Truth be told I've never been one for New Year's resolutions. In my book, if something isn't important enough to commit to in May or September, it's probably not going to receive much more than lip service in January. Still, that being said, there's no reason why one can't use the somewhat arbitrary shift from one calendar year to another, to look back prayerfully on the past, and prayerfully to the future.

One really can't have too many landmarks or road signs to remind us to pray. So why not make the New Year a time to set up one more altar? One more mental bookmark that helps to remind us of what the God who is outside of time, has and can do, within it? It's in that spirit that I give you my list of 10 Things to Hope and Pray for in 2007.


1.) For once in my life, I hope and pray that the Red and Blue churches of America go the way of Washington; and take on shades of purple. After all, purple is a royal color, right? Fitting for the house of a King?

2.) I hope and pray that as North American churches continue to grow in their participation with African brothers and sisters, that we find a healthy middle ground between the immobilizing effects of empire-guilt and the flashy, but ultimately ineffectual effects of hand-out missiology.

3.) I hope and pray that the Haggard scandal from last year will help us develop a healthy fear of leadership appearance before Man, when it stands directly in the way of discipleship reality before Jesus.

4.) I hope and pray that worship song-writers and Christian artists all over the world realize that coming up with newly vibrant and colorful metaphors for describing God and our relationship with Him, is not equivalent to giving disservice or disrespect to well-worn metaphors from the Bible.

5.) I hope and pray that the North American and European branches of the Christian church repent of their superior attitudes towards their African, Asian and South American brothers and sisters. When it comes to deciding what is "normative doctrine"- we truly need a global witness.

6.) I hope and pray that one of the healthy effects of the ongoing postmodern shift in the West, and pre-modern mindsets elsewhere, is an increased commitment to ecumenicalism between the Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox branches of Christianity.

7.) I hope and pray that certain commentators- in both the real world and the virtual world of the blogoshpere- would come to realize that having new and culture-sensitive ideas about communicating the gospel is not necessarily equivalent to being an End-Times false prophet. Even better would be a recognition that such accusations are often uncharitable and decidely un-christlike.

8. I pray that certain televangelists will concern themselves less with false prophets, and more with false profits- in terms of reaping treasure while "preaching the gospel". Message to said commentators: Seeing you drive around in a Lincoln does in fact NOT help us remember "what a great God we serve".

9.) I hope and pray that, in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, Christians of the West will see that if we are to at all appear legitimate before the eyes of the world, we must learn to actually live differently, not merely think differently- when thinking merely refers to holding to an alternate set of abstract, intellectual assumptions. Furthermore, it would be wonderful if, for a change, a poll of some sort were published suggesting that Christians in the West do actually make lifestyle and monetary decisions by a different set of standards than our contemporary counterparts.

10.) I hope and pray that Christians around the world will feel a new commitment towards describing Christ, and our life in Him, in terms of beauty and mystery as well as in terms of "rightness". Indeed, even better, would be for many more of us to see that one cannot fully describe the one without simultaneously reflecting the others.