2025 Already? Now What?

Pastor Todd and Valerie wishing you a happy and faith-filled New Year!

I knew 2024 was going to be a year of change.  But I sure didn't expect that big a change!  Pretty much 2024 turned my life into a snow globe after a good shake.  I was ordained.  I retired from my professional career this year (just a couple months ago).  I was called as a full-time pastor--that started November 1st right before the busy holiday season at the church kicked off.

So now the dust is settling and I'm finally catching my breath, and here I am like so many others planning the next year.  And I have all those questions pastors have.  Where is God leading me?  What should my focus be?  What would I like to see completed this year?  And how am I going to get there?  

And I don't know the answers to some of these questions.  But God does.  So I'm going to be paying a lot of attention to where God is leading me as I have been.  He's sure brought me a long way the last four years, and I'm going to trust that He will continue to guide me.  

One thing I know I'm going to be more focused on this year is writing.  I'd like to spend considerably more time on sermon preparation.  And I'm looking at the numbers on this blog, and I'm really surprised!  Even though I'm not posting regularly at all, there's a lot of people checking this blog.  So I'm hoping to get into a habit of posting at least once a week in 2025.  We'll see where this goes.  

And there may be a book coming.  I'm pretty sure I'm not done writing books yet.  I have an idea I'm working on.  It's a very Biblical map to a deeply God-centered life.  I preached through a couple of the big themes on Sunday mornings in 2024, and the response to those messages was encouraging.  One of the great advantages to being a pastor is we already write 3-5 thousand words a week, and a good sermon series will usually make for a good book.  Perhaps I'll have something by the end of this year that's ready to go to press.  

That's what my year is looking like.  A few plans I've laid out, and a great deal of faith God will direct me on the rest.  

I've certainly learned over the last several years, that sometimes we tend to rely too much on our own plans.  We sit down this time of year and make a list of things we want to do.  It's always good to have a plan, but it's also good to ask God's guidance over your life, and your decisions, and your goals.  In my experience, when I put God in the center of what I'm doing, I seem to find the path God has laid out for me.  When I put myself in the center, it doesn't always go quite like I want it to.  

I pray you have a great year!

~Pastor Todd Creason