My New Year ... 2020

Optimism?

Dread?

‘Sigh,’ ‘yawn’ …

            What best describes you as you enter a new year, a new decade, 2020?

            I come to the new year with goals, which I won’t go into describing here.  I have some fitness goals.  I have some intellectual goals.  I am going to try something I haven’t done before, I think.  That last one doesn’t sound overly confident, but I think it’s OK to have concrete goals and aspirational goals, and I have both.  Goals can be motivating.

            I also enter 2020 with hope.  God has carried our church through some tough times in 2019, and we’ve come out on the other side with a clear sense of God’s vision for us.  Along with that, I feel like I know the place God has for me in my church, in my family, and in my community.  I pray that you can experience the hope God has given me.  It is joyful and energizing. 

If you don’t have this feeling of hope, the church is here for you.  We exist to help people grow in their relationship with God.  It begins with turning our lives completely over to Jesus.  We help each other know how to do that and then to get on with it.  So, if you’re aimless, without goals, and if you feel discouraged, without hope, allow the church to walk with you.  Come along as we lead you to Jesus.  He’ll provide the sense of purpose and direction.  It will be liberating empowering for you.

Finally, in addition to goals and hope, I feel called by God into a new year.  In 2020, at Hillside Church, we know God had planted us.  Chapel Hill-Carrboro is our home.  God wants us to love this community.  God wants the people here to meet him in our church.  Showing him to the world, sharing Jesus’ love with the world; this is our calling. 

Happy 2020!  God has set the path before us.  It’s time to step forward in faith.