Resolved: to Continue the Journey

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I don’t tend to make New Year’s resolutions. They usually just turn into a nice litany of things I failed to do: run more, write more, cook more. Stop laughing, Clark and Cheryl. I have thought that last one from time to time. See? It’s the department of transportation’s paving plan for the highway to hell.

So, rather than resolutions, as I pause for a moment on this last day of the 20-teens, I’m thinking more of practices. Earlier this month I bought an old-fashioned date book primarily for my work life. As interim pastor of a congregation that has some sorting of roles ahead of it, one of the gifts I will give to them in the coming year is as much detail as possible about how I divide the time of each day to meet the demands of the work.

practice noticing

I am imagining keeping a diary every bit as dull as the one George Washington famously kept. “At home all day, writing letters.” That was the good general reflecting on a Sunday in 1789. I’m certain that no one 250 years from now will be leafing through the pages I write in the coming year detailing the minutia of my work, but I think it will help the church make some significant decisions about staffing patterns.

As I reflect on this intention to practice diary keeping for the coming year, I think it will also be a gift to me because it will a way of holding myself accountable to some practices like setting aside set times to study, set times to write, set times to reflect. Leaders in faith communities – really, in any communities – cannot long thrive if they don’t take time to study, reflect, and communicate.

Brian McLaren posted a brief and compelling set of resolutions for pastors for the coming year, and I think he’s on to some important commitments that ought to be common for leaders in faith communities, including: taking time to notice and enjoy the gifts of the day; clarifying roles; and engaging the politics of our time.

To do any of those things takes intention and practice. If I name those three – or any other set of resolutions – but I don’t set aside time to practice them then I’m right back where I began with writing a litany of future failures.

So, I’m not going to resolve to write a weekly blog post or finish a novel or complete “Generative Church” or write 12 new songs (though I do have song-cycle concept I’m toying with). Instead, I’m going to put “writing” on the calendar and then check the diary against it to hold myself accountable to the writing. We’ll see what comes out of that practice as time unfolds. I imagine this blog will be part of my accountability, too. I don’t think the next year will look like Advent did in this space, but I anticipate posting more frequently here (and less frequently on Facebook).

Similarly, with the other practices I want to frame my living with, I’m not going to resolve to achieve any particular set of performance goals. Instead, I’m just going to name a set of practices I intend to follow, including the practice of attending to the process. That is to say, as always, it is about the journey, not the destination.