We’ll do a recap of the past year soon, but I wanted to drop a quick note about the New Year.

Before I do that, thanks for making our Christmas party wonderful! It was a packed house at Columbia at Edgewood. And I believe everybody ate as much as they wanted. It’s always fun to celebrate our Lord’s birth with you.

The New Year – 2 Important Practices

Many of us create new year’s resolutions. Many of us break them quickly and give up.

Let me suggest a couple things:

1. Set Goals, not Resolutions. Goals are pictures of an ideal future. If we have goals, we have an idea of what and who we want to become.

If we fail from time to time, that’s okay. A goal is something to move toward. As long as the sum of our actions is taking us toward that hopeful future, we’re doing okay.

Moving toward goals also gives us the opportunity to be gentle and forgiving with ourselves (and learn how to accept God’s forgiveness).

2. Celebrate the Past Year. Look back at what worked and what went well. It’s a great idea to be thankful for God’s blessings and how He’s grown you.

Invite all of your family and friends around for a New Year celebration. Being with the people you love is important as we transition from one year to the next, as it reminds you who was there for you over the past year and who you’re thankful for.

Invite as many people as you can, and enjoy a meal together. This might mean you have a lot of grocery shopping to do, but if you head to a site like Raise, you can get a discount on your ingredients. This way, you can be sure you’ll have plenty to feed all of your hungry guests.

3. Give To Others.
Consider also donating some of your groceries to your local food bank. Nobody should have to go hungry at any time of year, but this time of year is especially difficult for families who are struggling financially. Try to include a mix of essentials and festive treats so that the food bank can offer a selection of products. Just one item can make the difference between starving and having at least something in their stomach for a family on the breadline, so this is a time where you should be thankful for everything you have.

At the end of it all, if you can find a few things that worked for you and that you learned, you can enter the new year encouraged. You can also build on those things.

Thanks for making 2012 wonderful! Here’s to a blessed 2013–a year that God will continue to grow us and a year where we’ll fall even more in love with Jesus!