“In 2009, I renew my promise to …”

Even though January is not the beginning of the Christian year, we Christians use it as a time to take self-stock and make new selfpromises to family, friends, neighbors, jobs, God, and the church.
When we became United Methodists, we vowed to be loyal to The United Methodist Church, and to uphold it by
Our prayers + Our presence + Our gifts + Our service
It is very easy to forget these things as we get busy in life, so I want to remind us all that we made this vow both individually, by stating our personal intentions, and collectively, by committing with fellow United Methodists to uphold the Body of Christ. We also pledged both individually and collectively to help each other keep our vows.
Too often, we think of our membership just within this special local church that we each call “my church family.” Well, though you spoke those
vows in this local church that you love and that loves you, the “collectively” reaches far beyond the walls of our family church. Our United Methodist
extended family includes all other United Methodist churches. As United Methodists we are connected through our District with all other Districts,
through our Annual Conference to all other Annual Conferences, and to- Jurisdictions all over the world. We are a connectional church.
So, I’m encouraging each of us to begin the new calendar year with this statement: “In 2009, I renew my vows to the United Methodist Church. I
will participate in more worship services than I did in 2008 ... have fun in more church activities than I did in 2008 … give more than I did in 2008
… and invite more people to join me in worship than I did in 2008.”
When you do these things you will be making your special church family stronger than it was during the past year. Because we are a connectional
church, your promise-keeping will reach out across our state, nation and all the world with our extended family

Blessings

~ Ben

New Year, New Direction

Well, it’s all over. The Christmas lights and decorations are coming down;
and our thoughts are turning toward the New Year, a time when we think new thoughts and dream new dreams that may lead us in new directions.
Speaking of new directions, one of my Christmas gifts was a GPS (Global Positioning System) for the car. On the recent group trip to Maine, our bus
was equipped with a GPS that really came in handy, even in New York City.
The small unit uses multiple satellites to find its location and configure a route to the destination. Impressive! However, when I drove to Gadsden to
show off this new toy to Paula, I learned that, as with everything else in life, unless the correct information goes in the information coming out is
not worth much. Thank goodness, it was only a test run! I am still doing the most unmanly of things—reading the instructions.
I began to think of this in terms of our walk with God in the New Year.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a system to direct us to the point in life where God needs us in service to God’s kingdom—a system that uses some
heavenly body to find the best path to the place God wants us to be, the place God created us to be. As I thought, it occurred to me that we already
have this system. It’s called a life in piety. Piety simply means giving our hearts, our whole selves to God. Piety is a description of our relationship
with God and how we live out that relationship. Our life in piety changes as we grow in our relationship with God. As we understand more about God, we put in new information and receive new directions. Hey, that’s just like the GPS system, except that the Most High of Heavenly Bodies speaks not to a small electronic device but directly to us.
As we head into this New Year of 2009, let us all make sure we have our antennas working as we pray, study, and learn more together in order to go
forward in God’s service—as we continue to work on getting the message of God’s love beyond the church’s walls to the community around us.

Shalom!
~ Keith