I tried this last year for the first time and found it to be a pretty helpful way to frame the year as it moved along. For 2010, my 3 words were rest, equip & focus. Those 3 words really do a great job of summarizing the themes of this past year for me.  Just looking at the big events of the past year…having our sabbatical, being able to attend the pastors’ sabbath retreat, as well as the Emotionally Healthy Leadership conference, really hit on each of these themes well.

While we were on vacation between Christmas & New Years I took some time to pray about what the three words for 2011 would be.  And, as you can see above they were, reboot, recommit & release.

While obviously, I’m not sure what the next year will bring, there are a few things that we know…1) in March/April our family will “reboot” in a  dramatic way with the arrival of my fourth daughter.  There a lot of things I thought I wouldn’t be doing again until I was a grandfather.

At the same time, as we’ve talked with a number of the leaders at our church, we’ve recognized that we need a bit of a reboot for our church.  And we’ve been mentioning over the past few weeks, that a large focus of our church for this next year will be focusing on who we are…why we do what we do…stuff like that.  When we started the Ithaca Vineyard 12 years ago, there was a small group of us and we all knew this stuff…we lived & breathed it.  So over this next year, we’ll talk a lot of time and talk about what we value & what we believe as a way of getting everyone on the same page moving forward.  (I’m really excited about this!)

The recommit & release, while I think they apply on a larger scale as well, I know part of what I need to do this year is the same thing we are doing as a church…recommit to certain things that are good & fun & healthy…and release some stuff that is just not.

Any thoughts on what you’re hoping for in the upcoming year?