I recently got a new wallet. My old wallet was starting to fall apart, and it was time. When I got the new wallet and began to switch everything over, I realized I had several cards I was carrying around with me all the time that I didn’t need. I also found a couple of gift cards that still had a balance on them! My wallet is now much more streamlined (and more comfortable in my pocket).
Moving into something new is always a good time to assess these kinds of things. Sometimes, we are so comfortable with the familiar, that we end up carrying around a lot of stuff we don’t need. I recently saw an advertisement for an app that assesses all of your subscriptions and sees if you still need all of them, or still want them at the same levels. That is a good idea, as many of our digital subscriptions renew automatically and we remain members of things, paying monthly, for something we no longer even use! Moving into a new thing helps us address that.
We felt that with the leadership team a few weeks ago. When we got together and started planning out the year, we found some things we had not thought about in a while, and we saw new opportunities and possibilities. Moving into something new will do that for us, and while it may be frustrating to actually go through the process, in the long run, it will have cleared out a lot of the “clutter.” At the church, we have discovered all kinds of things as we have cleared out rooms for Open Circle Community Church to come worship with us. As our children’s ministry explores new spaces, our youth explore new opportunities. We have even found subscriptions of things where we wonder, do we still need this? If the answer is yes, how can we best use it?!
These are good questions to ask, and for us to ask of ourselves, and the new year is a great time to do that. It is not only a time of resolution but reflection and assessment. I think of Jesus’s words, “we notice the speck in our neighbor’s eye, but don’t notice the plank in our own.” I wonder what we will discover if we start seeing the planks, and what we then begin to notice about our neighbors. There is a lot to be learned and moving into something new is a great way to do it.
Peace,
Jordan