In our country the Fourth of July is the prime time to celebrate our many freedoms, especially our religious liberty.

Where will you worship this weekend? While many of us have appropriate plans in place this weekend to celebrate our nation’s independence with picnics, barbeques, ice cream, and fireworks, one of the most fitting ways to celebrate is to exercise our freedom to worship.

Our Baptists ancestors were among the many who contended for religious liberty for all faiths. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States confirms that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As citizens of these United States, we enjoy greater freedoms than any nation on earth, but with great freedom comes great responsibility.

In light of our religious liberty, let us pray fervently for those who live in regions of the world that are subject to harsh religious persecution. As we freely choose where and when to worship, let us remember our brothers and sisters who will gather anxiously but faithfully in underground churches, taking risks unfamiliar to most of us, in order to worship God and gather with their fellow believers.

From my perspective, joining regularly with other believers to worship nurtures spiritual growth, fosters moral character, and encourages humanitarian service. Hebrews 10:25 reminds us, “Some people have gotten out of the habit of meeting for worship, but we must not do that. We should keep on encouraging each other, especially since you know that the day of the Lord’s coming is getting closer.” (CEV)

For believers to neglect the opportunity to gather for worship and Bible study is to trivialize the tremendous price paid for our freedom to assemble without fear of reprisal or repercussion. Perhaps the worst expression of historical amnesia is the tendency to take freedom for granted.

I think we best celebrate and preserve our liberty by exercising the privileges that accompany our extraordinary freedom. This week is a prime time to celebrate. Whether at home or traveling, make plans for a fun and festive day with family and friends. Take time to give thanks for our great heritage and to pray for our nation’s leaders. Most importantly, celebrate by exercising your freedom to worship, and respect the freedom of those in different denominations and other religions to do the same.

(Barry Howard serves as senior minister at First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida.)

Recently a family visited our church from what they described as a more contemporary church in the community. When a person or family visits with us from another local church, I always thank them for visiting, commend their church, and try to encourage their continued participation there.

However, as I spoke with this family, the father said, “We love our church, but our children are at an age where we are looking for a church that has Sunday School and sings hymns.” He went on to elaborate that he and his wife were talking one day and realized that they both wanted their children to experience Sunday School and to worship in a church that sings both hymns and contemporary songs.

I think I understand where he is coming from. I have an appreciation for various styles of worship and diverse models of “doing” church. In my own experience, Sunday School was one of the most formative and influential forces in my upbringing. After talking with this visiting family, my mind turned to the many valuable life lessons I learned growing up in Sunday School. Interestingly, the lessons I learned instilled in me a love for the Bible, an emerging faith in God, a moral compass, and sense of social etiquette.

Thanks to many faithful Sunday School teachers like Polly Foote, Pearl Lloyd, Sue Harrelson, Mary Lester, and Judy Smith, here are a few basic lessons that I internalized and that I continue to try to practice:

• Read the Bible daily.
• Confess your sins regularly and ask for God’s forgiveness.
• Trust Jesus with all of your problems, the little ones and the big ones.
• Be kind to everyone, especially strangers.
• Give the first 10% to the Lord.
• Pray for your family, friends, leaders, pastors, missionaries both at home and overseas, men and women in uniform at home and on foreign soil, and “all that is our duty to pray for.”
• “Judge not that ye be not judged.”
• Forgive others graciously, just as Christ has forgiven you.
• Never call people names.
• Serve God by serving others.
• Aim to please God, not other people.

Nowadays, I believe the Sunday School experience continues to be remarkably transformational for children and adults. Whether you call it Sunday School, Small Groups, Cell Groups, Life Groups, Christian Education, or Bible Study, gathering with a small group of believers on a regular basis to study the Bible, pray together, care for one another, and share life together instills a spirituality that is deeper than superficial religion.

Faith isn’t forged overnight. Durable faith seems to be cultivated and nurtured over time among folks of all ages who gather in community groups that look a lot like Sunday School.

(Barry Howard serves as Senior Minister at the First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida.)

In a culture that is increasingly attention-deficient, remembering is a painful but necessary discipline. The last Monday in May is designated for a unique and specific purpose: To remember.

Memorial Day usually does not generate as much holiday enthusiasm as Christmas, Easter, or Independence Day, perhaps because Memorial Day is more an observance than a celebration. Originally, Memorial Day was a day to remember those who fought in the Civil War, but later this day was expanded to recognize those who fought in all American wars. This important holiday is not just another “day off” but a day to remember those who have lost their lives in the military service of our country.

Remembering historical facts should help us to remain consciously aware of the harsh realities of global conflict, past and present. Revisiting stories from the battlefield may enable us to learn from both the successes and the failures of our national ancestry. When we remember the fallen we keep alive the individual and corporate legacies of valor and courage that inspire and challenge us to be responsible citizens of the free world.

For a free nation to remain free, remembering is imperative. John Logan urges us, “Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic.”

To fail to remember is to develop a convenient amnesia that eventually robs succeeding generations of their national heritage. To fail to remember creates a contagious apathy that leads to a neglect of both freedom and citizenship. To fail to remember can produce a false sense of protection and a perceived exemption from future warfare. A loss of memory eventually leads to a loss of national identity. Remembering is a painful but necessary discipline, a discipline that forges vision from memory, and a discipline that extracts wisdom from knowledge.

What are some things we can do to help remember and commemorate the contributions of those who lost their lives in battle?

• Read biographies of world leaders, military generals, POW’s, and holocaust survivors.
• Read historical accounts of crucial battles.
• View a documentary or movie that realistically portrays the stories of war.
• Visit historic sites such as battlefields, monuments, and military cemeteries.
• Visit with a veteran and listen firsthand to stories from the heat of battle.
• Give thanks for those who have fought for freedom and justice.
• Pray for those who are serving in military service today.
• Work for freedom, justice, and world peace.
• Practice and preserve religious liberty.
• Exercise your rights and fulfill your responsibilities as a citizen.

In The Roadmender Margaret Fairless Barber suggests that “To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.”

Today is Memorial Day. A day to remember the past with gratitude and to look to the future with faith and fortitude.

In 1994 I was serving at the First Baptist Church of Williams near Jacksonville, Alabama when a tornado touched down on Palm Sunday near Ragland, Alabama and cut a trail to Rome, Georgia, demolishing hundreds of homes, destroying five church campuses, and taking 29 lives before leaving that area.

Eleven years later I began serving a church on the Gulf Coast and was dealing once again with the aftermath of destructive storms….Hurricanes Ivan, Cindy, Dennis, and Katrina. The experience I gleaned following the Palm Sunday Tornado prepared me to better serve and provide leadership in the aftermath of the coastal storms.

Once the storm passes, residents are faced with a haunting reality. Life will never be the same. For many, friends have been injured, homes have been destroyed, and irreplaceable family heirlooms lost. A sense of despair prevails. But for most, at least, life will continue.

Following the Palm Sunday tornado and the coastal hurricanes, the communities I served learned a lot about patience and perseverance. We learned a lot about grace and hope. We learned the importance of looking forward and not backward. We learned that our dreams trumped our nightmares. We learned a lot about faith and life.

At least five crucial lessons learned from storms past helped us to heal and move forward, slowly and progressively:

1. We learned that you have to grieve quickly, then get to work. Once the initial shock of the devastation has been absorbed, it’s time to channel all of your energy to re-building and moving forward. Despite the grief over things lost, there is a unique kind of joy that arises when you begin dreaming of the new things you can build…together. And interestingly, the challenge of re-building had a healing effect.

2. We learned emphatically that God doesn’t exempt folks from tragedy just because they have faith. I remember someone asking me, “Pastor, why do you think God let that tornado hit five churches on Sunday morning?” Since I can’t imagine God sitting in heaven and pushing a “Create Tornado” button, then hitting “Send” to a specific address, I remember responding, “Try drawing a line 55 miles in any direction on an Alabama map without hitting at least five churches.” The Bible says “it rains on the just and the unjust.” Since most churches are comprised of some combination of just and unjust people, I take that to mean that there is no place or people group who are given a free pass from natural disasters.

3. We learned that when the going gets tough, people of faith mobilize and work together cooperatively. After the Palm Sunday Tornado, the First Baptist Church in the Williams Community served as a Red Cross Relief Center. We partnered with the Cherokee Electric Cooperative, Bellsouth, and FEMA, and each of them did admirable work, eventually. But we also hosted Builders for Christ, Campers on Mission, Mennonite Response Teams, Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief Teams, and a Latter-Day Saints Team.

On the coast, a variety of churches and missional partners organized, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work. Volunteers from faith-based groups often organize quickly and dispatch to the scene, while professional and government groups are often slowed by paperwork and red tape restrictions. I distinctly remember many of the professional workers who partnered with us telling me how they admired the work ethic, the productivity, and the cooperative spirit of the volunteer teams from churches and faith-based organizations.

4. All kinds of talents and skill levels are needed for clean-up and re-building. We were fortunate to have a huge corps of skilled personnel who managed chain saws, dozers, cranes, and front-end loaders. However, we also needed folks to cook food, drive trucks, pick up debris, run errands, care for children, visit the elderly, sweep the floor, manage communications, and do household cleaning. In disaster relief, every job is important and every volunteer has something to offer. Never underestimate the importance of doing all the good you can, where you can, when you can.

If you want to volunteer, always connect with a group such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, or a church group. Don’t just strike out on your own.

5. Relief work builds community. We learned that remarkable bonding occurs in the field. The sense of community born among those who work together following a storm forges a spiritual kinship that lasts for a lifetime… or longer.

This week many of us have grieved with and prayed for the people of Oklahoma after this devastating F5 tornado that has taken 24 lives. In the beginning, I am sure the local residents are feeling shock, anger, and a nearly overwhelming sense of despair. But the people of Oklahoma are resilient. As the rescue and recovery phase comes to a close, residents will be drying their tears, rolling up their sleeves, and getting ready to repair and rebuild, because there are some things deep inside that the strongest storm cannot destroy.

(Barry Howard serves as senior pastor at the First Baptist Church of Pensacola.)

When it comes to observing Mother’s Day at church, traditions vary around the country. Factors influencing a congregation’s contextual practice include geographic location, denominational heritage, liturgical preference, and congregational precedent.

In my first pastorate, I inherited that southern tradition I call “the Mother’s Day Flower Awards.” This tradition, which occurred during the morning worship service, called for the pastor to wish all mothers a “Happy Mother’s Day,” and then to recognize the oldest mother, the youngest mother, and the mother with the most children. Those mothers would come forward and the Mother’s Day Committee, an ad hoc committee appointed by the pastor, would pin a corsage on each of these distinguished mothers for them to wear the remainder of the day.

This tradition was not without its complications. Much informal debate surrounded the eligibility of the award winning mothers. For example, if the oldest mother was a visitor and not a church member, was she eligible? Or, what if the youngest mother was not married? Was the award to the mother with most children to be presented to the mother who bore the most children or the mother with the most children present in the worship service? These questions often generated more lively and passionate discussion than the virgin birth, the trinity, and the coming apocalypse.

On the second Mother’s Day at my inaugural pastorate, I was duly fulfilling my pastoral obligation to preside over the Mother’s Day Flower Awards when a bit of a controversy erupted. The Oldest Mother corsage was presented to a 96 year old matriarch. The Youngest Mother corsage was presented to a 21 year old newlywed just prior to her first anniversary. But the Mother with the Most Children corsage was presented under protest.

The method of determining the mother with the most children entailed an interesting process of elimination. Following the tradition forged by my pastoral ancestors, I would ask all the mothers to stand. Then I would ask mothers with two or more children to remain standing. Those with less than the stated number of children would be seated as they were eliminated from contention for this prestigious honor. Then I would count upwards, three or more children, four or more children, and so forth, until only one or two mothers remained standing. Then I would ask, how many children do you have? And the winner would be determined.

In my orientation to the rules of the Mother’s Day Flower Awards, I learned that on occasions there is a tie for Mother with the Most Children. Therefore the committee, who always had an extra corsage on hand, would bestow the honor on both mothers.

However, no one had prepared me for the dilemma I faced on that second Mother’s Day. There were two mothers left standing once the count reached eight or more children. So I asked each mother, “How many children do you have?” and the first replied, “Nine.” When I asked the second mother, she replied, “Eleven.” I spontaneously said to this mother of eleven, “Wow! Congratulations. Come on down to receive your corsage.”

As she was coming forward, another mother who was obviously rooting for the mother with nine children to win, said, “That’s not right. Those are not all her kids.” And another mother, who happened to be a former member of the Mother’s Day Flower Awards committee said, “Pastor, we usually don’t count the husband’s children from a previous marriage. Those eleven kids aren’t all hers.”

So there I stood, a young pastor in the middle of a congregational debate in worship about which mother should get the “most children” corsage. I made a Solomonic decision. I simply said, “Since we are blessed to have two mothers with such a large number of children, I am going to ask both mothers to come forward and be recognized with a corsage.”

Thankfully, both mothers smiled, the congregation applauded. And I preached an inspiring Mother’s Day sermon while inwardly pledging never to give Mother’s Day Flower Awards again.

Nowadays, I simply wish all mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, soon-to-be mothers, wanna-be mothers, and other mother figures a “Happy Mother’s Day” during the welcome prior to worship. Then we worship God with gratitude for all motherly influences without pinning a flower on any mother, or putting any mother on a pedestal.

For churches in the Deep South, the de facto liturgical calendar revolves around Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Decoration Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and Veteran’s Day rather than Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time.

Early in my ministry, I discovered that Mother’s Day might be the most sensitive of all of the holidays. I’m not sure whether our notions about what should happen in church on Mother’s Day are instigated by nostalgia or a gentile respect for the influential role of a mother. I’m pretty sure, however, that many of our ecclesial customs need more thoughtful theological reflection, including the way that we approach Mother’s Day.

In recent years I have tried to move away from the traditions of my early pastorates. My first pastor had a custom of recognizing the oldest mother, the youngest mother, and the mother with the most children. Rather than eliminate the tradition altogether, I encouraged them toward a more inclusive practice of giving a flower, usually a rose or carnation, to every mother present, a practice that was adopted by the second church I served.

With time, however, I have grown more and more convinced that worship is a time to focus on God, and specific recognitions occurring on days such as Mother’s Day or Father’s Day should take place before or after, and not during the time of worship.

Nowadays, I approach days such as Mother’s Day differently every year. Walter Brueggemann refers to this unstarched approach to worship planning as “liturgical maneuverability.”

Here are some of the assorted ways I have planned for Mother’s Day in recent years:

1. If Mother’s Day falls during a time I am preaching a series of sermons, whether topical or from the lectionary, I do not usually interrupt the series to insert a Mother’s Day sermon. I simply wish all of the different types of mothers present a “Happy Mother’s Day” during the time of welcome, and continue with the sermon series.

2. Occasionally, I will plan a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day service around a theme related to the stewardship of parenting, but since these holidays are 5 weeks apart, I don’t plan a parenting emphasis for both in the same year.

3. Our Associate Minister for Young Adults and Discipleship is a young adult parent and excellent preacher, so periodically I will ask him to preach a sermon on marriage, family, or parenting on Mother’s Day.

4. Our church may occasionally plan a time for Parent-Child Dedication on Mother’s Day. Although we have several opportunities for such dedications throughout the year, Mother’s Day seems to be an optimal time for such an observance.

5. This year I have invited some of the mothers in our church to share the sermon. I have asked six mothers (three mothers in each of our two services) to speak during worship on Mother’s Day. I have asked them to speak for 8-10 minutes each on how their faith shapes their parenting. These mothers represent the rich diversity of our congregation. Two of the mothers have twins. Two of the mothers have recently adopted a child. One of the mothers is a great grandmother with four generations present in our church and community. The final mother is now a caregiver for her mother, and an encourager to her daughter whose child was recently diagnosed with autism.

Because members of the congregation bring a variety of expectations to any holiday service, I try to keep three goals in mind as I plan for Mother’s Day:
• I aim to plan an experience of worship that is meaningful, relevant, and theo-centric.
• I aim to encourage and equip those present in their journey of faith, individually and collectively.
• I aim to be sensitive to those for whom Mother’s Day brings pain or anxiety, including worshippers who have recently lost a mother, mothers who have lost a child, women who for some reason could not have children, women who have chosen not to have children, and worshippers who survived abuse by a mother.

Whether the service is thematic or ordinary, days like Mother’s Day present a great opportunity to speak a word of good news to the sporadic worshipper who attends out of a sense of nostalgia, but leaves with an awareness of grace.

(Barry Howard serves as Senior Minister of the First Baptist Church of Pensacola.)

Next week is called Holy Week, not because we are to “act” holy, but because it is a most appropriate week for us to feel the passion of Christ. Around the globe, Christ-followers and other inquirers will be reflecting on the events leading up to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What is the significance of Holy Week and how can I probe its deeper meaning?

Our tradition of observing Holy Week seems to have originated in the East, emerging out of the practice of pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Each day of Holy Week is significant. For those of us whose faith was shaped in a Baptist tradition, at least four days call for guided reflection. Palm Sunday is a day to revisit the royal welcome extended to Jesus by the curious crowd as he entered Jerusalem. On Maundy Thursday believers recall the occasion when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as he gave them a new mandate to love and serve. On Maundy Thursday evening, many faith communities re-enact “the last supper” when Jesus broke bread and shared the cup with his disciples by receiving the elements of communion. Good Friday is an occasion to feel the passion of Christ and to think on the enormity of his suffering. And Resurrection Sunday, or Easter, is a festive day to celebrate and proclaim that “Christ is risen; Christ is risen indeed!”

Because of the sequential significance of these events, Holy Week is best approached slowly, with an attitude of reverent exploration, a spiritual mood of sacred awe. In Weldon Gaddy’s book, The Gift of Worship, he describes our opportunity to engage in a more meaningful experience of the passion of Christ: “Holy Week services bring into focus dimensions of discipleship that are missed completely by a simple leap from Palm Sunday to Easter. Worship services which take seriously the truths of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday please God because they challenge a greater commitment and a more effective ministry among the people of God.”

This year as you begin your spiritual journey through Holy Week, open your senses and your imagination to both the tragedy and the triumph of this pivotal week in history. Take time to listen to the voices of the crowd as Jesus enters the city. Hear again the teachings of Jesus and contemplate his days in Jerusalem. Feel the water touch your feet, taste the morsel of bread on your tongue and the sip of wine rolling over your lips. Sense the disgust of his betrayal by a friend. Smell the stench of the scourge and hear the mocking sarcasm of the trial. Grieve over the cruel injustice of his execution and experience the passion of his incomprehensible suffering. And ultimately…consider the mysterious power of the resurrection and the hope generated by the notion that life invested in Christ cannot be extinguished, even by the reality of death.

The events of Holy Week invite and motivate us to follow Jesus, not out of religious obligation or fear of eternal damnation, but because we identify with his teaching and his vision, and we discover a sense of belonging in his cause and his kingdom. A slow and deliberate journey through Holy Week may re-energize your faith and inspire you to live and serve with passion.

The word “holy” means “belonging to a divine power” or “dedicated to God.” On second thought, maybe Holy Week is a week for us to “act” in a way that is holy.

(Barry Howard serves as senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida.)

You can sustain a lot of losses in your lifetime, but when you lose hope, life can become depressing and your previously strong faith can become as weak as stump water.

During tough times, hope becomes the fuel that energizes your determination and perseverance. Emphasizing the necessity of hope in the human experience, Emil Brunner wrote, “What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life.”

Micah was called by God as a spokesperson during a very tough time in Israel’s history. While circumstances were extremely discouraging, Micah rose above the pessimism of his day and said, “But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7)

Now, over 2500 years later, our hope in Christ reminds us that through the ever-changing circumstances and seemingly insurmountable challenges of life, “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

As our national leaders wage a verbal warfare, rooted ideological differences and political partisanship, their rhetoric sounds more indicative of superficial posturing than substantive problem-solving. A current cultural malaise that is saturated with complaint and mostly devoid of optimism seems to be contagious, not just around our nation, but around the world.
And to make matters worse, that sense of hopeless discontent has infiltrated the church. If the church, which is the real bastion of hope, a people called to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13), forfeits hope for hopelessness, we may find ourselves rushing toward an apocalyptic future.

Real hope, the kind of hope we see in Micah, is neither blind nor naïve. Real hope motivates us to rise above despair and deal with challenging circumstances proactively, constructively, and collaboratively.

A few years ago I read of a rather profound exchange between two clergy who were working together during a season filled with monumental changes. In 1960, John Claypool began his tenure as pastor at the Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville. Shortly after his arrival, Claypool became friends with a Jewish rabbi who was forty years his senior. Their friendship grew deeper as they worked together in the civil rights movement. After a tense and unproductive meeting one day, Claypool looked at his Jewish friend and said, “I think it is hopeless. This problem is so deep, so many-faceted, there is simply no way out of it.”

The rabbi asked Claypool to stay a few minutes after the meeting and said, “Humanly speaking, despair is presumptuous. It is saying something about the future we have no right to say because we have not been there yet and do not know enough. Think of the times you have been surprised in the past as you looked at a certain situation and deemed it hopeless. Then, lo and behold, forces that you did not even realize existed broke in and changed everything. We do not know enough to embrace the absolutism of despair. If God can create the things that are from the things that are not and even make dead things come back to life, who are we to set limits on what that kind of potency may yet do?”

In the movie, “Hope Floats,” central character Birdee Pruitt describes the emergence of hope like this: That’s what momma always says. She says that beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up.

Like the stoking of warm embers to re-awaken the flame, real hope can be rekindled by stoking the fire in our bones that propels us “to act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8) in all of the seasons of life, even the season we find ourselves in.

(Barry Howard serves as the Senior Minister of the First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida.)

The start of a New Year is usually perceived as a season for clean slates and new beginnings. Depending on your perspective, you might consider New Year’s Day as a time to turn over a new leaf, a time to start that post-holiday diet, or a time to generally clean up your act and put your life in order.

I am not usually inclined to compose a list of New Year’s resolutions, but in 2013 there are some specific goals I want to work on personally and professionally. As I prepare for 2013, here are my top ten resolutions…more or less:

1. Eat less and exercise more. My physician keeps reminding me that I can increase the probability of enjoying prolonged good health if I begin now to eat a little less and to exercise more.
2. Talk less and listen more. Several times in children’s sermons I have emphasized that God created us with two ears and one mouth so that we could listen twice as much as we talk. As I grow older, I am discovering the need for me as an adult to limit my speech and to be more intentional and focused in my listening.
3. Meet less and minister more. In recent months, the church I serve has taken some strategic steps to minimize the number of meetings we ask leaders and workers to attend, and to increase the number of ministry opportunities we provide. Even as a church staff member, if I am not careful, my time can be consumed in meetings where my presence is not really needed. In 2013, I want to spend more time engaged in ministry action.
4. Criticize less and encourage more. Maybe it’s the after effect of an election year or maybe it is a side effect of teetering on the fiscal cliff, but I have heard enough criticism in 2013 to taste its toxicity. While constructive criticism may be of great value, negative and petty criticism tends to be contagious and demoralizing. Our local and national leaders, our ministers, and our neighbors need our prayers and encouragement more than they need darts of non-constructive criticism flying their way.
5. Spend less and save more. As I experience the challenges of the current recession, and as I think about retirement possibilities down the road, I am persuaded that I need to spend a little less this year on frivolous things and to put a little more in savings to provide stability for the future.
6. Worry less and trust more. I am convinced worry is a genetic trait handed down to me from previous generations. I know that worry is a waste of time and energy, but a little voice in my head is wrongly convinced that worry is productive. This year I want to proactively address those things that are within my realm of responsibility, to cease worrying about those things over which I have no influence, and to trust God for daily guidance and provision.
7. Hurry less and pace myself a little more. Because my task list can get long, I tend to spend a lot of time hurrying from one task to the next. This year I want to slow the pace, live the moment, even it that means I don’t check every task off of my to-do list.
8. Watch TV less and read more. I don’t believe that watching TV is necessarily wrong. I especially enjoy watching Hawaii Five O and NCIS. My personal downfall, however, is reruns. I spend too much time watching shows I’ve already seen, and that cuts into my reading time. By most accounts, reading exercises the mind more than watching TV. This year I am determined to spend more time wrapped up in a good book and less time watching repeats.
9. Connect less and disconnect more. I enjoy being connected to the people in my congregation, in my community, and in my network. If I am not careful, I can find myself staying connected all the time. Electronic communication can be a blessing and social networking can be the next best thing to being there. However, staying connected 24 hours a day can be counterproductive and may increase stress, reduce productivity, and incite attention deficit. This year I want to maximize the benefits of being connected by knowing when to disconnect.
10. Reminisce less and engage more. Reminiscing is a healthy exercise. But when I become preoccupied with the past, I end up becoming a curator of yesterday’s blessings rather than envisioning and working toward a positive future. Reminiscing helps me to treasure the experiences of yesteryear. But there comes a time to put the past behind me and the future before me and to engage the challenges and opportunities that are knocking at the door this year.

As I prepare to engage this New Year, there some things I need to do a little less often and others I need to do a little more frequently. How about you?

(Barry Howard serves as Senior Minister of the First Baptist Church of Pensacola.)

At our house we make a lot of lists, especially in December…the grocery list, the Christmas card list, the gift list, the event list, the prayer list, and the end-of-year giving list. Now, during this week between Christmas and the beginning of the New Year, all of the items on those lists have been checked off and completed except for the final list. Today we are working on our end-of-year giving list, a list that includes the ministry initiatives and charitable organizations we freely choose to support.

Throughout the year, we give a tithe of our income to the ministries of our church. We understand a tithe to be the first tenth of our earnings. For us, tithing is first and foremost an act of obedience to what we believe the Bible teaches. Through the years we have also observed that the cumulative ministry projects of a local church make the most significant impact advancing the cause of Christ in the local community and around the world. So as an extension of the work of our local church, every December we give an offering beyond our tithe to our Christmas Missions Offering that supports missionaries around the globe.

Amanda and I are blessed to be able to contribute to a few other ministries and organizations that we are passionate about, but most of our end-of–year-gifts are centered around our church because we believe “this is where the action is.”

This year, the process is much easier because we have converted to electronic giving. Most ministries and charitable organizations, including our church, now have an “online giving” link that enables us to transfer our gifts directly from our account to the designated recipient. Of course you can still mail a check or personally deliver a contribution, but we have discovered electronic giving to be safe and immediate, and electronic receipts are provided for good record keeping.

The Bible teaches us that “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

As you designate your end-of-year giving, be cheerful, generous and wise. And remember, as you prepare your end-of-year gift, the IRS requires that all contributions for this fiscal year must be received, electronically transferred, or postmarked by December 31.

So today, we are making our list, checking it twice, and then hitting “send.”

(Barry Howard serves as the senior minister of the First Baptist Church in Pensacola.)