3 Year Plan

This week I started a new job. Actually, it’s the same job, but new employer. I’m proud of the fact that I’m now on my fourth employer in the last 18 months. A brother in my Small Group has me beat though. He’s had four different jobs in the past year!

Despite pretty much having the same job for seven years, I’m now under a three year probationary period with my new employer. That will put me at 10 years professional experience, a magic number if I look for jobs elsewhere. But more importantly it gives me three years to get my act together.

I expect and accept that my professional goals and my spiritual goals will someday diverge. And while I feel the Spirit pulling my heart, I don’t know where that leads. But one thing I do know, is that I want to write. That’s part of the point of this blog- to help me get my thoughts and feelings out there and to get in the habit of writing regularly. I also intend this blog to be more of a ministry than a simple outlet.

With that in mind, this blog is really the second step in a four-part plan. The first step was a failed attempt at an online newsletter linking churches, ministries, and friends with the goal of spiritual unity without any mandate from church leadership. It started out well, but at the time I wasn’t able to follow through and make it consistent.

This is the second step, and I’m a couple of years in. I want and pray for more traffic because I want this blog to be a pebble in the swamp of the internet sending ripples out from it.

The third step I’ve begun with some fits and starts, and that is to put the theme of this ministry, Public Christianity, into practice. So far I’ve steered the lessons and Bible Talks in my small group to be consistent with this and I plan on broader church-wide activities in the future.

The fourth step is the most intimidating and that is to publish. I already have the ideas for multiple books in mind but I need to set a deadline for myself to force me to write something down. So that’s three years from now.

Call it a fleece, if you will. In three years, if I finish my first book and can’t get it published, then I consider that door closed. If it’s published and I receive the same tepid response as this blog, well then I’ll keep plugging at it until it’s clear the effort is futile. If it’s published and creates the ripple I pray it will, then I’ll go forward full-bore. The trick, at the end of my probationary period at work, will be to see if this will balance or conflict with my career. So that will be the biggest leap of faith in three years.

So please pray for me. I don’t know how it will go, or even if it even if it should go at all. I trust the Lord to reveal what he has in store for me and to guide me along the way.

“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed” (Pr 16:3)

“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD‘s purpose that prevails.” (Pr 19:21)