Happy New Year poll!



I have great hopes for the year 2010. I believe that God has great hopes and plans for this year as well. Yet as a future pastor, I’m in a weird position. I’m working on my 7th seminary class at Liberty Theological Seminary (via distance learning), I’m a lay leader at my church (military ministry) and my ship, and accepting any preaching opportunity I can, mostly through my ship.

This is a game of patience. I assume that I will not be a pastor until at least the year 2016. This is a blessing, however, as it will be nearly that long until I get my Mdiv since I’m a part time student. I should add that I get frustrated by patience-requiring evolutions. In the Navy, we don’t have much of that. When the drill starts, someone shoots at us pretty quickly and before you know it, you’re popping off missiles at the bad guys like a Roman candle on the 4th of July. Christianity isn’t like that. God has been around for eternity and the church for 2000 years. This is a giant waiting game…I’m not good at waiting. I’ll try to get better.

I have ideas…many ideas…some of them crazy, some kind of cool, and others that I think might help Christianity as a whole move forward. I don’t know if anyone will ever want to use some of these ideas, but I want to try them out so I will write about them. This blog is a blessing because I get to write about whatever I want to. From the abortion debate to my latest twist in theology to my son’s karate tournament, I can say what I want and let you, the reader, sort it out. I think my head would explode if I didn’t have these opportunities to clear my head through my blog. God has been good to me to allow me to live during a great era of technological advancement.

While I think that this year holds some amazing things, I have no idea what those things are, and I’m honestly a little anxious about them. I hate to say it, but I just “feel” something big will happen. But my personal goal is simply to grow. However I have to grow, I will do it. No resolutions, no promises…I just want to grow closer to my Lord, my King. I believe it is possible.

I hope you all have a great day. Enjoy some football and family! I’m on the ship, but hopefully it will be a relaxed day and I can take it easy. Before you do that though, do you have any wild dreams and hopes for this year? If so, please let me know! And I'd love for you to take a quick look at the poll to the right! Thanks! Happy New Year!

6 comments:

Don the Baptist said...

Patience is the name of the game. I surrenderend to the ministry at 17, went to college at 18, seminary at 28 and did not get a church til I was 30.

HOWEVER. You're 20's seem to have been a bit more productive than mine. I pray that God uses you in a mighty way. Keep grabbing ANY opportunity to preach. My first sermon was at the Baptist Mission on Coronado in 1973.

The Navy Christian said...

Don, Thank you so much for this encouragement! I'm glad to hear that I'm on the right track!

Uninvoked said...

We all have different ways of sharing the Lord. Your blog is a great one. My way of spreading God's word is to link various websites I support in an advertisement of some kind at the bottom of each post. I'd like to add yours, if you happen to have a pic for your blog that would work as a banner advertisement.

Stephanie Kay said...

Wild dreams and hopes? PLENTY!

1. To move to Texas (probably San Antonio area).

2. Lose 25-30 pounds. That's a big dream for a mom of 4 like myself!

3. Run my first 5k in May. Big stuff for a girl who hates to run or exercise!

4. See my friend Alicia (you said wild!) :)

5. Sell my house and make 100k off of it (only God can make that happen!)

I'll stop there, but you get the idea. :)

The Navy Christian said...

Stephanie! Great thoughts! Having just run my first 10K, and getting ready for my first half marathon, I love your fitness and health goals! Thank you so much for that outstanding comment!

The Navy Christian said...

Uninvoked: I was going to write you about this offline, but didn't know what address to send the email to. Can you email me at sdansmith@gmail.com?