I’m quite a bit more behind the curve with this year’s One Word than I was last year. My word last year was ‘engage’ and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, much of my life last year either reflected or was largely shaped by the essence of that word.
Going into 2012, I kept coming back to a word I hadn’t chosen, but which seemed to be choosing me.
This time last year, my friend Alece was kicking off the new year with an idea called One Word 2011 on her blog. The concept was simple: instead of a resolution, choose a word, “one word”, that you would strive to center your thoughts and actions around for the next 12 months. Though I had never done this before, I loved the idea and dove in head-first.
My word was “engage”. I can’t say I knew exactly what it would look like, it is just what seemed to be jumping out at me. So, ‘engage’ it was and off into 2011 I went.
Looking back, I can see how, sometimes intentionally, others unintentionally, the essence of the word ‘engage’ was consistently at the core of many areas of my life throughout 2011.
… or do.
Truth is, my blog has sucked… for a good, long minute. I started this blog on February 28, 2010. In the 15 or so months that followed, I wrote… a lot… chronicling my journey as it was happening. Once I hit June of 2011, a few things shifted for me. Life changed a little, my job changed, the Joplin tornado happened, and all of it together, combined with the momentum of the previous 15 months, left me pretty much worn out and I didn’t really know what I wanted to say.
Apart from the health challenge I was on over the summer, I haven’t blogged anything of any significance in about 6 months. However, while I may have been quiet in telling the stories, I have continued to live them.
Today is my birthday. Well, not MY birthday, but my blog’s birthday, rather. Today, An Idol Heart is one year old!
I started this blog one year ago today. When I decided to start An Idol Heart it was because my world had turned upside down and I wanted to start telling the story, even while it was unresolved.
This time a year ago, I had just walked away from my career of 8 years, I was unemployed, I was two months in to being at a new church and was a little over a month in to diving head first into a community group I had joined. I was struggling with how to let go of the things I had allowed my life to be defined by and I was falling apart.
On why I decided to name this blog An Idol Heart, I had recently come to understand that my heart was indeed “an idol factory that mass produces idols.” That was, at once, a very sobering yet dizzying realization, and one that still reverberates with me today. A couple months earlier I had finished reading Timothy Keller’s “Counterfeit Gods”, a book that, to put it simply, completely undid me.
Going back now to read what I wrote as my first post a year ago was a pretty emotional experience. At that time, I was so afraid. The false bottom I had built in my heart was falling out and I felt like I had nothing to work with… but words. I had no idea what the next day, let alone the next year would look like.
One year later, my story looks very different. I am now working in ministry on staff at Cross Point Church in Nashville, the church I had just come to when all this unraveling began to happen. The ministry I’ve received at Cross Point over the past year has done so much to heal my heart and teach me who I am. Now, I lead ministry teams there and get to help others. The community group I had just come to in hopes of finding new friends when my world was turning upside down has been immeasurably instrumental in how God has reshaped my life this past year. I now co-lead that group of around 150 people and get to regularly share my story of how God rescued me from the pursuit of myself, challenging others to embrace uncertainly, get out of their comfort zones and be intentional about how they invest in this “stretch between” season of their life.
More than anything though, I am learning more each day how my identity does not rest in where my check comes from, but rather where my help comes from and the finished work of Christ on the cross.
I still don’t know what tomorrow will look like and I’m learning to live by faith daily, but looking back over the past year, I know what it was about. God was after my heart. He wanted to rewire it and “make it again into another vessel”.
This past Friday night, Timothy Keller, whose ministry has been such a key part of my story, was in Nashville on a tour for his new book, “King’s Cross”. I went to hear him speak and also had the opportunity to personally thank him for his ministry and how God has used it to wreck and rebuild me.
He made a statement that I haven’t been able to shake since I heard it. Singularly giving perspective to much of the last year of my life, He said,
“Sometimes, the delays of Jesus are because of details and information that we don’t yet have access to. Ultimately, God gives you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knew.”
And there it is.
Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)
One year ago, my prayers were very different. I’m so thankful that God heard my prayers but still gave me what I would have asked for, had I only known. Not getting what I thought I wanted is the best thing that could have happened to me.
It’s pretty amazing to see what has happened since Alece launched #OneWord2011.
It started with Alece wanting to share about her desire to simplify and bring focus a year of her life around a singular idea. It caught on and as of this writing, 232 bloggers have blogged about their “One Word”, and countless non-bloggers have caught One Word Fever and shared via Twitter and facebook.
In addition to the One Word Community, the #OneWord2011 hashtag has invaded Twitter, a #OneWord2011 Daily Edition paper.li was started (linking together all the current One Word posts), a One Word facebook like page was started (connecting One Word-ing fb’ers) and I started a #OneWord2011 Twitter list (creating an environment for One Word-ers to stay connected).
It has been remarkably encouraging to see the number of people jumping on board and not only sharing their One Word, but also engaging with many others taking part, encouraging and learning from each other. I don’t know what exactly classifies something as a “movement”, but this may be the closest thing to one that I’ve been involved in!
If you read my last post, you know that my #OneWord2011 is “Engage”. I tend to think I am a pretty natural connector, so much of how I have “engaged” in the past has been by nature, and not always necessarily with as much focus and intentionality to it as I’d like to believe. With me picking “engage” as my One Word, I want to change that this year and really be more intentional about how I engage and therefore invest into my various environments, opportunities and relationships.
One such environment is the STRETCH Young Adult Community Group that I co-lead, along with Ben Turner, at Cross Point Church. For those who don’t know about Stretch, here’s the short version: The core heart and vision of the group is service and the group is regularly invested in a wide range of service projects from child care to homeless ministry and more. The group started in the Fall of ’09 with 2 people, grew to 15 people by early January ’10, exploded to 60 on January 17 2010 and has since grown to close to 200 people with as many people now on the leadership team who were in the entire group a year ago. It is nothing short of amazing to see what God is doing in that group of people.
Several Stretch bloggers have already jump onboard and last week I got the crazy idea to take #OneWord2011 offline and introduce it to Stretch in a community group setting. So when we met this past Sunday night for the first time since before Christmas, I did just that.
My goal is to actively engage that environment and create a year-long dialogue around everyone’s One Word in their small groups, fostering accountability, support and encouragement, and deepening their relationships as they all work toward seeing their One Word shape their beliefs, thoughts and actions throughout the year.
I FREAKING LOVE IT!
We had over 60 people turn in One Word cards Sunday night and this week we’ll have more. I love seeing how people are already embracing the concept and connecting with others in new ways through it. I can’t wait to see how it takes shape through the group throughout the year!
If you are involved in any kind of small or community group setting, I encourage you to consider taking the concept offline as well and let it be a catalyst for deepening your relationships and challenging those around you to experience growth in new ways.
