, and I am genuinely excited about what God is going to allow me and our team to do through them.  This year I have set solid, quantifiable, goals for the first time in a long time.  I have three things that are my top priorities for this coming year, and I am really looking forward to the challenge.

What are these goals, you ask?  Two of them are personal, and one of them is work related:

• Serious Weight Loss.  Two months ago a dear friend of mine looked me in the eyes and told me that the best thing that I could do to make my new adventure a success is to lose weight.  As Theresa and I look towards starting a family (no, Mom, we aren’t pregnant) the greatest gift that I can give my future child is to lose one hundred pounds over the next twelve months.
• Learn Spanish.  As our countries demographics continue to shift, I am convinced that being fluent in Spanish is becoming more and more of a necessity to minister to those around us.  While I have struggled to pick up languages in the past, this is the year that I am going to overcome my past struggles… and besides, they told me in high school that my Latin would make it easier to speak Spanish.
• Strengthen Churches and Church Planters.  I am pretty excited about this.  We are putting the finishing touches on our coaching cohorts and are getting ready to launch a pilot cohort for church planters (interested in being a part, let me know).  Based on the results of the pilot we hope to expand our model to serve church planters and established small to mid-sized churches think through leadership, vision implementation, and strategy development.  More on this soon.

As 2012 begins, what is on the road ahead for you?