A New Year on Our Journey to Know Christ
The beginning of the new year often brings new diet and exercise goals, financial goals, and relational goals. But what about spiritual goals? Your elders would like to encourage you in this new year to consider setting some SMART spiritual goals, and we’d like to help!
For those who aren’t familiar with SMART goals, it’s about setting goals that are:
Specific - don’t be too general (i.e. I want to be a better Christian)
Measurable - be able to gauge your progress (time, frequency, quantity)
Attainable - don’t set too lofty a goal (i.e. I want to be the best Christian)
Realistic - consider your situational limitations (will you have the time/energy?)
Timely - set an end date for your goal (i.e. read the Bible by the end of 2024)
If you’re like me, sometimes goal-setting is an intimidating exercise. What if I fail? What if my goal is too hard or too easy? What if my goal isn’t the right one? Do I really want to do this? Setting a spiritual goal is meant to help your growth in Christ, so if it’s not helping you, it’s better not to pursue it. But don’t give up on goal-setting too quickly!
As a way for you to assess your spiritual growth, we’ve provided this anonymous online survey. It follows the Landmarks and the Supplies* of JVC in service of two purposes:
To help the elders get a sense of how the church as a whole has grown on our journey to know Christ.
To help you consider areas in your spiritual life where you would like to grow and then set a goal to pursue that growth with God’s help.
If you’d like to share your goal with someone you trust, the accountability can be quite helpful. Consider sharing with your community group, your study group, your friend, or one of your elders. We hope you will benefit from this exercise as we press on together in our journey to know Christ. Take a moment to consider the words of Paul in Philippians 3:7-14:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Sincerely,
Pastor Wes