Ready for 2013?

...in case it wasn't obvious from my previous post, I kinda am.  Even though 2012 was, in fact, a wonderful year for my congregation--our worship attendance grew by over 45%, we began a new children's Sunday School class, we started participating in a new mission program for our neighbors at Kessler Elementary School, and we repainted the entire freakin' building.  God has provided an abundance of will and energy to do great things here.

So, not bad for a year's work!

But I also wanted to give y'all a heads-up for some of the material I've got rolling around in my noggin for 2013...

First and foremost, I'll continue posting all of my sermons and columns here.  That part won't change.

What will, however, is an attempt by me to try to build a bit more continuity on the blog.  I've noticed that I preach better within larger arcs of continuity--hence why I preach almost entirely in sermon series throughout the year.  I've wondered if that might hold true for my blogging as well as for my preaching.

In that vein, I'm considering different options of what might make for a good series of blog posts.  I have thought about interviews with other young pastors in the Pacific Northwest who are, like me, engaging in building and rebuilding ministries with their churches.  I have also thought about making our Bible studies here at FCC partly accessible online, in that I would post a series of reflections based on what came out of those studies--questions, struggles, commentary, my own notes, etc.--for you to follow along and contribute to with your own discussion.

My own posts will likely continue in similar veins, though--a mixture of commentary on current affairs from a progressive Christian perspective and behind-the-scenes reflections on what ministry is truly, astoundingly, like.

Regardless of what I end up writing for the blog this year, I am very excited--and optimistic--for the prospects the year holds for my ministry here.

Which almost certainly means I need to go knock on wood immediately.

What are you most looking forward to in 2013?  What are you most hoping for?  What would you most like to see here at the Project in terms of posts, series, and content?

PS: Pasted below is also my preaching schedule for January, so that you can follow along with the new sermon series that begins on January 13.  It will be the first explicitly vision-casting sermon series I've done since the "Ashes to Sunlight" series when I first arrived here in 2011.  It will be based on the "to everything, there is a season" poem in Ecclesiastes 3, and I am really looking forward to it!

Yours in Christ,
Eric

January 2013 Worship Messages

January 6 (Epiphany Sunday): “As Dreamers Do,” Matthew 2:1-11

Post-Epiphany 2013: “A Time to Be Church: Envisioning a Promising Future”

January 13: “A Time to Break Down, a Time to Build Up,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-3

January 20: “A Time to Seek, a Time to Lose,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-6

January 27: “A Time to Tear, a Time to Sew,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8