I think the whole ‘New Year Resolutions’ thing has potential to be an exhausting exercise that ends up burdening people with guilt. But there’s undoubtedly value in using the natural marker of a new year to ‘take stock’.

As I’ve written about before, I think it can be very easy to ‘reason your season’ – to excuse the ‘state of affairs’ in which we find ourselves. Instead, it’s helpful to consider where we find ourselves and the trajectory we’re on. As Christians, we do that rooted in Christ, resting in God’s grace, and reliant on His Spirit for change.

So why not make some space in your diary over the new year period? Save the image below to your phone. Find somewhere you’ll be undisturbed. Put your favourite music on, pour yourself a drink, and grab a pen and your Bible. Just use what’s helpful in the time you have.

And let’s pray that as we reflect on our lives, we’d be more conscious of his grace, more dependent upon his Spirit, more committed to his people, and more willing to ‘abound in the work of the Lord’, knowing our labour in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

I was grateful for three sessions on John’s Gospel from David Ford at @CarlisleDiocese Cumbria Ministry Development Day 2022.

Here’s 10 tips that I took away from Professor Ford on reading, praying & living John’s gospel:

1. John talks in ‘waves’ – cumulative sentences that wash up on the beach like breakers, each one slowly building upon the other going higher up the beach.
2. Try re-reading John’s prologue as a prelude of perspective every time you read any other section of the gospel.
3. Translating the Greek verb pisteuo as ‘TRUST’ rather than ‘believe’ captures in contemporary language the sense of a relational response John intended.
4. Prayerfully expect the abundance of life & grace-upon-grace that John often describes to be your experience as you read his gospel.
5. John expects that his readers – as those who have “not seen” (20:29) – to read and to believe and so find life (20:30-31). The Word is present and active in these words.
6. Underestimate the presence of the Old Testament in John at your peril! John has less quotations but is pervasively immersed in the Scriptures of Israel.
7. People sometimes ask, ‘where is the church in John?’ Follow the beloved disciple, follow Mary, and see how they ‘remain’ in Christ, relating as a community formed at the foot of the cross.
8. As a broad brushstroke structure, John gives you a big horizon of God-and-everything (prologue), then the drama of Jesus, his life and resurrection, then the on-going drama of ourselves as disciples living with the Spirit.
9. Two key words: AS and SO. Throughout John, AS the Father does, SO the Son. This is crucial – and especially pivotal is 20:21 where we see our place in this. We are sent AS & SO.
10. You can’t get far in John without bumping into God’s love. The Father loves. The Son loves. We’re called to be loved & to love. This is theologically profound & yet the nature of our hearts means that pastorally it can inevitably be difficult to accept.

I hope I’ve articulated these fairly to Prof. Ford, & all credit to him for these insights. For any unintended errors or misemphasis, my apologies!

“If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”

Terry Pratchett

These words are found on the lips of one Terry Pratchett’s characters in his Discworld books. They’re a perceptive nudge to get us to keep checking our bearings. Where am I? Where have I been, and where am I headed? Know thyself. And it’s this sentiment that captures the thinking behind the ‘2022 Life Audit’.

The initial idea for a ‘stock-take’ came from an online article by Melissa Kruger, ‘New Year, New Beginnings: The Importance of Considering Our Ways’, which I read way back in January 2018. Melissa’s questions were really helpful and prompted me to create a personal ‘audit’ worksheet of my own, which we used as a church. When I shared a sample of it on Twitter, a few people asked for a copy for their own use, so a few years back I figured it may be worth investing a bit of time to ‘upgrade’ it and create the ‘2019 Life Audit’. Since then it’s had some tweaks and calibrating and this year a few people encouraged me to put something out for 2022.

I think the whole ‘New Year Resolutions’ tradition can often become an exhausting exercise that ends up burdening people with guilt, but there’s undoubtedly great value in using the natural marker of a new year to ‘take stock’. As I’ve written about before, I think it can be very easy to ‘reason your season’ – to excuse the ‘state of affairs’ in which we find ourselves. Instead, it’s helpful to consider where we find ourselves and the trajectory we’re on.

Of course, in all this we need to be very mindful that we’re in the midst of a pandemic that has been the context of our lives for the last couple of years. We will be weary, disorientated, and reeling from a collective trauma, the likes of which hasn’t been experienced by most in their lifetimes. Perhaps more so than normal, we need to give space to reflecting on the impact of this season of turbulence. And in our hoping and dreaming about the future, let us be kind to ourselves – as well as to our spouses, families, friends and colleagues.

So why not make some space in your diary over the new year period? Print out the downloadable booklet (19 pages – you can see a couple of them on this post). Find somewhere you’ll be undisturbed. Put your favourite music on and grab a pen. Just use what’s helpful in the time you have.

And let’s pray that as we reflect on our lives, we’d be more conscious of his grace, more dependent upon his Spirit, more committed to his people, and more willing to ‘abound in the work of the Lord’, knowing our labour in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Download the 2022 Life Audit pdf here: